Blocking People With Whom You Disagree Is More Than Pathetic

Today on facebook a member of the zero carb community posted to their wall a video (link), saying that the wolves didn't eat the organs, just the meat and fat. When my good friend Danny Albers and I commented to say that the organs clearly had been eaten, even the guts, and that even the filmer mentions that the carcass is "mostly eaten empty", what should happen but our comments removed and both of us banned from his facebook.

This is more than pathetic, it is pure cowardice!

Seriously, this isn't even about what the wolf did or did not eat, this is about freedom of speech and freedom of opinion.

In this day and age of modern communications, we are always going to find people with whom we disagree, but that's no reason to block them. Sure if they're being a menace or trolling you, then fine, but a couple of comments saying you don't agree is nothing!

Do you know who else deletes comments and blocks peoples for posting differing views? DurianRider, fruitarian and leader of the heavily censored site 30bananasaday.com (check out 30bananasadaysucks.com for more on that). This is why I place in my mind many zero carbers and fruitarians in the same category, they both are deluded and can't take criticism, well not even criticism, a couple of comments!

Is it any wonder I have no respect for the zero carb community when they pull stunts like this?

Nutrient Needs On A Carnivorous Diet

To create my last carnivorous diet, I used the USDA RDA as targets for the nutrients. The USDA RDA is based on the nutrient requirements on a high-carb, grain-based diet, and the nutrient requirements on a carnivorous diet are almost certainly different:

• Several nutrients are used directly in carbohydrate metabolism, and so these nutrients will have a lower requirement on a carnivorous diet
• Some are used in protein and fat metabolism, and more will be needed on a carnivorous diet
• Most nutrients interact with each other such that the altered levels for proper carb/fat/protein metabolism means less or more is needed of other nutrients
• Phytochemicals such as phytic acid effect the abosrption/ultilisation of nutrients

I will be discussing each nutrient in the context of a carnivorous diet, what they are needed for, what other nutrients effect their absorption and excretion, how much is needed on a carnivorous diet (as best I can calculate), their best sources, and anything else note-worthy.

Some nutrients even without specifically eating foods for that nutrient will have an intake well over the USDA RDA and thus I see little point in examining them as closely as the likelyhood that you will become deficient in these nutrirents is unlikely. I'm more interested in looking at what nutrients we need less of than the USDA RDA, but there are several nutrients which through my research I have discovered good evidence that the USDA RDA is too low and of which we actually need a lot more. Some nutrients I will not give a cRDA (carnivore RDA), as the amount needed is happily supplied from all the other foods in the diet in order to fulfil the other cRDA, such that no real attention/worry is needed for that specific nutrient.

Stay turned for some fun science.

Detox, Antioxidants, and Scurvy: Protein Beats Plants

This blog post is an updated and slightly edited version of on of my 'facebook essays', which were comments  written as normal comments in facebook but ended up being really long and more like essays. I saved the links to their original posting and plan to go through them all and update and neaten up, etc, them then post them here. This one has been done first as a friend requested a copy to sent to someone else.

I'm stick and tired of people telling me the body can't detox without 'fruit and vegetables'. So I guess that's why water fasting doesn't work? :P

The body has many systems for detoxing and even makes it's own anti-oxidants which are many many fold more efficient that any from food. One thing the body does need though, for detoxing, is quality protein. The liver is the main detoxifier of the body and requires protein to do so. A good example is Campbell's rat studies, the high-protein rats got PRE-cancerous lesions, but the low-protein rats ALL DIED!

The body's biggest anti-oxidant is glutathione.

Some foods have it but dietary absorption is very poor, we have to make our own. Glutathione is made from cysteine, glutamate, and glycine, and needs the mineral selenium. Cysteine is best found in animal foods, especially organs, and is practically always deficient on a vegetarian/vegan diet. Glycine is the major amino-acid of gelatin (along with proline), and most other proteins are low in glycine. Gelatin's best sources are feet/hooves, skin, heads of animals, made into broth. Glutamate is non-essential and readily available as long as you're eating enough protein, additionally most protein sources are rich in glutamate. Selenium's best animal food source is kidneys, and best plant food source is brazil nuts. Most people don't get enough selenium, additionally the USDA RDA is 55ug, but studies show that 200ug is a much more appropriate intake. Studies on vegetarians/vegans show very low glutathione levels, as the two out of the three amino-acids required to make it are found in animal foods.

Cysteine is a double-edged sword, it's very good for us, but bacteria also use it. Glutathione locks cysteine up so bacteria can't get it it, but our cells can easily unlock it. This is why supplementing cysteine can be dangerous, unless it's as N-acetyl-cysteine which is another 'locked up' form that greatly increases glutathione levels. Other things that boost glutathione levels are raw whey (not powdered), alpha lipoic acid, and milk thistle. Vitamin D also increases brain glutathione levels.

Glutathione is needed to excrete many toxins through bile, to form leukotrienes (which are fatty based signalling molecules formed from arachidonic acid (also only found in animal foods)), it prevents oxidative damage by being a co-factor for glutathione peroxidase AND detoxing methylglyoxal, a by-product of glycolysis (burning glucose for fuel) and lipid peroxidation (from excess PUFAs). Methylglyoxal is linked to arterial atherogenesis and it oxidises LDL.

Low glutathione levels are also strongly implicated in muscle wasting, as seen in cancer, AIDS, sepsis, trauma, burns and even athletic over-training. Supplementing glutathione in AIDS increases survival rates. Disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar also feature low glutathione levels and data suggests oxidative damage (from lack of glutathione to protect against oxidation) can be the cause of these.

The second biggest anti-oxidant is uric acid.

Yes, too much causes gout, but the slightly increased levels on a meat heavy diet are good for us. It seems that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and uric acid have the same functions and are possibly opposed to each other. Those on an all meat diet don't get scurvy and uric acid is likely why, as it has huge anti-oxidant capacity and is increased when you eat a lot of meat. It seems you need a lack of both uric acid and ascorbic acid to get scurvy.

Natural plant food sources of vitamin C have phytochemicals called 'xanthine oxidase inhibitors' that lower uric acid production (as xanthine oxidase produces uric acid from protein), and it seems that the body prefers to use either ascorbic acid or uric acid. This may be why refined fructose is so dangerous, as fructose itself greatly increases uric acid to gout-causing levels. Natural fructose as found in fruit though, has lots of vitamin C and xanthine oxidase inhibitors which will counter-act the uric acid increasing properties of the fructose, but excessive consumption of even natural fructose, not just refined sucrose and HFCS, can lead to gout as the uric acid raising properties of fructose is slightly higher than the uric acid lowering properties from the xanthine oxidise inhibitors in the fruit. The uric acid increase from meat though is not enough on it's own to cause gout though.

[Update: In fact the genetic mutation that means we can't synthesise ascorbic acid makes fructose more fattening and dangerous to us, some scientists theorise that this is done so that we could use fruit to fatten ourselves for cold winters more efficiently; this is bollocks, it's much more likely caused by a lack of dietary fructose rather than abundance. Why on earth (or any other planet with life :P  ) would evolution favour a mutation that makes an animal's food dangerous to it? Indeed getting fat before winter can be seen as an advantage for survival but the mutation also means that fructose is more efficient at causing insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, cancer, gout, etc, none of which would give a survival advantage. A diet high in fruit/fructose for the purpose of getting fat for the winter, when you have this mutation, gives a very high risk of gout, which can be crippling! As our diet changed from a frugivore to a near-carnivore one we lost our ability to handle fructose as well, while finding another substance with which to replace the ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is made from glucose, uric acid is made from protein; you can clearly see why we changed out antioxidant as we changed our diet.]

Taking isolated or synthetic ascorbic acid, which lacks the inhibitors, will result in high uric acid and high ascorbic acid levels. The uric acid will not be lowered (as it's not the ascorbic acid that does that), and so gout will still occur. Some vitamin c supplements have added 'bioflavonoids' or 'quercetin', both of which are xanthine oxidase inhibitors and with thus lower uric acid levels. I'm not aware of any problems caused by having high uric and ascorbic acid levels at the same time though, just that plain vitamin c will not help lower uric acid levels in of itself.

This really emphasises why foods sweetened with HFCS (or even sugar) are so dangerous. It seems nature supplies to antidote with the poison in regard to fruit. But then that begs the question of why eat the poison in the first place? It seems uric acid is a safer option over ascorbic acid as it doesn't come with so much 'baggage'.

Uric acid is a HUGE reason why Arctic explorers eating just meat did not get scurvy but those sneaking biscuits got it (and recovered when the biscuits where thrown away), also sailors (whose diet was mostly biscuits, rum, and salt beef)... Phytic acid is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor! Thus they got scurvy due to the lack of uric and ascorbic acid. With sailors the scurvy was remedied through fresh fruit (or sauerkraut in the case of the Germans), supplying vitamin C. But they would've got equally good results by removing the biscuits from their diet (and possibly also the rum as alcohol and fructose are metabolised the same way by the liver, but the sailors would never allow that!).

Thus scurvy is not a disease of lack of vitamin c but a combined lack of ascorbic acid and insufficient uric acid. Supply either will cure scurvy, thus gout suffers are highly unlikely to suffer from scurvy as well. Removing xanthine oxidase inhibitors from a diet rich in fresh protein will cure and prevent scurvy. Adding fresh fruit or vegetables to a sailors diet did not always cure scurvy though, it's quite likely there needs to be a combined effort between uric and ascorbic acid. The fruits and vegetables would supply some ascorbic acid but also xanthine oxidase inhibitors, in addition to those from their biscuit rations, such that the addition ascorbic acid is not sufficient to counter-act the simultaneous decrease in uric acid.

Because natural plant sources of vitamin C often have xanthine oxidase inhibitors, this means that they are poor at preventing scurvy, as they lower uric acid more than they increase ascorbic acid in terms of anti-scorbic potential. Animal sources of vitamin c, including raw liver, spleen, adrenal glands, and blubber, do not have xanthine oxidase inhibitors and so will not reduce uric acid levels; this means they are safe to include when eating a carnivore or meat-heavy diet. Additionally pure synthetic ascorbic acid, without 'bioflavonoids' or 'quercetin' is also safe to take.

It must be noted that there seems to be a difference between fresh and dry meat/protein, as diets of only fresh meat/protein will never produce scurvy, but there have been two cases of scurvy associated with calorie-restricted pemmican-only diets. Pemmican is made of ground dried lean meat mixed with equal amounts of rendered fat. Both these pemmican-only diets that resulted in scurvy though were highly restricted in calories/amount. One case had someone eating only very small amounts of pemmican as their sole diet, while also dry fasting daily (not drinking during the day); the other features chronic diarrhoea from before a carnivore diet was started that continued no matter what the person ate (that is, it wasn't dietary related), although the person was eating plenty of pemmican the diarrhoea meant very little was absorbed and thus yielded again a restricted diet. The presentation of these cases of scurvy were unusual as they did not experience many of the usual symptoms such as loose teeth, the most prominent symptom in both cases were extensive bruising of the legs from damaged/burst capillaries under the skin. Pemmican itself is not the problem though as there is evidence from one family, consisting of a man, woman, and two young boys, who have eaten nothing but pemmican for many years without problems; the two boys were weaned from breast milk straight onto pemmican and ate no other foods. This family though ate large amounts of pemmican, equivalent to 3-4 pounds of fresh meat daily. The difference is amount or calories, the drying process may damage some of the anti-scorbic properties compared to fresh meat, such that larger than expected amounts of pemmican are needed on a dry:fresh weight or calorie basis. Pemmican was traditionally used as a travel food and thus only for short periods of up to a couple of months, and those doing heavy physical work, such as building railways, thus they would have consumed large amounts which would have been sufficient to prevent scurvy. If one is going to eat a pemmican-only diet for a longer period than a couple of months, make sure you eat plenty and drink enough water; under two months doesn't pose a risk, as does eating a mixed pemmican and fresh meat diet.

Mucous not glucose deficiency

I mentioned briefly in my first post on principles of a healthy carnivore diet that mucin is important and which amino acids are needed to ensure proper production, but I didn't go into a lot of detail at the time as to why mucin is important and the full implications of a imbalanced amino acid profile.

I haven't posted on this blog in a long time for various reasons, one of which is that I have been helping my good friend Danny Albers with his facebook page Primal North. Primal North and Mostly Meat Is What I Eat have a very similar view on nutrition, and the two of us have improved each others diets and dietary views through the many conversations I've had with Danny over the last several months. One change I've made is cutting out starches and vegetables, making 'Meat Is Almost All I Eat' as it were, and Danny has started putting gelatin in his coffee.

One topic we discussed was my theory about the truth behind Paul Jaminet's 'glucose deficiency'. Jaminet says that when we was eating a zero carb diet (except he wasn't as he doesn't consider vegetables as calories sources and thus counts what everyone else would call a low-carb diet a zero-carb one), that he experienced several problems including dry eyes, constipation, and a dry cough. Jaminet even claims that people die of starvation because of the dry cough they develop: "A clue is the fact that starving people develop a hacking cough in their final weeks of life. Despite blood glucose levels in the normal range, they cease producing mucus and their airways become dry and irritated." This is contrary to the well known general cause of death in starvation, which is heart failure. Everyone knows during prolonged starvation your muscle start to waste away, but it's not just your biceps that get eaten, eventually your body starts using the heart (which is a muscle) as well, ultimately the heart becomes so weakened it can't pump blood and you die of heart failure.

Danny rightly points out that a dry cough may be a cause of death in starving people due to a lack of mucous, but that that is in starving people, nutritional ketosis and starvation are vastly different. Yes, both have increased blood ketones and a lack of dietary carbohydrates but that is where the similarities end. A low/zero-carb diet producing nutritional ketosis includes protein, plenty of fat for fuel, vitamins, and minerals. We don't know if this 'dry cough = death' thing is from lack of carbohydrates, protein in general or specific amino acid(s), calories, a vitamin, or mineral. Unless properly tested we may never know, but it's unlikely such studies will ever occur in humans due the the 'death' factor, and animal testing may not be applicable.

Jaminet's answer, which is has stuck heavily too even to the point of declaring ketogenic diets outright dangerous, is lack of carbohydrates. But he even posts this picture showing the glycogen is fully depleted after just 3 days of fasting/starvation. If a lack of carbohydrates where the cause, then one would expect the problems to occur much much sooner, not the final few days of life.

My theory, which I'm fully stating that I do not know to be true but from talking with other people and seeing the difference after they add gelatin to their diet (which is the exact same level of evidence Jaminet has for his 'glucose deficiency' theory, except he states it as outright truth not as a theory, which it is), is that is it not a glucose deficiency but a mucous (or more specifically mucin) deficiency caused by an imbalanced amino acid profile.

Mucin is a glycoprotein, this means it's part carbohydrate ('glyco' as in glucose), and part protein. Jaminet has focused in on the 'glyco' part, I have explored the 'protein' side of things. In my research I discovered that mucin production is highly sensitive the the availability of certain amino acids: cysteine, proline, serine, and threonine. Cysteine is an essential sulphur-containing amino acid, which meat and eggs are very rich in. Proline is a conditionally essential amino acid, which along with glycine makes up most of gelatin. Serine is a non-essential amino acid which is made from glycine. Glycine and proline are very low in meat, fish, organs, dairy, eggs, and vegetarian protein sources; the only decent source is gelatin. Threonine is an essential amino acid, and meat, fish, eggs, and dairy are good sources. On a diet where the protein only comes from meat, fish, eggs, or dairy, there is plenty of cysteine and threonine, but very little glycine and proline.

Gelatin can be found in many foods, not just powdered gelatine like for making jelly/jell-o, in fact about half (update: 25-35%) of the protein in an animal is made of gelatin. But if this is the case, why is meat low in gelatin? Muscle meat certainly is, the gelatin is found in the 'odd bits' as Danny calls them: skin, feet/hooves, cartilage, heads, hair, and nails/claws. Traditionally the whole animal was eaten, not just the meat and even organs, but the 'odd bits' where simmered for days covered with water with some acid such as vinegar or lemon juice added. The acid would breakdown the 'odd bits' and a delicious gelatin-rich broth/stock was created which would turn into a solid jelly/jell-o if put in a fridge. This broth would then be used as the base for soups, stews, sauces, and even drunk straight in times of illness when no other food would stay down. Gelatin is a truly wonderful food, and incredibly healing to the gut as enterocytes (intestine cells that do the absorbing) can feed off glycine directly. Gelatin is also very good for joints, as cartilage is made from gelatin, and in the same way it helps keep the skin smooth and wrinkle-free (could abandoning gelatin-rich broth be the reason for all these 'anti-ageing' creams?), and help your hair grow thick and shiny and your nails strong.

The paleo community has made many improvements over the years, from lean meat to fatty, and more decently the addition of organs such as liver, but is still lacking in the encouragement of making and using home-made gelatinous broth. This is one thing Ray Peat gets right (see here), but both Danny and I very much disagree with his promotion of eating large amounts of refined white sugar.

Please note: all store-bought 'broth', 'stock', and bouillon cubes are nothing like real home-made broth, they are made from flours, salt, MSG, and many other chemicals. There is no substitute for the real home-made stuff.

I also encouragement the inclusion of egg shells along with bones and gelatin sources in broth, as egg shells help boost the calcium content and the membrane includes chondroitin which is also very good for joints.

Lastly, I will point out that there are many factors other than a proper amino acid profile in maintaining moist mucous membranes, such as vitamin A (retinol), saturated fats, choline, cholesterol, and many others. Retinol (true vitamin A) deficiency results in mucous-secreting cells mutating into keratin-secreting cells which results in lesions being formed, in the eye this leads to xerophthalmia and eventually keratomalacia and blindness. Saturated fats are need to form surfactants in the lungs which reduce surface tension so gas exchange can happen, the most common surfactant is dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine, made from choline and two palmitic acids (a saturated fat); cholesterol also makes up part of the surfactants.

You'll notice that all the nutrients listed for maintaining mucous membranes are only found in animal foods (there is some palmitic acid in palm oil though) so it is highly unlikely that a problem involving mucous membranes results from a lack of plant foods in your diet. Much more likely is that it results from an imbalanced intake of certain animal foods over others, that is too much meat and not enough gelatin.

Posts I'm Planning

I haven't posted in a while due to both my PC and laptop breaking. My laptop now works and some of the posts I was writing have been retrieved from my portable hard-drive, but most are stuck on my PC hard-drive which I can't remove from the case (stupid screws). Anyways here are some posts I'm planning:

• The Abnormal Ape:  How we're different from other apes and what that means for our dietary and nutritional needs, looking at everything from our heads to our toes, from genes to the gut.
• Nutrient series: I based my nutritionally complete carnivorous menu on the USDA RDA, but do we really need the RDA when not eating anti-nutrients from grains, legumes, and other plants and instead eating a rich meat-based diet? I'll be looking at how nutrients interact with each other, how the foods you eat determine how much you need, and their best sources based on these.
• Diets: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The pro's and con's and in's and out's of various diets, why they work, where they fail, and what we can learn for their results.

Nutritionally Perfect Carnivorous Diet

Average Daily Amounts:
15oz lamb/beef, ~17% fat
+ 3tbsp tallow (or 465g 24% fat beef/lamb)
3oz mackerel (or 4oz salmon)
55g lean pork
3 large eggs (save the shells for broth)
2oz chicken liver
2oz pork kidney
15g pork liver
1/7 of home-made broth (link at bottom of post)

6g potassium chloride salt
7g sea salt
1 litre water


Technically plant foods:
2tsp tea

Supplements:
300mg magnesium citrate


Nutrition:
2021 calories, 162g protein (34% of calories), 3g carbohydrates (1%), 144g fat (65%).


Vitamins & Minerals:
>15x RDA: B12!!
>4x RDA: Vitamin A, B2, selenium.
>3x RDA: B3/niacin, vitamin D, calcium.
>2x RDA: B5, B6, copper, phosphorus, zinc.
>1x RDA: Fotate, B1, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium.
Below RDA: Vitamin C 41.3mg 55%, vitamin E 4.5mg 30%, vitamin K1 23.2ug 26%.


Vitamin C: Very little is needed on a carnivore diet, just don't overcooked your meat.
Vitamin E: Little is needed as you're not eating putrid vegetable oils, grass-fed meat has plenty.
Vitamin K1: Only found in plants, but K2 which isn't measured, found in grass-fed meat and liver does everything K1 does as well as helping bones.


Ratios, etc.:
Calcium:Phosphorus = 1.95 (ideal ~2)
Zinc:Copper = 10.9 (ideal >10)
Potassium:Sodium = 2.4 (ideal >2)
Omega-6:omega-3 = 1.6 (ideal <2)
Saturated:Mono-unsaturated = 1.1 (ideal ~1)
Poly-unsaturated = 4% of calories (ideal ≤4%)

Link to weekly shopping list and how to make broth.

How To Do A Zero-Carb (Carnivorous) Diet Correctly, Part 2: An Example Menu And Why Steak & Water Is Not Enough

I have created an example menu following the principles laid out in the previous post to show that the nutrition is sound as compared to the ‘steak and water’ diet of which zero-carbers seem to be becoming more and more fond. We’ll use the standard 150lb person for comparison.

Menu 1:

16oz beef, 18% fat

2 eggs

1.5oz chicken liver

1.5oz pork liver

1/2oz beef liver

3tbsp gelatine (or equivalent)

1/4cup broth (~400mg calcium)

1 eggshell (~1g calcium)

Supplements: 3/4tsp potassium chloride, 1tsp normal salt, 1/2tsp magnesium chloride, 1 drop Lugol’s solution.

Menu 2:

21oz beef, 18% fat

	Menu 1	Menu 2
Calories	1425	1421
Protein	130	106	g
Protein	39	32	%
Fat	96	107	g
Fat	61	68	%
Carbs	1.7	0	g
Protein:
Grams/lb   (>0.7g/lb)	0.87	0.71	g/lb
Threonine	4.8	4.1	g
Threonine (>15mg/kg)	70	60	mg
Gelatine equiv	25	17.2	g
(glycine/proline/serine)	11.1/8.2/5.7	7.4/5.5/4.3
Cysteine	1.5	1.1	g
Vitamins & Minerals:
Folate	398	39	mg
Retinol	2307	0	ug
Selenium	222	91	ug
Calcium	1559	100	mg
Magnesium	434	104	mg
Potassium	4783	1669	mg
Sodium	2354	397	mg
Choline	732	348	mg
(Iodine not compared as it’s not measured in CRONometer)

As you can see eating just muscle meat to the same calories is very poor nutritionally compared to eating ‘whole animal’ style, ie including livers, kidney, gelatine, broth, and supplemental minerals.

Unless one is drinking mineral rich water, they may develop several mineral deficiencies; even so, they will lack folate (which increases the risk of birth defects), retinol (risking eyesight), and selenium (risking poor thyroid).

Advising some-one that they can live on nothing but ‘steak and water’ is dangerous at best. Just as an omnivorous diet includes plants for balanced nutrition, so too a carnivorous diet should include more than just muscle meat.

Carnivorous animals, like lions and wolves consume all the organs bar the digestive system, eat the skin, and gnaw on the bones. Humans do not produce enough stomach acid to be able to digest bones directly, and so broth should be used instead for optimum nutrition.

A side note on calories:

You may notice the menus are only ~1400 calories; this should be a minimum, such as for someone trying to lose weight or a small female. Protein should not be increased too high (1g/lb ideal weight maximum): extra calories should come from fat, use a higher percentage of fat in your meat or add fats such as tallow, butter/ghee, or coconut oil. Coconut oil is very good for use during exercising as it provides fast energy.