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#51
11-20-2005, 09:19 PM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
[ QUOTE ]
I certainly don't adhere strictly to a hunter-gatherer (unless I am instructing our hunter/gatherer course). I like really good cheeses and yogurt too much to give those up. I think that environment (and season) plays somewhat of a role in whether hunting or gathering provides more calories. In southwestern Utah during the summer it is easier for me to eat fish, mice, squirrel and lizard than most gathered foods- although buffalo berry is plentiful during the end of summer. I would suspect that a little later when acorns and pine nut come on they would be a big source of calories. One thing that I think is missing from the diet of most modern americans is fasting. I think as a rule we eat way too much food and a break once in a while is a good thing. I try, but don't always succed in fasting once a month for at least a day or two. [/ QUOTE ] I am sure that our stone age forebears went hungry from time to time. I know that modern American portion sizes (as served by restaurants, for example) are ridiculously large. As a diabetic with a heart condition, I am on a very limited diet--low sodium, low fat, restricted carbs. I eat much less than I used to and am slightly hungry most of the time. A meat (lean only) portion should be 2-3 oz.--the size of a deck of cards for those of you familiar with a deck of cards. Fish portions can be a little larger. That turns out to be plenty for nutritional needs. Great slabs of well-marbled beef should be reserved for holiday feasts. The enlargement of portion sizes has been insidious. A friend of mine needed to buy a new set of dishes, and all the dishes on the market were too large to fit on the shelves of her 50s cabinets. Since we tend to dish out portions of food by the amount of plate they cover, it stands to reason that larger plates = larger portions. I never noticed the super-sizing of plates until my friend told me about her problem. The super-sizing of fast-food portions has, however, not been insidious. Nothing could be more obvious. Because of my diabetes I have to restrict my intake of fruit and to some extent vegetables (a total meal for me is usually 8-12 oz), but those who can eat fruits and veggies freely will not be bothered by the smaller portions of meat. Salt was a valuable and often rare commodity for early humans, so best not to consume larger quantities of sodium. The amount of sodium in processed foods is staggering. BTW it is eyeopening to get the nutrition facts for fast food and chain restaurant menus. Take a look and then decide if you really want to eat that stuff on a regular basis. 
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#52
11-20-2005, 09:24 PM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Nutrition can be a lot like relgion and politics. So I will start of by admitting that I am biased. I am a survival/primitive skills instructor and make a lot of my decisions about diet (and other things) based on human evolutionary history. Things that have been around for a couple hundred years or less are highly suspect (White flour and white sugar) for me. I tend away from factory processed foods such as soy products like soymilk (already discussed by Cosmo- I agree with most if not all of what Cosmo has said) and towards naturally processed food (usually fermented) yogurt for example. It is very difficult to get raw milk products (unpasturized) but that is what I get when possible. I eat wild meat or meat raised by people I know,or sometimes settle for organic meat from the store- Almost all the products I buy are organic. When I am not lazy I like to sprout or ferment grain products as raw grains have digestion-inhibiting enzymes. NO hydrogenated oils- like Crisco or margarine The best book in this vein that I have read is "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. It is very difficult to eat this type of diet in an urban area- you need access to wild areas and friends who raise animals/vegetables/fruit or a place to do it yourself. One of the many reasons I can't spend too much time in an urban area. [/ QUOTE ] The so-called hunter-gatherer diet makes a certain amount of sense to me. That is, eating foods that would have been available prior to the agricultural revolution. So, eggs would have been available only during nesting season. No dairy products after weaning from mother's milk. No grains. Lots of fruits, vegetables, berries, and nuts--preserved by drying when possible. Honey, but no sugar. Fermented beverages. Fish and seafood--easy to catch and always available in a water source. Occasional small portions of lean meat--hunting is harder than gathering, wild animals are generally lean, and what is caught must be shared among the whole group. Obviously no chee-tos or soda. It seems to me that given the relatively short time since the agricultural revolution with the growing and processing of grains and the domestication of animals leading to the consumption of dairy products, more and fattier meats, and more eggs, humankind must still be biologically adapted to the hunter-gatherer menu. I know that the "caveperson" diet has been recommended by some popular nutritionists, but I do not have any personal experience with it. I don't think it would hurt to try it. [/ QUOTE ] How, exactly, do cheeseburgers fit into this? [/ QUOTE ] Easy--just omit the cheese and bun, and be sure the meat is very lean. Raw onion rings and tomato slices are fine. [/ QUOTE ] No, no, no. I think you misunderstood me. I said cheeseburgers. [/ QUOTE ] No, no. I understood you very well. All I have to do is think about what my son looked like and what his blood pressure and blood chemistry were like when his diet consisted of cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, and coke with what is the case now without the cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, and coke--BIG dfference and for the better. The naturally slender appear to be able to get away with the all-cheeseburger diet, but sooner or later, it turns out to be not such a good idea.
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#53
11-20-2005, 09:55 PM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Nutrition can be a lot like relgion and politics. So I will start of by admitting that I am biased. I am a survival/primitive skills instructor and make a lot of my decisions about diet (and other things) based on human evolutionary history. Things that have been around for a couple hundred years or less are highly suspect (White flour and white sugar) for me. I tend away from factory processed foods such as soy products like soymilk (already discussed by Cosmo- I agree with most if not all of what Cosmo has said) and towards naturally processed food (usually fermented) yogurt for example. It is very difficult to get raw milk products (unpasturized) but that is what I get when possible. I eat wild meat or meat raised by people I know,or sometimes settle for organic meat from the store- Almost all the products I buy are organic. When I am not lazy I like to sprout or ferment grain products as raw grains have digestion-inhibiting enzymes. NO hydrogenated oils- like Crisco or margarine The best book in this vein that I have read is "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. It is very difficult to eat this type of diet in an urban area- you need access to wild areas and friends who raise animals/vegetables/fruit or a place to do it yourself. One of the many reasons I can't spend too much time in an urban area. [/ QUOTE ] The so-called hunter-gatherer diet makes a certain amount of sense to me. That is, eating foods that would have been available prior to the agricultural revolution. So, eggs would have been available only during nesting season. No dairy products after weaning from mother's milk. No grains. Lots of fruits, vegetables, berries, and nuts--preserved by drying when possible. Honey, but no sugar. Fermented beverages. Fish and seafood--easy to catch and always available in a water source. Occasional small portions of lean meat--hunting is harder than gathering, wild animals are generally lean, and what is caught must be shared among the whole group. Obviously no chee-tos or soda. It seems to me that given the relatively short time since the agricultural revolution with the growing and processing of grains and the domestication of animals leading to the consumption of dairy products, more and fattier meats, and more eggs, humankind must still be biologically adapted to the hunter-gatherer menu. I know that the "caveperson" diet has been recommended by some popular nutritionists, but I do not have any personal experience with it. I don't think it would hurt to try it. [/ QUOTE ] How, exactly, do cheeseburgers fit into this? [/ QUOTE ] Easy--just omit the cheese and bun, and be sure the meat is very lean. Raw onion rings and tomato slices are fine. [/ QUOTE ] No, no, no. I think you misunderstood me. I said cheeseburgers. [/ QUOTE ] No, no. I understood you very well. All I have to do is think about what my son looked like and what his blood pressure and blood chemistry were like when his diet consisted of cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, and coke with what is the case now without the cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, and coke--BIG dfference and for the better. The naturally slender appear to be able to get away with the all-cheeseburger diet, but sooner or later, it turns out to be not such a good idea. [/ QUOTE ] I haven't had a chance to read this latest response yet, but in addition to cheeseburgers, I'd like to know where hot dogs fit into all this.
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#56
11-20-2005, 10:45 PM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
Warning: long.
Summary: A myth propogates itself because humans are too lazy to spend their own time looking. It's much easier to just blindly believe someone else, than to look at their data and try to understand why they came to their conclusion. [ QUOTE ] All you bacon and eggers are getting very excited about some new theories... [/ QUOTE ] They're not new. Bacon and eggs were "all the rage" until about 40 years ago. There's been steady, dissenting opinion to the lipid hypothesis. [ QUOTE ] But these ideas are hardly agreed upon by the main force of medical opinion. [/ QUOTE ] And that's really the issue. I agree that it shouldn't be one of ferver or religion or fanaticism. Sadly, it is very difficult to convince a pharmaceutical company to continue giving you research dollars if study after study, you announce that there's no dose-response to their statins and that they don't reduce overall mortality. It is not under contention that the all-cause death rate from low serum cholesterol (<180) is higher than for other groups. It's either unknown or ignored. Ask your doctor; chances are, he's never seen a study one way or the other, and since the drug companies are pushing statins, and since drugs are good, he'll just conclude that low cholesterol must be good! I would, unless I knew to look. People "suffering" from familial hypercholesterolemia have a lower death rate than g-pop (minus a couple specific related issues). High cholesterol is correlated with heart disease -- among men under the age of 60. But not among women, and high cholesterol among those over 60 has been shown by many studies to be inversely correlated with total mortality. This isn't a few fringe studies. Most people, doctors included, just ignore this stuff -- cuz the statin trials show reduced mortality from heart disease. What more do you need? They proved what they set out to prove. Statins work. (You're just more likely to die from something else, which more than offsets the reduced risk from heart disease.) [ QUOTE ] And it was hardly Dan Rather who ever convinced any doctors, or probably anyone else, about the role of ingested cholesterol in arterial and cardiac disease. [/ QUOTE ] Well, my point here was actually a bit subtle, which is that doctors are people too. My local physician doesn't read that many journals, he doesn't research nutrition in his spare time, he only had to take one nutrition class to get his degree. He watches TV, reads the newspaper, and of course takes that stuff seriously, just like everyone else. Why would he think otherwise? Where does his information come from? Primarily from the drug-makers themselves, and secondly from any annual seminars or continuing-education stuff that he goes to, which is again dominated by trials funded by the big drug makers. [ QUOTE ] Bacon and eggers are happily trying to paint pictures of the state of medical science as if they were reversed. [/ QUOTE ] Whatever, that's not me. I'm not picking one or two studies with contradictory results. The WAPF is actually picking the same studies that say "cholesterol is bad, mkay" and looking at the data. [ QUOTE ] It is not in fact the cholesterol chompers whose latest theories hold sway in the medical establishment while medical authorities who recommend against the ingestion of cholesterol who are the in the minority or silly upstarts. The opposite is true. [/ QUOTE ] I'm not talking about what holds sway in the medical establishment; I'm talking about research. When a study is done, raw data is collected. Then a biased human, being paid a salary usually funded by a drug company and for whom tenure and/or advancement is based upon peer review, looks at that data and writes up a paper trying to explain the conclusion that he wants to make to continue getting his paycheck, without grossly violating his individual ethics. He thinks, "Statins reduce death from heart attack, let's look at that, obviously they work, right? I'm not a bad person, I'm reporting the truth." That researcher isn't looking for total mortality, or maybe he notices that mortality goes up but considers it a fluke. And then someone else comes along, looks at trial after trial, and notices a pattern -- higher total mortality from low cholesterol. There is no dose-response in any of the trials. Yeah, get rid of the cholesterol and your arteries can't clog themselves, but infection, stroke, depression (leading to suicide), and violent behavior increase. [ QUOTE ] One wonderful way to regard issues is by how they are presented. When they are presented deceptively, it's a good clue that someone has an agenda and/or that the side trying to mislead is having trouble supporting its position. [/ QUOTE ] What if the bulk of medical researchers say that cholesterol is bad? Here, read this paper. I bet you won't. You've already decided, haven't you, Blarg? No reason for you to even CONSIDER what I'm saying, huh? Cuz the bulk of the medical establishment is against me. Game over. Who cares about facts? Obviously if I had facts, the medical establishment would be with me, right? No reason for you to even bother looking. My point is this: that same attitude is shared by my doctor. Why should he believe me? Everything he sees, from the drug company reps, the researchers doing those statin trials presenting their papers at professional conferences, to Dan Rather, they're all saying cholesterol is bad. So it must be bad, right? There's no reason for him to bother looking, either. And so a myth propogates itself because humans are too lazy to spend their own time looking. [ QUOTE ] Seriously, fanatacism can go too far. Recommending eating bacon and eggs for breakfast over oatmeal for health reasons, or for any reason, is not only foolish but at the very least irresponsible and unkind. [/ QUOTE ] Well, I was done, but this is a great quote. Recommending any diet or medical opinion is foolish (at the very least irresponsible) if that opinion is formed without a search for contrary evidence. It's great to lambast those that strung up Socrates, Galileo, Einstein (prior to 1906) as old-school primitives, who don't understand the logic that modern people like me do. But what we're talking about in this thread is the same process: no-one likes having to work to find out the truth. It's much easier if you just believe your local authority. It took me a long time to find a group like the WAPF, cuz most of the other pro-cholesterol groups didn't bother providing any hard evidence, links, or references. But now I've found good, solid links. I'm not longer reliant on Mass Media, general public consensus, and the bulk of that public that happens to be doctors, to tell me the truth. I can find out the truth for myself.
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#57
11-20-2005, 11:00 PM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
You're playing these games for stakes that are way too high, especially since it's not your life that you're risking. These games should be played for stakes wherein the outcome is more on the order of an embarassing rash than someone's death. Even if they're "only" a stranger.
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#58
11-21-2005, 01:05 AM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
Eat What You Like
Drink What You Like Excercise Like a Psycho Whenever I've been in good shape that's the plan I followed. Okay, I should say that there is an addendum. I choose what "unhealthy" things I eat. For example, I think I've eaten potato chips 3 or 4 times in the last 5 years. However, I regularly eat things like prosciuto, mortadella, pork BBQ, ribs, etc. If I'm going to eat unhealthy, it's going to be quality. Your activity level is a huge factor as to what kind of diet you can get away with. When I worked as a barback and was moving constantly for 12 hours and was lifting, carrying,reaching the whole time, I could lose wait eating Krystal. When I sit at a computer all day I must be more careful.
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#59
11-21-2005, 01:24 AM
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Re: Your Diet and Nutrition
Also when you add a few years. Most people are extremely slow to make changes in their dietary habits, and the years get a head start on them once they're not kids anymore. I could do anything when I was a kid, and for a good while after, for the most part. But I mostly ate fairly well anyway. Some people, probably most, eat real garbage and plenty of it, and keep eating a diet that only a kid could stay somewhat healthy appearing while eating, but do it long past the time that they're not kids anymore.
It used to be my work-outs were so insane it didn't matter what I ate or drank. Now, it matters. I can't eat gigantic quantities and guzzle boatloads of beer anymore. But on the other hand, my slowing metabolism means I don't really want to eat nearly as much either. I still work out and can still eat plenty, but now the two need to be linked, or I will turn to fat. And I still can't eat as much even if I wanted to. And booze will get my gut bulging in no time at all.
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