What do all diets have in common and is that which also serves to differentiate all of them from paleo, primal, evfit? Whether you're low fat, low carb, Mediterranean, South Beach, Ornish, Weight Watchers, or what have you, you will be engaging in Seeking Behavior. That is to say, you seek to eat things the diet prescribes and hence, you end up with low-calorie, low-fat, low-carb, or some "exchange" level foods that can be composed of almost anything and everything, with some exceptions. Eat whatever, so long as it falls within the range of calories, fat, carb, or protein you seek. Some are purer than others, of course.

And Paleolithic man also engaged in seeking behavior. As a rule, eat anything and everything edible that satisfies hunger.

Then agriculture happened, followed by chemistry and industrial technology, and we have the emergence of all sorts of "foods," chemicals and synthetics paleolithic man never experienced. Those of us who practice a paleo-like diet do so implicitly or explicitly on the basis of a precautionary principle: foodstuffs that weren't around during the vast majority of our evolution might be less nutritious, less optimal, even harmful. On a practical level, most of us follow paleo because we've seen our own results with our own eyes and we know how we feel.

But seeking is the wrong sort of approach in my opinion; or, at best, is less advantageous than the alternative: Avoidance Behavior. You see examples of this everywhere. Those new to this dietary approach often find themselves befuddled and lost because they see "meat, fish, fowl, eggs, natural fats, veggies, fruits & nuts," but then feel like it's devoid of variety -- it's foreign to them: the Real Food we evolved eating exclusively. Where's the [insert dietary prescription] pizza, Hot Pockets, sodas, ice cream, fettuccine Alfredo, chicken fried steaks, cakes, cookies, fucking Cinnabon and on and on?

Where's my damn garbage? And it's even worse because the collateral casualty of the modern industrial social and health genocide known as processed & fast food is that families don't eat together and they don't eat together because they eat outta fuckin' boxes and packages, for shit sake. How in holy hell did it come to this?

Alternatively, how about, simply, "avoid Neolithic foods;" primarily grains, sugars, and vegetable/seed oils? Avoid anything processed. Everything else is fine and the macronutrient ratios, i.e., high vs. moderate vs. low carb is up to you to determine and so you have far more flexibility and options. High fat or moderate or even low fat is up to you. I'll go out on a limb and say that high fat, low to moderate carb, and low to moderate protein in ratios sufficient to sustain you is going to end up being the best way to go for most -- but admittedly not all. And you'll learn that it's not Real Food that's foreign but garbage that's foreign, and you'll also learn or rediscover cooking your food and your familial situation will be the far better for it, I guarantee it. Paleo is a health advantage on levels that go beyond diet. It's going to be good for your marriages & families too -- though you might have to introduce things gradually if you don't get family support. Keep plugging away. Find the Paleolithic foods your family members love. Don't give up, and don't give in.

This is what makes paleo unique, even in contrast to a vegan diet which offhand is probably the closest thing other than paleo to avoidance behavior (avoid all animal products and derivatives). Vegetarians long ago went the route of seeking behavior and now you can fill a supermarket isle with vegetarian junk food. The vegans are going the same way, in my observation.

And some paleos have also drifted more toward seeking behavior. I've been somewhat guilty of it (paleo pizzas, biscuits & gravy, chicken pot pies and maybe a few other things). Don't get me wrong. Those are all concoctions made from real foods and they're fine in terms of health. Not especially so for some of the other things I see people doing with massive amounts of almond flour and fruit. But, is it possible that an overemphasis on finding paleo-compliant substitutes for neolithic goodies just perpetuates the cravings for those foods long term?

The very unique thing about paleo is that you really can't come up with a line of paleo junk. By principle definition, it excludes neolithic agents, and junk food is almost exclusively composed of neolithic agents including all the stuff you see to your left in this low-carb bake mix.

Dr. Kurt Harris, in a post entitled Smoking Candy Cigarettes recently talked about this specific aspect of what he sees out & about on the blogs.

Would it not be better to train your kids, and yourself, to avoid Neolithic food by the simplest expedient there is? So simple a child could manage it?

Something as simple as a simple rule.

A rule like:

Don’t eat anything that looks like Neolithic food, especially Neolithic food.

What is the point of all this? I just don’t get it, and I don’t think it is because I am just too lazy to make this stuff.

It’s easy to make fun of commercial junk in a box like “low carb” pasta, zone and atkins bars, etc. All stuff that may be gluten free or have sawdust in place of of high GI starch, but whose real reason for existence is just to appropriate what should properly be freestanding, honest, real food back into the maw of corporate big-agra commercial interests.

In conclusion, notice that the principle of avoidance behavior can be applied to other aspect of the paleo path.

- Avoid thick or hard soled shoes as opposed to "go barefoot."

- Avoid eating when not hungry as opposed to "go x hours between meals."

- Avoid carrying around enough effing Tupperware for six small meals per day as opposed to "eat x number of meals."

- Avoid excessive risks as opposed to "be safe."

- Avoid chronically stressful situations as opposed to "meditate."

- Avoid staying up too late when you have to get up to early.

Can anyone think of other paleo examples of contrasting avoidance behavior with seeking behavior?

Related posts:

1. A Physicist on Paleo Eating
2. Chicken, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy (and how bad are carbs?)
3. Hunger
4. Paleo v. Mediterranean — Curing Type 2 Diabetes
5. “The Original Low-Carb Diet”

The promo is done buy a guy named Chris Rose and features Taco Bell's new Subway-esque mascot, Christine Dougherty, who supposedly lost 54 pounds eating Taco Bell crap. Even worse is the typical haul out of the "Registered Dietitian" useful idiot -- in this case Ruth Carey -- who's the typical dispenser of conventional "wisdom" that's been working oh-so well. "...Having skim milk instead of whole." Moron.

So if you check the "Nutritional" Information (oxymoron alert) and run some numbers you'll see that the average calories per item is 166 and the average carbohydrate 33 grams. At a recommended caloric intake of 1250 per day, that's basically all seven items per day (how convenient!) with a total carb intake of 231 grams. So, jack you're insulin all day on fast-"food" crap, stay ravenously hungry, yet starve yourself on 1250 calories. That's gonna be really healthy for your metabolism.

And then there's the obvious question: what do you eat after you've starved yourself, enriched Taco Bell, and lost the weight? Or, do you just eat from the drive thru for life?

Check out the comments. So far, uniformly negative. Maybe there is some hope.

Related posts:

1. Primal Tacos
2. All The Stupid Stuff in My Face from the Grant Whores
3. Vitamin Supplements – Part Three
4. I Know
5. The Wonderful World of Fat

And yet many out there either well into paleo eating or at least knowledgeable about it still allow their kids to consume all sorts of sweets, especially on October 31 and well into the next week. For some, the sheer volume of candy is astounding. We're talking pounds of it.

I refuse to give kids candy or sweet drinks; any time, any place, any circumstance. And less important is that actual specific piece of candy or soda pop, but what it conditions them to want to eat in the years to come. I did set out a bowl of treats on Halloween, but it was small packages of 86% cacao dark chocolate. That's as far as I'll ever go.

Fatty liver disease is rampant in children (lots more here), and unless caused by some genetic defect, the cause is plain and simple: sugar and specifically, fructose, which constitutes 50-60% of the sugar in candy, cookies, cakes and sweet drinks.

...a University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine-led team studied 742 autopsy reports and tissue analysis of San Diego County children aged two to 19 who died from traumatic accidents, homicide or suicide and had a medical examiner autopsy between 1993 and 2003.

The study, published in the October issue of Pediatrics, found that fatty liver was present in 13% of the children and adolescents whose records were studied.

Fructose is metabolized in the liver just like alcohol, so, giving them a piece of candy, in terms of the liver, is really not much different than giving them a shot of whiskey. It astounds me that parents, grandparents and so many others are so irresponsible in this way. Look around, people. What do you see? And when you not only give candy to kids, but defend it and even get indignant at the thought of denying them, you are no better -- far worse, actually -- than someone who makes excuses for and enables destructive alcoholics and addicts.

I simply have zero tolerance for this.

Update: Reader Kathy writes in, saying:

I have been trying to convert my grown kids to the paleo lifestyle but didn't realize how successful I had been until my son put up this video of my grandson.

He ordered his beef from U.S. Wellness Beef and gave him a piece of brisket to chew on.

I was diagnosed as Type II diabetic about a year ago and promptly did my own research and came upon the Drs. Eades, Jimmie Moore, you, Tom Naughton etc. and decided to try low carb. My husband I both lost 40 lbs and I am no longer diabetic.

Now go check out this video of a 6-month-old chewing on a nice piece of brisket.

Related posts:

1. Dr. Robert Lustig on Fructose: “Alcohol without the buzz”
2. Two Meals: Grassfed Brisket & Twice Cooked Scallops Sous Vide
3. Fatty Liver Reversal: Medical Doctor resorts to health blogger
4. Links and Quick Hits
5. Marisa’s Comment and Bratty Kids

Hi there,

I work with Silk on one of their latest new products called Heart Health.

As part of their new line of wellness products, Heart Health was specifically designed to reduce cholesterol. In fact, A recent study found that people who enjoyed three servings of Silk Heart Health per day for four weeks, as part of a sensible diet, lowered their cholesterol by 7%.

If you’re interested, I would like to send you some coupons for a free half gallon of Heart Health. You can use these for both product review, or as contest give-aways on your site. I can take care of shipping coupons to contest winners.

Also, I have Silk pedometers to give-away as well. They are pocket-size and perfect for the on-the-go lifestyle.

If you have any questions, please let me know and if you’re interested in participating, please send me your address for shipping. I plan to mail coupons and pedometers out this Friday, 10/9.

Thanks,
Tim

Well, Tim, it's clear to me that before wasting my time with your email, you didn't bother to do enough research on my blog (like search 'soy', maybe) to disabuse yourself of the silly assumption that, oh, I dunno...what: because this is generally a "health blog" that I must certainly and unquestionably be a whore to all the "expert" diktats out there, a supreme sucker for conventional "wisdom?"

...That when a major corporation maligns natural foods like meat and natural fats in order to tout neolithic garbage like soy and its hyper-processed derivative products, I jump to attention?

That being the case, then, I'm just going to assume that you don't mind poisoning people for money.

Deal?

Alright, moving right along. Do you have any idea of the poison unfermented soy and soy milk is? Are you aware, for example, that infants on soy formula and children on soy milk and other products are getting the hormonal equivalent of about five birth-control pills per day?

According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability and Primal Body-Primal Mind: Empower Your Total Health The Way Evolution Intended (...And Didn't) (quoting WAPF, here):

The most serious problem with soy formula is the presence of phytoestrogens or isoflavones. While many claims have been made about the health benefits of these estrogen-like compounds, animal studies indicate that they are powerful endocrine disrupters that alter growth patterns and cause sterility. Toxicologists estimate that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent of at least five birth control pills per day. By contrast, almost no phytoestrogens have been detected in dairy-based infant formula or in human milk, even when the mother consumes soy products. A recent study found that babies fed soy-based formula had 13,000 to 22,0000 times more isoflavones in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula. Scientists have known for years that isoflavones in soy products can depress thyroid function, causing autoimmune thyroid disease and even cancer of the thyroid.

Wonderful suff, that. There's more, but you can read it from the source. In brief: all these estrogens being pumped into infants and children is having opposite side effects: 1% of girls are now showing signs of puberty as early and age three (15% of whites and 50% of blacks by age eight), and boys are entering puberty with underdeveloped genitals and learning disabilities.

And the list goes on. Want more sources? Sure.

Now, as to the rest of it, "Heart Health?" Who in their right mind would trust anything a profit-at-any-price (see foregoing) company says about heart health? Want to know about heart health? How about consult a cardiologist like William Davis of The Heart Scan Blog, or a cardiac surgeon like Dwight Lundell, man enough to admit he made a mistake after holding 5,000 beating hearts in his hands and just observing the obvious. Or, why not another heart surgeon, this one specializing in infant heart transplant; also named America's Top Doctor three years running, Dr. Steven Gundry. How about see what he says about heart health, but certainly, by all means, laugh your ass off when a company willing to cripple infants and children touts "heart health."

Actually, it's not a laughing matter.

Finally, why would most anyone want to "lower their cholesterol?" What do you think you know about cholesterol, anyway? Do you have any idea how many people die who have low cholesterol? Seriously, do you have any clue? Are you aware that for the elderly in general and women in particular, the higher the cholesterol, the longer the average lifespan? Why are you admonishing people to engage in behavior that carries a risk of increased all-cause mortality and decreased longevity? Well, you don't have a problem poisoning kinds, so...

If people started actually thinking and paying attention to these things, they'd be focussed on natural and ancestral eating habits that would often tend to raise their cholesterol, and they'd stop looking at it as a problem to be managed -- as companies like yours would have them do out of ignorance and fear, all while the profits just roll in.

Hope that all wasn't too mean.

Related posts:

1. Poison Soy
2. Look Kids: An Alphabet With Newly Discovered Brains!
3. Dr. Robert Lustig on Fructose: “Alcohol without the buzz”
4. What Do You Really Know About Dietary Fat?
5. What Causes Heart Disease?

So, let's get back to some blogging. I've got some things to attend to first, so in the meantime, I'll let my friend Karen De Coster set the tone.

The American palette has been so assaulted with sewage disguised as edible food, that the general masses can no longer appreciate real food. Fresh, whole, natural food. Grown adults still turning their noses up at vegetables, for god sakes. People are addicted to crappy food not meant for human consumption. And don’t blame it on the “evil corporations” – blame it on the choices and priorities of individuals.

You get 'em, Karen.

Related posts:

1. Is Grassfed Beef Too Pricey?
2. The Grassfed Beef & Lamb Experience
3. “Children” vs. “Adults”
4. Downtown Campbell Farmers’ Market
5. Grassfed Beef Meals

I'll give you the background, and it's going to be a bit long and moderately extensive, OK? ...So here goes. My favorite driving activity these days is to catch up on Jimmy Moore's podcasts. I'm going to get to why Jimmy got me to carb binge, later; but, first, let me divert you (again: many diversions here) for a minute. Number one, if you're not taking advantage of Jimmy's gargantuan efforts in his podcast shows, you are missing out on a lot of the very best -- if only for its more total human experience: it's people talking, discussing, which is quite different, perhaps superior in terms of our natural ability to take in, comprehend, and enjoy -- far more than just visual input from reading a blog post.

Jimmy: your podcasts are unequalled in terms of a whole experience and high accessibility. They're entertaining, and eminently valuable -- and you have my (and my wife's) sincere thanks. 'Takes a lot to get me off of whatever classic rock station I might be able to find along my various ways, but you manage to do it very often. Thank you, Sir, and thank you especially for the quality of guests you are able to command, which, as you probably know, is the biggest part of it. I'm sure you have dozens of interview requests you'd never subject your listeners to. Easily, 80-90% of your podcasts are ones I listen and integrate in full, and some I listen to twice.

So, I would admonish all reader to check these out. Here's the place, and you can access in different ways. Producing these shows is a lot of work, so I would suggest that if you listen to them and find value in them, as do I, then please consider donating to the effort.

On this particular trip I decided to finally listen to Jimmy's interview with Lyle McDonald. Here's the write-up on Jimmy's blog. Well, I must say that I was highly impressed with this interview in terms of Lyle's obvious good preparation for it, and also for the utmost respect he showed Jimmy; which, if you've ever seen Lyle in comments on his blog or posts in his forum...well, let's just say I wasn't expecting this, and particularly so when the topic turned to "metabolic advantage" of very low carbohydrate diets. Lyle was very conciliatory and explained his position quite well.

Alright, so that's the first part of the setup. Next, one of Lyle's books is The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook, which I read, tried, and blogged about here, and here. In total, I stayed on it less than a week. I just could not take the blandness of huge amounts of lean protein. But, I'm convinced the diet will shed fat rapidly in the short term. One thing Lyle talked about -- both in the book and in the podcast -- is episodic carb bingeing to sort of reset metabolism, notch up thyroid function, and capture some other benefits.

So, this was my excuse for doing what I did Friday night: yep, I'm blamin' it all on Lyle and Jimmy. Gee, thanks, guys.

It started out reasonably enough.

Antipasto Plate

I also had a draft beer, and this plate came with three slices of bread. Bea & I split the whole deal, but I probably had the lion's share. Then I got my crazy idea. What would it be like to go wild on carbs? So, following this, I had none other than a huge tri-tip sandwich (bread too), a corn dog, and then another beer.

Actually, I felt fine for the duration of the concert, and didn't even get drowsy. Got home around 11:30 pm, walked the pups, then began feeling really tired 'round midnight and hit the sack. But first, I began getting this tremendous craving for water. Downed two large glasses, then went off to bed. Fell asleep immediately, but then woke up two hours later, 2:00 am or so, thirsty as hell, and with nuclear heartburn as a bonus. It was so bad that I had to resort to baking soda. More water. Went back off to bed, then laid there, tossing & turning, until around 5:30 am, getting up at least three or four more times -- to drink more water. Then, the eventual other half of the unpleasantness came, of which I'll spare you the details...

Finally I got to sleep again, sometime before 6:00 am, and was able to get a decent two hours. Needless to say, I dragged ass all day, yesterday. Went down to breakfast at a local place around 11:00 am, with the intention of taking in an enormous protein load to get myself functioning again. I was screaming hungry, and still thirsty. It was that now unfamiliar, gnawing, nauseating hunger that all carb addicts know so well. I ate three eggs, four sausages, three strips of bacon, a huge mound of cottage cheese, and a few slices of tomato.

Now we're talking! I began feeling better almost immediately, and continued to feel better -- though tired -- throughout the day. Now, here I sit this morning in full recovery, not hungry or thirsty a bit. On reflection, I'm wondering if the unending thirst was a function of glycogen storage from the carbs. As we all know, each gram of stored glycogen requires 2-3 times that in water retention. Can anyone speculate on that point?

In all, it was a good experience that I'd actually recommend from time to time for those already on a solid paleo path. It will definitely solidify your approach to a paleo-like lifestyle. I won't be doing this again anytime soon.

Finally, on the subject of carb addiction, here is another great podcast from Jimmy: his interview with Julia Ross. "Carbohydrates aren't food, they're addictive drugs," says Julia. She has very high success using particular amino acid supplements (protein) to diminish and eventually rid people of cravings for drugs, alcohol, and...carbs. It's quite an amazing story. I, for one, have been experimenting with eating way more protein the last week or so (she says you can accomplish what her supplementation does by really loading up on the protein). Other than my foray into carb hell on Friday night, I have noticed an increasing sense of well being by eating two very protein intense meals per day, nothing in-between, and virtually no nighttime grazing. Check it out for yourself.

Any comments of shared experiences with carb binges?

Related posts:

1. The Rob Breakenridge Interview; AM 770 CHQR, Alberta
2. Cardiovascular Health
3. Three Must-Hear Podcasts: Real Farming, Cancer, & Statins
4. Lierre Keith Gets a Cayenne Laced Pie in the Face During San Francisco Book Fair Speech
5. Dr. Barry Groves

Here's the official website. Well, we saw the film last weekend, and, I'd wanted to get this review written and published sooner. It's the unfortunate reality, however, that it's often when I have the most to say that saying anything at all is the most difficult. That's where I find myself, and why getting this done has taken longer than I'd have liked. In the end, it's going to only slightly convey my thoughts on this, so let me just tell you up front: see this film. See it now.

The reason I wasn't too enamored of seeing it, at first, is that I figured it would mostly rub me the wrong way. I guessed it would mostly be about how "big bad business" ought to be even more tightly regulated than ever (since the mountains of regulations to which they are already subject have worked out so well, I suppose).

While one "sub-plot" of the film was indeed about this aspect of "food politics," it wasn't nearly at all the theme nor major element of the film. And, in fact, to large extent in my view, the rest of the film undercut the calls for more regulation.

I'll go a step further. The film was pretty pro-business (on "practical" rather than principled grounds, i.e., freedom and property ownership), and even so for larger corporations. One notable scene was that of a long-time environmentalist who founded an organic yogurt company and has now succeeded in getting his product into Wal-Mart. The rational was, of course, obvious to anyone who knows anything about free-market economics: 1) Wal-Mart will sell what people want to buy, and 2) to the extent that Wal-Mart displaces non-organic, unhealthful products with true organic and healthful ones, it represents a tremendous positive impact in terms of things conservationists, environmentalists, and others worry about: pesticides, chemicals, transportation footprints, etc.

Now, maybe I'm seeing what I want to see here, but this film is more an indictment of government than anything else, and rightly so. After all, how would Monsanto be able to corner the corn and soybean seed markets, if government hadn't been for sale and Monsanto came forward with the cash (various euphemisms get used, of course)? And Monsanto isn't the only one. The film makes the point, if I recall numbers correctly, that four mega-companies control over 70% of the food supply in America (in the early 70s, it was under 20%).

Now how could that be? Did they hire private armies and conquer that market share by force? No, they influenced and bought it, and in no small measure due to the important numbers of former corporate players in these firms who now hold appointments and positions all over the FDA and the USDA. And it wasn't just in the Bush administration. This goes back to Clinton and beyond.

The result is that small farmers either tow the line or face losing contracts with the big boys, and all manner of regulation and court precedent is in place to ensure that the big boys get their way. You see, big corporations love big government and they love regulation. The reason ought to be obvious. On the scale at which they operate, they enjoy economies that allow them to spread regulatory costs over sales in the billions. What's another few million in regulatory costs for them, when it represents a fraction of one cent for every unit they produce, ship, and sell? On the other hand, how many small guys will be prevented from even getting in the game when the minimum entry-level regulatory cost is in the millions per year?

I'll make this brief, because readers of this blog know the score: the "food" is crap. Virtually all of it; top to bottom and wall to wall. Even the things us paleos like to eat (meat). In one sense, it's a fabulous affirmation of the productive power of quasi-"capitalism" (genuine ownership and the freedom to produce would be even better, and small guys could play too, without artificial barriers to entry). These companies are masters at lowering their costs, passing some of those savings on to you for lower prices, and reaping some of the difference for themselves in higher profits.

Jolly, I say: for shoes and automobiles. Food? Nope, I don't think that anymore. Where in the world did we come to the place where we try to spend the least amount possible for what we ingest into our own bodies? Why do we want to go cheap for something so important?

You can see the film in order to see what is so awful and bad about virtually everything in the local supermarket. What I want to do to wrap this up is to focus in on one of my new heros: Joel Salatin. Joel is the proprietor of Polyface Farms, "the farm of many faces."

By including so much of Joel in the film, the core message becomes clear: you are responsible for what you eat, not the government, and the only real way for good and wholesome food to become ubiquitous and less costly is to get the government out of it.

But what about food safety? Here's what Bill Marler, a Seattle trial lawyer, has to say:

In 16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, I can tell you I've never had a case where it's been linked to a farmers' market.

Let me frame it a different way. Suppose there were calls for USDA and FDA regulations for anyone who served food to their guests, in their own homes? Would that make you feel safer, or, do you suppose that it would mostly serve to keep people from serving food to guests altogether (just like the small farmers who don't want to bother)? Yet, who is best situated to judge the safety and wholesomeness of such food? Is is not you yourself, and is it not by means of having a personal relationship with those serving that food?

So, the reason small local farmers are never implicated in food-borne illness outbreaks is many faceted. First, while they are certainly earning a living, they are typically doing it through means they care a great deal about. They also have personal relationships with many of their customers. You can go to the farmers' market and talk personally to these people. They can become your friends. You can utilize the best safety system around: your own judgment. When you see hordes of people cheerfully picking through the fruits and veggies, chatting up the farmer and his workers, do you not have a far greater sense of safety and propriety than with the notion that some bureaubot in DC is looking out for you?

Well, if you don't, then that's a big part of the reason it has all come to this. Know your food. Know where it comes from. Know who's producing it.

I fist became aware of Joel Salatin a couple of years ago when someone linked to his essay, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. I recommend you read that. An excerpt:

I want to dress my beef and pork on the farm where I’ve coddled and raised it. But zoning laws prohibit slaughterhouses on agricultural land. For crying out loud, what makes more holistic sense than to put abattoirs where the animals are? But no, in the wisdom of Western disconnected thinking, abattoirs are massive centralized facilities visited daily by a steady stream of tractor trailers and illegal alien workers.

But what about dressing a couple of animals a year in the backyard? How can that be compared to a ConAgra or Tyson facility? In the eyes of the government, the two are one and the same. Every T-bone steak has to be wrapped in a half-million dollar facility so that it can be sold to your neighbor. The fact that I can do it on my own farm more cleanly, more responsibly, more humanely, more efficiently, and in a more environmentally friendly manner doesn’t matter to the government agents who walk around with big badges on their jackets and wheelbarrow-sized regulations tucked under their arms.

OK, so I take my animals and load them onto a trailer for the first time in their life to send them up the already clogged interstate to the abattoir to await their appointed hour with a shed full of animals of dubious extraction. They are dressed by people wearing long coats with deep pockets with whom I cannot even communicate. The carcasses hang in a cooler alongside others that were not similarly cared for in life. After the animals are processed, I return to the facility hoping to retrieve my meat.

When I return home to sell these delectable packages, the county zoning ordinance says that this is a manufactured product because it exited the farm and was reimported as a value-added product, thereby throwing our farm into the Wal-Mart category, another prohibition in agricultural areas. Just so you understand this, remember that an on-farm abattoir was illegal, so I took the animals to a legal abattoir, but now the selling of said products in an on-farm store is illegal.

Here, now, take a look at Joel -- and see and hear how a farm ought to operate. See and hear about the sorts of people you ought to take the time to get to know in your local area, and to support. I know I'm going to make that effort. (I recommend clicking on the HD button once the video starts.)

One of my favorite scenes in Food, Inc. is of Joel sitting in the grass with his free ranging hogs nearby, eating from a feeder.

All of those pigs tails are wagging, just like a happy dog's. You're not likely to see that in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO).

Related posts:

1. The San Pedro Square Farmer’s Market
2. Downtown Campbell Farmers’ Market
3. The Grassfed Beef & Lamb Experience
4. Grassfed Beef Special – La Cense Beef
5. FA/RM: Free Agriculture – Restore Markets

Friday I stopped by the local office of American Diabetes Association to pick up materials for the Tour de Cure bike ride. Participants were stopping in all day to register for the event. There were Dunkin Donuts available for anyone. There were large bags of M&Ms to be given to participants on race day. I was shocked! This is the ADA and they are giving out donuts!

Saturday was the bike ride. I road 100k. I road for fun not exercise. I went slow by biking standards I’m sure. I met a “pre-diabetic”. He looked slim by diabetes standards. I thought he a type 1 like myself. I told him about EF and my diet. When he told me that he rides his bike daily(over 100m/wk) and can’t do it without carbs I realized his pre-diabetes will likely become full blown. He is what I’d call “skinny-fat”. He is consuming large amounts of carbs to fuel long/slow exercise. His pancreas is working overtime. This is a recipe for disaster.

This is particularly annoying when you consider that on this blog and many others, and forums like Dr. Bernstein's, one can read dozens and dozens of personal stories of greatly improved type 2 diabetes, and even cures -- i.e., people getting off insulin. Then there's Jenny. She'll do a type 2 diabetic more livesaving good than all the diabetes associations worldwide, combined. That's not hyperbole.

So how do we get to such an upside-down state of affairs? Well, I think part of it is the top-down, institutional, collectivist nature of modern society and its irreconcilable clash with our evolved ancestry as hunter gatherers (where every individual was of utmost importance to the small group). Now, people gain importance though other means, many of which involve a self-referential, circular system of prestige, position, favor -- much of it ultimately sustained at gunpoint or prison sentences.

Setting that aside, there's also the fact that the American Diabetes Association receives millions every year from junk "food" manufactures and drug companies. Talk about incest. A perfect storm of downright fraud, presided over by Chairman of the Board, George J. Huntley, Chief Executive Officer, Larry Hausner, and their petty bands of miscreants.

The ADA, which relies mainly on donations to fund its efforts, accepted more than $23 million dollars from food manufacturers and drug companies in 2005. The charity would often license its logo to food companies for use on diet or low-sugar products in exchange for sponsorship money.

You know, referring to the quoted comment at the beginning, this is really no different that an open bar at an AA meeting.

Actually, it's worse. One could understand alcoholics having their weaknesses and falling off the wagon.

...But what if they claimed that regular drinking was necessary for alcoholics, so that they don't overdose on counseling, help, and self-control?

The ADA is a fraud because, rather than instruct diabetics on a proper diet, then having the drugs and procedures available for those who simply won't, they instead act as though donuts, candy, and other high-carbohydrate poisons are perfectly fine, even healthy. At the same time, they condemn food like meat and animal fat, leaving those susceptible to their lies with ittle to eat but the junk that's manufactured by their benefactors.

The American Diabetes Association is literally presiding over the maiming (foot amputations, blindness, morbid obesity) and early deaths (heart disease, typically) of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

Related posts:

1. High Intensity Sprinting for Diabetes
2. Paleo v. Mediterranean — Curing Type 2 Diabetes
3. General Health Benefits
4. Two ADAs: Same Awful Advice
5. What You’re Up Against – Eggs Linked to Diabetes

Crisco, for example, is a consequence of electrification and light bulbs. For, you see, Crisco was originally intended to replace the expensive animals fats used to make...candles. From Wikipedia:

When William Procter and James Gamble started the company Procter & Gamble, they hired chemist Edwin C. Kayser and developed the process to hydrogenate cottonseed oil, which ensures the shortening remains solid at normal storage temperatures. The initial purpose was to create a cheaper substance to make candles than the expensive animal fats in use at the time. Electricity began to diminish the candle market, and since the product looked like lard, they began selling it as a food. This product became known as Crisco, with the name deriving from the initial sounds of the expression "crystallized cottonseed oil".

I suppose the "logic" must have gone something like this: "well, since we can use food (animal fat) to make candles, let's just feed people candles!"

Then, they marketed the hell out of it by giving away free cookbooks, every recipe calling for Crisco. They also dishonestly, manipulatively, murderously demonized natural, real food, scaring people away from it in order to replace it with a money-making killer. While other factors and variables surly contribute, it's just too much of a coincidence that cardiovascular disease really took off with the advent of frankenoil, Crisco being among them. [Added later: see this from Stephan.]

Here's a 1915 Crisco Advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post (click the image to enlarge).

There's a lot of talk of "Tea Parties," these days, in which I have not the slightest interest. I might could get interested in Pee Parties, however -- wherein certain graves are urinated upon by righteous crowds seeing to some justice, if only in symbolic form.

Might I suggest beginning with William Procter and James Gamble?

Related posts:

1. What Do You Really Know About Dietary Fat?
2. “Loving Lard”
3. Onglet de Boeuf Frites (Hanger Steak & Fries)
4. Grassfed Beef Meals
5. Fasting Note & Food

Now, let me show you why. But first, how much sugar is circulating in your entire body at any one time? Let's say you have ideal fasting blood glucose (80 milligrams per deciliter -- mg/dl). For an average sized person with a blood volume of 5 liters, that comes out to...ready for this?...ONE 4 gram SUGAR CUBE. Skeptical? Well, let Dr. Michael Eades convince you.

Now, at an average consumption of 156 pounds per American per year, "only" 29 pounds of that is from the sugar bowl. The rest is added sugar in the products most Americans are eating. How much is that? Well, here's what 4,373 of them look like.

At 4 grams each (remember, that's the total volume of sugar in a fasted, healthy person), that block is 17,492 grams, or only 38 pounds (it's actually hollow). That's only 10 pounds more than what the average person gets from the sugar bowl. So, how many sugar cubes does the average American consume, per year? How about 17,690 sugar cubes, meaning that the Average American consumes over seventeen thousand times their normal fasted blood sugar in the space of the year. That means they consume 49 times their blood sugar every day and if they're awake for 16 hours, that's 3 times per waking hour. If we look at it in terms of three meals and two snacks, that's 10 times normal blood sugar per meal or snack.

And it's a mystery to everyone why health is so messed up, consuming that quantity of something that was never in our diets in any quantity before 100 years ago? Instead, we hear endless calls from expert-morons that we need to cut the fat, something that has been part of our diet in significant quantity for eons. Frankly, I'm amazed the problems aren't far worse. What a resilient organ, that pancreas.

So, how do we get so much sugar? Here's how, right here: Sugar Stacks. Keep in mind as you browse through the many illustrations, that each sugar cube represents total blood glucose volume (4 grams) in a healthy fasted individual.

So, one can of cola, 9 times normal blood sugar.

Be sure to get LOW- FAT ice cream. Don't worry that a scoop is five times normal blood sugar.

Uh oh! I think Mrs. Fields uses REAL BUTTER in her cookies. Run away!

Tell me you've never downed a whole bag of these. And how about the movie theater king sized ones?

The HEALTHY LOW-FAT alternative!

Stick with the berries, paleo people!

And veggies!

At nearly 14 times normal blood sugar. Caution: don't get it with the arterycloggingstaturatedfat butter melted on top. That's unhealthy!

At nearly 28 times normal blood sugar, I sure hope they don't use real FULL-FAT CREAM in these. That would really be a lot of FAT!

So, be sure to look at all the pictures over at Sugar Stack, bookmark it and pass it along to family and friends, and pass around this entry as well. Most people have no clue about the massive amounts of sugar they are eating.

And keep another thing in mind: this is based upon average consumption of 155 pounds of sugar per person per year. There are plenty of individuals consuming over 250 pounds per year.

Related posts:

1. Why You Got Fat
2. Blood Glucose and Cognitive Function
3. All The Stupid Stuff in My Face from the Grant Whores
4. Working Out Fasted
5. Sugar Feeds Cancer