What rawpalaeo foods are you eating right now?

[Löwenherz]

A for Loewenherz's comment re my "wishy-washy" accounts, what do you expect? I follow a far more varied diet than Lex, which is also subject to food-availability(that is, on rare occasions, I might, one  week, not be able to buy any raw wild game or raw grassfed meats, so I might just eat raw fruits instead for those 7 days; another time I might eat only 100 percent raw meats for 5 days because I can't be bothered to go out and buy raw fruits etc.

Thanks for your explanation. One more thought about this:

If you can switch from zero carb high animal fat to ALL fruit for some days and vice versa you must be extremely healthy. Sounds good!

My body (still?) can't handle such extreme switches... But are they advisable??

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

GS, horses are generally classified as providing "lean meats", being low in fat.
Hippos are also very lean:-
..
Judging from online pdfs, dugongs are also considered to have lean meats.
..
Elephants are claimed to have mainly lean meat here:-

If it was true that all wild animals offer only tiny amounts of fat, THAT would mean

that the whole    RAW PALEO IDEA IS NONSENSE.

Reasoning: If fats are low, carbs are necessary. But there were no fruits!

LEX, are you reading this? I would like to read your comment. ;-)

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

I tried to live only from local wild meat and berries etc. in the summer. Just for one week, I just got no fat at all.

AHA!

I got such cravings for coconut(fat) I had to stop my experiment.

Coconut fat is fantastic, isn't it? Recently I even stopped my 100% local food diet after I noticed (again and again) that raw fresh coconut fat (in form of milk or cream) is much better for my body than ANY animal fat.

So there cannot have been much fat around. Of course they ate marrow and brains but there was not lot of these. I guess everybody shared them, and they were looked at as the best parts, as fat was so rare. That is why. I do not believe we need huge amounts of fat either. At least not when eating fruit and veggies as Tyler said.

People in Scandinavia never had access to fruits for, let me say 320 days per year. What does this mean?

Löwenherz

[KD]

I appreciate your thoughts..

yep, this is the gist of what I personally believe. For people living in what is now the USA I would say its basically unlikely that these particular animals we see there always provided enough fat to exist year round on meat/fat only diets, which is why they didn't always do so. What we do see still in A.D. is people that prioritize fat and can obtain it.

“The buffalo meat, however, is the great staple and ‘staff of life’ in this country, and seldom (if ever) fails to afford them an abundant and wholesome means of subsistence.  There are, from a fair computation, something like 250,000 Indians in these western regions, who live almost exclusively on the flesh of these animals, through every part of the year.  During the summer and fall months they use the meat fresh and cook it in a great variety of ways, by roasting, broiling, boiling, stewing, and smoking; and by boiling the ribs and joints with the marrow in them, make a delicious soup, which is universally used, and in vast quantities.”

North American Indians by George Catlin  (A tribute to a lost way of life. From 1831 to 1837)

I don't think its necessarily a scenario of gathering tongues from a bunch of animals while discarding the rest in some spoiled dead animal anarchy. I think there is the idea that one CAN indeed prioritize fat without weighing in the entire % leanness in an animal and say that there is quite a bit of fat there in terms of calories from those fat sources.

Also all muscle meat contributes macrnonutrient fat and even 1lb of internal or external fat without the marrow ,organs etc.. therefore could go a long way towards catching something else. Most animals I assume have to have internal fat protecting the organs. Maybe someone could weigh in on how much kidney fat is in a deer. The larger ones that died out..probably had quite a bit being larger - no matter how lean. When that happened likely was it made sense to cook and pasture fattier food. :/

This doesn't mean that there weren't grazing animals in Africa or whatever other origin that did not supply such. The idea that all animals need to be lean to exist in nature to move around or whatever is obviously false. I guess dwelling on such unknowns however is akin to saying humans were always meant to live in a tropical environment. The point is, for a modern person they have a choice of what to eat, and choose what is most logical and available. The addition of cooked or raw carbs complicates that argument and of course could be argued as superior but it remains that one could get 60-80% fat in nature as indeed totally possible, where eating the reverse ratio in protein is possibly deadly.  Some references here to traditional peoples in relation to lean meats (not rabbit starvation) http://www.mercola.com/article/diet/caveman_cuisine.htm. Have to view behind the advert unfortunately..

[Löwenherz]

The actual percentage of physical fat deposits on an animal is not important. If you use up every section of the leanest of animal  you can easily be eating many meals of more than 60% fat by calorie. This would be particularly true if your diet did not involve catching a single animal and bringing it back home to dine exclusively on, but mirrored more the actual processes generally available in nature. In a situation like the plains with some larger predators not being able to make use of things such as marrow, humans are very capable - and thought to thrive - scavenging and picking out bone marrow, brain etc... This is not even accounting for other fats such as plants or fats of other animals in other climates. Some people emphasize fat as their main macronutrient without eating much of it (or any with modern folks) from animals such as those found in coconuts and mongono, avocado etc..

Yeah, nice arguments from an abviously fat loving raw paleo dieter!

Look at my avatar picture and you see my main fat (and energy) source.

The discussion over fat as a nutrient and as a energy source are totally different. Many see fats as the most important nutrient (or just other macronutrients as more problematic) but the issue for most people is energy. People dwell on their own macronutrient percentage of fat because generally when one is limiting carbs in a current artificial climate its going to indicate how much of the diets energy is coming from fats and how much the body is working to get it from protein. Its simple math that if one is eating less than 20%, 10% or 5 % of a diet from carbs and less than 30% of their diet is fat than you are going to be dealing with maybe 400 g! of protein or more DAILY for the average inactive person. with 50% fat its still going to be around 300g protein! Keep in mind in nature one would need to be active, possibly for long periods of time which would require being able to burn fat, OR having a constant and regular supply year round of carbohydrates.

There is a general consensus that VERY high protein intakes are everything else than health promoting. My own experiments confirm this. If I go continously over 200g of protein per day, I feel like shit and get in trouble. 200g protein are only ca. 800 calories. Ok, I'm not a calorie fanatic and I can easily live comfortably with far under the recommended calorie intake for my body size for many weeks. 100grams of protein per day seems to resonate very well with my body needs. That are only 400 calories.

Basically if you took an entire animal even if its BF percentage was extremely low you could still get quite a large quantity in grams of fat from it. Possibly enough to walk away with food for weeks or more.

One irrelvant thought on this: How many human beings (out of 7 billion) on Mother Earth could follow such a 'lex Rooker' diet based on wild animals? 0,001 percent?

Eating muscle meats as a primary fuel in areas absent of much plants carbs I'm not sure would be a suitable option.

Definetely impossible, IMO.

If one isn't eating a large part of their energy as fat or plant based carbs you are inevitably talking about inadequate energy and potentially problematic intake of proteins.

'Problematic'? POISONING!

For a modern person its pretty self-explanatory.
a diet of 1 banana, 5 lbs of separated-lean deer meat and 1 deer brain yields: 3188 calories 73/03/25 protein/carbs/fat for the moderately active adult male. This works out to be 500+ g of protein.

Have you ever tried such a 73 percent protein diet? I would say that it is not possible over a prolonged time. I got massive heart problems on such experiments, even with 'only' 3-4 pounds of muscle meat from domestic animals.

Löwenherz

[KD]

Have you ever tried such a 73 percent protein diet? I would say that it is not possible over a prolonged time. I got massive heart problems on such experiments, even with 'only' 3-4 pounds of muscle meat from domestic animals.

right, well you may have missed that was not presenting that as adequate or at all a good idea. Generally above I was just being fair that no one knows for certain that 300,400,500+ grams of protein is bad or even unnatural, but does seem to be, scientifically, not to mention unnecessary or inefficient for energy. just another observation: cycling from mostly plant carbs to eating lots of lean meats I don't think requires the same (or any) transition as this is basically the same thing when contrasted with transitioning from that approach to a much lower protein and low carbs for extended periods or for fasting and exerting lots of energy.


thread should probably split off, maybe more people will weigh in then.

[TylerDurden]

Conclusion: Your diet is very different from the diet of our European ancestors.

Correct?

Löwenherz

  Wrong. A more likely conclusion is that the protein ceiling theory is just a myth or that the protein ceiling figure of 100g(?) is way, way too low as an estimate.

I never had problems switching from all-fruit to all-meat for 1 week each. Problems onmy came along if I carried on for longer than that.

[Löwenherz]

This doesn't mean that there weren't grazing animals in Africa or whatever other origin that did not supply such. The idea that all animals need to be lean to exist in nature to move around or whatever is obviously false.

Tyler just argued the opposite.

How much fat in wild animals? The old miracle question here.
If even a super fat looking hippo is actually lean...

We need some evidence from hunters here!

In Germany I get only super lean wild animal food. The only exception is wild boar. Possibly because they inhaled tons of corn from all these wonderful 'natural' monocultures. Last time I got some deer fat it was not only a very small amount (in relation to the whole animal carcass) but it was really completely (!) inedible. Even the worst raw beef suet that I have ever seen was much more palatable in direct comparison.

The addition of cooked or raw carbs complicates that argument and of course could be argued as superior but it remains that one could get 60-80% fat in nature as indeed totally possible..

'Indeed totally possible'? Most readers here are  not convinced. What makes you sure about this question?

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

  Wrong. A more likely conclusion is that the protein ceiling theory is just a myth or that the protein ceiling figure of 100g(?) is way, way too low as an estimate.

The protein ceiling theory is not referring to absolute numbers like 100g or so. I think nearly everyone can eat more than 100 grams of animal protein per day.

If I remember correctly the protein ceiling theory is based on macronutrient ratios. That means HOW MANY PERCENT of your total calorie intake can come from protein on a constant basis.

What are your own experiences regarding this? Can you eat just lean meat from wild animals without further carbs?

And what do you think have our ancestors in Europe eaten BESIDE the (in your view) super lean wild animal food.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Generally above I was just being fair that no one knows for certain that 300,400,500+ grams of protein is bad or even unnatural, but does seem to be, scientifically, not to mention unnecessary or inefficient for energy.

Observing my own body I know that such high numbers of protein per day over a prolonged time are not bad, but disastrous. Nevertheless I wouldn't categorically exclude the theoretically possible reason that my body is just not healthy enough for such super protein intakes (due to my dietary history or whatever).

just another observation: cycling from mostly plant carbs to eating lots of lean meats I don't think requires the same (or any) transition as this is basically the same thing when contrasted with transitioning from that approach to a much lower protein and low carbs for extended periods or for fasting and exerting lots of energy.

Yes, I noticed great differences in the switch directions. Zero Carb to High Carbs causes no trouble, for example. High Carb to Zero Carb does indeed.

thread should probably split off, maybe more people will weigh in then.

Good idea.

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

I merely think that the maximum percentage of protein in the diet before harm occurs is way above the usual figures quoted by ZCers, and that fat-intake is not all that essential, if above a certain very low figure, that's all. Otherwise, all-meat-eating Eskimoes would constantly be in trouble, during times they could only get leaner meats. And my own experience appears to indicate that lots of lean meats minus carbs is not the end of the world.

I never bother calculating exact figures re calories and the like, I have an aversion to such clinical behaviour, as it seems to me somewhat orthorexic, but it is always possible that when I am not eating any plants/carbs I am possibly eating more fat than I think I am, in terms of overall calories, even from lean meats.

[goodsamaritan]

GS, horses are generally classified as providing "lean meats", being low in fat.

Whoever classified horses as lean meats must be wrong.

Where I buy my horse meat and the entire carcass is there, the tummy portion of the horse holds lots and lots of yellow fat all the time.
The trick to buying horse meat is you buy some lean meat.
And you buy some fat together with it.
And there is enough FAT to go around.

I'd wager that the person who said horse meat is LEAN is just talking about the meat portions and totally disregarding the belly portion where most of the yummy yellow FAT is!

[Löwenherz]

I merely think that the maximum percentage of protein in the diet before harm occurs is way above the usual figures quoted by ZCers, and that fat-intake is not all that essential, if above a certain very low figure, that's all.

Interesting. Most zero carbers keep their protein below 50 percent of total calorie intake.
Please give me your estimate regarding protein ceiling / protein max in %.

Otherwise, all-meat-eating Eskimoes would constantly be in trouble, during times they could only get leaner meats. And my own experience appears to indicate that lots of lean meats minus carbs is not the end of the world.

Didn't they have blubber all year round?

I never bother calculating exact figures re calories and the like, I have an aversion to such clinical behaviour, as it seems to me somewhat orthorexic, but it is always possible that when I am not eating any plants/carbs I am possibly eating more fat than I think I am, in terms of overall calories, even from lean meats.

Yes I know and I understand this. But then we have to compare apples with oranges. I have never heard that any zero carber goes beyond 50 % protein. Therefore I remain skeptical. Without measuring (for a short but reasonable time) you can never offer other readers here your own experiences regarding the protein ceiling.

I have to assume that you eat huge amounts of fruit (in comparison to Lex etc.) and I really wonder if you don't see and/or feel bad side effects. Nearly all instinctos I know here in Germany reported joint problems from long-term fruit consumption, for example.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Whoever classified horses as lean meats must be wrong.

Where I buy my horse meat and the entire carcass is there, the tummy portion of the horse holds lots and lots of yellow fat all the time.
The trick to buying horse meat is you buy some lean meat.
And you buy some fat together with it.
And there is enough FAT to go around.

I'd wager that the person who said horse meat is LEAN is just talking about the meat portions and totally disregarding the belly portion where most of the yummy yellow FAT is!

GS, would it be possible to upload some photos of your fatty horses?

Are you sure that these horses have not been grainfed?

Please remember that we are talking about wild animals here. But as far as I know the breeding processes didn't affect horses as much as cows..

Löwenherz

[KD]

How much fat in wild animals? The old miracle question here.
If even a super fat looking hippo is actually lean...

'Indeed totally possible'? Most readers here are  not convinced. What makes you sure about this question?

Löwenherz

You seem to be playing devils advocate now. I don't see what there is to be convinced about. Regardless of how 'muscular' a hippo or a horse is there is tons of fat in grams there when accounting for the whole animal and not measuring against its entire lean mass. Talking about what is sustainable for 7 bil is not the same as diets that have history of actually getting that much fat in nature, which does indeed prove that you can live off the fat of animals in that range and as primary fuel without killing 100 large animals per person. Its plausible because it has actual precedent in nature with all wild animals in recorded history and not theory. Diets that eat only the muscle of animals without the organs. marrow etc..lacking significant carbs as a year round diet do not - to my knowledge - whether some at times lacking fat went on heavier protein benders or not.

[TylerDurden]

I can only go by what wikipedia and other sites say re horsemeat being lean:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_meat

True, though, I suppose horses could become pretty fat, just like cattle, if they are fed mainly on oats and grains instead of just grass.

No idea re protein ceiling. I just note that eating lots of very lean meats and no fruits does not harm me. Now, granted, I don't necessarily stick to this all the time, and sometimes have lots of fats or lots of carbs as well or instead, but there is no immediate sign of problems re excess protein even if I consume only lean meats and hardly any carbs for a week or two.

Eskimoes did not always have access to blubber, some had only access to lean caribou.

As regards fruit, it all varies:- sometimes for a week I eat large amounts of fruit, sometimes I'll eat no fruit at all. More usually, it's just a little fruit, here and there. If I eat only raw fruit for more than 2 weeks, I start getting  problems with blood-sugar-levels(have only done that when I started rawpalaeo all those years ago), but that's all, since I don't continue eating all-fruit, these days, for more than a week.

[Löwenherz]

You seem to be playing devils advocate now. I don't see what there is to be convinced about.

The point I'm thinking about is:

If there really WAS not 'enough' fat in wild animals the RAW paleo idea would be logically completely inconsistent (due to a lack of fruits) in comparison to Wrangham & Co.

Of course, such thoughts are irrelevant in our daily practise if you are not trying (like I have) to make a 100 % local VLC RAW paleo diet based on 100% wild game meat possible. Such dietary parameters require the domestication of animals in todays world. But maybe GS finds much fattier wild animals than Tyler... hehehe. OK, enough for today.

Löwenherz

[Hanna]

There are, from a fair computation, something like 250,000 Indians in these western regions, who live almost exclusively on the flesh of these animals, through every part of the year. 

This is simply not correct. AFAIK (almost?) all Indians in North America, except the Inuit, ate mostly plant foods; they grew domesticated plants such as corn (which was eaten by almost all tribes), pumpkin etc.; they traded, for example buffalo meat for corn, etc.

[KD]

This is simply not correct. AFAIK (almost?) all Indians in North America, except the Inuit, ate mostly plant foods; they grew domesticated plants such as corn (which was eaten by almost all tribes), pumpkin etc.; they traded, for example buffalo meat for corn, etc.

Its taken from a first hand account (book) written at the time so not sure what info you are using to contradict that there could be those large numbers eating almost entirely animal foods (which could still be small in comparison to total native population in North America) for parts of the year. The book very well might be entirely discredited, but I see no reason to believe this is so as there are plenty of other accounts one could choose from that equally paint various American  Indian tribes as 'guts and grease' dieters.  Maybe 250,000 or the lack of balance to the diet is an exaggeration. They all did eat plant food, with large demographics cultivating food maybe. The idea that they all ate 'mostly plant food' is actually what has been discredited to my knowledge.

[KD]

The point I'm thinking about is:

If there really WAS not 'enough' fat in wild animals the RAW paleo idea would be logically completely inconsistent (due to a lack of fruits) in comparison to Wrangham & Co.

Of course, such thoughts are irrelevant in our daily practise if you are not trying (like I have) to make a 100 % local VLC RAW paleo diet based on 100% wild game meat possible. Such dietary parameters require the domestication of animals in todays world.

The way I see it, it doesn't matter if we are meant to eat from the proportions of tropics (many decedents of which still ate high fat) or meant to eat decaying meat, brains and bone marrow almost exclusively. We have records of humans eating the typical high fat 'paleo' diet and living without what most people will label as disease as well as contemporary people reversing disease often better than other approaches.  Because of that there seems to be plenty of good theories for eating larger quanties of fat than even HGs or ancient folks as well as reducing protein and carbs at least in some cases.

Many peoples WOULD and did indeed have had to consume cooked starches to survive in most non-tropical climates if they did not acess to sufficient fat. Despite this, there does seem to be people that did get adequate fat without resorting to extreme heavy protein and raw or cooked carbs in nature. So, just because one can get some lean game that this isn't necessarily accurate to what was actually acquired by some people in nature even without resorting to theories of mythical animals. Talking examples in the last 2000 years or so. Like you perhaps I do not believe this is sufficient in proving a high fat 'paleo' diet to be the best, healthiest, or even most accurate to how people actually ate in nature millions of years ago, only that there are examples of people doing so IN NATURE, that it isn't a construction purely of market availability.

Even if there is no 'protein ceiling' people have to realize that you have to use far more energy and time when you are actually acquiring food. These guys that trek through Antarctica and such are using 7000 calories a day just dragging their supplies around which is likely less weight than a heavy kill. The idea that one spends 2-3 k calories a day makes a diet with lower ranges of protein carbs and fats somewhat normal than the large deficit that would have to come from fat or carbs to survive various points in history.

[Dorothy]

This is simply not correct. AFAIK (almost?) all Indians in North America, except the Inuit, ate mostly plant foods; they grew domesticated plants such as corn (which was eaten by almost all tribes), pumpkin etc.; they traded, for example buffalo meat for corn, etc.

Hanna, I'm supposing that this was after fire and cooking in terms of using the corn and pumpkin or are you referring to eating these foods raw?

Are later Native American accounts after agriculture and the common use of cooking pertinent to RAW paleo? (I mean that as a serious question).

Here's another serious question: How much of our diets need to be modified to account for generations and early lifetimes of poor eating? Even if our ancestors did not eat much fat or get much fruit - does that necessarily mean that we shouldn't be?

[goodsamaritan]

The point I'm thinking about is:

If there really WAS not 'enough' fat in wild animals the RAW paleo idea would be logically completely inconsistent (due to a lack of fruits) in comparison to Wrangham & Co.

Of course, such thoughts are irrelevant in our daily practise if you are not trying (like I have) to make a 100 % local VLC RAW paleo diet based on 100% wild game meat possible. Such dietary parameters require the domestication of animals in todays world. But maybe GS finds much fattier wild animals than Tyler... hehehe. OK, enough for today.

Löwenherz

In Paleo Philippines (1520s) when the Spaniards first arrived, they said this land was the land of PLENTY.
Lots and lots of honey for everyone.
Lots and lots of fruit for everyone.
Lots and lots of very FAT wild game for everyone where those wild pigs munched on tons of fruit.

Attached is a photo of a horse meat market stall.
There is a yellow slab hung that is the belly, where the seller gets all the fat the customers need.

[sabertooth]

The Voice Vs Alistair Overeem - Part 2 Of 4
 This guy eats a lot of horsemeat.

I attend a weekly grill night at a marital arts gym and the fighters were talking about my how this guy claims horse meat has the best protein . I eat all my meat raw in front of the group, and since I have been going I have convinced many people  to switch from well done to bloody rare steaks. This last time a guy there had his steak so bloody it was bleeding through the paper plate.

[KD]

Are later Native American accounts after agriculture and the common use of cooking pertinent to RAW paleo? (I mean that as a serious question).

Here's another serious question: How much of our diets need to be modified to account for generations and early lifetimes of poor eating? Even if our ancestors did not eat much fat or get much fruit - does that necessarily mean that we shouldn't be?

I think she was just trying to say that their diet was not mostly fat or even mostly animal based, not what diet is ideal. The accounts to my understanding are not that homogeneous.

Personally I am in the camp that believes that people in nature have done well on fat based diets but that other people in the past likely achieved far better health than most people today doing a variety of things. The key is finding which variables are most tied to what is important in nature and not being too out of balance with that, but adapting these things, taking advantage of whatever circumstances are positive and as you say - accounting for various conditions of environment, inheritance etc... For that reason sometimes emphasizing things that seem natural (because they contain all natural foods...) are not as important or more detrimental than larger aspects of balance with what was actually working in nature or represent other necessary components of diet.

[TylerDurden]

This is simply not correct. AFAIK (almost?) all Indians in North America, except the Inuit, ate mostly plant foods; they grew domesticated plants such as corn (which was eaten by almost all tribes), pumpkin etc.; they traded, for example buffalo meat for corn, etc.

What is actually correct is that the Indians in the south were the ones who grew corn and were agrarian. The Indians in the North, south of the Inuit, however, were not agrarian, and lived instead on meats, pemmican and the like, not corn. At least, that's according to the WAPF, last I checked.