PaleoPhil's Journal

[ys]

I find it very hard to add or even maintain weight and ameliorate constipation when doing ZC or standard VLC.

I would do a stool test, preferably several, one for VLC and one for moderate Carbs to see how much and what kind of undigested matter you are passing out.  the results might give you some clues.

[klowcarb]

For the life of me, Phil  , I cannot understand your continuing fascination with raw fruit and honey. Ew  .

Just eat rare warmed meat. It is easier to digest and you get more calories that way. I stopped Raw ZC (which is why I am not here a lot) to do what I call Paleo ZC. Pure ZC that involves only highly nutritious ZC foods--meat, fish, organs, eggs, but lightly cooked, mostly grassfed. I have been eating TONS of cooked (oh noes) beef, eggs and grassfed butter, eat natural liverwurst and I feel 100% better than I did trying to get in enough food on raw ZC. I still have a little raw once in a while, but I've come to the conclusion that raw is actually nutritionally INFERIOR (oh noes!). We cannot absorb everything in raw because the calories and nutrients are not open to us. It doesn't work for me with my bodybuilding to try to eat raw meat, raw eggs, everything cold, etc.

Just my 2 cents. I wish you were on Facebook because I am writing series of Notes about my ZC journey and my thoughts.

[TylerDurden]

While you are entitled to your opinion, klowcarb, for the benefit of newbies, I should point out that there are certain claims above which have already been thoroughly disproven :-

1) Science has already shown that cooked-meat-protein is less well digested than raw-meat-protein. I quote from beyondveg.com, which is, ironically,  a  fanatical pro-cooked-palaeo website, which mentioned 2 papers debunking the notion that cooking makes meat more digestible:-

"From Oste [1991], heating (above 100°C, or 212°F) decreases meat protein digestibility. "
and
"Seidler [1987] studied the effects of heating on the digestibility of the protein in hake, a type of fish. Fish meat heated for 10 minutes at 130°C (266°F), showed a 1.5% decrease in protein digestibility. Similar heating of hake meat in the presence of potato starch, soy oil, and salt caused a 6% decrease in amino acid content."

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2a.shtml

There are also many other studies which show that heat-created toxins in cooked foods cause protein to be less well digested. Here's a standard example:-

http://www.ajcn.org/content/83/5/1082.full

(Excerpt from the above link:-
"Conclusions:The consumption of a diet rich in MRPs(ie ""Maillard Reaction Products", types of heat-created toxins) negatively affects protein digestibility. The possible effects of an excessive intake of MRPs during adolescence warrant attention, and long-term effects should be considered."




2) The claim that we cannot absorb the nutrients in raw meats is also wrong. Raw meats contain no antinutrients, such as are found in raw vegetables, so there is no real cause to claim that they are less well absorbed, especially in light of the above studies already mentioned. I recall an earlier thread in which it was pointed out that cooking merely seems more concentrated gram for gram as it removes the water-content, but there is actually no change in calories as regards the whole food, when raw or cooked.

[Nation]

klowcarb, did you lose weight after switching to cooked zc?

[klowcarb]

Nation--no, in fact, I finally put on 7 lbs. of muscle. Guess what? I get my bodyfat tested every 8 weeks by a professional with calipers (because bodybuilding is my hobby). From January 2010 to my last test, November 2010, I put on 7lbs, 5 inches on my shoulders in particular, decreased my already narrow waist and raised my glutes 2 inches. All while RETAINING 15% bodyfat.

I did this on mostly grassfed ground beef and grassfed dairy. My meat is cooked very little, until just warm and "rare/raw" as I call it. I cook my eggs until the whites start forming and  the yolks are runny--hardly "cooked" in the evil sense. I eat the grassfed butter cold and unheated. I eat liverwurst, gizzards and a little fish (just for some omega 3s; my 6s are very low as I avoid pork and poultry).

So LIGHTLY cooked ZC led to (1) increased muscle mass (2)loss of inches (3) greater energy (4) maintaining body fat (5) increased availability of calories.

Tyler is right that raw meat is highly nutritious and has no anti nutrients. We stand in agreement. But Wrangham showed that it is difficult to get enough calories on raw eating alone, whether high or low carb. If I were trying to lose weight, I would eat ONLY raw as it kept me at 100lbs. and lean but I could NOT grow.


Unlike others, Phil and I are lean ectomorphs who want to BUILD muscle. So a highly nutritious ZC / VLC WOE is perfect, but cooked is so much better for muscle growth. Phil, care to join me?

Tyler, my "cookd" is really just "warming" if you could see it. I still consider it rare/raw and think that below medium is VERY IMPORTANT for health and nutrition

[TylerDurden]

Tyler is right that raw meat is highly nutritious and has no anti nutrients. We stand in agreement. But Wrangham showed that it is difficult to get enough calories on raw eating alone, whether high or low carb.

  Wrangham openly lied. He pretended that it was physically impossible to survive on a diet of raw meat and get enough daily calories unless one chewed raw meats constantly  for between 5.7 to 6.2 hours a day. This is such an outrageous lie, given multiple RVAFers' experience proving that, actually, one needs to eat less raw foods than cooked foods in order to survive and thrive. What is absolutely disgraceful is that Wrangham quite clearly hadn't even bothered to check raw foodists' experience and just made up an arbitrary figure, as RVAFers don't even need to spend an hour eating raw meats, let alone 5 or 6 hours to get their daily nutritional needs.

The notion re cooked meat building up more muscle-mass I know to be false, as I had, for various reasons, severe muscle-weakness/deterioration on cooked diets(even cooked, low-carb ones) which only got resolved once I switched to a rawpalaeodiet. Plus, it has been mentioned by some in the bodybuilding community that the more the food is cooked, the less absorbable it  is by the body for building up muscle(Schwarzenegger made a point re that once), so, logically, the reverse is also true, that the more raw the meat is the better it is for building up muscle.

The one thing I can agree on is that eating cooked diets cause one to gain weight(in a bad way). I have noticed this:- when I eat cooked foods, especially cooked animal foods, I gain a huge belly very quickly. AV explains this as toxins from cooked foods being stored in the fat-cells.

[PaleoPhil]

KD wrote:

"Alot of primal-ish stuff is good for bowel transit: raw butter, egg bombardment, ...."

Yes, you've got the gist of what has worked for me re: GI function--soft foods with an emphasis on soft fats and eggs. I didn't handle butter well at last try. It's the right idea, though, because it's a soft fat. Eggs seem to be a winner for me, and marrow, mashed avocado (except for a bit of gas if I eat too much of them on their own, but much less of a stomach issue than with coconut oil), and some foods that aren't raw Paleo--tallow and lard and sometimes cooked sweet potato, though too much of the latter sits in my stomach like a lump, so it's a tertiary food for me and I'm hoping that I find other raw underground storage organs to add to the parsnips I like. I plan to buy a grater to improve the digestibility of the raw USOs, though I haven't noticed stomach or GI problems from small to moderate amounts.
 
I know that rendered fats and cooked tubers are heresy here and I don't get the feeling of wellbeing from them that I get from raw suet and ground beef, but eating soft foods heavy in fat and low in protein and tough insoluble fiber is the only thing so far that has worked fairly consistently on the constipation without having to resort to sennoside-containing foods or coffee, though it's still too soon to tell for sure.
 

"Fruits contain water, but whatever underling process of absorption can actually dry out the cells over time or in the short term."

Yeah, it's puzzling that plant carbs so quickly dry out my skin regardless of how much water I consume and given that they contain water themselves. I haven't found an explanation of this yet. I can understand how fat moisturizes my skin, because skin is composed partly of fat.
 

"I don't know how laissez faire people are about fruits here, so I wouldn't let that pressure lead to too many drawn out experiments."

Aye, I don't see it as pressure so much as somewhat of a temptation that I try to manage.
 

"and alot of things have their own selfish purposes and will fight for survival through you."

I know that scientists have found that the dominant bacteria in your gut signal to your brain what they need, so that if your gut is dominated by carb-eating bacteria, they'll signal your brain to desire carbs. Is that what you mean?
 
Nation wrote:

"how do you do on leafy greens?"

They seem to be a neutral food for me, thanks. No harm (at least not from the young tasty ones) but no noticeable benefit either. I figure they probably do a small amount of good, such as via vitamin K, that's just too small to notice. And I like the chewiness and different texture that they add to my food.
 
Francois wrote:

"Sorry to hear that, Phil and I feel a bit guilty."

Ah, it's not your fault. I'm an adult responsible for my own choices, and I hope reporting the bad news as well as the good might provide some insights to others. It seems to have inspired me to find a way to better manage constipation. I know Instincto works for some folks like you and my guess is that the ones it works best for probably have GI tracts and gut flora that are in fairly good shape, plus good insulin sensitivity.
 

"Are you absolutely sure the honey you have is 100% correct?"

No, I know it's not 100% unheated. As I've stated before, they use a centrifuge. It's the best available in the healthfood and farmers' markets locally and I fare better on it than any other honey sold locally, including the heated Manuka honey. I've ordered and tried 100% unheated honeycomb before, but the difference was so slight it didn't seem to be worth the extra cost. It would be marvelous, though, if I could eat all the unheated honeycomb I want. That would be like a dream come true. Maybe I'll try some more of the completely unheated stuff some day.
 

"Besides, I'm amazed that you still brush your teeth with toothpaste containing fluoride, which is a violent poison and would contribute to tooth fragility...."

I know some folks here feel very strongly negatively about fluoride, but my experience with it has been the opposite. I experienced marvelous reduction in pain from a hole in a tooth with a prescription-strength stannous fluoride (the organic kind of fluoride that's found in bodies of water, the natural effect of which on keeping cavities low in a Texas town was how the cavity-fighting benefits of fluoride were discovered), though it was only when I reduced my carb intake that the pain went away completely. And it was after I accidentally stopped using any fluoride that I developed a cavity for the first time in years.
 

"with seawater only- or plain water in case I have no seawater."

That doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid.
 

Also, didn't you write that you drank coffee?

Sometimes, yes, but my intake didn't increase substantially the last several months and if anything the coffee seems to provide a therapeutic benefit similar to that of senna tea. I know the normal instinctive reaction is to search for culprits other than those that challenge our cherished beliefs and desires and I'd like to blame it all on coffee, but I don't get the sense that coffee was the issue for me. I used to drink more coffee in years past than recently.
 

"Hope you'll get better and overcome your health problems anyhow."

Thanks
 
ys wrote:

I would do a stool test, preferably several, one for VLC and one for moderate Carbs to see how much and what kind of undigested matter you are passing out.  the results might give you some clues.

Do you have any to recommend?
 
 

For the life of me, Phil  , I cannot understand your continuing fascination with raw fruit and honey. Ew  .

LOL Good to see you post here again Katelyn.

Just eat rare warmed meat. It is easier to digest and you get more calories that way.

I do eat some crockpot cooked meaty bones occasionally, as well as rendered fat more often now, but lean meat of any sort appears to dehydrate inside me before it gets out the other end, so I've cut down on my intake. Tough, fibrous veggies also seem to be constipating for me.

It doesn't work for me with my bodybuilding to try to eat raw meat, raw eggs, everything cold, etc.

Yes, that's one reason why I eat some cooked foods, fruits and honey--to keep my weight up.

Just my 2 cents. I wish you were on Facebook because I am writing series of Notes about my ZC journey and my thoughts.

I'd rather that my forum persona wasn't connected with my real life persona as I say some private things in forums that I'd prefer to keep relatively private. I also like to keep the raw aspect of my diet relatively private and even the Paleo aspect somewhat private.

[ys]

ys wrote:
Quote
I would do a stool test, preferably several, one for VLC and one for moderate Carbs to see how much and what kind of undigested matter you are passing out.  the results might give you some clues.
Do you have any to recommend?

i'm sorry i do not, i'm just throwing a wild guess that by looking at the end result might reveal some clues.

if i was concerned about constipation i would start with this
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/productslabdigestive/1162/

i would weigh in the chance of finding out something that may offer some clues and if money issues are more important.

[Ioanna]

Do you have any to recommend?

one place i used to work used this lab a lot.  i think they send you a kit depending on the test you want done, then you send the kit back for analysis.

http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/home/eng/stool.asp

isn't it obvious, though, if we are not digesting something?

[PaleoPhil]

Yeah thanks

[van]

Hi Klowcarb.  I want to suggest to you that your newly expanded diet may actually be the reason for your muscle gains.  I think I can remember reading (not sure from which forum) where you were so happy with eating, correct me if I am wrong here, just ground beef, and raw.  I think during those days you were completely satisfied with how your work-outs were doing.  Hope you don't find this as being judgemental.   I can't tell you how many times I have fallen into the minds' trap of believing it's found 'perfection' in a diet.  Very tricky thing.  And then there's Charles who promotes basically Wallmart meat and fat at the exclusion of most anything else, including organs etc.    And extolls the notion that he is the healthiest person in the world.   We each have what seemingly works for us, at any particular time period.  And my guess is that most of us here are constantly learning, adapting and evolving as we relearn to feed ourselves.  But again, variety, as I have found offers me the greater balance or health for my body.  So Yes, for you light cooking may unlock certain nutrients you weren't assimilating before, and, or, the inclusion of the foods you now list may equally be what's feeding your 'muscles'.      For instance,  I have ducks at my farm.  I notice that I feel better when I eat at least 3-6 yolks a week, sometimes more.  However I have seen it written in forums several times that eggs don't satisfy as does meat and for that reason they are overlooked or passed by.   That's true for me too.  But my guess is that years ago foragers would never find  several dozen eggs to split amongst a tribe so that each could eat a dozen.  No, they more likely stumbled on one or a few eggs and snarfed them down right then and there, completing more of their nutritional needs.    The same logic can be applied to eating liver, heart, testicles, thymus, bone marrow, brain, kidney, eye balls, fish eggs, insects, vit-c rich fruit, whale, salmon etc. etc.   And finally reading what I have just written here,  it appears it's just as much a reminder to myself as a note to you.   Let us know how it plays out for you.  Would love to see a recent picture.   Van

[wodgina]

Maybe it's time to give up experimentation.

Let your body relax (or preferrably, go into a complete screaming rage) and forget about your issues for a few months just to see what happens.

[rawcarni]

 I know that scientists have found that the dominant bacteria in your gut signal to your brain what they need, so that if your gut is dominated by carb-eating bacteria, they'll signal your brain to desire carbs. Is that what you mean?
 

Phil: That might be THE eye-opener for my wanting fruit/sweet stuff couple days ago after such a long time not having touched any of the stuff: maybe it's somehow dying off of old bacteria still living in my gut flora? I always have a bloated belly after eating carbs, no matter how tiny the amount/what type of carbs-so maybe candida issues? And now as the bacteria are dying off due to ZC eating I get some cravings every now and then?
Just a thought.
Many thanks for all your help and insights!!!
Nicole

[Hanna]

>>I know that scientists have found that the dominant bacteria in your gut signal to your brain what they need, so that if your gut is dominated by carb-eating bacteria, they'll signal your brain to desire carbs.

Hi Phil,
Could you give some details, or perhaps even links to journal articles?

[KD]

I know that scientists have found that the dominant bacteria in your gut signal to your brain what they need, so that if your gut is dominated by carb-eating bacteria, they'll signal your brain to desire carbs. Is that what you mean?  

my take on what basically applies to this phil as well as what klowcarb observes, and rawcarni's question is that basically there are like a million different variables in terms of what is going on internally with this stuff. It is not just (digestive) bacteria, although that could very well be true as the simplest explanation. The body as I understand it is often just as much a collective of competing entities as it is a unified whole. The easiest examples for these are like parasites and overgrown fungus and so forth, but even these are just observable extremes and mutations of what is actually a very natural occurrence of 'non-compliance'. Heh. Nothing to get stressed over in it of itself.

There is no way I believe cooked food makes more calories available, but its totally plausible that:

a.) people (or some people) can use and process materials form cooked food that they cannot in raw food. I tend to think this should be able to change/improve after a shift in some of these very variables above (aka detox or whatever) but there is certainly no ruling on this either way depending on what someone desires.

b.) you are what you eat - and have eaten- so in a sense its not just digestive materials but every cell is composed of a certain type,amount and quality of tissue, and also gasses and metals and all kinds of things then can get released and cause all kinds of symptoms even when eating the most healthy foods. Craving for food on a limited diet MIGHT be as simple as legitimate cravings for raw materials, but seeing since people can go for long extended trials like ZC or 5 year OJ diets, I tend to think more often then not these are signals of trying to hold on to that old balance that that competing environment loves and thrives in. This is why I said things act for their own purposes. This is my personal belief and experience anyway.

c.) because of b.) healthy cooked foods are certainly better then overcooked meats and SAD foods, so even if your body doesn't store these toxins in fat, all tissues are still composed of these new materials which might be inferior to raw ones, or still have a net positive that is certainly acceptable as 'health', even if these cooked toxins also have other repercussions than just how they end up in muscle or fat or so forth.

I think cooked food is just as valid as any other thing if ones goal is to gain weight, but doesn't necessarily translate as better strength or fitness or health in my experience. Like Van points out, the odds are that just eating a more relaxed approach when hungry and a variety of foods without too much emphasis on how good they are...will likely lead to more efficient gains and paradoxically better overall health as Wodg mentions. At that point, one can just weight the consequences and decide what amount of micromanaging is ultimately necessary.

Personally...as a practical thing, if I was on a very limited diet, and I had all kinds of cravings, I wouldn't try to satisfy those cravings with what my body is actually craving as per the observation above with the likely culprits for such things. What I would do is eat foods I know supply similar nutrients. Like if I was craving oranges (never happens thankfully) I would get my hands on some pine pollen or something, which isn't appealing and has no abilities to ferment and feed the internal problems which beckon for such. Prior to that I might just increase my nutrition amongst RAF (organs) bones etc..and see if THAT made a difference. If these things worked in any capacity, odds are my problem had nothing o do with deficiency of sweet foods, but some kind of systemic thing that needs to be shifted.

Just my take.

[rawcarni]

KD: That is a very intelligent post and makes a lot of sense: I have similar views. However: I don't know if a more varied diet than ZC would actually really be better (for me) as I had the most health benefits eating ZC. The more I reduced my plant foods the better my skin looked, the strnger my nails became, my nose was never runny anymore etc. On the other hand: I think that maybe the more "healthy" your diet becomes the more strongly you react in a negative way to substances that your body cannot handle that well. Like when you have a habit of coffee drinking: you don't notice negative effects that strong as you would if you were to stop drinking coffee fow a while and then reintroduce it back.
Nicole

[PaleoPhil]

Wodgina, thanks for trying to help--ironically, due to my latest experimenting I seem to have hit on some success on a couple of fronts, so no need for rages. Out of desperation comes inspiration. Don't know that I should report the success in detail yet, though, because the hacks involved violate at least a couple of dogmas of this board. Folks may dismiss the successes as flukes and might be upset by the hacks.

It's interesting how my greatest breakthroughs seem to come when I get fed up with lack of progress or setback and resolve that I'm going to get to the bottom of an issue and solve it come hell or high water. The hemorrhoid was a good incentive. I'm trying not to count my chicks before they've hatched, though, as past improvements sometimes proved temporary.


Rawcarni, like KD wrote, there are many variables that could contribute to difficulties with carb digestion. In my case some of the symptoms I get from carbs go back as far as I can remember. One possible explanation in my case is that my GI system problems contribute to my low ability to handle carbs, perhaps due to gut dysbiosis, gut inflammation, intestinal epithelial cell damage and/or the known redundant colon. I might also have carb intolerance or fructose malabsorption, again possibly in part due to GI dysfunction.

"The more I reduced my plant foods the better my skin looked, the strnger my nails became, my nose was never runny anymore etc."

Same here, though one downside was that my constipation returned after initial improvement, and then gradually got worse. The other downside is that it's harder to add weight on pure carnivore. So I cut back on lean meat and I've added some non-meat soft and mostly fatty foods like more eggs, avocado with flavored with chopped berries, etc. and it has helped. It's closer to raw Primal than before, but not quite raw Primal either. The three aspects of foods that help me avoid constipation appear to be...

> easily digestible
> soft or liquidy foods that don't harden much when moderately dehydrated
> fatty

Eggs are a prime example that score on all three factors. They have been written off by many here as a second rate food and I had unconsciously cut back on them, but they seem to be a winner for me.


Van wrote: "I notice that I feel better when I eat at least 3-6 yolks a week, sometimes more.  However I have seen it written in forums several times that eggs don't satisfy as does meat and for that reason they are overlooked or passed by."

You read my mind. Whether or not eggs are second rate they seem to serve my current purposes well.


Hanna, I can't find the original article where I read about carb-loving bacteria sending signals to the brain for more carbs, but I suspect they might be the firmicutes bacteria. If you Google "firmicutes" with "carbs" or "carbohydrates" you'll find a lot of info about them.

This team has done research on firmicutes:

Research of Ruth Ley, Peter Turnbaugh, Jeffrey Gordon and colleagues at Washington University
http://gordonlab.wustl.edu/Publications.html

This article has a good summary on the but microbiota as well as leptin:

Healthy, Wealthy, Wise
By Judith Torel
Capital Region Living
January 2011
http://crlmag.com/articleDetail.cfm?id=223


KD wrote: "Like Van points out, the odds are that just eating a more relaxed approach when hungry and a variety of foods without too much emphasis on how good they are...will likely lead to more efficient gains and paradoxically better overall health as Wodg mentions."

Well said. I don't eat the exact same foods as you, but your and Van's philosophical approach seems similar to mine. I place more emphasis on health and robustness restoration than purity to raw Paleo or Instincto dietary dogma. If that means less than 100% raw Paleo in the short term and having to undergo withering attacks from Tyler, so be it.

Speaking of pine pollen, I have spruce tip tea that I like--a mild but nice flavor. I don't always heat it either--sometimes I just let teas soak in a glass of cold water.

[PaleoPhil]

I think where my experiments went wrong is I was focusing too much on taste/senses and maintaining weight and not enough on potential unintended consequences and the functional problem of constipation. It doesn't make sense for me to rely on the instincts of my body when it's out of whack and it doesn't make sense for me to focus on adding fuel to the machine when the machine isn't functioning properly.

[TylerDurden]

Despite your ridiculous implication by default, my reasons for such withering attacks are instead a) that the anti-rawpalaeo claims usually cite some fraud like Wrangham or deny masses of long-published scientific data, yet are viewed with dog-like devotion by many cooked-foodists - after all, why on earth should their claims be viewed with any less rigorous analysis/criticism than the claims of raw foodists who are constantly criticised in the media re food-poisoning claims etc.?  and b) my main reason for supporting raw and palaeo is not because of some adherence to dogma but partly because my health starts suffering if I start going non-palaeo(eg/- raw dairy) or go cooked (eg by consuming cooked animal foods) -plus, there is plentiful evidence of many others having issues with such foods, whether anecdotal or scientific, whereas there is damn little info, by contrast, favouring the notion that the more one cooks a food, the healthier that food is for the human body! No studies showing that well-charred meats are always superior to raw meats or whatever.

[PaleoPhil]

Despite your ridiculous implication by default, my reasons for such withering attacks are instead....

Heh, heh, I know I can always count on you for a rebuttal. I wrote that with tongue in cheek but didn't think to add a smiley, sorry. At any rate, while my statement was somewhat exaggerated for humorous effect, you kind of proved my point with this response.

a) that the anti-rawpalaeo claims usually cite some fraud like Wrangham....

Yeah, I appreciate your taking time to refute Wrangham's claims, though I prefer not to try to figure out whether his motivations are fraudulent or not. My best guess is that he's just biased by his vegetarian and feminist orientation and perhaps unconsciously or semi-consciously seeking out data that confirms his biases, but it's just a guess and doesn't determine how factual his claims are.

...there is damn little info, by contrast, favouring the notion that the more one cooks a food, the healthier that food is for the human body! No studies showing that well-charred meats are always superior to raw meats or whatever.

I haven't seen anyone argue in favor of that, so you seem to be tilting at windmills here. The sense I get is that some folks find, for whatever reason, that adding some temporary flexibility to their diet from 100% raw Paleo purity can help restore them to full health so that they can perhaps eat a more purely raw Paleo diet in the future if they wish. The problem is, this could also become an excuse for lack of dietary discipline, so I try to be cautious with it and I'm not recommending it to anyone else, just reporting my results. Pure raw Paleo is obviously the original hominin dietary category, but some of us have undergone years of damage from modern foods. I find that doing some processing, whether it's chopping or rendering or what have you, seems to enable me to digest some foods more thoroughly and reduce constipation. I'm hoping that it's a temporary fix or that I will figure out a more raw Paleo way of achieving the same results.

[TylerDurden]

Heh, heh, I know I can always count on you for a rebuttal. I wrote that with tongue in cheek but didn't think to add a smiley, sorry. At any rate, while my statement was somewhat exaggerated for humorous effect, you kind of proved my point with this response.

Not in the slightest. After all, your prior aim was to provoke a reaction on my part.

[KD]

KD: That is a very intelligent post and makes a lot of sense: I have similar views. However: I don't know if a more varied diet than ZC would actually really be better (for me) as I had the most health benefits eating ZC. The more I reduced my plant foods the better my skin looked, the strnger my nails became, my nose was never runny anymore etc. On the other hand: I think that maybe the more "healthy" your diet becomes the more strongly you react in a negative way to substances that your body cannot handle that well. Like when you have a habit of coffee drinking: you don't notice negative effects that strong as you would if you were to stop drinking coffee fow a while and then reintroduce it back.
Nicole

Sure, I was just talking about troubleshooting whether a desire for say sugar was indeed the sugar itself, or the vitamins and minerals associated with it or internal or emotional stuff or none of the above. Often even the most stubborn of nutrients can be found in certain kinds of animal foods or sunlight so I wasn't saying that one HAD to eat a varied diet (if varied means beyond animal or even paleo foods), only what I would have done in those shoes. I do think a varied diet can potentially be a benefit though : / and do think that variety within animals (at least including whole animals/organs if not sea or poultry etc..) probably should be the first place to turn for a craving or nutrition-skeptical carnivore.

I am wary somewhat of the purity hypothesis from past claims by vegans and my experiences, and have actually had virtually the opposite experience now, although I havn't experimented too far as far as conventional cooked or processed things at all. I seem to have less problems with foods I cook myself on occasion than I did when I started. I do agree the coffee analogy does apply to many things though.

[michaelwh]

  Wrangham openly lied. He pretended that it was physically impossible to survive on a diet of raw meat and get enough daily calories unless one chewed raw meats constantly  for between 5.7 to 6.2 hours a day. This is such an outrageous lie, given multiple RVAFers' experience proving that, actually, one needs to eat less raw foods than cooked foods in order to survive and thrive. What is absolutely disgraceful is that Wrangham quite clearly hadn't even bothered to check raw foodists' experience and just made up an arbitrary figure, as RVAFers don't even need to spend an hour eating raw meats, let alone 5 or 6 hours to get their daily nutritional needs.

I don't think that's a fair statement. I've listened to an interview with Wrangham on OneRadioNetwork. I got the impression that he's quite an open-minded and honest guy. His theory about how cooking made us human might be wrong, or it might be right, I don't know, but he's definitely not a fraud or liar. He didn't make up an arbitrary figure. He talked about how he observed chimps chewing for hours. He said that he even tried to eat raw meat himself, and it took him forever to chew it.

When I first ate raw meat, I tried to chew it the same way I chew a vegetable. Took me forever. It took me at least a few weeks to learn how to eat raw meat quickly, i.e. wolf it down.

Wrangham also said that he's quite open to the idea of raw foodism today -- that the diet we evolved on is not necessarily the best one for us today.

The RAF community is quite small, Wrangham may be simply not aware that a large number of people can thrive on raw omnivorous diets. If a long-term RAFer sent him a polite email explaining this, I think he may be willing to reconsider his position.

[TylerDurden]

Paleophil , quite rightly, pointed out previously that Wrangham had clear vegetarian biases and a (presumably related) feminist bias.

 He is also highly evasive. I once came across an interview with Wrangham in which Wrangham, in response to a question from someone on what he thought of all those studies done on heat-created toxins in cooked foods, and he just, more or less, vaguely replied that he thought we probably had adapted to them by now, and that future scientific evidence would bear him out. Given the mass of scientific data about heat-created toxins in cooked foods, one would have thought that an honest researcher would have admitted that his own stance looked rather shaky, given no evidence he could produce to support his claims.


All Wrangham has, really, to support his claims are one or two studies supposedly "showing" that a python etc. digested cooked foods better than raw foods. Trouble is, Wrangham was one of the main scientists who did the studies. Now, there are countless cases in science, where some foolish scientist has come up with what he thinks is a great-sounding theory, then done numerous studies in which he only selectively chooses the evidence that favours his theory and discards anything opposing his notions, commonly then resulting with other scientists unable to duplicate his results and/or proving the exact opposite :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

When one considers that other meat-studies have shown quite clearly that cooking meats make the protein less digestible, not more, then one can be sure that, at best, Wrangham hasn't even bothered to rigorously check such evidence before making his absurd claims.

As for the absurd claim of his re chimps chewing raw meats for hours, it makes no sense at all. I mean, some RVAFers do indeed chew all their raw meats thoroughly before swallowing them, and they don't report spending hours chewing their raw meats, either. In the past, I have even chewed  really tough connective tissue like raw lung and I still only took something like 5 minutes to chew it down to the point of being able to swallow a large chunk thereof. Granted, a chimpanzee is more raw-vegan-adapted(though much less so than gorillas) than we are, but then it is criminally irresponsible for Wrangham to suggest that chimps teeth and jaws  are exactly like those of humans, when evidence shows the exact opposite.

Another obvious point:- a chimp's lifestyle is somewhat sedentary at certain times, so it would be perfectly possible for a chimp to chew on something for hours without necessarily needing to. But, even so, that 5 to 6 hours quote is just too high for Wrangham to have seen it in the wild.

As for Wrangham's mention that a cooked diet isn't necessarily all that ideal, he, of course, had to say that, given that cooked diets are notorious for making people obese, whereas one of the main selling-points of a raw food diet(raw vegan especially) is that they lead to weight-loss. He clearly has done no research whatsoever if he mentions only weight-loss as a benefit of raw foods, though.

As for someone sending him an e-mail, he is way too biased to be able to accept any such points made. I mean, when even some truly respectable scientists hold onto cherished theories they made in their youth despite them being thoroughly debunked after some  decades, how on earth could one convince Wrangham when he, unlike the former,  has never had any decent evidence to support his own theories.

[PaleoPhil]

Paleophil , quite rightly, pointed out previously that Wrangham had clear vegetarian biases and a (presumably related) feminist bias.

Yeah, but I don't get the sense that he's deliberately lying and there's no proof of that, if it's at all possible to provide strong evidence that someone is intentionally lying inside their mind short of maybe a lie detector test. Instead, it seems more likely that like most people he may have "confirmation bias" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias [later edit: ah, good, I see below that you noticed this too]). Besides, like I suggested, it's not very productive to waste too much time trying to read peoples' minds to figure out their motivations and thought processes.

He is also highly evasive.

I won't disagree with you there, but again, I think you could do more productive things than focus on criticizing others personally, such as perhaps refute their points with solid evidence. When you do that I find your posts much more persuasive and less offputting.

...then done numerous studies in which he only selectively chooses the evidence that favours his theory and discards anything opposing his notions, commonly then resulting with other scientists unable to duplicate his results and/or proving the exact opposite :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Yes, now I think you are more on the right target and it's easier, though still difficult, to provide evidence and a persuasive argument of confirmation bias than of conscious lying. I suspect that confirmation bias is the key problem that is misdirecting Dr. Wrangham, and it is a common error in scientific research. However, I acknowledge that I can't prove this. It's more of a hunch supported by what I consider fairly persuasive circumstantial evidence.

Another obvious point:- a chimp's lifestyle is somewhat sedentary at certain times, so it would be perfectly possible for a chimp to chew on something for hours without necessarily needing to.

This is a good point that I don't recall Wrangham addressing. Other scientists have reported that chimps like to slowly savor monkey meat, as it's apparently their favorite food (although I wonder if the chimps that eat honey prefer that). To assume that raw meat takes a long time for humans to eat because it takes chimps a long time is bogus for this and other reasons, like different jaw morphology, as you pointed out.

As for Wrangham's mention that a cooked diet isn't necessarily all that ideal, he, of course, had to say that, given that cooked diets are notorious for making people obese, whereas one of the main selling-points of a raw food diet(raw vegan especially) is that they lead to weight-loss.

Yes, it is ironic that Wrangham has argued that the increased calories from cooking foods is a good thing and made humans bigger, stronger, with bigger brains, etc., but at the same time acknowledges that it contributes to the deleterious effect of obesity. It's good to see that you have touched on some persuasive facts and not just personal attacks.