Why NOT low carb?

[SkinnyDevil]

New enough here to have missed round one, but I'm wondering why some folks dislike low carb.

[goodsamaritan]

New enough here to have missed round one, but I'm wondering why some folks dislike low carb.

They have not experimented with low carb yet.  They have not experienced low carb yet.  Fear of the unknown. 
My reasons above because I used to be on raw paleo diet high carb, low fat until late 2008.

[SuperInfinity]

Because you may as well go "low protein" or "low fat". It doesn't make evolutionary sense to try to quantify foods like that.

It's not what paleo man ate except in very occasional times. If you have metabolic syndrome or something and want to do it that's fine, but that's not paleo. *shrugs* It's not my fault. Low carb is something else. It's not very paleo-like to go counting carbs, or anything else.
 

[SkinnyDevil]

Interesting perspective, SI.

Also wondering, in regard to the "Farmers' thread, why you said (paraphrasing) "stop eating raw meat, it's full of parasites".

1) Assuming this to be true, do you think the human GI tract incapable of dealing with parasites?

2) Do you think parasites are dangerous to humans?

3) Do you eat raw meats?

4) What do you find acceptable from a paleo perspective? In other words, what do you think is the ideal diet?

[SuperInfinity]

Interesting perspective, SI.

Also wondering, in regard to the "Farmers' thread, why you said (paraphrasing) "stop eating raw meat, it's full of parasites".

1) Assuming this to be true, do you think the human GI tract incapable of dealing with parasites?

No. But do you think we should eat nearly every insect out there as our ancestors did? I believe things such as the prominent mosquito outbreaks and the West Nile virus are due to human civilisation. The common house fly can be super toxic because of man-made stuff he's picked up (I don't believe he's as toxic as is made out, I might even eat a few, but I don't think they're all involved in a huge conspiracy). A thought just occured to me randomly... why don't starving people eat flies? Someone said that the amount of people in the world that eat insects outnumbers those that don't... but why don't we ever see them eating flies?

2) Do you think parasites are dangerous to humans?

Again, not in nature, when freshly captured, no. But VERY strange things happen with human interference. I ate raw mussels and felt great after them, but it was foolish of me, there could have been ANYTHING in them.

3) Do you eat raw meats?

No. I've eaten raw liver and it was nice. It tasted about the same as cooked liver, unlike fish vs raw fish.   

4) What do you find acceptable from a paleo perspective? In other words, what do you think is the ideal diet?

For me fruit is what you should be eating most of. Acceptable is difficult for me to quantify. For example I would put sweetcorn up there as being one of the top things you could eat, but a little worse than fruit because we haven't had it much in paleo times. Peanuts I think are on a lower "tier" again, but "acceptable" for me even if they're flavoured.... I try to avoid but don't count them as "cheating".

I've been thinking of making a kind of diet "scoresheet" with points in it, meaning to do it for a while but I'm continually learning more. I'm afraid it would work better though if you can only receive negative points... such as in a golf score. This wouldn't reward me for getting spinach and blueberries though... but I love getting those foods anyway. Even trashy foods would have their score, and I want to document everything. As I said before a cellphone application might be a very easy method of doing it. When I've it made out I'll post it here and you can see my detailed views on it.

[phatdave]

counting carbs? the point is that paleo man had access to very little in the way of carbs. Why not low carb? Because it takes a period of time to adjust to, during which you feel a little down - which might negatively affect an event of significance/importance during that period.

[SkinnyDevil]

Interesting, SI.

I'll have to read some more of your posts. You have an interesting take on paleo.

Tell me, do you eat mostly raw?

How much meat do you consume?

When you consume meat, how is it cooked (boiled, fried, baked...well-done, medium, rare)?

Similar to you, it seems, I eat a LOT of fruits & veggies. I then tend to gorge on meats (though not this month during my vegan experiment)...except my meats are typically raw or extremely rare.

We need a thread on the origin of cooking...

[The Barbarian]

Because you may as well go "low protein" or "low fat". It doesn't make evolutionary sense to try to quantify foods like that.

It's not what paleo man ate except in very occasional times. If you have metabolic syndrome or something and want to do it that's fine, but that's not paleo. *shrugs* It's not my fault. Low carb is something else. It's not very paleo-like to go counting carbs, or anything else.
 

If you love your carbs noone is gonna take em away from you. But the fact remains that they are an unnesesary nutrient. Man can thrive without carbs. Trying to go without protein or fat will result in death! And in paleo times there werent carbs to eat at every turn like there is now being promoted and sold to the general poulation because they are a cheap filler sourse of energy and once a person is hooked on them they will buy more  and more and more (as well as more often) every time their blood sugar fluctuates. Before the time of planting crops etc.   where would all the carbs have come from that paleo man ate? Ovecourse they didn't count carbs like we do,  they weren't surrounded by them.

[TylerDurden]

SOME people can thrive without carbsbut others like me ultimately die without any carbs at all.

As regards the issue of diet, even a fruitarian/vegan diet can contain fat and protein(they just have to be selective re plant-choices).Similiarly, an all-animal-food diet inevitably contains some carbs, such as in liver, mussels and oysters etc.

[PaleoPhil]

...Similiarly, an all-animal-food diet inevitably contains some carbs, such as in liver, mussels and oysters etc.

That got me thinking--so you could do an all-animal-food diet and still get your carbs if you wanted to. Do you like those animal carbs and have you ever tried that?

[The Barbarian]

SOME people can thrive without carbsbut others like me ultimately die without any carbs at all.

As regards the issue of diet, even a fruitarian/vegan diet can contain fat and protein(they just have to be selective re plant-choices).Similiarly, an all-animal-food diet inevitably contains some carbs, such as in liver, mussels and oysters etc.

So your body wont produce glucose from fat and protein?

[TylerDurden]

That got me thinking--so you could do an all-animal-food diet and still get your carbs if you wanted to. Do you like those animal carbs and have you ever tried that?

Well, my zero-carb experiments just involved (90% fatty) muscle-meats and suet and marrow(all raw with 1 exception). I often eat raw  liver and raw mussels/oysters outside such zc trials but not during those previous times(I think I wanted to make 100% sure that I was eating enough animal fat so, other than some free-range turkey breast-fillets, I just ate raw fatty muscle-meat and raw suet/marrow.

I particularly enjoy the raw oysters and have 20 of them every fotnight(extra-large double ones, usually). Raw liver and mussels I eat less often.

[TylerDurden]

So your body wont produce glucose from fat and protein?

Not that. I meant simply that my body does fine on zc for c.2-3 weeks(well, except for a msssive drop in physical performance re loss of endurance after about 2 weeks or less). Then my body, after 3 weeks, gets all sorts of highly uncomfortable symptoms/conditions such as bleeding gums, severely weakened teeth etc, before I have to give up c.5-6 weeks into the zc trial.

[carnivore]

Not that. I meant simply that my body does fine on zc for c.2-3 weeks(well, except for a msssive drop in physical performance re loss of endurance after about 2 weeks or less). Then my body, after 3 weeks, gets all sorts of highly uncomfortable symptoms/conditions such as bleeding gums, severely weakened teeth etc, before I have to give up c.5-6 weeks into the zc trial.

Very weird. What were the other symptoms/conditions ?
Did you see any correlations between the severity of your symptoms and your fat/protein intake ?
Did you try a ZC diet more than one time ?

There is often a temporary drop in physical performance when switching to ZC.  The body needs time to use fatty acids/ketons as primary fuel instead of glucose.

[TylerDurden]

Very weird. What were the other symptoms/conditions ?
Did you see any correlations between the severity of your symptoms and your fat/protein intake ?
Did you try a ZC diet more than one time ?

There is often a temporary drop in physical performance when switching to ZC.  The body needs time to use fatty acids/ketons as primary fuel instead of glucose.

Everything went wrong re my body during those zc trials(I did 3 proper ones according to Stefansson guidelines and 1 other, beforehand, which was not meant to be zc but was(and definitely not in accordance with Stefansson's rules). I got a highly racing heart(became worse when on one of the trials I did 1 week of eating mildly heated suet in addition to the raw meats), unquenchable thirst(no matter how much I drank). Various numerous adrenal-related issues resurfaced that I'd cured years before on low-carb rawpalaeo(ie dizziness, chronic fatigue,reduced ability to concentrate/lack of alertness, increased sensitivity to heat, and just an overall feeling of doom and feeling increasingly like death warmed up. Eventually, it got to the point where the symptoms all became so overwhelming that my life was dominated by them, and, anyway, I couldn't force myself to continue eating enough of the raw meats as I had developed an overwhelming disgust for them due to my body's overwhelming need for carbs, so I was faced with prolonged starvation with me perhaps forcing myself to eat a small scrap of raw meat every few days.

[carnivore]

Everything went wrong re my body during those zc trials(I did 3 proper ones according to Stefansson guidelines and 1 other, beforehand, which was not meant to be zc but was(and definitely not in accordance with Stefansson's rules). I got a highly racing heart(became worse when on one of the trials I did 1 week of eating mildly heated suet in addition to the raw meats), unquenchable thirst(no matter how much I drank). Various numerous adrenal-related issues resurfaced that I'd cured years before on low-carb rawpalaeo(ie dizziness, chronic fatigue,reduced ability to concentrate/lack of alertness, increased sensitivity to heat, and just an overall feeling of doom and feeling increasingly like death warmed up. Eventually, it got to the point where the symptoms all became so overwhelming that my life was dominated by them, and, anyway, I couldn't force myself to continue eating enough of the raw meats as I had developed an overwhelming disgust for them due to my body's overwhelming need for carbs, so I was faced with prolonged starvation with me perhaps forcing myself to eat a small scrap of raw meat every few days.

Were your ZC trials 80/20 by calories and what was the approximate amount of fat and protein you ate ?
Unquenchable thirst is generally related to too much protein.

I have some of your symptoms but milder (like increased pulse and fatigue) after 8 months on ZC. They get worst when I eat too much. Adding carbs does nothing for me (except worsening my digestive symptoms).

I suspect you ate too much food (did you monitor your weight ?) and suffered from protein/fat poisoning.
Maybe it's not the carbs that you needed, it was to eat less protein/fat. Reintroducing carbs in your diet simply makes you eat less protein/fat ?

[PaleoPhil]

Well, my zero-carb experiments just involved (90% fatty) muscle-meats and suet and marrow(all raw with 1 exception). I often eat raw  liver and raw mussels/oysters outside such zc trials but not during those previous times(I think I wanted to make 100% sure that I was eating enough animal fat so, other than some free-range turkey breast-fillets, I just ate raw fatty muscle-meat and raw suet/marrow.

I particularly enjoy the raw oysters and have 20 of them every fotnight(extra-large double ones, usually). Raw liver and mussels I eat less often.

I'm not interested in changing your diet, but this does leave me wondering for scientific-inquiry reasons whether you would have done OK on a carnivorous diet that included some animal carbs (like from raw oysters), rather than a ZC diet. I suspect that animal carbs are more easily digested and healthful than plant carbs and that the main reason ZC is beneficial for many is because it is more carnivorous, rather than because it is literally ZC (which it often is not, as many have pointed out). In other words, I should probably say that I am a carnivorous RPDer rather than a ZC RPDer. Also, opportunistic carnivory does allow for the occasional ingestion of some carb-containing plants like wild berries, whereas "Zero Carb" has such an absolutist sound to it. The more I think about it, the more carnivory seems like a better term than ZC. Of course, one likely reason that ZC tends to get used more than carnivory, is that the latter is much less acceptable socially, and is more likely to result in being attacked by vegetarian/vegan/PETA fanatics.

[TylerDurden]

Were your ZC trials 80/20 by calories and what was the approximate amount of fat and protein you ate ?
Unquenchable thirst is generally related to too much protein.

I have some of your symptoms but milder (like increased pulse and fatigue) after 8 months on ZC. They get worst when I eat too much. Adding carbs does nothing for me (except worsening my digestive symptoms).

I suspect you ate too much food (did you monitor your weight ?) and suffered from protein/fat poisoning.
Maybe it's not the carbs that you needed, it was to eat less protein/fat. Reintroducing carbs in your diet simply makes you eat less protein/fat ?

The unquenchable thirst was due to carbs as it went away immediately when I had raw fruit, at the end.

In those trials, I made sure to have enough fat-intake(only lean meat I had was free-range turkey breast-fillets and even then I had that just once a fortnight with marrow). Overall, I ate either lots of marrow or lots of suet with each meat-meal, so it couldn't have happend due to lack of fat.

As far as overeating is concerned, if that were correct, then I should have had far fewer negative symptoms as my appetite for raw meats dropped like a stone and  started eating only tiny amounts of meat/fat each day. Actually, my symptoms kept on worsening at the same rate.

My own theory is that going zc puts an extra  strain on the glandular system(judging from anecdotal reports on the subject) so that anyone with former glandular-related issues  is particularly advised to stay away from zc diets.

[carnivore]

The unquenchable thirst was due to carbs as it went away immediately when I had raw fruit, at the end.

In those trials, I made sure to have enough fat-intake(only lean meat I had was free-range turkey breast-fillets and even then I had that just once a fortnight with marrow). Overall, I ate either lots of marrow or lots of suet with each meat-meal, so it couldn't have happend due to lack of fat.

As far as overeating is concerned, if that were correct, then I should have had far fewer negative symptoms as my appetite for raw meats dropped like a stone and  started eating only tiny amounts of meat/fat each day. Actually, my symptoms kept on worsening at the same rate.

My own theory is that going zc puts an extra  strain on the glandular system(judging from anecdotal reports on the subject) so that anyone with former glandular-related issues  is particularly advised to stay away from zc diets.

How does ZC puts an extra strain on the glandular system ?
I just wonder what roles does carbs play in the glandular system.

[TylerDurden]

How does ZC puts an extra strain on the glandular system ?
I just wonder what roles does carbs play in the glandular system.

I'm just quoting Craig's comment re this. He suggested that going raw zero carb fucked up one's adrenal system.