PaleoPhil's Journal

[PaleoPhil]

I think I now maybe know what was meant in this TV movie or TV show scene years ago that I vaguely recollect (wish I knew the name of the movie/show):

Native American sidekick character (looking at footprint believed to be that of a murderer): "It's an Indian."
White hero detective: "How do you know?"
NA (pointing at print): "Because he walks toes-first."

When I first saw this I thought he meant that there was little or no heel print. But having walked and run barefoot style for a while now, I think he just meant that the toe prints were more pronounced and the heel print less pronounced. It's possible my feet haven't fully adapted and developed, however.

I notice that when I walk barefoot my toes flex upward above the rest of the foot and then come down and sort of grasp the ground like I was grasping a stick. It's not something I consciously do and it's kind of funny to watch. If this is natural then this could be why Esther Gokhale advocates an exercise in which you use this movement to graps a towel or ball with your toes.

Since laying off fruit again I'm noticing less dry skin and scalp flakes and my teeth have further firmed. I can't wiggle any of them with my tongue right now, which is a first in quite a number of years. What a relief that my teeth are firming instead of loosening--one of them had gotten very lose when I was eating more carbs and my hygienist had been quite concerned that it was going to eventually fall out.

[ys]

I can't wiggle any of them with my tongue right now

were they that loose?  which ones?

my lower front teeth are little loose, but i can only move them with fingers.  it could be the result i'm clinching them at night. my recent visit to dentist did not reveal any bone issue.

[actionhero]

Since laying off fruit again I'm noticing less dry skin and scalp flakes and my teeth have further firmed.

Great news man. It's good to see that things are improving for you.

[PaleoPhil]

were they that loose?  which ones?

Yes, the lower two front teeth were the loosest, and others had started to loosen.

Great news man. It's good to see that things are improving for you.

Thanks

I was reminded of another health improvement to add to my journal. I often used to get bad shoulder and stomach cramps from fast running (just a vigorous short sprint could trigger it) years ago and would have to stick to mostly slow jogging when they sprang up. Yesterday I realized that they've been gone for many months now (since I started cutting down on carbs) when a comment about cramps reminded me of them and I've been getting more into sprinting for the first time in decades. I even enjoy sprinting now.

[ys]

please keep reporting your teeth progress, i'm very curious.

i notice my gums behind lower teeth are progressively receding creating deeper pockets.  i really don't like it and not sure what to do about it.  i'm seeing orthodontist next month to check my bite, maybe it has something to do with incorrect bite.

[PaleoPhil]

Yeah, definitely get that checked out, because receding gums accelerate bone loss.

[klowcarb]

Yay, RZC! 

[PaleoPhil]

I still get plaque, though, but I can scrape most of it off myself now, whereas before it was so hard only the hygienist could get it off and she had to put some elbow grease into it. It used to feel like she was cutting up my gums with a razor when I got a cleaning. Now it's a somewhat pleasant feeling.

[Iguana]

The same for me, but since I eat 100% raw, almost no plaque appears and my dentist has been amazed. He congratulated my about my dental hygiene. I didn’t tell him about my diet: it’s difficult to speak while he’s working into your mouth!

[PaleoPhil]

I tried some high meat again for the first time in a while. I was going to swallow it as usual, but noticed it tasted kind of good. So I chewed it and it wasn't half bad. Had a sort of spicy taste to it. It did have a mildly unpleasant ammonia-like aftertaste, though. Like other recent times I've had high meat it caused a tingly/stingy feeling in my tongue and the roof of my mouth. It wasn't particularly unpleasant, though. Raw cod liver oil used to do that to, but not recently. Does anyone know what causes this tingling and why it apparently goes away after you get used to a fermented fish/meat?

[KD]

How old is it? I didn't experience this until I started eating my 4 month old meat, not other high-meat I had, so I don't know yet if I would adjust to it. In terms of the sensation, if feels like you describe, like a somewhat cooled cigarette on the tongue for me. Only guesses as to why, but there are tons of bacteria and receptors in the mouth.

[PaleoPhil]

The high meat is almost 10 months old now. I have read that the Inuits say high meat starts to get real good after a year.

[KD]

I haven't noticed too many people letting their meat go too long here (although I know some out there do), but It would be good to get more response. I can only say in my experience (inline with my argument over differences in contemporary peoples to Inuits) that I am leaning heavily towards it being an interaction between the bacteria in the meat, and the corrupt bacteria and fungal overgrowth in the mouth. 8 month being more advanced than 4 of course, but seeing since my other meats (or this same meat at 3 months) did not cause any burning, I imagine their potency was not enough to be so instantly abrasive but probably still therapeutic in the gut. Antifungals like alcohol for instance, usually similarly 'burn' bacteria laden tissue even though the effects on regular tissue like skin are nil. This is all just a hunch of course as my micro-biology is a bit rusty

[PaleoPhil]

... but seeing since my other meats (or this same meat at 3 months) did not cause any burning, I imagine their potency was not enough to be so instantly abrasive but probably still therapeutic in the gut. Antifungals like alcohol for instance, usually similarly 'burn' bacteria laden tissue even though the effects on regular tissue like skin are nil. This is all just a hunch of course as my micro-biology is a bit rusty

Yeah, I think my high meat took about 5-6 months before it started tingling my mouth. I wouldn't call it an abrasive or burning feeling, it's more like the tingling I used to get from walnuts or honey, except more pleasant--sort of invigorating, for lack of a better term--with no associated itchiness. The first few times it was surprising, and I could see how some might be startled or even turned off by it, like William was with Blue Ice CLO, but I figured it was a good sign and got used to it pretty quickly. If my experience w/ the Blue Ice is any indication, I'm guessing that the tingling from high meat will diminish over time if I keep eating it.

[PaleoPhil]

The way a tree survives a strong wind is to bend with it. If it's old, dried out and too inflexible to change, it will snap. Similarly, we humans need to re-learn how to make our bodies and societies more flexible and adaptable, and thus more robust. By that I don't mean in the way moderners typically think--by more rapidly adopting ever more artificial diets and lifestyles--but instead by adapting ourselves more to nature instead of always trying to mold and control nature while coddling ourselves.

While I was examining the inside of a tepee at a "pow-wow" in Florida not long after two hurricanes had ravaged the area, the guide inside it explained how the way that tepees let wind travel through them had helped them survive a gale storm during one pow-wow in years past while some nearby buildings were knocked down. Instead of standing firm and stiff against nature, like an old tree or conventional modern building, we should learn to bend and flow with nature, like a young tree or a tepee or a building designed to let hurricane winds flow through it (including the one in the image below that I learned about not long after the hurricanes--though a tepee is still more adaptable ):




"In another two hundred million years will Homo sapiens sapiens still have a leading role?

The answer is almost certainly, No—for two reasons. First, if we continue to display the arrogance and profligacy that mark the behavior of so-called civilized people, we will soon have taxed the environment beyond the limits of our own adaptability, if not that of the earth itself. And second, as our condensed history of the earth shows, long-term stability for a single highly-complex species, no matter how adaptable, is biologically out of the question. In many ways our unique culture transcends our biology, and for that reason our future becomes even more uncertain than it might otherwise have been. And the power of culture is such that, rather than question the possible status of our species two hundred million years hence, we had better be concerned about developments in a tiny fraction of that time. For the human species today, two hundred years, let alone two hundred million years, is a very uncertain prospect. Now, more than ever before, we depend on the versatility of our culture to shape our daily lives. Similarly, it is upon the flexibility and strength of our culture that we shall have to rely for the future security of our kind. Through culture we have the power to create a future either of justice and compassion, or of suffering and misery. Culture has endowed us with that much choice.

By searching our long-buried past for an understanding of what we are, we may discover some insight into our future. There is much more than bones and stones buried in those fossil-bearing sediments, there are vital clues to human biology. Through an exploration of the forces that nurtured the birth of the hunting and gathering way of life perhaps three million years ago, and through studying the question of why such a long-established mode of existence was superseded, beginning some 10,000 years ago, by a sedentary agricultural society, we can hope for some insight into modern society, and with it some guide to our future.”--Richard Leakey, Origins (1977), p. 15


"[T]he [current economic] crisis provides an illustration for the need for robustness....

The idea is simply to let human mistakes and miscalculations remain confined, and to prevent their spreading through the system, as Mother Nature does. Reducing volatility and ordinary randomness increases exposure to Black Swans—it creates an artificial quiet.

My dream is to have a true Epistemocracy—that is, a society robust to expert errors, forecasting errors, and hubris, one that can be resistant to the incompetence of politicians, regulators, economists, central bankers, bankers, policy wonks, and epidemiologists."  --Nassim Taleb, http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/robustness.pdf

[PaleoPhil]

After reading about experiments with HCL supplements and stomach acid deficiency info and considering that my grandmother had pernicious anemia, which results decreased production of gastric acid, I decided to try an HCL supplement. I've taken up to 15 Nature's Life betaine HCL tablets with no stomach burn. According to others this suggests I am deficient in gastric acid. I also tried biting into one of the tablets, out of curiosity, and it was only mildly sour, so I wonder how effective they actually could be, but I'll continue to give them a try.

[Paleo Donk]

Have your bowel movements improved since the HCL?

[PaleoPhil]

No, but it's early yet.

[PaleoPhil]

Goodbye Sandman
A symptom that disappeared that I'm not sure whether I reported in the past or not: "sand" in the eyes. I no longer ever get this, regardless of how few or many hours of sleep I get, since going VLC. So perhaps the sandman only visits those who eat substantial carbs? Any other VLC/ZCers experience this?

Wolfing Down Food
I find that I paradoxically have a greater appetite and can wolf more food down more quickly while at the same time never experiencing bad hunger or stomach upset, bloating or pain. I think this is in part because my digestion is much improved. I can eat more like the wolf, intermittently fasting and feasting, running and playing for much of the day without developing pangs of hunger and later gorge without feeling stuffed or nauseas.

Low-carb Plant Food and Seaweed Experiment
I still do have constipation and get some belching from fats, though, so I apparently have a ways to go still. I've been experimenting with small amounts of the following foods that might approximate the wild plants that Stone Agers may have eaten more commonly before they started drying and cooking tubers and eating them as staple foods (but I won't bother to continue eating ones I don't like the taste of or have other issues with—I no longer regard veg as so healthy that one should force oneself or one’s children to eat them if enough meat, fat and organs, and maybe blood or seafood or iodine and magnesium, are being consumed and no problems are being experienced)...

> seaweeds (creatures that are midway between plants and animals): kelp, seaweed salad [interestingly, seaweeds are not weeds or even plants--they're midway between plants and animals, with aspects of both]
> Asteraceae: lettuce (young), endive (chicory), dandelion root, chamomile [avoiding: sunflower, safflower, artichoke]
> Apiaceae: chervil, anise, carrot, celery, fennel [avoiding: parsley, parsnip]
> Rhizomes: ginger [avoiding: asparagus]
> Brassicaceae (aka cruciferae, crucifers): cabbage, broccoli, mustard (especially greens), radish, horseradish, wasabi, watercress, bok choy, arugula [avoiding: rapeseed, brussels sprout, kale, kohlrabi, turnip, rutabaga, cauliflower]
> Allium: scallion, leek, shallot, garlic [avoiding: onion]
> Extra virgin olive oil
> Sesame (the seaweed salad sold at my market includes it and it’s in some of the sushi dishes I occasionally eat)

Some plant foods I tried in the past that I will avoid:
Amaranthaceae: chard, spinach, beet, quinoa, sorrel (Spinach Dock) [other than sorrel, which is sweet, these plants taste crappy to me; the large sorrel sold in markets is expensive and the various species of sorrel are apparently more toxic than most greens]
Flax—works wonders on the skin and wounds but never did anything much for my insides, no matter how much I consumed

Results so far: I don't notice any benefits from these plants/seaweeds, but neither do I notice significant ill effects, other than maybe feeling a little more optimal on days that I only eat meat/fat/organs.

Fear and Avoidance vs. Courage and Robustification: Avoiding all risk vs. making onself Robust/Resilient to Risk

From Wikipedia: "Robustification is a form of optimisation whereby a system is made less sensitive to the effects of random variability, or noise, that is present in that system’s input variables and parameters."

Time and again in recent weeks I've noticed that Mother Culture preaches the gospel of fear, dread and avoidance. MC advocates trying to avoid all risks. This is an impossible feat. Paradoxically, while reducing minor risks, it tends to result in greatly increasing the chances of major risks. For example, by dreading, avoiding and killing bacteria in general, as though they were all "bad", MC has generated new superbacteria that are more virulent and harder to kill than their natural precursors.

Instead of trying to avoid all risks (ex: all bacteria), we should focus on the major ones (ex: botulinum) and robustify ourselves (eat raw meat, high meat and other probiotic foods) to them.

Brilliant folks like Nassim Taleb and Benoît Mandelbrot are applying robustification to other fields beyond diet. It has already become one of the key principles of the 21st century.

[djr_81]

Goodbye Sandman
A symptom that disappeared that I'm not sure whether I reported in the past or not: "sand" in the eyes. I no longer ever get this, regardless of how few or many hours of sleep I get, since going VLC. So perhaps the sandman only visits those who eat substantial carbs? Any other VLC/ZCers experience this?

I had not realized this until you just mentioned it but I've had the same results.

[PaleoPhil]

Forgot to mention that last Thursday I had an eye-opening experience about how badly I still can be affected by gluten at the company BBQ. I ate 2 or 3 big pieces of chicken and 2 sets of ribs smothered in sweet BBQ sauce. The sauce likely contained some gluten because several hours later I developed nausea, was doubled over by pain, experienced weird and unpleasant daydreams, tinnitus, mucus flowing up my throat to my mouth that had to be spit out to avoid choking, and music repeating in head. The next morning I had a sore throat, sinus congestion, yuck-mouth, and mental fog. All of these are symptoms I used to get before I cut out gluten, so I suspect that the BBQ sauce had some. Last year I had some mild discomfort from the BBQ, but this year they really slathered the sauce on. Stupid of me not to at least stick to the chicken breast and take the skin off it. I'll try to remember this lesson next year.

Now the good news. I tried about a 1/4 cup of berries this morning at the cafeteria and handled it pretty well. So when I saw wild organic Maine blueberries for sale at the market I bought a pint. I ate a cup of them and measured by BG before and 1 hour postprandial. The 1 hour number was actually lower than the measure before I ate the berries! Plus, these berries didn't leave a film on my teeth like most other fruits. Not surprising, really, because they aren't very sweet. Less sweet than the usual supermarket berries--even the organic ones. So wild berries may be a fruit I can handle.

[PaleoPhil]

I decided to really put these wild berries to the test and ate the rest of the pint. I did get a very mild bit of acne but it isn't even visible, and I did also get a sore throat this morning--another common issue I get from carbs--so the berries weren't totally benign for me, but not too bad.

[RawZi]

wild organic Maine blueberries for sale at the market I bought a pint. I ate a cup of them and measured by BG before and 1 hour postprandial. The 1 hour number was actually lower than the measure before I ate the berries!

    Yay!  I'm glad you found another food you may be able to eat.   

    I love blueberries too.  I almost got some decent ones at a farm here, but the rains came too late, and they dried up before ripening.

    I had bbq sauce at a party too once since RAF.  It was so nice to be served a big thick raw steak, that I didn't complain about the sauce they had on it.  No noticeable reaction for me though.  Sorry it made you so sick.  That's terrible.  Bbbq sauce usually has vinegar in it.  Typical American vinegar is made from grain, but I don't know which grain.  I assume wheat.  Most vinegars make me bleed all over.  I've never been able to use most, but Braggs AppleCV is one of the few I can deal with if not overdone.

[PaleoPhil]

This past weekend I went to NJ with my parents to celebrate the birthday's of my mother and aunt. I ate the closest-to-Paleo foods available, which included some berries, peaches and potatoes. I got some of the usual symptoms from plant carbs of fatigue, yawning, scum on the teeth, morning breath, etc. from the plant carbs.

[PaleoPhil]

Vivo Barefoot Shoes

While walking on the local river trail I removed my shoes and placed them on a log away from the trail so that I could go for a barefoot walk/sprint combo and then wade in a stream. I thought I had put them far enough out of obvious sight, but when I returned I discovered that they were gone. I had passed some youths that looked of college age and guessed that one of the boys probably threw them in the adjacent river. Sure enough, there they were. It turned out to be lucky for me, though, because when I rinsed the mud out I noticed that they have removable inserts. I removed the inserts and they now feel much better on my feet.

It's pretty ridiculous for a company that promotes barefoot walking to stick inserts in its shoes and not even mention it in the literature. I imagine that they're there for people who need time to adjust to barefoot-style shoes, but they should at least mention that they're there and can be removed.

As for the shoes--I already loved them and now I super-love them. My main complaint was that the sole was too thick and now it seems sufficiently thin to me--like a moccasin. I now get a very good feel of the ground that massages my feet more. It also caused me to notice that I was still using too much heel and my walking style rapidly adjusted.

High Meat and Food Storage Observations

Most folks unacquainted with high meat and aged meats and fats assume that all aged meat is the same and all rots in a disgusting way and all tastes awful. My experience is that these are all false assumptions. For example, grassfed suet left in plastic in the fridge for a few days gets moist and semi-gross looking and tastes awful to me, but grassfed suet aged in a paper bag in a cabinet dries a bit and tastes good and tastes better the longer it's left to age (it often eventually develops what tastes to me like a slight cinnamon note, believe it or not). As a matter of fact, air-drying suet was the only way I could get myself to eat much of it raw. (Warning: don't store air-dried ground beef in a paper bag, as it absorbs flavors and will thus absorb a paper taste--not a problem with jerky, though).

Once I left meat that was still in the original plastic too long in the fridge. The plastic bulged like a balloon (likely due to gases emitted by toxic bacteria--healthy meat bacteria emit much less gas). Foolishly, I opened the package and bit into the meat anyway, curious as to how improperly rotted meat would taste (and momentarily forgetting about the chance that there might be harmful levels of pathogenic bacteria). It tasted awful and tasted completely different from my high meat fermented for much longer in a glass jar and aired out every 4-7 days (the recommended time frame is shorter, but I nearly always forget to do it on time, but haven't had any problems).

So whatever your negative assumptions about high meat, erase them from your mind. It tastes pretty bad to begin with, but you gradually get used to it and I'm even starting to like it a little (it has reached the point where it has a spicy taste reminiscent of black pepper with a little salt, and it tingles my tongue now, like the way raw fermented cod liver oil did when I first tried it).

The longer meats and fats are left in plastic or metal containers, the worse they taste. The longer they are left in the open air, the better they taste. Time and time again, plastic and metal seem to be the key problem when it comes to storing foods. Try to avoid using them.

Nowadays, as soon as I get food home, whatever I don't put into the freezer I either remove from the plastic or open the plastic to the air. For example, with cabbage and salad greens I open the plastic bags they come in and cover the opening with a paper towel to keep them dry and avoid wilting them. If the plastic bags are left closed in the fridge, they rapidly become soggy and bad tasting. With grassfed ground beef and grassfed suet I immediately remove whatever I'm not going to freeze. Whatever beef I don't air dry I put in glass containers.