Can we do without vegetables/greens?

[TylerDurden]

I think a lot of the problems people have with plant foods comes from eating low-Brix, low-nutrition fruits/veggies.

I certainly experience far better reactions to high-Brix fruit versus low-Brix.

I just tossed out about 8 oranges, because they were all 8 or 9 Brix.

Not even fit to feed to animals.

Let's get this straight. All this Brix issue is, I believe, a question of making the soil nutritious enough for a plant, so that adding manure and adding minerals in the form of powders and mixing it all up with the topsoil around the plants once a year or so should do the trick?  I am currently planning on adding a number of fruit-trees to a particular garden because such trees can go for long periods without watering and I can't be there very often. With the ones I've already planted, I've used some sort of  high-tech nutrient-rich substance provided by the shop and watered extensively, but that's all so far. Since the soil is likely pretty bad(the garden is terraced all over, after all), I think I could do better. Can one buy powdered minerals like sodium or whatever from gardening centres?

[Inger]

Yes, do it! 
I'm eagerly awaiting your report. It's always a pleasure to learn more about real human nutrition, based on the gifts of nature.
I could never follow such a diet. After some days on seafood only I always get very strong cravings for red meat and the taste of fish becomes repulsive.

From my experience I would say that such a diet would be too high in protein and too low in fat (as long as it is carb free). And it might be difficult to meet our caloric needs.

They became infertile, sperm count went down to zero, wound healing problems and other problems, can't remember exactly.

I agree..
I would like to eat much more wild white meats, white fowl like pheasant etc., but it's becoming more and more rare, unfortunately.

Löwenherz

The small "herrings" I eat often have around 1,8 g saturated and 6,5 g unsaturated fat / 100 g. So seafood do have some saturated fat too. But yes, quite little.. I love raw grassfed beef fat. I can eat quite a lot just plain.. soooo yummy! I don't get it always, though. I could for sure if I would bother more..lol. I think we can have whatever we want if we just want it enough and start looking!
But for other nutrients, like zink, selenium, iodine.. every so important mineral, seafood is just the best source ever. Seaweeds too. So why would one need vegetables?

I can buy wild duck here from France, BTW, prefrozen! I have not yet because quite expensive, but maybe I will try one day!

IDK, after eating so much seaweed and seafoods I have started to dream so much.. I dream every night and I remember the dreams too.. strange! But nice for sure! My sleep is amazing too.

[eveheart]

Can one buy powdered minerals like sodium or whatever from gardening centres?

There are soil enhancement products that contain a broad range of ionic minerals. I would use those. In the US, they are easiest to buy online. UK gardeners are more passionate than US gardeners, so you might find a good mineral supplement in your gardening centers.

[Iguana]

Just crush your oysters' shells into a powder and spread it on the soil.

[TylerDurden]

Just crush your oysters' shells into a powder and spread it on the soil.

  Sadly,  raw shellfish, where I live right now, are far too expensive. A genuine RPDer should always live by the coast.

[van]

An idea with seaweeds.   Most, except some of the softer varieties are very difficult to digest, unless prolonged cooking is used.   To avoid cooking, and aid in the digestion,  I take Alaria, collected by Larch in Maine,  best seaweed in the US, and I take a big hand full  and freeze it, even though it's already dried.  That decreases almost all water content.  Then I blend it in my vitamix.  But first I put the blender portion and lid in the freezer, so that I cold blend it.  It almost comes out like a powder.  I eat two to three heaping teaspoons a day.  It is wonderful with a bit of shredded coconut and coconut oil.  I eat this on an empty stomach.  I tend to experience and believe that it is so alkaline that it impedes digestion of raw meat, in that it can neutralize stomach acids.  One can chew dried alaria for 'hours' in the mouth and still have a wad to chew.   I would like to stone cold grind the blended material to make a fine powder,  like the powder that sticks to the blender lid and walls.  That simply melts in your mouth.  I keep the blended powder in a small jar and in the fridge.  I make it every three days or so.    So much better tasting than Kale etc..   

[Löwenherz]

I don’t know. Is there anyone having successfully experimented a “ketogenic diet” over several decades  ? Have newborns been grownup into very healthy adults with a strict 100% ketogenic diet ?
François

Judging from my own experiences and the reports of countless ketogenic dieters I strongly believe that the ketogenic state is the normal operating mode of human bodies. The advantages over sugar metabolism are overwhelming. But the process of keto adaptation takes time and can be very hard. One of many really fascinating things, for example, is the lack of lactic acid in ketosis. Sporting activities become a completely new experience. Many people suffer from receding gums, caused by grains and fruits. In deep ketosis the gums grow back! Most dentists still believe that this is impossible. Most people on ketogenic diets sleep much better. Levels of concentration are higher, stable blood sugar levels, no spikes, no mood swings, much higher fertility. etc. In short, for me, we have enough evidence that a state of ketosis is very benefical for us.

And yes, there have been a lot of indigenous people over the world who "lived off the fat of the land". What a nice english phrase. Eskimos had caribou fat, some Canadians candle fish fat, Norh American Indians buffalo fat, South American Gauchos beef fat, many Africans elephant fat, Masai dairy fat, Aborigines emu fat etc. They all praised the fats. High fat, low carb means ketosis.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

With the ones I've already planted, I've used some sort of  high-tech nutrient-rich substance provided by the shop and watered extensively, but that's all so far.

That's completely wrong. If these trees are too weak, let them die.
Nutrient-rich substances and extensive watering in the first months makes trees addicted and weak for their whole life.

If your goal is just to harvest as much fruit as possible, it's another thing.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

An idea with seaweeds.   Most, except some of the softer varieties are very difficult to digest, unless prolonged cooking is used.

Do we really need seaweeds? Can't we get enough iodine from raw seafood that is easy to digest?

Somehow my body tells me that seaweed is no real food, but shrimps are perfect..

Löwenherz

[van]

On part I'd agree.  I don't care much for seafood.  Except Uni, Oysters, at time, yellow tail and a few others.  But still quite difficult to get fresh and acceptable.  The trace mins in seaweed are by far the most balanced of any food.    Land animals are only going to have what's  in their grazing land.   The other benefit of eating seaweed the way I discussed is the amounts of gentle fibre for the bowel.   Lowenherz, knowing how you enjoy coconut, you might like to try mixing the two.  Tastes like an incredible fatty seafood.   I also like how seaweed is loaded with mg.  Yes seafood has it also, but meats are mostly devoid.   And most waters we drink are so unbalanced with too much ca.   The mg. from seaweeds twice a day I believe keeps that ca. imbalance in check.  Just my thoughts.

[MaximilianKohler]

There seem to be a lot of people on this site advocating ketosis. I tried it for over a year  because of the suggestions and comments of people on this forum.

Keto has to be the worst thing along with 80/10/10 Raw Vegan that I have ever done for my health.

During keto I got all the usual negative symptoms associated with a the diet.  Brain fog,  fatigue, anxiety, heart palpitations, & a kidney stone. For over a year I kept at this diet  because people said: it takes a week for your body to adapt, it can take 1-3 months to adapt,  it could take more than a year to adapt but it's the best thing ever.

After bringing back fruit into my diet all the symptoms slowly went away.

Everyone seems to be different. Some people can handle and even benefit from some things, while  others can't. This is a quote from someone advocating blood-type diets: "As a dental hygienist  who's surveyed lots of patients, the connections between blood types and what works in the body  is uncanny".

Not to mention your daily diet every day on raw keto can be extremely bland & monotonous;  especially without any plant foods!

[TylerDurden]

My ketogenic experience was  odd. Whenever I avoid plant foods for several days, I start feeling hyper-alert and very calm etc., my appetite is much less(and seems more normal). I also find I increasingly get far less stamina during exercise. After c. 3 weeks of going ketogenic, I swiftly deteriorate and get brain-fog, anxiety, heart-palpitations, and severely weakened teeth, and feel constantly massively dehydrated yet no amount of water consumption gets rid of the  feeling of dehydration. Soon I have to give up and go back to raw omnivore  or face imminent hospitalisation. Everyone is different, I guess. I wish I could go ketogenic permanently as it would lower the cost of my food dramatically.

[Iguana]

Most people on ketogenic diets sleep much better. Levels of concentration are higher, stable blood sugar levels, no spikes, no mood swings, much higher fertility. etc.

We have those results with instinctonutrition as well because standard cooked diet disturbs sleep, hampers concentration, induces nightmares and unstable blood sugar levels, reduces fertility and so on.

And yes, there have been a lot of indigenous people over the world who "lived off the fat of the land". What a nice english phrase. Eskimos had caribou fat, some Canadians candle fish fat, Norh American Indians buffalo fat, South American Gauchos beef fat, many Africans elephant fat, Masai dairy fat, Aborigines emu fat etc. They all praised the fats. High fat, low carb means ketosis.

Didn’t you write that even the slightest amount of sweet food ends ketosis? Or am I confused?

Ok, Eskimos ate a lot of blubber from sea-mammals. But that stuff is in short supply in SW France! Here we have a real hard time trying to find enough clean meat (and it’s even more difficult to obtain fatty meat), unlike what seems to be the case in Australia, US and England. Anyway, didn’t Inuits eat seaweeds and also eagerly eat greens whenever they were lucky enough to find some?

Those other indigenous people you cite eat animal fat, I easily believe you. Why wouldn’t they? (I also do, of course, but only until instinctive stop so that I don’t go beyond my digestive capacity and body needs) But it doesn’t mean they don’t (or didn’t) eat greens, nuts, fruits or honey as well, at least sometimes. Moreover, they all eat some cooked food, so we can neither take them as an example of 100% raw eaters nor match up their case with ours.

[Alive]

Since we ate cooked food for decades, we'd better not to use our dejections as aLive suggests because it's loaded with noxious molecules we're still rejecting. Those abnormal molecules will eventually find their way into the plants we're bound to eat... 

See Pottenger's experiments with cats.

To think Iguana  that you have been eating initial foods for twenty six years and you think your crap is still toxic!
How many of these abnormal molecules have you managed to save up in your body so that you still able to excrete them after such a long time?

Do you really think that after 26 years you are a significant source of abnormal molecules compared to the exhaust from nearby traffic, sprays from fields, etc ?

Re Pottenger's experiments with cats, which showed how hazardous a 100% cooked food diet was for the health of the cats and the plants growing from their excrement, how does this apply to TylerDurdens situation where he is eating only raw food?

@TylerDurden, why wouldn't you go near fruit that had been naturally fertilised by a creature on a raw carnivorous diet? Where do you get your fruit from at the moment?

[MaximilianKohler]

My ketogenic experience was  odd. Whenever I avoid plant foods for several days, I start feeling hyper-alert and very calm etc., my appetite is much less(and seems more normal). I also find I increasingly get far less stamina during exercise. After c. 3 weeks of going ketogenic, I swiftly deteriorate and get brain-fog, anxiety, heart-palpitations, and severely weakened teeth, and feel constantly massively dehydrated yet no amount of water consumption gets rid of the  feeling of dehydration. Soon I have to give up and go back to raw omnivore  or face imminent hospitalisation. Everyone is different, I guess. I wish I could go ketogenic permanently as it would lower the cost of my food dramatically.

Your description sounds like your body is going into conservation/starvation mode. Increasing alertness to help you find food, while decreasing appetite to help you last longer.

Many people suffer from receding gums, caused by grains and fruits. In deep ketosis the gums grow back! Most dentists still believe that this is impossible. Most people on ketogenic diets sleep much better. Levels of concentration are higher, stable blood sugar levels, no spikes, no mood swings, much higher fertility. etc.

I experienced the receding gums & teeth grinding and chipping when I tried 80/10/10rv. I don't need ketosis for my mouth health to return. All I need are enough animal fats. Returning to raw paleo reversed/stopped it all. It seems to be large amounts of animal fats that are important, not ketosis.

As for your statement/description of "most people" on keto diets. That only applies to people who can handle keto. People who can't, like myself, experience all those negative symptoms while ON keto; and the symptoms are absent while on a regular raw paleo diet.

[TylerDurden]

Raw omnivore, not raw carnivore... Anyway, I don't like the notion of eating traces of my own faeces, left on fruits or whatever.   I get my fruit from local supermarkets. Normally, I would not be seen dead in such places, but, where I currently live, the supermarkets are "less worse" than in the UK. They sell grassfed, albeit pasteurised dairy, for example. I buy raw wild game for all my animal food, though, currently can't get raw organ-meats, which annoys me considerably.

The other garden is abroad. I only visit it occasionally, but would prefer decent fruits as the fruit over there is even more tasteless and watery than elsewhere.

[Iguana]

To think Iguana  that you have been eating initial foods for twenty six years and you think your crap is still toxic!
How many of these abnormal molecules have you managed to save up in your body so that you still able to excrete them after such a long time?

Do you really think that after 26 years you are a significant source of abnormal molecules compared to the exhaust from nearby traffic, sprays from fields, etc ?

Re Pottenger's experiments with cats, which showed how hazardous a 100% cooked food diet was for the health of the cats and the plants growing from their excrement, how does this apply to TylerDurdens situation where he is eating only raw food?

Yes, it’ good that you bring up this important question and I was expecting such an answer!

Here’s a striking experience we had when traveling around the world with my then wife and 9 years old son. We always carried some drinking water with us and in view to use it we once kept an empty plastic gallon we had found, one in the opaque kind of plastic as used (then?) in USA. According to its label and smell it had contained orangeade. We thoroughly washed it several times, but its orangeade smell was still there. Then we immersed it several days, perhaps a week or more, in the seawater of a remote Pacific Island’s lagoon. Still the damned smell was there with no way to get rid of it, so that we had to abandon the idea of using that container…

Before to eat initial raw food only, I had eaten cooked food for 41 years. If a simple plastic thin wall can  impregnably retain for so long some molecules of the juice it contained, imagine what is the situation in an extremely complex body, much more intricate than a sponge.

GCB and friends found out with their long and thorough experiments with hundreds of mice and other animals that the duration of detoxination is about the same as the duration of the previous intoxination. Of course the intensity of this detox gradually decreases with time until it becomes unnoticeable.  The indicator is the smell: whenever something has a smell it’s because it releases fragrant molecules in the air. With the years of raw paleo, the bad smell of our sweating slowly decreases and the same happens to our faeces, but it seems to take longer for the last. Wild animals' faeces usually don’t stink, while the ones of humans and animals fed cooked food and garbage do seriously stink.

I bought 6 weeks old chicken (I should have bought one day old ones, but it was then impractical because I didn’t have the infrastructure for such young ones). They stunk strongly at the beginning and their stinking gradually decreased for about 6 weeks also before reaching a quite stable and barely noticeable state.

That’s it…   

[Iguana]

Your description sounds like your body is going into conservation/starvation mode. Increasing alertness to help you find food, while decreasing appetite to help you last longer.

I experienced the receding gums & teeth grinding and chipping when I tried 80/10/10rv. I don't need ketosis for my mouth health to return. All I need are enough animal fats. Returning to raw paleo reversed/stopped it all. It seems to be large amounts of animal fats that are important, not ketosis.

As for your statement/description of "most people" on keto diets. That only applies to people who can handle keto. People who can't, like myself, experience all those negative symptoms while ON keto; and the symptoms are absent while on a regular raw paleo diet.

Great post! 

[Löwenherz]

Anyway, didn’t Inuits eat seaweeds and also eagerly eat greens whenever they were lucky enough to find some?
..
Moreover, they all eat some cooked food, so we can neither take them as an example of 100% raw eaters nor match up their case with ours.

Iguana, ketosis is a metabolic state that is very different from "normal" sugar metabolism. It has principally nothing to do with plant free diets or debates about raw vs. cooked food. On a ketogenic high fat diet you can eat as much nuts and low sugar vegetables as you want without leaving ketosis. Even vegan diets can be ketogenic, raw or cooked. The key point here is sugar.

It seems to be your mission to tell everyone here every day that the sugar based "instincto" idea is the Holy Grail. I could talk hours about "instinctos" in Germany and how they completely ruined their physical and mental health. Emaciation, depressions, blood sugar problems, fruit sugar addictions and isolation were common. I have seen eight year old "instincto" children with a mouth full of cavities and countless other absurdities.

After many years I stopped eating fruit sugar because I noticed that it damages my body at an increasing rate. I will continue my ketogenic diet that is very similar to Lex's diet and will report about the results here from time to time. BTW: I don't eat coconuts anymore.

Most people here have never experienced the effects of a keto adaptation. Furthermore it's very difficult to get rid of our sugar addictions. That makes it even more difficult to discuss ketogenic diets.

Best wishes

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

After c. 3 weeks of going ketogenic, I swiftly deteriorate and get brain-fog, anxiety, heart-palpitations, and severely weakened teeth, and feel constantly massively dehydrated yet no amount of water consumption gets rid of the  feeling of dehydration. Soon I have to give up and go back to raw omnivore  or face imminent hospitalisation. Everyone is different, I guess. I wish I could go ketogenic permanently as it would lower the cost of my food dramatically.

Very interesting. It sounds like symptoms of a keto-acidosis, which diabetics can get.

You say that you have to go back to raw omnivore after a few weeks. Would vegetables be sufficient or do you need fruit sugar in such cases?

In my case I always get heart palpitations, a dry mouth, weakness and nervousness in the first two weeks. Thereafter these symptoms disappear, but only if I eat folate rich foods like liver on a frequent basis. Folates could be only one identified of several involved nutrients. Zero Carb diets based on muscle meats only never worked for me. They never sounded convincing to me, but I tried it out of curiosity and due to my taste preferences to steaks.

In your case, I would try to find out the underlying issues, if you are interested in a long-term ketogenic lifestyle. Measuring levels of blood sugar and ketones could be helpful..

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

At the time, I tried everything such as raw organ-meats of various kinds, making sure I got enough fat etc.None of that worked. I was 100% all -animal food. Unlike you, I do not find that a diet can be low carb and still be ketogenic as ketosis  apparently needs  c.60g a day or (much) less in order to stay activated. That means, that just one apple or avocado ruins ketosis. I can live indefinitely on a VLC/LC, non-ketogenic diet.

[Iguana]

Iguana, ketosis is a metabolic state that is very different from "normal" sugar metabolism. It has principally nothing to do with plant free diets or debates about raw vs. cooked food. On a ketogenic high fat diet you can eat as much nuts and low sugar vegetables as you want without leaving ketosis. Even vegan diets can be ketogenic, raw or cooked. The key point here is sugar.

So, then low sugar vegetables are ok, but… 

Didn’t you write that even the slightest amount of sweet food ends ketosis? Or am I confused?

Where is the limit between low sugar and high sugar?

It seems to be your mission to tell everyone here every day that the sugar based "instincto" idea is the Holy Grail. I could talk hours about "instinctos" in Germany and how they completely ruined their physical and mental health. Emaciation, depressions, blood sugar problems, fruit sugar addictions and isolation were common. I have seen eight year old "instincto" children with a mouth full of cavities and countless other absurdities.

I’m fed up of reading such wicked gossip and erroneous assumptions. For your info, the “instincto” is not “sugar based”.  All the serious “instinctos” children (that is having always various raw animal food available and eating some everyday or almost) I know have no problem whatsoever and are in perfect health. Germany seems to be a very particular country in the way “instincto” is practiced there. You must be talking about vegetarians or almost vegetarians calling themselves ”instinctos”. I’m also fed up to read rants of people believing in snake oils and scams promoted by various gurus (I’m not thinking of you here) while they seem unable to understand basic facts and rational ideas such as Eveheart explained much better than I’ve been relentlessly, but unsuccessfully, trying to do :

I have been relying on the basic fact that pre-agricultural people did not have modern diseases. With that in mind, I stick to raw paleo and have no need to search for other therapies for the symptoms I used to have. I believe that ancient man was, by default, an instinctive eater - nobody had ideas of what a person should eat.

When I first joined this forum, I was obsessed with wanting to ask what to do. Eventually, I realized that the missing evidence was my own proof of RPD. I stopped asking and paid attention to what I was doing and how well it worked.

 

After many years I stopped eating fruit sugar because I noticed that it damages my body at an increasing rate. I will continue my ketogenic diet that is very similar to Lex's diet and will report about the results here from time to time. BTW: I don't eat coconuts anymore.

Still go tacking in search of your way from the greatest thing on Earth to another opposed greatest thing? Ok, please let us know your results when you’ll have some years of steady experimenting consistently on the same diet, without always changing your ideas and practice. That would be fine to have at least one successful long term experience in that field, because so far Lex's one isn't really convincing according to the various health problems he honestly reported.

Most people here have never experienced the effects of a keto adaptation. Furthermore it's very difficult to get rid of our sugar addictions. That makes it even more difficult to discuss ketogenic diets.

So, you know what you got to do.
Best wishes too,

François

[Iguana]

To Löwenherz:
I won’t discus any longer about impressions and conjectures. It suffice to look at the actual results of the experiment: I have almost fifty years of experience on my own body, there are many who practice the instincto correctly for twenty, thirty or forty years and have no problems. Cancers appeared in small numbers and have always been linked to excessive consumption of domestic animals’ meat. All instinctos born children are in an excellent state of health and some are now healthy adults. Wait for an equivalent experience duration before judging and we'll see. All the rest is verbiage more or less disguised as scientific beliefs.

I really don’t understand from where all this nonsense on instincto children comes from. If you want an example of a child born instincto from a mother and a father who already had 10 years of instincto behind, who has never eaten cooked and still practice instinctive nutrition, here are some pictures of my youngest son taken when he was 25.

I emphasize that he has never done any particular sport or workout and that his muscles spontaneously formed, as we can see in those pictures. Another clarification: no cavities. His food: 100 % paleo organic products grown without chemicals and without heat processing, either direct or indirect (nothing hot dried, no heated compost, etc.)

I hope this will stop the stupid rumors circulating on this forum and encourage those who had supposedly seen too lean instinctos children to question what  kind of instincto they practiced.

PS: The small bumps on his right arm are drops of water, not a sign of denutrition 

[goodsamaritan]

Sounds like some lost translation between French Instinctos and German Instinctos.

Seems German Instinctos think it's all about getting lots of fruit all the time.

While USA's Eveheart's example shows her instincts leaned towards markedly less fruit and more carnivorous.

[TylerDurden]

Sounds like some lost translation between French Instinctos and German Instinctos.

Seems German Instinctos think it's all about getting lots of fruit all the time.

While USA's Eveheart's example shows her instincts leaned towards markedly less fruit and more carnivorous.

Absolutely correct. In Austria/Germany, "Instinkto" is mainly referred to as "RohKost" and is a label mainly used by those who are 100% raw vegan, with a tiny minority  thereof being raw vegetarian(ie plus raw dairy and raw eggs). Iguana is more inclined to eating lots of raw meats as well  given the marvellous display of mold-ridden, raw wild game in his fridge etc.

I'm very deeply grateful to the Instincto movement myself,as,  while I didn't agree with the notion of a high-fruit diet(admittedly, this high-fruit notion was claimed by the anti-raw website beyondveg.com), Instincto's basic theory and guidelines helped me to  escape from the Primal Diet which had only partially solved my health-problems previously.

The absurd claim re Instinkto children can only be made genuinely versus children raised on a 100% raw vegan diet as that would involve missing nutrients that young children desperately need for proper growth of brain etc. There have indeed been such cases of raw vegan couples' children needing to be taken away by social services etc.  However, any child on a raw omnivorous/palaeo diet would have no such issues as they would get sufficient vitamin B12 etc.

How did GCB anyway, get his ideas originally? I mean there is a certain common-sense involved, obviously, but, maybe, he knew someone before him who had similiar ideas?