Veganism, Human Health and Conspiracies.

[Poindexter]

A great question, and I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Modern hunter gatherers eat a lot of calorically dense wild grains and tubers (which are frequently available) and meat when they can get it. The latter is often in small amounts on average, or eaten for (rare) feasts. Fruit and greens are not very calorically dense, while still being nutritious.

Yup, true.

Fruits, vegetables and greens are not calorically dense. I did a food diary Tuesday this week, day before yesterday I think, and I finally totaled it up.

It was a brutal 12 hour shift. I might have had two servings of oatmeal that morning, with 1/3 cup of fruit, and I am pretty sure I had two servings of fermented vegetables in a large pyrex lunch bowl that later had hot ramen poured in. I left those off because I am not sure. I don't remember how many power-ades I had, at least 2, maybe 4. It was not an ideal day to be scribbling in a food diary. 3 oz blue cheese dressing not tabulated unknown value, plenty more calories there I am sure.

I only had time for one large salad (about 90 calories) and one small salad, (about 45 calories). I have it totaled as 7.5 servings of vegetable, including 4.5 servings of dark leafy greens. So there is 130 calories. 2 oranges, 120 cal, and 8oz of carrot juice, 80 calories.

So 329 calories of good stuff, 8.5 veg and 2 fruit total.

I am not gaining weight, my energy level is terrific; but I took in at least 2826 calories on the day, and I got 2497cal of processed sugary calorie dense junk on the clipboard, like Tonkotsu ramen and 3 servings of Ben and Jerry's.

I brought in some starches today. One can of drained green peas (3.5 servings) with 1 can of drained mushrooms (1 serving) and 2 servings of prepared Madras lentils got me 5 starches and 1 veg (505 starch cal, 25 veg cal, 530 cal total) . I just dumped it all in a pan, heated up, a little black pepper and some tobasco, ate the whole thing, good satiety.

So I penciled out 10.5 servings of fresh fruit and veg = 329 cal
5 servings of plant starch= 505 calories.

So on my clipboard of food actually consumed starchy plants are coming in around 100 cal serving, fresh fruit and veg around 33 cal per single serving. The madras sauce on the lentils may be driving that upwards some.

I am sticking with the leafy greens and multicolored veg at 5 servings daily each. Up to three fruits, only one juiced.

Next step for me is to start replacing calorie dense garbage with calorie dense not garbage.

Step one is going to be learning to make Madras sauce as a tomato based pour over sauce for my home canned potato. My home canned potato come in around 292 gr (270 cal) per pint jar (~3 servings), but with "only" 1/4t added salt in each jar- about 25% of USRDA in three servings.

Step two will be coming with a food plan for working days around 3500 calories, and a second meal plan for days off that is commensurate with my activity level but still satisfying.

 

[woodgeek]

Yup, true.

Fruits, vegetables and greens are not calorically dense. I did a food diary Tuesday this week, day before yesterday I think, and I finally totaled it up.

It was a brutal 12 hour shift. I might have had two servings of oatmeal that morning, with 1/3 cup of fruit, and I am pretty sure I had two servings of fermented vegetables in a large pyrex lunch bowl that later had hot ramen poured in. I left those off because I am not sure. I don't remember how many power-ades I had, at least 2, maybe 4. It was not an ideal day to be scribbling in a food diary. 3 oz blue cheese dressing not tabulated unknown value, plenty more calories there I am sure.

I only had time for one large salad (about 90 calories) and one small salad, (about 45 calories). I have it totaled as 7.5 servings of vegetable, including 4.5 servings of dark leafy greens. So there is 130 calories. 2 oranges, 120 cal, and 8oz of carrot juice, 80 calories.

So 329 calories of good stuff, 8.5 veg and 2 fruit total.

I am not gaining weight, my energy level is terrific; but I took in at least 2826 calories on the day, and I got 2497cal of processed sugary calorie dense junk on the clipboard, like Tonkotsu ramen and 3 servings of Ben and Jerry's.

I brought in some starches today. One can of drained green peas (3.5 servings) with 1 can of drained mushrooms (1 serving) and 2 servings of prepared Madras lentils got me 5 starches and 1 veg (505 starch cal, 25 veg cal, 530 cal total) . I just dumped it all in a pan, heated up, a little black pepper and some tobasco, ate the whole thing, good satiety.

So I penciled out 10.5 servings of fresh fruit and veg = 329 cal
5 servings of plant starch= 505 calories.

So on my clipboard of food actually consumed starchy plants are coming in around 100 cal serving, fresh fruit and veg around 33 cal per single serving. The madras sauce on the lentils may be driving that upwards some.

I am sticking with the leafy greens and multicolored veg at 5 servings daily each. Up to three fruits, only one juiced.

Next step for me is to start replacing calorie dense garbage with calorie dense not garbage.

Step one is going to be learning to make Madras sauce as a tomato based pour over sauce for my home canned potato. My home canned potato come in around 292 gr (270 cal) per pint jar (~3 servings), but with "only" 1/4t added salt in each jar- about 25% of USRDA in three servings.

Step two will be coming with a food plan for working days around 3500 calories, and a second meal plan for days off that is commensurate with my activity level but still satisfying.

Makes sense.

Transitioning to a mostly or wholly plant based diet that is satisfying and nutritionally adequate takes a bit of planning and thought.

Some people don't plan, and then switch abruptly to a WFPB diet, and surprise, they are not getting enough calories, or too much fiber (or both) and they feel like they are starving, running low on energy, and the GI is screaming. And they give up.

Others just switch out all their junky foods for vegan junky foods. Trader Joe's is great for vegan shoppers (lots of options) but also has a lot of junk food. For example, switch Chips Ahoy (not vegan) for Oreos (vegan). Switch Ben and Jerrys (non vegan) for Ben and Jerry's (vegan) ice cream. And buy a lot of vegan TJs 'frozen dinners' that are either not that caloric (like 400-500 cals) OR are rather high in saturated fat.

And maybe they can keep at it, but are missing out on the health benefits, by being too much a 'junk food vegan'.

I buy a few of those vegan products, and have a rule to really minimize things with tropical oils (coconut and palm), and try to keep my total saturated fat (vegetable oils like evoo contain saturated fat) to under 20 grams/day. This latter puts me at <7% of daily calories from saturated fat, per American Heart Association guidelines.

That is my only macronutrient that I quantify/watch. Saturated fat.

Oh, I also switched butter for 'Earth Balance' vegan butter, and whole and 2% dairy milk for oat milks with similar fat content (I like Oatly). The 2% goes on cereal and for cooking, the whole goes into my coffee. Those were easy 'drop in' replacements. And I ditch all the animal hormones in dairy.

Many of the vegan ice creams and yogurts either contain tropical oils, are 10 grams sat fat per (small serving) or both. I shop carefully for my modest vegan treats, and avoid most vegan yogurts. And impossible burger is about 10-13 g saturated fat (coconut). OK for a once in a while.

Other than that, the positive story is about addition, not deletion. You have a madras sauce. Asian and mexican and mediterranean food/sauces have LOTS of options that are vegan or easily made vegan. There are like 400 million vegetarians and a couple million Jains in India. They know how to cook.

I still end up eating grains (and I am not gluten intolerant). But I eat whole grain bread vs white, 'Protein+' versus white pasta, and more quinoa + brown rice blend versus white rice. I have all those in my pantry or cooked in my fridge at all times to provide an easy meal combined with different vegan sauces in a wide variety.

I also have a bunch of lentil or bean dishes that I eat on whole wheat tortillas, or with corn chips (that don't contain palm oil), or in a bowl over rice/quinoa.

Also, hummus and whole grain crackers as a quick caloric snack. I shop for the hummus that has less oil in it. Obv I multiply the fat grams in a serving by 9, and compare that number to the calories per serving, and get a percentage. Some hummus is 60% fat calories. Others are 35%, and just as good.

For food diary/calculations, try: https://cronometer.com/

You should figure out that Madras sauce, and a few others. I spent 4 months collecting a half a dozen sauces and dishes like that before I made the jump. I wasn't planning TBH on becoming WFPB. Its just when I got 80% there and felt great, then the last 20% didn't seem a big obstacle.

When I'm hungry, I will top a lot of my hot dishes with chopped avocado (as I might've before added shredded cheese).

 

[Poindexter]

Right, I started today putting together travel bowls with about 500cal starch and 60cal veg in them. Plus a good clump of sprouts. the ones with the pyrex bases and semimicrowaveable lids. Target is 600cal per bowl with one serving of dark leafy green in each one. Thank God for durum wheat semolina.

Get hungry- open the bowl- eat the sprouts- microwave bowl while chewing sprouts- shovel.

My first trial was durum pasta, 500 calories, with a small jar of pretty good salsa with no additives (Embasada brand? something like that). The wee salsa had no bad stuff on the label, was $1.69 and had 60 calories in the can, so two veg servings. I found it in the international aisle near the dried chili pepper pods.

I was able to get the first 600cal high octane fuel up (560 cal plus sprouts) down the gullet in about 8 minutes, so there is hope.

If I can get out the door with 1k on board (hard), I will need minimum 32-40 minutes chewing time to get another 2400 to 3000 on board in the next 12 hours. My coworkers will soon be talking about my lunch "crate" I am sure. Dragging in 4-5 bowls with 600cal each will get noticed.

Beans are not as calorie dense as wheat. Madras curry might be described to a midwesterner as spicy hot BBQ sauce with Asian flavor profile. That is an undersell, but it is close enough for grenades.

 

[woodgeek]

Regarding the healthiness of eating eggs, and the work of the Egg Board to use govt money to advertise eggs to us:

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Hilarious. FOIA documents show the back and forth emails between the USDA and Big Egg re what lies they are allowed to spout. The USDA is not toothless, but the whole situation is honestly a farce.

In other news, I learned that eating the choline in eggs, and the carnitine in meat... both compounds are converted by colonic bacteria into trimethylamine (TMA), which is the main compound in 'rotten fish odor'. This small molecule is readily absorbed by the colon, and when it hits the liver, gets converted to odorless TMAO, which you (eventually) pass in your urine.

The problem is that TMAO is quite toxic to your cardiovascular system, significantly elevating incidence of strokes and heart attacks all by itself (independent of saturated fat or cholesterol).

This is well enough understood that years ago pharma companies developed a drug that blocks the conversion of TMA to TMAO in the liver, thinking that it would benefit folks with CVD nearly as much as statins (which block cholesterol synthesis in the liver). And be worth as much $$$ as statins.

The trial drugs worked like a charm, and would reduce CVD risk significantly if taken. Unfortunately, as a universal side effect patients started to smell strongly of rotting fish, as TMA built up in the blood (it too eventually passes out in urine). This side effect was seen as bad enough that the product would not be commercially successful (despite being medically successful), and the project was abandoned.

What about carnitine and choline being NUTRIENTS? Well, our body contains both, which our body happily synthesizes from other molecules. As these don't end up in the colon, no TMAO is produced.

Carnitine is only present in meat. Choline is present in low amounts in some veggies (like broccoli). But apparently, the microbiome in vegans, since they don't see a lot of choline, are not adapted to digest it to TMA. You can feed a vegan an egg or steak, and no TMA shows up in their blood, unlike omnivores.

Bottom line: those eating a WFPB diet have zero TMAO in their blood. It is not clear how much meat or eggs can be ingested (like servings per month) before their microbiome starts cranking out TMAO... but is seems to be a low threshold.

 

[woodgeek]

Oh, and this weekend I did some kitchen experiments.

My daughter and I like to bake, but our first vegan baking experiments were not that great.

Obviously, butter can be substituted with vegan butter (Earth Balance brand).
Whole dairy milk can be substituted with plant milks (like full fat Oatly)

But what about the EGGS?

The implausible solution is the 'flax egg'. One buys flax seeds, and grinds them up in a coffee bean grinder to a fine meal. You mix 1 tbl of flax meal with 3 tbl of warm water, and let it sit for 10 minutes, after which it becomes kinda gelatinous, and equals one large egg.

It has 'bits' in it, but these are not noticeable in the final product.

We made choco chip oatmeal muffins, and choco chip oatmeal cookies, using our beloved old family recipes (with the above 3 substitutions). I used semi-sweet chocolate, which I think is vegan or vegan enough for me.

Both came out basically indistinguishable from their non-vegan version we have made for years!

I'm a convert.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Others just switch out all their junky foods for vegan junky foods. Trader Joe's is great for vegan shoppers (lots of options) but also has a lot of junk food.

Ah I still remember the we went there, and I picked up a bottle of the green juice and a quick sample. This 40 something worker dressed like 20something hippie stinking of patchouli came over touting how healthy and natural it was. Really nice guy, super excited to help anyone that wanted help. I pointed out that it had double the sugar than a coke. We literally buy it like it's a soft drink poured over ice. Sure, it has some nutrients in it - and doesnt contain the bone destructive stuff that a coke has.
Oh my gosh you would think I told this guy his god was dead. He literally lost all faith in the store he worked for. He kept saying "but...but it's organic..how?!" Organic doesnt mean it wont be bad for you bro (we didnt say bro back then..more likely man). I felt bad for this guy, he just stood there in shock staring at the bottle, then walked over to another employee and that person was shocked.

Now every time someone thinks something is healthy but it isnt during a conversation, my wife will say "tell the trader joe's story"

I wonder how that guy is some days. He's probably working on wall street now or something super anti what he was before lol.

 

[Poindexter]

I am still chugging along here. Not to beat a dead horse, but here I go. Quick recap, I am a 50 something RN with decades of experience, and moved from a fairly cerebral specialty to running with the 20-somethings on a general med-surg floor in Sept 2022.

To keep up with the energy level of the 20 yo's and meet the needs of my patients I need a healthy "1+" serving of dark leafy green vegetables about every four hours. I don't know how my metabolic needs might differ from yours; but if you are trying to run with folks a lot younger than you, channel Popeye instead of Papa John's, and cue the trumpet fanfare.

Lately I have been pushing out processed garbage and bringing in, drumroll, nutritionally dense plant based whole foods. I am not doing this because @woodgeek talked me into it. What I am doing is listening to the 'goo' inside my skin suit and discounting the pleasure centers in my brain.

There is now enough dietary fiber in my poop for me to think about finding a way to dry this stuff out and run it through my wood stove. I think, experience based, there is support for the idea that our livers are general secreters of dietary fat and vegetable fiber in our diets can absorb some of those fats, when the fiber is present, and reduce systemic re-absorbtion. I had a blood draw last week and meet with my PCP for my annual next week. My cholesterol was borderline last year. If I am still "borderline-ish" next week I want to give this another year before I start taking an Rx statin.

It would be difficult to explain how 'good' my body feels. The clearest example I can think of is alcohol tolerance. Back in September I could drink 6 beers every night and function 'fine' the next day. Starting about about June 2020 or so, during the 2 year event we are not supposed to talk about here, that caused 40 percent of all health care workers to leave the field, I was up to 12-15 beers nightly and hanging in there. Once the 2 year event was concluded I was able to drop back to 4 beers per night with no significant cravings, but I was having anxiety consistent with the Clinical Indicators of Withdrawal from Alcohol (My CIWA score was running 4-6) so I put myself on 6-8 beers nightly from late Sept 2022 to 01-26-2023. On 01-26 I reduced my daily dose from 6-8 beers daily down to 3-4 beers daily with CIWA score consistently = zero.

Given my 12 hour shifts, it is very important to me to wake up at zero five sharp as a tack with no snooze alarms and go do. I have no time for brewer's droop or overall 'dullness'. FWIW the last time I called out sick to work, took tylenol, and sought hair of the dog before noon was probably 30 years ago.

What I am finding now is 3 beers last night gives me noticeable dullness, lack of sharpness, the next morning at 05; so I am down to 1-2 beers per night on worknights, CIWA score still =0.

As far as other factors, it is everything. I cut out processed food. I can't remember the last time I went to Taco Bell. I have cut out dairy, mostly. When I am having a really high energy shift I don't beat myself up for having a donut to get through the 0800 medication pass or 'some' ice cream to get through the afternoon. I do put some actual milk in my one cup of caffeinated coffee first thing in the AM, but for the rest of the day it is decaf and black for me. I have had less than 4 ounces of bacon in the last three months. I am well over the USDA for sodium intake, but I am well hydrated and physically active, at least on work days.

My biggest problem, nutritionally, is variability. On a typical work day I need 2400 calories. On a hard shift I need about 3600 calories. On a day off 1800 is a good number, but I am 'hungry.' In the next week or two I should have green splits dropped in my driveway that will need stacked, and then drainage management as the spring thaw commences blah, blah, but there is Dec 23 and Jan 24 coming up that I don't yet have a strategy for. My last day jogging was my last day in the Navy, in 1986, and that ain't happening again.

The main issue for me has been to look at how I feel week over week compared to hour over hour or minute over minute. If you are looking at a really short timeframe items like potato chips or twinkies that make you 'feel good' for a few moments make sense. Looking at how I feel inside my skin suit over weeks and months, I do not have room in my diet for bacon or plastic wrapped pastry.

Good luck and best wishes.

 

[mcdougy]

I am still chugging along here. Not to beat a dead horse, but here I go. Quick recap, I am a 50 something RN with decades of experience, and moved from a fairly cerebral specialty to running with the 20-somethings on a general med-surg floor in Sept 2022.

To keep up with the energy level of the 20 yo's and meet the needs of my patients I need a healthy "1+" serving of dark leafy green vegetables about every four hours. I don't know how my metabolic needs might differ from yours; but if you are trying to run with folks a lot younger than you, channel Popeye instead of Papa John's, and cue the trumpet fanfare.

Lately I have been pushing out processed garbage and bringing in, drumroll, nutritionally dense plant based whole foods. I am not doing this because @woodgeek talked me into it. What I am doing is listening to the 'goo' inside my skin suit and discounting the pleasure centers in my brain.

There is now enough dietary fiber in my poop for me to think about finding a way to dry this stuff out and run it through my wood stove. I think, experience based, there is support for the idea that our livers are general secreters of dietary fat and vegetable fiber in our diets can absorb some of those fats, when the fiber is present, and reduce systemic re-absorbtion. I had a blood draw last week and meet with my PCP for my annual next week. My cholesterol was borderline last year. If I am still "borderline-ish" next week I want to give this another year before I start taking an Rx statin.

It would be difficult to explain how 'good' my body feels. The clearest example I can think of is alcohol tolerance. Back in September I could drink 6 beers every night and function 'fine' the next day. Starting about about June 2020 or so, during the 2 year event we are not supposed to talk about here, that caused 40 percent of all health care workers to leave the field, I was up to 12-15 beers nightly and hanging in there. Once the 2 year event was concluded I was able to drop back to 4 beers per night with no significant cravings, but I was having anxiety consistent with the Clinical Indicators of Withdrawal from Alcohol (My CIWA score was running 4-6) so I put myself on 6-8 beers nightly from late Sept 2022 to 01-26-2023. On 01-26 I reduced my daily dose from 6-8 beers daily down to 3-4 beers daily with CIWA score consistently = zero.

Given my 12 hour shifts, it is very important to me to wake up at zero five sharp as a tack with no snooze alarms and go do. I have no time for brewer's droop or overall 'dullness'. FWIW the last time I called out sick to work, took tylenol, and sought hair of the dog before noon was probably 30 years ago.

What I am finding now is 3 beers last night gives me noticeable dullness, lack of sharpness, the next morning at 05; so I am down to 1-2 beers per night on worknights, CIWA score still =0.

As far as other factors, it is everything. I cut out processed food. I can't remember the last time I went to Taco Bell. I have cut out dairy, mostly. When I am having a really high energy shift I don't beat myself up for having a donut to get through the 0800 medication pass or 'some' ice cream to get through the afternoon. I do put some actual milk in my one cup of caffeinated coffee first thing in the AM, but for the rest of the day it is decaf and black for me. I have had less than 4 ounces of bacon in the last three months. I am well over the USDA for sodium intake, but I am well hydrated and physically active, at least on work days.

My biggest problem, nutritionally, is variability. On a typical work day I need 2400 calories. On a hard shift I need about 3600 calories. On a day off 1800 is a good number, but I am 'hungry.' In the next week or two I should have green splits dropped in my driveway that will need stacked, and then drainage management as the spring thaw commences blah, blah, but there is Dec 23 and Jan 24 coming up that I don't yet have a strategy for. My last day jogging was my last day in the Navy, in 1986, and that ain't happening again.

The main issue for me has been to look at how I feel week over week compared to hour over hour or minute over minute. If you are looking at a really short timeframe items like potato chips or twinkies that make you 'feel good' for a few moments make sense. Looking at how I feel inside my skin suit over weeks and months, I do not have room in my diet for bacon or plastic wrapped pastry.

FWIW I did look at the bible, again. The good Lord, who knows all of the earth and all of the things in it, put his chosen people on the shores of the Med Sea. They are (were) obligated to follow a Med diet. In Acts chapter 10, see verses 9-22, it is abundantly clear that 'we' not born in to God's chosen people can have lobster and crab and bacon cheeseburgers and still get in to heaven, but the good Lord did not put his chosen people in the coastal areas of Alaska where they would have needed muktuk to get through the winter.

Good luck and best wishes.

How has your sleep pattern changed?

 

[woodgeek]

Quick update.... I started 'vegan before 6' transition diet in Sept 22, and went full vegan/WFPB on New Years. So I am a '6 week baby vegan'.

Weight has been stable 9-10 lbs below last summer's weight, now 192 lbs on 6' 0" tall. I stuff my face at every meal, not worrying about portions, just eating until I feel full.

My blood pressure, which was about 135/95 average (Stage II hypertension) last summer, is now down to 120/80 average (upper limit of 'normal'), and still trending linearly downward.

I feel great and full of energy all of the time, I feel like I have gained a little muscle mass tbh. I feel 15 years younger and look better. Good satiety and no need to snack all day... when I do want a snack, I have a handful of mixed nuts or a banana.

My advice to anyone interested in eating more plants is just to take it slow, add whole plant foods, and start eliminating the junkiest food from your diet. You might like the result and keep going, until you are mostly vegan already and can make the switch. If not, you are still eating a lot healthier than you were before.

Some easy habits I have adopted looking at food labels and menus:
-- 1 Any meat or egg or dairy... avoid (if WFBP) or minimize (if not).
-- 2 Compare total carb grams to fiber grams per serving. The lower ratio the better. 5 or lower is healthy. 6-8 is 'ok' and over 10 is minimize.
-- 3 Look at saturated fat (for me this is saturated plant fat in vegan junk food). Aim to keep total daily consumption under 20 grams sat fat.
-- 4 For sodium, compare mg sodium to calories per serving. <1 mg/calorie is 'ok', over 1 mg/ calorie is 'avoid'.
-- 5 Look for things with bright colored whole foods added (berries/beets/spices/carotene/tomato).

1: obviously the whole point (if going WFPB).

2: a higher fiber diet is important for cholesterol and satiety/weight control. I shopped for different breakfast cereals that I liked that had lower ratios. Found Kashi Go line. Apparently the 'Go' means pooping, LOL. They have lots of fiber. Also, flax meal on cereal or oatmeal is 100% fiber carbs. I love pasta, but hate whole wheat pasta. Barilla protein + is a legume flour and wheat blend that is indistinguishable from regular IMO, and has a ratio more like 7-8 rather than >12, and obv higher protein (and healthy plant protein too).

3: Many vegan ice creams are full of saturated fat. I shop for varieties that are <10 g/serving, and don't eat more than one serving, when I want a treat. And an impossible burger is 12 g if I have a yen (rarely) or if I am going to a grill party.

4: This rule obv limit you to under 2-3 g sodium per day, a bit high. But if you don't add salt at home (or use 50:50 NaCl:KCl), then this rule keeps you to <1.5-2g per day in practice. Lower would be better, but that much is not going to kill you. I was surprised by the things this rule takes out, and what stays: I can still have a bag of potato chips with lunch (assuming no whey powder)!

5: I have added a lot of new 'toppings' and sides to things. Berries in cereal, chopped avocado on dinner, sweet potatoes as a side dish, etc.

Just went on a trip and ate out 3 meals/day. This was easier than I feared. I wasn't super healthy, but I didn't starve either. A lot of places had a nice salad with a lot of calorie dense stuff (like olives and beets), and they could easily leave off the cheese and would swap the cheese for chopped cado for free. I did carry some snacks, bc a lot of coffee shops had zero food I could eat (being mostly butter filled pastry and cheese things).

 

[Poindexter]

How has your sleep pattern changed?

I can't say I have noticed significant change in my sleep patterns related to diet. I do think I have had above average sleep discipline for several decades. I am waking up more refreshed, better rested.

I probably am sleeping 'better' during the time periods I do sleep.

 

[Poindexter]

One thing I have done is drastically lowered my intake of animal protein. There are many many online recommendations and calculators for protein requirements based on age and sex and height and weight and activity level.

Given all those factors, my minimum daily protein intake is something like 60-80-90 grams of protein daily, 27 grams to an ounce, nobody thinks I need a 16 ounce ribeye every day.

I didn't cut the animal protein because I am worried about my carbon foot print or global warming or coronary artery disease. I just tried it for a week to see how different I would feel, and I haven't been feeling like I am missing out on anything; in fact I feel better without it for going on a month now.

It has taken a little bit of self discipline along the way. Tri-Tip was BOGO at Kroger's a couple weeks ago. I reverse seared both of them, got most of it into the freezer, and managed to restrain myself to 4 ounces per day with the portion that didn't get frozen. Mostly commercial canned sardines, home canned sockeye salmon, and grilled chicken from the salad bar for me.

 

[woodgeek]

Just to clarify, beef and chicken, despite being called 'protein' at many restaurants, are mostly water.

A 4 oz portion of lean beef contains 4 oz x7 g/oz= 28 grams of protein. A 4 oz portion of chicken about 4 oz x8 g/oz = 32 grams.

The 4 oz portion of lean beef also contains 5 grams of saturated fat. 4 oz of hamburger contains 8-10 grams sat fat, 4 oz of skinless chicken breast contains 4 grams of saturated fat.

------------------------------------------------------------

So if you are trying to get 80 g/day of protein from lean beef and chicken breast, three small servings of the above are getting you 12-15 grams of saturated fat, or 110-140 calories worth.

What is the problem? The American Heart association suggests limiting saturated fats to less than 5-6% of total calories. This is your full ration of saturated fat if you are eating 2000 calories/day. Since you are doing two servings on 3000 calories per day @Poindexter , you are fine.

If someone were going past those three 4 oz servings per day, or eating any ground beef or processed chicken, they would easily be over the line.

Or one can eat protein-rich plant foods (like legumes and whole grains) and get all the protein they need/want without the associated saturated fat.

Americans are on average eating 10 oz of meat per day, and 20 oz (weight) of dairy products per day.

The former (if lean) is just compatible with AHA guidelines if zero dairy and zero eggs are consumed.

A mix of higher fat meats and dairy put the average american diet up to 12% saturated fat by calories, 2X the line, and about 2x what were eating 60 years ago, before the epidemic of obesity, CVD and diabetes.

 

[Poindexter]

Saw my doc today.

Just with diet changes already beat to death here my total cholesterol dropped from 254 down to 216 in the trailing 12 months. Biggest single mover was my triglycerides dropping from 245 down to 116.

And I am cleared to fool with intermittent fasting. My doc said I probably shouldn't be fooling around with fasting on work days, but on days off I am clear to do 16:8 all I want, but not more than one 24 hour fast per week.

I am going to try to be in fed state from roughly 2PM to 10PM, and then fasting state overnight and into the next afternoon. If that doesn't work, I will try something else.

Besides giving my pancreas more time off every day, I am trying to build a wee SCFA factory in my gut, but then hold on to the factory long enough to benefit from the SCFA production personally, rather then send the SCFA factory to the water treatment plant right as production was spooling up.

Breakfast this afternoon was 1 serving each of oatmeal, pearled barley, wheat germ and pickled asparagus, with two servings of live kimchi. Should be a good mix of fiber the bacteria want to eat, and bacteria that want to eat the fiber.

Early returns suggest 1) don't try this on work days and 2) the fiber in wheat germ, (AXOS, arabinoxylan oligosaccharides I think) is a new fiber for my gut biome and someone in there, possibly from genus Bifidobacteria is going a little overboard.

At the end of the day, having reviewed quite a few articles, I think our scientific understanding of this field is in infancy. I am willing to believe inulin, betaglucan and AXOS are preferred starch fibers for genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria. But there are hundreds of other beneficial bacteria out there, and hundreds of other starches.

I am going to stick, for now, to the concept of "everything in moderation" with the expectation in the fullness of time other starches will be associated with other beneficial bacteria and other beneficial SCFAs.

 

[woodgeek]

Saw my doc today.

Just with diet changes already beat to death here my total cholesterol dropped from 254 down to 216 in the trailing 12 months. Biggest single mover was my triglycerides dropping from 245 down to 116.

And I am cleared to fool with intermittent fasting. My doc said I probably shouldn't be fooling around with fasting on work days, but on days off I am clear to do 16:8 all I want, but not more than one 24 hour fast per week.

I am going to try to be in fed state from roughly 2PM to 10PM, and then fasting state overnight and into the next afternoon. If that doesn't work, I will try something else.

Besides giving my pancreas more time off every day, I am trying to build a wee SCFA factory in my gut, but then hold on to the factory long enough to benefit from the SCFA production personally, rather then send the SCFA factory to the water treatment plant right as production was spooling up.

Breakfast this afternoon was 1 serving each of oatmeal, pearled barley, wheat germ and pickled asparagus, with two servings of live kimchi. Should be a good mix of fiber the bacteria want to eat, and bacteria that want to eat the fiber.

Early returns suggest 1) don't try this on work days and 2) the fiber in wheat germ, (AXOS, arabinoxylan oligosaccharides I think) is a new fiber for my gut biome and someone in there, possibly from genus Bifidobacteria is going a little overboard.

At the end of the day, having reviewed quite a few articles, I think our scientific understanding of this field is in infancy. I am willing to believe inulin, betaglucan and AXOS are preferred starch fibers for genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria. But there are hundreds of other beneficial bacteria out there, and hundreds of other starches.

I am going to stick, for now, to the concept of "everything in moderation" with the expectation in the fullness of time other starches will be associated with other beneficial bacteria and other beneficial SCFAs.

Cool. Apparently those eating a lot of whole plants get a bunch of Prevotella bacteria, which are desirable, in addition to the Bifido.

The Effects of Vegetarian and Vegan Diets on Gut Microbiota

The difference in gut microbiota composition between individuals following vegan or vegetarian diets and those following omnivorous diets is well documented. A plant-based diet appears to be beneficial for human health by promoting the development of more diverse and stable microbial systems...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[GrumpyDad]

I am still chugging along here. Not to beat a dead horse, but here I go. Quick recap, I am a 50 something RN with decades of experience, and moved from a fairly cerebral specialty to running with the 20-somethings on a general med-surg floor in Sept 2022.

To keep up with the energy level of the 20 yo's and meet the needs of my patients I need a healthy "1+" serving of dark leafy green vegetables about every four hours. I don't know how my metabolic needs might differ from yours; but if you are trying to run with folks a lot younger than you, channel Popeye instead of Papa John's, and cue the trumpet fanfare.

Lately I have been pushing out processed garbage and bringing in, drumroll, nutritionally dense plant based whole foods. I am not doing this because @woodgeek talked me into it. What I am doing is listening to the 'goo' inside my skin suit and discounting the pleasure centers in my brain.

There is now enough dietary fiber in my poop for me to think about finding a way to dry this stuff out and run it through my wood stove. I think, experience based, there is support for the idea that our livers are general secreters of dietary fat and vegetable fiber in our diets can absorb some of those fats, when the fiber is present, and reduce systemic re-absorbtion. I had a blood draw last week and meet with my PCP for my annual next week. My cholesterol was borderline last year. If I am still "borderline-ish" next week I want to give this another year before I start taking an Rx statin.

It would be difficult to explain how 'good' my body feels. The clearest example I can think of is alcohol tolerance. Back in September I could drink 6 beers every night and function 'fine' the next day. Starting about about June 2020 or so, during the 2 year event we are not supposed to talk about here, that caused 40 percent of all health care workers to leave the field, I was up to 12-15 beers nightly and hanging in there. Once the 2 year event was concluded I was able to drop back to 4 beers per night with no significant cravings, but I was having anxiety consistent with the Clinical Indicators of Withdrawal from Alcohol (My CIWA score was running 4-6) so I put myself on 6-8 beers nightly from late Sept 2022 to 01-26-2023. On 01-26 I reduced my daily dose from 6-8 beers daily down to 3-4 beers daily with CIWA score consistently = zero.

Given my 12 hour shifts, it is very important to me to wake up at zero five sharp as a tack with no snooze alarms and go do. I have no time for brewer's droop or overall 'dullness'. FWIW the last time I called out sick to work, took tylenol, and sought hair of the dog before noon was probably 30 years ago.

What I am finding now is 3 beers last night gives me noticeable dullness, lack of sharpness, the next morning at 05; so I am down to 1-2 beers per night on worknights, CIWA score still =0.

As far as other factors, it is everything. I cut out processed food. I can't remember the last time I went to Taco Bell. I have cut out dairy, mostly. When I am having a really high energy shift I don't beat myself up for having a donut to get through the 0800 medication pass or 'some' ice cream to get through the afternoon. I do put some actual milk in my one cup of caffeinated coffee first thing in the AM, but for the rest of the day it is decaf and black for me. I have had less than 4 ounces of bacon in the last three months. I am well over the USDA for sodium intake, but I am well hydrated and physically active, at least on work days.

My biggest problem, nutritionally, is variability. On a typical work day I need 2400 calories. On a hard shift I need about 3600 calories. On a day off 1800 is a good number, but I am 'hungry.' In the next week or two I should have green splits dropped in my driveway that will need stacked, and then drainage management as the spring thaw commences blah, blah, but there is Dec 23 and Jan 24 coming up that I don't yet have a strategy for. My last day jogging was my last day in the Navy, in 1986, and that ain't happening again.

The main issue for me has been to look at how I feel week over week compared to hour over hour or minute over minute. If you are looking at a really short timeframe items like potato chips or twinkies that make you 'feel good' for a few moments make sense. Looking at how I feel inside my skin suit over weeks and months, I do not have room in my diet for bacon or plastic wrapped pastry.

Good luck and best wishes.

Try a non dirty keto like diet or just overall limit your carbs to less than 30 per day. Even 20 or less.
More energy
No cravings really all that bad
Better movement and more mental acuity.
I dropped 11 pounds in a month. I probably have another 6 to go before I start working out again. Then I'll gain some weight but it will be healthy muscle.

 

[begreen]

Your results are great Pointdexter. I would love to get off of statins. It's a challenge, we eat very well and have no problem with a low-meat diet. Typically we only have chicken or seafood once a week. Cheese and eggs are harder to give up, so they too are only eaten in moderation. My saturated fat intake is quite low, and there are no polyunsaturated fats in our diet that I know of. We make almost everything from scratch and live out of the garden from May through October. Our diet is mostly Mediterranean and Asian cuisine with some Mexican maybe once a week. Still, my cholesterol and triglycerides need to be held in check with statins. To be honest, I will never go to the admirable experimental extremes that you have. I love fresh spinach but not canned spinach. But I am listening and learning. My wife studied nutrition science in college which helps, but frankly, most of what we knew 40 yrs ago is pretty outdated.

Inspired by this thread, I changed my diet routine. I am now only eating two meals a day. My breakfast is a cup of nuts and fruit, I skip lunch and instead have an early dinner at 5 pm. Dinner is typically mixed veggies, with rice noodles or rice and a salad. I do have a glass of red wine a day, down from two a day. And I skip this once or twice a week. The objectives are to come up with a sustainable diet that lowers my weight from a high one month ago and that hopefully drops my AIC down below 5.6 while giving my pancreas and gut biome a 15 hr rest daily. I'll be meeting with my doc in a couple of weeks to discuss this. The lowered calorie intake is working. So far I have lost 9 lbs. in 2 weeks. My energy level seems ok, though my feet get a little colder. Hopefully, the doc will ok another blood check in a month or so to see how this is working.

 

[Poindexter]

Having been intermittent fasting (16:8) for all of two days now, my most recent internet search was "SCFA euphoria."

Seriously, imagine you have been out of work for a week with a raging arthritis flare, going to the doc every 2-3 days. You come home with a new Rx, and make a mug of hot chocolate. Imagine you got no food allergies for this. Whole milk, coconut milk, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, whatever, your dream. You got the hot chocolate in a mug. The wood stove is rolling. The kids are home in bed. Wife knows you are hurting. You pour a good slug if Irish Cream into your hot chocolate, sit down in front of the stove and use the beverage to down 10 mg morphine equivalent dose of your new Rx.

I am feeling better than this with intermittent fasting (16:8) for 2-4 hours daily, usually 9 or 10 hours into the fast to start and lasting until 12-14 hours into the fast. The main difference is opiates "take the edge off" my arthritis pains when I have them, but now the pain is gone and I am just having intense feelings of wellbeing.

This is incredibly motivating.

 

[begreen]

Wow, I'm glad something is working for you. What does your doctor think or your hypothesis? Do you think it's an inflammatory immune system response?

 

[Poindexter]

Wow, I'm glad something is working for you. What does your doctor think? Do you think it's an inflammatory immune system response?

The short version is my doc was impressed with my lab work compared to a year ago and is tickled that I am looking for holistic solutions rather than seeking prescriptions.

I have both psoriatic and osteo arthritis. One is autoimmune, the other has a significant inflammatory component.

The single most important thing I have done is stop working door to door and gotten an inside job to reduce cold stress. Second, reduce things that cause inflammation like alcohol, tobacco, processed sugar, processed oil and processed carbs. Practice mindfullness.

I haven't taken an opiate in probably 3-4 years, but I did suffer some since then choosing short term joint pain over the long term devastation of possible opiate addiction.

This winter I was able to get to no significant pain and off all meds, no NSAIDs, no herbals, nothing. Just alive, active and working, more or less pain free and off all meds. Then, at woodgeek's instigation here, I have kept tweaking my nutrition; and with my MD's approval earlier this week kept tweaking, now looking at intermittent fasting as a way to reduce inflammation by maximizing SCFA production and absorption.

 

[begreen]

My wife pulled out a 2014 Eating Well magazine with a long article on this topic by Jeff Leach. He is one of the American Gut project scientists that have been pushing our understanding of the gut microbiome for over a decade. You might want to sign up as a citizen scientist and get your gut output analyzed.

The Microsetta Initiative – Researching Global Microbiomes

The world’s largest citizen science microbiome project welcomes you to learn more, participate and sponsor critical worldwide research.

microsetta.ucsd.edu

Amazingly the article is still online
(broken link removed to https://www.eatingwell.com/article/283417/how-good-gut-bacteria-could-transform-your-health/)

 

[Poindexter]

The wood stove is rolling. The kids are home in bed. Wife knows you are hurting. You pour a good slug if Irish Cream into your hot chocolate, sit down in front of the stove and use the beverage to down 10 mg morphine equivalent dose of your new Rx.

{Or it can be dome with diet, better}
This is incredibly motivating.

I spent a little time reading up on serotonin this evening, but I already knew it was dopamine I am feeling.

Poking around a little bit, I think it is having my gut biome produce adequate butarate is allowing serotonin levels in the colon wall to normalize, and then - BAM- dopamine. See sections 3.0 through 4.1 in linky link.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8962300/#:~:text=Gut microbiota are major contributors,and Ruminococcus impact dopaminergic pathways.

FWIW, I have had in 2023 at least one jar of all the various live culture kimchi from Kroger, and am about halfway through all the available live culture kimchi available from Carr's/Safeway. I do have, unopened in my fridge, one jar from Costco of what is billed as the number one selling kimchi in Korea.

I have also found black/ purple (samey same) and red rice qualify as medium glycemic index starches, while brown and white rice are technically high glycemic index starches similar to white granulated table sugar. Thus kimchi and whole grain rices should be complementary. The rices of course, combined with a legume, can provide both starch level calorie density _and_ foundational essential amino acids.

Of particular interest to me are the medium glycemic index starches, as both garbanzo and lentil are commonly found in the Mediterranean basin. Red, purple, and black rice are only available local to me from Carr's/Safeway.

NB: If you decide to pursue asparagus and pearled barley to provide prebiotics and kimchi to provide probiotics, in pursuit of the post biotic hit of dopamine, I _strongly_ encourage you to dedicate a pair of sharting pants and a folded sharting towel in your chair to protect the rest of your furniture and wardrobe while wreaking chaotic goodness on your gut biome. You won't need those every day, just on the days of introducing new things.

I speculate that having the dopamine hit tomorrow is strong motivation for even Neanderthals to seek adequate dietary variety today.

I am also very curious to know what would happen if a strong paleo advocate were to have fasting lipids drawn, and then have one serving of dark leafy green vegetables 3x daily (mix it up, some spinach, some kale, some chard, some parsley, etc) and then have a second panel of fasting lipids drawn after 90 days.

The archaeologic record has grown by leaps and bounds since the mid 1990s. The idea that Neanderthals and early H. sapiens did not have a fundamental knowledge of both plant and animal diet sources is clearly hogwash. We have both canine teeth for tearing meat and molars for grinding plant fiber. We (H. sapiens) are clearly opportunistic omnivores with no dissection or radiologic evaluation required.

M2c, looking for another big and long (and legal) dopamine hit in the morning.

 

[Poindexter]

Inspired by this thread, I changed my diet routine.

I have found there is an enormous variance in our various gut biomes, and I am confident there is no one size fits all solution.

I found, but did not bookmark, a credible reference that while all humans have 99.9% of our genome in common, our gut biomes only overlap by 10-20%, leaving 80-90% variance in the way our bodies react to specific food inputs.

IIRC there are roughly 1000 known "good" bacteria to have in the gut, but most of us only have 200 or so. Roughly. Clearly the good bacteria to have in South Africa are different from the good bacteria to have in Norway. Or Korea. Or Argentina.

Either way, I think if you want to adjust your gut biome to the foods you do eat, or want to adjust the foods you do eat to the gut biome you already have, sharting pants and a sharting towel folded into your chair might be a prudent, proactive thing to do at least short term.

The other thing I am seeing over and over is the bacteria commonly found in humans who think they are carnivorous lead to weakness and leaky gut (Escherichia) while those pursuing vegan diets have a wider variety from other genera like Lactobaccilus, Bifidobacteria and so on. The bacteria that make the beneficial short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) subsist primarily on plant starches like beta-glucan, the oligo saccharides of fructose (FOS), inulin, and etcetera. Today. Who knows where we will be or what we will know in 2050.

Today I broke my 13 hour fast with about 150 mixed calories off the salad bar, olive oil and lemon juice as the dressing for prebiotic, 2 servings of kimchi as the probiotic, and I can tell you for certain, no stethoscope required, there was something in the prebiotic salad the probiotic in the kimchi were going to town on.

But we are as a species, I think, opportunistic omnivores. So we need the gut bacteria associated with digesting both meat and plants. In balance. The main thing, I think, in nutrition and most other aspects of life, is moderation and variety in all things.

In someone who has protein calorie malnutrition, or iron deficiency anemia, increased beef makes sense. In an otherwise healthy individual, deriving most dietary protein from mixing grasses and legumes (like rice and beans) makes sense.

At the end of the day I would rather get my Omega fatty acids from whole fish than processed capsules. The one thing I can be confident of is minimize the number of people and processes between the food God provides and the stuff you put in our mouth.

At this juncture I specifically tag @woodgeek to get his thread back on track.

 

[woodgeek]

My wife pulled out a 2014 Eating Well magazine with a long article on this topic by Jeff Leach. He is one of the American Gut project scientists that have been pushing our understanding of the gut microbiome for over a decade. You might want to sign up as a citizen scientist and get your gut output analyzed.

The Microsetta Initiative – Researching Global Microbiomes

The world’s largest citizen science microbiome project welcomes you to learn more, participate and sponsor critical worldwide research.

microsetta.ucsd.edu

Amazingly the article is still online
(broken link removed to https://www.eatingwell.com/article/283417/how-good-gut-bacteria-could-transform-your-health/)

The 2014 article looks good to me, I think the science has held up well since then, and been further confirmed.

I noticed a couple things... there is a lot of evidence now that the true 'paleo' diet of humans (like the hunter gatherers in the article) ate up to 100 g fiber/day. And a lot of starchy, energy dense plants. This has been confirmed by analyzing poop fossils from many sites.

The other thing I have learned is that there is no one thing called 'fiber'. Its really a grab bag of everything our bodies don't digest. This is not just cellulose like I was taught in school (that neither we nor our microbes can digest), but a whole variety of (non-starch) polysaccharides (aka soluble fiber) and 'resistant starch' (starch with a molecular structure that is resistant to degradation, and reaches our colon). And the microbiome we get depends on what polysaccharides we are feeding them (now called 'prebiotics').

The 2014 article mentions fructans. It is now known that one of the most potent hunger dampening SCFA is propionate, which comes from breaking down beta-glucans, which are high in (whole) barley, oats and wheat. But ofc, you might need to have the 'right' microbiome to get the full benefit.

Older studies indicated that humans had a few 'enterotypes', basically groups our microbiomes into major types like blood type, and that these changed across countries, like blood types. Later research clarified the picture... there is basically a 'low fiber+meat' enterotype and 'high fiber+no meat' enterotype that are very different from one another. And then each type has some minor variations within. This is (I think) one of the arguments against moderation. The competition between these bacteria is non-linear... you get one OR the other depending on what you eat.

The idea of moderation is about linear thinking... if X is bad for me, X/2 is only half as bad for me. Now, most people eating a western diet DO show a clear dose-dependent response to reducing calories, sugar, saturated fat, cholesterol, and a dose-dependent response to increasing plant based foods BUT... to get the FULL benefits of a plant based diet, one needs to get the vegan microbiome to match, and that may require VERY LOW animal protein and animal fat intake. How low is not known. But is it could be as low as a one serving a month.

So, I think there is a clear benefit to gradual steps towards WFPB eating, increasing whole grains and whole fruits/veg, increasing fiber (esp soluble fiber), reducing meats, reducing saturated fat, reducing salt, and eliminating/swapping dairy (which have a lot of hormones, cancer promoting growth factors and inflammatory compounds) for alternatives. Small changes can have positive effects.

But those cultures not eating a Western diet where things like heart disease, strokes, hypertension, diabetes, colon and prostate cancer are basically unknown... to get to that state you need to grow the vegan enterotype and to go all the way diet-wise.

I'm hoping its not too late for me, after 50 years of eating junk. Studies have shown that (like with smoking) diet related health risks do fall dramatically take a decade or so (healing), even if your blood work looks better in a couple months.

 

[woodgeek]

I spent a little time reading up on serotonin this evening, but I already knew it was dopamine I am feeling.

Poking around a little bit, I think it is having my gut biome produce adequate butarate is allowing serotonin levels in the colon wall to normalize, and then - BAM- dopamine. See sections 3.0 through 4.1 in linky link.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8962300/#:~:text=Gut microbiota are major contributors,and Ruminococcus impact dopaminergic pathways.

FWIW, I have had in 2023 at least one jar of all the various live culture kimchi from Kroger, and am about halfway through all the available live culture kimchi available from Carr's/Safeway. I do have, unopened in my fridge, one jar from Costco of what is billed as the number one selling kimchi in Korea.

I have also found black/ purple (samey same) and red rice qualify as medium glycemic index starches, while brown and white rice are technically high glycemic index starches similar to white granulated table sugar. Thus kimchi and whole grain rices should be complementary. The rices of course, combined with a legume, can provide both starch level calorie density _and_ foundational essential amino acids.

Of particular interest to me are the medium glycemic index starches, as both garbanzo and lentil are commonly found in the Mediterranean basin. Red, purple, and black rice are only available local to me from Carr's/Safeway.

NB: If you decide to pursue asparagus and pearled barley to provide prebiotics and kimchi to provide probiotics, in pursuit of the post biotic hit of dopamine, I _strongly_ encourage you to dedicate a pair of sharting pants and a folded sharting towel in your chair to protect the rest of your furniture and wardrobe while wreaking chaotic goodness on your gut biome. You won't need those every day, just on the days of introducing new things.

I speculate that having the dopamine hit tomorrow is strong motivation for even Neanderthals to seek adequate dietary variety today.

I am also very curious to know what would happen if a strong paleo advocate were to have fasting lipids drawn, and then have one serving of dark leafy green vegetables 3x daily (mix it up, some spinach, some kale, some chard, some parsley, etc) and then have a second panel of fasting lipids drawn after 90 days.

The archaeologic record has grown by leaps and bounds since the mid 1990s. The idea that Neanderthals and early H. sapiens did not have a fundamental knowledge of both plant and animal diet sources is clearly hogwash. We have both canine teeth for tearing meat and molars for grinding plant fiber. We (H. sapiens) are clearly opportunistic omnivores with no dissection or radiologic evaluation required.

M2c, looking for another big and long (and legal) dopamine hit in the morning.

Sharting towel....

So, I have read a lot about paleo diet (like, the actual paleo diet, not the fad diet).

If you look at humans versus the other great apes (who are all herbivores), our GI seems basically the same. Humans and apes are on the short list of animals that need vitamin C, the others of which are rabbit-type things and fruit bats.... all herbivores. THE major change between Homo Sap and the apes is that we have way more amylase (starch digesting enzyme) in our saliva. The genes for making amylase have been duplicated many times to amp up the volume. In fact, human saliva is unique... we have more amylase than any other animal!

Its almost like at some point after we diverged from apes, we ate a LOT of starch and it was important to digest it well. Like natural grains, seeds and tubers.

It turns out that the human oral microbiome is also unusual (remember human bites are worse than dog bites)... we have coevolved a number of unique bacteria in our mouths that interact with amylase. They bind amylase to their surface so they can get some glucose from the starch we eat. The build a biofilm from our amylase as a building material. In a pinch, they can even eat our amylase to keep from starving. Wild, but makes sense give our weird spit.

Now, you can look at ancient skeletons, and do PCR on their teeth tartar, and what do you find... they all had the same weird oral bugs we moderns have. Even cooler, you can go to Neanderthal teeth tartar and THEY had the same weird amylase oral bugs we moderns have too!

What does this mean? It means humans have been eating a LOT of starch since before we split off from Neanderthal, hundreds of thousands of years ago (or maybe there were a lot of human-Neanderthal makeout sessions that we have no fossil record of). So 'starchivorism' is now hypothesized to be a key trait of the whole Homo genus, what set us apart from the great apes. When we first left the trees (where we ate fruit), we grew big brains, and we fed those big brains a lot of glucose by gathering starchy food!

And lots of soluble fiber and phytonutrients.

 

[begreen]

Pointdexter, seeing the need for a quick protein fix, have you considered nuts and dried fruit combo? For several years my breakfast is typically a mix of nuts and dried fruit. I get the unsalted mixed nuts from Costco, add some walnuts and pecans (also from Costco) and dried goji, blueberry, and cranberries, and blend them up in a big bowl. I eat a cup of them in the morning and on my current reduced calorie diet, this carries me until 5 o'clock for dinner. I'm older and my calorie needs have dropped so 2 meals sustain me.