Rational for various Paleo approaches
Interesting topic raised by SkinnyDevil in the Raw Paleo Forum: I see on this forum a wide variety of paleo approaches and in my short time here have already seen hot debate of certain key issues. Zero or low carb, or not low carb. Fatty meats or lean meats. No dairy or minimal sporadic dairy (or lots of dairy). Paleo man ate mostly meat or he didn’t (ate meat sporadically – only at successful kills). Organ or no organ meats. Without trying to kick off an argument, I’m just wondering the rational for each of these approaches – NOT from a web-site, but from people who actually eat that way. Also wondering about other lifestyle factors, and if you only eat paleo or if you try to implement (to grater or lesser degrees) other paleo lifestyle factors?
Cosmo Replied:
Hi there!
I think it all depends on your blood type. For example, my blood group is 0 (1) and I avoid dairy products and prefer fattier meats, organs and raw fish.
If your blood group is A(2), then you should stick to raw fish, egg yolks, raw animal fat, organs and very little meat.
But if your blood group is B(3), then you can eat pretty much anything including raw dairy.
There’s a great book about it called “Eat right for your type”, it was’t written for raw eaters, but I found it to be a very helpful.
and Raw Rob replied:
I am zero carb because if I eat carbs my Ulcerative Colitis will come back.
I’m not completely against carbs for other people though. I just don’t get into it because none of us really know what goes on inside our bodies.
Perhaps I did so much damage to my system in my “SAD” days that I for one, cannot eat carbs anymore.
I used to eat giant bowls of whole grain pasta, two or three times a day, with a peanut, pesto, or tomato sauce all over it. I used to put tons of cayenne pepper in my food as well. I ate a lot protein bars and shakes, and went through gallons of milk every week.
I was an exercise and eating machine. I lifted a lot of weights and ran up to 8 miles a day sometimes. When Ulcerative Colitis hit me, it took me months to figure out how to eat again, and it lead me to just meat , fat, and organs. (Only grass-fed) I also eat sashimi, or very rare steaks in social settings. I drink dry wines or vodka on occasion as well. (I live in Chicago, hard to get away from that here.)
I’m gradually getting back to doing more physically intense exercises. Although, I’m never going back to long distance running. I don’t think that’s really good for you.
I used to have achy joints as well. I’m suspicious that that might have been due to all the nightshade family foods I was eating. (tomatoes, cayenne, jalapenos, etc.)
Anyway, that’s my little zero carb argument for myself.
and I replied:
A good number of us were truly sick on SAD so we had to find what works.
There is some grain of truth in blood type diet. My 5 year old boy is allergic to all chicken whether raw or not or raw fertilized eggs… so we do duck instead.
I believe a big factor is we are all at different stages of health in our lives.
We do what works for us in that snapshot of time with what is available in our locale and what we can afford.I used to be sick of eczema and the detoxes fixed the symptoms, but I did not feel glowing health.
I tried various diets from sad, vegetarian, raw vegan, raw fruitarian, then 14 days fasting.
I arrived at raw paleo because I wanted to achieve better health…
and wai diet worked wonders… raw fish is good.
adding raw land animals did even more wonders…
grass fed raw beef specifically did wonders (internal organs, meat, fat, brains, marrow, tongue) absolutely delicious.
High fat low carb did even more wonders. (I’m here now, 1.5 years into raw paleo)I’m a self experimentor and I will get to try zero carb later on.
I tried Aajonus’ Primal diet with raw dairy several times with different animals like cow, carabao, goat… but none of them were working for me, the only thing I don’t react to in dairy is butter and ghee, but my sources are not raw.
Duck eggs are sooo much better than chicken eggs.
I will make continuous adjustments in my diet as the years goes by.
and Tyler replied:
The fatty meat/lean-meat question is more difficult to answer than one would think. Judging from data gathered re hunter-gatherers and palaeo cavemen, a very wide variety of animals were hunted some small(and therefore lean) and other larger, fattier animals like the aurochs(ancestors of cattle) and horses. Then there’s the fact that winter forces animals to starve and thereby reduce their fat-layers during that season. Now, there are other complications(I believe older animals gain more fat-layers?) but generally speaking, I don’t think it matters as long as one is eating a mixture of lean and fatty meats – eating 100% lean meats all the time year round is likely a bad idea, especially if on zc.
No dairy or minimal dairy:- I have been beating the anti-raw-dairy drum for years as I kept on noticing that those people who consumed the most dairy also reported the most devastating of health-problerms(which they chose to call “detoxes” but weren’t as they invariably coincided with dairy-consumption) – and that those who gave up all dairy reported far fewer side-effects, if any. Dairy has appalling side-effects re f**king up the natural hormone-levels of the body via its own cow-produced hormones, then there are the addictive opioids, the huge imbalance in calcium to magnesium( too much intake of calcium into the body blocks uptake of magnesium , leading to magnesium-deficiency).Magnesium is essential for the central nervous system’s maintenance.
Organ-meats:- If you look at the literature(and wildlife movies etc.), you will notice a common element:- the wild animals generally go for the organ-meats first by preference and then eat the rest. If they’re not hungry, they’ll sometimes leave some of the muscle-meats behind, storing them for later, but eat the organ-meats then and there.More modern hunter-gatherer tribes have the same preference re organ-meats, with pregnant women using them(according to weston-price) to ensure fertility/childbirth works out well for them. So there’s no reason to suppose organ-meats weren’t eaten and preferred by palaeoman .Plus, numerous anecdotal reports on the various forums indicate tha eating raw organ-meats as well as muscle-meats ensures a faster recovery-rate on a RVAF diet than if one just eats raw muscle-meats.
That said, some zcers do have a point in claiming that organ-meats are only 10% of all meats in a body so there’s no need to overindulge.
Re eating all-meat or no-meat:- Well, my own experience with zc was a disaster. Tried 3 times and failed miserably. By the 6th week I’d be a hospital case so had to give up(I did all the right things re eating plenty of raw fat etc. – my testimonial is on the rawpaleodiet.com website)Having checked various studies and experiences:(eg:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12535749I tend to be sceptical of the notion that zc works for some, though it’s pretty clear that others seem to be doing fine right now on rzc. Other than the health-issues, my sporting performance collapses while on rzc, so that’s a big minus. Plus, being able to eat raw fruit in social settings makes things so much easier for me as that is considered more socially acceptable than eating raw meat in front of SAD-eaters. As a ZCer, given occasional travelling etc., I’d be forced to make pemmican, instead of eating fruit (when grassfed, raw meat-sources are scarce), which would cause problems for me given my own major issues re cooked animal fats(raw fruit, by contrast, works fine for me as long as I don’t take it to fruitarian levels).
Re palaeo lifestyle:- I’m not terribly interested in sleeping outdoors on the hard ground etc. I’m too urbanised. But, admittedly, it does have its appeal.
Read the on going thread at Raw Paleo Forum