Not what you think, this is NOT the Government Approved AMA Recommended diet advice.
Diabetes / Weight Problems
Mostly it says to cut out the carbs, and put in the vegetables & fats. There’s a whole lot of important detail beyond that in the videos, including the point that FAT is NOT bad for you. In fact, it is important to eat fat to reduce insulin resistance and thus reduce diabetes and weight gain.
In essence, this approach (used in this case by an M.D. treating her patients) is like a “Keto + Vegetables” diet, with strong reduction of all carbs (including that potato or yam…). While I suspect that for “regular folks” (as opposed to her Obesity Patients) we can have some whole grains and potatoes, the amounts would need to be modulated to reach the goal state. She also points out real Whole Grains with all their fiber intact might well be OK, but PRODUCTS labeled with “Whole Grain” often are “enhanced” with sugars and other “bad carbs”, so her direction to her patients is just “no grains”.
I stress that difference between an actual serving of 100% Whole Grain vs a product with some whole grain, and her patients vs us non-patients; for the simple reason that having had a bowl of “Whole Grain” oats with a Tbs of butter and a spoon of jam in it for breakfast for the paste week+ I am feeling less hungry all day long, eating less total calories, and I am significantly more “energetic” during the day. So clearly for me “some whole grains” works out rather well. Basically don’t take anything too far into the extremes and assert it is a 100% always Golden Rule. Measure and adapt to local and personal experiences.
“Reversing Type 2 Diebetes Starts With Ignoring The Guidelines” 18 minutes:
So this is a huge endorsement of the Keto / Meat diet approach to weight loss and control of diabetes, reduction of insulin resistance, and return to health.
In a set of longer videos I’m planning for a future posting, they use a diet with about 10% protein and the rest divided about 45% / 45% fats and carbs (by calories) to do some remarkable repair on systems. It will seem these two approaches are in conflict. They are not. Those videos are using a “Fasting Mimicking Diet” at about 1000 calories the first day, 700 for the next 4… At that level, your total carbs are so low it mimics a fasting period and you still enter ketogensis.
Those two, taken together, support my contention that The Problems arise when total carb intake per day exceeds calories burned. My assertion is just that my Grandfather, working before sunup to after sundown on an Iowa farm (with draft animals not tractors…) and running a small smithy during the mid-day was able to live into his 90s in good health WITH eating huge servings of pancakes, bread, grains, potatoes and cereals simply because he was burning up all those calories and then some every single day. A sedentary obese person will have far lower fuel demands and anything beyond that generates insulin, deposits fat, and paradoxically the insulin creates MORE hunger, not less.
So key points: Get your carbs significantly lower than your daily energy burn, increase your non-starchy vegetables, good (i.e. animal and mono-unsaturated) fats and have all the meat you want. Think BBQ chicken with a salad, mess-o-greens, and some buttered carrots or parsnips.
Cancer and Fat Storage
Then it turns out that angiogenisis is also important in weight gain, but more important in cancer development, and there are particular foods high in anti-angiogenic factors, so foods that can reduce the tendency to store fat and that can reduce cancer growth. (Potentially reversing it).
A fascinating talk. Partly as the list of food that are helpful, and often as effective as prescribed drugs, reads like a list of food we eat far less of now than in the past. (Unless you are fond of particular “ethnic” or older foods…) Not a lot of Boxed Mac and Cheese in the list. Lots of brassicas (kale, broccoli, cabbages, choi), berries, mushrooms, red wine / grape juice, and tea (so folk sin the UK who haven’t developed the coffee habit have an advantage here ;-)
“Can We Eat To Starve Cancer?” 20 minutes:
Here’s the list of foods he gives in the talk:
https://blog.ted.com/dr_william_lis/
Anti-angiogenic Foods List
For those without video, or preferring text, here’s a couple of links:
A List of Anti-Angiogenic Foods for a Cancer-Fighting Diet
Updated on August 2, 2018“Anti-angiogenesis” is the new buzzword in cancer research. Diets rich in so-called anti-angiogenic foods are attractive to those suffering from cancer or wanting to prevent the disease altogether. But what exactly is angiogenesis, why does it need to be avoided, and why should we all care about this?
[…]An Angiogenic Inhibitor Diet
Because of the expense of pharmaceutical angiogenesis inhibitors, coupled with their potential for negative reactions, researchers are turning towards studying foods which may provide some of the same benefits but without the side effects. As we will see below, there are a number of foods rich in antioxidants and anti-cancer properties that may not only help stop angiogenesis but may also prevent cancerous tumors from ever developing at all.
In his TED talk, Dr. William Li, founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, explains that certain foods can turn off the switch to cancer. He says,
“Mother Nature has laced a large number of foods, beverages, and herbs with naturally occurring inhibitors of angiogenesis.”
He goes on to say,
“The good news is that we can eat to starve cancer. Lots of foods contain naturally occuring inhibitors of angiogenesis, and many are even better than drugs for blocking angiogenesis.”
Li was a principal researcher in a 2011 study, published in the Journal of Oncology, showing the potency and value of an anti-angiogenic diet to prevent cancer.
It then links to that paper, here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3184418/
J Oncol. 2012; 2012: 879623.
Published online 2011 Sep 29. doi: 10.1155/2012/879623
PMCID: PMC3184418
PMID: 21977033
Tumor Angiogenesis as a Target for Dietary Cancer Prevention
William W. Li, * Vincent W. Li, Michelle Hutnik, and Albert S. ChiouAbstract
Between 2000 and 2050, the number of new cancer patients diagnosed annually is expected to double, with an accompanying increase in treatment costs of more than $80 billion over just the next decade. Efficacious strategies for cancer prevention will therefore be vital for improving patients’ quality of life and reducing healthcare costs. Judah Folkman first proposed antiangiogenesis as a strategy for preventing dormant microtumors from progressing to invasive cancer. Although antiangiogenic drugs are now available for many advanced malignancies (colorectal, lung, breast, kidney, liver, brain, thyroid, neuroendocrine, multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome), cost and toxicity considerations preclude their broad use for cancer prevention. Potent antiangiogenic molecules have now been identified in dietary sources, suggesting that a rationally designed antiangiogenic diet could provide a safe, widely available, and novel strategy for preventing cancer. This paper presents the scientific, epidemiologic, and clinical evidence supporting the role of an antiangiogenic diet for cancer prevention.
and several pages more…
That first article continues with food descriptions and lists:
Anti-Angiogenic Foods
Your mother probably told you to “eat your vegetables.” We all know that many vegetables are loaded with vitamins and nutrients important for our health. But the list of anti-angiogenic foods extends well past vegetables. Each category of anti-angiogenic foods listed below comes with its own set of micro-nutrients and healing properties which have been studied and determined to be beneficial in the fight against cancer and abnormal angiogenesis.What’s the connection between antioxidant and anti-angiogenic?
When you see that a food is rich in antioxidants, put it on your anti-angiogenic diet list. Antioxidants help inhibit angiogenesis, so enjoy your berries, dark chocolate, and nuts!
I’m all in for that dark chocolate bar with almonds in it ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 
E M You are on the ball. Basically this is the diet/ food I’ve been on for the past 2 years. Low, low sugar, lots of butter, olive oil, red meat, tuna, cheeses galore & lots of veggies. All good !
Just one quibble : avoid soy beans ! Unless they have been ‘fermented’. Eg Tempeh !
Thanks for this post, its very interesting. I am a grape grower and wine maker who lost my prostate to the scalpel about eight years ago. It was a big relief because it had got to the stage where a few drinks would result in a trip to hospital where a catheter would be inserted to drain fluid. Not much fun in that, even though the nurses seemed to be amused at my lack of embarrassment at enduring the procedure. When the bladder gets tight it really hurts.
A friend who is working in the cancer field asked me for Shiraz seeds, a potent source of antioxidants, more so than grape juice, skins or red wine. It’s easy enough to screen these away from the skins after pressing fermented red grapes. The trick is then to dry them in a food drier to take out the residual liquid that can support the rapid degradation that occurs when the seeds and skins are simply spread on soil or piled up as a residue.
So, I have a supply of seeds with a small portion of skin, that which passes the screen, all nicely dried out and stored in airtight containers. So far, they seem to be stable.
For medical use, via capsules in a bottle, the active ingredients can be extracted with a 60% alcohol solution. Then, you need to remove the liquid by evaporation under a vacuum, not something that is easy to do in a home kitchen.
My alternative approach is to reduce the seeds to a powder using a high speed blender and put a teaspoon of the powder in my oatmeal porridge taken for breakfast, with raisins for sweetness and milk and cream for smoothness.I figure that the stomach and the intestines can access what they need from this powder.
I reckon this dietary amendment has put a new spring in my 76 year old step.
So, once a year I have access to shiraz seeds? Anyone interested? To separate the seeds from the skins efficiently I need a trommel with a 5mm hole size. Anyone got one to sell?
Can anyone tell me whether dried ground seed is likely to be as good a source of antioxidants as the product of extraction with alcohol as a solvent?
Thanks very much for this posting, E.M.
This covers a lot of what has been kicked around here for well over a year here by the usual suspects.
If anyone recalls, I was stuck about a year ago with my daily blood sugar readings coming in at 130+ to 140+ no matter what I seemed to do. The collective wisdom here came up with enough things to try (aerobic exercise was one, h/t Larry L) and I finally got my daily readings down to the 115 +/- range.
Then most recently, we’ve been discussing the high fat low carb regime with veggies and whole grains. So – I can’t recall just how long ago – 6 or 8 weeks? – And I started eating much as Bill in Oz described.
I’ve lost 22 pounds since then and I will be breaking into the under 200 pounds range next week. Every few days it’s “Hey, another pound gone.” My daily sugar readings are around 105 now and as I hunt down the carbs that are sneaking in from old habits that I never really thought about, I expect to be below 100 fairly soon.
So, thanks for this posting, E.M. and thanks to all for the additional contributions. They did not fall on deaf eyes. (I wear hearing aids and can’t hear for squat, but I can read!)
@Erl Happ – I’d love to get my hands on some of your Shiraz seeds, but I suspect there would be all sorts of ‘splodey heads at our respective customs houses and there would be lots of paperwork. I hate paperwork, particularly government paperwork.
You might want to consider selling the seeds for a little boost to your mad money. It the U.S., nutritional supplements are basically unregulated, so long as you don’t make any claims that they will treat or cure any specific disease. It’s quite OK to point out that a product provides antioxidants, so long as you can show, if challenged, that yes, it provides antioxidants. It’s very much caveat emptor here when it comes to nutritional supplements.
@erl happ; your method of wash, cool dry and then grind the grapeseed as needed and digest,.sounds to me to be the way to get the best utilization of undamaged factors from the grapeseed. Any extra heating will break down the organic factors. Damage to the seed germ by grinding and then exposure to air will make the antioxidant value short lived, so immediate consumption is the best option. If the seed is undamaged the factors in the seed germ will last for years if kept dry, Many years if kept cool. And Oatmeal is an excellent diet addition to improved circulation.
As I have all of the needed things, this 73 year old may second your motion this fall with the years grape harvest / wine making…pg
@H.R. ; any dark red wine grape seed will work for this. Shiraz is an important Australian dark wine grape with a high concentration of these factors. Our next door neighbor is a producer of Organic wines. From time to time we have discussed this Grapeseed extraction…pg
There are times that The Internet just makes me Soooo happy. So huge a quantity of information, available with just a click or two and a couple of carefully chosen key words…
So in my semi-mis-spent youth I “dabbled” in M.J. for a year or so. Being highly technically inclined (artistic not so much…) I immediately began researching things. A visit to the University Library showed Acetone was a great solvent for THC. I developed the (nearly trivial) Instant Hash Oil Extraction. Basically, pack a beaker with M.J., pour in acetone. Let it soak about 5 minutes, pour out the (now very green) liquid. Let it evaporate and you have green hash oil. Let it evaporate on something, it becomes Majic Something. Only downside is that acetone is about as flammable as gasoline and needs to be kept well away from any ignition source. (Think nail polish remover).
That was my (minor) contribution to The Drug Culture… and then I got tired of the mental reduction that came with it and “moved on”…
So of course, in the discussion of Grape Seed Extract, my thoughts turned immediately to acetone. It is available by the gallon at the hardware store. Evaporates completely to nothing very very fast. It is relatively cheap. You CAN and DO metabolize it (just don’t get too much in you… it doesn’t stay in the final product, but drinking it, soaking your hands in it or breathing a whole lot fumes will get some into you.)
So I did a DuckDuckGo search on “Grape seed acetone extraction” and got:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pca.2800060509
So there you go…
@p.g. – Thanks. I was thinking of putting in a grape arbor as a ‘sort of’ fence between our property and the neighbors. It would be useful and afford both of our households some visual privacy as I had to take out the sand cherries two years ago that were doing that job.
And I’d get the grapes :o)
Earl, I wonder if the stuff which is doing you good is found in the red wine you are producing ?
And I missed one component of my diet : fruit – lots of apples, pears, mandarins, plums, nashis etc..
Not so much grapes unless processed to wine :-)
@Bill in Oz, you and I seem to be on very much the same page. Maybe it’s the climate! My diabetes makes me avoid all the carbs, even in green leafy veg, but I have felt no ill-affects. I take two teaspoons of psyllium husk night and morning to keep my fibre up, and I don’t want to change that because it doesn’t seem to do any harm (rather the reverse). Psyllium husk IS carb, but since it is not absorbed by the body, it doesn’t count – it is just fibre. I have ulcerative colitis, and I want to keep that end running smoothly, if you know what I mean.
In Australia at least, you can buy psyllium husk from the same place you buy stock feed – what we call the produce store. Much cheaper than supermarkets and pharmacies. Doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. Neigh, not at all [joke].
So what I was getting at is that that leaves me tea and red wine. So glad as I drink plenty of both.
One more thing, I have a pick-your-own strawberry farm very close to where I live and I would stop every week and get fresh strawberries in season for my wife when she was dying of cancer. The owners, salt-of-the-earth country people would give me extra because they swore it was a cure, or at least slowed down progress of cancer. Just saying. Of course we don’t know if it made any difference, but at the very least it made her happy.
You guys can have your Sawdust and Kale. My Lady and I just had Strawberry/Blackberry Cobbler,, fresh from our berry patch, for this evening Desert! 8-q yum !…pg
Sawdust ? Bugger me ! Who’s eating sawdust here ? I have lots of sawdust on the paths of my garden beds as weed suppressors… But eating it ? Now that would take a real dose of culinary idiocy..
BTW, I wonder if ulcerative colitis is caused by a nasty microbe in the gut.Ceratinly stomach ulcers are caused by an acid resistant bacteria..( Heliobactor Pyolori ? ) so a dose of prescription anti-biotics is now the normal cure.
if this is the case, the psyllium is helping by discouraging the microbes involved and encouraging beneficial ones.
Just a thought !
I’m with you on the sawdust, might be a bit of bone in the beef I eat but that’s it.
Ulcerative colitis is, I believe, hereditary, as my brother also has it. Mind you, he lives in KL and eats local so who’s surprised? My bad flare up as CAUSED by antibiotic I took for my cellulitis. [No ladies, not cellulite] look at the Wikipedia page, the image is just about what I had. Flucloxycillin if you are interested.
I started taking probiotics just in case Bill, again, they seem to have done no harm, so I have stuck with them. They do seem to reduce the, how can I put this politely? Aromatics. I know, TMI.
I eventually saw a gastrenterologist who correctly told me it was just inflammation and put me on Prednisolone cortico-steroid. Fixed in 3 days, but I still have a couple of weeks tapering off the dose. It was like the Governor had sent through a reprieve from death row! I have my life back.
Thanks for the suggestions though, it’s the sort of thing I expect on this blog. Lots of positivity.
On an absolute tangent, my gastroenterologist is from Iran. A charming, intelligent and thoughtful man. He seems unimpressed with either side. I like Scott Adam’s take – they are just developing bargaining chips in preparation for negotiations, ‘cos they have none at the moment.
Well, P.G., you only get to gloat a little while. As Strawberries are one of the things that does very well in a hydroponic system, I intend to have them in an indoor grow soon enough. (Outdoors I’ve not done well as the slugs and birds got most of them).
So just you wait. Soon enough I’ll be telling you I had fresh strawberries in winter… yeah, real soon now… any day… er year… ;-)
LOL… Sawdust ! LOl probably better for us Humans to consume rather the Sugars! But you only live twice, so a bit in moderation from time to time is a nice treat. Generally I eat meat and vegetables and try to avoid sugar and simple starches as they are somewhat toxic to me. Really tough to do when you are addicted to food…pg
Per Ulcerative Colitis:
I think it is in the other set of videos (posting in queue a few days out) or maybe it was one that I didn’t mark… There was a statement that the Gut is nourished by bacteria that break down soluble fibre. Mess up the bacteria balance, you get gut issues. Don’t eat enough soluble fibre, the bugs don’t make the food that prevents the leaky gut by nourishing the gut. Then the immune system of the gut gets exposed to all the ‘stuff” in it, you get a load of inflammation, and things go down hill pronto.
I know it sounds gross, but there are now “fecal matter transplants” where they take “the bug farm” (so to speak) from health people and put it in those with big issues and it clears up some set of them. ( For the specifics, you will need to “Dig Here!” as I was not paying close attention… well, really, trying NOT to think about it… or picture anything…
I’ll see if I can find it again… but it was very important to have enough fibre to keep the bugs happy… and our modern highly processed food diet does not supply it. IIRC, they recommended things like leaves as low carb + fiber.
Also, watch out for “Familial Incidence” being called “hereditary”. Families often eat the same stuff, drink the same water, have similar exposure to environmental contaminants, have similar habits (coffee / tea / smoking) etc. etc. It is often the case that things originally thought hereditary were just Familial Incidence….
One of the key bits I’ve come to appreciate is how important it is to keep the gut happy and not leaky. All sorts of ills come from mishandling that (and the regular diet in the USA pretty much guarantees doing it wrong for the gut…)
I think there may have been something in the Fasting Mimicking Diet videos related to UC as well… That it tended to reset {something}… Guess that set is going to be done sooner than planned as now it bugs me that I don’t remember where it was ;-)
Re keeping one’s gut happy:
Long story short, I avoid tap water (because of the chloramine–a combination of chlorine and ammonia–they now use to treat it). Instead, I prefer to use well water from a co-worker’s farm, spring water, or (in a pinch) any bottled water except Dasani. It’s just tap water from Atlanta.
Also, I normally take these two probiotics daily:
1. Yakult (originated in Japan)
2. PB8 (recommended by a friend’s “Indian doctor” during the 5-month wait to see a physician about an acute “lady problem” 3 years ago)
I also try to consume a variety of probiotic/prebiotic-containing foods because I’ve read that having a large variety of microorganisms in the gut (both so-called “good” and “bad” bugs) is best; and it’s to have them in balance so one side doesn’t take over everything.
One thing that surprised me at how much it helps normalize BMs is organic iceberg lettuce. Who knew?!?
Oh, I also avoid artificial sweeteners because they are germicidal. BTW, it turns out that Glyphosate kills plants because it kills the “good bugs” in the soil that help them take in nourishment, preferentially allowing the “bad bugs” to kill the plants. If the soil is sterile, however, it doesn’t work. Since it kills off those “good” soil-based organisms, it also messes with our microbiome. It was originally patented as an antibiotic and chelator. Dr. Stephanie Seneff has had papers published that explain the mechanism.
Needless to say, I try real hard to avoid taking antibiotics; I try to avoid killing off my “bugs”. From what I can tell, the “good bugs” help keep the “bad bugs” in check. They also help keep the immune system working as it should. That’s why I think there is an advantage to eating organic produce. I know there is some talk of how the standards have been bastardized and “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean there are no chemicals used on them, but I think it is true enough of the time to make it worth trying.
Thanks for the advice, I remember your post about faecal transplants, and I wouldn’t be completely opposed no matter how yucky, but Good Dr, Safa has fixed me at the moment. I am already on a 16/8 intermittent diet. Really only one meal a day at midday, then homemade beef broth in the evening before 20:00. It has helped reduce the blood glucose. I personally find high protein and fat, low carb very satisfying so it is not a problem. I also seem to have a high boredom threshold when it comes to food, which helps.
@Power Grab, I was thinking along your lines that water may have something to do with it. I am on rainwater off the roof and birds/possums do unspeakable things to it. The tank has been there almost 30 years and never been cleaned out. I was just about to terrify myself by having it tested when I was cured, so it will now go without testing until the next scare/flare or my demise.
Not only does the water taste great, but it lathers up wonderfully so I need less.
@ andysaurus re rainwater:
I have never used a water supply like that. However, one time we lived in a house that had a minimal water supply from a shallow well. We ran it dry the first week we lived there. DH primed it by pouring in water from a nearby pond, then poured a bottle of Clorox into it. I couldn’t bring myself to drink it after that.
My friend’s well has served them well for decades. I reckon they run it through a filter on its way to the tap. It’s always crystal clear. The spring water i used is purchased at the store. I’ve heard of sources here and there where a person drives up and brings their own jugs to fill. I’ve never sought them out, though.
@PowerGrab:
One of the odd bits I had to get used to was that in the OutBack of Australia, the houses all have these giant tubs up on stilts (about 5 to 10 M diameter). When (IF?) it rains, that water is collected in the tank.
Then you life off of it for the next year (or two … or…) until it rains again.
It really isn’t any different from having rain run off your roof, across the yard, and end up in your pond. Only there usually are not any fish in it ;-)
Well Water is a good idea, but only if you have a water table you can reach. In much of the dry interior of Australia, that doesn’t exist. It’s harvest rainwater and save it, or don’t live there.
For “emergency survival” there’s a technique of digging two holes. One shallow and one deeper. With some dirt in between them. Then dirt water from the shallower one seeps through the dirt into the deeper one. Along the way it gets cleaned by the soil.
This work especially well next to a creek or pond. Dig a hole a few feet back from the edge of a dirty muddy body of water and get cleaner water in the hole. Clean enough? Depends on the details of water, soil, and distance.
For most inland wells, that’s a long distance and the water is pretty clean. For water deep enough to be in ancient sands, it can be some of the cleanest around. For shallow water in farm country, it can be very high in nitrates from fertilizer use.
I once hand dug a 14 foot well with my Dad. We had 4 foot of water in the bottom of it. Used it to water the garden so the nitrate level was a “feature”. It was very clean and sweet water, so I’m not sure it had much nitrate in it anyway ;-)
The major thing you are trying to filter out is bacteria (using the soil as a biologically active filter). This works pretty well in most cases of wells. Personally, I’d have boiled the prime water and not bothered with the bleach…
Then again, I grew up swimming in ditches, ponds, and canals, so I’d as likely just drunk the pond water and not cared…. (“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”… or gives you the trots ;-)
My tank is in-ground, so if there is no power for the pump – no water (or use a bucket). It’s a 10,000 gallon tank though and I live in the sub-tropics so I get plenty of rain most years. I also have an 80 foot borehole if it gets too low, a bit full of iron, but potable. It only takes a bit of rain on my large roof to fill the tank.
Anyway, having been born in England, we reputedly don’t wash, so it lasts a long time. Australian Joke:
Q. Where does an Englishman hide his money?
A. Under the soap.
Did you get that earth filter idea from “Two Little Savages” by Earnest Thompson Seton? My favourite book as a young teen.
An interesting and readable summary of the ways we might have evolved to make use of fruit and veg to protect ourselves against cancer:
By David Archibald, who often contributes to WUWT.
Genius US dentist Weston A. Price figured much of this early last century, and so much more by understanding dental issues first :
https://www.westonaprice.org/about-us/dr-weston-a-price-movietone/
@AndySaurus:
Sadly, no, not from that book. But from various “Survival” books bought decades back, and recently it’s been showing up in YouTube videos.
@Paul & Julian:
There’s another YouTube by another M.D. that also claims to “cure diabetes” with diet. His approach is more vegetarian / vegan but with restrictions on sugars and seed oils. It also seems to work. I’ll see if I can find the video again and post a link.
What intrigues me is that you can go to either end; All Meat & non-Starch vegetables or All Vegetables & low sugar / oils and end up at the same basic result.
Which causes me to think that maybe it is all JUST the sugar and seed oils. Seed oils are largely fatty acid types we did not evolve to process in more than trivial amounts. We’re set up for lots of saturated fats (animal fats) and traces of plant oils in seeds. Similarly, sugar (especially Fructose) functions as a “Fall Fruit Harvest – Fatten up for winter NOW!” signal, even in species as diverse as tropical fruit eating fish and Canadian bears.
So what dominates the current American Diet? High FRUCTOSE corn sugar (in just about everything…) and sucrose that is 1/2 fructose in everything else sweet, and the almost total substitution of seed oils high in Omega-6 and sometimes Omega-9 long chain fatty acids for shorter chain saturated fatty acids (along with reduction of Omega-3 fatty acids as we’ve moved away from things like eating canned sardines, herring sandwiches, using Cod Liver Oil for home remedies, moved our cattle from a grass diet to seeds, etc.)
So maybe, just maybe, what we really need to do is as simple as just going back to eating whole plants, even an intact non-processed potato or yam, and naturally fed animal products. Dump the sugars and refined starches and seed oils. Might that be the real common denominator?
FWIW I’m basically doing something like that on a small scale. I’ve always tended to cook with intact ingredients and not use too much packaged processed stuff (other than when in a hurry or for prepper stores).
I’ve recently moved us from “polyunsaturated oil” to a mix of coconut, olive, and butter. The last step is still “in progress” in that I’ve got a jug of Canola that has mostly been used for baking cakes and cookies along with deep frying. When it is used up (about a month) it will be replaced with either NON-homogenized LARD or Beef Tallow. A story on that:
I went looking for how hard is it to find just tallow. The local High End Neighborhood Safeway store had a pint jar for $9. Really. Designer tallow…. Who knew? So no, I’m not paying $9 / jar for beef “pan drippings”… Went to Smart & Final (who have a lot of restaurant supplies). In their fats department they had a dozen different kinds of “frying oil” and “shortening”. Included was a $38 “cube” of beef tallow ( 50 pounds…) and a similar $34 cube of Lard without any homogenized anything in it. They also had Palm Oil and a few other choices. So I’ve found my source for relatively inexpensive frying oil / fat / shortening that is NOT a seed oil nor “hydrogenated”. But I now need to set up to use canning to preserve it in 2 or 3 pound chunks…
I’ve canned lard before just to do a proof of concept and it worked well. But before I buy a 50 lb cube of fat I want to make sure I’ve got it exactly right ;-) Since candles were made of tallow in the 1700s and earlier, it may be as simple as just pour it into a jar and put a lid on it ;-)
But yes, folks like Weston and others have regularly told us to just step away from the Modern Western Diet… So maybe it’s time to do so…
FWIW, I’ve gotten quite fond of my morning bowl of oats with a spoon of jam and pat of butter in it. Today I started adding 1 Tbs of ground Flax Seed Meal for the increase in Omega-3 fatty acids it offers. We’ll see how that does. I’ve also got a bag of Chia seeds that are similarly used (or will be once I open the bag ;-)
So where we are headed is this:
A lot more fish & birds and mammal meat (especially grass fed lamb)
A lot more leaves and other non-starch vegetables. Raw or simple cooked
As low as possible seed oils, polyunsaturated oil, processed plant oils except:
More Olive Oil and Palm Oil and Coconut oil (tropical short chain saturated fat oils)
Cut refined flours to the minimum (easy for me, but getting the spouse off baked goods like cookies and cakes will be very hard…) Perhaps investigate whole flours.
We already avoid most packaged foods so that’s not much of a change.
Leave the white rice in the emergency storage and use the brown rice instead.
Try to move the spouse to more coarse whole wheat breads…
Moderation in all things starchy including grains and beans and tubers.
Well see how that goes and adjust as needed. There will be changes. Things like finding out how to make my own Saffron Rice using brown rice instead of the packaged white rice base.
So it goes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallow
Says it keeps for months in a jar… at least that’s my interpretation of “extended periods”…
While this is a fascinating thread on storing fats AND storing meat under fats:
https://permies.com/t/2258/kitchen/preserving-meat-crock-lard-fat
More “old ways” to remember… so in a power out emergency, the meat in the fridge / freezer can be cooked slowly then packed under the rendered fat and preserved for weeks to months…
Something to research more…
Healthcare & nutrition … “we’re being murdered …”
free streaming from now until July 25, 2019
“The Big Secret”
The history of Rockefeller medicine – 73mins
https://vimeo.com/180448441
Example of meat preserved with fat in an air tight container is Indian Pemmican.
meat, and seeds pounded to powder and mixed with fat the rolled up in a ball and placed inside an air tight container (sort of like sausage created with dried meat).
https://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/how-to-make-pemmican-a-survival-superfood-that-can-last-50-years/
A bit more on Pemmican (does a diet entirely of pemmican sound a lot like recent fad diets?)
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-make-pemmican/
HR
“I hate paperwork, particularly government paperwork.”
Ain’t the “paperocracy” wonderful?
If you want to depend on traditional nourishment, I recommend this cookbook:
One of the things I learned from reading not only this book, but also many articles on this site:
http://www.westonaprice.org
was that phytates need to be neutralized. Soaking is a traditional way of doing that. Phytates are largely found in the outer layer of seeds, grains, and nuts. Cultures that eat large amount of seeds have learned that they stay healthier if they soak them before cooking with them.
Phytates bind with the minerals in our food and our bodies and carry them away. If you get too low in minerals, it can cause serious problems. If I hadn’t known about phytates, I wouldn’t have been able to cure my trigeminal neuralgia (a/k/a “the suicide disease”) without resorting to surgery or meds (which probably wouldn’t have really fixed the problem anyway), or even darkening the door of a neurologist (which was the thing 2 dentists recommended).
I don’t want to write the entire story right now. Several factors happened at the same time and made it into a Perfect Storm, as it were. The pain from trigeminal neuralgia was worse than childbirth.
When I started researching what nutritional factors might help cause/cure trigeminal neuralgia, “low minerals” kept coming up as a cause. As it so happened, I was not only taking a phytate supplement, but I frequently munched organic blue corn tortilla chips instead of leaving my desk for a meal. It turned out that corn has one of the highest levels of phytates.
So I made some changes. Among them was getting off the chips and switching from whole grain breads to real sourdough bread. That was to help reverse the “low mineral” status.
And, curiously enough, the best pain killer I found was taking 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt, followed by a glass of water. Sea salt has more minerals in it than just sodium chloride. The additional trace minerals must have been just what I needed. OTC pain killers were practically useless. The pain lasted about 45 minutes each time it flared up (hot and cold food triggered the pain), and the OTC pain killers couldn’t have been expected to work until 45 minutes had passed, so I figure they were useless. A couple of homeopathic remedies were better than OTC pain killers, but the sea salt protocol was the best. Here is a web site about using sea salt and water to kill pain:
http://www.watercure.com
The author has several books out. The first one I read was “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water”.
E.M.
Re “So just you wait. Soon enough I’ll be telling you I had fresh strawberries in winter… yeah, real soon now… any day… er year… ;-)”
I heard an interview recently on home gardens which included grafting various apple varieties on one root stock to lengthen yield time from about one month to about 8. Subject to the out-door hazards though.
@All, Here is my fave microwave breakfast Fritatta, great flavor, filling and ‘sticks to the ribs’:
Ingredients:
4 Frozen ‘Walmart “Great Value”‘ Italian Meatballs. Calories 120, 80 from fats. 2G sugars, 10G Protein.
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
A chunk of onion
1 whole egg
Handful of taco cheese
Handful of fresh spinach leaves
2 slices bacon
Preparation:
– Place the meatballs in the bottom of a microwave safe bowl. Anything larger than a standard Corele cereal bowl will do.
– Cover the meatballs with the mushrooms and the chunck of onion.
– Fold a piece of bacon in the middle, and place it flat across the top of the other ingredients. Do the same with the other piece of bacon, and place flat at right angles to the first piece.
– Place a napkin over the top to contain splatters
– Place the bowl in a cloth trivet or bowl holder for easy removal
Cook: 3 minutes on high.
Prep 2nd Step:
– Remove the bowl from the microwave, and dispose of the napkin
– Break an egg into the bowl
– Sprinkle the taco cheese over the mixture
– Stir the mixture until everything in the bowl is wet with egg
– Put the handful of spinach leaves on top
– Microwave for 2-3 minutes. 3 mins will melt the cheese more, and eke more fat out of the bacon.
Final prep: Remove the bowl carefully (now, very hot) from the microwave, and with a fork, fold the ingredients in on themselves, mixing the bacon fat, cooked egg bits, gooey cheese, the spinach and the other vegs together thoroughly.
Enjoy! Especially good with a couple handsful of berries (Straw, black, blue, rasp) as a chaser to round out the meal.
“andysaurus says:
22 July 2019 at 9:01 am ”
And “As dry as a Pommie’s towel”
I recently noticed that as I tried to cut back on soda pop (coke) and switched to water, the water was not all that satisfying until I remembered some obscure mention in something I read that one of the reasons water does not satisfy thirst is the body is really trying to get salts and other dissolved minerals in water that you would get in the wild. I also recalled our discussions about low salt diets and that low salt regimes have higher death rates than moderate salt intake diets.
Soda pop (colas) tend to flush out minerals like potassium, in fact some folks who have died while drinking excessive cola consumption died due to critically low blood stream potassium.
So I tried putting a pinch of normal NaCl salt and the Morton light salt (high in KCl) in the bottle of water. It actually tasted better than straight tap water, seemed to satisfy better and be “more filling” than plain water.
It made it much easier to cut down my daily intake of cola soda pop consumption.
@Larry when I’m intermittent fasting (not much… I fall off the wagon a lot), I use a dash of salt in a glass of water to quash any hunger pangs.
Doing intermittent fasting is part of why I was switching to water instead of cola.
Same experience, salted water is much better at killing hunger and not stimulating additional demand for water.
Add just enough salt that you can barely taste it it has a mineral flavor but does not taste “salty”.
6th International Conference Diabetes Treatment and research warmly welcomes each one of the individuals and supporters from worldwide to attend during October 16-17, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada which will emphasize on the theme “Convergence of Diabetes Management and Primary Healthcare” This Congress will serve an excellent experience and opportunities to enhance one’s career. This conference is focused on all the major fields of Diabetes researches It provides a platform for researchers/scientists to share and globalize their research work while the participants from industry can promote their products thus felicitating dissemination of knowledge. We anticipate participants around the globe with thought provoking keynote lectures, oral and poster presentations.
https://www.meetingsint.com/conferences/diabetes-research
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