The Quest for Nutritional Truth

Why I Eat the Way I Eat

Editorial note: this essay originally published January 5th 2010. My thinking has evolved over the past 14 years, but fundamentally this is still mostly what I believe and how I eat. An animal heavy paleo/primalish diet that avoids gluten grains and seed oils like the plague. I’ve watched a lot of people get fat, sick, and die since 2010. Don’t be one of them. Eat healthy, take care of yourself, live a long life.

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At this point, I’ve tried writing this post over half a dozen times. I’ve promised it for so long, I’ve decided to finally hammer it out, no matter the cost. I feel good though. My head is clear, and I’ve done enough writing lately that I feel I can organize my thoughts clearly, logically, and passionately.

Let’s begin by analyzing why this post has been so hard to write for me.

In short, “nutrition” is an important topic to me. It’s something I have been heavily interested in for many years now, have spent a lot of time (as in hundreds, if not thousands of hours) reading about, and had many different experiences as I tried nearly everything under the sun that caught my attention in the field.

We could summarize all that as, I’ve invested a lot personally into the subject – both intellectually, and in real life actions taken.

But, it doesn’t end there. The second reason it’s taken me so long to write this post, is that I understand just how deeply the way we eat permeates the rest of our lives.

And what’s more, I’ve seen dietary choices affect those I love most.

Many people scoff at the idea (including many Md’s) that nutrition can affect serious dis-eases, including cancer. Diet is a distant second behind conventional medicine and treatments, and often, even the severely abused term “exercise” is a step above dietary choices for health issues such as obesity and heart disease.

Paradoxically, it plays such a vital role in many cases, that it makes conventional medicine/treatment borderline irrelevant. Artificially meddling with “cholesterol levels” via statins being a prime example.

And in the case of my best friend, who died of cancer barely a year ago, the lack of proper nutrition literally caused his treatments to kill him, after transforming his once visibly health body, into something akin to a walking skeleton.

I actually watched him eat copious amounts of brownies, shark bites, various candies and other pastries, not two weeks before his death. He was literally ravenous for carbohydrate – carbohydrate that was feeding his ever faster spreading cancer – which baffled his doctors.

But why was this baffling? His doctors knew that there was a high chance of his cancer spreading and growing to other organs after “treatment”. You would think they would recommend removing the source of nutrients cancer would need to grow further and spread to other organs – nutrients that your body literally does not require for health.

It makes perfect sense, but of course, this was never mentioned to him, either due to ignorance or unwarranted skepticism to other medical doctors who have been shouting for far too long in a room full of sheeple.

Which brings us to our next point – can a 21 year old* possibly know more about the practical application of proper nutrition than thousands of medical doctors, the United States government, and state licensed dietitians?

The answer to this question will surprise some, and be completely obvious to others (I’m doubting there will be many people in between).

Yes.

*I’m willing to bet the majority of readers on this very blog know more than the mentioned “experts” and institutions – and not because they read this blog, but because they are constantly thinking for themselves and doing their own research on the critical issue of nutrition (among others I imagine).

It’s not a matter of who knows “more” either, as some may assume. Regarding real life application of eating properly, it is a black and white matter. Mass consensus from those in positions we view as having authority, is not “wrong” in a harmless or neutral sense – they are wrong on a level that is detrimental to your (and those who are close to you) immediate well being, life expectancy, functional ability, daily energy, and virtually any aspect of life you can even remotely link to the term “health”, and even on a societal level (think of the far reaching effects of childhood obesity and diabetes).

All the same applies to “exercise”. While I don’t claim to know everything, I can tell you that the consensus from those in positions of fame and authority is detrimental to all of the same points listed above. People like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Horton, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, and your family doctor, spout off information that is at best a waste of time, and more often than not, literally harmful to your body.

This is not to attack of those people personally, as I imagine they are all well intentioned (and truly believe in what they say). Never the less, the information they provide is essentially useless on the topic of exercise (and nutrition), and as the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

The knee-jerk response to this is often times a defense of those we look up to, likely due to a personal investment in the advice given by those celebrities/persons of status. Some may even say this is conspiracy nonsense.

To think that the US government does not have my personal health in their interests? And that “fit” and “cut” celebrities give advice that is not only useless, but harmful? And my doctor?

“Please, this guy must be nuts.”

The reality is that this is not a conspiracy, of course. It’s simply human psychology and errors in thinking/observation on a grand scale.

Celebrity A does X workout program for Y movie. Celebrity A looks “ripped” in Y movie, therefore his actions must be the direct source of his success.

Of course, this is not true. Correlation does not equal causation, and disregarding the infinite number of other variables during X workout program is simply insane.

In the case of doctors and licensed dietitians, the situation is more a matter of reading nutritional dogma for many years and never being exposed to an opinion that counters the accepted norm. Combine that with not wanting to risk one’s self financially by deviating from the prescribed norm, and you have self perpetuating sheeple thinking being distributed like candy on Halloween.

Some may still have a problem with listening to a 21 year old without a college degree over their doctor who has been through many years of schooling. To those people, I ask you not to listen to me, but to yourself. Think critically about the current state of affairs in the United States.

Our health and physical shape is literally falling apart (please visit your local Super Wal-Mart for visible examples).

Does the answer really lie in the information the masses present? Have we really just not listened to the (mystical) information that is presented with biased, shady, or no science at all to back it?

Is it wise to ignore our own contradictions regarding health, nutrition, and exercise?

My favorite being that physical activity “works up an appetite”, yet “exercise” somehow makes you thin (random physical activity does not equate to “exercise”).

My personal experiences, research, and applied logic, have resulted in a resounding NO to these questions. While specifics of “proper nutrition” may differ from opinion to opinion, I believe all individuals who strive to think rationally and are willing to deviate from the norm, will also come to the same conclusion – that most everything popular, is wrong.

In the case of our dietary choices (and exercise choices), everything popular is really, really, wrong.

What is “food”?

Relax, we’re getting to the good part =).

What is food I ask?

It seems to be a term few (if any) have tried to define, or even contemplated defining. Much like the terms “health”, “fitness”, and even “exercise”.

We all have our individual definitions of these terms, even if they are unconscious and never actively thought about (I will assume this is most people any of us have ever met).

The assumed definition most people have for “exercise” as an example, is any sort of random physical activity. By this definition, flicking on a light switch would be considered exercise. This sounds ridiculous of course, but I kid you not – this is where the unspoken logic behind this definition points.

Some may add that “anything that makes you sweat” should be considered exercise (I imagine someone like Tony Horton would say such a thing along with other fitness “gurus” and “celebrities”). Of course this logic would also include defecating in a moderately warm environment.

Of course, no one wants to discuss these unconscious assumptions and double standards for our collective logic on these concepts, but indeed, this is where they point.

All the same applies to the term “food”. I imagine most would be quick to define food as “anything that humans or animals eat”.

Yeah, this sounds pretty good…right?

Of course, this is also false. Your favorite book is not food for your dog, and Elmer’s glue is not food for children in pre-school.

“But of course not, it has to be something nutritious”

That little addition however, solves nothing. I imagine most people could eat some loose leaf paper or cardboard, and get by without any life threatening problems. And of course, there will be some “nutrients” in those items.

Most people will comprehend that that those items are not “food”, that I must be joking. However, I am not. Welcome to the world of processed foods, grain, corn, wheat, soybeans, the oils of these plants, and to a slightly lesser extent, the vast majority of legumes (beans).

I equate these things to cardboard (some processed foods may be excluded however as that is a bit of an over generalization, pemmican I purchased recently being an example).

In some cases tasty, and attractive looking cardboard – but the dietary equivalent of cardboard none the less. They literally have zero place in the human diet for every day purposes. Even in an extended survival situation, they are an extremely poor choice. You would be far better off eating bugs and small animals, as gross as it sounds (unless you happen to enjoy eating squirrels).

But don’t those “substances” provide nutrients?

No, not really. Any minimal nutrition brought on by the ill-advised consumption of corn, soy, wheat, beans, and their oils, is heavily outweighed by it’s profound poisoning effect (that most are completely in the dark about) and spikes in insulin that are foreign to your body, or at best, should be exceedingly rare (and have been for a few million years now).

Okay, but hold on a second, grain and beans are the foundation of what most people on the planet currently eat. Are you suggesting that the basis of the human diet, including on a grand scale, should be something else, such as animals? If so, isn’t that harmful for the environment?

Yes, I am suggesting that the basis of our diets need to be animals. I must not care about the environment or animals then right?

Wrong.

I for one am convinced that not only is the consumption of animals better for us, but also the environment, and (paradoxically), even animals themselves.

This of course, sounds preposterous, especially to PETA fans and other vegans/vegetarians.

But I won’t stop there. I’ll go so far as to say that vegans and vegetarians are the biggest contributors to animal cruelty, and environmental damage, to have ever existed. Cruelly ironic and (I imagine) angering to most vegetarians?

Yes, but never the less, it is the truth. I don’t say the following lightly either.

The farming of corn, soy, and wheat, are literally, the seeds of our own doom. People worry about all sorts of nonsense for an impending apocalypse, but few ever stop to consider our addiction and dependence, as a species, on these fragile substances.

Imagine a world where 7 billion people were dependent on nutritionally devoid/poisonous substances for “food” (that are killing us off by the millions and quite literally don’t belong on the planet in the case of corn), that in the process of producing, cause horrendous damage to “the environment”, and each passing day, cause society to be ever more dependent on them.

Now imagine that world when a disease or severe weather crippled those “crops” (again, corn shouldn’t exist, so it’s difficult to call it a crop).

In the undeveloped world, you would have millions of people go from hungry or already starving, to dead.

In the (over) developed world, you would have hundreds of millions of people on each continent experience food rationing/shortages of previous food stores, before outright civil unrest broke out (which would be pretty quick once news spread that it will be a very long time until significant quantities of “food” were produced*).

*Combine this with the fact that most people become ravenously hungry after only a few hours due to their carbohydrate addiction/weak ability to produce ketone bodies.

This is hard to imagine in the “developed” world, with all of our technology, communication, industry and so on – but I assure you those “crops” are the basis of the vast, vast majority of “food” currently available.

You would see the richest, most powerful countries in the world, disintegrate almost overnight. People would kill over food.

Think not? Look at every situation in recent history when things got “bad”. People will shoot each other over TV’s and electronics, let alone to feed their kids and family.

In fact, who said a valid reason was required for irrational behavior? I’ve seen people first hand become violent and smash heads into curbs, over nothing.

Now, this is a pretty dark picture we’ve painted, and the chances may be slim. But how slim is anyone’s guess. In any case, there is absolutely no telling what will happen in the years to come with our fragile beyond comprehension production of food.

A bit of a tangent from the definition of “food”, but I feel that it is relative. If interested further, I recommend reading up on famines in the not so distant past (especially Ireland).

Taking a few steps back, what about being vegetarian and not eating the previously discussed items?

Eating nothing but nuts, vegetables, fruits, some seeds, and so on. Wouldn’t that be the best course of action for people and animals (nutrition aside for the moment)?

Being a person who was “paleo-vegan” for a while, I can tell you the answer is most certainly no. This is a downright bastardization of the way we are meant to eat. These items are “foods” by my standards, but are a far cry from the versions we evolved eating. Modern agriculture has eliminated much of the little nutrients these foods once had.

Going further, in most cases, these items constituted a relatively small part of our diet. In some cases, they were even non-existent (Eskimos come to mind). In other cases, plant foods may have played a significant role in diet.

However, these are the exceptions, not the rules – the same way some plant foods are more suited to our dietary needs than others (coconut versus a watermelon for example, which is basically sugar water).

Perhaps the most clear cut reasoning that eating “paleo-vegan” (plants excluding grains and the majority of beans) is an unwise idea is that there is no such thing as a plant that is necessary to eat.

Of course the same could be said about animals, except that you do need to eat at least some animal products to survive and remain free of disease/deficiencies (removing modern technology/food processing from the picture).

Our bodies are literally engineered to need animals. Think about it, how could focusing on foods that are …

• not required

• contain few nutrients (especially in the face of currently available plant products)

• contain large amounts of the macro-nutrient that is unnecessary for consumption and for millions of years, on a grand scale, was the rarest to be consumed

… possibly be healthy?

While nutrients vary from animal to animal (and have certainly been affected by the modern practice of corn/soy feeding), animals were the only universal source of food available to the human race for millions of years.

An apple, an avocado, a watermelon, and starchy tuber are all very different foods.

Ask yourself (even with no formal knowledge of nutrition), how different is the meat of a lamb from the meat of a steer?

The meat and eggs of a chicken, and turkey?

A grouper, and snapper?

The differences are there, yes … but in comparison to a coconut and watermelon?

The difference is night and day. As a direct result, our bodies solely require the consumption of animals. Nothing else is even possible.

Considering this, is it really reasonable to assume that the only sustainable way to feed our population is by diametrically opposing what nature intended us to eat in the first place?

This to me, sounds preposterous, and arrogant, no matter the choice in plants (even removing grains/beans from the picture does not solve the problem).

But this is exactly what vegans/vegetarians would have you believe. I have even met “raw foodists” (who eat some meat) who think that plants are somehow the best decision on a grand scale for the planet, and that raising animals is destructive for the environment.

“They use way more water than plants!”

“Animals release “greenhouse” gases and will drown us all Water World style!”

These notions of course, are ridiculous. Mono-crop agriculture is many times more harmful than the sustainable raising of animals (without corn, soy, and all the related problems for the animal).

Anything to do with “global warming” and the fear mongering of the icecaps melting is blatant propaganda they have mentally sunk their teeth into, so much so they are now “fighting” for it.

“Fighting” for it so hard in fact, that they are contributing to whatever real world problems that cause purportedly hopes to solve.

The same concept applies to all fields actually – extremes become their inverses in due time – especially politics and government … but that is a discussion for another time.

The plus side to this little principle though is that once an individual becomes aware of it in one field, it spills over into other areas of interest. As I just mentioned, connecting the dots with nutrition and food production, spilled over to government and politics. The same can be said of exercise, and so on.

Extended Q and A

As if there hasn’t been enough fictional questions and answers in this article already, I’m going to wrap it up with some more, in a more obvious fashion. It’s sort of stream of thought and not in any particular order, but if you do have a specific question, it should be answered in this section. If not feel free to comment, ask, and I’ll be happy to answer or point you in the right direction.

Let’s begin with…