Couple of things

[TylerDurden]

Before this disastrous skiing holiday , I asked a new grassfed meat(lamb/beef etc.) as to what they fed their animals on. They rapidly stated that they fed them on grass most of the time but in the winter fed them on some grains. Watch out when you read that the meat is grassfed as it is often the case that it is not 100% grassfed. Now some people such as myself can find way round this such as getting most of their raw meats from wild game, but most should be leery as hell about this.

Another thing:- After a long delay, I intend to add to rawpaleodiet.com when I get back. My initial intention is to add a raw myths section with 1 or 2 paragraphs debunking each point such as the ridiculous mercury-in-fish theory, the laughable noble-savage theory etc. There are others such as the notion that the more raw food you (over) eat the faster you'll recover. Any suggestions re other myths to debunk are welcome.

[kurite]

The dangers of parasites and salmonella, the idea that grass-fed beef produces more methane so its worse for the environment, I already found an article about this from eatwild.com here it is.
http://www.eatwild.com/environment.html

[Hannibal]

Before this disastrous skiing holiday , I asked a new grassfed meat(lamb/beef etc.) as to what they fed their animals on. They rapidly stated that they fed them on grass most of the time but in the winter fed them on some grains. Watch out when you read that the meat is grassfed as it is often the case that it is not 100% grassfed. Now some people such as myself can find way round this such as getting most of their raw meats from wild game, but most should be leery as hell about this.

Even wild animals do eat some amount of grains, as they are quite ease stuffs to get; there is plethora of fields with crops.
IMO I don't think that it is sth to worry about.

[PaleoPhil]

Any suggestions re other myths to debunk are welcome.

The myths that are the two most common objections to raw Paleo diets:

1. Stone Age life was "nasty, brutish and short," so we shouldn't emulate its diet or lifestyle.
2. (Mentioned by kurite) The bacteria and parasite risks from eating raw meat and fish are too great.

Some other myths:

> Most or all raw Paleo dieters are deceiving themselves with Stone age utopianism or are just engaged in Paleo re-enactment
> A food must be healthy if Stone Age humans ate it and all Stone Agers were "healthy" in the "optimal" sense that humans use today
> A food must be healthy for a wild animal if it eats it and the food is native to its habitat and all wild animals are "healthy" in the "optimal" sense that humans use today

[wodgina]

I've been thinking about this 'nasty, brutish, short' and Williams theory that the bones were in such excellent condition that they appeared to be around 35 years of age. I'm in no doubt paleo poeples lives were often 'nasty etc but looking at old photos of Aged Australian aborigines with chalk white perfect teeth makes me wonder.

TD also very frequently brings up the point that even paleo people had malcolusion, this is true but it was only around 5% and relates to minor teeth misalignment compared to around 50% malcolusion in moderns some of which would be severe crowding.

[invisible]

agree with refuting the 'caveman lived 25-35 years old' argument. They died of old age with bones looking like young people. Most lay people believe that caveman died at such a young age without evening knowing how scientists arrived at that 'conclusion'.

[PaleoPhil]

I do remember it being reported somewhere here that scientists have already discovered that their dating methods were underestimating the age of bones and they had come up with a new method that showed them to be a bit older (but not centuries older, like William claimed ). It may even been me who posted it, but I can't find it now.

[TylerDurden]

OK, I will insert data countering the notion that palaeos lived only till 35 and the massive strength advantage over Neolithic era societies but I will be realistic and mention the high infant mortality and related info as well. We don't want Williamesque immortality-style claims found here, we need more solid data.

[William]

Williams theory that the bones were in such excellent condition that they appeared to be around 35 years of age.

Not a theory. It is an archaeological observation, not disputed.

scientists have already discovered that their dating methods were underestimating the age of bones and they had come up with a new method that showed them to be a bit older (but not centuries older, like William claimed

I made no such claim. However, if you insist on "claims" here's one: Nobody knows the lifespan of paleoman.
Nobody.
Their new dating method is still wishful thinking.
There's no proof that they didn't all die at 32, of nothing, or at 250,000 of boredom.


As for the noble savage hypothesis, it was civilized man who murdered 200,000,000 of his own kind in the last century. How's that for noble?

[kurite]

Another myth is that if you eat the whites of an egg you will get a biotin defficieny. In all reality if you eat the whole egg, the avidin will bind with the biotin in the yolk of the egg not with the biotin in your body.

[TylerDurden]

Another myth is that if you eat the whites of an egg you will get a biotin defficieny. In all reality if you eat the whole egg, the avidin will bind with the biotin in the yolk of the egg not with the biotin in your body.

  Well, there is a claim that if you eat 24 or more raw eggs a day that then the amount of avidin becomes dangerous.

[kurite]

  Well, there is a claim that if you eat 24 or more raw eggs a day that then the amount of avidin becomes dangerous.

Im not going to fight you on that but I dont know anyone who does that anyway. Do any of our members?

[Hannibal]

Another myth is that if you eat the whites of an egg you will get a biotin defficieny. In all reality if you eat the whole egg, the avidin will bind with the biotin in the yolk of the egg not with the biotin in your body.

Some will bind some will not bind, but overall it's better not to eat whites, but only yolks.

[majormark]

Is there any documented evidence that eating whites is bad for you? Like people having very serious problems etc, not the theoretical claims.

What other "bad stuff" do you thing the egg white contains, aside from avidin?

Do you normally throw the white when you don't eat it or use it for something else?

[Hannibal]

What other "bad stuff" do you thing the egg white contains, aside from avidin?

Enzyme inhibitors - Howell wrote about this

Do you normally throw the white when you don't eat it or use it for something else?

Yes I do throw the white.

[TylerDurden]

Im not going to fight you on that but I dont know anyone who does that anyway. Do any of our members?

  AV recommends eating raw eggs in large quantities, although he admits that it's inferior to raw meats. The result is that a number of hardcore primal dieters go in for regular 20-30 raw eggs every day. 

As for noted side-effects, all I've heard is of a few athletes dying after consuming only raw egg whites and no other food,for many weeks.

[klowcarb]

I ditch the whites. I don't see the point of eating them. If you eat raw meat, you get plenty of protein, unless you waste calories on stupid things like fruit.

[TylerDurden]

OK, I've decided to follow through and belatedly do some more additions to the rawpaleodiet.com website, since I seem to be the primary contributor and no one else wants the burden. So far, I've added in some threads from the info for newbies section of rawpaleoforum. I also plan on introducing a short raw food myths article on rawpaleodiet.com, within a few days, which can be expanded at a later date. I'll see what I can include for now. Obviously the mercury-in-fish-scam  has to be exposed as a typical raw-foodist  myth  as  raw seafood is a staple of an RPD diet and  having newbies needlessly scared away from a whole food group just because of silly hysteria re mercury doesn't help them one bit.

I plan to do a few more book reviews for the site by the end of this year, even though the work bores me to tears. I'll finish the blasted cordain one and the wp-one when I can. At a much later date, Taubes' GCBC book will have to be done, probably after doing the reviews of  Aajonus' 2 books and the Wrangham pro-cooking book.

Bear in mind that I am pretty bad at organising things, especially tech-wise, so if you find articles needlessly duplicated on that site, or with spelling-mistakes or poor punctuation etc., please PM me and tell me about it so I can sort it out. I'd also like feedback on what you think of what I wrote on that site. There's always the danger of unnecessary bias etc., with just 1 person writing the articles, and I'm hardly of author standard.

If any of you have any further suggestions on what new articles/info we should add, feel free to mention them in this sub-forum.

[TylerDurden]

Oh, and I really need to do a fully comprehensive long article on the damaging effects of heat-created toxins. It'll mean hours of perusing pubmed and other sources for studies, but it's absolutely essential. It'll have to wait some months, though.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in providing more testimonials of their achievements on the rawpalaeodiet, let me know.

[TylerDurden]

It would be especially helpful if some of the new testimonials came from female RPDers so as to give a wider range of experience. Given the  apparent reluctance of people to give testimonials, perhaps we could allow people to just include their usernames if that's what they want.

[cherimoya_kid]

It would be especially helpful if some of the new testimonials came from female RPDers so as to give a wider range of experience. Given the  apparent reluctance of people to give testimonials, perhaps we could allow people to just include their usernames if that's what they want.

I'd love it if Ioanna, klowcarb, etc. wrote their stories and posted them on that rawpaleodiet.com site. It would help.

[klowcarb]

I have posted a testimonial on dirtycarnivore.com. I can do a re-write here, and focus more on the raw element of my WOE if that is requested.

[TylerDurden]

I have posted a testimonial on dirtycarnivore.com. I can do a re-write here, and focus more on the raw element of my WOE if that is requested.

  That would be fine.

[klowcarb]

Great! I'm one of the few RZCers on DCF. I really attribute the raw ZC route to giving me a lot of mind and body benefits I have now.

[TylerDurden]

OK, tomorrow I will post that other testimonial and the raw food myths section.