Ray Peat podcast...interesting!

[Raw Kyle]

Besides, isn't Ray Peat's recommended diet relatively low carb?

I'm no Ray Peat expert but I can say with confidence that no it is not a low carb diet, Peat recommends getting most of your energy from simple carbohydrates and specifically using as little fat as possible for energy production.

[PaleoPhil]

I haven't seen anything where Ray Peat himself recommends a certain macronutrient ratio or range, just that he favors sugary foods over starchy foods and saturated fats over PUFAs, and I've seen Peat fans make contradictory claims about the macronutrient proportions he recommends. Does anyone have a quote from him where he makes a clear, specific recommendation on macronutrient ratios/levels?

Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that no Peat supporter so far has provided the fundamental principles that underly his ... recommendations on hormones and other details? One of the biggest errors of modern reductionist nutritionism [which I'm hoping Ray Peat mostly avoids] is focusing on the details, missing the big picture, and not even bothering to try to figure out what underlies the whole health picture, or vaguely hand-waving at evolution while ignoring where  it contradicts conventional recommendations. When someone can't explain what principles underlie their health approach, and how they do so, doesn't that suggest that they don't understand their own approach very well yet? This isn't meant as a criticism, I'm just trying to understand what Peat fans are putting forth here.

[Raw Kyle]

Why does evolution have to be an underpinning for health? Peat is just claiming that health arrives from the organism functioning a certain way, you don't have to put evolution in there at all.

[PaleoPhil]

It doesn't have to be and I didn't ask for it to be. If Ray Peat has an alternative underpinning, let's see it. All I did is ask what if anything it is. It was the nutritionism camp that I was referring to in regards to the hand waving about evolution, not Ray Peat. I'm starting to see a similarity in the focus on details and lack of a bigger picture, but that could be just because of the detail-focused way his views have been presented, rather than due to Ray's actual views and I would be pleased if he's not in that nutritionism camp. Sorry for not making that more clear and I hope this clears that up. I also edited my last post a mite to try to make this clearer.

The topic has been raised, presumably in part to inspire curiosity, and it has succeeded in mildly sparking my curiosity, in part because there are some similarities with raw Paleo, and also because there seems to be a lot of hoopla pro and con about Ray Peat in cyberspace lately and a lot of disagreement over what his views are.

Don't be shy, Ray Peat fans, here's your chance to promote Ray Peat's views. Surely his views aren't drawn out of thin air? If they are solid then wouldn't that mean they can withstand some questions?

Organisms functioning in a certain way can promote health; I doubt anyone disagrees with that; nor does that appear to explain Ray Peat's views or distinguish them from others. We don't seem to be making much progress in getting to the bottom of this and I wonder if it's because none of us except Danny really know a lot about Ray's views and we're sort of trying to make guesses? If we're lucky, maybe Danny will enlighten us.

[aLptHW4k4y]

Hey PaleoPhil,

you can read all of this if you're interested in the details: http://raypeat.com/articles/

[PaleoPhil]

I had already checked Ray Peat's website, thanks, and didn't find answers there. I did find one at Danny Roddy's website, though. I knew I could count on Danny:

"The Perfect Health Diet acknowledges that very low-carb diets are usually counterproductive. While I get the impression that most people think Peat-a-tarianism is some gigantic sugar orgy, Paul [Jaminet] and Peat have similar recommendations for carbohydrate consumption. Paul's recommendations hover around 150 grams while Peat usually recommends 180-250 grams, but he himself eats closer to ~400 grams." http://www.dannyroddy.com/main/2012/1/16/the-lens-of-a-peat-a-tarian-part-i-the-perfect-health-diet.html

I don't know why Peat eats more carbs than he recommends.

Opinions vary on what constitutes low, moderate and high carb. Majority opinion seems to be that 100 g or less per day for an avg sized male is low carb http://www.livestrong.com/article/251583-number-of-grams-for-low-carb-diet/. So Peat's diet wouldn't commonly be considered low carb.

I don't know whether 180-250g carbs is generally considered high carb. I did find this: "Most of us eat between 225-250 grams of carbs a day," http://www.superlowcarb.com/carb/high/diet/. So it sounds like it's somewhat lower carb than the avg American diet.

[aLptHW4k4y]

I don't think Peat has recommended any particular amount of carbs (I know that he recommends low/moderate amounts of protein though). What Danny has written is his own interpretation I guess. Why is the amount of carbs of such a huge importance to you, are you diabetic?

[PaleoPhil]

Warning--long post--read at your own risk. 

I wouldn't call it a huge importance--like I said before, people have made different claims about RP's views and I'm mildly curious as to what they actually are. Now you're offering a differing view than what Danny provided about Ray Peat on carbs, so the question is apparently still an open one, as I still haven’t seen anything from Ray Peat directly and specifically on this. Maybe Danny could provide a source and respond to your claim, if he reads this thread again. It's interesting how divergent the opinions are on what Ray Peat's views are.

I haven’t been diagnosed as diabetic, but for years (going back before I started raw Paleo and even before cooked Paleo) I've gotten big BG spikes and certain negative effects after eating certain carby foods, including reportedly healthy raw Paleo ones (though my fasting morning BG was always termed "fine" by physicians, actually lower than average, so the physicians never investigated it and I was unaware of the alleged harm that could be done by BG spikes and lows and for many years was eating a relatively standard diet that included too many everday carbs for me to get a clear picture, except mainly in retrospect).

Several bloggers, including some that are healthcare practitioners, have suggested that this could be due to insulin resistance or other malfunction from many years of SAD and other factors and that it might be fixed by increasing carb intake, doing more weightlifting, eating probiotic foods, etc., which I have been experimenting with for some months now with a small amount of improvement in my BG spikes and carby food tolerance (though it's hard to tell what might have occurred just via raw Paleo alone). Interestingly, the single biggest help along these lines seems to have been raw fermented honey, which sort of falls in line with some of what Ray Peat says, though not specifically raw fermented honey so much as other "sugary" foods. Which brings to mind another question--does Ray Peat discuss "probiotic" foods or the Old Friends Hypothesis at all?

It makes sense to me to try to further repair any underlying problems that may be contributing to my remaining carb intolerance, rather than just coddle the problem by severely restricting carby food intake. Maybe I'm being overoptimistic in hoping for additional improvement, but so far it's looking encouraging.

There’s quite a debate raging online about whether one should try to improve insulin sensitivity via “safe starches” (certain cooked tubers and/or grains that Paul Jaminet, Kurt Harris, Richard Nikoley, Anthony Colpo and others recommend, IIRC) vs. more “sugary” foods that Ray Peat, Danny Roddy and many here appear to recommend, if I understand correctly. So it is relevant info for me and I've been exploring and experimenting with both sides of the coin. How important it all actually turns out to be for me only time will tell.

I suppose my goal is to try to get to a point like where Lex is, where I can sort of just "set it and forget it" when it comes to diet/lifestyle/health and focus more on other things. At various stages I've guessed that no more improvement would be possible, only to be pleasantly surprised later when I tried something else (not always dietary), that helped further and sometimes achieved results I didn't think possible.

If none of this is relevant to you, that's fine, I'm not claiming it's relevant to anyone else. I try to avoid giving the impression of prescribing to others and people are free to ignore my posts if they’re not interesting.

[aLptHW4k4y]

So you haven't been diagnosed as diabetic, but you believe you are, right?
How much were these big BG spikes, have you measured?
Shouldn't you blame your BG spikes on your eating habits, rather than on the carbs? If you eat a lot of carbs (especially fast digesting ones) at once you'll get BG spikes no matter if you're diabetic or not.

Ray Peat is most likely against probiotic stuff, he thinks bacteria in the gut release endotoxins and other stuff which has bad effect on the estrogen balance.

About the carbs claim, again, this seems like Danny's own interpretation (or let's see a reference of Ray Peat saying you need X grams of carbs per day).

[PaleoPhil]

So you haven't been diagnosed as diabetic, but you believe you are, right?

No, not at all. That's not what I said.

What do you consider the max carbs one can eat at a meal without BG going over 160 mg/dl? If we use the 400 mg/dl figure that Danny Roddy mentioned re: RP and assume he spreads it across 4 meals, to be generous, that calculates out to 100 g carbs at a single meal, right? Let me know if you think there are different numbers and what they are and what you think it does to Peat's BG.

[KD]

Pretty sure the carbs thing is not set in stone, and certainly not 'high' as that usually implies both lowish fat and protein. Unless you are talking a large energy expenditure, these macros wouldn't in normal circumstances be 'low'. Kyle actually grabbed the main point which is to minimize use of ffas as up there in his hiearchy of importance as with oxidative metabolism or whatever. So, you don't need to eat tons of sugars, just enough and not be compensating with lots of incomplete proteins or unsaturated fats (high sat fat diets contian some PUFAS). Basically unless you are eating all the time you are going to be using ffas whether the diet is 'high' in paleo carbs or not, like with fasting and infrequent eating etc... This at times in history would have been a default state out of necessity, but isn't necessarily optimal. Hence back to that same 'argument' of natural vs optimal, particularly with poor health -> wellness, which as mentioned isn't really much of an argument for the already open minded.

you are still looking through it from different markers than is in the material which is why its never going to connect. There is no 'diet' specifically with macros or even foods in the typical way  (good or bad  perhaps, but differ quite greatly from 'natural' and not) .  You could even have an isocaloric diet that was peaty, as long as the protein was whole from dairy and whole animals.

So this lack of set WOE coupled with the larger deal of being within the main guidelines and markers as  being most important for health, is why it originally didn't make sense to try to take a daily breakdown of his or others' personal eating and then see what translates to paleo and raw.

[KD]

Why does evolution have to be an underpinning for health? Peat is just claiming that health arrives from the organism functioning a certain way, you don't have to put evolution in there at all.

He probably hasn't done that, as, even if certain foods aren't replacing anything from paleolithic times, if they provide health, then that's what's important.

I personally do not see it as anti-evolutionary or whatever, just anti the idea that evolution and such is as static as some people insist on, despite ridiculous amounts of evidence showing the opposite, and since the term itself implies something not static...

I do think he has a sense and cares about what was needed and supplied in our natural environment and what is missing today from our eating or otherwise. This is particulary true in the ways some people choose to limit foods to X and Y based on some ideas and then call that a 'paleo' diet which likely is nothing like such whatsoever. Generally with every excuse in the book when its missing all kinds of crap or full of other crap because its "all natural". He's certaily spoken about it, whether its of utmost importance that foods need to match other foods, yeah probably not.

I'm sure when you get the larger points about whole animal protein, how pufas (in his research anyway) effect or inhibit various processes, the importance of and advantages of combining carbs/proteins etc...in terms of their real world effects, the other stuff loses more ground in terms of what our optimal 'blueprint' or whatever really is. We can spend our lifetime finding some peoples' here and there that ate entirely animal foods or mostly mongogo nuts without really seeing how these diets are working in the present day to produce a basic sex drive or pulse reading, and many alt-camps fall into this trap. We have people eating just fruits or sprouts or grainfed cooked meats or whatever, so the mere existing without meeting various markers for health, (particular when presenting a 'teh only' optimal vs disease type mindset) is also usually fairly useless information.

In terms of why one would make a 'peat' decision of coffee over raw cacao or  whatever, or even processed vs. whole, you'd have to read the material. Bringing up past cultures or past fictionlized 'paleos' only has limited value in the face of real world tweaks. Geneally the types of people who agree with that likely will sniff out more Peaty stuff, and the ones who insist on doing things 'all natural' are the ones who in my book shouldn't be needing to make any excuses about health markers and such as clearly they should be physiologically leaps and bounds over such 'nonsense'.  Usually not the case IME, but people just love their pet-theories of how looking healthy or having a high sex drive kills you and its fine to have kids that look like bird zombies or whatever, because that is likely how it should be without all the wrong stuff... Anyway, perhaps the importance of meeting his markers over others, or factors of 'toxicity' or whatever, or a lack of evidence of people doing well long term, is where I would be most critical too.

[PaleoPhil]

I think we're in agreement on the gist of your points, KD. I agree wholeheartedly that it doesn't make sense to just re-enact some fictional idea of Stone Agers (literal re-enactment would be impossible, as the world has changed since then) as though it had magical/spiritual powers or something. The accusation that some raw Paleoists, often unnamed, or all of us (from the critics) are doing that is frequently thrown around, yet I'm skeptical of whether most people actually do that. I don't recall anyone ever saying they do something like that other than maybe William.

I suspect that more folks try various things to see what if anything helps and some come to find that raw Paleo helps, with perhaps some of those investigating further to find out why it works so much better than the diets the "experts" recommend and what other "expert" advice might be wrong.

I also suspect that one reason gurus like Ray Peat become popular is because they say things that seem dramatically different from what the conventional experts say. When convention fails, some folks become all ears  regarding alternative approaches that sound plausible, and then when some folks report success, others give it a try.

Have any of the Peatatarian-type diet promoters here tried a fully raw Paleo/Primal version of it to compare and contrast the results and thus find out whether raw Paleo/Primal was really the problem for you or whether it was just the version you were doing? I know that the "You were doing it wrong (for your needs)" answer can be a way to excuse the failings of a misguided dietary approach, yet isn't it also possible that a raw Paleo/Primal version of Peatatarianism might work just as well?

The thread's getting long and my memory is short, so I did some reviewing of it and found that some light was shed on the underlying principles behind Ray Peat's approach:

... "I'm inclined, and there's direct present experimental evidence that supports it better than some of the currently popular ideas [fish eating] that fruit eating is a good candidate for supporting evolution to be more human than ape-like, supporting a big brain, and the kind of digestive system we have." Ray Peat

Thanks for sharing that early in the thread, Storm. So it looks like the Peat model, like raw Paleo, is also built on a foundation of evolutionary adaptation, starting with a fruit-eating ape (presumably millions of years ago), with the optimally adapted diet remaining more similar to that fruit-heavy ape diet than the more common Paleo/Primal diet notions, right?

Fruits are also quite popular here. I do lean toward thinking that (healthy) humans are better adapted to raw fruits than what many cooked Paleos seem to think, though maybe it could be more complex than some in both the pro- and anti- fruit camps think. For example, perhaps wild fruits or fruits most similar to those that were actually consumed over the millennia are healthier than the typical supermarket fare? It's a topic that will be debated endlessly, of course.

[KD]

People might admit they arn't 'full on savages' or whatever, but for the most part they arn't all that open to where not eating regular bugs, whole animals, blood, bones, and oher stuff you might actually have to eat neolithic foods, or at the very least process foods, and include things like salt or other supplemental stuff, to make that completely work for you. Not very common for people to agree with that or especially to agree at all that humans simply are capable of figuring out better ways of doing things... So I disagree that people don't think there is some kind magic just to removing neolthic and cooked foods as that makes up most of peoples logic here without any real mentioning of testing of the markers Peat or other less-fringe types associate with true health.

If someone presents the idea that (assuming other reasonably healthy habits) restricting a diet to raw and paleo will actually heal or fix things over other approaches (or is even some kind of requirement to be healthy) in this present moment..this is one and the same in my book, as it automatically conceptually makes any other ideas inaccessible.

Have any of the Peatatarian-type diet promoters here tried a fully raw Paleo/Primal version of it to compare and contrast the results and thus find out whether raw Paleo/Primal was really the problem for you or whether it was just the version you were doing? I know that the "You were doing it wrong (for your needs)" answer can be a way to excuse the failings of a misguided dietary approach, yet isn't it also possible that a raw Paleo/Primal version of Peatatarianism might work just as well?

pretty sure most of these people just don't post/spend time here anymore.

Also as I keep trying to say, there really is no paleo/primal version. Integral parts of the philosophy are basically antithetical to those things. Primal if you mean in the whole animals and fruits(ripe/juices) + dairy perhaps...without the drugs and refined stuff, but not likely in the 100% raw/disease-is-due-to-cooking-sense.

I suspect that more folks try various things to see what if anything helps and some come to find that raw Paleo helps, with perhaps some of those investigating further to find out why it works so much better than the diets the "experts" recommend and what other "expert" advice might be wrong.

Maybe. Where I am at personally is I do see the other end where say, criticism (Stone or perhaps Peat), may also appear totally reasonable (to the fantasy or whatever) and offer its own short term relief and yet perhaps those solutions fall short in their own ways. Then perhaps the 'all natural'/raw approach is indeed better. Its a matter of specifics ultimately and like above its more about never ruling out what you might need for your particular situation, or weighing honestly how all these approaches work out instead of being left holding a bunch of ideals. Similarly to above, I think you give people too much credit where you think people will readily entertain that their ideas about what is good or bad and the ways they validate their approach, are remotely incorrect. The thing is, is this is particularly entrenched when it gets wrapped up in how people believe things should be in nature.

[PaleoPhil]

We still seem to be on the same basic page, KD.

Not very common for people to agree with that or especially to agree at all that humans simply are capable of figuring out better ways of doing things... So I disagree that people don't think there is some kind magic just to removing neolthic and cooked foods as that makes up most of peoples logic here ...

I don't see that as a substantial disagreement, as I wasn't trying to claim that no one claims there isn't some kind of magic at all to removing Neolithic and cooked foods. I only meant to report that I haven't noticed anyone beyond a single person who got banned put forth caveman magic and re-enactment as their core reason for trying raw Paleo and doing what they do, without regard for personal experience (ie, doing what works for them). If they're out there, they're pretty quiet.

If someone embraces Paleo re-enactment for re-enactment's sake or because of belief in caveman magic, speak up and let us hear you. The critics of raw Paleo seem to think you're common in these parts. I suspect that far more of us did what I, Tyler, Lex and others have talked about--tried many different things and found that raw Paleo worked for us.

without any real mentioning of testing of the markers Peat or other less-fringe types associate with true health.

I do think that in this and most other diet forums that there is not enough testing to see if the diets are really working and how much work remains to do, and there is too much back slapping and assumption of good health. For example, I've seen lots of talk that carby foods harm no one and that supplements are harmful nonsense, yet rarely do I see people report that they've done postprandial BG tests or tests for nutrient deficiencies. I'm not advocating for low carb diets or supplements, just wondering how they know for sure that these issues don't exist in themselves, much less anyone else, unless they test, except via overconfident assumption or by some sort of magical thinking (though likely more ex post facto than a priori like some critics claim)?

I've seen many reports where people say they started developing symptoms or got curious after many years of doing raw veganism or vegetarianism and finally got tested and discovered that they were severely deficient in B12 or other nutrients or had other bad health markers. I chose not to assume that raw Paleo would just magically fix everything overnight, despite marvelous results, and instead have put it to the test and found that at least one nutrient deficiency has persisted on raw Paleo.

So I agree that some folks remarks seem to ascribe too much power/magic to raw Paleo's ability to cure nearly everything very rapidly for everyone, but it seems to result in large part from their own personal success more than an a priori belief in caveman magic. In other words, there's a tendency toward overconfidence after early success.

There also seems to be a lack of putting things vigorously to the test when some folks jump from raw Paleo to the latest fad, such with the current Ray Peat mini-mania. Mind you, once testing reveals success I don't think it's necessary to continue doing a lot of the same testing, as testing could become a mania of its own and there do seem to be a lot of expensive and unnecessary tests done in the medical and scientific community just to generate bucks.

[Raw Kyle]

If Ray Peat has an alternative underpinning, let's see it. All I did is ask what if anything it is.

I think the "health markers" are the underpinning. From what I've read Ray Peat considers the metabolism of young people as healthy (high metabolism, temperature, pulse etc) and the metabolism of elderly people to be unhealthy (largely the opposite of young). I think the idea is that using certain foods and drugs and not using others puts your body in a state that mimics the youth condition in terms of gland function, tissue turnover and a bunch of other things I can't think of off the top of my head right now. So if your blood work looks like someone in their 20's, your heart is working like someone in their 20's and your cells are dividing like someone in their 20's maybe you'll feel like someone in their 20's even if you're in your 50's, 60's or beyond. That is how I see Ray Peat's health philosophy, if I have that wrong I'd be happy for a Ray Peat expert to correct me.

[PaleoPhil]

I meant what is the underpinning to all that, which had already actually been answered, but I forgot:

Quote from: storm on February 05, 2012, 02:34:22 pm
... "I'm inclined, and there's direct present experimental evidence that supports it better than some of the currently popular ideas [fish eating] that fruit eating is a good candidate for supporting evolution to be more human than ape-like, supporting a big brain, and the kind of digestive system we have." -Ray Peat

In other words, it's the same evolutionary underpinning of raw Paleo, but Ray Peat apparently sees fruit-eating apes of millions of years ago to be more important to our current biology than our Paleolithic human ancestors (and Peat experts are of course free to correct me).

So it doesn't "have to be about evolution," but Ray Peat himself apparently thinks it is. He just appears to emphasize a different part of our evolutionary heritage than what most scientists in the fields of evolutionary/Paleolithic nutrition and Paleoanthropology tend to do. I don't recall seeing a fruit hypothesis for brain growth before. Up till now I  only recall seeing brains/marrow, fish and tubers hypothesized as the fuels of hominid-to-human brain growth.

[KD]

Well yeah, whether we are talking peat, vegan, paleo..whatever, its pretty clear that even after flip flopping one thing after another people are always sure they have the answer. Think I tried to say that in my first post in the thread here...

At least its a put-up-or-shut-up type model with the peat stuff, which seems to me just way more trustworthy when testing your health against than the more faith-based natural hygiene-type cult hypothesizing within veganism/paleo where its all "yeah your doctor might even tell you that you have all the signs of AIDS...but this is just you comming out of the 'low grade fever' (98.6) of teh cooked foods".  Of course people here generally arn't that extreme (which is practically an actual quote i've seen elsewhere) and may have legit empirical stuff too, but you do see similar comments to the former - and other left-field hypothesis - I'd say pretty regularly here.

Even though we can argue about what ideal trigs and BG and such, theres some markers and just common sense stuff which obviously indicate things going better or worse and their departures from an ideal, yet people will still want to argue and make excuses. When you have actual examples of these not matching up with the good/bad in diet choices it should present a problem to the simple models people love to cling to, otherwise we are never talking science or rationality but religion.

So, to me this too goes both ways and applies to any theories, natural or otherwise. Even Einstein's stuff is seen to be both genius, compelling, overarching, and wrong in many ways. There does seem to be evidence that like...bacteria might be sort of important and so forth amongst probably alot of things the subjects here have going for it, that may be missing in other philosophies and 'improve them' as I think you might have been getting at. But at the end of the day, do the majority of people need to be hitting every last thing right to improve their health (to limit say, as many AGEs as possible from food) ? OR do they need to focus on the general trends and WOEs that keep the body from producing its own destructive patterns ( their own AGEs etc...)? I think ultimately seems to be the difference in ways of thinking.

Other than the people sold in medical model food pyramid stuff, most others are far too brainwashed in this weird "well if I don't do the "bad crap"..the body knows what to do!" - stuff, which certainly can work, but is almost always clouded in ignorance as to what true trends sustain health in the real world. Whereas when understanding more how things work objectively, it is less of a mystery why many things that seem healthy or natural templates actually are anything but, or could theoretically be healthy due to hitting a lot of the 'goods', but maybe just isn't the right particular solution.

[PaleoPhil]

Yup.

[Raw Kyle]

That blip about the fruit eating vs. fish eating leading to larger brains in human evolution is not the "underpinning" of Ray Peat's health ideas. What part of that short statement says anything about using sucrose, aspirin and exogenous hormones? I think you're still hung up  on the evolution angle being necessary which to me doesn't make sense. That's like saying that if cars were built to run on gasoline, which we know they are, there is no possible fuel mixture that could work better, and that if you are designing new fuel you have to somehow link it to the traditional fuel used before. All evolution gives you is the increased likelihood that an organism will be well adapted to a food that it has access to due to natural selection. Of course at every juncture in evolution there is a point where food availability changed or the organism changed to take advantage of a new niche, it's all up in the air all the time but looks stagnant from where we're sitting, like how a forest looks stagnant but is really a war field with plants and insects attempting genocide, altering the land in their favor etc.

[PaleoPhil]

The quote from Storm appears to have broad implications that Ray managed to touch on in that short but dense excerpt. According to Storm's quote, Ray said that fruit eating is a more likely candidate accounting for the "big brain" and (smaller) "digestive system" of humans and our overall "evolution," more so than fish, apparently. This would help explain his advocacy for fruits and other "sugary" foods (such as sucrose) and tie several of his detailed recommendations together into a cohesive, comprehensible whole. It's a big controversial claim with profound implications if correct. The use of the sucrose, aspirin, etc. are the details that apparently flow from these and perhaps other fundamentals. It does match up with at least the sucrose, fruit and fish/PUFA details. It would also explain Danny Roddy's quote about Ray advocating relatively robust carb intake, if that's also correct. In other words, it would tie multiple details described in this thread together.

Interestingly, in the quote Ray even appears to imply that the more common views that animal or fish fats provided the crucial raw materials to support human evolution are "fantasy theories" unsupported by the evidence. I'd be interested to see what evidence Ray is pointing to here to support his view over the others.

Maybe it would help if Storm could provide the source, to verify it and also enable us to see the broader context and any supporting sources cited.

I think you're still hung up  on the evolution angle being necessary which to me doesn't make sense.

I'm open to whatever reasoning underlies Ray Peat's views based on what he himself has actually said or wrote. If it turned out he was a creationist and thought that we're well designed for fruit eating because the Creator designed us to be able to eat plenty of fruit from abundant fruit trees in the Garden of Eden, or whatever his views might be, fine. I just want to understand his views, as I wish to follow Stephan Covey's advice to "seek first to understand, then to be understood."

Where not much is available, we may need to rely on those who know his views best, such as perhaps Danny Roddy, who claims to know them well. If you have different information straight from Ray Peat, please feel free to present it like Storm kindly did.

I'm not interested in debating the importance of evolution in this thread. I'm just trying to understand Peat's actual views, rather than the interpretations of his supporters or critics, which contradict each other even amongst the supporters. In other words, I'm trying to cut through the haze of contradictory claims about details to get at the core of Peat's ideas and to avoid the proverbial "not seeing the forest for the trees."

After that, if I'm interested in learning more about the details, I can still do so, and it will make them more comprehensible if I understand the framework into which they all fit together. Understanding the foundation is important, for even in science "a house built on sand cannot stand." I find it makes things easier to understand for me and already things are getting clearer. If you're not interested in it, that's fine too. I'm not saying anyone else has to agree with what I'm saying, just explaining what I'm asking about and why.

[HIT_it_RAW]

That's like saying that if cars were built to run on gasoline, which we know they are, there is no possible fuel mixture that could work better, and that if you are designing new fuel you have to somehow link it to the traditional fuel used before

Although I agree with the general point you are trying to make I think thats an extremely bad example. When designing an engine the fuel to be used is the primary factor to be considered. An engine designed to run on gasoline will not nessecarely only run on gasoline but its output efficiency will be highest on gasoline. If one want's a simular (but not equal) engine to run equally well on say ethanol things like compression ratio, fuel air factors need to be adjusted. In fact you would have to rebuild most of the engine. Therefore i think your example doesn't hold much merit.

(human)Evolution didn't design anything for any one fuel. It merely preserves mutations and species that are able to use the available fuel(of different kinds) as efficiently as possible whilst still mantaining the abilty to compete with their enviremont. So rather than being designed for one particular fuel we are in fact adapted to use the broadest possible range of fuels.

[cherimoya_kid]

I would have to say humans evolved larger brains for the same reason that human ancestors evolved them...because it's usually advantageous for a vertebrate to have a larger brain. Dinosaurs were evolving them before they were wiped out. Mammals have been evolving larger brains for as long as they've existed, as well.  Why would there be some extra, separate reason? It's a natural progression.

It's ridiculous the number of agendas that people are pushing in the area of nutrition in this culture. Get a life already!

[TylerDurden]

If it were indeed true that mammals naturally evolve larger brains, then I would have expected a different, non-hominid species to have at least gotten somewhere near our level of intelligence before us wiping them out via natural selection. There are some very highly evolved animals such as bears who are at the top of the food-chain but who haven't evolved anywhere near our level of intelligence. Bears have, incidentally, the best smell-sense of all mammals and the best muscular strength of all mammals.

[KD]

swell , more de-railing and placing importance on one mis-selected and mis-interpreted quote of a forum poster.
Read it again. First of all mind the [...] and the context. Second, does it say that eating tons of fruit led to a big brain, or maybe just that fish eating is a poor candiate for our evolution based on what we know of our physiology? Pretty sure most 'peatards' are in the 'meat and saturated fat' and then also with 'cooked food' camps as spurning various developments...

Either way, all he's trying to do is bring skepticism to how people validate their diets (eating lots of non close-shore fish) based on 'evolutionary' ideas rather than the actual effects the diets create, which can in a way give us a better sense of what may have happened in the past.

Same principle every time, not very complicated. People could go on mostly raw fruits (without other needed materials or other negative factors of such) based on 'ideals' and then watch their thyroid/homrones etc.. go to shit, so still not exactly getting what he's talking about ( considering he is pro seafood and anti anything resembling vegan )as far as validating anything with postulates of the past. Notice not alot of peat folks eating fruit mono meals like in 'da nature' which should be the give away there.

The whole fatty fish thing with paleo is 100% rediculous anyway. Only certain types of fish are fatty and for the most part these are totally unavailable in any suspected areas of our early development or without hardcore technology. This is not only not a paleo thing, most premoden man  did not eat deep cold water ocean fish and Inuits ate mostly sea mammal meat last time I checked. But afterall, anythign natural that doesn't require processing is surely healthy and suitable, just remove cooked and neolithic food, totally good to go on whatever else you can put together for all your your nutrient needs and functioning. Make sure you eat a fair amount of plant seeds too. Surely the sign of using that increased intelligence.

And I can assure you, cavemen would not kill you and then eat your brain in order to try to understand and get at your magic flickering porn box. Ditto with your magical milking goat. Same with cooked foods. They would find these conveniences revolting. Also I suspect surely that their pure dispositions required  millennia of generations before these devolvements did not leave them constantly bedridden with discomfort that truly healthy people today experience after extended bouts on a pure diet.