Sam's Journal

[Taste Sense]

I would like to sort though a lot of health issues both mental and physical that have being bugging me for some time now. No other diet path worked before, so I am hopping on this journey to arrive at my destination, but don't want to get my hopes up yet. Currently I am not digesting raw meat well and have horrible skin outbreaks. It is either Eczema or Psoriasis or whatever. Basically I have a red, scaly, flake, itchy, patches on my scalp, around my nose and under one of my eyes. Also chapped lips and dry skin. All of this is really frustrating. I never used to have skin disorders nor any zits for that matter. So having this is a disgrace and I can't stand looking at myself in the mirror, since it only makes me more depressed. I have had this for a while now, say a couple of years, but it really got worse since on 0 carb these last 2 months. (B.T.W. I don't eat anything but red meat and fat and currently on VLC). At first I though it was cooked meat. So I started eating raw, with horrible digestion. So I though it was grass fed. So I switched to that, but failed again. Then I thought it was light boiling that I did to it so I eat everything raw, despite continuous pains in my belly. And still my condition only progressed to the point where my patches got larger and are now also burning. I want to put an end to this madness starting with this annoying symptom I am experiencing. I am going to record all of my attempts to solve this right here, and then tackle other problems. But first thing first, so let's get right to business.

I love the taste of raw fat but can't stand the taste of cooked fat. Now that I have grassfed fat I am fearless about eating it to feed my malnourished body. After my recovery from yesterday, I went on to have a slice of pure bison fat. I loved it as it was real yummy. I'd say that about 1/10 of the slice was meat. I don't know how much percent of fat that is but I bet it is more than 80/20 ratio Lex is on. I am pretty bad with numbers so if anyone can help out would be nice. I have a scale so that would be the easiest for me to reach the high fat content I want. Say I have a slice of fat and a slice of meat, how much of each I need by weight in order to get 80/20 ratio? Maybe I am just protein poisoned so I want to give this a try to see if it clears things up for me.

[klowcarb]

Welcome Sam. I'm a Raw ZCer and lifter. Good to see you here. Where do you hail from?

[pc701]

I don't know your history but I will offer you some basic common sense suggestions:if beef is a problem for you then try other meats such as fish,try eating fruits and veggie juices, and experimenting with different fats

[pc701]

Oh I forgot to mention,but I think aajonus recommends lots of honey to heal the digestive system

[Taste Sense]

Kate I am from Seattle. I did 0 carb but chickened out two months in and then found out just how much I really enjoy raw carbs.  Perhaps in the future I'll give 0 carb another stab. Did you have any issues at first eating raw ground beef? How was your diet prior to 0 carb?

PC thanks for suggestions. I got both of AV's books. I don't like his ideas about juicing greens, raw dairy, raw unheated honey, little to no water, body oil changes, frequent binge eating, eating lots of mercury fish, consuming your own waste to name a few. Other that fish and honey, none of these things a paleo human would try, nor do I believe any of it is healthy. The raw honey I think gave me a cavity, and did not help with digestion whatsoever. I do like his obsession with raw foods, and found that raw red meat agrees with me best, if I don't eat too much. I am also fond of raw fruits and raw eatable veggies. Like today I made an avocado and tomato salad with some onions, sprinkled with some Celtic sea salt and mixed with a 100% macadamia oil. I finished my self off with a couple of raw egg yolks. I felt fantastic! I have no problem digesting anything I don't' think other than raw meat. I don't understand this since it is supposed to be the easiest to digest food. Raw chicken was the worse for me. The stomach pain was so bad that to this day I still fear trying it raw. On the other hand I can eat any cooked meat all day with no bad effects. Perhaps cooked meat and raw meat are as different as day and night in their chemistry. Cudos to those who can eat raw meat all day with perfect digestion and assimilation. My hope is that I'll get there too somehow. But currently I have no problems eating only raw fat. I can eat it like carrot sticks.

[TylerDurden]

The mercury_in_fish thery is a complete scam, long disproven:-

http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/med/mercury.htm

As for issues with raw meats that makes no sense, people generally find them easier to digest. Of course, there is the caveat that some people undergo stronger detoxes than most when transitioning to raw, so it may take time. In the meantime, eat raw animal foods you have no issues with.

[William]

The basic recipe is fat and some raw meat, and the proportion is important. By volume, it should be 3 parts fat to 1 part meat. Some might need more fat.

AV found by chemical analysis that mercury in fish is 98% excreted if the fish is raw, and only 2% excreted when the fish is cooked.

[kurite]

I don't know your history but I will offer you some basic common sense suggestions:if beef is a problem for you then try other meats such as fish,try eating fruits and veggie juices, and experimenting with different fats

This is more of a primal dieter suggestion. Some raw paleos including myself don't believe in drinking veggie juices.

[pc701]

That's the problem, sometimes belief gets in the way of finding optimal health,it happens to me all the time.

[invisible]

That's the problem, sometimes belief gets in the way of finding optimal health,it happens to me all the time.

Just come out and say it mate. You recommend Sam go on a vegan 30 bananas a day durianrider diet, correct?

[Taste Sense]

Some thoughts on my eating patterns thus far. Yesterday's raw salad did not sit well with me. I initially felt good but found that I was hungry again only a couple of hours later. I became obsessive about food looking forward to my next meal, thinking how I was gonna make it better this time, eat more, add new ingredients etc. While on o carb and after a meal however, I remember I cared less about my next meal and in fact it seemed repulsive to me for at least good 6 - 8 hours. I also would wake up refreshed and without hunger. But this morning I woke in agony and hungry looking forward to my breakfast. So I ate the same salad mix but without onions and this time added a dozen of raw egg yolks. To my surprise that did not fill me up and so I stopped to grab some pistachios nuts on the way to work. I ate the bag and still was unfulfilled. I noticed later in the day that I would want to itch all over. I suspected avocado, so I got home and googled avocado and allergies and bingo came across a blog that was revealing on the issue. http://jonskifarms.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/avocado-allergy/ I guess an allergy to avocado is real and just like any allergy in some cases could be deadly. I learned by reading through the blog that basically anyone could be allergic to anything at anytime. Tests are commonly erroneous, and the only sure way to know is to abstain from the suspected food for a while and then have a lot of it. But there was something else that I found interesting. You could develop an allergy to the food in question after a very long exposure. So while some get an immediate reaction from eating avocado, banana, shrimp etc, it could take others decades before such reaction would occur. Afterward both groups can't have any more of their allergens or it could cost them their life. Also I noticed that people there complained about being allergic to almost everything except for meat. As for me I am going to continue experimenting with raw fruits paying closer attention...

[Taste Sense]

The mercury_in_fish thery is a complete scam, long disproven:-

Tyler there is conflicting information out there for everything, mercury is no exception. But you have to take a stance on it, and mine is that the less mercury I ingest the better off I will be. I respect your opinion, but I am not going to take my chances with eating swordfish sorry. I can provide several articles, forums, and youtube videos on dangers of mercury including from fish. Fish is the second highest source of exposure after amalgam. Most women in Asia don't eat fish when they're pregnant due to mercury in fish. Besides, I've read people store up on mercury in their bodies with horrendous results by following the raw guru AV. It's all out there on yahoo RAF groups.

As for issuses with raw meats that makes no sense, people generally find them easier to digest. Of course, there is the caveat that some people undergo stronger detoxes than most when transitioning to raw, so it may take time. In the meantime, eat raw animal foods you have no issues with.

I find that strange too and want to get to the bottom of this. I know that I have a candida overgrowth due to mostly eating grains and sugars on the SAD in the past. I also don't produce enough Hydrochloric acid, since I can take up to 20 pills of 650ml of HCI without feeling the burn!!! I did get sick by taking such amount (vomiting, headache, weakness) so I am not going to try and beat my record. Currently I do still take them sometimes but no more than 10 at a time, for I don't see the point anyway. I also tried salt, EM, unheated honey, all to no avail. Currently I can eat raw fat just fine, but don't think it's wise to just eat that. Do you have any ideas on how I can improve my raw meat digestion?

The basic recipe is fat and some raw meat, and the proportion is important. By volume, it should be 3 parts fat to 1 part meat. Some might need more fat.

William is that 80% fat and 20% protein by calories you're suggesting? So if I have a piece of lean raw meat that weights 1 pound, are you saying that I need to eat a piece of raw fat that weights 3 pounds? I can certainly try eating this much fat as I don't have a problem with raw fat, but it still seems like too much and probably is higher than 80/20 ratio I am aiming for.

[TylerDurden]

Tyler there is conflicting information out there for everything, mercury is no exception. But you have to take a stance on it, and mine is that the less mercury I ingest the better off I will be. I respect your opinion, but I am not going to take my chances with eating swordfish sorry. I can provide several articles, forums, and youtube videos on dangers of mercury including from fish. Fish is the second highest source of exposure after amalgam. Most women in Asia don't eat fish when they're pregnant due to mercury in fish. Besides, I've read people store up on mercury in their bodies with horrendous results by following the raw guru AV. It's all out there on yahoo RAF groups.

 This is all unnecessary scaremongering. As for mention of articles/youtube videos, I should add that sheer quantity is no sign of quality whatsoever. There is only 1 study, of any remote validity, which can reasonably claim that mercury in such tiny doses from fish can be harmful, and that is the Faroes study. Even that study has long been debunked by the far more rigorous, longer-lasting Seychelles study, and even the silly Faroes study only made a claim for a -0.25 IQ point drop as a result of mercury-consumption(which was, for obvious reasons, dismissed by experts as -0.25 is such a small, non-significant deviation that it
 could easily have come up as a result of any randomised trial, meaning exactly nothing.)

As for PDers, amusingly, I've made a number of remarks over the years on how many
Primal Dieters have routinely dismissed genuine health-problems(such as allergies towards raw dairy)  as being supposedly "detoxes" or due to some other nonexistent
cause such as heavy-metal poisoning. Indeed, I remember listening to Aajonus on his tapes and being highly amused at how in almost every single consultation, he claimed that they each had heavy-metal poisoning. The odds against such an occurrence being somewhat overly high to put it mildly.


Plus, judging from some articles, Japanese , Asian Americans etc. eat far more fish than other Westerners, so they seem to be happily ignoring the above anti-mercury advice.

Whatever the case, while AV does give credit to the whole mercury-in-fish guff, he does at least claim that raw fish somehow  mythically "binds" with the mercury making it supposedly harmless(about as likely as the notion that mercury in fish is harmful), so at least he's not warning his PDers away from raw seafood, which is , after all, a huge food-group within the RPD diet.

[djr_81]

I know that I have a candida overgrowth due to mostly eating grains and sugars on the SAD in the past.

If you do have a Candida overgrowth then there's the reason why you were so ravenously hungry. If you feed the Candida it's going to want more and you're going to have a compulsion to eat more carbs. Raw salad, raw salad, then nuts. All modest amounts of carbs. Just something to think about.

William is that 80% fat and 20% protein by calories you're suggesting? So if I have a piece of lean raw meat that weights 1 pound, are you saying that I need to eat a piece of raw fat that weights 3 pounds? I can certainly try eating this much fat as I don't have a problem with raw fat, but it still seems like too much and probably is higher than 80/20 ratio I am aiming for.

I think (hope) that William just transposed the ratio. It should be roughly 3 parts meat to 1 part fat. If you have 1 pound of meat you should have roughly a 1/3 of a pound of fat with it.

[William]

If you do have a Candida overgrowth then there's the reason why you were so ravenously hungry. If you feed the Candida it's going to want more and you're going to have a compulsion to eat more carbs. Raw salad, raw salad, then nuts. All modest amounts of carbs. Just something to think about.
I think (hope) that William just transposed the ratio. It should be roughly 3 parts meat to 1 part fat. If you have 1 pound of meat you should have roughly a 1/3 of a pound of fat with it.

/my bad. I did transpose the proportion, however I referred to volume, not weight. This is just for looking.

When you react badly to salad, and can eat lots of raw fat, this supports AV's advice that raw fat is healing and Bear's advice that fat should be eaten first until sated, then eat meat.
Hunger is known to be caused by changes in blood sugar, so enough fat and some meat  (zero carb) has stabilized blood sugar.
Have you tried dried meat? Easy to do, and cured the aversion to raw meat for some.

[Stig of the Dump]

Also chapped lips and dry skin.

I am having a similar thing four days in.

[Taste Sense]

Time has passed nothing' changed. I still have bad candida, still eat carbs, and still as desperate as ever. So I am back to give RPD another try. I will start in a week as I prefer to begin a new at the beginning of a month. In the meantime I am going to reduce carb consumption with each passing day and start preparing my mind for what's ahead...

[Taste Sense]

As most zero carb wannabes I am overly concerned with getting enough fat in my diet. The main concern for me is protein poisoning, rabbit starvation and kidney stones. I can enjoy raw beef fat although can't eat enough of it, since it takes too much time to chew and I wanna get on with other things. I do have beef tallow and I know that it's rendered thus not raw. But I still rather sacrifice quality for time. I got an an idea from this forum to melt the fat as to increase the intake. I did just that. Before I measured the tallow to weight twice as much as raw grass fed beef. I poured the tallow into a glass and drank it along with my meat. I have to admit that the drink was unpalatable. I also took 10 hcl 650 mg pills since I can't digest raw meat. Soon after the meal I was hungry. But unfortunately I knew that I have to fast since I already used up a lot of stomic acid and if I eat more then I would get severe stomachache. So I fasted. I was kind of happy thinking that all is well and that I am finally digesting my raw meat. But the next day I was not feeling too well and had a stomachache. I went to the bathroom and everything came out undigested. I am puzzled. On one hand carbs are problematic for me, on the other fat is not a solution to zero carbing. Perhaps I have to settle for fruit?

[klowcarb]

on the other fat is not a solution to zero carbing.

What do you mean?

[djr_81]

As most zero carb wannabes I am overly concerned with getting enough fat in my diet. The main concern for me is protein poisoning, rabbit starvation and kidney stones. I can enjoy raw beef fat although can't eat enough of it, since it takes too much time to chew and I wanna get on with other things. I do have beef tallow and I know that it's rendered thus not raw. But I still rather sacrifice quality for time. I got an an idea from this forum to melt the fat as to increase the intake. I did just that. Before I measured the tallow to weight twice as much as raw grass fed beef. I poured the tallow into a glass and drank it along with my meat. I have to admit that the drink was unpalatable. I also took 10 hcl 650 mg pills since I can't digest raw meat. Soon after the meal I was hungry. But unfortunately I knew that I have to fast since I already used up a lot of stomic acid and if I eat more then I would get severe stomachache. So I fasted. I was kind of happy thinking that all is well and that I am finally digesting my raw meat. But the next day I was not feeling too well and had a stomachache. I went to the bathroom and everything came out undigested. I am puzzled. On one hand carbs are problematic for me, on the other fat is not a solution to zero carbing. Perhaps I have to settle for fruit?

I would have the same reaction as you and I've been eating RZC successfully for over a year.
I'm going to make some observations without quantities or photos so these might be wrong:
-You don't have to worry about protein poisoning unless you eat pounds and pounds of meat everyday. A couple pounds of meat isn't going to poison you.
-You will not get rabbit starvation if you get moderate amounts of fat with your meat; the fat on fatty cuts will be enough. You might not have a ton of energy if you don't get enough fat or carbs but you're not going to shut down.
-I'm not going to harp on you about the cooked fat but I will say that I personally cannot tolerate it and do not recommend it.
-There's not much evidence that ZC directly causes kidney stones. IMO a ZC diet is more demanding of water than say a raw omni diet so you should hydrate a bit more but it shouldn't scare you. Lex's experience do seem to correlate with ZC as at least a catalyst but it is one experience.
-You're having too much fat. Twice the weight in tallow (rendered fat so even more potent/concentrated) to ground beef is grossly excessive.

[miles]

-You don't have to worry about protein poisoning unless you eat pounds and pounds of meat everyday. A couple pounds of meat isn't going to poison you.

There's no need to worry about protein poisoning if it tastes nice...

Quit blaming the food and blame your stupid higher consciousness(your 'self') for thinking it knows better than your primal instincts, and choosing to force-feed your body shit just because you have some idea that it's good.

I see you have come from forcing some other stuff in your body for years in attempts to make yourself throw up? So it would not be surprising you try to force fat into yourself as well. You 'need' to change the way you think. Have respect the lower levels of your consciousness..

I don't know what you do... But start doing something that makes you care about how you feel/perform... Then you will eat by taste and how it makes you feel, and it will be important..

[Taste Sense]

Well I got some good news. I am finally digesting my raw meats and fat . It has been a long road for me indeed, and I am glad that I persevered. Special thanks to this intelligent and open minded community, otherwise I'd probably still be lost and continued to deteriorate. I can't believe I ate all that rancid cooked crap all my life. Well at least I get to find out now what it is like to eat like a human. And unfortunately the majority will live out their lives without that understanding. I still get horrible reaction if I eat plants, so I plan to stick to RZC for a while now, and then maybe play around with them later. Also I found that not all meats are good for me raw. Given a choice I would not choose to eat white meat with unsaturated fat (chicken, pork, fish, etc). I feel best on raw grass fed or wild red meat. And with the rest of the meats I either don't feel anything or feel worse. Same goes for grain fed red meats. Not only do I feel the difference when I eat clean red meats, but it also seems the most logical food choice. I figure that since my body runs mostly on saturated fats, and my flesh is red, then my fuel should be of the same nature. I also think that raw organs and plenty of fat are crucial to be a successful RZC long term. But I don't plan to make this woe a religion. I will still eat everything but very occasionally and not in large quantities. I actually look forward experimenting with cooked food and plants in the future to see how damaging they really were to me. I still have a lot of health issues that I hope will improve with raw paleo. Mainly I now wish that I can heal my kidneys from heavy metal damage. Time will tell and I would be trilled to report it here if that were to happen. Anyway add me to the list of successful RZC's!

klowcarb wrote:
What do you mean?

I really don't know. I think I was either high of a fruit or depressed of a starch and hence my thinking was out of whack.

djr_81 wrote:
I would have the same reaction as you and I've been eating RZC successfully for over a year.
I'm going to make some observations without quantities or photos so these might be wrong:
-You don't have to worry about protein poisoning unless you eat pounds and pounds of meat everyday. A couple pounds of meat isn't going to poison you.
-You will not get rabbit starvation if you get moderate amounts of fat with your meat; the fat on fatty cuts will be enough. You might not have a ton of energy if you don't get enough fat or carbs but you're not going to shut down.
-I'm not going to harp on you about the cooked fat but I will say that I personally cannot tolerate it and do not recommend it.
-There's not much evidence that ZC directly causes kidney stones. IMO a ZC diet is more demanding of water than say a raw omni diet so you should hydrate a bit more but it shouldn't scare you. Lex's experience do seem to correlate with ZC as at least a catalyst but it is one experience.
-You're having too much fat. Twice the weight in tallow (rendered fat so even more potent/concentrated) to ground beef is grossly excessive.

Thanks for your observation drj_81, and congrats on a full year! I can't eat a lot of meat raw yet; only about 1/3 of what I used to eat cooked. So yea currently protein poisoning doesn't worry me. I do make sure to finish off my meals with plenty of fat, but not vice versa, because then I would get too full too quick. On cooked grass fed fat vs raw grass fat I can't comment yet because I have no practice in that area. I have not yet noticed anything negative from cooked, but again I lack experience. Right now intuitively I feel like raw fat is much better, since raw meat is much better... I will test it all out and let you know how I fare on it. Do you have an explanation for why RZC's need more water? It seems counterintuitive since raw meats are mostly water already. I did notice an increase in thirst, so now I drink close to a 1/2 gallon. I want to drink even more but don't know how that would affect my kidneys. I do feel pain down there if I drink sometimes. Perhaps water quality is an issue. I am in search of quality water now, since that is all I drink. I feel that the taste and my bodily reaction would be the best indicators for its purity. Right now my approach is to drink more but less often and away from the rest of solid foods. This way seems more natural to me and saves the hassle of carrying water bottle around wherever you go. And speaking of fat I don't know if it is indeed a bad idea to eat it twice as much as protein, since Lex is a great example of such a possibility. I certainly can't eat that much at the moment, but that is because my body still prefers glucose and gets it out of it stored reserves, and that is evident to me through my drastic body fat loss.

miles wrote:
I don't know what you do... But start doing something that makes you care about how you feel/perform... Then you will eat by taste and how it makes you feel, and it will be important..

I agree as I just recently discovered that myself. But that's how most people change anyway, by embracing the truth through their own experience.

[djr_81]

I'm glad to hear that you're doing better. A transition to a raw diet has lots of hardships to it for different folks, be it acculturation or physical adaptations that need to take place, but ultimately it seems to be a better diet for the body for most people once adapted.

Do you have an explanation for why RZC's need more water? It seems counterintuitive since raw meats are mostly water already. I did notice an increase in thirst, so now I drink close to a 1/2 gallon. I want to drink even more but don't know how that would affect my kidneys. I do feel pain down there if I drink sometimes. Perhaps water quality is an issue. I am in search of quality water now, since that is all I drink. I feel that the taste and my bodily reaction would be the best indicators for its purity. Right now my approach is to drink more but less often and away from the rest of solid foods. This way seems more natural to me and saves the hassle of carrying water bottle around wherever you go.

Just intuition much like your observation. Others have mentioned it as well. I'm not sure of the "why" though.

And speaking of fat I don't know if it is indeed a bad idea to eat it twice as much as protein, since Lex is a great example of such a possibility. I certainly can't eat that much at the moment, but that is because my body still prefers glucose and gets it out of it stored reserves, and that is evident to me through my drastic body fat loss.

Don't confuse calorie ratios with weight ratios. Lex's caloric ratios of 70-80% fat are nowhere near a 2:1 ratio of fat to lean by weight. This is what I was getting at. I forget the rough rule of thumb most people point to but it might be ~1:3 fat:lean. I eat by what my body is craving so don't have numbers of my own to throw out.