The Stone Age Diet

[carnivore]

The book is available online here :
https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&send_id=729378333&email=bae3a2e0a2ba2088a765e0fe70b3353a

The author advocates a low carb carnivorous diet.

A review taken from http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/showthread.php?tid=2479 :

Now that we can read it, the book deserves it own thread. I just finished it and I would consider it a MUST READ for all carber restricters, whether ZC, VLC, or LC.

Walter Voegtlin was a gastroenterologist, and his book on carnivorous/low carb nutrition is comprehensive and written from the perspective of a physician that treated patients in the real world. His argument for man as carnivore is well demonstrated, and he is most emphatic about fat meat being the only thing a human needs. He belongs in the ZC hall of fame alongside Stefansson, Banting, Taubes, Pennington, and Price for contributions to our knowledge -- and indeed like Banting published the work at his own expense and without fanfare or recognition.

The book does have its flaws: his map of human evolution is of course several decades out of date, he appeared to be unaware of the ability of the CNS to run partially on ketones, and the last few "save the world" chapters could have been omitted altogether (a flaw of self-publishing and not screened by a good editor). His prescribed low carb diets also fall short of his open enthusiam for zero carb -- which he never actually prescribes, but this is now the pattern I have seen with pro-meat physicians that advocated carb restriction: from Donaldson to Anchell to Atkins. Even Stefansson stops short of actually recommending zero carb to the average joe in NBBA, though he proves it works. If the Eades actually promote "all meat" in their latest book, it will be a first. I suspect these working physicians deemed zero carb as too challenging psychologically to recommend it to their patients.

Yet on the whole it remains a must read. I think that those who have come to ZC due to gastrointestinal issues will find this book especially edifying.

[goodsamaritan]

Awesome find!
Thank you very much!
I've downloaded it and started reading it.

In my experience, in the past 3 times I've experienced inflamed intestines, what works is roasted / seared meats of fatty pork and beef.  It is immediately soothing.  No chance in hell fruits or vegetables would have helped with those incidents.

[Raw Rob]

Thank you so much Carnivore!

I'm going to read this cover to cover.

I wanted this book a long time ago and could never find it.

I came to zero carb because of colitis.

I'm going to print out a copy for my neighbor who has colitis, and is still using drugs to treat it.

 

[Ioanna]

Thanks, can't wait to read!

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, thank you very much Frederic. I've been meaning to get my hands on this for a couple years now.

The following is an interesting quote from the book. I wonder if it qualifies as a hypothesis of diseases of civilization being caused by biological discordance and thus preempts Boyd Eaton's hypothesis in the 1985 New England Journal of Medicine? What do you think?

p. XV:

It is now realized that whereas the environment of an organism such as Man may change very rapidly, physical and functional changes in him are accomplished only through a process of evolution, and such adaptive alterations occur in Nature only with profound deliberation, over millions of years.

Thus we can envision a collision course existing between unchanging Man and his rapidly changing environment. The more rapid his environmental changes, the more imminent is the inevitable collision.

This book is a study of the ecology of Man, as his environment has changed with (relatively) lightning-like rapidity from prehistorical to modern times, ana to delineate the effect these changes have had on human nutrition.

An attempt will be made to answer the question: "Is modern Man actually better or worse off nutritionally than was his Stone Age forbear?"

I believe this is the first book to advocate a Paleo/Stone Age diet. It was beaten out slightly by an article that came out in 1973, however. Stephen Boyden's “Evolution and Health,” published in The Ecologist, advocated a plant-based "primeval" diet, though I don't remember whether Boyden made any specific mention of the Paleolithic/Stone Age or biological discordance.

[TylerDurden]

Topic moved to hot topics as it covers cooked diets.

[PaleoPhil]

Yeah, you may not want to read this book, Tyler, if you haven't already, as you may find it very upsetting. There is only a smidgeon of pro-raw-meat language and it is decidedly anti-raw-plant-foods. Here is the semi-positive stuff about raw meat, and even here he seems to lean toward believing the pro-cooked meat Stefansson more than the other explorers:

From WALTER L. VOEGTLIN, M.D., F.A.C.P., The Stone Age Diet

pp. 121-123: <<The Alaska Eskimos and those living adjacent to the sea have access to large marine animals, such as the seal and walrus, as well as to fish, game birds, caribou, and moose. Their economy differs from those preceding in that they have an abundance of fats and oils to the point where they are used freely for heat and light as well as for food. The Eskimo considers anything from the vegetable kingdom as a substitute for food, to be eaten only to avoid starvation. [23 LIVING OFF THE COUNTRY Angier, Bradford, The Stackpole Company, Harrisburg, Penn.-1956] Mr. John Simpson, Surgeon, R.N., wintered with the Point Barrow Eskimos in 1854. [7 CANCER: DISEASE OF CIVILIZATION? Stefansson, Vilhjalmur Hill and Wang, New York-1960] His is one of the earliest descriptions of the Eskimo diet, noting that they avoided all vegetable foods and salt, living on fat and lean meat, which was either raw or undercooked. These folk were robust, muscular, and active, inclining to spareness, rather than corpulence, although their round faces and thick clothing gave the impression of being overweight. Anthropologist John Murdoch [7] observed these people about 1880 and confirmed the absence of vegetable materials in the diet, except during periods of famine. About 1896 J. H. Romig, M.D. [7], observed the Bering Sea Eskimos and found them living as they had for many centuries. He describes an Eskimo meal being served to the husbands, fathers and sons by the women. The food, cooked mostly by boiling, consisted of game and fish, dried smoked salmon and other dried fish, seal, and fish oils. When cooked the meat was rather rare; during the winter much frozen meat and fish was consumed raw. The only plant substance mentioned by Dr. Romig was cranberries, which were saved for special occasions, mixed with seal meat and tallow and eaten with snow. ....

The most accurate observations of the Eskimo were those of Vilhjalmur Stefansson. [41 THE FAT OF THE LAND Stefansson, Vilhjalmur The MacMillan Company, New York-1957] ... Contrary to the statements of others, Stefansson avers that the Eskimo does not eat the entire animal, nor is much of their meat eaten raw. Cooking is by boiling or roasting. He spent a total of eleven and a half years among the Eskimos, of which time about nine years were spent on the Eskimo diet. ....

Recent intrusions of civilization have markedly altered the Eskimo diet in some instances. ... About 60% of the natural foods are eaten raw and 30% are boiled.>>

[goodsamaritan]

I've read the book.
It is not written from a healer's point of view.
If the man was a healer attending to many sick patients he would know raw meat rocks much louder than cooked.

[TylerDurden]

Yes, it's unfortunate that Voegtlin liked to refer to  Stefansson's dodgy, unsupported  claims re Eskimos supposedly not eating much raw and not eating all the organs. I mean, I understand why Stefansson lied/distorted the evidence as few people would have been interested in eating a partially-raw meat diet like the Inuit, but he should have been honest.

[carnivore]

yeh, if we want a book on raw meat diet, we'll have to write it ourselves !

[TylerDurden]

yeh, if we want a book on raw meat diet, we'll have to write it ourselves !

Frankly, I wish we had more raw-meat-oriented gurus than just Aajonus.

[Raw Kyle]

Frankly, I wish we had more raw-meat-oriented gurus than just Aajonus.

I don't think having people that charge $300 USD to say you are mercury poisoned and should eat cubes of cheese and cream/butter and raw meat would help us at all. I think being relatively guru-free is one of the greatest attributes of the raw paleo community. We have a group of people who have varying levels of experience on the diet vs. a couple of people who claim to be all knowledgeable and are making a lot of money on advice and promotion of products. It might keep us a bit smaller than other diets, but it's more pure.