Coconut oil and antinutrients

[alphagruis]

The present levels of methylmercury in fish or seafood is usually by far not comparable to the levels reached in the Minimata Bay disaster in 1956.

However the conclusion of a definitive absence of toxicity at present levels is premature AFAIK . The truth is again that we really don't know yet for sure.

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/19-how-to-tell-if-you.re-poisoning-yourself-with-fish/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

Main exposure to mercury comes usually not from fish but from dental amalgam fillings.

[PaleoPhil]

Can you give the links about MCT and nausea ?

It's in the other coconut thread that inspired this one: http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/primal-diet/how-important-is-coconut-cream/msg23706/#msg23706

... William is useful in his ridiculous wrong-headedness, as he loves pointing out the many ludicrous, fallacious myths mong RVAFers, such as the mercury-in-fish poisoning "theory", the absurd claims re smoking being supposedly "healthy" etc.

As anybody knows, there are definitive studies/observations completely denouncing the absurd claims ....

Tyler, I agree with you on mercury, but must you write in such a rude manner about it with members here who happen to disagree with you on mercury? It's one thing to be rude with trolls, but another with non-troll members.

[TylerDurden]

Tyler, I agree with you on mercury, but must you write in such a rude manner about it with members here who happen to disagree with you on mercury? It's one thing to be rude with trolls, but another with non-troll members.

I was specifically critical of William as this isn't the only time he's gone against rawpalaeo ideas(re mentions of pemmican, smoking etc. etc.)
As for mercury-in-fish notions, these were originally started by vegan and Green movement campaigners with incredibly weak arguments and an obvious political motive to remove all animal flesh from peoples' diets,  and so it is vitally important to demolish these absurd notions as many people in the RVAF community foolishly take such new-age notions at face-value and then limit their raw diet quite needlessly.

Even though I'm a sceptic of the mercury-in-amalgam theory, given my own personal experience, I'm happy to leave it alone, as it doesn't have an impact on peoples' diets, unlike the mercury-in-fish claims.

[TylerDurden]

Do you have other references to support your claim ?
"However, recent evidence in animals suggests that learning, memory and behavioral problems linked to mercury might begin in adolescence."

The above quotation was a vague unreferenced mention on some website. Not valid.

Here is a definitive page debunking all the various myths about mercury:-

http://fishscam.com/mercuryMyths.cfm

[carnivore]

The above quotation was a vague unreferenced mention on some website. Not valid.

Indeed, this study is not valid (see below)

Here is a definitive page debunking all the various myths about mercury:-

http://fishscam.com/mercuryMyths.cfm

Definitive ?
It references again the Seychelles study which is not convincing (hair samples less accurate, insufficient statistical power to detect small differences, relatively low-level continuous stream of mercury, etc.) while two other extensive studies of mercury impacts on foetal development have shown mercury to have deleterious effects : http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/mercury/2003/2003-0515myersetal.htm

I would not be surprised that this organization has some interests to promote fish consumption :
"The Center for Consumer Freedom is supported by restaurants, food companies and more than 1,000 concerned individuals. From farm to fork, our friends and supporters include businesses, employees and consumers."

Unfortunately, mercury is only one among many other toxic components in our polluted oceans : http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/ocean_pollution.htm

[TylerDurden]

Indeed, this study is not valid (see below)

Definitive ?
It references again the Seychelles study which is not convincing (hair samples less accurate, insufficient statistical power to detect small differences, relatively low-level continuous stream of mercury, etc.) while two other extensive studies of mercury impacts on foetal development have shown mercury to have deleterious effects : http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/mercury/2003/2003-0515myersetal.htm

The Seychelles study is the longest-running study re mercury and the most respected one. No other study comes close in terms of rigorousness. The Faroes study is itself routinely criticised by fishscam and other websites since the author of the study refuses to allow other scientists to view his data etc.:-


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513314/


http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article000709698.cfm?x=b8wQMPW,b67kwpM8,w

I would not be surprised that this organization is interested to promote fish consumption :
"The Center for Consumer Freedom is supported by restaurants, food companies and more than 1,000 concerned individuals. From farm to fork, our friends and supporters include businesses, employees and consumers."

It is understandable why such people might want to demolish the hysterical attacks on fish-consumption by vegans and Green campaigners. And, unlike the anti-mercury PETA etc. activists, the above website does at least provide solid science and standard everyday facts to support its position.

Unfortunately, mercury is only one among many other toxic components in our polluted oceans : http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/ocean_pollution.htm

This is the exact point I've been making for years. The oceans are and have always been filled with tiny trace amounts of every element and compound imaginable from gold to mercury to uranium, so the claims re man-made mercury going into the world's oceans are ridiculous, given that man-made mercury, even after a couple of centuries of production, is still only a microscopic proportion of the natural levels of mercury always found in the world's oceans since time immemorial. One obvious point comes to mind, if mercury in the oceans was truly so harmful, one would expect all fish to have serious neurological defects - yet no such evidence exists, just 1 or 2 very suspect studies, such as the Faroes one which claimed a tiny 0.25 IQ point difference in humans eating seafood(which is easily explained given standard deviation and random chance)

Incidentally, uranium and lead are  also found in trace amounts  in the world's oceans(along with every other possible element and compound), but one never hears from anti-mercury campaigners any hysteria about eating "uranium-contaminated" fish etc. Perhaps because they would look a bit foolish since radiation from such tiny traces of uranium would be so negligible as to be ridiculous. Same goes for mercury, there has been no serious evidence to indicate that tiny trace amounts of mercury are remotely harmful(indeed the Seychelles study actually found a slight benefit in IQ from consuming all that mercury-rich fish, which fits in neatly with the theory of hormesis which states that tiny traces of compounds normally toxic at much higher levels can be beneficial in doses much lower than the toxic limit).

[William]

I was specifically critical of William as this isn't the only time he's gone against rawpalaeo ideas(re mentions of pemmican, smoking etc. etc.)

Personal criticisms are forbidden everywhere.
Criticize my ideas all you like, (and I will bury you!    ), but your epithets are insulting.

Finding what rawpaleo is is what we are here for; your denial of reasonable conjecture is not helping, and you are not the master of ideas.
Anyone who needs that kind of tyranny should join ZIOH.

[PaleoPhil]

I was specifically critical of William as this isn't the only time he's gone against rawpalaeo ideas(re mentions of pemmican, smoking etc. etc.)
...

I agree with you on mercury, and William doesn't tow the party line, it's true, but he isn't a troll, so I don't think he deserves such harsh treatment unless he really earns it, and I don't see that it adds anything to your points anyway.

[TylerDurden]

I agree with you on mercury, and William doesn't tow the party line, it's true, but he isn't a troll, so I don't think he deserves such harsh treatment unless he really earns it, and I don't see that it adds anything to your points anyway.

  He behaves like one, regardless of what his intentions might be. Still, like I said, his decidedly unscientific approach is in a way indirectly helpful as it makes the pro-cooked argument look really bad on this forum. Thank god for Wrangham and William in this respect.

[PaleoPhil]

.... Still, like I said, his decidedly unscientific approach is in a way indirectly helpful as it makes the pro-cooked argument look really bad on this forum. Thank god for Wrangham and William in this respect.

Good attitude [and I don't mean that ironically--I mean that it's good that you're regarding it positively as an opportunity]. Indeed, if someone makes ridiculous points it makes them look bad and their points should be easy to refute without using ridicule, as their are by definition ridiculous on their own and simply refuting them should make this clear.

Of course, I realize that flaming is a common technique on the Internet, and it seems to be very popular (the most enthusiastic compliment I've received here came when in frustration I broke from my standards and engaged in hostile style briefly myself--though I believe it was perceived as more hostile than I intended), so I can understand the temptation to do so. However, the few people who are aware of us RPDers tend to see us as strange and emotional/magical-thinking, so engaging in flaming-type debates instead of cool, rational discussion threatens to add to that perception. Imagine their surprise if they found us all behaving the opposite of their stereotypes of us? Flaming-type style tends to devolve into flame wars, which tend to distract from the actual discussion at hand and make it more difficult to share and learn.

[TylerDurden]

Given the decidedly overly-emotional arguments made by pro-cooked-advocates to me in the past on other forums(blithely ignoring any and all scientific evidence I've provided without any genuine grounds), I find the above claim rather unlikely. Actually, the general impression of raw-foodists is more positive than you make it appear, with people (albeit reluctantly) nearly all admitting that cooking more than lightly is harmful to one's food - after all, with the multitude of studies done on heat-created toxins formed by cooking and evidence re the hygiene hypothesis theory, the pro-cooked argument is pretty much dead-in-the-water on a scientific basis.

As regards arguments,from what I've observed in other non-diet-related areas, there is a tendency for some of  those who don't have any real evidence to support their unscientific/illogical claims to repeatedly shout their views, no matter how ridiculous they may sound, with the notion that if they say them often enough, some people will be gullible enough to believe them. It's at this stage where it's necessary to counter-attack in a similiar way and stop such nonsense, before it makes the board look bad.

[Paleo Donk]

Good attitude. Indeed, if someone makes ridiculous points it makes them look bad and their points should be easy to refute without using ridicule, as their are by definition ridiculous on their own and simply refuting them should make this clear.

Of course, I realize that flaming is a common technique on the Internet, and it seems to be very popular (the most enthusiastic compliment I've received here came when in frustration I broke from my standards and engaged in hostile style briefly myself--though I believe it was perceived as more hostile than I intended), so I can understand the temptation to do so. However, the few people who are aware of us RPDers tend to see us as strange and emotional/magical-thinking, so engaging in flaming-type debates instead of cool, rational discussion threatens to add to that perception. Imagine their surprise if they found us all behaving the opposite of their stereotypes of us? Flaming-type style tends to devolve into flame wars, which tend to distract from the actual discussion at hand and make it more difficult to share and learn.

+1

I abhor flaming-type responses particularly because I am so vulnerable to them myself. Though in a more broad sense, the benefit of flaming someone is almost never positive and there is almost surely a better way to get a point across. I think it takes a lot of courage, intelligence and patience to come up with a response to a disagreement that is neither insulting or one that further escalates emotions where little is accomplished. I agree that naturally it is tempting to automatically engage with defensive insults when your personal beliefs, no matter how much science there is to back them up, have been threatened. For me, setting aside this temptation to go on the attack is one of the hardest things to deal with every day.

Also to add.

For instance, Tyler, when you use abusive language as Phil has pointed out, I feel less inclined to want to even read what you have to say. My reptillian mind is giving me signals of retreat and I will want to be more dismissive of what is to come.

[William]

  He behaves like one

O what a whopper! Negative personal comments are a troll characteristic; only TD does this.

 

Still, like I said, his decidedly unscientific approach is in a way indirectly helpful as it makes the pro-cooked argument look really bad on this forum.

Written by one who clearly cannot tell the difference between science, which is supported by evidence, and religion which is supported by incessant propaganda.


 

Thank god for Wrangham and William in this respect.

It was William who outed  Wrangham as a troll. Find more credible insults, as this one is easily disproved.

[TylerDurden]

O what a whopper! Negative personal comments are a troll characteristic; only TD does this.

 There's hypocrisy. Incidentally, while negative comments(such as you make all the time and me quite often) are quite common among non-trolls too. What is rather more common as a trollish characteristic is to constantly make posts attacking the particular ideology of the forum(eg:- promoting pemmican/smoking/cooking or  attacking darwinian evolution).
 

Written by one who clearly cannot tell the difference between science, which is supported by evidence, and religion which is supported by incessant propaganda.

I find it absolutely laughable that you demand scientific evidence from others who offer it much of the time anyway without asking, while you never provide anything remotely credible, such as your flat-earth-style promotion of Creationism.

It was William who outed  Wrangham as a troll. Find more credible insults, as this one is easily disproved.

Well, you did condemn Wrangham on the cooked-palaeo list, give the devil his due, albeit scientific data was sadly lacking in those comments.

[William]

What is rather more common as a trollish characteristic is to constantly make posts attacking the particular ideology of the forum.

This forum has an IDEOLOGY?!?
Holy s---! I didn't know. Mea culpa. Sob. (sarcasm)

Please enlighten us with the name of the person who has the God-like wisdom to define what it is that we are supposed to believe.

[alphagruis]

Tyler, I agree with William and think that the word of "ideology" is really inappropriate. We don't know everything and parts of what we believe today might be proven wrong tomorrov. Absence of dogmatism and a large openmindedness are the basis of the scientific method.
On this forum we certainly share a sufficient number of beliefs so that we sometimes can disagree on specific issues. Nothing to worry about IMO.  I disagree with William on some issues such as evolution but don't feel threatened by him. If he is right maybe he'll convince me and if I'm right maybe I'll convince him some day. I don't think he is a troll and like his posts in particular his remarkable sense of humor.

[TylerDurden]

Regardless of peoples' individual opinions on vaguer subjects, there are some basic principles behind the raw, palaeolithic diet concept. For example the words "raw" and "palaeo" imply, by definition, that this is not a pro-cooked or pro-grains/pro-dairy board, in an overall sense. Actually we do have specific forums for raw dairy(the Primal Diet, grains and raw dairy(the Weston-Price Diet forum) and even cooked food and raw veganism can be discussed in the hot topics forum, and that's where they should be confined.

Now, of course, we could allow free discussion of everything on all forums, in which case, we'd quickly end up with people writing in stating, for example, that they would much rather eat a junk-food diet, and asking members if they think a Burger King burger is healthier than a McDonald's burger or how many calories there are in a Haagen Dasz ice-cream pack, and other similiar rubbish. (I've actually occasionally had a number of questions very similiar to the above being asked by questioners on another raw-meat-related site, although I at least had the option of refusing to answer such moronic  questions). Plus, newbies who come to the rawpaleoforum website are mostly not going to be interested in topics on cooked diets, or dairy etc., they come to this forum precisely because this forum offers a wholly different approach to that offered by those other diets they've previously tried and failed with. As soon as we clutter the forums with nonsense about pemmican or the supposed "benefits" of cooked foods etc., we will simply discourage such potential members from joining- after all, they can quite easily  read about similiar pro-cooked rubbish etc. on other forums.

Another aspect:- most of the forums I know of which allow any and all discussion and which don't have a focal point on which most members agree, tend to end up with very few people posting(because no one cares about anything in particular, or because people are too polite to each other  to  want to cause controversy, so fewer posts get generated).

[William]

Regardless of peoples' individual opinions on vaguer subjects, there are some basic principles behind the raw, palaeolithic diet concept.

Quite so, and they must be empirical.

 One of those empirical principles is that a diet that includes carbohydrates such as fruit and veg. is not paleo.

Another is that a diet that achieves the desired result and has no conflict with archaeology must be paleo. This is pemmican.

[Neone]

Can you render fat by leaving it out on a rock in the sun?

[William]

Can you render fat by leaving it out on a rock in the sun?

 

No.

[Paleo Donk]

William, do you think everyone will improve their health on a strict pemmican diet? Have you thought about why pemmican works so well for you and others? Dr. Kurt Harris constantly babbles about allergies to bovine serum albumin found in beef and says that the drying of the meat could denature these allergens. Perhaps you fall in this category. He goes on to say that ideally we would not have these allergies if we weren't exposed to so much grain consumption beforehand. I still don't see how pemmican would be a preferred food of someone who has always been fed raw meat from the get go. I do see it possible that it is magnitudes better for people who have compromised systems such as yourself.

Also, does anyone know of the first ever well documented case of pemmican being made?

[alphagruis]

Quite so, and they must be empirical.

 One of those empirical principles is that a diet that includes carbohydrates such as fruit and veg. is not paleo.

Another is that a diet that achieves the desired result and has no conflict with archaeology must be paleo. This is pemmican.

If I'm right you had serious cardiovascular ailments and pemmican works for you as a diet and cure.

Then this is by itself simply a fact of great interest and I personnaly recognize that and consider that we have to do so even if it seems at odds with the simple equation or rule heating=toxicity.

As pointed out by PaleoDonk it suggests that it is obviously not pertinent to put pemmican in the same bag of toxic neolithic foods such as cooked grains.    
Nature is subtle.

[PaleoPhil]

Can you render fat by leaving it out on a rock in the sun?

"Render" basically means to melt, so yes, you could do that, but it would spill out all over the place unless the rock had a big depression. Typically rendering is done at the higher temps that Lex talks about, but I melt my suet in a crock pot on the warm setting, which seems to be not much above room temperature (I can stick my finger in it during the melting without pain), which is well below the level of what is still considered raw at 40 degrees Celsius. So I guess you could call what I do "raw rendering."

One of those empirical principles is that a diet that includes carbohydrates such as fruit and veg. is not paleo.

This forum is free to do what it wants, but I take a big-tent view of RPD. I think the most empirically important aspect of raw seems to be that the foods not be heated above 40C and generally not be heavily processed. The most empirically important aspect of Paleo seems to be Eaton's hypothesis of biological discordance/adaptation, that is, we shouldn't eat the foods we are not adapted to. If the Paleo folks didn't eat them regularly, there's a good chance that they're not healthy for humans and we should be very cautious about introducing new foods or foods that we're not sure are ancestral. There is disagreement on what Paleo folks ate and how much of each type of food. There's also no guarantee that everything they ate was healthy. So we can disagree on which foods are both truly Paleo and truly healthy. As long as someone can support their reason for eating a food in the context of biological discordance in the context of the last 2.5 million years, I don't have a problem with them claiming that it's Paleo.

Also, since this is a dietary forum rather than a scientific forum, I would think a certain amount of leeway would be appropriate, as long as people acknowledge that what they are doing is cheating (or, again, if they at least try to defend it in terms of biological discordance). So someone could say, I'm just starting with RPD and I'm doing about 40% RPD so far," or "I'm mostly-RPD except for the cooked tallow in my pemmican." William could even say, "Heated pemmican works great for me," but I do think he goes too far when he implies that it would be optimal for everyone without substantial evidence to back it up beyond the experience of a few people. If it turns out that heated pemmican is actually superior to raw meat and fat, then objectively we might need to reconsider the definition of "raw" in RPD, or maybe even alter it to raw-and-low-cooked-Paleo Diet, but I don't see that happening any time soon here, if ever.

[djr_81]

"Render" basically means to melt, so yes, you could do that, but it would spill out all over the place unless the rock had a big depression. Typically rendering is done at the higher temps that Lex talks about, but I melt my suet in a crock pot on the warm setting, which seems to be not much above room temperature (I can stick my finger in it during the melting without pain), which is well below the level of what is still considered raw at 40 degrees Celsius. So I guess you could call what I do "raw rendering."

Not to be a stickler but you just melt or liquify fat. Rendering involves extracting the impurities by melting. One of those impurities as far as fat is concerned is water which is most definitely still in your melted fat.
Render: "to melt down; extract the impurities from by melting: to render fat."
Therefore, IMO, no you cannot render fat on a stone via sunlight. Honestly, there might be select areas it'd be theoretically possible such as a desert but not in most areas.

[William]

William, do you think everyone will improve their health on a strict pemmican diet? Have you thought about why pemmican works so well for you and others? Dr. Kurt Harris constantly babbles about allergies to bovine serum albumin found in beef and says that the drying of the meat could denature these allergens. Perhaps you fall in this category. He goes on to say that ideally we would not have these allergies if we weren't exposed to so much grain consumption beforehand. I still don't see how pemmican would be a preferred food of someone who has always been fed raw meat from the get go. I do see it possible that it is magnitudes better for people who have compromised systems such as yourself.

Also, does anyone know of the first ever well documented case of pemmican being made?

Theoretically, yes, after the old saying "you are what you eat".  

Thanks for Harris' idea of allergies to bovine serum albumin, this might explain why I get a stop when eating ground beef, although other allergies disappear after a year of complete mineralization and I still have it.

I can see pemmican as a preferred stored food, for the provident and the untrusting, as well as those who live in a climate where winter hunting varies from difficult to suicidal.

I don't know of any historical report on when pemmican was first made, but it is so simple and obvious that I see no reason that it would not have been made in the Paleolithic.
Basic human nature tells us of the sex drive, but a security drive comes before even that, and pemmican, because it lasts for so long, gives security.