The human diet (fertility)
What is the optimal diet for fertility?
What is the most nutrient-dense and absorbable diet?
What did humans evolve to eat?
Stable isotope research
What do healthy populations on the planet eat nowadays?
The problem with the Blue Zones research
The issues with looking at modern hunter-gatherer tribes
Some older research by Weston A. Price - a dentist who thought the level of tooth decay in the US in the 1900s couldn't be natural for humans - he found populations all over the world eating their native diets who were strong and healthy, without the diseases of "civilization". They had perfect teeth and strong jaws (no crowded teeth). Poplulations that had taken on the "civilized" diet suffered from the same ailments we do.
Changes in our intestines
It can tell us how much meat early humans ate but not how much plant matter
What about nutrition science and health authorities?
Referred to by research scientists as "junk science"
The main problem: epidemiology (observational studies)
The useful elements of looking at modern hunter-gatherer tribes
A thought experiment: what if there were no agriculture? What plant foods would be available? How would we survive?
The acidity of our stomachs
The change in environment: we no longer have the megafauna
What caused our brains to get bigger?
A meat-based diet (i.e.) animal foods including seafood and fish, plus some dairy if tolerated) that is low in anti-nutrients (i.e. foods that rob you of the vitamins and minerals that you need) and that you can absorb into your body
The state of our teeth reflects our level of nutrition - bad teeth = bad health
We need to remember: Humans are animals! We don't get to cheat nature
What about the health worries about meat and fat?
Where does the idea that "meat causes cancer" come from?
The WHO group that used epidemiology and ignored better quality research that provided evidence that meat is not the problem
They are not able to live as they would have done if it weren't for modern "civilization"
Even so, despite the interference from cities and well-meaning but stupid NGOs, they're still way healthier than we are!
What do randomised controlled trials show?
Healthy user bias and unhealthy user bias
One that shows the body that it can afford to get pregnant because it has absorbed an abundance of nutrients
AND one that normalises the hormones in the body and allows it to function as it should
Antinutrients (list not exhaustive - there are more!)
Lectins
Phytates (phytic acid)
Oxalates
Evidence that autoimmune diseases are caused in part by antinutrients
Oxalates can cause kidney stones in susceptible people, but they can cause many other issues such as arthritis
Oxalate binds with minerals, which means you can't absorb those minerals
Oxalate and breast cancer: https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-015-1747-2
We can tolerate oxalates but they build up in the body and can cause joint pain, sensitive teeth, headaches and migraines, pelvic heaviness and vulva pain http://vulvalpainsociety.org/vps/
Oxalate-containing foods to avoid: potatoes, peanut butter, spinach, chard, beets, beet greens, nuts and seeds (except for sunflower seeds), blackberries, figs, kiwi, plantain, rhubarb, starfruit, beans, wholegrains, including fake grains such as quinoa and teff, spices including turmeric and black pepper
Better veg and fruit: cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, cucumber (remove skin and seeds), properly prepared/cooked green peas, avocados, celeraic, squash
Chelate minerals which mean you can't absorb them
Soaking, sprouting and fermenting can reduce phytates and lectins
Saponins
In beans and quinoa - saponins dissolve the connections in the intestine and makes the cell membranes leaky, which helps oxalate penetrate the cells
"Bitter-tasting usually toxic plant-derived organic chemicals that have a foamy quality when agitated in water"
The difference between the risk level of smoking for cancer versus the risk level of eating red meat, or even processed meat
Beware of the dodgy, incredibly dated and offensive language! Doesn't stop this being a useful publication for what Price observed in terms of thriving human health
Be careful when cutting down on oxalates! It's best to do it gradually and to take some supplements to help with getting rid of them
Lectins are in most plant foods but especially high in:
- legumes, such as beans, lentils, peas, soybeans, and peanuts
- nightshades, such as tomatoes and aubergines
- grains, such as barley, quinoa, and rice
- dairy, e.g. milk - I think the lectins in milk may be of a different quality than plant lectins
You can find countless articles refuting that things like lectins are a problem(e.g. https://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/1017p10.shtml) but all we need to do to realise that they aren't good for human health is to look at traditional cultures. Traditional cultures ferment plants to reduce lectins and other antinutrients - e.g. wheat sourdough bread, tef injera, cabbage sauerkraut and kimchi, kefir and yoghurt from milk, etc. Why would they go to all that bother if they hadn't learned from trial and error what works best for humans? Why do we now think we're so much wiser than these hundreds of previous generations?
Agriculture began only about 10,000 years ago - very recently evolutionarily. Since we started eating agricultural foods, both our skeletons and our brains have shrunk! Archaeologists can tell the difference between hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist skeletons because the agriculturlists show bone degeneration and terrible teeth - the hunter-gatherers have strong bones and strong teeth. This is reflected today in the modern hunter-gatherer groups that still remain.
Comparison of spinach and red meat
A diet that also avoids endocrine-disrupting foods
e.g. soy and flax are estrogenic
hormone imbalances; low male sex hormones; infertility in men and women; irregular menstrual periods; low sperm count; low sex drive/libido; endometriosis
Hong Kong vs UK, for example https://www.nationalgeographic.com/what-the-world-eats/
Ridiculous levels of conflicts of interest
Endometriosis
The general narrative
A rebuttal that links with the rebuttals for other anti-meat narratives
What about cardiovascular disease?
Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk for All-Cause Mortality and Cardiometabolic Outcomes
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m19-0655
"Current dietary guidelines recommend limiting red and processed meat consumption (25, 45). Our results, however, demonstrate that the evidence implicating red and processed meat in adverse cardiometabolic outcomes is of low quality; thus, considerable uncertainty remains regarding a causal relationship. Moreover, even if a causal relationship exists, the magnitude of association between red and processed meat consumption and cardiometabolic outcomes is very small."
"This study gives solid evidence that lectins, while in the presence of certain toxins, may be one potential culprit for the cause of Parkinsonism," https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181204131105.htm
You're right to avoid milk, which contains lectins: "Both the milks [A1 and A2] still led to a low-grade inflammatory response, the type of which is seen in conditions that we call 'atopy' – allergic-type conditions, asthmatic-type conditions. So, it's probably reasonable here to err on the side of caution: if you have a genetic susceptibility for developing allergies or autoimmune disease then avoiding cows milk for the first period of your life [Hahah, great advice! Can you supply a time machine please?] is certainly highly recommended – and possibly ongoing.
Anectodal evidence from thousands of people like Mikhaila Peterson who resolved their (seriously debilitating in her case) arthritic autoimmune symptoms on a carnivore diet
Again, you can find articles online saying - don't worry, all these hormone-disrupting plant foods are good for you!
Observational studies should only create hypothoses to be tested. They shouldn't make recommendations based on these studies. BUT, they DO!
In Hong Kong, they don't see eating meat as unhealthy. They see it as a high-status thing to do.
Life expectancy in Hong Kong is 85 (2019) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=HK
HOWEVER, can we say this is because of meat? No, we can only hypothesise that it could be something to do with it. That's what the health authorities are doing so we shouldn't make the same mistake
Lectins do damage to the intestinal tract as well as making their way through the intestines into the bloodstream. They bind to cells and cause autoimmune problems.
Plant chemical warfare! They're not so innocent (I'm imagining Britney ;)
At the same time, some societies do well with high-plant diets - again depends on how metabilically damaged people are. These societies eat meat and plants but without growing up on all the crap we have + they have healthy lifestyles.
Not necessarily autoimmune but linked: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31260048/
This book is a good read generally and is free on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/The_Vegetarian_Myth/page/n297/mode/2up?q=lectins
I like to follow the refs! The section on lectins links to this book, also free on archive.org https://archive.org/details/wholesoystory00kaay/page/230/mode/2up?q=lectins
Which refs this book, also free! https://archive.org/details/handbookofplantl0000unse/page/36/mode/2up?q=lectins
This is the most scientific of the three books so it flags the positives as well as negatives of lectins
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4325021/ " Phytic acid is the major storage form of phosphorous in cereals, legumes, oil seeds and nuts. Phytic acid is known as a food inhibitor which chelates micronutrient and prevents it to be bioavailabe for monogastric animals, including humans, because they lack enzyme phytase in their digestive tract. Several methods have been developed to reduce the phytic acid content in food and improve the nutritional value of cereal which becomes poor due to such antinutrient. These include genetic improvement as well as several pre-treatment methods such as fermentation, soaking, germination and enzymatic treatment of grains with phytase enzyme. "
Magnesium, calcium and potassium citrate