Last evening, I went to dinner with Dave Asprey of BulletProofExcec, Grace—AKA Dr. BG—of AnimalPharm (link removed), and Patrick, creator of PaleoHacks. Grace’s lovely sister and my lovely wife Beatrice were also in attendance. It was at Birk’s, in Santa Clara. They have grassfed steaks. Dave knew this, and actually metioned it in the podcast I recorded with him a couple of weeks back—which should come out soon.
And then, that asshole Patrick ordered a dozen oysters on the half shell and being the hog I am, I downed four of them. And within an hour or less, already having ordered and received my grassfed filet, I had them box it for me. I excused myself from the table, went out, found a secluded flower pot, and did exactly what my dogs do when they don’t feel quite right.
The difference is, I didn’t return to it.
I have no idea what the human reluctance to vomit is all about. When you feel like you need to blow chunks, fucking blow chunks! And guess what? You’ll feel immeasurably better almost instantly. Why do you insist on putting your will to not be embarrassed, beyond your physiological nature?
And guess what else? Why not trust your inner animal? It’s telling you that something is very fucking wrong. Why try to overcome that physical urge with a potentially lifesaving natural physical response. You can actually die from a bad enough dose of bad shit. Really. It’s happened. And for the sake of saving face, you’re going to feel like crap for hours, suck it up, and take the risk? Not me.
Flower pot. Yea, there were oyster chunks in that shit.
I got this email earlier that motivated me to this post, and I’d intended on taking a post break for today.
I’m really enjoying your blog and looking forward to your forum starting up. In the meantime, I have a question regarding a recent experience of mine. I was the unfortunate victim of food poisoning earlier this week, and was wondering what I could have done to recover from it. I’m familiar with the BRAT diet, and realize that half of that formula isn’t Paleo friendly. So what kind of diet is recommended for a stomach that’s recovering from some kind of insult? I ended up eating bananas and applesauce, but wondered what else I could have eaten to help me recover.
Here’s how I replied:
I do just like a typical animal does, even my dogs. At the slightest hint of a problem, I stop eating until I feel better. You don’t eat anything; you rather, divert all resources to healing. Your body already has all it needs. Yes, you may deplete certain nutrients somewhat, but if you eat nutritionally dense you’ll quickly fill them again when you are hungry and feel good, at which point you eat.
Once again, it’s always about “what do I eat”: to cleanse, to lose weight, to recover from illness.
How about: Try Nothing.
I hadn’t eaten much yesterday and after that experience, had no desire of food until about 11AM. Anticipating this, I had set my filet out all morning to get up to room temp. I fired and basted two sunny eggs in butter, set them aside and re-seared my $32 untouched filet in the same butter. It was all awesome.
…The coolest place I ever emptied a stomach was on the island of Diego Garcia in the dead middle of the Indian Ocean—about 2 deg south of the equator, if I recall correctly. We’d been 60 days at sea, we arranged for an officer’s kinda dinner ball with gold cummerbunds & all—or crumb catchers, as you prefer—and we went to town.
I think I lost it the most when Erik, a fellow officer friend of mine, got up and toasted to true manly character, defined as whether or not you get out of the shower to pee.