moda0306 wrote:
Gumby,
I try to do most of my learning via podcast now. I LOVE Chris Kresser's. Is there anyone you'd recommend following that reinforces your new model of risks and advantages of various food types?
I appreciate all these studies and journals, but I need someone like Kresser (and you haha) to digest that stuff for me first. I'm a baby bird when it comes to this stuff!
Unfortunately, I find that each guru has a an agenda or is misinformed. Kresser is
excellent (easily one of the best) but I believe he is confused on whole wheat for healthy individuals—confused by the fact that adultered/enriched industrial white flour and real whole wheat are actually on completely different ends of a spectrum. He is correct that wheat can be problematic for
some people. Btw, Kresser does recommend grains for those who can tolerate it, so he's not that far off from getting understanding why healthy people can tolerate gluten well
if they eat (real) whole wheat.
For instance, Vitamin E is said to
help protect against the negative effects that can be incurred from consuming
isolated gluten (nobody should really eat
isolated gluten, but whatever). Well Vitamin E just happens to be found in the whole wheat berry and in real whole wheat flour.
I assume Kresser would make the mistake of just looking at the negative effects of isolated gluten and using it to support his case. But, I think that's a mistake. I think it fails to look at the big picture.
I haven't followed Kresser in recent months, but last time I checked I think Kresser was too apologetic of red meat. I don't quite understand his defense of making red meat a staple when he's written consistently about the dangers of too much iron and there is a lot of evidence implicating red meat in colon cancer—believed to be from the higher iron content of the cooked meat reacting with pathogens in the flora.
My feeling on
red meat is this... Consuming raw meat and raw blood has a
~2mg heme absorption ceiling, making it safe for carnivorous animals and raw heme has an antimicrobial porphyrin ring around it that should prevent pathogens from feasting on the heme in carnivores guts. That antimicrobial ring around heme is
known to degrade with cooking and helps transform heme into non-heme, and meat is known to significantly increase the absorption of non-heme iron. Thus, eating lots of well-cooked meat should raise iron levels and exposes lots of free iron to pathogens in the gut, which is
already believed to promote colon cancer—
particularly if you consume meat with every meal. An occasional meat binge once in awhile is totally benign and probably health (think of it like nabbing a big kill). The Masai were known to eat a lot of meat and raw blood, but they only did so with huge quantities of dairy and dairy is known to bind with iron (probably not a coincidence).
I tend to favor lower-iron meats and fish.
I'm a big fan of Kresser, but just as Harry Browne told us, we cannot put all our faith into gurus. The best we can do is look at what successful cultures have done and try to emulate their successful routines. I think the "Blue Zones" are probably on the right track (lots of plants and little meat) for most people, as evidenced by their own track records and successful traditions. Dr. Weston Price observed Swiss (see Ch 3 in his book on the Loetschental Valley) that had perfect health eating a diet of mainly whole rye and dairy with only occasional meat—very similar to Blue Zones.
Once you understand the concept of why "whole foods" are balanced (a piece of steak is not a "whole food" but swallowing a termite or a cricket
is a whole food) then it becomes really easy to figure out what works for you by emulating traditions. Traditions are our ancestors ways of imparting millennia of wisdom into our daily routines. Use those traditions to your advantage. Study them and experiment with them. (For instance, French children have a morning tradition of dipping bread in chocolate. Chocolate gave them the minerals they needed.)
If you did want a podcast, you might try Angelo Coppola, who does
an awesome podcast and blog covering news and views without much agenda. He promotes "Plant Paleo" which is probably much more accurate to what our earliest ancestors actually ate. He believes that our ancestors ate
much less meat than what Cordain recommends. Coppola is open to the idea that wheat may be healthy, but I don't think he tolerates wheat that well so don't expect him to recommend it.
So, again, I recommend that you emulate cultures and traditions as best as you can and learn to
enjoy your food and you cooking!
Nothing I say should be construed as advice or expertise. I am only sharing opinions which may or may not be applicable in any given case.
