2.2.14 The below diet was low in resistant starch and I think this contributed to gradually rising fasting blood glucose that peaked at 115 mg/dl and I started to also feel colder, after it had deceptively early on made me feel warmer and good. Adding more resistant starch into my diet helped reverse this within days. Other people are reporting serious illnesses from diets that were too chronically low in carbs and resistant starch and kept them in chronic ketosis, and also reporting other benefits from resistant starch. Please read up on resistant starch.
I'll leave this diet here as a warning to myself and others to not do this. Surprisingly, not even the carby foods were enough to prevent my FBG from rising and other issues. I suspect that resistant starch is particularly important.]
My description of what I've been eating is overdo for an update, as I've expanded my food selection significantly since the more heavily carnivore phase, which I had been hoping I could do some day. Eating almost no plant foods provided many benefits, but my past chronic constipation was worsening again after initial improvement, so I reintroduced some foods to my diet and I've been emphasizing softer animal foods like eggs and marrow.
I don't seem to have problems with root veggies that are edible raw, such as parsnips and carrots, and it's interesting that recent paleoanthropological research has led scientists to hypothesize that pre-human primates like Australopithecus and Ardepithecus consumed raw roots and tubers and nuts as staple foods, possibly more so than fruits (EARLY HUMANS SKIPPED FRUIT, WENT FOR NUTS).
My Current Staple Foods:
Fertile chicken eggs and duck eggs
Grassfed ground beef
Fats: Bone Marrow, Suet and Tallow, Lard (all grassfed or pastured)
Tuna, Yellowfin, wild, Hawaiian sushi grade or regular, frozen
Salmon, wild, sockeye, frozen or wild "fresh" (previously frozen) or sushi grade, wild clams, and other wild fish
Liver, GF beef/lamb
Heart, chicken
Carrots and Parsnips (edible raw, spicy, high potassium, a starch I can tolerate, one local farm grows excellent-tasting parsnips, but they're no longer sold at my local market)
Lemons (low sugar, alkaline, high vit C; I squeeze the juice out of them)
Blackberries (moderate sugar, high vit C)
Duck breast
Bone broth usually made with pastured marrow bones
Raw fermented cod liver oil, mint flavored (for the vitamins A and D)
Raw high vitamin butter oil (for the vitamin K2)
Water, mineral water, teas------
My Current Secondary Foods:
Really Raw brand fermented raw honey (does wonders for my hair and scalp flakes for some reason, though this didn't work for a friend of mine)
Fresh figs (not dried)
Strawberries (low sugar, high vit C), raspberries and some other fruits
Pastured ground bison or pork, pork loin, top round steak, ribeye steak, wild oysters and other meats/fish/organs
Celery and other nonstarchy, low-toxin veggies [edit: but starchy veggies also appear to be important]
Ginger, fresh or pickled
Wasabi mustard
Kelp
Sea salt, black pepper, spices
Really Raw brand fermented raw honey (does wonders for my hair and scalp flakes for some reason, though this didn't work for a friend of mine)
Fresh figs (not dried)
Strawberries (low sugar, high vit C), raspberries and some other fruits
Pastured ground bison or pork, pork loin, top round steak, ribeye steak, wild oysters and other meats/fish/organs
Celery and other nonstarchy, low-toxin veggies [edit: but starchy veggies also appear to be important]
Ginger, fresh or pickled
Wasabi mustard
Kelp
Sea salt, black pepper, spices
I try not to get carried away with fruit or raw fermented honey. If I eat too much of either, I start to develop skin and dental problems like chapped lips, dry skin, scalp flakes, increased dental plaque and loosening teeth. Tubers that require cooking, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes, produce similar symptoms in me and little or no of the benefits from honey and fruits re: GI functioning, hair and scalp condition, or taste, so I only eat them occasionally. [Edit: But I now consider tubers especially important because of their resistant starch content when raw or cooked and cooled for 8-12 hours or so. I get around the problems by supplementing with potato starch and eating dried raw plantains and other foods rich in resistant starch that I appear to handle better than freshly cooked hot tubers. 2.2.14]
6 comments:
Phil, thanks very much for your update. I'm glad you are doing so well.
I am pleased to have found out about FODMAPs. Not eating them has helped a good deal.
I have recently seen a few people I have not seen for some months. They all seemed surprised when they saw me, and thought I looked especially well, and that I had lost weight.
My winter experiment with Kwasniewski maintenance ratios caused a weight gain! Haha!
(I think I merely look healthier, because I am. I didn't realize being a carnivore makes folks more attractive!)
I think it is my high meat/offal/fish/egg yolk/animal fat intake, very little plant matter, lots of sunshine, negligible PUFA intake, etc.
My muscle tone continues to improve markedly, even though I my exercise habits have not changed much for several years.
Have you had similar experiences, if you don't mind the question?
Thanks again for your new post. I quite enjoy what you write.
Thanks H.
H wrote: "I think it is my high meat/offal/fish/egg yolk/animal fat intake, very little plant matter, lots of sunshine, negligible PUFA intake, etc."
It could well be. My experience has been that those are healthy practices for me. Other people report faring better on larger intakes of plant foods.
H wrote: "Have you had similar experiences, if you don't mind the question?"
My muscle definition improved some, but I think it's mainly due to loss of body fat, as my strength didn't improve greatly. My health did improve in many other ways since going Paleo, and improved much more when I cut way down on carbs, and still a bit more when I went mostly raw (including plenty of traditional raw animal foods).
Slainte mhath!
Phil, thanks very much for your comment. I was a vegetarian for a few decades, and this carnivorous food plan is wonderfully strengthening and health-giving for me. My coordination and balance are much better, too, as are many other things.
I have been hesitant to eat meat from the grocery store without cooking it. If I had access to freshly butchered meat, I would experiment some. I am glad the raw meat is working so well for you. Your good experiences with it are useful food for thought.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
P. S. I forgot to thank you for the kind Gaelic wishes. I wish you the best of health, too. :)
I'm no dogmatist and I can understand your concern, especially with the occasional news stories about people getting sick not only from raw meats and fish, but also raw plants, as with a recent sprouts incident in Germany. It's speculation, but I think that harm from cooking lies on a spectrum of very little to quite a lot, depending on the method and ingredients used and other factors, rather than all cooking being either purely bad or purely good.
The blogger Stephan Guyenet and also the Weston Price Foundation offer information on traditional methods of cooking and processing that I suspect are healthier than modern techniques and may provide nearly as much benefit as eating meats/fats raw. Stephan's blog is one of the best on the Web, IMHO.
Good luck in whatever approach you choose.
Phil, thank you for your kind comment. I appreciate your taking the time and effort.
I look forward to your next blog post! :)
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