Really?! That's incredible! I realise that you may've decided against purchase now due to poor service but if you'd like me to get one for you and forward it on myself it's no problem - just let me know.
Thanks, yes I have read that. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I think it's obtaining and assimilation of the minerals that's aggravating my problem due to limited foods sources and poor absorption due to previous health problems. I've got A, D3, K1, MkIV K2 etc covered (assuming they're sufficiently assimilated!) but am still struggling for sufficient Ca/Mg sources - hence my other post about dried herbs. Of course, I realise that dried herbs are probably non-paleo but my ability to obtain the required insects, bones and seafood is limited.
Organ meats all contain calcium too, with tripe containing a significant amount, and marrow some unknown amount. There's also Dr. Ron's bone meal that is supposed to be high quality, but I have no way of testing it. My favorite source of calcium is dried salted mackerel from a local Asian food store. I like the crunchewiness. I've never noticed any benefits from any form of calcium, though, and some forms constipate me worse. However, I've read here and there that Stone Agers ate a lot of calcium, but rarely is it said what they ate to give them the calcium. Fiber and carbs can bind with calcium and block its absorption, so if you aren't eating a lot of fiber and carbs your calcium needs are probably much less than a SAD eater.
Remind me - are you doing ok in general on ZC/VLC?
I'm doing VLC and doing OK, though even the small amount of plant carbs (around 1-4% of calories) I'm eating does give me mild negative symptoms--much less severe than when I was eating plentiful carbs, of course. To take one symptom as an example: when I first cut out gluten and went cooked Paleo, the dead skin on my back, shins, eyebrows and bottoms of my feet decreased substantially and I happened to be eating fairly low carb, because carby "Paleo" and semi-Paleo foods like winter squash and tubers and big fruits like melons were too much bother and too large and time consuming for a single person who didn't love them to bother with. Then I was influenced into eating more plant carbs like fruits and winter squashes by loved ones, thinking it was safe to do so based on the writings of Cordain and others. Unfortunately my health relapsed and the dead skin returned. Now, the dead skin on the bottom of my feet is completely gone and most of the dead skin elsewhere is gone as well.
I still have constipation, some continued hairloss, underweight and undermuscled.
Is the carb requirement, for you, purely due to the recent talk (Stone, Harris, Roddy et al) of eating the arbitrary 50g carbs to keep out of starvation mode?
No, I was doing it before I read their writings on it. I didn't know that Harris had even wrote about starvation mode. I think I remember him saying that eating around 5% of calories as carbs is more efficient than eating ZC. However, I find when my plant carb intake gets above around 3-4% I start getting negative symptoms--and they aren't new symptoms, like many carb advocates try to claim. I've had the symptoms for a long time, they improved immediately when I started cutting back on carbs from around the 30-40% of calories range, they continued to improve with each incremental decrease in plant carb intake, and they worsen within less than 24 hours if I add back in too much plant carbs--and the symptoms quickly resolve again if I once again cut back on the carbs.
Like Lex I don't think that he or I and some other people have any carb requirement. I'm basically experimenting because I haven't reached Lex's level of success yet and my constipation is not resolving as quickly as his did, IIRC.
I'm neither a ZC zealot nor a fruit fanatic. I abhor zealotry in general, but if it turns out that only an extreme diet works for me in the longer run, then so be it.
Kyle and gs made useful suggestions I suspect. gs, are those yacon similar to sweet potato?
I've been keeping my eye out for tubers and roots that are edible raw since before Matt Stone got popular. I finished my ZC experiment and started experimenting with adding back in various carbs before Danny became enamored of Matt, though Danny's and Stephen Guyenet's discussions of the subject have added to my interest. So far all I've found is daikon radish root, and it's good enough to stay on my menu. I haven't read much of Matt's stuff beyond learning what he was advocating and what was posted in this forum because his experience has been almost opposite mine in nearly every way and thus of little relevance to me. Danny at least does well on lots of meat, animal fat and pemmican, like I do. Matt gets warmer from eating starches and carbs whereas I get colder on carbs and instead get warmer on animal fats. Matt apparently can eat wheat whereas wheat is the worst of all foods for me. In these and other matters, my experience comes much closer to that of you, Lex, Dr. Harris, Michael Eades, Peter of Hyperlipid, Gary Taubes, and others. They provide more than enough material for me to read. One area where Matt and I are apparently similar is with dairy, which Matt seems to also fair poorly on--even raw milk--though it sounds like he has much less problems with it than I do.
Are you aware of any anti-nutrients they may contain? Sweet potato can be eaten raw but with toxins such as trypsin inhibitor it's not necessarily a good idea long-term.
Don't let the veg-heads and fruit fans fool you. ALL plants contain antinutrients, even fruits. If they didn't they wouldn't survive long in the wild. Those antinutrients are critical chemical defense mechanisms. Of course, the flora fiends give antinutrients politically correct terms like "phytonutrients." Remember, antinutrients don't have to be instant lethal poisons to be antinutrients and human beings are better adapted to some than others. Antinutrients are neither pure evil nor completely benign.
Of course, there's still the potential for fresh blood that we discussed previously too. It seems that insects are not signifiant with respect to carbs unless one considers eating 500g - 1kg of them per day. I see them as having provided more as a source of protein and minerals.
Yeah, once humans got pretty large and got pretty good at hunting megafauna, insects and other little critters became a somewhat inefficient food source for such large human animals that had better options. However, insects and other microfauna remain in the human diet to this day and I do think that consumption of insects and other small animals is a crucial part of our ancestral and genetic heritage.
