What rawpalaeo foods are you eating right now?

[PaleoPhil]

I despise the phrase "must have" that was used in this thread recently. Anyone who uses that automatically loses the argument, no matter how good their other points. It's anti-science. Please shoot me if I use it. Sorry, major pet peeve. 

Some people have been making a lot of guesses and assumptions, which is typical on the Internet. Instead of doing that, why not read all you can about the actual hunter gatherer, pastoral and horticultural peoples you've been making guesses about and learn what you can? It's much more interesting and rewarding than pure speculation. Why not do as Stephen Covey advised and seek first to understand, then to be understood?

[Dorothy]

I despise the phrase "must have" that was used in this thread recently. Anyone who uses that automatically loses the argument, no matter how good their other points. It's anti-science. Please shoot me if I use it. Sorry, major pet peeve. 

Some people have been making a lot of guesses and assumptions, which is typical on the Internet. Instead of doing that, why not read all you can about the actual hunter gatherer, pastoral and horticultural peoples you've been making guesses about and learn what you can? It's much more interesting and rewarding than pure speculation. Why not do as Stephen Covey advised and seek first to understand, then to be understood?

Phil, what has your research shown on the fat content of the native peoples' diets? What pertinence do you think it has to our present diet?

[PaleoPhil]

There is an EXTREMELY wide range of macronutrient contents in the diets of native/traditional peoples. Macronutrient ratios bore me at this point. Come to think of it, anyone who argues for a macronutrient ratio for the whole human race automatically loses the argument.

One can make a plausible argument for facultative carnivory (though I wouldn't, at this point--I prefer my term, "adaptivore," currently), but not for a single narrow range of carb or fat intake for all human beings. A pox on the mythical models of both the low-fat vegans and the zero carbers who claim that all humans should eat like them. Neither has much of anything to do with reality or science. That's not to say that some people don't fare well on those diets, it's only when they expect or demand that everyone, or thereabouts, eat like them that I take issue.

I forgot to mention that folks can also search for info on our Stone Age ancestors as well, since the foods available to HGs today are not quite the same as was available in the past (basically, there were way more megafauna in the past).

[Dorothy]

There are a couple of people where I live that are putting together a massive set of volumes of edible plants and especially which ones were used by the real people of this area. I look forward to soon having the time and opportunity to help them in that work. Sometimes it's not so easy to really know what was eaten, how it has changed - especially taking into consideration climate change, or how that would pertain to eating a completely raw food diet as so many of the wild plant foods that I know of here need to be cooked to be edible. The research is a massive project that hasn't been done before and will take many years - probably decades. I sometimes think the only way to know here what a raw paleo diet for this area would be is to figure out what it could possibly even be - what the raw food options even are.

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, questions more than answers are the province of science.

[cherimoya_kid]

Macronutrient ratios--eat what works.  Cold weather seems to demand more fat, hot weather more carbs, but ultimately, you have to find a balance for yourself.

GS--that slab of horse belly fat is making my mouth water.

[KD]

I have to assume being on a diet with plentiful raw and cooked carbohydrates as well as adequate protein there would be basically no reason to create/make pemmican - a food meant to extend energy that would not be sustained with just lean dried meats. Seeing since there should be no 'problem' with eating fresh or dried meats with constant plentiful carbs, I'm not sure if it would have much of a function at all for carb based metabolisms other then the fact that one can store it perhaps better than some agrarian carb foods. I guess one could argue they only used it when traveling (or scarcity), but that doesn't seem to be the case. The very fact that they were able to make pemmmican (the kind not from marrow) would suggest that fats were somewhat plentiful at least at various times of the year. At the very least in the paleo period of fire/organization it would be plausible that fats could be stored that way, not to mention that fats also last quite a long time raw, particulary in cooler/cold temperatures.  Similary in regards to both the West and the North, Indians seemed to avoid hunting certain animals in lean times allowing them to fatten up through other seasons and scouted out fatty fish or marine mammals.

[TylerDurden]

Some people have been making a lot of guesses and assumptions, which is typical on the Internet. Instead of doing that, why not read all you can about the actual hunter gatherer, pastoral and horticultural peoples you've been making guesses about and learn what you can? It's much more interesting and rewarding than pure speculation. Why not do as Stephen Covey advised and seek first to understand, then to be understood?

Food-science is so new a science as is palaeoanthropology, that sometimes one has to make guesses based on very few facts, so "must have" isn't the end of the world to use as a phrase.

As for HGs, like we said before, what HGs do today likely does not resemble what palaeo HGs did in the past. For example, palaeo HGs had access to lots of megafauna which modern HGs don't.

[Hanna]

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.

They did not only eat meat but also starchy foods. Please research for yourself. Just three examples from memory:

Early on, until about 2000 BC, people in North America ate only wild foods that they could hunt or gather.
These foods varied according to the environment where each group of people lived. Inuit people, who lived in the far north along the coasts of the Arctic Ocean and in Alaska, ate a lot of fish and seal meat, and gathered seaweed. Chinook people, who lived a little further south in the Pacific Northwest (modern Oregon and Washington) ate a lot of salmon, and wapato, which was a lot like potatoes. Further south, Californian people ate a lot of bread made from acorns.

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/northamerica/before1500/food/index.htm

Wapato has played an important role in Katzie traditional lifeways. ...wapato produces starchy tubers which were an ethnographically known food source for native groups throughout much of North America. ... Wapato provided the Katzie with a predictable carbohydrate balance to a largely protein diet which was based on a salmon, both these food items being predictable resources. The Katzie and their neighbors maintained relationships associated with the growing and trade of wapato which is harvested in the fall/winter months, a time of year when air and water temperatures are cold.

http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/museum/peb/wapato1.html

One of the food staples particularly enjoyed by the Ojibwa and Menominee was wild rice, which is not a true rice but rather a cereal grass-Zizania aquatica-which grows in shallow lakes and streams. It ripens in late summer, usually from the middle of August to early September. Native people in the Great Lakes boiled rice and ate it with corn, beans, or squash. Meat, a small amount of grease, or maple sugar was often added for seasoning. As a treat, it was occasionally parched like popcorn. For storage, rice was placed in birchbark containers. If a family wished to leave some rice in an area they would return to later in the year, they buried a dugout canoe full of rice on the sunny slope of a hill, so rain water would drain off and not spoil the grain. It was said that rice cached this way would keep as long as two years.
Wild rice was so important to the Menominee that they became known as the Wild Rice people.

http://www.mpm.edu/wirp/icw-36.html

Native Americans not only utilized several wild species of goosefoot, they also domesticated Chenopodium in at least three different regions of the Americas -- in the Andes of South America, in Middle America, and in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. One species, Chenopodium quinoa, or quinoa (KEEN-wah), was domesticated in the South American Andes about 5,000 years ago. The fruit of this plant, a seedlike "achene", is cultivated commercially and is growing in popularity as a replacement for grains such as rice, wheat, and oats. Another species, Chenopodium berlandieri, is one of four plants that were actually domesticated in the Eastern Woodlands of North America prior to the introduction and wide utilization of corn (maize).

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/st-plains/nature/images/chenopod.html

[Hanna]

Indian trade:

They grow corn, beans and squash. Taos Pueblo is famous for trading with the plains Indian tribes for buffalo hides and meat. They traded corn for these things.

http://www.texasindians.com/kiowa.htm

The Cheyennes traded regularly with other tribes of the Great Plains. Once they stopped farming, they especially liked to trade buffalo hides for tobacco and corn.

http://www.bigorrin.org/cheyenne_kids.htm

The Cheyenne used dogs to drag sleds filled with their belongings. They were great traders. They did not plant crops. Rather, they traded skins for corn and tobacco and other items with other Plains tribes.

http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/plains/cheyenne.html

[PaleoPhil]

Food-science is so new a science as is palaeoanthropology, that sometimes one has to make guesses based on very few facts, so "must have" isn't the end of the world to use as a phrase.

Except that "must have" isn't a guess, it's a certainty as well as an assumption, which is my beef with that. Science is not about certainties, especially when the science is so new, as you admitted. Thanks for making my point.

[Löwenherz]

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.

Exactly. A low fat 100% RAW paleo diet NEVER existed in any cold region at any time.

Either you eat cooked starches beside lean meat or you eat sufficient amounts of animal fats beside lean meat. Fruits (like in Tylers diet) have never been available.

Even if there is no 'protein ceiling' ..

There is indeed a protein ceiling. Have you tried to eat a diet of mainly (todays available) super-lean wild meats?

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

In Paleo Philippines (1520s) when the Spaniards first arrived, they said this land was the land of PLENTY.
..

GS, thanks for your photos. These horse meats are really super fat! Is it grain-fed meat?

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

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.

You can really eat just lean (wild) meats without carbs or additional fats for one or two weeks?

REALLY?

And how much super-lean meat do or can you eat in such days? How many pounds?

Let me repeat: You say you can eat for example exclusively leg of deer (ca. 3% fat) for seven days??

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

..Even if our ancestors did not eat much fat or get much fruit - does that necessarily mean that we shouldn't be?

That's a good question. Many people claim that our paleo ancestors in cold regions had a really miserable life and a extremely short lifespan.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

..Some people have been making a lot of guesses and assumptions, which is typical on the Internet. Instead of doing that, why not read all you can about the actual hunter gatherer, pastoral and horticultural peoples you've been making guesses about and learn what you can?

We are talking about the Paleolithic era here. No books have been written at that time. What can we learn from actual hunter gatherer groups, Phil? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Most of them smoke and drink alcohol etc.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

Personally I am in the camp that believes that people in nature have done well on fat based diets..

Same here. And it makes sense.

Everyone around me eats cooked starches. Most of the 7 billion people on this planet eat cooked starches. Nevertheless I view cooked starches as crap food. Definitely nothing for me.

Many years I thought (like most instinctos) that it is the trick to replace cooked starches with fruit sugar. At the beginning everything was perfect. Today I have to admit that I need too much time to realize the damage done by fructose.

PP thinks that macronutrient ratios don't matter. That's silly. And the whole dietary scenario is not a labyrinth but actually a very simple construction.

You can live mainly on sugar OR fats. If you choose sugar you have two options:
a) cooked starches
b) fruits
Both possibilities are not optimal. Whereas in the long-run cooked starches are definetely better than fructose. Sugar should never be our main energy source.

Conclusion: A fat based diet is the ONLY available answer.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

They did not only eat meat but also starchy foods. Please research for yourself. Just three examples from memory:

Hanna, it is well possible that THESE people at THAT time have eaten starches. Your references belong to the NEOLITHIKUM!

For me, this was the beginning of our todays misery.

Starch based diets produced our todays sick and stupid mankind.

Löwenherz

PS: Fruit sugar is very destructive and makes you age faster, BUT it doesn't make you stupid (as long as you get enough animal protein).

[TylerDurden]

You can really eat just lean (wild) meats without carbs or additional fats for one or two weeks?

REALLY?

And how much super-lean meat do or can you eat in such days? How many pounds?

Let me repeat: You say you can eat for example exclusively leg of deer (ca. 3% fat) for seven days??

Löwenherz

Well, no, but I've eaten raw leg of grassfed lamb for up to 10 days, with minimal fruit eaten.

[Löwenherz]

Well, no, but I've eaten raw leg of grassfed lamb for up to 10 days, with minimal fruit eaten.

OK, I can cool down now. You seem to be normal.

Leg of grassfed lamb has usually 50% fat by calories, even if it looks lean. The additional fruit pushes your protein intake during these days significantly below 50%.

Next time please eat just leg of deer... and you will cry.

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

I've eaten raw venison by itself for something like 3 or 4  days at a time, with no issues. Not a regular occurrence given the price, but it did me no harm. I doubt 7 days would make a difference.

[goodsamaritan]

Same here. And it makes sense.

Everyone around me eats cooked starches. Most of the 7 billion people on this planet eat cooked starches. Nevertheless I view cooked starches as crap food. Definitely nothing for me.

Many years I thought (like most instinctos) that it is the trick to replace cooked starches with fruit sugar. At the beginning everything was perfect. Today I have to admit that I need too much time to realize the damage done by fructose.

PP thinks that macronutrient ratios don't matter. That's silly. And the whole dietary scenario is not a labyrinth but actually a very simple construction.

You can live mainly on sugar OR fats. If you choose sugar you have two options:
a) cooked starches
b) fruits
Both possibilities are not optimal. Whereas in the long-run cooked starches are definetely better than fructose. Sugar should never be our main energy source.

Conclusion: A fat based diet is the ONLY available answer.

Löwenherz

My terribly sick son is healing on:

Fruit:
- diluted orange juice
- durian
- graviola
- papaya
- mango

Raw Wild Honey

Raw fish ceviche (hasa hasa with skin and eyes, malasugi)
- with calamansi fruit (like lemon)
- with onions
- with ginger

Raw clams

Raw duck eggs

Cod Liver Oil and Butter Oil

(Raw beef will be introduced to him next week).

I live in the Philippines and in my experience our fruits rock.  Maybe your fruits suck.

[Löwenherz]

I've eaten raw venison by itself for something like 3 or 4  days at a time, with no issues. Not a regular occurrence given the price, but it did me no harm. I doubt 7 days would make a difference.

If we reduce your diet to the super-lean deer muscle meat without fruit in these 7 days

YOU WILL CRY.

But I'm always open to learn and would see this experiment with my own eyes.

Löwenherz

[RawZi]

    Half a bison steak and half a butter-bell.

Let me repeat: You say you can eat for example exclusively leg of deer (ca. 3% fat) for seven days??

    How does deer marrow fat compare with beef?

[Löwenherz]

My terribly sick son is healing on:

Fruit:
...

GS, your own son is terribly sick? I guess he gets too much junk food in school...

Fruit + fish is indeed a very healing diet! I would never doubt it. I have done this too when I lived in Malaysia and other tropical places. And of course, the fruit you can get in your home country is not comparable to the quality here in Europe.

What I say is that in the long-run the fructose in fruit is very problematic. The fructose will damage the body of your son, too. It just needs a long time to become visible. In the long-run fats are a better choice. I really envy you for high quality coconuts.

BTW: The healing of your son is NOT done by huge amounts of fruit. The ABSENCE of junk is mainly responsible (and fruit accelerates the junk cleansing process).

Löwenherz