I wish I had more time to write a real article about this topic, but I have like 5 minutes so I'm going to do a quick version of my thoughts.
Vegan is super unhealthy. Way too much of a lot of the worst foods like grains and missing all the important nutrients from animals. Oh yeah, and soy! They still, even now, eat soy! oh, Lord.
Raw Vegan. People see every disease reverse when they go Raw Vegan and mistakenly think that raw food has some magical properties. You see this magical mythological thinking EVERYWHERE. I did Raw Vegan for TWO YEARS. Thankfully I came to my senses before going any farther. I would love to go through and collect examples of the ridiculous claims and statements about not cooking food from the Raw Food movement but I don't have time, and anyway that would be pretty negative in nature. But would be interesting. I got fooled for a while, many people do.
So anyway, what do I mean here. All the benefits of going Raw Food happen pretty quickly, lets say between a few days and 30 days. This is NOT due to some magical enzyme-rich food because it hasn't been cooked (and it's amazing the lengths people will go to keep that belief going!). Of course it is simply because the people who do it---if they do it 100%--- are cutting out GLUTEN. And grains, legumes, and for many of them, processed foods, soda, etc. Of course this would make anyone's disease turn around!!
But for longer than 30 days, or even longer than a few days, people are going to run into problems of missing nutrients from animals. Specifically grass fed meat, pastured chicken, pork etc, wild caught fish. Eggs, bone broth, and so on. By the way, ALL of the diseases ESPECIALLY DIABETES would be reversed simply by going on a Paleo protocol. Because it's cutting out the problematic food. (That would be a whole other post, the horribly unhealthy raw food with all its nuts and fruit and all the many health consequences of that!)
Think about it. If people just starting Paleo experience major detox effects--which they do--the exact same detox effects that Raw Food people experience and then attribute raw food to be this magical thing....Then Paleo is doing the EXACT SAME HEALING but doing it much better, because the body actually gets the nutrients it needs without a vegan break from them.
When I was still vegan, I saw the long term vegans and all the stuff they post on facebook and all that. They were beyond silly, it was really scary how their brains slowly deteriorate. The vegans who cling to this have to really make themselves blind in favor of their belief system in order not to see it. Not to mention to not notice that these people are truly unhealhy looking. Because it is just way too unhealthy to do this...the only thing is that the degeneration happens so slowly people can't put their finger on the cause of it, and it's especially problematic that their rigid belief systems won't let them see things that are so obvious anyway.
Well I've exceeded my 5 minutes so I'm going to publish this without any editing...in other words that was a ramble but so be it!
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Seeing people go down the vegan road.
Lately I've been seeing more people saying they are "healthy" by cutting out animal foods. To each their own (but for the record, they are confused), my main problem is when people endorse this lifestyle to parents with young children. From my own experience (of doing that to my daughter and seeing the effects) and my research, I find it to be really irresponsible advice. I don't want to feel victim-y, so I won't, but let me just put it this way: a few years ago, I listened to Will Tuttle's whole spiel and fell for his whole thing, the whole twisted world view he promotes. Now I listen to him--same lectures--and think he is spewing complete mad nonsense. I do need to take responsibility for this, and can't blame him or others for the fact that I fell for this vegan mythology. Going back further, I won't blame Swami Satchidinanda for his propaganda which convinced me to go vegetarian at age 13, causing all the health problems that I am now undoing today. Victim mentality is no bueno.
To put this in perspective, just a few months ago, I wrote this, when I was still feeling totally sympathetic to vegans. Because I was one! Now I am completely not that person. Just totally not that person, at all. I now feel pretty exasperated by vegans regurgitating their same mythologies over and over...with lots of conviction in their voice...as if there were anything to back it up. (i.e., saying children --or anyone-- will get enough of this or that nutrient without animal foods, etc...) It bothers me because I was doing that myself and I just want to go around to everyone I ever said vegan nonsense to and be like "I'm sorry but I really need to TAKE THAT BACK, um yeah, thanks." I wish I could somehow shout it from the rooftops because it's such a cringe thing to look back on.
I'm getting into negativity here (and my last post was on the negative side, too, oops)...so I'll cut this short now. I am also going to go back thru my blog and keep deleting any old silly vegan posts. I just came online to blog today because I'm seeing a bunch of Zumba ZES's (I'm a ZIN) posting on their FB and blogs how they're getting into raw food and watching "forks over knives" and "fat, sick & nearly dead". I recommend the latter movie, but it does feature Joel Fuhrman, who just a few months ago I was raving about, but who I now think is a tool. (I found a really ignorant post on his website about Weston A Price.) He still believes in the whole "saturated fat" thing! Yikes. Basically, I just want to tell these ZES's who are all gung ho about raw food..."Don't go down that path!! It's a total DEAD END!! The only reason it works is because it cuts out processed food and grains!! But it does NOT work long term!!" But you can't tell people that...we're all on our own journeys! We all gotta do what's right for us. Just everyone, please stop pretending that it's okay to feed kids a vegan diet...it's really, really NOT.
Okay back to my Paleo, Primal lifestyle!! Now that's something to get excited about! And my daughter is thriving, growing, and just a little tiny thing... HER CAVITIES ARE REMINERALIZING...yeah, from ANIMAL FOODS. I can watch it happen in front of my eyes, now. I shudder to think about how I had kept her animal food intake low, and I hope that the damage I did can be reversed. I hope parents will not be fooled by vegan propaganda. Our kids are not an experiment. I'm off to eat local sausage, chicken, beef, and make some butter or something....
To put this in perspective, just a few months ago, I wrote this, when I was still feeling totally sympathetic to vegans. Because I was one! Now I am completely not that person. Just totally not that person, at all. I now feel pretty exasperated by vegans regurgitating their same mythologies over and over...with lots of conviction in their voice...as if there were anything to back it up. (i.e., saying children --or anyone-- will get enough of this or that nutrient without animal foods, etc...) It bothers me because I was doing that myself and I just want to go around to everyone I ever said vegan nonsense to and be like "I'm sorry but I really need to TAKE THAT BACK, um yeah, thanks." I wish I could somehow shout it from the rooftops because it's such a cringe thing to look back on.
I'm getting into negativity here (and my last post was on the negative side, too, oops)...so I'll cut this short now. I am also going to go back thru my blog and keep deleting any old silly vegan posts. I just came online to blog today because I'm seeing a bunch of Zumba ZES's (I'm a ZIN) posting on their FB and blogs how they're getting into raw food and watching "forks over knives" and "fat, sick & nearly dead". I recommend the latter movie, but it does feature Joel Fuhrman, who just a few months ago I was raving about, but who I now think is a tool. (I found a really ignorant post on his website about Weston A Price.) He still believes in the whole "saturated fat" thing! Yikes. Basically, I just want to tell these ZES's who are all gung ho about raw food..."Don't go down that path!! It's a total DEAD END!! The only reason it works is because it cuts out processed food and grains!! But it does NOT work long term!!" But you can't tell people that...we're all on our own journeys! We all gotta do what's right for us. Just everyone, please stop pretending that it's okay to feed kids a vegan diet...it's really, really NOT.
Okay back to my Paleo, Primal lifestyle!! Now that's something to get excited about! And my daughter is thriving, growing, and just a little tiny thing... HER CAVITIES ARE REMINERALIZING...yeah, from ANIMAL FOODS. I can watch it happen in front of my eyes, now. I shudder to think about how I had kept her animal food intake low, and I hope that the damage I did can be reversed. I hope parents will not be fooled by vegan propaganda. Our kids are not an experiment. I'm off to eat local sausage, chicken, beef, and make some butter or something....
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Alton Brown loses a bunch of weight but is confused about how he did it.
I was just scoping out some very delish steak recipes at the Food Network website, and saw an interesting sidebar. Alton Brown has made a video about his 50 pound weight loss. It is called "Live and Let Diet," and can be found here.
It's a very stunning weight loss, and actually I had the exact same weight loss (over 40 pounds) by doing the exact same thing that Alton Brown did: Cutting out desserts. Since I've lived this situation, I feel qualified to comment on his Four Lists, which are very misguided, but also understandable in this oh-so-confused day and age when it comes to nutrition.
I was an overweight vegetarian when I cut out desserts. That one simple step (stopping sugar) allowed me to lose the over 40 pounds I had been carrying around (and had been clueless to why exercise didn't make a dent in). Two years after this weight loss, I added meat--slowly at first, and now liberally--back into my daily food. Since this step, I have changed body composition in a more favorable way. Despite eating meat at almost every meal (now that I see how good it makes me feel), I don't gain a pound, I just get healthier and stronger. Every bit of the meat is from a local grassfed, pastured farm, or is wild caught seafood. I'm a complete stickler for that, and don't stray from those parameters.
I bought into that whole anti-meat propaganda for a long time, and I'll leave that for another post, but I want to comment on the pretty glaring flaws in Alton's lists. Here's a really great commentary by Jimmy Moore that covers this whole issue pretty well. I'd like to look at all of Alton Brown's four weight loss lists, one by one:
LIST ONE, EVERY DAY: Fruits, Whole Grains, Leafy Greens, Nuts, Carrots, Green Tea
Hmmm. We don't need to consume any of those every day. Not for health, or weight loss.
Fruits are certainly optional, they do have lots of phytonutrients but are, of course, fructose.
Whole grains. Hmmm. Why?? What? This is a tough one for people to get their mind around. Whole grains are very unhealthy. Of course you can still experience weight loss while eating them, as I did and Alton Brown did. But both of us were probably not too terribly metabolically deranged, and for both of us, the one step of cutting out the desserts was enough. I would like to say to Alton: People are very different. Just because the desserts thing worked for you and me, there are a lot of people for whom that would just not be enough. The hottest book in nutrition right now is Wheat Belly. No one, but no one is unharmed by gluten. Gluten is a very, very big deal...apparently Alton Brown has not heard of this? (talking way beyond just celiacs, here.) Gluten aside (please, please everyone take gluten seriously!!), all whole grains, even non gluten containing, are not a positive factor in health. One of the several antinutrients in grains is phytic acid.
Leafy Greens. Sure, they're great. After spending the last 2 years in the raw food movement...I read Victoria Boutenko's books and all the rest...I think they are slightly overrated, but good to eat. Just not necessary for weight loss in the slightest. Case in point: Someone could go on the GAPS diet, fully heal their gut, lose weight, and eat as much as they want of GAPS delicious food, and not eat leafy greens every day. To me, forcing them in every day would be a bit of overkill & wouldn't make them as enjoyable as, say, eating them when I feel like it...(what a concept!)
Nuts. Totally not necessary. I don't know what to say about this on a list of "what to include every day for weight loss" but WTF. That's all I got. WTF. Nuts are totally hard to digest. Is Alton Brown properly preparing these nuts? And even so, they're really really hard to digest!! Look, I just did raw food vegan for 2 years, and I never want to see a nut again :) I've made crackers out of nuts and seeds, pizza crusts, raw vegan bread, everything. I know nuts. Someone who is healthy can fit in a handful a day, but there are populations for whom the antinutrients in nuts are too problematic. Once we know that the phytic acid in the nuts removes minerals from our body as we digest it (not good for children!), we can seriously question how in the world this is recommended for weight loss? Oh wait, this doesn't even touch on the omega 6 content of nuts! Hello, omega 6 induced inflammation!? Not exactly recommended for weight loss!
Is Brown's motivation for including nuts daily for protein? Nuts provide a third rate protein, which doesn't even compare with meat. (Yes, I have heard the vegan arguments, and they're totally mythological). Another motivation Brown might have for adding them to the list is that they're convenient for snacking, and might help prevent someone from grabbing something less ideal, like a doughnut. That reason is the valid one, but there is definitely no need for someone to eat nuts daily to lose weight. In fact, quite the contrary.
Carrots. Again, WTF? Every day? This seems out of left field. I've never heard of this one. It just seems like he's going into some mythological realm of made up weight loss superstition. Unless, like nuts, they're something to snack on to avoid unhealthy choices. You neither need to avoid carrots for weight loss, nor to eat them every day, LOL, as recommended here.
Green Tea. Not necessary for weight loss.
Whew! Okay, LIST TWO, THREE TIMES A WEEK: Oily Fish, Yogurt, Broccoli, Sweet Potato, Avocado
Yeah, I can get behind this list. I eat all of those at least 3 times a week...if I counted, which I don't. I think it's worth noting that "yogurt" is a little vague. We could be talking pasteurized, factory farmed, GMO corn and soy eating, antibiotic, LOW FAT yogurt with crazy added ingredients, including tons of sugar! Or, raw milk from a local cow, inoculated with cultures, put in a glass jar, and let to sit in the dehydrator or other warm spot until sour. So, yeah, I don't think the first one is going to do much for weight loss. The second would be a weight loss dream come true. Both called "yogurt".
(Here comes the big WTF)
The last list is the Limit to Once a Week list.
LIST THREE: ONCE A WEEK: Red meat, Pasta, Desserts, Alcohol.
Red meat. WTF!!!
I know that there are a lot of people who believe this, as Alton Brown does, based on decades of faulty science and skewed studies. I suppose this could be a matter of debate, although in my nutrition study, the science is in and it's clear that grass fed red meat is not only a healthy food, but a very desirable source of nutrients. It seems obvious to me, so I won't spend any additional time explaining this, but will go on to the big question:
How in the world could limiting grass fed red meat to once a week be recommended for WEIGHT LOSS? Whatever your opinion is on whether we should eat red meat or not (we should), if we're talking weight loss, is there any question that eating it is not desirable? Actually, I guess for people who still believe in "artery-clogging cholesterol" maybe. But anyone can experience it for themselves, or look at others who try it, if they don't want to do that. Eat more red meat---without the bun, without the bread, without any grains with it...EVER...(sorry), and there will be weight loss. It's not even necessary to go into ketosis for this. IT'S NOT THE RED MEAT, EVERYONE!!
If I were making a to-do list for weight loss (and health), I would put "eat red meat" on the "try to eat at least 3 times a week list". No brainer.
Pasta. I see where he's going with this, once a week as a treat. That seems to work for him. I personally find it much easier to just cut it out 100%, but psychologically we all have to do what works for us.
Dessert. Same comment as for pasta.
Alcohol. I've found that craving for alcohol is really a sign showing us that we're deficient in nutrients, as explained by Julia Ross in the book The Diet Cure. (A book that cures us from dieting and gets our neurochemicals restocked!) So, as we heal, at least it's much easier to stick with one drink of alcohol per week. Since I've healed, I buy a bottle of wine about once every few months, and don't think about it otherwise, which is nice! So, yeah, I can get behind this recommendation by Alton Brown, but alcohol is especially hard to limit to one serving, as we basically, um..lose our judgement as a result of drinking it, ya know?
Fourth list...
NEVER! Fast Food, Soda, Processed meals/frozen dinners, Canned soup, “Diet” anything
Good list, I can definitely get behind Alton Brown there.
PLUS: Eat breakfast every day, no exceptions. Nice!! Crucial for weight loss. Wise Traditions Spring 2011 had a great big article on the importance of breakfast. Good stuff. BUT...again. There is a big difference between my breakfast of local eggs, local sausage, baked sweet potato covered in local grassfed butter and homemade sour cream, contrasted with some kind of grain and fruit based breakfast, when it comes to weight loss. You could follow Alton Brown's guidelines and have bread and fruit for breakfast, and that would be a whole different story for both your insulin levels (bread spikes it even higher than fruit!), your energy throughout the morning, and of course, the overall weight loss picture. Not to mention that you'd be hungry again in an hour. There should be a qualification about what kind of breakfast encourages weight loss, such as breakfast including animal protein and/or eggs; a traditional fat such as avocado, full fat dairy, or coconut; and optionally a side of fruit and/or vegetable.
So, how do people lose weight? NOT CUTTING CALORIES is an important start. Besides cutting out the junk (processed food, all grains, and sugar), adding nutrient dense food is key. The Paleo diet, going Primal, for those who like cheese with their Paleo :), or Weston A. Price with its "properly prepared" grains (better to just avoid them) would help just about anyone. However, we're all different. If you look at it from a "gut's-eye perspective" (did I just coin a new phrase? yeahh!!) and get down into the villi, the microvilli, the enterocytes, and the gut lining....really get into what's going on there and see what's happening from that perspective, we can see what needs to be done. For someone who needs gut healing first and foremost, the GAPS protocol would be a great place to start.
I'm tempted to take Alton Brown's ingredients and put them into my own list for weight loss. With a few of my own ingredients. There's a lot of shuffling around to do! Let's see...
DAILY:
- Animal Protein - grass fed beef, pastured chicken, pigs, etc, or wild caught seafood
- Bone Broth
- Traditional Fats- full fat coconut oil, homemade lard, tallow, bacon grease, full fat dairy unless intolerant or weight loss not working, avocado
- Vegetables: Broccoli, Sweet Potato, Carrots, Leafy Greens--can these 4 items from his lists just be combined into "vegetables"? Makes a bit more sense :)
ONCE a week, or try to limit:
- Nuts
- Alcohol
- Beans
NEVER:
- Whole Grains
- Pasta
- Dessert
- Soy
- Fast Food
- Soda
- Processed meals/frozen dinners
- Canned soup
- “Diet” anything
There you go! I guarantee that a large number of people who eat according to Alton Brown's lists would not see weight loss or long term improved health. I feel lucky that weight loss for me was as simple as it was, but I'm not so naive to think that such simplistic changes as cutting refined sugar (but leaving in grains and cutting down meat) would work for most people. Other important factors for weight loss/maintenance are getting more sleep and less stress, and ironically, not really exercise. (Bye, bye "Eat Less, Exercise More!!")
It's a very stunning weight loss, and actually I had the exact same weight loss (over 40 pounds) by doing the exact same thing that Alton Brown did: Cutting out desserts. Since I've lived this situation, I feel qualified to comment on his Four Lists, which are very misguided, but also understandable in this oh-so-confused day and age when it comes to nutrition.
I was an overweight vegetarian when I cut out desserts. That one simple step (stopping sugar) allowed me to lose the over 40 pounds I had been carrying around (and had been clueless to why exercise didn't make a dent in). Two years after this weight loss, I added meat--slowly at first, and now liberally--back into my daily food. Since this step, I have changed body composition in a more favorable way. Despite eating meat at almost every meal (now that I see how good it makes me feel), I don't gain a pound, I just get healthier and stronger. Every bit of the meat is from a local grassfed, pastured farm, or is wild caught seafood. I'm a complete stickler for that, and don't stray from those parameters.
I bought into that whole anti-meat propaganda for a long time, and I'll leave that for another post, but I want to comment on the pretty glaring flaws in Alton's lists. Here's a really great commentary by Jimmy Moore that covers this whole issue pretty well. I'd like to look at all of Alton Brown's four weight loss lists, one by one:
LIST ONE, EVERY DAY: Fruits, Whole Grains, Leafy Greens, Nuts, Carrots, Green Tea
Hmmm. We don't need to consume any of those every day. Not for health, or weight loss.
Fruits are certainly optional, they do have lots of phytonutrients but are, of course, fructose.
Whole grains. Hmmm. Why?? What? This is a tough one for people to get their mind around. Whole grains are very unhealthy. Of course you can still experience weight loss while eating them, as I did and Alton Brown did. But both of us were probably not too terribly metabolically deranged, and for both of us, the one step of cutting out the desserts was enough. I would like to say to Alton: People are very different. Just because the desserts thing worked for you and me, there are a lot of people for whom that would just not be enough. The hottest book in nutrition right now is Wheat Belly. No one, but no one is unharmed by gluten. Gluten is a very, very big deal...apparently Alton Brown has not heard of this? (talking way beyond just celiacs, here.) Gluten aside (please, please everyone take gluten seriously!!), all whole grains, even non gluten containing, are not a positive factor in health. One of the several antinutrients in grains is phytic acid.
Leafy Greens. Sure, they're great. After spending the last 2 years in the raw food movement...I read Victoria Boutenko's books and all the rest...I think they are slightly overrated, but good to eat. Just not necessary for weight loss in the slightest. Case in point: Someone could go on the GAPS diet, fully heal their gut, lose weight, and eat as much as they want of GAPS delicious food, and not eat leafy greens every day. To me, forcing them in every day would be a bit of overkill & wouldn't make them as enjoyable as, say, eating them when I feel like it...(what a concept!)
Nuts. Totally not necessary. I don't know what to say about this on a list of "what to include every day for weight loss" but WTF. That's all I got. WTF. Nuts are totally hard to digest. Is Alton Brown properly preparing these nuts? And even so, they're really really hard to digest!! Look, I just did raw food vegan for 2 years, and I never want to see a nut again :) I've made crackers out of nuts and seeds, pizza crusts, raw vegan bread, everything. I know nuts. Someone who is healthy can fit in a handful a day, but there are populations for whom the antinutrients in nuts are too problematic. Once we know that the phytic acid in the nuts removes minerals from our body as we digest it (not good for children!), we can seriously question how in the world this is recommended for weight loss? Oh wait, this doesn't even touch on the omega 6 content of nuts! Hello, omega 6 induced inflammation!? Not exactly recommended for weight loss!
Is Brown's motivation for including nuts daily for protein? Nuts provide a third rate protein, which doesn't even compare with meat. (Yes, I have heard the vegan arguments, and they're totally mythological). Another motivation Brown might have for adding them to the list is that they're convenient for snacking, and might help prevent someone from grabbing something less ideal, like a doughnut. That reason is the valid one, but there is definitely no need for someone to eat nuts daily to lose weight. In fact, quite the contrary.
Carrots. Again, WTF? Every day? This seems out of left field. I've never heard of this one. It just seems like he's going into some mythological realm of made up weight loss superstition. Unless, like nuts, they're something to snack on to avoid unhealthy choices. You neither need to avoid carrots for weight loss, nor to eat them every day, LOL, as recommended here.
Green Tea. Not necessary for weight loss.
Whew! Okay, LIST TWO, THREE TIMES A WEEK: Oily Fish, Yogurt, Broccoli, Sweet Potato, Avocado
Yeah, I can get behind this list. I eat all of those at least 3 times a week...if I counted, which I don't. I think it's worth noting that "yogurt" is a little vague. We could be talking pasteurized, factory farmed, GMO corn and soy eating, antibiotic, LOW FAT yogurt with crazy added ingredients, including tons of sugar! Or, raw milk from a local cow, inoculated with cultures, put in a glass jar, and let to sit in the dehydrator or other warm spot until sour. So, yeah, I don't think the first one is going to do much for weight loss. The second would be a weight loss dream come true. Both called "yogurt".
(Here comes the big WTF)
The last list is the Limit to Once a Week list.
LIST THREE: ONCE A WEEK: Red meat, Pasta, Desserts, Alcohol.
Red meat. WTF!!!
I know that there are a lot of people who believe this, as Alton Brown does, based on decades of faulty science and skewed studies. I suppose this could be a matter of debate, although in my nutrition study, the science is in and it's clear that grass fed red meat is not only a healthy food, but a very desirable source of nutrients. It seems obvious to me, so I won't spend any additional time explaining this, but will go on to the big question:
How in the world could limiting grass fed red meat to once a week be recommended for WEIGHT LOSS? Whatever your opinion is on whether we should eat red meat or not (we should), if we're talking weight loss, is there any question that eating it is not desirable? Actually, I guess for people who still believe in "artery-clogging cholesterol" maybe. But anyone can experience it for themselves, or look at others who try it, if they don't want to do that. Eat more red meat---without the bun, without the bread, without any grains with it...EVER...(sorry), and there will be weight loss. It's not even necessary to go into ketosis for this. IT'S NOT THE RED MEAT, EVERYONE!!
If I were making a to-do list for weight loss (and health), I would put "eat red meat" on the "try to eat at least 3 times a week list". No brainer.
Pasta. I see where he's going with this, once a week as a treat. That seems to work for him. I personally find it much easier to just cut it out 100%, but psychologically we all have to do what works for us.
Dessert. Same comment as for pasta.
Alcohol. I've found that craving for alcohol is really a sign showing us that we're deficient in nutrients, as explained by Julia Ross in the book The Diet Cure. (A book that cures us from dieting and gets our neurochemicals restocked!) So, as we heal, at least it's much easier to stick with one drink of alcohol per week. Since I've healed, I buy a bottle of wine about once every few months, and don't think about it otherwise, which is nice! So, yeah, I can get behind this recommendation by Alton Brown, but alcohol is especially hard to limit to one serving, as we basically, um..lose our judgement as a result of drinking it, ya know?
Fourth list...
NEVER! Fast Food, Soda, Processed meals/frozen dinners, Canned soup, “Diet” anything
Good list, I can definitely get behind Alton Brown there.
PLUS: Eat breakfast every day, no exceptions. Nice!! Crucial for weight loss. Wise Traditions Spring 2011 had a great big article on the importance of breakfast. Good stuff. BUT...again. There is a big difference between my breakfast of local eggs, local sausage, baked sweet potato covered in local grassfed butter and homemade sour cream, contrasted with some kind of grain and fruit based breakfast, when it comes to weight loss. You could follow Alton Brown's guidelines and have bread and fruit for breakfast, and that would be a whole different story for both your insulin levels (bread spikes it even higher than fruit!), your energy throughout the morning, and of course, the overall weight loss picture. Not to mention that you'd be hungry again in an hour. There should be a qualification about what kind of breakfast encourages weight loss, such as breakfast including animal protein and/or eggs; a traditional fat such as avocado, full fat dairy, or coconut; and optionally a side of fruit and/or vegetable.
So, how do people lose weight? NOT CUTTING CALORIES is an important start. Besides cutting out the junk (processed food, all grains, and sugar), adding nutrient dense food is key. The Paleo diet, going Primal, for those who like cheese with their Paleo :), or Weston A. Price with its "properly prepared" grains (better to just avoid them) would help just about anyone. However, we're all different. If you look at it from a "gut's-eye perspective" (did I just coin a new phrase? yeahh!!) and get down into the villi, the microvilli, the enterocytes, and the gut lining....really get into what's going on there and see what's happening from that perspective, we can see what needs to be done. For someone who needs gut healing first and foremost, the GAPS protocol would be a great place to start.
I'm tempted to take Alton Brown's ingredients and put them into my own list for weight loss. With a few of my own ingredients. There's a lot of shuffling around to do! Let's see...
DAILY:
- Animal Protein - grass fed beef, pastured chicken, pigs, etc, or wild caught seafood
- Bone Broth
- Traditional Fats- full fat coconut oil, homemade lard, tallow, bacon grease, full fat dairy unless intolerant or weight loss not working, avocado
- Vegetables: Broccoli, Sweet Potato, Carrots, Leafy Greens--can these 4 items from his lists just be combined into "vegetables"? Makes a bit more sense :)
ONCE a week, or try to limit:
- Nuts
- Alcohol
- Beans
NEVER:
- Whole Grains
- Pasta
- Dessert
- Soy
- Fast Food
- Soda
- Processed meals/frozen dinners
- Canned soup
- “Diet” anything
There you go! I guarantee that a large number of people who eat according to Alton Brown's lists would not see weight loss or long term improved health. I feel lucky that weight loss for me was as simple as it was, but I'm not so naive to think that such simplistic changes as cutting refined sugar (but leaving in grains and cutting down meat) would work for most people. Other important factors for weight loss/maintenance are getting more sleep and less stress, and ironically, not really exercise. (Bye, bye "Eat Less, Exercise More!!")
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Exploring Paleo
Just came across this page while researching paleo:
http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=69603
This is very freaking funny. Have been listening to podcasts...am obsessed with Robb Wolf's podcast, but also listening to tons of Healthy Skeptic podcast and Underground Wellness (the latter two also combined with some WAP). All are the best, but I'm totally addicted to Robb Wolf right now! The above thread might not make sense without having heard some Robb Wolf or some familiarity with the lifestyle :)
http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=69603
This is very freaking funny. Have been listening to podcasts...am obsessed with Robb Wolf's podcast, but also listening to tons of Healthy Skeptic podcast and Underground Wellness (the latter two also combined with some WAP). All are the best, but I'm totally addicted to Robb Wolf right now! The above thread might not make sense without having heard some Robb Wolf or some familiarity with the lifestyle :)
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A Former Vegan's Sunday morning thoughts
Ahh, just had a delicious breakfast of plantains cooked in lard (that I made myself--local Polyface pigs) and covered in Himalayan salt and sour cream (that I made myself-local grass fed cows). This was freaking delicious (duh!) but as I'm getting the hang of all this, I see that if I had had this as a side dish---rather than a main dish--with some meat, I would feel better and much more energy with which to start the day. My only barrier to adding more meat is habit and lack of knowledge about preparation. I still have lots to learn about cooking it, and am just not in the habit of buying enough of it yet. But oh when I eat it, it is SO nice to have energy!! And digestive ease!! This feedback loop of cause and effect will surely cause me to buy and fix more.
As I embrace Paleo, Weston A Price, and hopefully GAPS soon for some good healing...It seems like the whole world is going vegan/vegetarian en masse. It seems inescapable in a way I didn't notice while vegan/veg. Which is great, to each their own journey, live it up. This blog used to be called "RAW FOOD TRANSITIONS: Always Vegan, Always Sugar Free". Like until 5 minutes ago! Oh, and did I mention in this post that I was vegetarian for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!?? This actually used to be my vision board...to go to Tree Of Life raw vegan retreat center in Arizona!
This is a vision board, still sitting in the middle of my living room. In fact, today, Tree of Life just put out a facebook post "Dr. Cousens' free lecture starts NOW! Why Organic, Local Eggs and Dairy are Not a Health Food"! I would have listened, but couldn't due to the time, but no matter what his reasoning, I'm really not interested anyway. Especially as a mom, I am definitely feeding my child eggs and always did, even when I was vegan. And although dairy is questionable....egg yolks are most DEFINITELY a health food. (Although LOL you would think I would learn by now not to attach strongly to anything when it comes to nutrition. Actually, it seems from my studying, that people with autoimmune conditions, which result from a leaky, or permeable gut lining, do need to cut out eggs until that is healed.)
Being a former vegan is way different than living the life of most people who have never gone veg. I do everything differently; that is plain to me any time I go out & see people eating, anywhere. (example--I would never eat in a restaurant..I wouldn't know the farm the animals came from OR what kind of cooking oil was used!) I think vegans initially have great reasons, well actually-- let me change that to "motivations", for their choice. But Lierre Keith
pretty well explains why although purely motivated, the reasons are so faulty that the entire paradigm is not at all "reasonable". So, although going vegan makes sense at the time, the quicker one can move out and through it, the better for their health (and the environment, provided their choices are local & sustainable after stopping).
As I embrace Paleo, Weston A Price, and hopefully GAPS soon for some good healing...It seems like the whole world is going vegan/vegetarian en masse. It seems inescapable in a way I didn't notice while vegan/veg. Which is great, to each their own journey, live it up. This blog used to be called "RAW FOOD TRANSITIONS: Always Vegan, Always Sugar Free". Like until 5 minutes ago! Oh, and did I mention in this post that I was vegetarian for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!?? This actually used to be my vision board...to go to Tree Of Life raw vegan retreat center in Arizona!
This is a vision board, still sitting in the middle of my living room. In fact, today, Tree of Life just put out a facebook post "Dr. Cousens' free lecture starts NOW! Why Organic, Local Eggs and Dairy are Not a Health Food"! I would have listened, but couldn't due to the time, but no matter what his reasoning, I'm really not interested anyway. Especially as a mom, I am definitely feeding my child eggs and always did, even when I was vegan. And although dairy is questionable....egg yolks are most DEFINITELY a health food. (Although LOL you would think I would learn by now not to attach strongly to anything when it comes to nutrition. Actually, it seems from my studying, that people with autoimmune conditions, which result from a leaky, or permeable gut lining, do need to cut out eggs until that is healed.)
Being a former vegan is way different than living the life of most people who have never gone veg. I do everything differently; that is plain to me any time I go out & see people eating, anywhere. (example--I would never eat in a restaurant..I wouldn't know the farm the animals came from OR what kind of cooking oil was used!) I think vegans initially have great reasons, well actually-- let me change that to "motivations", for their choice. But Lierre Keith
pretty well explains why although purely motivated, the reasons are so faulty that the entire paradigm is not at all "reasonable". So, although going vegan makes sense at the time, the quicker one can move out and through it, the better for their health (and the environment, provided their choices are local & sustainable after stopping).
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
first time making lard
Now that it's all done (whew)... I can say that making lard is the easiest thing in the world, and so worth it! But it was intimidating the first time. Actually the first time I totally messed it up. Tried it again, and the second time I figured it out! Learning curve :)
I bought the pork fat from Polyface, and my only instructions were from here on their website. It started out just fine:
The problem I ran into was that these instructions said to continue cooking until the cracklings sink(by the way my husband calls them chicharrones and is very happy about them!) My cracklings never sank. So the first time, I turned up the heat (too much!) and ended up with a burnt situation, like this:
I realized it was wrong, no matter how dark & burned they got, they just never sank. Hmmm.. So I tried again, & it turned out beautifully. Low heat all along, lots of stirring, and stopped before they burned. Here's the first attempt (left) next to the good second batch (right):
I've been using it to cook with...morning eggs, apples with cinnamon, sausages...and it's beautiful. Love it!
BEST thing about home made lard, besides it being super healthy: this is WAY CHEAPER than coconut oil! Oh yeah, and way local-er. :)
Speaking of pigs, we went to a pig farm yesterday, actually the coolest pig farm of all time (too bad I didn't take pictures). Like 150 pigs on 75 acres, mostly woods. What an incredible tour. Thanks to Meet Yer Eats farm tour for that opportunity, here's their promo. The pig farmer gave an amazing tour all around the place. WOW, worth the drive. I think it was the farthest away farm in Meet Yer Eats, but I HAD to see the pigs!
I bought the pork fat from Polyface, and my only instructions were from here on their website. It started out just fine:
The problem I ran into was that these instructions said to continue cooking until the cracklings sink(by the way my husband calls them chicharrones and is very happy about them!) My cracklings never sank. So the first time, I turned up the heat (too much!) and ended up with a burnt situation, like this:
I realized it was wrong, no matter how dark & burned they got, they just never sank. Hmmm.. So I tried again, & it turned out beautifully. Low heat all along, lots of stirring, and stopped before they burned. Here's the first attempt (left) next to the good second batch (right):
I've been using it to cook with...morning eggs, apples with cinnamon, sausages...and it's beautiful. Love it!
BEST thing about home made lard, besides it being super healthy: this is WAY CHEAPER than coconut oil! Oh yeah, and way local-er. :)
Speaking of pigs, we went to a pig farm yesterday, actually the coolest pig farm of all time (too bad I didn't take pictures). Like 150 pigs on 75 acres, mostly woods. What an incredible tour. Thanks to Meet Yer Eats farm tour for that opportunity, here's their promo. The pig farmer gave an amazing tour all around the place. WOW, worth the drive. I think it was the farthest away farm in Meet Yer Eats, but I HAD to see the pigs!
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