Tom Woods Goes Primal!

[specsaregood]

For me, romaine lettuce was a big step, but I am ready to upgrade. That is pretty much what I've been doing and I continue to up the veggie content that I "sneak" in week after week. It really bulks up dishes. On the bacon fat front, how does one accumulate and store it? Is it simply a matter of cooking bacon in an oven and taking all of the remaining grease on the cooking sheet and transferring it to a cup in the refrigerator?

Well I stand by my recommendations: I'd start with some baby spinach salads with what ever else you want to add to it, then arugula (has a nice nutty flavor), and start adding in some parsley randomly with food right before serving. When you get ready to start trying to cook some greens, they go well with pork. eg: tonight I had mustard greens with pork sausage. i like canadian bacon and will often eat it with kale. rapini is a real easy one to cook and goes well with sausage.

I'll just pour the grease out of the pan I cook the bacon in on the stove, never baked it. Or I'll just cook the greens in the same pan immediately after.

 

[Acala]

Would you mind sharing what ingredients you use in a beef stew and how to prepare it? IE: Do you use ground meat, beef chuck, etc? And in what order is everything added to the pot?

I typically use ground beef in my stew. Grass fed/finished, of course. I use a deep skillet, put in a generous amount of coconut oil, chop up onions and garlic and get them cooking. Once the onions have softened, I throw in the beef and keep turning it until it is browned. I put in some oregano and salt. Maybe some turmeric. Maybe some masala mix. The list of vegetables that go in depends on what I got from the CSA and what I have on hand. Usually I throw in some dried seaweed (wakame). Almost always a few chopped tomatoes. Usually some kind of squash. Usually some chard. Usually some kale. Usually some kind of mushroom (shitake being my favorite). Usually some carrots. Usually some celery. Maybe some beets. Some water. Maybe some chiles. Cover it and let it simmer for several hours, overnight if possible. It is a pretty loose process. I tend to put in tougher vegetables (like shitakes and squash) before softer things (like tomatoes). Other than that, not many rules. Sometimes it is better than other times, but it is almost always really good. And healthy!

 

[Acala]

Carbs dont make you fat. Eeating too much fat makes you fat

Carbs are converted to glucose, which floods your bloodstream. Your body has a very narrow range of blood glucose level it can tolerate so when glucose spikes in the blood (as with the consumption of any significant amount of carbohydrates) your body responds with an emergency dump of insulin. Insulin triggers insulin-sensitive tissues throughout the body to pull glucose out of the blood stream and store it as fat. Unless you have previously depleted the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver through vigorous exercise, that excess glucose WILL be stored as fat. There is nothing else your body can do with it. It MUST get it out of the blood stream NOW.

This cycle of glucose spike > insulin spike > fat storage > glucose depletion > cortisol spike is perhaps the single most important mechanism for the development of chronic disease in the western world. Chronic inflammation, insulin insensitivity and diabetes, obesity, etc. The list is really endless.

Now, did you have a particular mechanism in mind for how eating fat makes you fat?

Carbs make you REALLY ghungry,

You are right about that. In fact at least some carbs turn off cellular receptors for one of the hormones that tells your body you don't need to eat anymore.

For some, eating a moderate amount of Fat is good. For others, not so damn much. The paleo Diet thinks ALL humans are eligible and genetically capable of this diet. This is simply not true. Everybody's body is different. So, figure out what your diet is.

Actually, everybody isn't different. At least not very much. We are the same species. Our biochemistry and the structure of our digestive systems are virtually identical. We evolved eating much of the same food. And NONE of us evolved eating any significant amount of grain or legumes. So where exactly would the ability to thrive on those foods have come from?

Talk to a Nutritionist or your friendly neighborhood Family Doctor.

Hahahahaha! This is some of the worst advice I can think of.

 

[low preference guy]

Unless you have previously depleted the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver through vigorous exercise, that excess glucose WILL be stored as fat. There is nothing else your body can do with it. It MUST get it out of the blood stream NOW.

pure fucking idiocy. i have been losing weight and fat eating more than 400 grams of sugar per day, without exercise, as long as i avoid the foods that slow metabolism (vegetable oils, grains, too much liver) and consume those that accelerate it (coffee, chocolate, coconut oil, etc.).

 

[Acala]

pure fucking idiocy. i have been losing weight and fat eating more than 400 grams of sugar per day, without exercise, as long as i avoid the foods that slow metabolism (vegetable oils, grains, too much liver) and consume those that accelerate it (coffee, chocolate, coconut oil, etc.).

So you are saying that your blood glucose levels can spike and no insulin spike results? If so, you have type I diabetes.

Or are you saying insulin does not cause excess glucose to be removed from your bloodstream and stored as fat? If so, you have type II diabetes.

Or are you saying that your diet does not cause your blood glucose levels to exceed healthy limits? If so, then your response shows that you did not carefully read what I wrote.

The fact that you are losing weight does not mean much. There are many ways to lose weight. Not all are healthy.

 

[low preference guy]

can't you read?

Unless you have previously depleted the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver through vigorous exercise, that excess glucose WILL be stored as fat.

I don't exercise at the moment, so this part isn't satisfied:

Unless you have previously depleted the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver through vigorous exercise

so according to you, my "excess" glucose should be stored as fat

that excess glucose WILL be stored as fat

the opposite has been happening, as in fat has been diminishing. as long as your thyroid is working well and you don't eat crap like vegetable oils and grains, consumption of sugar will likely be beneficial and not fattening.

 

[Acala]

can't you read?



I don't exercise at the moment, so this part isn't satisfied:



so according to you, my "excess" glucose should be stored as fat



the opposite has been happening, as in fat has been diminishing. as long as your thyroid is working well and you don't eat crap like vegetable oils and grains, consumption of sugar will likely be beneficial and not fattening.

I said "excess" glucose. Did you miss that? Or did you not understand the meaning? Let me try again.

The human body needs to keep its blood glucose levels in a narrow range. If your blood glucose level exceeds that range (EXCESS glucose, see?) your body will act to reduce that glucose by releasing insulin, which causes the glucose to be sequestered in tissue. If that process does not happen, you have diabetes and the excess blood glucose will kill you.

Note carefully what I did NOT say. I did not say that YOU have excess glucose in your bloodstream. I did not say that any amount of any kind of carbohydrate will cause excess glucose or an insulin spike. I simply explained the well-document fact that IF a person has excess glucose in their bloodstream, their body WILL secrete insulin to remove it and it will be stored - unless they have a very serious disease.

The relationship between diet and blood glucose levels is complex, depending on the kind of carbs eaten, how much, what with, the state of muscle glycogen, etc. Therefore, I would not make any general statements about the relationship between what someone is eating and their insulin levels. But when I say that in a person who does not have diabetes that EXCESS glucose will trigger an insuling response and the excess glucose will be stored as fat, I don't believe that is even controversial. If you have some authority for the position that this process does NOT happen in non-diabetics, please enlighten me.

 

[Acala]

pure fucking idiocy. i have been losing weight and fat eating more than 400 grams of sugar per day, without exercise, as long as i avoid the foods that slow metabolism (vegetable oils, grains, too much liver) and consume those that accelerate it (coffee, chocolate, coconut oil, etc.).

There is much more to health than body weight. When I started eating primal I was not at all interested in my weight. I thought I was fine. I just wanted to eat a healthy diet. As it turned out, I was carrying thirty pounds of fat I didn't need, and was glad to be rid of it, but that was never my goal.

I am much more concerned about chronic inflammation than body fat levels. I know some very lean people with serious chronic inflammation problems. Obesity tends to make it worse, but is certainly not a requirement.

When people call Primal a low-carb diet I tend to say "no, it's a normal carb/ low inflammation diet." In contrast to the SAD, which is ultra-high carb and very inflammatory.

 

[low preference guy]

II simply explained the well-document fact that IF a person has excess glucose in their bloodstream

i didn't see the "in the bloodstream" part. i got the impression that you have some sort of number that one can't go beyond. your statement is true but useless, as it doesn't say whether 10, 100, or 200 grams of glucose per day is excess. so it's not a basis for a good recommendation for glucose intake.

 

[low preference guy]

When people call Primal a low-carb diet I tend to say "no, it's a normal carb/ low inflammation diet." In contrast to the SAD, which is ultra-high carb and very inflammatory.

yeah, but the reason the standard diet is bad is because the PUFAs and the grains, not the fact it's high-carb.

 

[trey4sports]

oh dear lord....

 

[Acala]

i didn't see the "in the bloodstream" part. i got the impression that you have some sort of number that one can't go beyond. your statement is true but useless, as it doesn't say whether 10, 100, or 200 grams of glucose per day is excess. so it's not a basis for a good recommendation for glucose intake.

Advice based on blood glucose levels would be useless anyway, unless you are going to have multiple blood draws a day and constant blood work. Clearly, if a person is showing signs of insulin insensitivity they need to stomp down hard on carbohydrate intake. Other warning signs would include:

1. chronic systemic inflammation (but eliminating wheat alone might solve it)
2. Obesity (the close correlation between obesity and type II diabetes, which is indisputably caused by chronic excess carb intake, suggests that most, but not all, obesity is caused by excess carb intake.)
3. Mental or physical agitation
4. Uneven energy levels

These all might have other causes, but excess carb consumption is likley.

The BEST means would be through heightened body awareness. If you FEEL a significant change in your energy level or physical state after a meal you might want to control carb intake.

If you start by cutting out the things that are pretty clearly bad for you - like grain, HFCS, products fried in PUFAs, soft drinks etc. - you will find that you have substantially reduced your carb intake without even getting to questions about how much fruit, tubers, honey, etc you can eat. It won't matter.

 

[specsaregood]

//

 

[opal]

I was on one of the primal sites.. long time reading yesterday and just now a question came to my mind - what about soup? I saw 300 pictures of primal meals.. not one bowl of soup

 

[trey4sports]

I was on one of the primal sites.. long time reading yesterday and just now a question came to my mind - what about soup? I saw 300 pictures of primal meals.. not one bowl of soup

bean-less chili is primal.

 

[opal]

but no chicken veg .. or beef veg.. or just veg?

 

[trey4sports]

but no chicken veg .. or beef veg.. or just veg?

meat and veg. would be primal. Of course there are going to be shades of primal but generally speaking youll be fine if you stick with avoiding refined carbs.

 

[specsaregood]

i have a pair of the NB minimus life. They are great. Slightly thicker sole than the VFF but still close enough to the ground to be considered minimal, and they also don't separate each toe so that should help you.

I've really enjoyed putting wear on my lunasandals over the summer and even sprinting a bit in them. But its starting to get a bit too cold for my late night walks; so I just ordered up a pair of the NB Minimus MO10BK. Seemed like a decent enough tradeoff, I tried going back and wearing my traditional NB shoes a couple of nights and kept having problems with my ankles wanting to twist, so hopefully this will be closer to what I am now used to.

 

[Acala]

I was on one of the primal sites.. long time reading yesterday and just now a question came to my mind - what about soup? I saw 300 pictures of primal meals.. not one bowl of soup

I make a big pot of soup (stew? What's the diff?) every week. I brown some GF beef with onions and garlic, and then just throw in a bunch of whatever vegetables the CSA gave me that week. So, yes, ABSOLUTELY soup!

 

[PatriotOne]

but no chicken veg .. or beef veg.. or just veg?

http://www.paleofood.com/soups.htm