Tom Woods Goes Primal!

[Acala]

So? Mainstream science is all wrong despite several healthy people eating grains and rice. Maybe a vegetarian/vegan diet can be good for SOME people. I am tired of all the paleo people saying EVERYONE is genetically paleo.

The problem I have with the idea that different diets are good for different people is that we are all the same species and virtually identical in every important way. How silly would it be to say "a vegan diet is good for some lions and a meat-based diet is good for some cows". It doesn't work that way. All humans have essentially the same physiological system. Different people might have developed different preferences, but that doesn't change their physiology. Bears will eat any garbage they can find in your trash can, but that doesn't mean it is healthy for them.

And unless you can explain how humans evolved to eat foods that essentially didn't exist when they were evolving, I have to conclude that humans evolved to eat a pre-agricultural diet. Now it is possible that humans experienced some genetic changes, and more likley some epigenetic changes, to help them adapt to the post-ag diet. But that is, at best, a recent (10,000 years is recent in the scale of evolution) attempt to adjust to non-optimal changes in diet. Why stress your body in that way?

 

[low preference guy]

And unless you can explain how humans evolved to eat foods that essentially didn't exist when they were evolvin...

i think this is foolish reasoning. humans can only develop based on what their potential allows. the environment is one factor, but the other factor is the potential of matter and minerals humans are made of. it's conceivable that humans do best on a diet that they did not have during most of their existence, due to the factor of potential of elements rather than environment. of course, the way to test what is best is to do actual experiments with humans living today, based on proven principles, or highly likely ones, about how the body works. speculating about what humans ate during most of their history is just good to generate ideas to test, but no more than that.

 

[Acala]

i think this is foolish reasoning. humans can only develop based on what their potential allows. the environment is one factor, but the other factor is the potential of matter and minerals humans are made of. it's conceivable that humans do best on a diet that they did not have during most of their existence, due to the factor of potential of elements rather than environment. of course, the way to test what is best is to do actual experiments with humans living today, based on proven principles, or highly likely ones, about how the body works. speculating about what humans ate during most of their history is just good to generate ideas to test, but no more than that.

Unlikely that humans would develop the special enzymes and such needed to make use of foods they were not exposed to. For example, grains typically contain phytates. Phytates interfere with the absorption of nutrients from grain. Rodents have an enzyme called phytase that breaks down phytates so that rodents can derive more nutrients from eating grain. Humans don't have the ability to make phytase. Can you think of any reason why humans would evolve the ability to produce phytase in an environment where they don't eat anything with phytates in it? Me either.

But I don't disagree with your last point. If you are trying to figure out what a human should eat, you should start with the natural diet, which would be the pre-ag diet. Then maybe you can improve it by experimentation. So far, the evidence is pretty clear that we have not improved it.

 

[specsaregood]

//

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Where are you getting all the fat from, specs?

 

[specsaregood]

Where are you getting all the fat from, specs?

Fruits: avocado, olives, and olive oil.
Nuts: raw macadamias, english walnuts and almond.
edit: oh yeah, just a little coconut oil as well -- thanks dannno.

We're having lean chicken for dinner, so I filled up on fats early in the day.

 

[dannno]

Where are you getting all the fat from, specs?

I think it was some sort of walnut and coconut oil biscuit or something.

 

[steph3n]

try some spaghetti squash in place of noodles. Delicious.

Or the yam noodles Shirataki, very high in fiber.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Or the yam noodles Shirataki, very high in fiber.

I'll have to give those a look.

try some spaghetti squash in place of noodles. Delicious.

First time I had spaghetti squash, the gf put too much stevia in the sauce, and it threw off the taste. I initially thought it was the squash, but found out when we made it a second time that she had put like a teaspoon of stevia in the recipe.

Needless to say, the second time around was much, much better.

 

[opal]

my mom started trying to get us to eat spaghetti squash when we were teenagers .. I'm in my 5th decade now and ya know... I've tried it with tomato sauce.. garlic butter.. brown gravy, lemon ginger sauces.. and by itself. Nothing makes it taste good enough to me to want to eat it again.

 

[amy31416]

Or the yam noodles Shirataki, very high in fiber.

I've really wanted to try these, but haven't found them in a store yet--I hear they smell "fishy." What's your experience?

 

[dannno]

she had put like a teaspoon of stevia in the recipe.

Hahahahha, wow...

 

[dannno]

I've really wanted to try these, but haven't found them in a store yet--I hear they smell "fishy." What's your experience?

Was that from my post or somewhere else?

I got the NoOodles that are yam based.

Taking away the fishy smell is pretty easy, you just have to rinse them thoroughly for a couple minutes. But then they don't taste very good unless you fry them up a little to dry them out, then cook them for at least a few minutes in the sauce that they are going to be served with. They don't soak up flavor as easily as regular noodles and don't taste as good as regular noodles by themselves.

 

[trey4sports]

so many facepalms in the last couple pages....

 

[amy31416]

Was that from my post or somewhere else?

I got the NoOodles that are yam based.

Taking away the fishy smell is pretty easy, you just have to rinse them thoroughly for a couple minutes. But then they don't taste very good unless you fry them up a little to dry them out, then cook them for at least a few minutes in the sauce that they are going to be served with. They don't soak up flavor as easily as regular noodles and don't taste as good as regular noodles by themselves.

It's from Amazon, which is the only place I've found them out here. Many reviews are not too complimentary, so I hesitate to order a whole case of them. I'm too cheap to order something I don't know if I'll like. Plus, I make a low/no-carb "noodle" using pulverized shrimp for Chinese food--obviously that's crappy with certain types of food.

 

[steph3n]

Was that from my post or somewhere else?

I got the NoOodles that are yam based.

Taking away the fishy smell is pretty easy, you just have to rinse them thoroughly for a couple minutes. But then they don't taste very good unless you fry them up a little to dry them out, then cook them for at least a few minutes in the sauce that they are going to be served with. They don't soak up flavor as easily as regular noodles and don't taste as good as regular noodles by themselves.

Your findings are about the same as mine, I I put fish sauce on them the first time I had then, making them a bit in a vietnamese style, so I guess I didn't realize the flavor may have been partially the noodles. I haven't used them extensively but by the cold storage kind at the local market. they have a 'tofu' variant as well but they look liked total MUSH!

 

[steph3n]

It's from Amazon, which is the only place I've found them out here. Many reviews are not too complimentary, so I hesitate to order a whole case of them. I'm too cheap to order something I don't know if I'll like. Plus, I make a low/no-carb "noodle" using pulverized shrimp for Chinese food--obviously that's crappy with certain types of food.

Do any of your local places have a tofu section in produce? This is where I find it...they have tofu, and yam types, I go for the yam, the tofu looks like macaroni that has been cooked for 10 years.

 

[amy31416]

Do any of your local places have a tofu section in produce? This is where I find it...they have tofu, and yam types, I go for the yam, the tofu looks like macaroni that has been cooked for 10 years.

No. The supermarkets here are total crap. The most "exotic" thing I've found here is egg roll wrappers--and I can make that myself.

 

[steph3n]

It is getting cool enough now, I could probably send you a pack along with a couple other treats in a USPS flat rate box priority mail, if that would interest you

no cost, just to try it and see if you like, and nothing expected, I don't sell it or anything, want nothing in return.
I enjoy people trying new things and new experiences.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Hahahahha, wow...

Haha, yeah, she's an amazing cook, but before going primal, we'd use a teaspoon of raw sugar in tomato sauces to balance the acidity, so she just substituted the stevia for it. She never measures the amount of ingredients she uses, but I deduced that she used about a teaspoon of stevia.

Lesson learned, and I ate the original meal, anyway - it was edible without the squash, it just tasted like sweet sauce and meatballs.