Raw vegans vs. raw paleo

[pookietooth]

I have done a low carb diet, and also a modified paleo diet, and found that definitely carbs do make me gain weight (very rapidly). I have a friend who is doing a raw vegan diet who says that animal protein can also raise insulin, and that a raw vegan diet that is mostly green veggies and low glycemic nuts, seeds and a few fruits like tomatoes is better to control insulin levels and lose weight. I don't know whom to believe. I know that I need lots of protein and I do also eat some green veggies. I do get tired of meat sometimes. Is there any information about the paleo diet and its effects on insulin?

[lex_rooker]

The body needs both protein and some form of energy - either fat or carbs.  The problem with a vegan diet, raw or cooked, is that the proteins are very poor and incomplete so you must mix a lot of stuff together to get an adequate mix of the required amino acids.  Many of us have come from a vegan background and have learned the hard way that it will not sustain good health over the long term.

Protein will raise blood glucose (BG) regardless of the source - vegetable or animal.  The body converts 58% of protein eaten into blood glucose.  You cannot stop this process.  However, your body must have high quality protein to maintain good health so your goal should be to eat the most complete and best quality protein available (containing all 23 required amino acids) but limit it to between 15% and 25% of total calories eaten.  The only source of complete protein is animal foods.  It also takes the body 3-4 hours to convert protein into BG so the rise in BG is slower and over and extended time.

The next question is the choice between fats and carbs.  All carbs are turned into glucose almost at a 1 to 1 ratio - eat a gram of carb and you get a gram of glucose in the blood.  The only difference between carbs is how hard the body must work to extract the carb from the cellular structure of the food, in other words the glycemic index.  Most processed foods are digested quickly and raise BG very rapidly.  Most raw foods with low sugar content (green vegetables) have fewer carbs to begin and the body works harder to extract the carb so the rise in BG is still gram for gram based on the carb content of the food but takes more time.  Also the body does not need any carbs at all to maintain good health.  There are many on this message board who eat no carbs and haven't eaten carbs for years, yet are in great health.  All the nutrients necessary, including vitamin C, are in meat products.

Fat is made up of the exact same components as carbs but the molecules are arranged differently so they are handled completely differently in the body.  Eating fat will not raise BG at all.  It will also not contribute to weight gain as there is no glycerol phosphate created during fat digestion that will allow the proper form of triglycerides to be created for fat storage.  Just the opposite happens with carbs.  When glucose rises dramatically from ingesting carbs, insulin is released and this causes glycerol phosphate to be created which forms the basis of the triglyceride molecule and the excess BG is hustled off to be stored as fat.  This is the way the body gets rid of excess BG which is very dangerous when it rises to high - it's a survival mechanism.

Most of us have found that limiting carbs to something around 75g per day or less (many of us eat zero carbs), and making our diet based on 75% to 85% fat and 15% to 25% protein gives us complete control over BG and reduces or eliminates completely all the modern diseases like diabetes, Crohn's disease, lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and on and on.

I can recommend a couple of books to help lay the foundation for a better understanding.  The first is "Life Without Bread" by Christian Allan & Wolfgang Lutz.  This is an easy read and the one I would start with.  The second book is "Good Calories Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.  This book will help you break the myth that fat is bad and carbs are good.  Taubes also has a video webcast lecture that is about 2 hours in lenght that is very good.  It is available at:

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216

I think this requires Real Player to watch but it is a free down load and well worth the effort.

Lex

[Raw Kyle]

I have about 3 years experience trying to make the raw vegan diet work for me. I can say that I looked my worst on that diet, very skinny. I find that a lot with raw vegan men, less so with the women. Maybe it's just that skinny is fashionable for women but not to the same extent with men so I don't notice it for cultural reasons.

Also even though I was convinced meat was expensive this diet is way cheaper and arguably (depending on where you get your food from) more ecological. It does take more resources to raise animals over plants, but shipping and how the land is used (intensive farming vs. relatively harmless pasturing) and other factors can make the plant based diet less environmentally friendly than an animal based one. Also if you're healthier on animal foods you'll have less reason to use supplements and other stuff, which is very rampant in the raw vegan world.

I'm still learning and am interested in doing serious research on the effects of food on the body (more in depth than ever done before) but at this point I'm pretty convinced that raw paleo is healthier than raw vegan.

[xylothrill]

One difference between carbs and protein is that carbs stimulate insulin production while protein stimulates the production of insulin as well as glucagon. Glucagon helps negate some of the effects of insulin, such as fat storage.

"Carbohydrate greatly raises insulin and has no effect on
glucagon.

A high carbohydrate and low protein diet has the greatest adverse
effect on the insulin-glucagon ratio.

Protein slightly raises both.

Fat has no effect on either.

A diet that is moderate in protein and low in carbohydrate is the
best way to have ideal levels of both insulin and glucagon.  This
is good news, but when you try reducing carbohydrate intake, you
will find out just how addicted you are!" From: http://www.royalrife.com/protein.html

Craig

 

[Satya]

Raw vegan diets are so difficult to maintain.  I have been vegan in the past, and even tried raw vegan, but it was not doable for me.  I went back to animal foods as I felt deficient raw vegan.  The fact that people often need coaches to help them maintain such a plan tells me that it is not a good choice.  The fact that certain vitamins like A (true vitamin A, not beta carotene which some people cannot convert to retinol), B-6, B-12, D , fat acids and maybe others are not found in plant foods but are needed by humans, is evidence that we need some animal foods in our diet.  The problems of hair loss and tooth decay often found in long term raw vegans demonstrates that it obviously is not an optimal or even sufficient diet for humans. 

And the gobs of food you must consume to eat adequate calories is insane!  With higher food prices, I would bet that raw vegan diets will lose their appeal in the near future.  I mean, red bell peppers cost about $4 a lb now for me.  So does grass fed ground beef.  I get 40 calories and some vitamin c with the lb of peppers but hundreds of calories and a load of nutrients from the beef.  If I eat that beef raw, then I get even more nutrients and calories (ask Tyler about more calories in raw meat, as I still struggle with that concept). 

I am free to concentrate on things other than food on a raw paleo diet, whereas on raw vegan, I was eating or thinking about it all the time!  And I am slimmer now than I have been in years, though I only have been about 15 lbs overweight in the last several years.  I have less than 10 lbs to lose now!  It is interesting, Kyle, that men get skinny and lose all their muscle, yet women can stay chunky (probably due to less muscle and more fat naturally).

Protein is so vital for us to have.  How much and what types of plant foods would you need to meet minimum requirements?  Nuts and seeds are the only high protein choices for the raw vegan, and they can cause allergies, have high PUFAS and no DHA.  Lex is right about animal foods being superior in the protein department. 

[wodgina]

I got into  diets after seeing the before and after photos on raw vegan sites, many of the transformations were dramatic to say the least! I didnt want to follw a vegan diet because most of the girls I knew who were vegan binged on chips and biscuits and the guys I knew were skinny and weak looking so I looked for something in between, so started eating raw eggs and fish. I still lost 10 kg even with the eggs and fish, I lost a lot of muscle but felt not too bad.

I currently believe a 99% raw animal food diet is optimal for me.

[TheWayCreatesTheWarrior]

Most raw foods with low sugar content (green vegetables) have fewer carbs to begin and the body works harder to extract the carb so the rise in BG is still gram for gram based on the carb content of the food but takes more time. 

i drink  a green juice about every other day, is there a dramatic effect on blood glucose after consuming juice made from celery/romaine lettuce/cucumber/parsley/lemon ?

 Eating fat will not raise BG at all.  It will also not contribute to weight gain as there is no glycerol phosphate created during fat digestion that will allow the proper form of triglycerides to be created for fat storage.  Just the opposite happens with carbs.  When glucose rises dramatically from ingesting carbs, insulin is released and this causes glycerol phosphate to be created which forms the basis of the triglyceride molecule and the excess BG is hustled off to be stored as fat.  This is the way the body gets rid of excess BG which is very dangerous when it rises to high - it's a survival mechanism.

im still slightly confused on this.

 where does the Glycerol Phosphate come from, the carbohydrate itself, or does the body produce it in response to the glucose in the blood?

[Raw Kyle]

I'm a little rusty on my organic chemistry but glycerol phosphate looks to me like glucose minus one hydrogen, plus one phosphate, and double bonded to an oxygen atom. Glucose has an equilibrium of cyclic and non-cyclic forms, the only form that is usable in glycolysis for energy is the d-glucose form, which is also what is referred to as dextrose. Glycerol phosphate on the other hand according to what I'm looking at looks like it's a non-cyclic chain. So although I probably couldn't write it out now due to my rustiness it looks to me like the reaction from glucose to glycerol phosphate would be a simple phosphorylation probably using ATP for the phosphate and rendering that into ADP.

[lex_rooker]

i drink  a green juice about every other day, is there a dramatic effect on blood glucose after consuming juice made from celery/romaine lettuce/cucumber/parsley/lemon ?

Any free carbohydrates will rapidly raise BG as there is no cellulose to break down to slow the absorption.  Most of these sugars are in the form of monosaccarides which are the simplest forms of free sugar.  That said, I found the anti-nutrient problem far worse than the rise in BG.  By juicing greens you concentrate a lot of elements that actually block the absorption of what nutrients are in the juice.  Many people, myself included get diarrhea or very loose and smelly stools when consuming green juices.  Let's face it Paleo ancestors didn't have juicers.  If they ate something, they ate the whole thing.

where does the Glycerol Phosphate come from, the carbohydrate itself, or does the body produce it in response to the glucose in the blood?

Alpha Glycerol Phosphate (AGP) is a by product of blood glucose metabolism in the presence of insulin.  If there is only a small slow rise in BG then muscles and other body systems can absorb it directly and little or no insulin is released and therefore little or no AGP is created and hence few triglycerides are created and no new fat is stored.

If BG rises rapidly or goes above about 110 the body detects that it is more than can be used by muscles or body systems and to keep BG from rising to unsafe levels large amounts of insulin is released.  This causes much of the excess BG to be metabolized in the liver with the insulin creating large amounts of AGP which is the central molecule around which triglycerides are formed which are then moved into fat storage. 

When eating only meat and fat, 58% of the protein is converted into BG, however this is a long process and takes 3-4 hours to complete.  Over this time, BG rises relatively slowly and it gives the muscles, brain and other systems time to take in their fill.  Often BG never rises high enough to cause an insulin response and therefore little or no body fat is added.

In the case of carbs, many - especially simple sugars from juices - either fruit or green - as well as refined grains convert rapidly to glucose on a gram for gram basis.  BG can rise 100 points or more within 15 minutes after consuming a meal containing these types of foods.  This always marshalls a rapid insulin response as the body tries to keep BG at a safe level and sets the stage for copious fat storage.  For young people with high insulin sensitivity and a high metabolism this may not be a problem, but as one ages and becomes more sedentary, insulin resistance sets in and the pounds start to mount up.

Hope this helps,

lex

[goodsamaritan]

I tried raw vegan before for 2 months, more on the vegs than fruits.  Raw vegan doesn't taste good at all.  I did like the fruit times.  The raw vegan I did was 1 kind of fruit in the morning, raw vegan mix at lunch with fatty extra virgin olive oil or freshly squeezed coconut milk then 1 kind of fruit in the evening.  I felt good.  But I was getting too skinny.

I went on raw fruitarian for 2 months.  It tasted better, but I was getting too skinny and felt cold and I live in a tropical country.

I added raw egg yolks, then raw fish (wai diet) and I felt much better, no more feeling cold, started gaining weight and felt stronger.  And the food tastes great.  Food tastes better and more satisfying on high raw fat.  I added raw beef and raw goat internal organs sometimes and I feel much better.

Raw paleo has more variety, I can swing to more fruits or more animal food whichever I feel like, the food tastes great, so it is sustainable and easy to do.   I look better and feel better.

I subscribe to wai's theory that we don't need plants.  I subscribe to aajonus theory that to get nutrients from the plants, just juice them and get rid of the indigestible cellulose.  I subscribe to the theory that we don't need the fiber myth to make our bowels move.  Fats and fruit do a better job.  I'm only saying this based on my personal experience.

[rawrock2]

My view on diet now is just go with what is 'natural' and adapt.  I look to nature for my answers.  If put in the wild right now, I would eat insects, meat, and fruit.  I know nothing about agriculture so vegetables would be out.  I live in Hawai'i so eating that way would only be natural and that IS what I eat now. (raw paleo w/ no veggies)  If I were in a colder climate then yes my diet would probably be different.  I'm not sure that there is one way of eating that would work for everyone because we all live in different areas of the world.  Just look to nature and adapt accordingly. 

[Squall]

My view on diet now is just go with what is 'natural' and adapt.  I look to nature for my answers.

I would have to second this. Whatever we were doing for millions of years on a regular basis is probably the best blueprint we'll ever get from Mama Nature. I used to argue with my friends regarding what humans are supposed to eat. I said meat (but cooked). One of my buddies said veggies. I had to disagree on the basis of economics: a community of northern-European hunter gatherers would not spend all winter long looking for sparse vegetation to eat when they could make one large kill and live off the fat and meat for months. I read another dude's article online once and he was making the case for human consumption of nothing but fruit. His rationale was because gorillas do it and they're the strongest primate in the world. Talk about logical fallacies! We're not gorillas, and we're not even primates.

IMO, anthropologists play a critical role in nutritional ground-breaking (re-breaking?). However, so few get their due, and only the ones who tow the party line get written into school textbooks. I look to their theories, though, as a guide to how best to live a healthy life.

[Kristelle]

A small correction...we are primates.

[Squall]

I went back and looked at the taxa for humans and primates, and you're right. For some reason I thought that being a homonid meant that a species wasn't a primate, but it turns out that a homonid is a type of primate.

[Sully]

We are not apes, but part of the large category primapes.

[goodsamaritan]

In my research, if we are talking some millions of years ago, our human ancestors must have been fruigivores with a little meat every now and then.

Gradually, humans ate larger amounts of meat.

When the ice ages hit, those that survived, humans evolved / adapted, our ancestors to eat mostly meat.

After the last ice age, human population exploded as humans are adapted to eat BOTH fruits AND meat.... NOT vegetation... not leaves... not vegetables.

It was the invention of AGRICULTURE in the neolithic age that pushed people to eat GRAIN and VEGETABLES because these were the low cost, easy to grow items available.

I believe the raw vegan movement is misleading... most raw vegans eat more fruits and nuts in the first place rather than vegetation.  My raw vegan teacher was advocating a 2/3 fruit and 1/3 prepared vegetation diet.  I liked eating the 2/3 fruit but the 1/3 prepared vegetation was a pain to prepare and not tasty.

I find fruit tasty and filling if it is fatty fruit like durian, coconuts, avocado.
I find raw meat tasty and filling.
I see raw vegetation as herbs / medicine.

What I use for curing people is raw ripe / unripe fruit, raw organic / wild fatty meat, and juiced raw organic / wild vegetation / herbs.  Of course you read this too in Aajonus' books.

[Satya]

I find fruit tasty and filling if it is fatty fruit like durian, coconuts, avocado.
I find raw meat tasty and filling.
I see raw vegetation as herbs / medicine.

Good breakdown. 

[Raw Kyle]

Primates is a group based on someone's idea of shared derived characteristics. We're also mammals (eutherian mammals), chordates, animals, and eucharyotes. On the more specific side of primates we are hominidae. There is no absolute definition for these taxonomic groups, they are created at the whim of the current scientists ideas of what seems similar.

In other words there is no set derivative information you can glean off of an animal being in a particular group. There are a lot of animals in the primates group ranging from tarsiers who eat insects at night to gorillas who eat foliage all day.

[Squall]

In other words there is no set derivative information you can glean off of an animal being in a particular group. There are a lot of animals in the primates group ranging from tarsiers who eat insects at night to gorillas who eat foliage all day.

Bottom Line: Don't eat nothing but fruit just because a nutrition guru says that's what gorillas do. Also, don't make it a point to eat several small meals a day (grazing) just because another guru says that's what deer do. Instead, do those things because you want to ... and presumably throw them out and try something different if they don't work.

As an aside, these are the human taxa (according to WikiPedia):

Domain : Eukaryota
Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Order : Primates
Family : Hominidae
Genus : Homo
Species : H. Sapiens
Sub-species : H. S. Sapiens

BTW, when I first had to learn taxonomy (7th grade), there was no domain level. At least not that my science teacher knew (or divulged).

[Satya]

There is no absolute definition for these taxonomic groups, they are created at the whim of the current scientists ideas of what seems similar.

This may be true, but genetic evidence has confirmed some of the groupings recently (like chimps and humans).  And that is what science is all about.  Science evolves and ideas change.  That said, I am very happy to have concerned myself with physical sciences, where politics and dogma have, at least until now, remained on the sidelines pretty much.  You know, if your engine works more efficiently, no one will claim it is bad news or something, whereas some biological sciences are so infiltrated with politics and ulterior motives that it is hard to sift through the bull shit.

[Nicola]

I don't believe, that eating a lot of fruit (juice is not paleo for shore) is healthy or even paleo. This was mentioned on a different forum:

and eating oranges - did you know that citrus fruits are more neolithic than grains? First eaten by humans several thousand years after the invention of agriculture).

It's all about insulin!

Nicola

[goodsamaritan]

Nicola,

It might depend on where you live and the changing seasons.  I would tend to think people ate whatever was edible whether it was a fruit, an animal or a vegetable.

If people chanced upon fruit trees like coconuts and bananas, they would eat a lot of that. 

I've read about people doing orange juice feasts, it is a medicinal thing.

Hmmm... citrus fruits are neolithic?  I'd better check that out.  Any URL regarding citrus fruits being neolithic?

[Satya]

Yeah, citrus surprises me too.  I don't know the accuracy of this timeline, but here ya go:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/

[Sully]

It might depend on where you live and the changing seasons.  I would tend to think people ate whatever was edible whether it was a fruit, an animal or a vegetable.

Exactly.

[Raw Kyle]

Nicola,

It might depend on where you live and the changing seasons.  I would tend to think people ate whatever was edible whether it was a fruit, an animal or a vegetable.

If people chanced upon fruit trees like coconuts and bananas, they would eat a lot of that. 

I've read about people doing orange juice feasts, it is a medicinal thing.

Hmmm... citrus fruits are neolithic?  I'd better check that out.  Any URL regarding citrus fruits being neolithic?

You can't eat something if it's not there. Even seen a 100% wild orange tree or banana tree? From what I understand wild bananas are barely edible and I've never heard anything about wild oranges.