bowel movements

[yon yonson]

good topic, i know

just one question: how often do you guys have bowel movements?

im asking because i recently greatly increased the amount of raw animal food in my diet and am only having a movement every other day or every two days. i don't feel constipated though, just dont have to go. previously i was extremely regular and had a movement every morning. anyone care to tell me about their shit-cycles? 

[goodsamaritan]

I have regular bowel movement every day.
Mornings after breakfast.
My breakfast is usually fresh raw coconut juice + coconut meat and a fruit in season.

[TylerDurden]

It's common for those who eat mostly raw animal foods to have less frequent bowel movements, and vice-versa - it's nothing to do with constipation. I only have a bowel-movement every 2 days, usually. At times when I've eaten lots of raw carbs(such as fermented sauerkraut), my bowel-movements have always been more frequent and generally larger. I also find it easier to wipe on a low-plant-food diet than in my raw vegan days, when stools were softer and diarrhea-like.

[Satya]

I think cooked vegetables create major loads of waste in the body, maybe more so than cooked meat. 

Andrew wrote about less frequent bowel movements since going zero carb (I wanted to reply to that but can't find the thread).  Then someone wrote back and said something like, 'not having bowel movements everyday can't be healthy."  I just can't help thinking that this is a conditioned response (you know, SAD eaters go once a day, therefore everyone should to be regular and healthy).  I mean, what is so great about having loads of waste in the intestines all the time?  Feeling bloated and having to dump loads of it out once or more a day.  Too many plant foods cause many vegans I used to know to go 3 times a day!  That's a lot of time and possibly a lot of stress on the system. 

I agree that sauerkraut or other fermented foods do increase stool mass, but it's not much if you aren't shoveling too much down the hatch.  And it doesn't cause that heavy, nasty feeling.  And the acid and probiotics in such foods aid digestion in general.

[donrad]

I eat lots of raw fruit and veggies so I get lots of fiber. I think lots of fibrous foods is very Paleo. I even supplement with a teaspoon of psyllium husk now and then. The fiber carries the waste from the body. I go twice a day and usually don't need toilet paper. I judge my health by the condition of my stool. Ingesting friendly bacteria a couple times a day makes a big difference. Since going RVAF it doesn't smell nearly as bad either. I recently read that there are more bacteria in your digestive track than cells in your body.

This doctor on the Oprah show talked for a half hour about poop. If the crap stagnates in your gut it can cause medical problems.

We have a symbiotic relationship with fruits. If you eat raspberries it will loosen you up. The berry seeds want the fertilization but don't want to get digested.

[Raw Kyle]

I imagine a world without technology as allowing a very low fiber diet. You could spend a lot of time collecting plants to cook or eat raw, but without agriculture I think the amount of time needed to collect a significant amount of these foods would be too much to be considered practical.

Myself, I don't like to feel constipated. The times I have the most bowel movements though is when I cheat on my diet. This could be my body trying to get rid of bad stuff as fast as possible.

[RawZi]

This doctor on the Oprah show talked for a half hour about poop. If the crap stagnates in your gut it can cause medical problems.

    Do you know the name of the doctor or which episode it was on?

[donrad]

    Do you know the name of the doctor or which episode it was on?

http://www.poopreport.com/BMnewswire/oprahs_poop_report.html

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/health/nutrition/slideshow1_ss_yourbody_digestion

Another couple factors I neglected to mention are hydration and exercise.

When I was 14 years old I was hospitalized and bedridden. As is common, I had to get an enema every couple days and sit on a bed pan. As you can imagine, it is not a pleasant experience for a 14 year old boy to have water squirted up his but by a nurse. I learned that if I very frequently drank water all day the problem cleared up.

I have learned from life that if I am sedentary with a desk job all day I feel terrible and have lots of digestion and weight problems. If I have a job where I am running around all day and getting aerobic exercise I feel great and have regular bowl movements.

Everyone is different with different life styles. I am not offering advice.  Check out the above links, notice that one is a slide show.

http://ibdcrohns.about.com/od/dailylife/a/normalbm.htm

This is a link on how often that says 3/day to 3/week can be normal.

[lex_rooker]

I eat lots of raw fruit and veggies so I get lots of fiber.

I did this for a while thinking that fiber was important to proper elimination.  After converting to a diet of only meat and fat, I've now come to believe that fiber is really bad for our intestines and that we were never designed to eat much of it.  There have been studies showing that the conventional wisdom that fiber "sweeps like a broom" and helps prevent colon cancer is total nonsense.  There is actually a slightly higher rate of colon cancer on a high fiber vs low fiber diet.   The rates of Crohn's Disease, IBD, and Ulcerative Colitis, on the other hand, have reached epidemic proportions on a high fiber diet but very rare on low fiber diets.  Fiber is more like sandpaper and irritates the bowels making things worse not better.

I think lots of fibrous foods is very Paleo.

My research and experience have brought me to the opposite conclusion.  I've attempted to live off the land eating carbs and found it next to impossible.  Wild fruits and veggies are nothing like what you find in your local market.  Wild fruits are small, mostly seed, and usually very tart and often down right sour.  Wild vegetables are tough, stringy, very bitter and pretty much indigestible.  Even the acorns that the local Natives used as a survival food when game was scarce is so bitter from tanic acid that they must be ground and then the "flour" soaked in hot water to make them edible.  Even the birds won't eat them.  The woodpeckers get the acorns that have insect larvae in them, store them in cracks and then come back when the larvae have matured, crack the acorn and eat the larvae.   The Journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition don't support your conclusion as related to Native North American Indians as they much preferred meat to any other food source. Carbs were a survival option only.   The lastest anthropological studies of protein tracers in the bones of pre-neolithic man show that they ate a diet composed in excess of 95% red meat from terrestrial animals - almost zero carbs - thus zero "fiber".

This doctor on the Oprah show talked for a half hour about poop. If the crap stagnates in your gut it can cause medical problems.

I used to believe this myth also, however when eating very low carb diet this does not seem to be the case and actually the opposite is true.  Remember that our doctors and clinics are dealing with people who have been eating a carb based diet and have zero experience with people eating a meat and fat based diet.  Meat and fat are both fully digested with very little waste and almost no nutrients in the waste to support large colonies of bacteria in the gut.  Carbs, and especially fiber, are indigestable and leave a large nutrient load in the gut providing firtile ground for bacteria and fungus to grow.

I once read (though can't remember where as it was many years ago) that bacteria and fungus make up almost 80% of the bulk in the bowel movement of a person eating a high carb diet rich in fiber.  On a meat diet our bodies efficiently extract all the nutrients from the food leaving little for bacteria and other critters to survive on.  This substantially lowers the bulk of the stools of a meat eater compaired to someone eating significant carbs.

The High Fiber theory just doesn't hold water when you leave the supermarket and try to exist on truly wild foods, especially when you consider that there were no pots and pans in paleo times so boiling water to soften otherwise inedible food was not possible.  Go out into the woods sometime with a sharp stick and some rocks.  Go ahead and take matches for fire but no shovels, pots, pans, dishes, or cutlery-including knives.  This is what paleo man was faced with.  See what plant based food you can find.  I think you'll discover that taking down large animals is the only practical solution.

The idea that carbs were a significant part of our human diet throughout history comes from researchers and professors, sitting in their climate controlled offices munching "healthy" sugar soaked "whole grain" granola bars loaded with "candied" bits of fruit.

My 2 cents,

Lex

[TylerDurden]

I've heard of Native American tribes which ate large varieties of grains, beans and plants in general. Certainly this sally fallon article mentions this:-

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html

[Satya]

I've heard of Native American tribes which ate large varieties of grains, beans and plants in general. Certainly this sally fallon article mentions this:-

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html

This is true for some southern tribes.  But let's not forget that these are Neolithic peoples we are talking about.  I tend to agree with Lex that plants figured in our diets very rarely until the climate warmed up enough for more plant life, and subsequently agriculture about 10kya.  And this is the landscape and climate that we lived with as a species until very, very recently in our existence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene
Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles where continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. It is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earth's surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the glacial sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America, and several hundred in Eurasia. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was -6 °C; at the edge of the permafrost, 0 °C.

Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1500–3000 m thick, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m or more over the entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions.

The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains.

In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest; the east was covered by the Laurentide. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet rested on north Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet on the Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen.

South of the ice sheets large lakes accumulated because outlets were blocked and the cooler air slowed evaporation. North central North America was totally covered by Lake Agassiz. Over 100 basins, now dry or nearly so, were overflowing in the American west. Lake Bonneville, for example, stood where Great Salt Lake now does. In Eurasia, large lakes developed as a result of the runoff from the glaciers. Rivers were larger, had a more copious flow, and were braided. African lakes were fuller, apparently from decreased evaporation.

Deserts on the other hand were drier and more extensive. Rainfall was lower because of the decrease in oceanic and other evaporation.

[donrad]

I currently believe that most of our evolution occurred in tropical areas like the Philippines where Goodsamaratin lives, but the soils were less depleted and the landscape, plants, and animals less abused by humans. Fruits and vegetables were abundant year round and our ancestors new when and where they were in their prime. Tender shoots and sprouts were always available as were a huge variety of fruits, insects, and meat creatures.

It was much much later that we migrated to harsher climates and groups of people became adapted to their new surroundings. I don't know if I am a member of which group and if so I don't know if I possess the recent adapted gene. Weston Price studied people who migrated recently and their "traditional" diets evolved since civilization developed agriculture and animal husbandry. I do agree that traditional diets are vastly superior and much less damaging than the "civilized" diets that were invented in the last hundred+ years, which is what Price was comparing them to.

In the book Pottinger's Cats they note that cats living in the wild on their natural hunted diet were healthier that cats fed a raw diet. The raw fed cats were healthy, but the cooked food cats died out in two or three generations.

I think there might be pockets of tropical paradise where I could go out and survive, but certainly not in this northern climate, and certainly not without a tribe of people to gather seeds, berries, and nuts in season to store; and hunt with.

I have read a lot of books on this topic in a short period and am uncertain of my time lines. I am still reviewing. But right now I'm going back about a million years minimum. We have been evolving with bacteria for billions of years. At one time we were like bacteria. There is a much bigger picture here.

I was most impressed by a book titled "Evolving Health" by Boaz. A human fetus develops similar to evolution. The modern world is making us sick. Most of it is diet related.

[lex_rooker]

I've heard of Native American tribes which ate large varieties of grains, beans and plants in general. Certainly this sally fallon article mentions this:-

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html

Yup, "mentions" is the key word.  Meat and fat was the preferred food, and I think that is pretty clear from the article.  You eat what is available when food is scarce.  I know the Tule Indians and other tribes in central California ate cattail tubers as well as acorns when food was scarce.  They also used carbs to stave off rabbit starvation when the meat that was available had too little fat. 

If it comes down to starving or eating acorns, please pass the acorn gruel.....

Lex

[lex_rooker]

I currently believe that most of our evolution occurred in tropical areas like the Philippines where Goodsamaratin lives, but the soils were less depleted and the landscape, plants, and animals less abused by humans.

Where do you get your evidence for this?  Most of what I've read has humans developing in the open plains and grasslands of the African Continent and then migrating into the middle east (what is now Iraq and Iran) and spreading both east into India and Asia, and west into Europe from there.  The American continent was supposedly populated through migration of a land bridge linking what is now Alaska and Russia in much more recent times.  The "islands" and tropics were populated rather recently from a historical perspective from Asia as well, supposedly through the use of primitive boats and rafts.

This view seems to be fairly well supported through the dating of archeological finds in the various areas.  There is nothing that I've found anywhere that suggests that humans spent most of their early development in tropical areas - in fact, quite the opposite - we started in grasslands and plains where there would have been little in the way of fruit, but herds of wild grass eating animals plentiful.

Lex

[TylerDurden]

Yup, "mentions" is the key word.  Meat and fat was the preferred food, and I think that is pretty clear from the article.  You eat what is available when food is scarce.  I know the Tule Indians and other tribes in central California ate cattail tubers as well as acorns when food was scarce.  They also used carbs to stave off rabbit starvation when the meat that was available had too little fat. 

If it comes down to starving or eating acorns, please pass the acorn gruel.....

Lex

Well, yes but Satya reminded me that there were Native Americans in the South who were more settled and raised grains beans and other crops, not due to  food-scarcity.

[lex_rooker]

Well, yes but Satya reminded me that there were Native Americans in the South who were more settled and raised grains beans and other crops, not due to  food-scarcity. 

Very true, but there is no evidence that this activity was practiced in paleo times or indeed that this region was even inhabited during that era.  What archelogical evidence is available puts the origin of these cultures squarely in the neolithic time period.  Agriculture in the American Southwest was a necessary survival tactic, and until agriculture had been developed, these areas could not be inhabited to any large extent.  All one needs to do is wander around Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, Nevada, Utah, etc and you'll find only scrub brush and cactus.  Very little in the way of edible forage to support large numbers of herbivores.  In other words, sources of meat are extremely scarce in that region as is water.  Local populations would have decimated the wildlife very quickly and would have needed to find other sources of food.

At the very least we can say that the human species is very inventive as well as adaptable to whatever environment it finds itself.  This does not mean that conditions or food sources were optimal, or that the health & longevity of these people were in anyway comparable to those living in a less hostile environment.

Lex

[donrad]

Where do you get your evidence for this?  Most of what I've read has humans developing in the open plains and grasslands of the African Continent and then migrating into the middle east (what is now Iraq and Iran) and spreading both east into India and Asia, and west into Europe from there.  The American continent was supposedly populated through migration of a land bridge linking what is now Alaska and Russia in much more recent times.  The "islands" and tropics were populated rather recently from a historical perspective from Asia as well, supposedly through the use of primitive boats and rafts.

This view seems to be fairly well supported through the dating of archeological finds in the various areas.  There is nothing that I've found anywhere that suggests that humans spent most of their early development in tropical areas - in fact, quite the opposite - we started in grasslands and plains where there would have been little in the way of fruit, but herds of wild grass eating animals plentiful.

Lex

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

I consider human evolution to encompass a 4 billion year period. Like most people who believe in evolution you consider it to have started about 2 million years ago when Hominini that looked similar to modern humans moved out of Africa.

When making nutrition choices I pay particular attention to the period since mammals evolved 256 million years ago and especially since primates 65 million years ago. I pay no attention to the period since civilization started about 4 thousand years ago other than to avoid the foods humans have manipulated since then.

In the book "Evolving Health" author Boaz shows how closely we are linked the the life forms we co-evolved with. We are still using much of the same cellular metabolism that evolved 2 billion years ago. Many of our molecular, cellular, and system breakdowns are diet related to specific periods in our evolution. During my embryonic development in my mother's womb I had a tail and gills. We all did.

In the book "The Evolution Diet" author Morse details how our evolved oral and digestive physiology is omnivore. We may have relied more on meat when we moved from Africa, but we kept our herbivore advantages.

   

[lex_rooker]

Gosh donrad, you've certainly put a fine point on it.  Your beliefs are well stated, and there is little of value that I could add.

Lex 

[donrad]

The subject was poop. Kind of got off track.

We are what we eat. We can be magnificent or degenerates.

Eat well my friends.

[Raw Kyle]

I don't see the value in charting nutrition ideas from a billion year evolution history. Wouldn't that suggest us all trying for photosynthesis, or digesting +2 iron ions off of walls since organisms we co-evolved with can do that? Even in recent evolutionary history (comparatively) you have lemurs that can digest bamboo laced with arsenic and gorillas that can digest leaves for a large portion of their energy requirements.

[Satya]

I don't see the value in charting nutrition ideas from a billion year evolution history. Wouldn't that suggest us all trying for photosynthesis, or digesting +2 iron ions off of walls since organisms we co-evolved with can do that? Even in recent evolutionary history (comparatively) you have lemurs that can digest bamboo laced with arsenic and gorillas that can digest leaves for a large portion of their energy requirements.

Exactly!  There really is only so far we should go back when looking at these sorts of things.  Excellent, Kyle.

[JaX]

You know what I find funny.. The panda bear is actually a carnivore like most other bears, but it eats only bamboo.. So it has to spend 16 hours per day eating bamboo to meet its energy requirements.

I still don't know how to put this in an evolutionary context. If the panda quickly adapted to preferring bamboo while at the same time maintain the digestive system of a carnivore, how did the panda survive and evolve to where it is today... A lot of factors to consider here.

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the Giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day. Because the Giant Panda consumes a diet low in nutrition, it is important for it to keep its digestive tract full. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The Giant Panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain in order to limit its energy expenditures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Panda#Diet


Maybe eating things we weren't "designed" to eat (as long as it's in the whole foods group) isn't such a devastating thing after all

[rafonly]

"There really is only so far we should go back when looking at these sorts of things"

where do you draw the line?
on what grounds?

i'm all ears

[Raw Kyle]

I'm not suggesting drawing any lines, but I am suggesting that your mode of reasoning would have you eating some strange things, or like plants, not eating at all.

I remember a big one from raw vegan theory was that we shared 99.whatever% of our genes with apes like bonobos who eat mostly fruit, therefore we should eat mostly fruit. But when you look at it, we share over 50% of our genes with tons of things like plants and fungi, does that mean we should be half like them?

[rafonly]

"... your mode of reasoning..."

what do you mean? what is supposed to be my so-called mode of thinking in this thread?

i was asking a question for my own enlightenment & that of other readers