About to embark on a 30-day trial of meat and water

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/

There's the article from NG. Read the entire thing and you'll find that meat wasn't always the primary food for early humans. I found it both interesting and educational.

 

[PyramidHead]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/

There's the article from NG. Read the entire thing and you'll find that meat wasn't always the primary food for early humans. I found it both interesting and educational.

It's certainly interesting, but I don't see a lot of evidence about early humans, just extant tribes.

Year-round observations confirm that hunter-gatherers often have dismal success as hunters. The Hadza and Kung bushmen of Africa, for example, fail to get meat more than half the time when they venture forth with bows and arrows. This suggests it was even harder for our ancestors who didn’t have these weapons. “Everybody thinks you wander out into the savanna and there are antelopes everywhere, just waiting for you to bonk them on the head,” says paleoanthropologist Alison Brooks of George Washington University, an expert on the Dobe Kung of Botswana. No one eats meat all that often, except in the Arctic, where Inuit and other groups traditionally got as much as 99 percent of their calories from seals, narwhals, and fish.

So, in today's environments, several tribes rely more on gathering than hunting for their food because hunting is a challenge for them. But this doesn't change the fact that other tribes have been observed to do the opposite, and that's all that it takes to show that a mostly-meat diet is not unhealthy for humans. I don't claim that it's impossible to live on mostly vegetables, or that nobody did it. I'm just suspicious of the stronger claim that vegetables are necessary for health or that meat by itself is bad in some way.

The genetic angle is also interesting, but the changes mentioned in that article all have to do with genes for

tolerating vegetables and dairy

. In other words, we aren't losing the ability to survive on meat, but adapting to things that aren't meat. That's fine, and I don't deny that it's probably happening. And I do appreciate that different populations, and indeed different individuals, may have specific genes that are shaped by their eating habits. I'm just not totally convinced that there is much variation around meat-eating and digesting, as we've been at it for millions of years and are still very good at it. Until there is an actual study that shows, in a controlled and isolated way, that subsisting on mostly or only meat is detrimental in some way compared to either no meat or some meat plus something else, I'll remain skeptical about the conclusion that red meat increases the risk of any disease or disorder.

 

[Derec]

Are you doing this because your body is too alkaline or because it is the most spiritually evolved diet?

 

[bilby]

Day 7.

My energy levels have evened out after a couple of days of up and down fluctuation. My body is still adapting, but the symptoms of this adaptation are lessening in frequency and severity. What I interpret from the process is my digestive tract getting more comfortable with digesting fat. At times, I felt as though my intestines (and probably the microbes that inhabit it) were entering panic mode: "What's all this stuff? Eggs? Steaks? Where's the bread? What happened to the leaves and stems we used to dine on like kings?" The result of this desperation would be that I absorbed only some of the fat I was ingesting, while the rest was discarded along with a number of dead carb-dependent bacteria. This has calmed down over the past couple of days, so I not only make fewer trips to the bathroom but I also feel like I'm on a fairly steady energy supply.

I wake up in the morning now without any of the fogginess, gut pain, and disorientation I accepted as just the normal thing people experience when they wake up. I've lost a significant amount of excess fat around my face, neck, and midsection (probably just from letting go of the water my cells were carrying around), and my teeth are thanking me every day. I'm no longer trafficking guns and ammunition to the tiny terrorists living along my gumline, and little by little they are packing up and leaving.

But, as one who doesn't care that much for meat but loves vegetables, fruits and nuts, I can't help but ask. Are you enjoying eating this way? Inquiring minds want to know?

The more I do it, the more I enjoy it. But there are a few dimensions to that, so let me explain.

First and foremost, I love meat and I never get tired of the taste of it when it's prepared to my liking. I can't cook a damn thing, but now I'm learning how to pan-sear a steak to perfection and making my way around a pressure cooker. That of course is just a personal anecdote, but I suspect everyone has a natural taste for meat that they can reactivate without much trouble. Children will eat meat without hesitation, but vegetables have to be dressed up in all sorts of ways. I think there's probably a biological and historical reason for this. Much of the vegetables we eat are not naturally occurring in the wild, so we wouldn't have developed a palate for them.

On top of that, the only way that plants are able to defend themselves from being eaten (rather than just their seeds) is to manufacture toxins and antinutrients that must be cooked out of them before consumption, or tolerated as "fiber" that your body doesn't get anything out of. You get these bitter flavors and burning sensations that can be harnessed with a little ingenuity to make other foods taste better, but are really your body's way of telling you that you shouldn't be eating this. But that's a side point that doesn't really address your question.

The second thing that I've come to terms with is that I don't look to food for enjoyment so much anymore. We have this idea that our meals should be entertaining, when really it doesn't have to be anything other than fuel; and if it's the kind of fuel our bodies are optimally geared to run on, chances are it will taste just fine. So, the concept of eating out of boredom or chasing variety for its own sake is starting to seem like a waste of time to me. I know that the taste of a rare ribeye steak with a nicely charred exterior will, always and forever, be something I immensely enjoy. If I had the budget for it, I'd eat it every day for every meal (as the Andersen family has for decades without any health problems). But burger patties are tasty too, as is bacon, chuck roast, salmon, and did I mention bacon?

Finally, I just love how simple everything surrounding eating has become. There's no more looking for recipes that torture a cauliflower into tasting vaguely like a potato, or looking for low-carb cheesecake recipes that leave me unsatisfied and wanting the real thing. Over time, not eating anything sweet makes me want it less and less, and I expect to eventually have no interest in sugar at all. Grocery shopping is fun. I think of all the money I'm saving from cereals, vegetables, and sweets (not to mention craft beer!) and channel that into the week's selection of meats. I do miss the occasional drink, but I intend to find a way to enjoy a non-fermented liquor once in a while after the month is up.

Where are you going to find a non-fermented liquor? As far as I am aware, all drinking alcohol is derived from fermentation. In fact, industrial ethanol is too - my understanding is that fermentation is simply too easy a way to make ethanol for any alternative methods to be needed (or economically viable).

Is there any liquor on the market that is not derived from fermentation?

 

[bilby]

Cholesterol synthesis hinges on the activity of an enzyme, HMG-CoA, that is responsible for initiating a cascade of reactions that lead to cholesterol formation in the cell. Two things control the activity of this enzyme: (1) cholesterol levels in the cellular environment and (2) insulin levels in the cellular environment. If your body has enough cholesterol already, it won't make more unless insulin levels spike. This is probably because insulin is a growth hormone, and under normal circumstances tells our system that more cells (and thus more cholesterol) will soon be needed. However, a diet high in carbohydrates will have the same effect, causing a runaway production of cholesterol that the body doesn't actually need. Again, no part of this has any relationship whatsoever to the cholesterol content in food. It's all about blood sugar.

I pay a lot of attention to Nutritionfacts.org, Dr Gregor's site.

It is extraordinarily unwise to believe anything you read on a web page with 'facts' in the URL; it is almost as bad to trust a page with 'nutrition' in the URL; And it is foolhardy indeed to trust anyone who describes him or herself as 'Dr' on entertainment media (including the Internet).

I do recall their explaining how insulin resistance works, which is a recent discovery owing to new technology. Insulin resistance is caused by the breakdown of fats in tissue that in turn block insulin receptors, preventing sugar from being absorbed out of the bloodstream.

But what I never thought about is that these observations have been carried out on folks on a typical crap diet, the point being that if there isn't a continual oversupply of glucose there won't be a problem ever with insulin resistance or obesity or fatty liver, high cholesterol, etc. So that makes sense.

I enjoy bacon too but have cut back drastically on the amount I consume, to the point that I just sprinkle a bit here and there. Bacon would be one of the meats I'd avoid because it is so overprocessed. Or is there bacon out there that is not so overprocessed?

I think you are good to remove the alcohol. Enjoying you updates.

He might or might not be RIGHT or WISE to remove the alcohol; But to describe any dietary behaviour as 'good' (or, of course, 'bad') is a massive red flag. Health is not a matter of virtue.

 

[beero1000]

Where are you going to find a non-fermented liquor? As far as I am aware, all drinking alcohol is derived from fermentation. In fact, industrial ethanol is too - my understanding is that fermentation is simply too easy a way to make ethanol for any alternative methods to be needed (or economically viable).

Is there any liquor on the market that is not derived from fermentation?

That was an interesting question. Synthetic ethyl alcohol is made from petroleum byproducts, and is used in most manufactured vinegars, medicinal preparations, and flavorings. According to the FDA it is allowed to be used as a food ingredient, but I wasn't able to find out an explicit example where it's been used in any liquors. Presumably it has and the marketing departments are keeping it on the down low.

 

[bilby]

Where are you going to find a non-fermented liquor? As far as I am aware, all drinking alcohol is derived from fermentation. In fact, industrial ethanol is too - my understanding is that fermentation is simply too easy a way to make ethanol for any alternative methods to be needed (or economically viable).

Is there any liquor on the market that is not derived from fermentation?

That was an interesting question. Synthetic ethyl alcohol is made from petroleum byproducts, and is used in most manufactured vinegars, medicinal preparations, and flavorings. According to the FDA it is allowed to be used as a food ingredient, but I wasn't able to find out an explicit example where it's been used in any liquors. Presumably it has and the marketing departments are keeping it on the down low.

Interesting. I would have expected that the cost of purifying it to food grade would make it uncompetitive with cheaply fermented ethanol, but obviously not.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

At times, I felt as though my intestines (and probably the microbes that inhabit it) were entering panic mode: "What's all this stuff? Eggs? Steaks? Where's the bread? What happened to the leaves and stems we used to dine on like kings?" The result of this desperation would be that I absorbed only some of the fat I was ingesting, while the rest was discarded along with a number of dead carb-dependent bacteria. This has calmed down over the past couple of days, so I not only make fewer trips to the bathroom but I also feel like I'm on a fairly steady energy supply.

I wake up in the morning now without any of the fogginess, gut pain, and disorientation I accepted as just the normal thing people experience when they wake up. I've lost a significant amount of excess fat around my face, neck, and midsection (probably just from letting go of the water my cells were carrying around), and my teeth are thanking me every day. I'm no longer trafficking guns and ammunition to the tiny terrorists living along my gumline, and little by little they are packing up and leaving.

This makes me suspect you have some sort of allergy or sensitivity to something you were eating but cut out.

 

[Toni]

Day 7.

My energy levels have evened out after a couple of days of up and down fluctuation. My body is still adapting, but the symptoms of this adaptation are lessening in frequency and severity. What I interpret from the process is my digestive tract getting more comfortable with digesting fat. At times, I felt as though my intestines (and probably the microbes that inhabit it) were entering panic mode: "What's all this stuff? Eggs? Steaks? Where's the bread? What happened to the leaves and stems we used to dine on like kings?" The result of this desperation would be that I absorbed only some of the fat I was ingesting, while the rest was discarded along with a number of dead carb-dependent bacteria. This has calmed down over the past couple of days, so I not only make fewer trips to the bathroom but I also feel like I'm on a fairly steady energy supply.

I wake up in the morning now without any of the fogginess, gut pain, and disorientation I accepted as just the normal thing people experience when they wake up. I've lost a significant amount of excess fat around my face, neck, and midsection (probably just from letting go of the water my cells were carrying around), and my teeth are thanking me every day. I'm no longer trafficking guns and ammunition to the tiny terrorists living along my gumline, and little by little they are packing up and leaving.

But, as one who doesn't care that much for meat but loves vegetables, fruits and nuts, I can't help but ask. Are you enjoying eating this way? Inquiring minds want to know?

The more I do it, the more I enjoy it. But there are a few dimensions to that, so let me explain.

First and foremost, I love meat and I never get tired of the taste of it when it's prepared to my liking. I can't cook a damn thing, but now I'm learning how to pan-sear a steak to perfection and making my way around a pressure cooker. That of course is just a personal anecdote, but I suspect everyone has a natural taste for meat that they can reactivate without much trouble. Children will eat meat without hesitation, but vegetables have to be dressed up in all sorts of ways. I think there's probably a biological and historical reason for this. Much of the vegetables we eat are not naturally occurring in the wild, so we wouldn't have developed a palate for them.

On top of that, the only way that plants are able to defend themselves from being eaten (rather than just their seeds) is to manufacture toxins and antinutrients that must be cooked out of them before consumption, or tolerated as "fiber" that your body doesn't get anything out of. You get these bitter flavors and burning sensations that can be harnessed with a little ingenuity to make other foods taste better, but are really your body's way of telling you that you shouldn't be eating this. But that's a side point that doesn't really address your question.

The second thing that I've come to terms with is that I don't look to food for enjoyment so much anymore. We have this idea that our meals should be entertaining, when really it doesn't have to be anything other than fuel; and if it's the kind of fuel our bodies are optimally geared to run on, chances are it will taste just fine. So, the concept of eating out of boredom or chasing variety for its own sake is starting to seem like a waste of time to me. I know that the taste of a rare ribeye steak with a nicely charred exterior will, always and forever, be something I immensely enjoy. If I had the budget for it, I'd eat it every day for every meal (as the Andersen family has for decades without any health problems). But burger patties are tasty too, as is bacon, chuck roast, salmon, and did I mention bacon?

Finally, I just love how simple everything surrounding eating has become. There's no more looking for recipes that torture a cauliflower into tasting vaguely like a potato, or looking for low-carb cheesecake recipes that leave me unsatisfied and wanting the real thing. Over time, not eating anything sweet makes me want it less and less, and I expect to eventually have no interest in sugar at all. Grocery shopping is fun. I think of all the money I'm saving from cereals, vegetables, and sweets (not to mention craft beer!) and channel that into the week's selection of meats. I do miss the occasional drink, but I intend to find a way to enjoy a non-fermented liquor once in a while after the month is up.

I think that some of your logic is based on misinformation.

I cannot imagine a better way to spoil any piece of meat than to put it in a pressure cooker.

But all of that aside, the worst that I think will happen in your 30 day trial is a bad case of constipation.

Long term, you will be missing a lot of nutrients that your body actually needs.

But you are an adult so best of luck to you.

 

[bilby]

I cannot imagine a better way to spoil any piece of meat than to put it in a pressure cooker.

You clearly haven't tried my braised skirt steak.

 

[Val]

Pressure cookers are wonderful bits of kit. Especially if you're at altitude.

 

[bilby]

Pressure cookers are wonderful bits of kit. Especially if you're at altitude.

Yes, they are a good fix for an altitude problem. People who think they are above the rest of us, could certainly benefit from one.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's certainly interesting, but I don't see a lot of evidence about early humans, just extant tribes.



So, in today's environments, several tribes rely more on gathering than hunting for their food because hunting is a challenge for them. But this doesn't change the fact that other tribes have been observed to do the opposite, and that's all that it takes to show that a mostly-meat diet is not unhealthy for humans. I don't claim that it's impossible to live on mostly vegetables, or that nobody did it. I'm just suspicious of the stronger claim that vegetables are necessary for health or that meat by itself is bad in some way.

The genetic angle is also interesting, but the changes mentioned in that article all have to do with genes for

tolerating vegetables and dairy

. In other words, we aren't losing the ability to survive on meat, but adapting to things that aren't meat. That's fine, and I don't deny that it's probably happening. And I do appreciate that different populations, and indeed different individuals, may have specific genes that are shaped by their eating habits. I'm just not totally convinced that there is much variation around meat-eating and digesting, as we've been at it for millions of years and are still very good at it. Until there is an actual study that shows, in a controlled and isolated way, that subsisting on mostly or only meat is detrimental in some way compared to either no meat or some meat plus something else, I'll remain skeptical about the conclusion that red meat increases the risk of any disease or disorder.

I think you will get good results in the end, not so much because of all the meat but because you've eliminated all the refined garbage from your diet.

 

[bilby]

It's certainly interesting, but I don't see a lot of evidence about early humans, just extant tribes.



So, in today's environments, several tribes rely more on gathering than hunting for their food because hunting is a challenge for them. But this doesn't change the fact that other tribes have been observed to do the opposite, and that's all that it takes to show that a mostly-meat diet is not unhealthy for humans. I don't claim that it's impossible to live on mostly vegetables, or that nobody did it. I'm just suspicious of the stronger claim that vegetables are necessary for health or that meat by itself is bad in some way.

The genetic angle is also interesting, but the changes mentioned in that article all have to do with genes for

tolerating vegetables and dairy

. In other words, we aren't losing the ability to survive on meat, but adapting to things that aren't meat. That's fine, and I don't deny that it's probably happening. And I do appreciate that different populations, and indeed different individuals, may have specific genes that are shaped by their eating habits. I'm just not totally convinced that there is much variation around meat-eating and digesting, as we've been at it for millions of years and are still very good at it. Until there is an actual study that shows, in a controlled and isolated way, that subsisting on mostly or only meat is detrimental in some way compared to either no meat or some meat plus something else, I'll remain skeptical about the conclusion that red meat increases the risk of any disease or disorder.

I think you will get good results in the end, not so much because of all the meat but because you've eliminated all the refined garbage from your diet.

What do you think is wrong with refined food? The only mechanism I can think of whereby refining food would render it less healthy, is that it might remove important trace nutrients - but eliminating refined food does nothing to replace those nutrients (in the context of a radical vegetable and carbohydrate free diet), so what possible benefit arises from removing refined food?

'Refined' is a pretty difficult thing to even define - there are very few foods that humans eat that are not refined to some degree (even homegrown vegetables are usually 'refined' by sorting out the ripe from the unripe, and cutting out any rot or insect infestation, before consumption).

 

[PyramidHead]

Day 7.

My energy levels have evened out after a couple of days of up and down fluctuation. My body is still adapting, but the symptoms of this adaptation are lessening in frequency and severity. What I interpret from the process is my digestive tract getting more comfortable with digesting fat. At times, I felt as though my intestines (and probably the microbes that inhabit it) were entering panic mode: "What's all this stuff? Eggs? Steaks? Where's the bread? What happened to the leaves and stems we used to dine on like kings?" The result of this desperation would be that I absorbed only some of the fat I was ingesting, while the rest was discarded along with a number of dead carb-dependent bacteria. This has calmed down over the past couple of days, so I not only make fewer trips to the bathroom but I also feel like I'm on a fairly steady energy supply.

I wake up in the morning now without any of the fogginess, gut pain, and disorientation I accepted as just the normal thing people experience when they wake up. I've lost a significant amount of excess fat around my face, neck, and midsection (probably just from letting go of the water my cells were carrying around), and my teeth are thanking me every day. I'm no longer trafficking guns and ammunition to the tiny terrorists living along my gumline, and little by little they are packing up and leaving.

But, as one who doesn't care that much for meat but loves vegetables, fruits and nuts, I can't help but ask. Are you enjoying eating this way? Inquiring minds want to know?

The more I do it, the more I enjoy it. But there are a few dimensions to that, so let me explain.

First and foremost, I love meat and I never get tired of the taste of it when it's prepared to my liking. I can't cook a damn thing, but now I'm learning how to pan-sear a steak to perfection and making my way around a pressure cooker. That of course is just a personal anecdote, but I suspect everyone has a natural taste for meat that they can reactivate without much trouble. Children will eat meat without hesitation, but vegetables have to be dressed up in all sorts of ways. I think there's probably a biological and historical reason for this. Much of the vegetables we eat are not naturally occurring in the wild, so we wouldn't have developed a palate for them.

On top of that, the only way that plants are able to defend themselves from being eaten (rather than just their seeds) is to manufacture toxins and antinutrients that must be cooked out of them before consumption, or tolerated as "fiber" that your body doesn't get anything out of. You get these bitter flavors and burning sensations that can be harnessed with a little ingenuity to make other foods taste better, but are really your body's way of telling you that you shouldn't be eating this. But that's a side point that doesn't really address your question.

The second thing that I've come to terms with is that I don't look to food for enjoyment so much anymore. We have this idea that our meals should be entertaining, when really it doesn't have to be anything other than fuel; and if it's the kind of fuel our bodies are optimally geared to run on, chances are it will taste just fine. So, the concept of eating out of boredom or chasing variety for its own sake is starting to seem like a waste of time to me. I know that the taste of a rare ribeye steak with a nicely charred exterior will, always and forever, be something I immensely enjoy. If I had the budget for it, I'd eat it every day for every meal (as the Andersen family has for decades without any health problems). But burger patties are tasty too, as is bacon, chuck roast, salmon, and did I mention bacon?

Finally, I just love how simple everything surrounding eating has become. There's no more looking for recipes that torture a cauliflower into tasting vaguely like a potato, or looking for low-carb cheesecake recipes that leave me unsatisfied and wanting the real thing. Over time, not eating anything sweet makes me want it less and less, and I expect to eventually have no interest in sugar at all. Grocery shopping is fun. I think of all the money I'm saving from cereals, vegetables, and sweets (not to mention craft beer!) and channel that into the week's selection of meats. I do miss the occasional drink, but I intend to find a way to enjoy a non-fermented liquor once in a while after the month is up.

I think that some of your logic is based on misinformation.

I cannot imagine a better way to spoil any piece of meat than to put it in a pressure cooker.

But all of that aside, the worst that I think will happen in your 30 day trial is a bad case of constipation.

Long term, you will be missing a lot of nutrients that your body actually needs.

But you are an adult so best of luck to you.

Can you name some of those nutrients, and specify why you believe the body needs them? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[southernhybrid]

Of course, Vitamin C is the obvious one. I've read a few articles that claimed that the reason people like the Inuits could consume and almost all meat diet is because that only ate very fresh, often raw meat, which apparently has some Vit. C in it. They also ate wild berries in the summer. I know that those that who believe the all meat diet is healthy make other claims. I haven't had the opportunity to read about that yet, but as someone who worked in health care for 42 years, I have had my share of extreme diets, and theories concerning what is health and what isn't. Anyway, I'm giving you a link that discusses some cases of scurvy that people on ketogenic or zero carb diets experienced.

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/11/danger-of-zero-carb-diets-iii-scurvy/

I am also convinced that fiber is an important part of good health for those of us who live in the modern world. For one thing, Inuits and other groups of people who lived in severe arctic areas were far more active than we are. That may have been part of why they were able to live without fiber in their diets. One more thing. The very early people that we evolved from never lived very long, so we don't know what type of health problems they might have developed if they lived into what we now consider old age. Many of the diseases that impact us today, don't usually develop until we are over 50, sometimes much older.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I also think we should look at the diets of our nearest cousins, chimps. They eat meat and apparently savor it, but their diets are largely plants - and bugs.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

One more thing. The very early people that we evolved from never lived very long, so we don't know what type of health problems they might have developed if they lived into what we now consider old age. Many of the diseases that impact us today, don't usually develop until we are over 50, sometimes much older.

Bingo!

We're back to 'What is Healthy?' Our ancestors left the sick, lame and deformed to die.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Pressure cookers are wonderful bits of kit. Especially if you're at altitude.

There are times.

I recall a disastrous attempt to make pasta at IIRC 12,000' (and if not that, 15,500'.) (I wasn't the cook, I knew it wouldn't work.)

 

[Toni]

I think that some of your logic is based on misinformation.

I cannot imagine a better way to spoil any piece of meat than to put it in a pressure cooker.

But all of that aside, the worst that I think will happen in your 30 day trial is a bad case of constipation.

Long term, you will be missing a lot of nutrients that your body actually needs.

But you are an adult so best of luck to you.

Can you name some of those nutrients, and specify why you believe the body needs them? I'm genuinely curious.

I think immediately of dietary fiber, a lack of which can contribute to intestinal cancers and more short term, constipation. Of course, there are vitamins. Here's this link:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-nutrients-you-cant-get-from-animal-foods#section3