PaleoPhil's Journal

[PaleoPhil]

I'm almost there, Francois. At this point I just allow myself the occasional cup of coffee or tea when I'm tired. Otherwise, I drink water. Because I rarely drink anything other than water, simple tap water has come to taste very good to me. Strangely, it even tastes sweet. This is quite a cost savings and convenience as well.

My bowels are returning to normal again now that I'm back to eating almost-all-raw meat after several days of excessive cooked-meat eating due to company BBQ and family get-together. It seems to be more than just coincidence.

[primavera]

I've noticed that with water, too. It only tastes sweet when I'm thirsty. When I'm not, I feel the taste further back on my tongue, in the bitter regions.

[Iguana]

Because I rarely drink anything other than water, simple tap water has come to taste very good to me. Strangely, it even tastes sweet. This is quite a cost savings and convenience as well.

Isn't tap water chlorinated at your place ? Chlorine is very noxious... but anyway, chlorinated water is not as bad as coffee !

Cheers
Francois

[PaleoPhil]

I've noticed that with water, too. It only tastes sweet when I'm thirsty. When I'm not, I feel the taste further back on my tongue, in the bitter regions.

Yeah, I wonder what the biological processes are behind that? Apparently the taste buds are activated in a certain way and different taste buds kick in at different times?

When I haven't eaten suet or tallow for a while, it sometimes tastes sweet too, though that's pretty rare now, because I eat it nearly every day.

Isn't tap water chlorinated at your place ? Chlorine is very noxious... but anyway, chlorinated water is not as bad as coffee !

Cheers
Francois

Yeah, I've thought about getting an activated carbon filter, but I had one in the past that I was not thrilled with. It took up counter space, it was annoying to have to switch back and forth between filtering and not, and the inside of the tube that connected to the faucet got coated in gunk, which seemed to defeat the purpose of having the filter. Anyone have any filter recommendations?

[William]

Yeah, I've thought about getting an activated carbon filter, but I had one in the past that I was not thrilled with. It took up counter space, it was annoying to have to switch back and forth between filtering and not, and the inside of the tube that connected to the faucet got coated in gunk, which seemed to defeat the purpose of having the filter. Anyone have any filter recommendations?

I use one of these for all drinking and cooking water:
http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/SecWebOrderPg.htm

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks, William.

My bowels have optimized again, now that I've been back to eating more raw meat after several days of eating cooked meats socially. It could be coincidence, but it makes intuitive sense, given that cooking meats drives water out of them, condenses them and makes them harder to digest. This could be one reason why so many ZC cooked-meat eaters feel the need to drink lots of water.

I got a foot cramp this morning after not having any for a record time of around a couple weeks, I think. It was mild and a potassium supplement took care of it quickly. I had two very light meals in a row and was eating less than usual, so this suggests to me that I need to keep the consumption of meat pretty high and keep it as raw as possible to avoid a return of the cramps that used to be severe unless I took daily potassium on a low-carb diet and are mostly gone on a raw (nondairy) carnivorous diet.

[PaleoPhil]

Occasional mead (honey wine) or wine were the alcoholic beverages I had been limiting myself to. I had been noticing at social occasions that mead doesn't seem to have any noticeable negative effects on me, for some reason. So I did a little Lex-Rooker-type self experimentation . I drank an entire bottle of mead over a two day period, including about 3/4 of it in one sitting on the second night. I got rather buzzed the second night, but only felt high and good and it actually felt like I was more energetic and stronger. I had always been a lightweight when it comes to alcoholic beverages, so I was surprised to find I had absolutely no hangover the next day despite drinking way more in one sitting than I have in many years and I slept quite well. So I experimented some more for comparison and to see what other alcoholic beverages I can handle better than I used to--big mistake!

I bought a bottle of organic, sulfite-free red wine and drank about half of it. I figured if it's organic and sulfite free I should have a similar experience, right? Wrong! This time I got tipsy. I felt unpleasantly dizzy and lethargic. Before I could even drink half the bottle my throat started to burn and every sip was like pouring gas on a fire. I gave up and dumped the rest of the bottle out. Lucky thing I did, because I woke up around 4 am from a bad dream and feeling miserable, with nausea and malaise. After an episode of diarrhea I felt a bit better. Eating some jerky with tallow proved to be an excellent hangover cure, which I discovered once before. No more organic, sulfite-free red wine for me!

I did some searching and found a couple of claims by others that unflavored mead does not cause hangovers, whereas red wine is known to cause bad hangovers. Does anyone know why red grape wine would cause hangovers but honey wine not, or much less?

[William]

I did some searching and found a couple of claims by others that unflavored mead does not cause hangovers, whereas red wine is known to cause bad hangovers. Does anyone know why red grape wine would cause hangovers but honey wine not, or much less?

Do you have a mead-making recipe?

[PaleoPhil]

  No, I buy my mead from a local apiary. It's probably not good that I found this stuff, because it is amazingly good. Very clean and crisp with no aftertaste, no dizziness, no mental fog, and no hangover effect (I actually felt like I could beat someone up, which may be why Gaulic warriors drank the stuff before battle ). For the life of me, I can't figure out why Europeans ever gave up mead for wine, other than profit. I only initially tried it out of curiosity, just because it's the most ancient of all alcoholic beverages, dating back at least 10,000 years. Once again our ancestors apparently knew best.

BTW, mead is making a comeback in Ireland, according to one article I read.

[TylerDurden]

I'm not surprised that anyone would react to red wine(or wine in general). It's been recently admitted that wine-makers routinely add all sorts of crap to wine such as dairy products, sugar and all sorts of artificial chemicals(probably even with organic wines, albeit to a lesser extent).

[Ioanna]

Hi PaleoPhil!!

You wrote on another thread about yoga positions you particular dislike and like... can you be more specific?  I had gotten into hot yoga for a while, I liked it a lot and the hot room was like heaven for me because I am always cold so I felt like I could really work well that way.  I really want to be able to the advanced poses that require you to be able to support your full body weight.  I'm not there yet, but I'd like to achieve that. 

[PaleoPhil]

I'm not surprised that anyone would react to red wine(or wine in general). It's been recently admitted that wine-makers routinely add all sorts of crap to wine such as dairy products, sugar and all sorts of artificial chemicals(probably even with organic wines, albeit to a lesser extent).

It was Our Daily Red, by American Canyon, winner of the 2008 international Green Wine competition. They claim it is organic, "vegan-friendly" (I assume that would mean it is free of dairy), and free of sulfite, chemicals, and preservatives. Do you know of any additives in their wine?

[PaleoPhil]

Hi PaleoPhil!!

You wrote on another thread about yoga positions you particular dislike and like... can you be more specific?  I had gotten into hot yoga for a while, I liked it a lot and the hot room was like heaven for me because I am always cold so I felt like I could really work well that way.  I really want to be able to the advanced poses that require you to be able to support your full body weight.  I'm not there yet, but I'd like to achieve that. 

The main ones I avoid involve hyperextension and compression of the spine and unsupported standing toe touches. I also try to avoid doing things that involve stretching if I am not warmed up. Stretching has also come under increasing question in general, so my favorite poses tend to focus more on balance and strength and the stretching I occasionally do is more to check how flexible my muscles and joints are--and they continue to grow increasingly flexible and more-balanced without regular yoga. For example, I can now do the Gomukhasana (cow face ) pose nearly equally well with both arms--fully grasping the hands behind my back from either the left or right side, whereas it used to be that my hands did not touch at all when I did it with the left arm raised. This improvement occurred solely through dietary change.

Most of the people in my yoga class also had more difficulty with one side and the instructor said that this was common. I now suspect that everyone who has that problem has a suboptimal diet.

My favorite poses to check how my balance is doing are awkward pose, eagle pose, tree pose and toe stand pose.

[TylerDurden]

It was Our Daily Red, by American Canyon, winner of the 2008 international Green Wine competition. They claim it is organic, "vegan-friendly" (I assume that would mean it is free of dairy), and free of sulfite, chemicals, and preservatives. Do you know of any additives in their wine?

No, but I'm sure they use some plant-derived chemical in there, somewhere. When I look at so-called "organic" juices etc, (when they have any listed ingredients), there's almost always at least 1 nonorganic ingredient somewhere.

[PaleoPhil]

Not the ones I used to buy. When I bought juice I made sure it didn't say "natural flavors" or any kind of added flavors or sweeteners at all. Just juice or pulp and water.

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, you know I might try buying a bottle of organic mead.I once had it as a child, decades ago, and it was quite good.Alcohol seems to be my only "sin" these days, and doesn't affect me anywhere near as badly as cooked foods do(re burping/vomiting/farting and other side-effects etc.)

[PaleoPhil]

Warning: for the heck of it, and because it came in a small bottle, I tried the sweet version of mead that my local apiary makes. It tasted pretty bad and it gave me a slight feeling of malaise that didn't completely go away until mid-morning the next day--though it didn't give me a full hangover. It's surprising how much more negative a food can be for me with just an increase in sugar level.

I've had problems with acidic foods in the past like tomato sauce and orange juice. I wonder if that could have contributed to my problem with organic, chemical-free red wine?

My teeth continue to get firmer. I almost don't need my retainer--which I've been using for years--to keep my loosest teeth standing straight anymore.

[PaleoPhil]

BTW, I had very mild toe cramping the morning after drinking the sweet mead, whereas the less-sweet meads didn't have that effect on me and a smaller quantity of red wine caused worse cramps. So sugars seem to contribute to the cramping, and perhaps something else in the wine as well, and potassium supplements or raw beef resolves it.

Other than the recent mead and wine experiments, I've been good about just eating raw ground bison and venison, raw grassfed beef, raw suet, jerky and melted suet heated below 40 degrees celsius, and water, and I'm feeling quite good as a result.

[William]

Potassium is supposed to be used for carbohydrate metabolism, so if you are close to mineral deficiency it seems reasonable that consumption of anything sweet would push you over the edge and cause a symptom such as cramping.

[PaleoPhil]

Fascinating! I did not know that. So carbs CAN deplete potassium and the mechanism is known. Thanks William! Do you have a reference where I can learn more about this?

[PaleoPhil]

OK, I completed a 5-day rotation off of eggs (8/22 - 8/27), so this afternoon I had 3 eggs and I'm going to try to eat a lot of raw eggs and see whether I bulk up at all and how my health fares. If whole raw eggs are half as bad as some people have claimed at this forum and another one, this should kill me pretty quickly.    Hey! Why are you dancing? 

[William]

Fascinating! I did not know that. So carbs CAN deplete potassium and the mechanism is known. Thanks William! Do you have a reference where I can learn more about this?

I learned this while a member of http://www.afibbers.org/toboards.htm ,but I don't remember who found it or where.
Many of them use the three supplements to keep their hearbeat steady, and have experienced the symptoms of carb eating as atrial fibrillation. (Potassium, magnesium, taurine)

[PaleoPhil]

I learned this while a member of http://www.afibbers.org/toboards.htm ,but I don't remember who found it or where.
Many of them use the three supplements to keep their hearbeat steady, and have experienced the symptoms of carb eating as atrial fibrillation. (Potassium, magnesium, taurine)

Interesting, I've had numerous symptoms of magnesium deficiency in the past too, and still have some minor symptoms suggestive of that.

*****************

I was reminded by another thread of a couple other changes I've noticed since going mostly-raw carnivore: the white spots have disappeared from my fingernails (linked to zinc deficiency) and some of my vertical fingernail ridges are disappearing (linked to mineral and protein deficiencies).

[PaleoPhil]

I sometimes get into heated debates, so maybe it's a good idea if I explain some more of what brought me here and my thinking.

I've found a near-ZC (carnivorous), near totally raw approach to be best for me so far and I came to it by learning about Paleo diets through Don Wiss, Beyondveg.com, Ray Audette, Loren Cordain and others. However, there is no forum that is both carnivorous and raw, so I did much of my exploration and sharing at two forums--a ZC one (which is the closest approximation to a carnivorous forum I've come across, other than a carnivorous thread/subforum or two at other forums, including this one) and this raw Paleo one. My diet and views are similar to Lex's, which is what led me here, so it's not surprising that like him I've found my experiences and views a bit better accepted here than the other forum, as both Lex and I ran into some criticism for stating things that didn't follow the party line there (though I think we probably would have gotten less criticism if we restricted our comments to journals--but you apparently have to post there quite a while before you can start a journal). It wasn't really bad treatment or anything, and understandable given the goals of that other forum. I just tend to go where I will learn the most (such as from Lex) and where my input is most welcome.

However, my experiences and views can sometimes cause heat here as well, since some people didn't do well on ZC or VLC, so I don't claim to speak for everyone and welcome non-carnivores and significant carb eaters to this forum and hope they can tolerate a carnivore who enjoys sharing what I learn about the carnivorous aspects of human, hominid and primate diets. I've learned a lot from this forum so far and like the generally friendly atmosphere.

[PaleoPhil]

I have found balance and flexibility to be good markers for how "balanced" (aka healthy) my diet is. I test them now and then with balancing yogic postures. When I eat foods that are bad for me, my balance and flexibility worsen. So worsening balance and flexibility can signal to me that I am eating a food that does not agree with me, whereas improvements in the same signal I am eating right. Right now my balance and flexibility are better than any other time I've ever tested them.