Why cooked paleo reportedly is healing to many?

[TylerDurden]

Sorry, it was the robb wolff site I meant. I checked the titles of the testimonials on all 10 pages of it, and, sure enough, it had b*ll about curing or reducing some symptoms of  auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, IBS, dermatitis and similiar issues. Not too impressive. No mention of Grave's that I could see or any genetic disease mentioned in the titles.

[PaleoPhil]

The Robb Wolf site does have a couple of reports on Grave's disease in other parts of his website than the testimonial database, but I won't bother anyone with them unless someone is truly interested and open to the possibility. There's no point in sharing those or others with someone whose posts suggest he has already made up his mind on the subject. As the old saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water..." and "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

[TylerDurden]

In other words, you just made it up to counter my point re genetic diseases.

[TylerDurden]

Another thing that debunks the cooked argument is that animals raised on raw diets are reported to be way healthier than those which eat cooked, but "natural" diets involving cooked meats. I'm also pretty sure that most  raw-feeding pet-owners only give their animals raw, grainfed meats, not grassfed meat, so that's another point in favour of the pro-raw argument.

[Adora]

Hi Phil
   I'm interested in Rob Wolf's stuff. It is really good. I found them first, then I saw Peg the paleo parent feeding her child raw hamburger and THEN I found raw paleo. I may never have gotten hear if they didn't exist. The diet is very similar I found it fairly easy to transition. I think it would have been much harder mentally to have gone from SAD to RAVF.

[PaleoPhil]

Another thing that debunks the cooked argument is that animals raised on raw diets are reported to be way healthier than those which eat cooked, but "natural" diets involving cooked meats. I'm also pretty sure that most  raw-feeding pet-owners only give their animals raw, grainfed meats, not grassfed meat, so that's another point in favour of the pro-raw argument.

I think rawness is more important when it comes to fatty meats than many other foods, and I think that's something we agree on, so rawness might be especially important to an animal that is biologically adapted to a mostly meat diet, such as cats and dogs. Plus, by feeding them raw it eliminates the biologically inappropriate foods from their diet like grains and other foods that require heating and processing. Thus, raw diets also contain a substantial component of Paleo that many rawists overlook when they attribute most or all of their healing to rawness rather than Paleo (biologically appropriate foods). There's also so much overlap that it's difficult to completely separate the two, and thus the arguments will likely be endless, but I've seen firsthand some remarkable success stories from cooked Paleo and read about countless others.

Hi Phil
   I'm interested in Rob Wolf's stuff. It is really good. I found them first, then I saw Peg the paleo parent feeding her child raw hamburger and THEN I found raw paleo. I may never have gotten hear if they didn't exist. The diet is very similar I found it fairly easy to transition. I think it would have been much harder mentally to have gone from SAD to RAVF.

Yeah, a lot of people are put off by the idea of raw Paleo. Cooked Paleo is less offputting to most people I've encountered, and from there they can bridge to less damaging forms of cooking, then introduce some raw animal foods and then maybe finally try fully or high raw Paleo some day. I have gradually seen more of the cooked Paleos considering these things and I think we will see more of them try out these steps over time.

So are you interested in seeing the reports re: Grave's disease from Wolf's site, Adora?

[TylerDurden]

There is a small category of people who've over the years fed their animals mostly on cooked meats discarded by humans or specially cooked for the animals. These did not feed their animals on processed pet-food-cans. The point being that they were more or less palaeo(OK , no grassfed meats or much in the way of organ-meats) but one would expect that method to have become far more popular if cooked-palaeo was all that important.

[PaleoPhil]

More gluten-free and Paleo-type heated pet foods, such as INNOVA EVO (INNOVA Evo brand,  http://www.innovapet.com/faqs#), are actually growing in popularity.

Besides, no one has argued that raw Paleo isn't better than cooked Paleo, only that people have achieved amazing improvements on cooked Paleo. We don't have to bash cooked Paleo as near useless to promote raw Paleo. They are putting to use many of the principles we do and have taken a big step toward our own approach and away from the SAD. We don't have to focus on the empty part of the glass, we can congratulate cooked Paleo folks on the full part of the glass and encourage them to fill it up further, following some of their principles to their logical conclusions.

I found your scorched earth policy to be a bit of a turnoff for me for raw Paleo, whereas Lex's reasonable and pleasant writings were encouraging, as were Ray Audette's hints about rawness and the implications that eating only foods that are edible raw implied. I know it wasn't your intent to turn off potential rawists, but it unfortunately seemed to be an unintentional byproduct. For example, when you went on about how little benefit cooked Paleo provides, I knew that didn't match well with my experience, so it undercut your credibility and I helped put off my own raw experiment, which was unfortunate because the experiment was successful and it has become a WOE for me.

[TylerDurden]

The trouble is that while you acknowledge cooked-palaeo as useful, you refuse to acknowledge raw vegan as being useful too. Granted, raw vegan diets have a problem re nutritional deficiencies eventually, but cooked-palaeodiets also have huge problems for many people as regards heat-created toxins. I'm a case in point. While cooked-palaeodiets were deadly to me(if I'd continued with cooked-palaeo I would have been dead by 35 for sure, given the pain etc. involved in eating cooked animal foods etc.), I could have continued with raw vegan diets for years afterwards. My problem with raw vegan diets wasn't due to nutritional deficiency, it was solely that my health-improvements were rather minor with me having vast hunger-pangs all the time.

More to the point, if we are talking about transitional diets that allow people to regain health as best as possible without going too much in for rawpalaeo(which most people are hysterical about due to media hype), then a diet which is 90% raw vegan and 10% raw or cooked animal food(say raw eggs and raw dairy which are easier for people to get used to of all RAF foods) is way better than a 90% cooked-palaeodiet with 10% in the form of raw or cooked plant foods.

The link you cited showed "page not found" as a result when I clicked on it. None too promising.

Anyway, the whole thesis of rawpaleoforum has always been that people coming to this diet are more likely to  previously come from the raw vegan/fruitarian field or the cooked, palaeolithic diet field than any other area. Those who can come up with a sudden, immediate switch from SAD/SMD diets to raw, palaeolithic diets have my respect, as I would never have had the guts to do that so quickly.

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks for letting me know about my broken link. I fixed it.

The trouble is that while you acknowledge cooked-palaeo as useful, you refuse to acknowledge raw vegan as being useful too.

Raw vegan may be better than SAD, but it's too early to tell, as it's a new experiment that has no precedent in human or primate history. Even mountain gorillas eat some insects and carion. Even the raw vegan Paul Nisson conceded this point. Over the longer term, it seems that including some animal foods, such as with Denise Minger's plant-oriented partly cooked Paleo diet, is essential. Whereas some traditional peoples have been eating cooked Paleo and similar diets their entire lives for at least a couple hundred thousand years, by your own admission in posts on cooking in human history.

cooked-palaeodiets also have huge problems for many people as regards heat-created toxins. I'm a case in point.

You could be right, it's just that my sense is that the majority of folks from the overall raw animal food and Paleo dieting community don't agree with you or go quite as far as you do in bashing Paleo and emphasizing the essentiality and vastly greater importance for all of raw, and the poll here appears to jibe with my sense.

[Adora]

Graves dx results sound interesting. There are type 1 diabetic results that show improvement too. No, reversal of long standing type 1's that I've seen yet, but I haven't been following his site close.

[PaleoPhil]

OK, Adora, I'll start with sharing a story I know about personally. A good friend of my sister's who's a former (cooked foods) vegetarian with Grave's disease improved dramatically just by cutting out gluten and cutting back on grains after my sister told her about (cooked) Paleo (I had told my sister about it and she and her children had experienced dramatic benefits herself). The Grave's symptoms and lab numbers improved so much that her physician had to greatly reduce her thyroid medication. Unfortunately, that friend refused to eat meat or go Paleo, much less raw Paleo, else she might have experienced even better results.

Here are the Graves' disease testimonials from Robb Wolf's cooked Paleo site:

Robb Wolf December 24, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Jim-
Graves is an autoimmune issue. We have seen remarkable improvements in a variety of folks with autoimmunity by adopting paleo. I [can] think of 3 [folks] we have worked with who have seen remarkable improvements with Graves. You never know till you try, but [your friend] has the potential of actually putting the problem into remission. Worst case scenario: she is “just” healthier, but still managing Graves. http://robbwolf.com/2009/12/21/the-paleolithic-solution-episode-7/

A friend of Eva La Rue of CSI: Miami
"Eva also mentions a friend with Graves’ disease (an autoimmune disease that leads to an overactive thyroid) that lost 25 pounds in five weeks, and more importantly, was able to stop taking her medication."

Also, Eva's mother went Paleo and she lost 20 pounds, "her hair grew back, her sight got better and she went off all her heart medications for the first time in 10 years...."
(http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/EVA.jpg)

Kristy January 27, 2011 at 2:38 pm
http://robbwolf.com/2011/01/26/chris-kresser-visits-the-paleo-solution/

Hi. I was diagnosed in 2000 with Hyperthyriodism, Graves Disease, goiter, and no pituitary function. I underwent radioactive iodine therapy which left me 50 lbs heavier, approximately 3 % of a functioning thyroid, and Hypothyroidism. I take Levothyroxin daily. I have a very hard time loosing weight. I began the Paleo way of eating about 2 weeks ago. I feel better than I have felt in YEARS! however, I am not seeing much weight loss via scale or inches. I also know that eating certain foods can have an adverse affect on my hormone level and replacent therapy. Is the Paleo diet the most effective for me and will I ever see the kind of weight-loss others are seeing???

Tyler will no doubt dismiss these examples, but that shouldn't surprise anyone, as he has clearly already made up his mind, and anyone can easily think up reasons for dismissing testimonials if they don't like the message they convey. So these examples aren't for him, but for you and anyone else interested.

These examples are not meant to imply that cooked Paleo is just as good as or better than raw Paleo, only that the Paleo/ancestral aspect of raw Paleo appears to be very important and can provide some rather dramatic benefits over the diets that most people in the USA and Europe are on (generally, standard American/Western diets SWD). I would encourage folks to resist the temptation to just dismiss or belittle the Paleo aspect. Not everyone will go straight to raw Paleo from SWD.  Some will get here via cooked Paleo, such as myself, so we shouldn't treat it like it's a horrible, complete enemy. Plus, if we keep belittling Paleo, we might lead people into other less optimal raw diets or discourage people from trying raw Paleo.

Of course, there is overlap between raw and Paleo and various degrees and types of cooking, so it's difficult to determine what benefits are due to which aspect, which is another reason it may not be wise to dismiss one aspect or the other.

[goodsamaritan]

More gluten-free and Paleo-type heated pet foods, such as INNOVA EVO (INNOVA Evo brand,  http://www.innovapet.com/faqs#), are actually growing in popularity.

Besides, no one has argued that raw Paleo isn't better than cooked Paleo, only that people have achieved amazing improvements on cooked Paleo. We don't have to bash cooked Paleo as near useless to promote raw Paleo. They are putting to use many of the principles we do and have taken a big step toward our own approach and away from the SAD. We don't have to focus on the empty part of the glass, we can congratulate cooked Paleo folks on the full part of the glass and encourage them to fill it up further, following some of their principles to their logical conclusions.

I found your scorched earth policy to be a bit of a turnoff for me for raw Paleo, whereas Lex's reasonable and pleasant writings were encouraging, as were Ray Audette's hints about rawness and the implications that eating only foods that are edible raw implied. I know it wasn't your intent to turn off potential rawists, but it unfortunately seemed to be an unintentional byproduct. For example, when you went on about how little benefit cooked Paleo provides, I knew that didn't match well with my experience, so it undercut your credibility and I helped put off my own raw experiment, which was unfortunate because the experiment was successful and it has become a WOE for me.

Hi Phil and Tyler,

I think we all can agree, that IF every person could have access to the best healer, the best chef, the best resources, and not have any yucky inhibitions..

Raw Paleo Diets will always win out.

Where Cooked Paleo diets is a transition thing or for those who cannot get over the hump of yucky attitudes to raw meats.

Where temporary Raw Veganism may be used for detox.

It all works out in the hands of skilled healers and skilled healers will use whatever works at what point in time.  I'm probably speaking for myself and my friend Vander. 

Yes, there are times when rawish / cookish paleo diet will already give benefits and healing.

Yes, there are times when absolutely raw paleo diet is needed.

I think Tyler is speaking from his experience that he gets tummy aches from cooked meat.  Yes, I get that too if I eat too much cooked meat.  Even my own children know and have experienced raw paleo is just the thing that does the job when cooked paleo cannot.

I think if sick people had access to perfect information... or as much information and experience as we have... we can draw them a map of how these various diets work... us being experienced poly-dieters.... so with the map they know where things can lead to.

Maybe we can start drawing our EXPERIENCED mental maps on how these diets work out. 

[PaleoPhil]

Hi Phil and Tyler,

I think we all can agree, that IF every person could have access to the best healer, the best chef, the best resources, and not have any yucky inhibitions..

Raw Paleo Diets will always win out.

I would generally think so.  I know it has worked best for me. I don't see sharing testimonials of some success from cooked Paleo as undercutting raw Paleo, I see it as supporting the Paleo aspect, and possibly even the raw aspect in some cases (removing cooked grains and legumes from the diet and replacing them with raw salads increases the rawness, for example), of raw Paleo. Seeing the glass half full instead of half empty. Plus, more importantly, cooked Paleo supports some of the fundamental concepts behind raw Paleo which in some cases lead people to raw Paleo (including me, partly).

[TylerDurden]

I see that I made a grievous error in mentioning Grave's disease. After all, it is only partially hereditary(and not in a DNA sense, I suspect, but more due to the health of the parents due to nutrition) - plus it is an auto-immune disease which I have already stated is the one  thing that cooked-palaeo is good at.

Raw vegan diets also cure auto-immune diseases related to the thyroid, so PP is dead wrong in belittling raw vegan diets:-

http://www.raw-foods-diet-center.com/weight-loss-autoimmune-thyroid-disease-high-cholesterol-arthritis.html

Basically, both cooked-palaeo and raw vegan diets are purely transitional diets which will help  resolve some health-problems(usually in the short-term) but which will never be anywhere near as effective as raw, palaeolithic diets. They both have inherent problems. Cooked-palaeodiets often include grainfed meats(only some palaeo interpretations involve grassfed meats and ban grainfed meats), plus there is the issue of lack of enzymes, lack of bacteria and all those heat-created toxins derived from cooking; and the one problem with raw vegan diets is that they don't supply all the nutrients a human body needs  so that all initial health benefits will eventually be negated by nutritional deficiencies at some stage in the future.

Incidentally GS, I didn't just get "tummy-aches" from eating any kind of cooked animal foods, pre-rpd diet. These were extremely painful  sensations that felt like I had a dagger ripping through my stomach and intestines. I also got  very painful, chronic constipation and rectal bleeding from eating any cooked animal food, plus massive weight-gain, plus a few other issues I can't recall right now. By contrast, my raw vegan experience was much better, I was slimmer, had no stomach- pains at all nor any constipation etc. Granted, the lack of "complete foods" meant I didn't solve my other health-problems, but it worked way better for me than cooked-palaeo did.

I should add that I did the best possible raw vegan diet in my opinion, including lots of raw juices(mostly fruits), a very large part of my diet at the time included raw sprouts, and I made a real effort to eat raw avocadoes and the like to get enough raw fat.Hmm, I even carried on eating sprouts while I was a Fruitarian, though I didn't eat any veg(avocadoes are technically fruits I believe?).

[PaleoPhil]

I see that I made a grievous error in mentioning Grave's disease. After all, it is only partially hereditary...

LOL, HAHAHAHAHA! PARTIALLY hereditary! Thanks for that one, TD. I knew you'd find a way to dismiss, but it wasn't quite what I expected, and even more hilarious than usual. I was expecting a less subtle, complete dismissal. Maybe you'd make a good politician.

Raw vegan diets also cure auto-immune diseases related to the thyroid, so PP is dead wrong in belittling raw vegan diets:-

Raw vegan diets can indeed provide great improvements in the short run for some folk. It's in the longer run that they especially run into problems, or so it seems. I don't have any problem with plant-heavy diets if it works for someone. If someone wants to do that, I recommend the blog of the goddess of Paleo/ancestral, Denise Minger, praised be her name.

Basically, both cooked-palaeo and raw vegan diets are purely transitional diets which will help  resolve some health-problems(usually in the short-term) but which will never be anywhere near as effective as raw, palaeolithic diets. ....

Hmmm, well this is boring. We both agree on this.

Incidentally GS, I didn't just get "tummy-aches" from eating any kind of cooked animal foods, pre-rpd diet. These were extremely painful  sensations that felt like I had a dagger ripping through my stomach and intestines. I also got  very painful, chronic constipation and rectal bleeding from eating any cooked animal food, plus massive weight-gain, plus a few other issues I can't recall right now.

Yeah, and he also mentioned vomiting when he eats cooked foods, the poor man! Have a heart, GS! ;-)

 

By contrast, my raw vegan experience was much better, I was slimmer, had no stomach- pains at all nor any constipation etc. Granted, the lack of "complete foods" meant I didn't solve my other health-problems, but it worked way better for me than cooked-palaeo did.

Yes, I think we all know your history by now. The point is, it doesn't necessarily apply to all, so please don't assume it applies to all, or even most.

I made a real effort to eat raw avocadoes and the like to get enough raw fat.Hmm, I even carried on eating sprouts while I was a Fruitarian, though I didn't eat any veg(avocadoes are technically fruits I believe?).

It's "botanically a large berry that contains a single seed" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado (search engines are your friend ).

[TylerDurden]

LOL, HAHAHAHAHA! PARTIALLY hereditary! Thanks for that one, TD. I knew you'd find a way to dismiss, but it wasn't quite what I expected, and even more hilarious than usual. I was expecting a less subtle, complete dismissal. Maybe you'd make a good politician.

You are being a bit clueless, here. It has been noted on various online sources that Grave's disease has a "powerful" hereditary component, or just that it is "often" a hereditary component, so, clearly,  one doesn't always get it via heredity, and there are other ways to contract it:-

http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/hormonal_and_metabolic_disorders/thyroid_gland_disorders/hyperthyroidism.html

Plus, like I said, I suspect that the thyroiditis has nothing to do with inheritance via DNA. More than likely, it has to do with the parents being unhealthy due to poor nutrition and the embryo suffering therefrom in the womb etc. In other words, once  a person's diet went rawpalaeo, any subsequent children would be highly unlikely to contract Grave's disease.

Raw vegan diets can indeed provide great improvements in the short run for some folk. It's in the longer run that they especially run into problems, or so it seems. I don't have any problem with plant-heavy diets if it works for someone. If someone wants to do that, I recommend the blog of the goddess of Paleo/ancestral, Denise Minger, praised be her name.

Cooked-palaeo also has long-term negative effects. The load of heat-created toxins involved  means that increased aging is the result, along with all sorts of age-related health-problems. The point is that raw vegan diets plus a tiny proportion of raw animal foods, enough to provide all the necessary nutrients a human body needs is way, way better than a cooked-palaeodiet.

Yeah, and he also mentioned vomiting when he eats cooked foods, the poor man! Have a heart, GS! ;-)

That only happened after some years on the rawpalaeodiet. It only happens if I eat lots of cooked foods at one time. I can usually tolerate small amounts without vomiting, unless the food is very highly processed.

Yes, I think we all know your history by now. The point is, it doesn't necessarily apply to all, so please don't assume it applies to all, or even most.

Ah, but it does indeed apply to most. Granted, a few carb-sensitive types  like Lex may find the experience a disaster(though didn't he only quit after many years of raw veganism?) but most people find some benefit from raw veganism at the start up to perhaps as much as the first couple of years, it's only in the long-term that issues start appearing, due solely to nutritional deficiency, not anything else.


Hmm, I suppose I can't really call myself a "Fruitarian" as I did indeed eat a lot of sprouts. At one point, sprouts formed 80-100% of my food-intake.

[PaleoPhil]

You are being a bit clueless, here. It has been noted on various online sources that Grave's disease has a "powerful" hereditary component...

This completely misses my point. First you called it a hereditary disease that cooked Paleo hadn't helped with and only raw Paleo could and said that Robb Wolf had no testimonials. Then when links were supplied, you start changing your tune about its nature, making it seem like less of an achievement to improve it. No doubt you'll make excuses for this too. It was predictable that the excuses began, but their actual delivery was still humorous. No matter what evidence is provided, you'll find excuses for it.

Of course it's partially hereditary, but that isn't the language you used when you were talking about how cooked Paleo couldn't help with any of the hereditary diseases. Instead, you were giving the impression that improving Grave's Disease would be very impressive indeed.

[TylerDurden]

I conceded the point that Grave's Disease was nowhere near  as hereditary as I had thought. I wasn't making excuses, just rechecking my data and finding out that I was wrong re my past statement, nothing more, and that I should not have selected any auto-immune condition.  So, obviously, we need to look at actual genetic-inherited diseases for more impressive results. It wouldn't surprise me if cooked-palaeo had zero effect on such and that rawpalaeo lessened some of the symptoms. Like I said, though, Grave's disease, being an auto-immune disease, just proves my earlier that cooked-palaeo is only good at improving auto-immune diseases, nothing much more, really.  By contrast, raw foods are able to improve many other kinds of health-problems.

[PaleoPhil]

I conceded the point that Grave's Disease was nowhere near  as hereditary as I had thought. I wasn't making excuses, just rechecking my data and finding out that I was wrong re my past statement, nothing more....

OK, I'll take your word on that.

So, obviously, we need to look at actual genetic-inherited diseases for more impressive results. It wouldn't surprise me if cooked-palaeo had zero effect on such and that rawpalaeo lessened some of the symptoms.

Feel free to pick a disease and provide your examples of raw Paleo success. I'm interested in impressive success stories from any therapeutic approach, especially raw Paleo, and it will provide more examples for me to share with friends, relatives and the interested.

[goodsamaritan]

Feel free to pick a disease and provide your examples of raw Paleo success. I'm interested in impressive success stories from any therapeutic approach, especially raw Paleo, and it will provide more examples for me to share with friends, relatives and the interested.

Create a new thread for this.
I will gladly contribute.

[PaleoPhil]

I think it should be a sticky, but I can't create a sticky in the main forum. Can you or Tyler do it. It could be called Raw Paleo Success Stories, so it could also include reports from celebrities and other folks that we read about.

[goodsamaritan]

I think it should be a sticky, but I can't create a sticky in the main forum. Can you or Tyler do it. It could be called Raw Paleo Success Stories, so it could also include reports from celebrities and other folks that we read about.

Go create the thread and I'll make it sticky.

[Saris]

I personally cannot stomach much cooked animal flesh/fat. I did that a couple times (years ago) and would feel bad as if I had a flu.

On the other hand, it appears that the vast majority of the paleo diet community (including gurus and authors of paleo diet books) eat cooked animal flesh/fat. How come so many people do so well with cooked paleo?

Simple, they've eliminated junk-food.


Even a 'cooked' Paleo diet consisting of Meat and Vegetables is leaps and bounds healthier than the modern diet of fast, processed, sugar-heavy garbage.

[PaleoPhil]

Simple, they've eliminated junk-food.

That does appear to be a major factor. It's what Nassim Taleb terms via negativa (removing harmful factors from one's diet or lifestyle).

Here are some results from the Paleo Survey 2012 (http://naturallyengineered.com/blog/2012-paleo-community-survey-results-released) relevant to this thread:

Do you have any medical conditions which have not been improved by a Paleo diet?
Choices   Percentage   Count
    Total   4688
    Unanswered   615
no 48.49%   2273
not applicable 31.98%   1499
yes 0.49%   23

Has your overall health changed while on the paleo diet?
Improved: 88.3%
No change: 11.4%
Worse: 0.3%