"Eat Like A Predator, Not Like Prey": Paleo In Six Easy Steps, A Motivational Guide

[Spats]

Nothing will ever change. Every year I work in the ER, I take care of fatter and fatter people. Everyone has diabetes and hypertension now. Little 2 year old kids are coming in sucking on a Coke, morbidly obese, at two years of age. And their parents wonder why I can't get an IV in their chubby kids arm.

Every year they seem to make CT scanners heavier duty to accommodate the obese. Paramedics now have hydraulic lift stretchers. Half of our wheelchairs are double wide, every chair for family in the patient rooms is double wide. The new standard is here, and it's all double wide.

Sick people are VERY PROFITABLE for the health-care industry...soon to be entirely paid for by the taxpayers.

1) The government pays Big Agribusiness $billions to overproduce grains that make us fat and diabetic
2) The government tells us it's healthy to eat all these grains that they just happen to have huge stockpiles of
3) Americans dutifully eat them, becoming fat and diabetic and requiring lifelong drug therapy that makes $billions for drug companies, and for the management of for-profit hospitals and insurance companies through government-paid-for health care like Medicare (and, soon, Obamacare)
4) Meanwhile, doctors, paramedics, nurses, techs, and actual medical workers get pay cuts because Medicare keeps shrinking (yet somehow the salaries of management and administrators never seem to shrink)
5) And healthy taxpayers pay for all of it

It's like some fucked-up science fiction novel where the oblivious population is being fattened for slaughter.

[hitek79]

Mrs. Rontele had many allergies and sickness that when she substantially cut gluten out of her diet went away. Pretty amazing.

This.

So I just read all 376 posts in this thread. Some good info on each side. About 4 months ago I had no clue what Paleo even meant, but my wife and I had some friends that have kids that were developing some pretty serious behavioral problems, and they thought the kids might have some level of autism. The kids were having violent outbursts. So they found a doctor that suggested it could be diet related, and initially had them cut out all gluten. The kids behavior had a big turn around in the period of about 60 days, and the wife's minor joint pain went away entirely. They continued doing research and came across something called Leaky Gut Syndrome ( http://www.ubernatural.com/en/gut-dysbiosis.html ) and they did a whole detox program, and now the kids have done a complete 180 in the last 6 months.

Fast forward to New Years Eve, and we saw some friends that had been trying to get pregnant for over 2 years, and at a cost of about 50 grand, and they found a doctor that suggested a gluten free diet, and within 3 months she was pregnant. She's still a high risk case based on her difficulties, but she's had no complications so far and is about 5 months along with a healthy baby.

Skip ahead to last week, and my wife being frustrated with not being able to lose weight she has put on as she's been training for cycling season(she has various food allergies), and we started talking about trying a Paleo style diet, and we both feel much much healthier and have dropped a few pounds. I'll update the thread with our progress as it comes, but based off the things we've seen from our friends personal experiences, I think it's the real deal at this point. It definitely takes some planning, and considering I'm not lactose intolerant, I won't be giving up chocolate milk, but I think it's something that we'll be able to stick to pretty easily.

[Dantheman]

My biggest impediment to going fully gluten free is beer. I don't drink a lot of it, but you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

[Rontele]

My biggest impediment to going fully gluten free is beer. I don't drink a lot of it, but you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

Dan, I consider myself fairly paleo driven and I drink beer. Life is too short.

Edit: And its not even gluten free beer!!

[rather ripped]

hitek, great post. I would like to encourage you to jump right in for the first 60 days. Go as strict as you can and do a "human experiment". Take a before and after picture.

You can cheat on Paleo and chocolate milk would be just that, but treat it like a cheat.

And just in case you want more advice add some heavy lifting to tie it together. Your wife will benefit if she is not already lifting.

[BeanDip4All]

It's like some fucked-up science fiction novel where the oblivious population is being fattened for slaughter.

.... your next book?

[BeanDip4All]

Nothing will ever change. Every year I work in the ER, I take care of fatter and fatter people. Everyone has diabetes and hypertension now. Little 2 year old kids are coming in sucking on a Coke, morbidly obese, at two years of age. And their parents wonder why I can't get an IV in their chubby kids arm.

Every year they seem to make CT scanners heavier duty to accommodate the obese. Paramedics now have hydraulic lift stretchers. Half of our wheelchairs are double wide, every chair for family in the patient rooms is double wide. The new standard is here, and it's all double wide.

this, x2

just did a lift assist last week on a 1100lb patient. 38 years old- fire had to take the door off so we could get him out. put him on this tarp-like stretcher and into a bariatric rig that's basically an enormous truck (not ours, but looks like this):


i'd say i respond to calls for 300lb+ people at least 2 or 3 x a day, every shift. and i live work in what's considered a slim/healthy area of the country! (SF bay area) Can't imagine what it's like to be EMS out in middle america. it's gotten to the point where i look at our pager when we get a call and am like "good, they're old- they wont be enormous and we won't have to kill ourselves lifting them" ... although this theory was debunked a couple months ago when we had a 380lb 88 year old woman! (who also had 60 birds in her trailer, 3 cats and 5 dogs.... and her primary caretaker was her 66 year old niece)

anyways, dont have any inclination to try paleo myself, i love pizza, bread, burritos and beer too much. wish all you diehards the best.

[mrryde]

this, x2

just did a lift assist last week on a 1100lb patient. 38 years old- fire had to take the door off so we could get him out. put him on this tarp-like stretcher and into a bariatric rig that's basically an enormous truck

Holy shit

[BeanDip4All]

Holy shit

yeah i had mixed emotions about it. mainly because the guy was REALLY NICE. he kept apologizing CONSTANTLY as the 10 of us moved him "i'm sorry, i'm sorry, thank you guys, i'm sorry" ... and on and on the whole time. he was a sweet man. had actually lost a LOT of weight a couple years ago (350lbs) but then gained it all back and then some.

hopefully he'll just go inpatient at a snf or something along those lines where he can't have 24-7 access to food or his enablers and just completely overhaul/re-program himself. :-/

[Spats]

Scary fact: our functional lifespan is actually DECREASING in America. We're living longer...and losing more years to health so bad we don't even have functional mobility.

http://www.gnolls.org/864/the-lipid-...art-2-of-many/

Also, the prevalence of "overweight" people hasn't changed much in America since the 1960s...what's skyrocketed is the prevalence of "obese" and "extremely obese" people.



This doesn't make sense at first glance: you'd expect "overweight" to be increasing along with everything else. But it doesn't. It turns out that anyone who gains weight just blasts straight through to "obese" or "extremely obese". This means that we've somehow managed to break human metabolism in America.

[Spats]

trackhead, bagtagley, DeutschBag, hitek, mrryde: I'm glad to hear that you're seeing improvements! I've definitely noticed some minor health annoyances going away after going gluten-free...and I've never in my life suffered from IBS or any of the typical gluten syndromes.

Deutsch: I'm with you, I'd rather buy locally grown conventional produce than "organic" shipped from Chile. Jet fuel isn't organic.

bags: it's not 'paleo', but I bet you could make a delicious gluten-free cheesecake crust with leaf lard. Cheesecake crust is all crumbly anyway so the gluten shouldn't matter...although I don't have a recipe. And, of course, there's the old "get a mini deep fryer and go to town with potatoes" trick. If you're worried about losing too much weight, potato chips fried in leaf lard will take care of your problems. I run mine on grass-fed beef tallow

[bagtagley]

I've read that pesticides wash off pretty easily and that there isn't much difference between organic and non. I could be wrong.

Again for me it's more of an issue of sustainable farming.

Systemic pesticides don't wash off. Surface pesticides can be washed off, though the wax coating can make that more difficult. That also assumes that none of the surface pesticides have penetrated the skin or been absorbed through the root system.

I agree though that sustainability typically trumps labels.


Spats: Good call on the cheesecake.

[Trackhead]

Stoked:

Found a local egg producer 4 blocks out of my way on my commute to work. Honor system eggs. Open fridge in front of garage, take eggs, leave money. Great price too.

Picked up a dozen yesterday. Nice rich yolk. Chickens hopping around in big back yard.

[Dantheman]

Where? How much per dozen? Enough inventory that I could grab 3 or 4 dozen and not clean them out?


Anyone do organ meats on a regular basis? I've been trying to get into offal lately since it's nutritious and cheap. Results have been mixed. I've been a lover of roasted marrow bones for awhile now, and the tacos de lengua and buche (fried pork stomach) at the taco cart near my office are damn tasty. The tripe was awful though, tasted like eating my socks after a full day tour.

I tried making a stew with beef heart a few weeks back. The flavor was barely distinguishable from muscle meat, but it was pretty dry and tough even after hours of gentle simmering. If the meat had been tender it would have been great. I assume there is just too little fat and connective tissue for it to break down into gelatinous goodness like a tough muscle cut does. I am going to revisit this though, I'm thinking that if I have the butcher counter grind it I could put it in chili and never know that it wasn't regular ground beef.

Last night I tried some beef liver that steepconcrete threw into my meat order for free. The flavor was a little tough to get past but doable with a strong sauce, but I had major issues with the texture. It was simultaneously chewy yet mushy and grainy. No desire to try it again at the moment.

[Rontele]

DTM,

Nope. But marksdailyapple just had a whole post on how to do organ meat and get past some of the gating issues (taste and texture), which you discussed.

[Trackhead]

Where? How much per dozen? Enough inventory that I could grab 3 or 4 dozen and not clean them out?

Two places now...........one at work from coworker (free), the other is in Sandy. I'm not sure how much she produces. I'll send you a PM with the details.

[Dantheman]

Rontele - Yeah, I read that MDA post. Going to try heart jerky for sure.

[Game Over]

Last night I tried some beef liver that steepconcrete threw into my meat order for free. The flavor was a little tough to get past but doable with a strong sauce, but I had major issues with the texture. It was simultaneously chewy yet mushy and grainy. No desire to try it again at the moment.

haha im right there with ya man-> liver is gnarly. mom used to make it for us as kids, she would cook it in a mass amounts of onions to kill the flavor but ohh man i could not get over the chalky funky grainy mush.

[hafilax]

Can you grind the organ meat into ground beef or sausage?

[BurnHard]

I f'in love liver! My roommate, not so much

I love chicken & veal livers the most ... awesome pate'! Lots of onion, anchovies, capers, and you have a delicious pate, great for entertaining since nobody but you is gonna eat it yet you look good for making something fancy like that

[Dantheman]

Can you grind the organ meat into ground beef or sausage?

I'm going to try that with heart in chili and experiment from there.

[Trackhead]

Hey Dan,

What's your youngster eating these days?

[Dantheman]

He's been eating pretty much whatever we eat for months now.

[Trackhead]

He's been eating pretty much whatever we eat for months now.

You mean kids don't need McDonald's and Pop Tarts? That's what everyone at my wife's work is saying.

"Oh, you'll see." "He won't eat anything but {fill in the blank for shitty standard American diet food}"

[Spats]

You mean kids don't need McDonald's and Pop Tarts? That's what everyone at my wife's work is saying.

"Oh, you'll see." "He won't eat anything but {fill in the blank for shitty standard American diet food}"

If your house is full of sugary crap because you eat it all the time, of course your kid is going to throw a tantrum because he doesn't get to eat the same sugary crap you're eating. Kids aren't stupid. They don't buy that you can eat Cheetos and drink Coke but they can't.

But if your house isn't full of sugary crap, your kid will eat whatever you've got, because he's HUNGRY. Kids need to eat a lot, and the proper response to an "I won't eat that, I want Pop Tarts" tantrum is "Fine, don't eat it...but we don't have any Pop Tarts, either."

How the fuck do they think people survived for millions of years, up to the modern era? "I want Pop Tarts!" "Sorry, son, they won't be invented for another 40,000 years."