Anyone have years worth of ZC carnivorous?

[alphagruis]

It would be interesting to see how much better we handle raw (or even cooked) fruits and veggies if we do not compromise our systems with decades of cooked grains and refined sugars. 

I've once seen a movie about modern HG pigmees in Africa collecting and then gorging on honey. They apparently were capable to handle it quite well. But it's probably a fairly rare event for them to get so much sugar at once.

[Hannibal]

I've once seen a movie about modern HG pigmees in Africa collecting and then gorging on honey. 

And some long-living people (over 100 years) that lived in mountainous Georgia who ate the honey-combs with larvae and wood that was attached to them

[PaleoPhil]

However, she eats very few grass nearly everyday. But actually I am not sure if she really swallows something.

Yes, I have seen domesticated dogs which eat grass quite often. The ones I saw tended to spit it up later. The sense I get from my readings and observations is that wild canines eat it less frequently, possibly because of better overall diet, though I don't have a supporting link.

Also : http://www.stevesrealfood.com/research/foodhabits.html

Thanks for the link. Coyotes, foxes, and wolves are facultative carnivores (carnivores that ordinarily eat some plant foods), so there's no surprise that they were found to eat some plant foods.

It's interesting to see that my guess that obligate carnivores might eat some grass ("I could imagine obligate carnivores very rarely eating some of those things, though not all, for medicinal/purgative purposes") is confirmed in this article. No nutritional benefit is posited in the article (it states: "Nutritional benefits of this grass for the cougar are unknown"; "The nutritional value of grass in the bobcat’s diet, however, has not been determined"), so my speculation remains that it may have a medicinal/purgative purpose(s).

There's no evidence in the article of stomach content ingestion by any of those carnivores, so that remains unsupported as a typical behavior in the wild.

The only thing that surprised me a bit in that article was the quote that grass was "found frequently enough to be considered a food item" in Bobcats, though the actual frequency is not reported and no nutritive benefit was posited. It would be interesting to see more research on why it is eaten this frequently. Still, you're not going to argue that we should eat grass, are you? I know at least one person here eats wheat grass, but that doesn't seem like a wise practice to me. Do any primates eat grass stalks or shoots in the wild?

I found this source that supports my speculation about a medicinal/purgative purpose for grass eating among obligate carnivores:

Where Tigers eat grass
National | Ahmedabad | India  Updated On: 11/10/2008
http://www.4to40.com/newsat4/index.asp?id=2227

"Not many know, but carnivores have an instinctive way of regulating their digestive system, like dogs, by feeding on green grass after a heavy meat diet. Veterinary experts managing zoos, thus give a diet break to the big cats once every week, to defy the popular Hindi proverb -- Sher bhi kabhi ghaas khata hai kya? (Does a lion ever eat grass?)

"All carnivores eat grass every week. The grass makes them throw up and cleanses the stomach and the rest of the digestive system. Whenever the beasts feel that there is some infection in their stomachs, they eat grass to flush these ailments out," says Dr RK Sahu, superintendent of the Kankaria zoo. In Ahmedabad zoo these cats devour at least 110 kg of meat everyday. In winters each lion needs 10-12 kgs of meat while its summer needs are between 8-10 kgs.

Lions, tigers and leopards in the wild, chase and hunt food, thus giving themselves the much needed workout, unlike zoo animals, and yet eat meat only twice or thrice a week. Big cats in the zoo lead very comfortable and sedentary lives. Every day between 10.30 am and 11 am they are fed, without having to move a muscle.

"Since they do not get much of exercise we decided to give them a break once every week. So every Friday they are seen devouring grass on the day to cleanse their systems and the zoo is closed to visitors," said Sahu. This zoo has a pair of lions, two pairs of tigers and leopards."

To understand why the fact that canines and humans eat some plant foods doesn't necessarily make them omnivores (though humans may be, but the evidence and understanding of physiology doesn't seem sufficiently clear yet to come to a firm conclusion--there is actually evidence listed here http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-7l.shtml and elsewhere that humans may be naturally facultative faunivores), I think the giant panda example is the best. Despite eating 99% plant foods it is a carnivore! What could possibly make it any clearer that eating some plant foods does not necessarily make a species an omnivore, much less a herbivore/frugivore?

[PaleoPhil]

But my point was that you cannot logically conclude from this peculiar situation observed on people recovering from serious health damage that a healthy diet for homo sapiens in general is better definitely ZC and suggest that carbs are problematic by themselves.

I agree that it's too early to draw the conclusion that either carbs are always problematic by themselves for all people or that ZC is no good in the long run for anyone. The two extremes are not sufficiently supported yet, in my opinion. Neither can I rule either out completely. That's why we have forums like this one, to share our results so we can try to figure out what works for whom. If we already had all the answers re: carbs, there wouldn't be much to discuss on the sujbect.

IMO sentences like carbs or proteins are good or bad is non-sense.

Yes, they are overly simplistic from a scientific perspective, but from an everyday life perspective, I think we know what people basically mean when they say that carbs are bad for them. For example, in my case I haven't found any carb-containing plant food I can tolerate on a daily basis without some negative effects. So for me so far a "plant carbs are bad for me" claim would be understandable. I just wouldn't claim it necessarily applies to anyone else on that basis.

I'm sorry that you received my remarks as a kind of provocation. I apologize. That was of course not my intent. I wanted just recall some basic science.

Thanks for the explication, I figured and hoped you didn't mean it in quite the way it came across literally.  

Heh, heh, my friend Katelyn sure started up one heck of a discussion, didn't she? Maybe we were overdue for another round of debate on carbs. It has provided me some nice new info on carnivore behavior and helped crystallize some of my thoughts on things. I just hope it doesn't get too heated.

[PaleoPhil]

I've once seen a movie about modern HG pigmees in Africa collecting and then gorging on honey. They apparently were capable to handle it quite well. But it's probably a fairly rare event for them to get so much sugar at once.

Honey is one of the more puzzling and interesting Paleo foods to me. Certain experts appear to write it off completely as obviously unhealthy and not something one should ever ingest, but the honey that's discussed is usually commercial heated honey. Rarely is rare honey examined, and even less rarely is honeycomb and grubcomb, which are what HG's actually eat.

I don't do well on raw honey myself (and yes, it's guaranteed by the apiary as completely unheated, though I haven't actually examined their operation), but I don't rule out that it could be slightly more beneficial than negative for healthy people when grubcomb is included. As others have discussed, when weighing the net health result, one should look at the whole food (including the grubcomb), not just one of its components (the fructose). However, it's also possible that the fructose content is so high as to outweigh the benefits of the other ingredients, even when raw. In the latter case, the reason HGs do well while eating it would probably be attributed to the counteracting benefits of the other foods in the diet, the seasonality of the honey, and it's relative scarcity as compared to meats, fruits and greens.

[alphagruis]

I agree that it's too early to draw the conclusion that either carbs are always problematic by themselves for all people or that ZC is no good in the long run for anyone. The two extremes are not sufficiently supported yet, in my opinion. Neither can I rule either out completely. That's why we have forums like this one, to share our results so we can try to figure out what works for whom. If we already had all the answers re: carbs, there wouldn't be much to discuss on the sujbect.

Yes, we have to be cautious otherwise we might be easily fooled.

My present guess is that we are probably capable to thrive on fairly different diets ranging from VLC to diets with much more carbs provided the food is essentially raw unprocessed.

To come back to biochemistry I'm very deeply impressed to see that remarkable pathways involving a lot of very specific enzymes exist that

-on the one hand when needed synthesizes glucose in a series of steps from specific aminoacids coming from digestion (gluconeogenesis) .

-on the other hand when needed converts fructose in a series of steps into a specific chemical that can enter into the Krebs cycle to produce energy or other useful chemicals.

And of course there is also the anaerobic glycolysis pathway. This is what supports my guess. I can't believe that evolution would keep these most remarkable pathways over so many generations if they were not highly useful in the lifes of our paleo ancestors.

 

[PaleoPhil]

...And of course there is also the anaerobic glycolysis pathway. This is what supports my guess. I can't believe that evolution would keep these most remarkable pathways over so many generations if they were not highly useful in the lifes of our paleo ancestors.

I can. Evolution only needs to get people beyond reproductive age. Most people want more than that. Look at the giant panda. It has multiple health issues and may even go extinct because of the combination of loss of habitat with a poor reproductive rate even in the wild--yet natural selection left it and at least one prior ancestor on a poorly-adapted diet for millions of years. The undersexed giant panda (and at least one other example I covered elsewhere) suggests that nature sometimes doesn't perfectly adapt animals in every way to a new diet even after millions of years. This could be the key to why at least some people do poorly on cooked foods even after 250,000 or more years of cooking by humans. In some ways we seem to have only scratched the surface of knowledge of the nutrition, health and physiology of humans and other animals.

[goodsamaritan]

The degree to how "poisonous" carbs are is directly related to how sensitive we are to insulin. At one end we have new borns who must have heavy carb intake and who would function worse without them. At the other end we have diabetics/epileptics who cannot handle carbs and will function optimally as a carnivore. Everyone else falls somewhere in between.

Finding out what is optimal is a different story. We have all heavily convoluted the situation by eating decades worth of garbage that has us in this position. Our bodies do not work like they were intended and each one of has different problems with different methods of eating. Just because one method works for us now does not mean it would work just as well for us as small children with uncompromised systems. Our systems are all compromised in one way or the other.

Tyler seems to get sick at merely the sight of cooked foods, where I can eat cooked meat all day long for months and be in great health. William finds that pemmican is vastly superior than any other food where others have not found this to be so. This what makes the discovery so interesting. We are all so different. We each are all uniquely damaged goods and we all need uniquely different treatments to achieve superior health again. One method for all does not seem to work.

Simply saying that carbs are poisonous is too simplistic and does not take a look at the full spectrum of issues. Tyler, for instance, absolutely needs some carbohydrate intake or his system will fail. Carbs are certainly not poisonous for him, they help him maintain optimal health. Same for many other members of the forum.

I also once thought that eating meat and water would work for everyone if they gave it enough time. This is just not realistic and although just meat and water does work extremely well (and is likely optimal) for many it is not simply the solution for everyone's problems. This is where ZIOH can get people in trouble, they do not like to investigate anything other than meat and water. They are a bit too one dimensional, although their one dimention works extraordinarily well for some people.

I've noticed that ZIOH discussion forums have died down recently and almost come to a complete halt. There is very little new discussion and some members have even expressed their approval of this. When you only look at just meat and water I suppose their is very little to discuss. This is why I enjoy this forum so much is that the discussion is very broad and there is no general answer for everyone. It is multidimensional.

This is such a nice synthesis... Can I quote you in my blog?

[klowcarb]

I just find carbohydrates useless for (1) health (2) optimal body composition (3) variety (4) taste. I love eating just meat. I agree that there are "trace" carbs in pure animal foods, and that is all that we need.

It is undeniable that we need fat, water and protein to live. If someone wants to eat carbs, fine, but carb-eating is completely unnecessary. I've never been so lean AND strong, had such a flat stomach, soft hair, clear skin, boundless energy and NO HUNGER as the Bear said would occur for those who stick to ZC (I'm at 9 months).

I just see adding carbohydrates to a ZC diet as kind of tragic. Carbohydrates are not a reward for the body in any sense.  Fatty meat is delicious and nourishing. Why would anyone who is adapted WANT anything else? I feel so sorry for the posters on LCF and ALC who are still on the LC cycle of feeling "deprived" and "hungry." Of course--carbohydrates make you hungry and make you crave, and contribute nothing to health, energy and great body composition (unless you want to be counting calories).

I am happy to eat a lot of meat, lift heavy weights and look and feel my absolute leannest and strongest. I am so glad to not be hungry anymore, eating on my schedule to MY convenience.  Being ZC is a lifesaver.

[Paleo Donk]

This is such a nice synthesis... Can I quote you in my blog?

Quote away, you'd make my day.

Also, Phil, I think human beings could possibly suffer a similar fate as pandas. We are becoming less and less reproductive. Our inability to reproduce healthy offspring is going to continue to escalate if nothing is done about all the refined carb consumption. I've heard that 1 in 3 children born in the US after 2000 will develop early onset diabetes with that rate rising to 1 in 2 children for minorities. Obese and diabetic women have a much harder chance giving birth to children much less healthy children. I think this cycle of obese diabetics giving birth to children even more prone to diabetes and obesity (not to mention other birth defects) could ultimately end us.

[alphagruis]

I can. Evolution only needs to get people beyond reproductive age. Most people want more than that. Look at the giant panda. It has multiple health issues and may even go extinct because of the combination of loss of habitat with a poor reproductive rate even in the wild--yet natural selection left it and at least one prior ancestor on a poorly-adapted diet for millions of years. The undersexed giant panda (and at least one other example I covered elsewhere) suggests that nature sometimes doesn't perfectly adapt animals in every way to a new diet even after millions of years. This could be the key to why at least some people do poorly on cooked foods even after 250,000 or more years of cooking by humans. In some ways we seem to have only scratched the surface of knowledge of the nutrition, health and physiology of humans and other animals.

This has littke to do with the idea I wanted to convey. My reasoning was not in usual terms of more or less perfect adaptation to a new diet. By the way I don't think that homo sapiens or other species can ever adapt to cooked food to a similar degree as they had adapted to raw unprocessed food. Adaptation in our minds is indeed much more than reproductive success and survival in darwinian terms. In the latter perspective homo sapiens with his neolithic diet has actually been tremendously successful up to now as compared to paleo HGs. Even if this is likely to change in the future because of systematic unprecedented further food degradation in the last half century.

What I wanted to point out is that when one looks at our "outfit" from a biochemistry point of view we have clearly and simultanenously the abilities to

- metabolize fructose and glucose or other sugars and take advantage of them in various ways if they are present in our diets.

- to produce glucose from amino-acid if there is not enough in our diets and our diet provides essentially protein and fat only.

If our ancestor's diet had never included fruit for instance, the first pathway (fructose metabolism) should have been progressively lost and the genes coding for the relevant enzymes turned into pseudo-genes unable to code for active enzymes. That's usually the fate of everything that is no longer useful in biology because of genetic drift.
On the other hand if our ancestor's diet had systematically included enough carbs every day, the second pathway (glucose synthesis from amino-acids) should have been progressively lost and the genes coding for the relevant enzymes turned into pseudo-genes unable to code for active enzymes.

So this strongly suggests that we are probably quite capable to adapt both to different diets (with different contents in carbs for instance) and  a diet that varies seriously over the weeks and months of a one year period as one might expect when one takes into account the drastic constraints imposed by nature in the absence of civilization.

I'm on a raw paleo diet for more than 11 years now. Usually it is rather omnivore with some fruit, nuts and weggies but I sometimes eat only meat and fat or seafood for one or two weeks. I cannot observe any positive (or negative) effects without plant carbs except slower bowel movements as one might expect. Apparently I'm capable to adapt easily to these changes as did IMHO our paleo ancestors.

I was never a vegan or more generally fond of too restrictive diets. So in contrast to other people of this forum, having never experienced the dramatic adverse effects of veganism, I do not feel the need to switch to the other extreme namely ZC ( VLC in fact, ZC isn't possible). Yet I can do it apparently if needed and I find the experience of those who do it of great interest. But again we should refrain from drawing hasty conclusions from such experiments in particular when on such a restrictive diet for a few months only.        

      

[Paleo Donk]

Has any animal lost the metabolic pathways to utilize glucose? Even carnivores like dogs and cats eat relatively high carb diets these days and manage to live decent lives. Don't many of these house pets actually crave sweets?

[Hannibal]

Even carnivores like dogs and cats eat relatively high carb diets these days and manage to live decent lives.

Cats are obligate carnivores, so they do very bad on no-meat diet. Dogs do better and can eat pasta and rice, although their health won't be good, they will probably be obese, diabetic, etc.

[PaleoPhil]

What I wanted to point out is that when one looks at our "outfit" from a biochemistry point of view we have clearly and simultanenously the abilities to

- metabolize fructose and glucose or other sugars and take advantage of them in various ways if they are present in our diets

What I mean is, given the example of the giant panda, fruit-eating chimps, and other evidence, I think that's suggestive, not conclusive.

If our ancestor's diet had never included fruit...

I think that everyone agrees that our ancestors' diets included fruit at various times in the past, to greater and lesser degrees. That doesn't seem to be a matter of dispute. It also doesn't guarantee that fruit is an optimal part of our current diet, though it suggests it might be. Clearly, the example of caries-prone frugivorous chimps in the wild suggests that too much fruit can be a bad thing (at least for people who don't want caries, dental plaque, gingivitis, etc.), and I think we're in agreement on that also.

So this strongly suggests that we are probably quite capable to adapt both to different diets

Yes, where I am still unclear is whether we are facultative faunivores who can digest plants better than most or all of the other facultative faunivores, or omnivores who are better equipped to digest meats than most or all of the other omnivores. We seem to be on the edge of the two categories, which is part of what makes for so much interesting debate. I think our ability to straddle both categories may be part of what enabled humans to survive and eventually overpopulate. Maybe scientists will eventually even create a new category just for homo sapiens and proto-humans that lies in-between the other two.

Where some confusion tends to come in, I think, is many people seem to assume that carnivore/faunivore automatically means zero plant foods, and therefore any animal that eats some plant foods in addition to fauna, or has some ability to digest them, is automatically an omnivore. Facultative carnivores/faunivores do eat some plant foods, and one has reportedly been eating 99% plant foods or thereabouts since the dawn of the species (and before in its ancestor). So simply showing some ability to digest glucose or starch does not appear to prove omnivorous physiology. It looks like it's more complicated than that, though I'm admittedly no expert on physiology.

Even if it were known absolutely for sure that humans have an omnivorous physiology and are best classified as omnivorous, I don't think that guarantees that everyone or even anyone will do best on a diet rich in plant foods, for we could be on the meat-heavy edge, physiologically, of omnivory and it could also be that today's plant foods have become too degraded to provide the same level of nutrition as in the past (and the same could be true for the meats, too, but I suspect less so).

[alphagruis]

I don't know for sure if any animal lost the glycolysis pathway, but it is most unlikely. Even in wild carnivores a minimum of glucose is synthesized and made available for some specific tasks.

Apparently glycolysis is the only way found by nature to get a large amount of energy in a very short time such as required to escape from a predator as a prey or to catch a prey as a predator. Or in the case of humans for instance during sprints up to 400m in field athletics. Glycolysis is a fermentation that can take place rapidly without oxygen in case of a short but very intense effort in contrast to fat burning in mitochondria which is a fairly slower process that needs an appropriate supply in oxygen and is ideal in case of a prolonged less intense effort such as heart activity, middle or long distance running etc.

Anaerobic glycolysis is however much less efficient than fat burning in terms of total energy yield. It is noteworthy that it is the preferred mode to obtain energy in cancer cells as opposed to normal cells that rely generally on aerobic fat oxidation. Thus an excess of glucose in diet is certainly unhealthy and favors cancer cells and the overall inefficient and normally inappropriate anaerobic glycolysis pathway.  

[alphagruis]

  Even if it were known absolutely for sure that humans have an omnivorous physiology and are best classified as omnivorous, I don't think that guarantees that everyone or even anyone will do best on a diet rich in plant foods, for we could be on the meat-heavy edge, physiologically, of omnivory and it could also be that today's plant foods have become too degraded to provide the same level of nutrition as in the past (and the same could be true for the meats, too, but I suspect less so).

I actually rather contend the assertion that we do best on a diet rich in animal food. 

This should be clear enough, though.  I never advocated a diet rich in plant foods.

Yet, once more let me emphasize, this does not mean what some people seem to believe or contend here that "we do best on a diet exclusive of all plant foods i.e. ZC" which is precisely at the origin of the present discussion. At least not yet though I do not dismiss this possibility...

[Guittarman03]

I just see adding carbohydrates to a ZC diet as kind of tragic. Carbohydrates are not a reward for the body in any sense.  Fatty meat is delicious and nourishing. Why would anyone who is adapted WANT anything else? I feel so sorry for the posters on LCF and ALC who are still on the LC cycle of feeling "deprived" and "hungry." Of course--carbohydrates make you hungry and make you crave, and contribute nothing to health, energy and great body composition (unless you want to be counting calories).

I am happy to eat a lot of meat, lift heavy weights and look and feel my absolute leannest and strongest. I am so glad to not be hungry anymore, eating on my schedule to MY convenience.  Being ZC is a lifesaver.

You said you lift heavy weights on zc.  For the past 8 months I've been eating lots of carbs for insulin/glycogen, but haven't really experienced great results in the gym, although admittedly I've been doing more gymnastics type workouts than heavy lifting, and doing 5 days a week of that (not enough rest time).

But recently I read a book by Jason Ferruggia, basically saying if your goal is size and strength, you should be lifting 5-8 reps to failure, 2 sets per exercise; doing basic compound movements, squats, deads, and large pushing/pulling exercises for the upper body.  I've only been doing this the past couple weeks but it's worked out pretty good, I'm adding weight/reps every time I step in the gym now. 

Is this type of workout what you mean when you say heavy lifting?  I'm curious to see if I can keep adding strength on VLC, so for the first time since June I got back in ketosis.  I've read all kinds of material that talks about how a ketogenic diet will tend to bring your strength down, but I'm not so sure that any of those people have tried for more than a week or two.  Did it take you to adapt before your strength levels returned and began improving?  Do you make sure to eat anything right after your workout or does it not seem to matter much?         

 

[klowcarb]

Is this type of workout what you mean when you say heavy lifting?  I'm curious to see if I can keep adding strength on VLC, so for the first time since June I got back in ketosis.  I've read all kinds of material that talks about how a ketogenic diet will tend to bring your strength down, but I'm not so sure that any of those people have tried for more than a week or two.  Did it take you to adapt before your strength levels returned and began improving?  Do you make sure to eat anything right after your workout or does it not seem to matter much?   

I do free weights and cables, and a few machines. I'm thinking of reps as low at 6 but never more than 12 (for some back cable moves).

I have added muscle definition and strength and gotten leaner since going ZC, but PARTICULARLY since eating one large meal a day and going raw.  I feel much more energetic and strong from raw meat, but cooked ZC meat still works for me, but not my preference.


I eat .5 lbs of GB before lifting, and then  I do not eat anything until it is time for the evening meal at 9PM. I don' tbelieve in specific pre or post workout meals. I just eat meat.  I immediately felt more energy when I INCREASED calories and going raw. I love my  lflatabs, my waist, my shoulders and back strenth now.

[MMD]

...When I have kids there is a good chance I will let them eat a much higher carb diet than what I will be eating. I think it will be intersting to see how Del Fuego's kids will turn out since they eat nothing but pemmican. I am not willing to have my kids go zc, at least at first. When I say kids I mean after they have been weaned off breast milk.

Have you ever seen a poop blueberry?  Children cannot digest plant matter -- they poop it right out, whole and intact.  I guess blending up the plants might help, but it's still mostly indigestible to babies.  Why would you do this to them?

[PaleoPhil]

Quote from: Paleo Donk on January 02, 2010, 01:32:32 PM
...When I have kids there is a good chance I will let them eat a much higher carb diet than what I will be eating. I think it will be intersting to see how Del Fuego's kids will turn out since they eat nothing but pemmican. I am not willing to have my kids go zc, at least at first. When I say kids I mean after they have been weaned off breast milk.

Del Fuego's kids look great! So healthy looking, attractive and smiley!

[Paleo Donk]

Have you ever seen a poop blueberry?  Children cannot digest plant matter -- they poop it right out, whole and intact.  I guess blending up the plants might help, but it's still mostly indigestible to babies.  Why would you do this to them?

I don't get these kind of posts. Are you implying that I am purposely going to sabotage my children's health by allowing them to eat fruit if they so please? Perhaps I wasn't clear enough - I wouldn't force my children to eat fruit but if they showed an interest in it  I would let them have it after a certain age. I understand that infants cannot digest anything outside of mothers milk and raw meat. I ate plenty of fruit growing up without ever having a problem or even pooping out a blueberry or having any digetion problems. I'm far from convinced that a healthy child without compromised systems should eat nothing but animal foods.

Phil, Del Feugo's kids do look good, though that means very little right now only that this diet doesn't kill small children.  Though I remember him writing that they were very well behaved and have never visited a doctor. I'd really be interested in their height, weight, intelligence,  etc.. seeing as they are likely the only children that have ever lived on earth to eat nothing but pemmican after being weaned. The one visual I find most interesting is the extraordinarly brilliant blond hair his kids had though Del fuego and his wife are both brunette.

Also, on the matter of fruit, Del Fuego even mentioned that he would eat a fruit if his body felt like it.

What would your plan be for feeding your own kids?

[alphagruis]

I'm far from convinced that a healthy child without compromised systems should eat nothing but animal foods.

Yes, I agree. Such statements are just ridiculous ideology. Not science. The truth is that we don't know yet what the "best" diet is if such a best diet exists indeed.

[PaleoPhil]

...

Phil, Del Feugo's kids do look good, though that means very little right now only that this diet doesn't kill small children.  Though I remember him writing that they were very well behaved and have never visited a doctor. ...

Yes, and they have good facial bone structure, and my Paleo nephews are the best behaved in their classes, and the heavy-meat-eating (I'm guessing much of it raw) Evenk children in Siberia are reportedly very well behaved and healthy ("Children who hardly cry and never get ill." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ec5liNhGHI --the child in this video cries softly for just a few seconds and then is quickly happy again when his mother attends to him).

What would your plan be for feeding your own kids?

Me? Breast milk for as long as feasible (preferably 3 years or more) try introducing ground raw meat and fat at 6 months or so, raw pemmican as road food. Introduce organs when safe. Later on maybe let them try some wild berries. For school I'd probably have to let them eat more foods to avoid ridicule.

[TylerDurden]

I'm rather wary of this quasi-WAPF notion of breastfeeding past the age of 2. I mean, technically, once babies have grown their teeth, they shouldn't really need to be breastfed any more, and it's just really weird to read about mothers breastfeeding their children till the age of 9 etc.. Granted, in earlier times, tribeswomen breastfed for 2 years, but that was more to do with the fact that breastfeeding has a contraceptive component.

[ForTheHunt]

Hey guys.

I just recieved my suet I ordered and you know when you eat a steak and the fat near the skin is always so sweet, buttery and melts in your mouth? Totally yummy! And then inside the steak there is sometimes this gritty, non tasty, non melting type of fat that to be honest feels kinda gross?

Anyway suet tastes and feels just like that. And to be honest it just feels kinda unnatural seeing as it doesn't melt in my mouth.

So I'm curious what are your oppionions on suet? Is it safe? Because it feels like this stuff would just clog up my arteries even if it's raw.

The reason why I'm a bit scared of it is because my heart has been feeling a bit off since I started being carnivorous. I don't get palputations but it just feels kinda "heavier" and like it's working a lot harder. To be honest it scares me a little bit.