A paradox of the modern age is that the average person in the West knows more about the natural world than the most learned man of prior eras, but people remain as superstitious and irrational as ever. This is true even in the human sciences, where doctors continue to tell patients that they should make sure to eat plenty of vegetables and avoid fatty foods. Much of what people experience as medicine is the same old oogily-boogily that has been with us since forever.
The carnivore diet is the latest bit of nonsense to make the rounds. Search the topic on YouTube and your recommendations will suddenly be packed with videos of men wearing lab coats or standing in front of dry erase boards, explaining how this diet is based on the science of cavemen. They claim that humans are made to eat meat, not bread or vegetables, so we should only eat meat. This will cure the things that ail you in the modern age, like obesity and unhappiness.
This is pure nonsense. Modern humans are the product of a long process that continues to this day. That process is called evolution. The ancestors of modern humans survived on what they could find. We know that species that can survive on a varied diet are more adaptive than species hooked on a narrow diet. If you can eat anything, you can live anywhere. If you can only eat bamboo shoots, then the only place you can live is in a Chinese zoo.
Modern humans inherited this ability to eat just about anything, which is why modern humans were able to spread across the globe. Anyone who says humans were designed to eat meat is either ignorant or crazy. Humans certainly adapted to the food that was available, but the reason they could do this is our ancestors were able to eat just about anything. In some areas, humans lived primarily on fish, because there was a reliable supply of fish for them to eat year-round.
Adaptation is important. Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending argued in their book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, that as humans settled down and learned to cultivate animals and plants, adaptation accelerated. As grains became a bigger part of the diet, people adapted to the new food and lifestyle. If our caveman ancestors were meat eaters, it does not matter because our direct ancestors evolved to be omnivores living mostly on grains they made into bread and beer.
Now, this does not mean you cannot lose weight or lower your glucose levels by changing your diet. People in the modern age get fat for the same reason people got fat in the Middle Ages. They consume more calories than they need to perform their work, so some of the excess is stored as fat. That is another useful adaptation of humans that gets treated like magic. Storing fat is what helps us be so adaptive. Carrying emergency food around under our skin is a huge advantage.
This is why being fat was looked upon as a sign of success. Look at old photos of rich people and they are often quite fat. Women dressed in a way that made them look plump, even if they were slender. Fat people had extra food and time to eat it, which meant they were prosperous. Skinny people spent their days laboring thus burning lots of calories, but they had only the food they needed to keep laboring. In this age, Indians still regard tubbiness as a sign of prosperity.
Modern Americans, of course, view fat people as moral failures because they cannot control themselves at chow time. Chris Christie is an object of scorn mostly because he is a big fat slob. He even had his mouth stapled shut in an effort to lose weight and give his family some peace and quiet. Somehow, he managed to get around it and he remains a big fat noisy slob. In this age, the only fat people we like are the fat comics who make fun of their own fatness.
This probably explains the superstition around diets. The sales pitch of the carnivore diet is no different from what preachers during the Great Awakening were selling or social reformers of this age are selling. The subtext is always the same. We have strayed from the proper path, and we must return to it or else. In the case of diet, it means returning to some imagined time when we ate a different way. In the case of social reforms, it is getting back to the righteous path.
It is not just fad diets where we see superstitions about food. Many YouTube videos are sponsored by companies selling some sort goo in a jug that is supposed to give you energy and vitality. “Hey, you are a busy and important person, who just happens to be laying on the couch watching YouTube videos. You don’t have time to have a proper meal, so have a jug of green slime instead. It will not only give you the electrolytes plants crave, but it will also give you energy to watch more videos.”
These companies selling meal replacement and ready-to-cook meals delivered to your door are not really selling food. These companies are selling lifestyles. They are no different from the people selling perfume or ripped blue jeans. The people selling gourmet food kits are promising you a lifestyle if you adorn yourself with the accoutrements of the people who supposedly live that life. Fashion is a cargo cult and food fashion is not an exception.
Of course, the root here is happiness. The leisure classes in ancient Egypt had codes of conduct that were designed to give meaning and purpose to life. Cicero and Ovid wrote guides on how to live happy lives. People in comfortable lives have time to worry about abstract things, so there are people there to supply them with satisfying answers to the vexing questions of existence. Idle hands do the Devil’s work and the buying and selling of self-help books keeps those idle hands busy.
Getting back to food superstitions, not all of it is nonsense. If you are a big fat slob like Chris Christie, the carnivore diet will result in weight loss. It may put cows on the endangered species list, but that is a different issue. Cutting out carbohydrates does funny things to the body. It is why people feel like they have the flu for the first couple of weeks on all of these no-carb diets. Lacking carbohydrates for energy, the body begins to burn fat for energy, which takes a couple of weeks.
Weight loss comes mostly from the reduction in calories. If you eat a big fatty ribeye steak, you will not be hungry in a few hours. If you eat five donuts, you will be starving before the next mealtime. You consumed the same number of calories, but one was fat and protein and the other was all carbs. People who go on no-carb diets end up eating far less than they used to eat, so they lose weight. If you are a fat person, the trade-offs, at least in the short term, probably make sense.
In the end, the cold logic of things like the carnivore diet are no more appealing than the cold logic of fashion. Imagine ads selling ripped jeans that say, “go in debt for these and you will feel better until the credit card statement arrives.” Instead, these diets are sold to people as magic elixirs. The sales pitch works, because we are not so far removed from our primitive past that we are immune to abracadabra words that promise to make the gods happy and therefore make us happy.
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I don’t get why even boycotting elections matters. How many people voted? Guess who decides that? Biden could get 100,000,000 votes this time with only a 10% voter turnout.
Wasn’t one of the guys eaten by some of the pioneers in the Donner Party named Burger? No wait … I think he was just a teamster.
He was a team player. There is no “I” in team, but there is meat.
As I understand it, the key to a healthy diet is to minimize processed foods and sugars. Our ancestors evolved eating whole, unprocessed, natural foods. Sugars and fats were packed with energy but rare, and so we evolved to crave them. Now we find ourselves in a world in which they’re everywhere. To the question why— around 30,000 years ago— the human brain suddenly got larger, some evolutionary biologists suggest that it was eating more meat that made it happen As I recall, The 10,000 Year Explosion also mentioned the degradation of teeth which happened once people settled down and… Read more »
Matter cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted into energy. Calories in > Calories out = Weight gain. calories in >>>>>>>>Calories out = Chris Christie. Put simply: Carbs not immediately utilized are converted into fat for storage. Sugars and carbs increase insulin secretion. Which results on fat synthesis. Processed grains, as in breakfast cereals, have the protein stripped off and create an insulin bomb. As you point out fat and to a lesser extent, Protein suppress the appetite. Obesity is associated with increases in heart disease, stroke, certain cancers and autoimmune disorders. It’s good not to be obese… Read more »
If alcohol is poison, why am I still alive at 75?
And why have we been getting cheerfully drunk for thousands of years?
We humans have incisor teeth designed to tear into meat. Vegan and vegetarians are not as healthy. Eskimos eat meat and fat all the time. Let’s not change a million years of evolution. Give up most of the carbs.
Its all about your gut bacteria and eating simple carbs feed the wrong ones.
Science!
Blame feminism. When your wife stayed home and cooked with your daughters, using ingredients produced locally, all of you ate delicious food in a social setting at the dinner table over which you presided as patriarch. Now, you’re divorced. And your ex-wife picks the kids up at school in her SUV and hits a drive-through to stuff them with sugar-laden garbage they devour quickly on the way home. There actually are studies showing this:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/02/04/children.bmi.moms/index.html
Half a century ago, fast food drive thrus were just beginning to become widespread. There’s definitely a correlation there with subsequently increasing obesity. You see those picture comparisons, skinny people then vs fat people now. The people then didn’t have drive thrus, or had few of them. They also smoked a lot more.
A half century ago, having a fast-food meal was considered a “treat”, in that it was a rare occasion. Part of that was there were far, far fewer fast food choices around. But another part of it was we all knew that it wasn’t very healthy, and it would be bad to make it a regular thing.
Nowadays, for many families/persons, having a nutritious home-cooked meal is the treat.
cigarettes are a highly effective appetite supressant
So is coke & meth
In this area the Jenny Crank diet is very popular.
Find yourself a graph of the added sugar per capita over a period of decades. For current consumption I come up with 20% of total calories. To reiterate, that is added sugar and corn syrup alone. That does not even consider other highly refined carbohydrates which are approximately another 30% or more of the standard American diet. Those are quickly turned into glucose by your body and cause wild swings in insulin. Primarily its excess carbohydrates that are making people obese as well as exacerbating many other chronic health problems.
”The ancestors of modern humans survived on what they could find.” “Modern humans inherited this ability to eat just about anything…” At first glance, this post had a feel to me of diet relativism. That is, everyone is so unique that no general statements can be made about diet. Eat whatever you like. Just as moral relativism says there is no morality that is best for all people, so diet relativism says that there is no diet that is best for all people. In my opinion, this is true. Just as there is no morality or ethics that fits all… Read more »
I would not compare diet and morality. The former is in the domain of the descriptive, while the latter is in the domain of the prescriptive. That said, European people evolved for their environment, just as East Asians, South Asians, Africans and all people, so there will be differences in diet that have nothing to do with custom. For example, East Asians are lactose intolerant, while Northern Europeans are not lactose intolerant.
I think there’s a connection between eating – or ingesting, if you please – and morality. There’s a reason gluttony is one of the 7 deadly sins; a reason why some consider the body a temple, a reason why various religions have dietary prescriptions and proscriptions. Our diet becomes a reflection of our character.
Lee Marvin yelling at the Kid in that old movie about hobos hopping trains:
“You coulda been a meateater!!”
Emperor of the North
Today was my Gell-Mann moment with the Zman. He’s demonstrably, completely, catastrophically, totally, irrefutably, provably wrong about carnivore eating. Today’s short agglomeration of carnivore cliches is a laughable joke. But of course, mockery is the Zman’s bread and butter. So, if mockery makes you feel good, then by all means go on believing that you’re an omnivore and that you can eat any digestible source of calories. After all, it must be so because Cochran and Harpending say it is! (Just ignore all the anthropology and biochemistry on the last 3 million years of human bones.) On the other hand,… Read more »
“Just ignore all the anthropology and biochemistry on the last 3 million years of human bones.”
Yeah, but you simply ignore the obvious differences in *teeth*. My dog has no ability to chew because she has no molars. She tears and swallows. Primates have molars. You can observe them in the field chewing leaves and other vegetation. Yep, they like a good meal of meat every now and then when they can get it, but that doesn’t make them solely carnivore. Hence the term omnivore.
Look at the stable isotope accumulation in human bones as compared to the bones of other animals of similar age. Human bones have a higher nutrient density, as indicated by the stable isotope analysis. This means that humans have benefited from the concentration of nutrients as they passed up the food chain. The evidence indicates that human have been apex predators for several million years, and survived by eating other animals. There is no food chain in the plant world where nutrients get concentrated in any way to benefit any species eating plants.
Higher nutrient density doesn’t indicate carnivorism. It suggests that meat was prime–so to speak–but that hardly excludes the ancillary consumption of nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables as well.
Exactly. Man, and I assume other animals, tend towards obtaining the densest nutrient base one can find, which is meat. Indeed, hunter gatherer man is said to have obtained marrow from raiding predator kills in prehistoric times (indicated by bones dug up). However, they still needed to fill in the gaps and that was usually plant matter. Different hominids display different jaw sizes and to a lessor extent teeth. As the diet changed, we are said to have developed smaller jaws and a lighter bone structure. But no one seems to have lost their molars. Why not? It would seem… Read more »
Once upon a time Appalachia was covered in American Chestnut, Oak, paw paw and Hickory trees. Nature does concentrate nutrients even if it is only seasonal.
You can still find paw paw fruit if you know where to look;for it in the upper Great Lakes. (don’t eat the poison from Ohio, worst-state-ever; cute gals though; Go Blue!). Acquire it local and seasonal and it’s delicious. Like Thimbleberries, which I am about to harvest on a certain island, paw paw fruit does not travel well after picking. So you bring the eater to the paw paw, with dessert-making essentials. Fresh and wild is best most often. Learn how to distinguish plants and wild meat, if you can, learn about mushrooms like morels and gradually the other stuff… Read more »
Like my granddaddy used to say, just look at the teeth boy that’ll tell you what they supposed to eat. But grandpa, chickens ain’t got no teeth.
Au contraire. Chickens have two teeth. We call them “beaks.”
There is zero science to support the claims of the carnivore diet. If you are overweight, it is because you eat too much. However you choose to reduce the calorie intake is meaningless. If you eat less you will lose weight. This is basic biology.
You won’t find the science you’re looking for because the institutions that fund “The Science” – meaningful studies – profit from people getting sick and fat from eating ultraprocessed foods. We’re now in the sixth decade of the Ancel Keys nightmare – sugar is good, fat is bad. The nonsense around cholesterol is all you need to know about the direction of “The Science.”
I knew you would be triggered by a direct confrontation to your nonsense. First, let’s define some terms. Carnivore eating means eating the flesh of other animals, including fish. A ketogenic diet is a low carb diet, typically less than 20 total grams of carbs per day. It’s next to impossible to eat a ketogenic diet without eating large amounts of animal products. A carnivore diet is a near zero carb diet of animal products only. “There is zero science to support the claims of the carnivore diet.” There are many claims about the benefits of eating carnivore. Which claims… Read more »
Triggered does not mean what you think it means
What you say above is mostly right. I am fairly well informed about ketogenic diets. In my opinion carnivore takes it too far apparently excluding all plant sources. In in doing so you lose sources of many vitamins and minerals. Good luck getting any vitamin C at all from meat. Z man, it’s rare that somebody catches you in an error. In fairness Z is repeating dietician dogma, who continue to ignore contradictory evidence dating back at least 70 years. The pathways of burning or storing carbohydrates and fats are completely different. Sugar (glycogen) is available for quick energy, but… Read more »
agreed – I switched to carnivore 4 years ago after realizing the plant materiel I ate was not being digested – just passing through my gut forcing me to sit on the toilet every couple hours. I lost some weight, my crossfit lifts improved and I felt much better. my conclusion is life is about experimenting to see what works for me, and that we change with age – maybe I had/have IBS, maybe my kidney donation changed how my organs function and maybe my genetics tilt me to carnivore. I learned years ago that grains were inflammatory to my… Read more »
The oldest human fossil we know off is dated from 300,000 years ago. I don’t doubt proponents of a carnivore diet claim to be studying 3,000,000 year-old records though.
perhaps I’m missing the point of Zman’s article but I’ll say what I have to say. I don’t agree about calories in and calories out. A calorie is not a calorie – our bodies need more than calories to survive and thrive. There are low nutritious calories such as carbs – people who consume carbs are starving for nutrients so their bodies constantly crave more because of that in addition to the tendency to lock those calories up in fat storage (which never get used up). So people on “nutrient” dense foods ie meats don’t need to consume as much… Read more »
It is unequivocal that Americans have gotten way more obese and are far less healthy then even a couple of decades ago. Like so much, this is driven a lot by our “experts” having given harmful and often completely contrary advice to what’s actually healthy. Americans now eat more carbs, more vegetables and fruit, less meat and dairy, less total fat, less saturated fat, and more unsaturated fat from “vegetable” (seed) oils. All of these except for possibly more vegetables is less healthy for most people. Animal products have nutrients much more in line with what humans need and those… Read more »
Your advice is good overall. However I think you are not being specific enough about oils. Some oils are just plain unhealthy, especially those that are highly processed or hydrogenated. Unfortunately in practice that means most of the bottles on the shelf at the grocery store or what is being used at the restaurant. But in general the problem is that people eat too much of only certain types of oils. A final problem is that certain essential fatty acids are only found in certain foods or oil derivatives. For instance, omega-3 is common in oily fish but infrequent from… Read more »
I shouldn’t have to tell a group of folks on the DR that people are different. Thus a way of eating that “works” for one person may not work for another, and there is no one true dietary “gospel” that leads to “salvation” for all. Whatever salvation is supposed to mean in this context. Usually it seems to mean looking like the traditional examples of beauty promulgated in the MSM. (not the clown world examples, that’s another subject). The critics of that kind of idealization of a certain physical type have a point. Not everyone can look a certain way… Read more »
Yes, food has changed. But people used to be embarrassed about being fat, much less obese. Now, we’re supposed to celebrate their “body positivity”. I just wonder if BS like that might have something to do with it…
Demographics, too. Some demographic groups–the stupider ones–are less likely to take care of themselves, and that means, among other things, eating a reasonable diet. These demographic groups are far more prominent now than they were 60 years ago.
Ostei: Certain races are genetically predisposed to diabetes because their bodies did not evolve to eat processed sweets. This explains the obesity in Guam and the Solomon islands, as well as the excess weight/lack of health of most whole and mixed Indios (Mestizos from wherever). Of course ‘cultural’ practices like putting soda into baby bottles don’t help.
Your comment is well meant, but I can’t help but chortle at what was probably a slip on your part: evolved to eat processed sweets? Highly processed foods have been around at most a few centuries, and that’s been VERY generous: white flour and refined sugar were luxuries only the wealthy could afford not all that long ago. For the average person, those products for all practical purposes did not exist before the mid-19th century. Natural selection needs a bit longer time spans to work its winnowing. As you note, “progress” has come late to more isolated populations, almost always… Read more »
GenX here. I can remember when Boomers and Silents used to smoke their way to health and fitness. My late dad started pooching out from office stress and he took up pipe tobacco in a briar until he lost weight. That was common. I’m not sure which is worse-smelling, smokers or the obese. Problem today is they’re morbidly obese, smoking AND drunk all the time. I never knew this as common until the 2000’s.
The formerly greater prevalence of smoking is probably an overlooked factor in why there is more obesity now than there was half or a quarter century ago
It might all be explained by smoking, minor everyday tasks being slightly more physically difficult (remember how driving used to feel?), and people not eating as much “processed” goo. “Processed” is a terrible word for the problem, though. In the list of ingredients in, e.g., a frozen pizza, a lot of them aren’t food, and some of them are very strange. If you’re not in Japan, why the hell is there corn in your pizza? Where even is it? In you, after you eat it, when you thought you were eating pizza. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but Japan… Read more »
This is very good diet advice. Soup, marinara sauce, and anything of the like are too easy to get on your shirt. This faux paus is very minor in most contexts, not a big deal at all. On a first date, when such things seem magnified by orders of magnitude, I know from experience when I’ve done something of the sort I get self conscious to the extreme, feeling like something much worse the Chris Christie, even though objectively impossible to accomplish.
Yes, don’t order soup or spaghetti on a first date!
The spaghetti solution–wear red or black.
JZ-
The pther major difference is that modern portion sizes are enormous for the normal person that should be on about 2000 calories a day.
I sometimes disagree with you, Z. But I absolutely love your posts where you savage the carnivore diet.
Keep at it!
>”It may put cows on the endangered species list.”
Laughed hard at this one. Hahaha
I get it, Z is not surrendering his fig newtons.
Any time I trave to another country, canada,ireland, isreal, even mexico , I find therir food much better. even for the same stuff like burger joints , fish and chips , ets. the GIANT food monopolies here have gotten food regs screwed up here. importing sugar is banned , so everything sweet in the us is made with HFCS . not nearly as sweet , and adding it’s own flavor to anything . Ever their meat in burger joints has a much better taste. Cargill, Auther daniels midland , monsanto, haven’t bothereed with the smaller markets . When i buy… Read more »
This is true of the Japanese as well. After the war, nutrition improved and the new generation of children grew taller than parents—but not as tall as typical Occidentals of the time. This is known in genetic circles as the “reaction range”. It is the effect of environment upon genotype. You can improve only so much by changing the environment—in this case nutrition—but then the limiting factor in genetics. For example, I’m several inches taller than my father—who was one of 9 siblings in a middle class European family of the early 20th century—but I am only about average height… Read more »
Sounds like y’all live in Lake Wobegon…
Yeah. I mention this because the men in her family are well over 6’. Folks remark that they sure don’t take after me. 😉
You are, of course right about sugar tarrifs; these led to a switch to high fructose corn syrup in many processed foods and beverages. Of course, the corn lobby had no complaint with that either. HFCS and “sugar” (sucrose) are, for all practical purposes, the same as far as composition after digestion (glucose+fructose).
I work out 5-6 days per week. I lift heavy objects (no roids) and do some cardio as well as sports. Never had to worry about what I’m eating even as I get older. I just balance a protein with carbs when I eat, and add a couple fruits/veggies. I have developed a physique that most men from the 1940s looked like. Thick arms with a big chest. Not a stick either, my slight belly only adds to the aesthetic. It’s always been simple. I don’t know how people get into such bad shape. I suspect most people don’t even… Read more »
I remember this guy I deployed with once. He worked out three times a day (different stuff each time) and was as fit a guy as you ever met. He also ate incredible amounts of food. When asked, he said he worked out like he did, so he could eat like he did.
There is truth to this. The reverse is also noticeable. In university the talk was about the “Freshman 15”, i.e., the weight gain caused by the change in lifestyle—like long nights in front of the books, rather than partying.
Nah, it’s because the kids are on their own for food and mommy isn’t making them dinner anymore. And the universities make sure to ply them with junk food they can get with their meal card at convenience stores placed in every dorm.
Perhaps, but that would assume “mommy” is home cooking family meals—which goes against some opinion usually posted here. Hard have it both ways.
But in any event, whatever the cause, the phenomenon seems real. I’ve seen it in my own children, albeit I am heartened that they both realized their post-gradiation physique and paired down to a normal weight after graduation—which ironically I suppose goes against my argument of reduced responsibility of “fatties” made by me previously. 🙁
Could be just an anecdote on my side then, my mom retired when I was in high school so I was eating home cooked dinners until college.
Same here…I wonder how people get so fat; aren’t they hot and heavy and miserable? I understand that some people have poor metabolism from genes or age, but to become a land whale you really must have no idea how to eat properly…or, there is social pressure to be fat. Here in dissident circles we love to make fun of the 250-lb black chick in bright pink sweatpants, but rural whites tend to be fat as hell. When I worked in a rural area, every man was overweight and often by a lot. Women were somewhat less obese but none… Read more »
My understanding is that such “curvatiousness” considered a sign of beauty in the Black community—at least I’m told Black guys don’t mind that “baby’s got back”. 😉
There’s a reason Mixalot’s song is a rap classic.
I’m not nearly as fit as you. I did recently lose an easy 20 Lb following an Atkins diet. Once I’d hit my goal weight, my daily calories increased, dramatically (average about 600/day). This stands to reason: once my fat stores were depleted, the body is jonesing for calories. What is curious in my case is that I’m eating about 30% more calories than the metabolic calculators say I need, yet I am keeping very close to, even a bit under, my goal weight. 30% seems like a big discrepancy, but I have detailed records of my diet and activity,… Read more »
The flu like symptoms you speak about are not from a no-carb diet. It’s known colloquially as the keto flu, but it’s from lack of salt. Beginners going keto (carnivore being a derivative of this), often go without adding any salt to their meats. Throw in the fact that they’re no longer eating processed foods that have a lot of salts as preservatives, and your body is missing an essential element of what it needs. Making sure to salt your meats you cook prevents this. As a side note, you’re 100% right about the lazy doctors still touting the bad… Read more »
Salt is arguably the single moast important nutrient in any [and all] of our diets.
If you go a few days without salt, and allow your Electrolytes to get outta balance, then you’re very quickly gonna get a visit from Massa A-Fib.
I’d put salt way above even Vitamin C & Vitamin D in fundamental importance to our health.
PRO-TIP: There seems to be fairly widespread agreement that IODIZED salt increases pediatric IQs and reduces incidences of ADHD…
Iodized salt… because thyroid needs iodine. That’s why they started iodizing salt in the first place. But… let’s listen to the no salt science wack a doodles…
I never heard the salt explanation, but that makes some sense. When I cut out carbs and eat meat and green vegetables only, I use salt like always and never get the keto flu business. I just assumed it was me, but that makes some sense. People have been trained to think salt is deadly, which is another whopper from the food rackets.
It is a distant second to the false claim that dietary cholesterol causes elevated blood cholesterol, but the lie that salt elevates BP has been thoroughly debunked yet most physicians continue to parrot the falsehood.
Jack Dobson: “the lie that salt elevates BP has been thoroughly debunked, yet most physicians continue to parrot the falsehood” If you keep salting your food, then your heart will continue to function properly. Whereas if you STOP salting your food [particularly in the summertime, when you’re working outdoors & sweating heap big electrolytes out your pores], you’ll quickly present yourself to your MD with a nasty case of A-Fib. Which means the MD gets to write an expensive prescription for a new drug, plus code your insurance claim at a much higher rate, plus get even bigger payola from… Read more »
I didn’t get “keto flu” but I was on an easier plan (Atkins 40). Sodium is indeed important but it’s far more likely you are not getting enough Potassium (and many other minerals, but we’ll stick with these two for now.) I read and adopted the easy solution: use a salt substitute that is mostly or all potassium chloride. Here are some more tidbits: Did you doctor recommend cutting your salt intake? Mine did. I’ve done some of my own research. Sodium does, in fact, “raise blood pressure.” So doc wasn’t lying. But put a number to that claim —… Read more »
To each his own, of course. But my n=1 experiment with LC (low carb) and especially VVLC (very very low carb) has been life altering. I struggled since boyhood with my weight and only in early middle age adopted the LC lifestyle. Twelve years into it now, my weight has been normalized for nearly all of that time, ten pounds less than I weighed in high school. More significantly, when I dropped the highly refined grains (bread, pasta, cereal) a constant buzz in my head that I was never even aware of suddenly vanished. I could think clearly for the… Read more »
Serious question: How do you move your bowels without whole grains in your diet?
For the doubters: Do you think that consuming natural whole grains is somehow worse than consuming the massive ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS in the industrial plastic known as “Polyethylene Glycol 3350”, aka Miralax or Golytely?
Benefiber in my coffee every morning, religiously. I added a morning prune just this year, too. Vegetable salad has been a staple in my diet for literally decades. It is rare when I eat dinner without it. Fruit is an occasional treat, but does not figure prominently in my diet (aside from the prune). That Sola bread is loaded with fiber. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is expensive ($6 for a small loaf from my local HEB) but at least one variety of it can usually be had from Costco at a cost of $8 and change for… Read more »
Benefiber is wheat-dextrin:
https://tinyurl.com/yc7a9vhm
Similarly, Sola looks like it’s pretty much entirely plant-based:
https://tinyurl.com/bdzd3uj9
Which, again, is my point [throughout most of this thread]: If you want your bowels to move, then you need something from the Plant Kingdom.
This Carnivore protein/fat diet ain’t gonna cut it [no pun intended].
Had this problem when I first went very low carb and cut out the muesli. The secret to taking a good dump is not so much dietary fibre as these four things: 1) Nicotine. Never smoked cigarettes, but did have a brief flirtation with cuban cigars until I realised that the Cohibas were smoking *me* and I wasn’t even in Soviet Russia. It creeps up on you, it does. But nicotine makes for regular bowel movements… Night and day. 2) Caffeine – It’s 0443 in Hong Kong and I’m about to hop on the bike and go for a ride… Read more »
Many options exist. What about not-whole grains? For example, wheat bran. I eat 4 Tbsp./day, which is a fairly high dose. That serving of bran has a whopping 31 calories but most importantly, 6 grams of fiber. In fact, at first this made me constipated even though I eat other fiber (fruits and salads) too. Although I don’t use them, there must be other non-drug options too such as Metamucil (psyllium). I haven’t checked, but I assume these are low- or no- food value. Unless one has an allergy to an ingredient, what’s the issue? I’m experimenting with a magnesium… Read more »
TBC: “My wife, for one, insists that she CANNOT LIVE without carbs…”
Hashimoto’s Disease is an autoimmune disorder of the Thyroid gland, and it often induces hypoglycemia [very low blood sugar levels] which can result in e.g. lethargy, exhaustion, fainting and the like.
It’s quite common in women for Hashimoto’s to be “sub-clinical” and therefore largely ignored as a candidate for a woman’s health problems.
tl;dr == If a bowl of frosted flakes keeps your wife from fainting [and cracking her skull open when she hits the floor], then let her eat a bowl of frosted flakes.
Considering that TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) is a standard test for nearly every health screen out there, and that levothyroxine is the single most prescribed medicine in the US, I don’t think it’s getting missed as often as you suggest.
Setting aside the fact that “subclinical” means it doesn’t show up on tests, Dollars to donuts says TBC’s wife has never been tested.
[The reason I’m certain she hasn’t been tested is because if there had been a positive result for Hashimoto’s & hypo-glycemia, then she’d be BRAGGING to everyone about how her doctor told her to eat moar carbs.
Rubbing it in everyones’ faces.
At least if she were a typical 21st Century hypochondriac Karen, like the ones I have to deal with…]
Yeah, no. Subclinical most certainly shows up on qualitative tests. Ask me how I know…
Beloved wife has been on Synthroid for two decades now, but even before diagnosis of Hashimoto’s, she never suffered fainting spells or anything worse than fatigue. Her jam is Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast and/or evening snack, and she eats plenty of other carbs. But the chips just sing that siren song to her and she is powerless to resist, or so she says. She isn’t going to hit the deck in a dead faint without them. But you don’t want to be around this woman when she is suffering Tostito withdrawal (yikes!).
When I adopted a no sugar, low carb diet a few years ago, I expected to miss chocolate the most. It turns out I miss bread the most. Sourdough bread, slightly crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. My eyes just rowed back into my head at the thought.
I do have cheat days a few times a month.
Indeed. I have tried Paleo and Low-Carb eating to lose weight and control my blood sugar; but, after a couple years of sustained adherence, I always fall off the wagon for sourdough bread. Yeah, it may be a cultural icon of the West, like rice for Asians and corn for aboriginal Americans; but it’s also just so damned delicious. Anyway, I stopped kidding myself and settled on a whole foods dietary approach. I avoid highly processed food, especially with added seed oils or high fructose corn syrup. Shop the outside perimeter of the market: meat, dairy, fruit, vegetables, and the… Read more »
And as his sidekick, Julia Child, famously quipped, “Everything in moderation, including moderation!”
Mill your own flour like I do and choose delicious ancient grains like einkorn, buckwheat and the like. The yeasties and your body will process your bread differently than modern wheats. Cheat with that stuff and you can have it all. I just made an einkorn loaf and also rye lasagna noodles for my otherwise meat-heavy lasagna.
Plenty of sugar-free options exist, although the sweeteners used are not to everyone’s taste. I’m not a chocoholic and do enjoy the occasional no-sugar treat. Or if you don’t have sweet, you can buy 100% cacao chocolate bar. If you don’t mind some cooking, virtually all my experiments have been edible. One of my favorites is some bacon grease with a spoonful of cocoa and a few walnuts. I usually dust with sweetener (I use xylitol or erythritol usually). One thing I learned is that in making “real” chocolate a major hurdle is to make the sugar vanish. It won’t… Read more »
My observation is that norther people are far more carb responsive than equatorial people. If I eat a lot of carbs, I gain weight, even if I am careful to not overdo it. That is the thing though, carbs make me hungry, so dieting is torture. The solution is cutting carbs and eating meat, fish, eggs, dairy and greens. Dairy is cheese and skyr. Still, pizza is good. Burgers are good. Rice is good. Life is for living, so you have to do what you think is best.
Refined or “quick” (pre-digested, really) carbs cause me to blow up like a puffer fish, at least temporarily, on all the water my body retains to process them. So I avoid them like the plague.
My go-to carb source prior to workouts is rice. Plain old white rice, lightly buttered or drizzled with olive oil. For some reason, it does not cause the water retention and bloat like spun-sugar white Wonder bread does.
Z man has just described a keto (low carb) diet. Beyond perhaps the “keto flu” at the start, drastically limiting carbs (with the proviso one is getting adequate protein and fats) is that hunger pangs and cravings are greatly reduced. Per the Atkins books, this is a result of the body switching to fat-burning. I had been informally keto-ish for several months in late 2022. I primarily cut back on the sweets, like cake and pastry with breakfast every day. From that alone I noticed much less sugar craving. This alone helped my weight and lipid panels somewhat. In April… Read more »
The keto diet as a part of cancer treatment has a high success rate. I have friends who did it and, while a small sample, it worked for them at the advice of their doctors. There are many silly things about modern food culture. One of the silliest is the rise of the foodie. This idea that you are special because you like good food and eat at good restaurants is one of the most ridiculous and sad aspects of degenerate progressive era culture. Everybody likes really good food. Anybody can eat food. These people clinging to good meals and… Read more »
In consumer culture (which is AINO culture) one is judged by what one consumes, not by what one produces. Where one shops. Where one dines. What one drives.
Some people eat to live, others live to eat. For the former, food is merely fuel. My mother-in-law is like that. For the latter, food, great food, is one of life’s richest pleasures, and such people take as many pains about food as others do about classical music, literature, and art. It’s really about aesthetic sense. Some have it, some don’t. But culinary connoisseurship is worthy of respect, not derision, in my opinion.
I don’t disagree with you Ostei. My point was probably not well made. It was about performative snobbery vs. being truly cultured. Being a connoisseur of anything fine is great. It is wearing it on your sleeve in an attempt to appear cultured that is worthy of derision. Being a connoisseur is a private act, where the appreciation and enjoyment of a taste, a smell, an activity is inward and at most expressions of appreciation to be kept within the company in which that experience took place. There is recommendation of course. You know you are known as being cultured… Read more »
Never get caught between a wealthy Chinaman and the first big white truffle of the season.
You wouldn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance, eh?
When I first got on Facebook and before I realized how F&G it was I started to notice this odd “collector” culture it encouraged and how large the overlap was between the collectors and the progressives. There was one guy who was online and prog-posting so much that people speculated that he was a professional team posting for some dark agency or something. One of his things was posting his music playlists. He got to like 60,000 songs at one point. Then there’s the Goodreads thing which is another “look at all the checkmarks I have here” thing. Of course,… Read more »
Pozymandius – Is Jimmy Wong’s Korean Honky Tonk real or did you make it up? If you made it up, that is pure genius! Well done!! Some things I joked about when foody culture was emergent in the early aughts came to life. I joked there would be a kraut bar whose name was the umlaut symbol. It happened. I haven’t been to Brooklyn in a long time. By now there is probably an open faced soup lounge or something along those lines. It gets stranger by the day. It is hard for me to go out anymore with everyone… Read more »
The one that gets me is restaurants with one word as the name. Examples: Char, Knife, Sear, Local, Roast, Cut. By the name alone I know the place is going to be preciously pretentious, and the menu will be nothing but prissy nouvelle American slop. Incidentally, AINO’s restaurant scene is the worst it’s been in a very long time because most of the high-end places have no-talent hacks as chefs, and because of the ubiquity of chains. I think the high-water mark for restaurants in the country was probably in the second half of the 90s. Good chefs who made… Read more »
Yes, the one word places. Perhaps I could cash in by opening a new place, Crap. Maybe I’ll put an umlaut over the ‘a’, yes, let’s see — Cräp. Ah, that’s perfect. I could advertise the place exclusively by posting TikToks of obnoxious hipshits arguing over the pronunciation.
HS1: It’s Craaaaaap, you see, like a Crepe. So it’s a play on food words.
HS2: They don’t even serve crepes though.
HS1: Yeah, I know, it’s like… ironic isn’t it!
At this point the MS-13 gangsters I’ve hired jump out and machine gun them all.
I made it up – for now. I’m sure it’ll be opening somewhere in Portland soon enough though.
On Mississippi Ave no doubt.
It’s funny this topic should come up. I got all excited about the “carnivore diet” a few weeks ago. So far, so good, except I’m not losing that much weight, and there’s some constipation, which I address by eating some fruit. Also if you decide to try the “carvinore” diet, don’t buy that expensive electrolyte stuff they sell. A small amount of it (less than a teaspoon diluted in a big whopping tall glass of water) will ruin the rest of your day. I think I’ll keep going on it because it makes sense that ze plants are trying to… Read more »
FWIW it took my mom a few weeks to start losing. She also had the sick feeling Z mentions during that time.
I went on the “paleo” diet years back when I was in my 50s and the pounds melted off but Cordain said salt was a big no-no so whenever I tried it later I often got dizzy. That doesn’t happen if you add salt. I don’t know it that’s the same as the “flu” but could be. A lot of early weight loss with that diet is because it’s low-salt so suddenly your body is no longer retaining fluid so the first few days you’re experiencing rapid weight loss just from losing all that fluid in your cells. The key… Read more »
The parents are following a program that recommends liberal salting, so it wasn’t that. You’re supposed to be ketotic, so that jibes with what Z was saying, too.
My dad didn’t suffer that effect, so I guess some people have little trouble adjusting.
Hunter gatherers ate a mixed diet of protein and whatever edible fruit, nuts and veggies they could find…When farming became the thing, life expectancy dropped 5 years and height 6 inches, due to an inadequate diet..Most people need a mixture of protein and carbs.A veggie diet alone lacks adequate quantities of certain amino acids..Given that homo sapiens had a major introversion of Neanderthal genes, and Neanderthals ate meat exclusively, it’s unlikely that humanity will ever thrive without meat or an adequate protein substitute….Each individual, however, has to find the proper balance, because evolution in subSaharan Africa, for example, was siloed… Read more »
Tom K: “the ‘carnivore diet’… there’s some constipation, which I address by eating some fruit…”
I don’t mean to be a pissy little jerk, but carnivores don’t eat fruit.
And as I’m trying to indicate elsewhere in today’s thread, I don’t see how in Hades an hominid persists on just meat & fat without having massive problems regarding constipation.
For the record, severe constipation can be deadly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley#Cause_of_death
You may be confusing constipation with the fact that a meat diet produces almost no waste. People eating a carnivore diet can go 2, 3, 4 or more days without a bowel movement. Greater than 95% of all meat and animal products are completely digested and absorbed. That’s a big clue right there that meat is the correct ancestral diet. Your body is designed to thrive on meat.
This gets down to how you define “carnivore.” It seems that even animals that eat up to 30% non-meat can be considered “hypercarnivores,” a new term for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercarnivore
Just drink some coffee and you’ll poop that steak right out.
You wouldn’t happen to have a brother named Poopy who posts on Unz, would you?
Every time I think about commenting on Unz or Zerohedge I look at the other commenters and decide against it.
That was a joke. I’ve never posted at Unz either, and so far as I know, there’s no poster named Poopy.
[…] Zman blows the whistle. […]
The 10,000 Year Old Explosion is an eye-opening book. Sure, we are omnivores and can eat most anything, but we were hunter-gatherers for millions of years and our bodies are best adapted to meat eating. Agriculture is only 10,000 years old, and it was a major technological innovation by providing a stable source of food, but we didn’t do very well on such a new carb heavy diet — our teeth rotted, we developed a host of health issues along with a bunch of new diseases, and average heights shrunk by 6″ compared to hunter-gatherers. We are still in the… Read more »
Yes..I personally eat a high protein diet with red meat, but also need a fair amount of carbs..As a result, I think, I am much stronger than most people my age, and I suspect that’s because they don’t get enough protein…
Neoliberal Feudalism: “Personally, I will be sticking with a high protein low carb diet…”
Get yourself some urine dipsticks [Roche Chemstrips or Siemens Uristix], and make sure you’re not urinating protein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning
And if you can’t afford dipsticks, then sniff your urine to see whether it has a strong scent of ammonia.
“ Cows, pigs, and chickens will likely be the last to go as pretty much every other animal heads toward extinction”
Only if man remain alive to breed them and guard them. The raising of these animals has been combined with the modification of the species to be optimized as “food” for us and that is most often at odds with survival in the wild.
Z,
I saw your quote tweet of that Colorado congressman. Does anyone find it disheartening that he’s an army ranger?
I had always thought that if democrats would try to find candidates with backgrounds that resonate with more traditional America, then they will never lose an election.
This guy seems to fit the bill of perfect candidate having been an army ranger. It’s one thing if you’re Pete buttigieg who did the military just for a photo op and another if you made it to a very elite level. Plus there’s obviously no affirmative action since he’s a white guy
If the Democrats had nominated Jim Webb for any recent-ish presidential election they’ve lost, they would’ve won it easily. They know this. As with the Republicans, winning isn’t the thing.
Bootygay “belongs to intelligence,” as they say, so he can run and lose and run and lose and will be given a sinecure (and kids to molest) until he runs and loses again and again.
There seems to be a recent (as in 1Q C21) trend of very high-functioning quislings angling to get into the Rangers, Seals, etc. with an eye on parlaying that into something big once they’ve done their single tour and got their great big validation stamp. Barriers to entry are high and there’s plenty of physical risk, but it’s a yuuuge shortcut on the current year Cursus Dishonorum. That done, Bob’s yer uncle: heading up Startups, fronting totally organically-grown (not) YouTube Channels, running for office, etc. Everything is Fake and Gay and all the ‘Achievers’ (“Merit!” as Jordan Peterson bleats from… Read more »
Eating well–health considerations aside–is one way middle-class folk can live well, which is to say, richly. While it is certainly true that the cost of groceries has shot through the roof, food, even ritzy food and drink such as steak, some varieties of fish, exotic cheese, wine, vodka, gin, is still relatively inexpensive compared to one’s mortgage payment, vacations, car payments, health bills and utility bills. Thus, if one makes an effort, he can eat like a tycoon–and even better, if he’s got good taste and some cooking chops–despite being financially an average schmo. I cannot afford to go on… Read more »
Hear, hear.
It is worth noting that people who take joy in culinary skills and quality food, those who garden and grow their own vegetables and/or meat, and people who hunt and fish, all tend to be in excellent shape, too. Mental fitness accompanies the physical fitness. Maybe it is the type of individual who does these things, maybe it is the quality of the food, but likely it is both.
I definitely think we’re made to eat meat. I mean you can go anywhere in the world and if you’re starving you can just kill an animal and eat it and you’re going to get the nutrients you need. But if you start munching on the vegetation chances are it will kill you. But I love bread and cheese. It’s good to be an omnivore
More than not immune from the primitive past, the culture is in fact consciously re-primitivizing. Trannies and genocide and religious fanaticism and magical diets are of a piece, and the screen can summons all of them without abracadabra words. The contradictions, though, the contradictions–the same culture that touts the carnivore diet encourages body positivity, i.e., fatness, and celebrates grossly obese black women modeling underwear. Still, believe, especially when it doesn’t make sense. And don’t leave the room until you finish your grass-fed beef shanks fried in lard, young man. And stop acting like your sister’s extra 100 pounds doesn’t make… Read more »
Z mocks the carnivore (primal?) diet, probably with some justification, but it seems to me the prevailing winds are with vegetarianism and veganism. Now I’m not about to go primal, but I would dam’ sure plump–so to speak–for that long before going vegan. Vegans may or may not be healthy, but in their etiolated pallor and ectomorphism, look like Prince Herbert from the Holy Grail. I’d prefer to kick the bucket a few years early to walking around looking like that. Incidentally, your comment about Sassy Mammies in lingerie certainly jabbed a sore spot. This past weekend I was walking… Read more »
That is one secret Victoria should have kept.
Yeah, bad skin often is a tell-tale sign of veganism, which should flash yellow for people. SWIDT?
“We have strayed from the proper path, and we must return to it or else.” Sure, I’ll buy that. But your implication that we are omnivores (true) and can adapt to a variety of diets (also true) is somewhat deceptive. Cochran and Harpending also point out in their book, that evolutionary adaptation was speeded (accelerated), but was still measured in terms of millennia or at least centuries and further, that the change from hunter-gatherer, to pastoral, to agrarian most likely caused a great number of the populace to die off who were not well suited (fitted) for this change. What… Read more »
“They claim that humans are made to eat meat, not bread or vegetables, so we should only eat meat. This will cure the things that ail you in the modern age, like obesity and unhappiness.” The teeth say otherwise. “Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending argued in their book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, that as humans settled down and learned to cultivate animals and plants, adaptation accelerated. As grains became a bigger part of the diet, people adapted to the new food and lifestyle. If our caveman ancestors were meat eaters, it does not matter because our direct ancestors evolved to… Read more »
“What do you do with people who resent being shown mercy and forbearance?”
I guess the old solution was to enslave them and make an example of them of how not to be lol.
Since we’re talking about food, I just wanted to tell everybody with access to useable gardening space to grow a garden. Yes, it takes time and money, but the payoff is great. For example, home grown watermelons are much better than store bought watermelons. To about the same degree as homegrown tomatoes are better than store bought. You can’t imagine what fun it is to hear that cracking sound when you cut open a sweet ripe watermelon you grew yourself. Also, if deer are a problem in your area, DeerX type netting actually works.
“Victory Gardens” were still a widespread thing when I was a kid in the 70s. I would help my mother with our “victory garden.” it was fairly small, like 2 square yards, but you could still get a decent amount of stuff from the small yardage we planted. Eggplant, watermelon, lettuce and tomatoes are just a few I recall growing as a kid. But by the end of the 70s “Victory Gardens” just went away. They had a segment on the local news every night with hints and tips for your “victory garden” and they stopped it in my area… Read more »
The number of home gardeners has exploded. This story indicates that up to 80 percent do, which I find dubious even including live herbs on the counter (note the depiction of a diverse gardener from the group least likely to do this): https://studyfinds.org/growing-own-fruit-vegetables-gardens-food-bills/. Most other studies place the percentage around half. Covid and the related inflation are cited as primary reasons.
Heh. Every. Single. Time.
I was recently looking at a catalog for something called the Southwest Indian Foundation, which sells various googaws to help impoverished Indians on reservations in the Southwest. And, there, don’t you know it, was a DVD about “black Indians.” Of course, there ain’t no such animal, just as there are no black Irishmen. But negroes are imposed upon us constantly, even in places where they demonstrably do not belong.
What can you do but shake your head and chuckle?
Come, now. Isn’t the vice president an Afro-Indian?
For many people, gardening is more expensive than just buying your food, especially if you’re not very good at it, or don’t preserve your excess. For me, I really enjoy gardening, even though the variety of veggies I eat is small. I will grow things I don’t eat (peppers, zucchini) just for the pleasure of doing it and giving it away. Regardless, once you’ve had some fresh, ripe garden tomatoes, it’s really hard to go back to store-bought. You’re right about those watermelons! Where I live, it’s a rare season that I can successfully grow them, yet I try every… Read more »
“Gardening is more expensive than just buying the food” Amen. The two u-joints I had to replace in the rototiller cost more than I saved growing my own vegetables. But eating butternut squash in April (harvested the previous October), pulling up fresh leeks in February and March, planted the last May, and having twenty-four quarts of tomato sauce in the freezer is highly satisfying. Gardening brings happiness.
Outdoorspro: We plan to garden here, hopefully next year. I will admit to having no great fondness for digging in the dirt, though – so my ‘plan’ is to buy a modest Amish-built greenhouse (they deliver it fully built). I’ve watched tons of videos about netting and fencing to help keep out the wildlife, but we routinely have deer, rabbits, groundhogs, and bear around here, and I don’t want to deal with the hassle. Plus I’m old and want raised beds so I don’t have to kneel. We have plenty of neighbors who garden and there are produce stands I… Read more »
One thing I learned about backyard watermelons, at least mine, was how fragile they are. One good jolt and they can split open. Melons grown for retail are much more resilient.
I’d love to grow morel mushrooms, but the success of that particular venture is uncertain indeed. Plus, I live in a semi-arid environment, which is not ideal for morels.
I should probably settle for growing tomatoes, peppers and herbs, instead. And melons.
There are lots of good mushrooms you can grow successfully at home. Morels aren’t normally one of them. Same with certain berries. You can grow blueberries all over the place, as much as you like. Their superior cousin, huckleberries, do not tolerate domestication. Gotta find ’em in the wild.
Depending on the local demographics, you may want to invest in some spring-guns if you’ve got a watermelon patch.
That’s a bit of old tech fixing to make a comeback. Spring-guns.
New term to me. I read the Wiki. Fascinating. Alas in the present legal climate, one would likely face severe penalties, especially if an, er “protected species” were injured or killed.
> These companies selling meal replacement and ready-to-cook meals delivered to your door are not really selling food. These companies are selling lifestyles. One of the strangest modern phenomena is the ascension of people who not only don’t cook their own food, but are proud of it. One can’t help but notice that the space of basic ingredients in a grocery store is smaller than it used to be compared to the pre-made section, and there’s no doubt that’s due to emerging trends. Joel Saladin lamented in one of his farming books what a scam food banks were when he… Read more »
>by people who were literally getting their sustenance from a food bank
Ah yes, the temporarily embarassed millionaires.
Chet: And all those people who don’t cook still insist on a kitchen with granite countertops and high end stainless appliances. They won’t even boil their own water for tea, but the kitchen must be top notch.
There’s a good evolutionary reason as to why humans are superstitious about food. Namely, that humans can only safely eat a very small percentage of the various plants and animals populating earth, and even then cannot usually safely consume all parts of each plant and animal, and often it’s the case that certain parts require special preparation to be safe. Fad diets might seem stupid, but being careless about what you consume has historically been fatal to humans.
Food rituals are also have a very strong bonding element. Try an Orthodox fast sometime and you will quickly bond with other Orthodox people. It’s also who Muslims and Jews, have food rituals, and why cohesion in Catholicism plummeted once the strict dietary rituals were loosened.
The Hindus, too, have all sorts of food rituals and prohibitions.
You can eat almost all the animals
But you can’t safely eat the entirety of every animal. No excreta system of any animal is safe for consumption, at the minimum. Additionally, most animal flesh has to be cooked prior to consumption to ensure safety since animals carry pathogens. All meat has to be processed prior to consumption, so, like I wrote before, one can’t be careless about what one consumes.
The fugu gai pan at my local Sino-Japanese joint comes with a Jolly Roger protruding from it.
Entrecote of porcupine with bordelaise sauce and quince coulis has long been one of my favorite dishes…
Contemporary man cannot even think of doing anything without making a social media fad out of it. It is the style of his ideation. Similarly, in the Edwardian Age, no sooner did a man have an idea than he would sterilize it by turning it into a book or pamphlet. In more recent decades, the style of ideation was television. The manner in which people thought to themselves was by imagining that were on some talk show or gameshow or new interview. The medium, in this case, is not just the message; it is the MacGuffin. It’s not only what… Read more »
When I was a freshman in college I wrote an essay regarding the negative effects of social media. This was around ’08-’09 when Facebook was supreme, the iPhone was still novel, and Twitter, Instagram and TikTok either weren’t popular or even invented yet. I wasn’t just being edgy or pretentious, I really was worried about the way these mediums would affect the culture and the everyday interactions between people. I was young and naive so it was truly shocking to have been met with something like open hostility from nearly every single one of my classmates. “But it CONNECTS people.”… Read more »
Thanks.
The comment needs an edit. I eye-skipped and typed some words twice, but thank you for being charitable enough to get the point.
I have an idea that all this Connectivity is a big factor in our political division. That we were, at least for the purpose of political unity, better off not knowing what most people thought. And it has ultimately led to different realities, as people appalled by opinions they find unacceptable have self segregated into echo chambers. Of course it wasn’t all self segregating, a lot of it was cyber purging.
Intellectual secession may be just as valuable as political secession. Then too, the former is probably necessary for the latter.
That happened because people go apeshit when you tell them something true that goes against something they like. Try telling a young person that smoking pot is bad for them, or a fat middle-aged guy that the hops in his beer have phyto-estrogens and are making him a little sissy girl with bosoms. For some reason they get upset at you…
“Try telling…a fat middle-aged guy that the hops in his beer have phyto-estrogens and are making him a little sissy girl with bosoms. For some reason they get upset at you…”
Gee, I can hardly imagine why!
“The manner in which people thought to themselves was by imagining that were on some talk show or gameshow or new interview.”
That’s an interesting angle! Let’s see, how do I think to myself, and what does it signify?
People often don’t notice the way they think to themselves. Just reflecting on my own life, I remember that I could literally hear the voice of my parents within my head up until I was about 13 years old. My superego was actually the voice of my parents, sounding in my mind’s ear. I also know the talk shows and news casts style from personal experience. In my later teens I became aware of the fact that my thoughts often took the form of a lengthy disquisition given in the form of a press conference, starring me. People in our… Read more »
Very interesting. I’ve noticed my internal thought process often takes the form of Plato’s Socratic dialogues. And so I would often work through new ideas and concepts as if I was making an appeal to one of my siblings or friends. Which means I had to understand an idea, internalize it, then begin to simplify it and whittle it down into easy normie-friendly package. (It seems that “social media” has formed my mind despite my early “defenses”) It should be no surprise that for the longest time I was of the “appeal to the normie” faction. But I have given… Read more »
I’m usually watching a play with a critical eye. Even abstract thought usually takes the form. What’s the setting, who are the characters, what performances are they giving— most importantly, how do they relate? What’s between the lines?
Ever since 1992, I’ve been almost totally withdrawn from pop “culture.” I suppose that’s a start. But ideation must take some form. Perhaps some forms–the sonata, formal poetry, scholarly essays–are better than others–social media, television, rap, piercings.
“It’s very hard to get out of this without type of life without very profound and painful sacrifices. Reflecting on your own thought-style and trying to change it leads to a lot of psychological dangers and shouldn’t be undertaken lightly, but only those who undergo the process will be able to have a somewhat objective view of their own era.”
Very interesting – could you expand on these ideas?
I might be tempted to expand at great length someday, but it would be a complex and fiercely autobiographical work. Watch this space in the future. Suffice it to say, right before the turn of the millennium, I noticed the bad direction the culture was going in with the incipient internet and “reality television,” which was becoming very big at the time. It seemed like everyone was treading down a royal road to hell by becoming a hedonistic, egotistical maniac. My own “inner movies” consisted of either the press conference starring myself, or me expounding to my old drug-taking pals… Read more »
Some bitter medicine for habitual blog commenters here.
“Modern Americans, of course, view fat people as moral failures because they cannot control themselves at chow time.”
And they would be right. However, according to CDC, 3/4 of Americans are fat, so maybe they don’t really believe that.
I’d argue with that conclusion, i.e., being fat is a moral failure. Lots of info from peer reviewed papers currently indicating that the food companies have discovered how to make their product “addictive”—and that addiction reaction works much in the same way as various class 3 drugs. And of course, there is a genetic component to many who are fat. I’ve noticed this myself in more instances than not.
I confess to feeling a bit of revulsion to fat (as in obese) people myself. But that say more about me than anything else.
The “genetic component” has been a cop-out for a very long time. There may be some very rare exceptions, but mostly is BS. Every single time, someone who claims to have a genetic problem is constantly shoving food down their throats.
‘No Chris, you don’t have a genetic problem. You have a HoHo problem.’
It’s real. I can practically add mass by looking at a barbell and have great endurance. Flip side, if I’m not constantly doing something with the barbell, I add fat instead.
Some people have no self-control, but it’s also easier said than done to eat like a bird and refuse drinks in family/social situations, to not sit and talk as much as people want to.
Being able to put on muscle easier than others is a real thing, but no amount of genetics will change the physics of calories in/calories out.
Some metabolisms are more efficient than others, I guess. At least I know I’ll be hard to starve, lol.
No, it is not. There is a genetic component. I have seen entire families that are heavy set, to say the least. Now I admit there is confounding with environment of the family one is raised in. But some folk simply are not cut out for an American lifestyle.
I have seen a family where one brother is bone thin and his sibling is morbidly obese. Same family environment, different shuffling of genes. Deny it all you want.
So, alcoholism, chain smoking, drug use, porn obsession, gambling etc. are also not moral failures, because they are all addictive?
Yes, that would be true to an extent. All these “vices” you have described are one of “extent”. Most of them are found commonly done among the multitude of well behaved people—otherwise we’d outlaw them one and all.
For example, only 15% or so of folk who try/use alcohol will have clinically defined problems. I call that a product of their genetic makeup, not necessarily a moral failure. I do not absolve them of responsibility, but understand that their behavior—once addicted—is not as simple as a “free” choice to use or not to use as the “unaddicted” would have.
For Christians, gluttony is one of the deadly sins. And yet, many are fat.
Morally, there is not much difference between a pathological gambler, an alcoholic or a fat glutton. They are all incapable of self-control.
Like you wrote, it’s a matter of “extent”. A little bit of drinking is not a problem. Same as normal eating. You mention that only 15% of alcohol drinkers will have an actual problem. In contrast, 73.6% of Americans are fat. Add the skinny-fats, who have many of the same problems, and it will be close to 90%.
Genetics–including metabolism–is certainly a major determinant of body-type, but will power (or its lack) also plays a role. I have some sympathy for those who genuinely try like hell to stay reasonably slim, yet still tub up. On the other hand, I have none for behemothic slobs who anchor themselves in front of the boob toob and cram pork rinds, Pepsi and ice cream into their hash traps all day long. And I’ve known both types.
The flavor and fragrance industry in New Jersey, spends a lot of time and effort into creating tasty, addictive flavors. It’s as much of an art as it is a science. It’s typical of the food chemists to be into things like expensive wines, since their senses are honed to a fine point.
According to the CDC aloe vera is a possible carcinogen, as is a widely used artificial sweetener exhaustively tested and in use for decades, monkey pox (no, renamed M-Pox) is a major public health problem even though virtually all its victims are ultra-promiscuous gay men back from a party overseas. Meanwhile, a gene therapy never scarcely ever tested on human beings suddenly was reclassified a “vaccine” and was just the answer to be urged upon a billion human beings, against a virus known to rapidly mutate and one that wasn’t all that harmful to its “victims.” Or was the the… Read more »
In the big picture, and for better or worse, our friends at Bayer (which now encompasses what was Monsanto), and a couple other large seed companies will (or have already) largely determine what food is going to be produced and consumed.
Bill Gates and fake meat missionaries notwithstanding.
An ex-girlfriend spent a year during the mid-80s in Toyama, Japan as a high school exchange student. She said that her host family were loath to leave even a single grain of rice uneaten out of respect for the hard work of the farmers (fellow Japanese) who had grown it. There’s a lesson or two in that.
Interesting. I’ve been told from some friends who have visited Japan and China that it’s sort of the opposite wrt company for dinner. You empty your plate, they give you more food. This repeats until you stop finishing off your food. Then the (good) host stops putting food on your plate. This friend also remarked on what slobs these people were because the “slurped” their noodles and such. I remarked that I had heard that such was “polite” in that it meant you liked the dish. Culture clashes can often be fun, until you hit a vile culture that thinks… Read more »
Culture clashes can often be fun, until you hit a vile culture that thinks eye contact is an invitation for sex (rape).
Damn straight, I’ll never go to Philadelphia again.
I first read your avoided location as “Philippines” as was about to defend them…. 😉
Heh heh. I resent like hell that I didn’t write that line.
There’s some truth to the fact that Chinese will force more food on you if you’re a guest. Face matters, and it’s considered the trait of a good host. But that tends to taper off when you’re a constant presence at their table. Slurping of noodles and broth is certainly not frowned upon. It takes some getting used to but it’s not a deal breaker as it fades into the background once you’re accustomed.
It’s almost impossible to enjoy a good noodle bowl without slurping.
True. But my ball and chain detest slurping, so I’ve managed to perfect a technique that obviates that little solecism.
There’s a scene in the Coen brothers film, A Serious Man, where the Gopniks are sitting around the dinner table, slurping away at their soup. The impression created is rather repulsive, and perhaps intentionally so. The Coens were actually scored for antisemitism with this film.
That is just plain offensive. Everyone knows that Jews ingest liquids by dipping their noses in like a proboscis.
When I was a master’s student, I had a Japanese dorm mate for one semester. One evening we went out for dinner and I ordered a rack of BBQ ribs. When my food arrived, Toshiki’s eye’s got as big around as saucers. He said, in frightened wonder, “You’re not going to eat all that, are you? If my mom cooked that, it would be for our entire family.” Seems to me the Japs are physically rather weak, but they also have long lifespans. Their abstemious diet with its emphasis on fish and vegetables, I’m guessing, has something to do with… Read more »
Married with Children said it best 34 years ago:
“You didn’t kill Jim. Good health killed Jim. See, he purified his body so completely, that when finally called on to do so, he couldn’t handle the grease and sugar and toxic waste that we call food. He rendered himself extinct. See, healthy people are like dinosaurs. They’re not fit to survive.”
All diets work, all diets fail.
Fundamentally it’s a matter of willpower over the long term.
Easier for some people than others, but it’s like that for every human trait. Some are smarter, better looking, have temperaments that are well suited for their time and place in history, etc.
At the end of the day, in the West, it’s hard to be taken seriously if you’re a tub of lard.
Did you see the story of that obnoxious woman who starved herself to death by eating noting but fruit for social media upvotes? Not sure that diet ever worked. For her, I mean, for us it worked 😉
I put those folk in the same category as the occasional veterinary who see a sick animal that the owner has decided to turn into a “vegan”.
Veganism, especially raw veganism is a mental disorder. It’s almost always driven by the retarded notion that eating animals is a moral failing. We don’t need to speculate about that because they never shut up about it. They are basically food-SJWs. They tend to come with packaged beliefs too. Maybe one exists, but I’ve never heard of a right wing vegan, like ever. Not only are they food-SJWs, but they are regular SJWs as well.
Tell me about it. I went to grad school with a vegan woman who brought her own grill and faux meat (tofu) to a department barbecue. She made sure to set up up wind so as not to breath any smoke from burned animal carcasses. As I was want to do in those days, I approached her for some social interaction and to inquire as to her lifestyle. She enthusiastically told me about how wonderful it was. She went on until she came to the bad part, which was how rough it was to now interact with the rest of… Read more »
Bet she was the life of the party.
While in college I dated a woman who was a vegetarian, and pretty dedicated too. Funny thing was, she didn’t talk about it. When asked, she simply said she ‘didn’t really like meat’. At one point she was looking for a new roommate, but she would never consider anyone who specified that they wanted to live with other vegetarians/vegans. She thought those people were obnoxious. She was cool.
I have a hard time fathoming not liking meat. For me, life would almost be not worth living without it.
To some extent this is true, but it’s also nonsense. The obesity epidemic started just as we started sending women into the workforce full time and processed food became the major portion of our diet. Restaurants are another problem which also can be traced back to women working full time. Not just BK or McDonald’s, but regular restaurants too. They serve too much food and much of it is highly processed. Women and men now get home 6:00 in the evening. If they have kids, they gotta take care of them. Cooking proper meals from raw unprocessed ingredients doesn’t really… Read more »
Feminism also convinced women that it was righteous to not please their man visually, a deadly disinhibitor to gluttonous behavior (among other things).
I think this is an extremist’s position.
Hemochromatosis, scurvy, weak immune system, diabetes, anemia are real problems related to poor nutrition. Too much or too little iron, vitamin deficiencies, insufficient protein to grow muscle, too much sugar may all result in health problems.
Not sure what you mean by “an extremist’s position”.
I got the impression that our esteemed leader was minimizing the importance of eating well because of man’s historical ability to adapt – evolution. True, we have adapted and can eat a very wide variety of foods. Tis true. But just because a food allows you to survive doesn’t mean that those same foods will make you feel your best, remain healthy, and live a long life. What you eat and how it’s grown matters, even though it’s not always clear what’s the best or why, never mind the variability from person to person. My Japanese pal, poor guy, can’t… Read more »
I don’t think that was what he meant. Making fun of fads and faddish people is always acceptable.
We will all be eating each other with siracha sauce before the Globohomo is done with us….
Last I heard the only American sriracha factory (actual “cock sauce” brand) was shut down for smelling weird near rich Democrats, a.k.a. “crop failure.”
Looking it up, the factory was only allowed to operate as part of a web of corruption and they failed to participate fully in it, so The Law closed in.
Meanwhile, Tabasco brand seems to have suddenly acquired a near-monopoly on sriracha sauce sold in America.
Huh.
Thanks to unparalelled prosperity (in the past) fear now governs American life: fear of crime, fear of germs. fear of climate, fear of accident, worst of all fear of food!!!! glutenfree, sugar free, fat free, organic, nonGMO – hicarb lo-carb all around the town. It’s come to a pretty pass when a hostess of a dinner party thinks she has to check with her guests about food ‘disabilities’ or when visiting (middle aged) kids demand their individual food preferences be honored. At 92 I remember post WWII years when every crumb was treasured, every calorie (never mind its origin) was… Read more »
I’m merely middle aged. Yet I marvel at the changes in habits from my childhood. I can’t imagine how it must be for you. Maybe a collapse will be a good thing.
All fear stems from one cause, or overall fear—fear of death. Easy living and a loss of faith in a life after has made cowards of us all.
Ann, you can tell stories from your life all day and I will enjoy it.
In high school, I had an assignment to interview an older person about their life. My grandmother told me about victory gardens and rationing during WW2.
All my life I’ve enjoyed hanging around the old-timers, asking them questions, and listening to their stories. Hardly in keeping with the progressive, postmodern spirit, alas. Guess I’ve always been an old soul.
My father told me about living in occupied Europe. Basically, the full time effort spent in finding and obtaining food was the big one. Every country suffered as the young men were sent off to labor camps and food was confiscated from the farmers for the war effort—and that was in a relatively “good” country. Those considered “Untermenschen” suffered much more.
Agree with many points, but the crap that is processed food should be acknowledged. The fad diets are the Andrew Tate of the food world: they are the products of a sick system. Andrew Tate exists because we have fu#$#d up young men. He is not a solution, but he does partially expose the etiology. Again, not saying he is a solution. Fad diets are the over the top response to the crap that is on the shelves, the mega processed empty calories. In this way, they do serve a purpose: highlighting how bad most mainstream food is. The solution,… Read more »
Our ancestors weren’t eating genetically modified foods, for example wheat (thanks Monsanto) or industrially-processed seed oils and corn syrup in everything.
Lately I’ve been paying attention to random crowd photos from the past compared to today in the US and the fatty difference is alarming.
Oreos are almost 100 years old.
I have several cookbooks from the 60s and they rely more on processed foods than anything published today (canned crab-jello mold anyone?).
That stuff doesn’t help to be sure, but there’s something else going on beyond “processing”.
Where does margarine fit in all of this? I grew up on that stuff. Not enough meat so bread was always at the table.
The bread is not part of my dinner table setting but don’t touch my butter.
Yes they were. All food is genetically modified because, by definition, it reproduces. It’s just modified by natural selection rather than artificial selection.
The big issue with seed oils and filler junk is that it doesn’t satiate you. You eat something with it and are hungry again a few hours later. So you eat more, same problem. Pair this up with a sedentary lifestyle and it is just a disaster on your body. Cook with lard and healthy oils (like olive, but you also have to be careful about which olive oil you buy) and food actually does its job – fills you up until the next meal.
“you also have to be careful about which olive oil you buy”
Does this mean only EVOO, avoiding olive oil that’s blended from different sources, other? What’s the good stuff?
If you can find it, the olive oil known as arujo is “healthy” and strong-flavored.
I think EVOO is sufficient. It’s funny because on YouTube you can watch videos on how olive oil and canola oil are made. You watch the two back-to-back and I don’t see how anyone would ever use canola oil again.
Mycale: Most olive oil – even EVO – found in US supermarkets is blended from multiple countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc.). I will use that in general cooking and mix in a generous dash of the good stuff for flavor. I have some EVO from Aldi that is just from Greece. And I have a bunch from Trader Joe’s (yuppie store but some good stuff at good prices) that’s just EVO from Italy. Taste difference is profound.
Majority of European olive oil is illegally blended with waste oils like cottonseed and rapeseed. This is documented. You want to buy olive oil certified by a guild that sends random samplers to test the finished product. I buy California, Morrocan and Greek like this, Illiada/Agrovim whose farms and factory I’ve visited. I only buy Italian or Spanish when visiting and getting to know and watch production. Olive oil is not really intended for fast cooking because it denatures at low temperature, especially if unfiltered and cold expeller pressed. I make ghee from unsalted butter, two pounds yields two pints,… Read more »
DaBears: I’ve read the same about European olive oil. And important point about cooking with it because it burns at a lower temp than other oils – I mix it with grapeseed or avocado or coconut . I’m impressed you make your own tahini – I tried that once! I can/do eat hummus with a spoon I love it so much!
With butter – like olive oil – you get what you pay for. Best pastry crust use half butter/ half lard. Best dumplings I ever made were in England because I bought and used beef suet.
A lot of the olive oil I buy is Lebanese.
Hmmm…
Has the term ‘Levanter’ gone out of fashion?
I’ve seen it argued that seed oils change permeability (by various amounts for various substances) of cell membranes. May possibly help increase insulin resistance — which is not a good thing. I’ve talked to Thais and Filipinos who have had very long-lived relatives. Of course there is a strong genetic component and selection bias involved. But these die-hard (literally) members of the older generation cooked with palm and coconut oils exclusively and stubbornly persisted in doing so even when these became unfashionable as canola, soybean, and other oils took the market by storm. Also recall reading how the US soybean… Read more »
Almost as alarming as the demographic difference, I’d imagine. And the two are related.
Fad diets are all stupid but those that emphasize animal sources are more likely to lead to health that vegetarian or vegan diets. Highly-processed foods are also worth avoiding as they’re recent innovations that are too novel for evolutionary adaptation. Maybe someday humans will be adapted to Doritos After Dark Last Call Kebob but we’re not there yet.
There’s also the ‘eat ze bugs’ agenda to consider. If GloboHomo is pushing you to abandon or reduce meat, it’s worth asking why.
Having spent considerable time this summer poolside at the local amusement park, I wonder if the economists aren’t missing a not inconsiderable amount of national wealth stored on the bodies of our typical citizens. TomA might be wrong about how missing 3 meals leads to revolution, most people go could at least a month without eating. Of course they would “experience hunger.”
Was thinking more along the lines of A Modest Proposal for increasing the contribution of biomass combustion to the nation’s energy requirements.
Short-circuits the hunger argument, too.
Can’t have the people going hungry, you know.
Months ago after reading a Z essay, I put two and two together to realize the cult-ish behavior around modern dieting trends. The brand/mark of uniqueness is also important in these diets. Women “suffer” from celiac disease, and so they must abstain from sweet things. Men “achieve” ketosis and must transcend their baser desires to become more disciplined.
There are many people on the Left who suffer something like Celiac’s. But does the Right offer anything like the achievement of Ketosis these days?
It was very bizarre when, a few years ago, Ace seemed to be starving himself for weeks at a time. That’s not normal behavior.
Reminds me of a joke wherein a world weary student throws in his lot and eventually, after much labor and suffering, reaches nirvana whilst fasting and meditating atop a mountain in Asia. Within a month he receives his first visitor, which turns out to be his Jewish mother: “Sheldon, enough of this already, there’s no prospects for an accountant up here!”
Mothers! So he went on to make a fortune selling cremation ghat timeshares in Varanasi.
Cornered at a bar mitzvah in later life and asked for career advice for Nice Jewish Boys just starting out, he replied: ‘Fakir it till you make it!’