Tyler's Top Reads #2

1. How to Save a Trillion Dollars

2. Obesity and the Fluid-in, Fluid-out Therapy for Edema

3. Is Sugar Toxic? 

4. US Omega-6 and Omega-3 Fat Consumption over the Last Century

5. Paleo 2.0 - A Diet Manifesto

6. Polarised Training Intensities - Is Goldilocks Training Dead?

Evolutionary Nutrition: 3 Ways to Always be Prepared

"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail" 

                                                          - Benjamin Franklin 

Preparation is Key
I've learned from my own experience and observed dozens of times that preparation is key when you are adopting a new way of eating. I really emphasize the importance of this with the people I work with because I have seen it derail people so many times.

Here's what I'm talking about: You're starting an evolutionary diet and aren't quite familiar with the foods you're going to be eating. You end up stuck at school or work with nothing on hand and not quite sure how to improvise. You're starving and end up grabbing a pack of doritos or a piece of pizza. Not an optimal situation, so here's how you deal with it.

There's a couple options, depending on your preferences:

1. Intermittent Fasting:

Martin Berkhan (on the right) has pioneered this approach, it works very well. 

Intermittent fasting is a very effective method of eating for fat burning and has numerous health benefits as well. If you know you'll be somewhere with quality food options in a reasonable amount of time and you can distract yourself from being hungry, just wait till you have access to good food.

This method is extremely liberating because food is never a constraint on your activities. 

Worried about "starvation mode", "metabolic slow-down", or "burning muscle for energy"? Don't be- these ideas are myths developed by supplement and snack companies to get you to buy their products. The research actually suggests that intermittent fasting protects you from muscle loss and can increase your metabolism. 

2. Snacks

Having some snacks stored at work or in your backpack can be a lifesaver. Here are my favorites:

• Hard boiled eggs
• Jerky
• Avocado
• Sardines
• Chopped veggies - carrots, celery
• Dark chocolate
• Olives
• Stick of butter - Nibbling on butter fills you up quick. Some people don't like this.
• Yogurt
• Cheese
• Nuts (in moderation!)
• Fruit (in moderation and depending on your goals)
• Lara Bars and Perfect Food Bars - not optimal but good enough. 

3. Tupperware Warrior

Your third option is to take some leftovers or make some food and throw it in a container and bring it with you. This is also ridiculously easy, but mildly annoying if you don't life bringing food containers with you.

These are my top snacks; tell me what yours are in the comments. 

Real Food 7: Meatza

This is what a finished piece of meatza looks like

It's been a while since I put up a post on food... so here's something that is one of my go-to meals. I love pizza, and seriously, who doesn't? But eating the wheat in the crust of a standard pizza just isn't worth it to me, and I was delighted when I discovered that there is something even more delicious than pizza. It's called meatza, and it's a pizza with the crust made out of ground beef instead of flour, making it suitable for evolutionary nutrition, paleo, or low carb. 

Meatza is quick, simple, and totally customizable. You can use any toppings or seasonings you want, I just used what I had on hand:

Base Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground beef (preferably grassfed)
• 2 eggs
• pizza seasoning
• 1 can pizza sauce
• cheese

Toppings

• olives
• bacon
• avocado
• onion
• bell peppers
• garlic
• mushrooms

Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. 

(2) Take your two pounds of ground beef and use your hands to mix it with the 2 beaten eggs. The eggs will help the ground beef stick together. 

(3) Mix in the pizza seasonings with the ground beef and egg. 

(4) Spread out the mixture on a baking pan, as thin and even as possible. Here's what mine looked like: 

(5) Bake this in the oven for 10 minutes. 

While the crust is baking, get all your toppings ready:

(6) Slice and lightly cook onions, peppers, and garlic. Chop the olives, avocado. Cook the bacon and cut it in to pieces. Shred your cheese of choice.

(7) When your crust comes out of the oven spread 1) the pizza sauce, 2) your shredded cheese, 3) all of your toppings, 4) maybe some more cheese on top. 

My meatza, prepped for step 8.

(8) Put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes. It finishes really fast and may take even less. 

(9) Slice it up and enjoy!

The meatza was so good my friends and I ate it before I had a chance to take a picture of the finished product. I like this dish a lot and because it's so quick, I make it fairly often. 

New Deadlift World Record!

1015 pounds raw deadlift...

My Take on Low-Carb Diets for Fat Loss

My progress pic: Evolutionary Nutrition + low carb

While the effects of low-carb dieting on health can be impressive as well, especially for people with metabolic derangement (insulin/leptin resistance), I want to stick to low-carb for fat loss at the moment. Just to be clear, an evolutionary or paleo diet is not by nature always a low carb diet, though it can be. 

Why are low-carb diets so effective for fat burning?

Without going in to the underlying hormonal causes, the real advantage of low-carb diets is the resetting of satiation signaling pathways. 

What I mean by this is that when you eat a diet low in carbohydrates, your bodies ability to send the signals to your brain that you are full, is greatly increased.

The end result of this is that people will feel full on less food.

In fact, several clinical studies show that subjects eating a low-carb diet until they are full often eat less than people on high-carb diets that are actively restricting calories.

This makes it relatively easy to lose fat when compared to a high-carb diet, because you simply aren't as hungry. 

However, it's important to remember that even if you are eating low carb, if you constantly eat past the point of feeling full, it is still possible to gain body fat. 

The other thing I want to emphasize about low-carb diets is that the majority of the health benefits that people see from them are likely because of the things they are not eating; the grains, legumes, sugars, etc. You will get a lot of the same effects of a low-carb diet by replacing these foods with safe starches.

Weight loss on a high-carb diet is possible, although I wouldn't recommend for most people. It usually leads to feelings of constant hunger, deprivation, and possible malnutrition due to a decrease in consumption of the most nutrient dense foods (meat, eggs, animal fat), which can results in fat-soluble vitamin deficiencies.

I will examine the underlying hormonal and metabolic effects of low-carb diets, and their relationship with longevity sometime soon.

Precision Nutrition on Low Carb Diets

PN on Low-Carb Diets

Precision Nutrition is a pretty good resource for most people, and it's what got me in to nutrition in the first place, over 6 years ago. I like that they are staying pretty up to date with the research, and are not afraid to say "New evidence has come out and we're updating our approach."

Although they haven't fully caught on with the grains and fats, it looks to me like they are heading in that direction. John Berardi (founder) is a smart guy and I'm guessing they will start implementing some of this stuff in the next couple years. 

Check out this article for a great summary of low-carb diets: Lean Liver With A Low-Carb Diet.

They also explain NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) and look at a study that used low-carb diets to treat it. 

I really like that they acknowledge that the increase in LDL cholesterol seen on a low carb diet is most likely NOT a bad thing, because it is the friendly Type A, large fluffy LDL, and these do not cause any damage to the blood vessels.

Here's what they say in the conclusion: 

In this study, a lower carbohydrate diet had a metabolic advantage over other diets due to more liver lipid oxidation, higher ketones and higher whole body fat oxidation.

Low carbohydrate diets in general have been shown to:

• lead to weight loss
• lead to fat loss
• improve blood triglycerides — a key risk marker for cardiovascular disease
• improve HDL-C — a key risk marker for cardiovascular disease
• increase or cause no change in LDL-C, though it seems to change the size distribution to a more favourable pattern (more large lower density LDL-C).

Food Sovereignty Part 1: Freedom and Responsibility

Sovereignty of Food Choice

What is food sovereignty? It is the idea that each individual has the right to choose what food they put in to their body.

If you know me or read this blog, you probably can guess my views on local food sovereignty and regulation of local food trading, farmer's markets, CSA's, etc.

Laws limiting the ability to buy food from your neighboring farms or that regulate farmer's markets or anything even close to that are misguided and dangerous.

Our local farmer's market

Why Centralized Control of Food is Dangerous

1. The idea that any state, federal, or other institution should be able to choose the food you eat or limit what is available to you is very dangerous. Putting aside the philosophical question of whether food choice is a fundamental right, we have a perfect example of why institutional control of food is a bad idea:

Our federal government claims that saturated fats ruin our health, when in reality, they are one of the safest and healthiest sources of calories. 

That's it right there. Sometimes the "experts" are wrong. If they really did control what was available to eat, we would all be obese, diabetic, and malnourished. As long as you are educated in what is good to eat and have a choice, you can stay healthy, regardless of institutional guidelines.

Perhaps the underlying motives are good, but it doesn't really matter. The results are bad.

More of Arcata Farmer's Market

2. I want to emphasize the trade off between freedom and responsibility. Credit to fully understanding the implications of this idea go to Dan Faulk, one of my top two professors of all time. This applies to everything in life, and food is no exception.

When you have the freedom to choose your food, you also assume responsibility for making sure that the food is of good quality. 

Go get to know the farmer. Check out their animals and their crops. Ask them about their operations. If you want to buy unpasteurized raw milk, then it is your responsibility to make sure the cows are healthy, it is bottled cleanly, and stored well. If you want to be able to choose your food, take responsibility for making sure your food is healthy and safe.

Likewise, if you do not take responsibility for making sure your food is of good quality and get sick, who's fault is that?

Local Grass-fed beef

3. Keep in mind that there is a spectrum of food freedom, it's not totally black and white. When you have huge multi-national corporations, industrial CAFO's with thousands of animals, mass meat processing and distributing plants, etc, it makes sense to have institutional oversight and regulations.

The risk of contamination of foods is drastically higher in these situations and requires good oversight. It's impossible to check these out for ourselves: You no longer have the responsibility to inspect the animals yourself and you trade some of your food freedom for that. And that's ok - I know not everyone has the same interest in food quality or has the financial capabilities to even worry about things like that. They should just understand that there is a trade-off; you can't have freedom without responsibility.

By no means do I think that these are a good things, but I know that at this time and in this cultural climate, they are the only way that we can feed many people cheaply. Not to diverge too far here, but remember that the price you pay in the store may be cheap, but the long-term costs on us and our land are immeasurable. 

This is why it is so insane to have legislation that forces small local farmers to comply to the same standards set for industrial food production: The circumstances are totally different for these two models; they do not require the same treatment.

The trend in food control and regulation is worrying for many people, myself included. The inept, ineffective, and corrupt FDA is in control of industrial food and it is a disaster. Extending their power over local and small farms would be a serious setback.

In my next post I will look at some encouraging developments that are a great template of what you can do in your area.

Tyler's Top Reads #1

I subscribe to and keep updated on about 70 different blogs. These range through nutrition, anthropology, exercise, political science, and psychology. I'm going to start posting a recap of some of my favorite content that comes up once a week. 

Top Reads #1

1. Getting Better Sleep -- Cool, Dark, And Lots of B6, Carbs, Calories, and Fat - Daily Lipid

Chris Masterjohn writes about some of the things that he finds important for getting great sleep. I agree with every point he makes here, great info.

2. Why Did We Evolve a Taste for Sweetness? - Perfect Health Diet

Paul Jaminet writes on why we probably developed a taste for sugar. The content at the Perfect Health Diet blog is really good. 

3. Fasting insulin and weight loss - Hyperlipid

"I am on blog as stating that dietary fat, in common with carbohydrate, is stored in the aftermath of a meal. If you did not store your dietary fat it would sit there in your chylomicrons until you were as hyperlipaemic as a diabetic on an ADA approved low fat diet. All fat which is not used for on going metabolism must be stored." Technical for a layreader, but very interesting. 

4. 9 Steps to Perfect Health – #9: Practice Pleasure - The Healthy Skeptic

 "We know that when we’re faced with stress, a cascade of physiological changes occur triggered by stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system: blood flow increases to the muscles, lungs and other areas needed to mobilize us for action, and decreases to areas like the digestive and reproductive system that aren’t necessary for immediate survival. Hormones like adrenaline pump through our body to make us stronger and faster. Extra fuel (glucose) is released from the liver so that it can be burned quickly for energy."

5. Seth Roberts and Circadian Therapy - Perfect Health Diet

 This fits right in with the sleep post at #1. Some unique ideas on sleep and body rhythms.  

Wheat and Sugar: Addiction in the Brain

Kris over at Kris' Health Blog has just posted a really nice summary of the addictive effects on the brain of junk food, namely sugar and wheat. I've quoted a few of his paragraphs here, but you should check out his article for a more in-depth look at things.

Junk Food and Physiological Addiction
Over the last 30 years, there has been some leaps in our understanding of how foods can cause physiological addiction.

The majority of this research has looked at how foods effects our opiate and dopamine receptors in the brain, just like nicotine, amphetamine, heroin, cocaine, etc. 

The top two culprits in our diet are sugar and "healthy whole wheat" (sarcasm), two of the foods that to be leaders in causing our "diseases of civilization"- heart disease, diabetes, obesity, fatty liver, etc.

Sugar
During our evolution, sugar just was not available in the quantities and with the relative ease that it is now. As Paul Jaminet at the Perfect Health Diet explains, sugar was a signal that foods were probably safe to eat.

We probably evolved a taste for sweetness and bitterness as a mechanism to detect which foods were poisonous. 

Kris looks at two studies on this,

"When rats are fed with sugar, they experience behavioral and neurochemical changes that are similar to what happens when they consume narcotics. These changes are specificially related to dopamine and opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens of the brain (1).

Another rat study found that development of obesity in rats was correlated with down regulation of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain (2), which is similar to the changes involved in reward homeostasis in cocaine or heroin addicts. These rats ate bacon, sausage, cheesecake, pound cake, frosting and chocolate."

So you wonder why it's hard to stop eating bagels, bread, cakes, and sweets? They really are addictive, in the same way drugs are.

Wheat
Kris does a really nice job of explaining where the opioids in wheat come from, and how they exert their effects on the brain: 

Soft, fluffy, poison

"Opioid peptides are short amino acid sequences that can cross the blood-brain barrier and stimulate opioid receptors in the brain. What substances do we know that do this as well? Well, heroin and morphine are the most commonly known, along with natural opioid peptides like endorphins that the brain releases after activities like exercise.

When wheat is broken down by enzymes, it forms four types of opioid peptides: A4, A5, B4 and B5 (3). These substances are believed to be able to cross the digestive tract, in to the blood, across the blood brain barrier to get to the brain and stimulate opiate receptors there, making us addicted to wheat."

He makes the speculation, that I would agree with, that children are exposed to wheat and sugar at a very young age, and develop the beginnings of addiction. They are rewarded in school, sports, etc with sweets, which also contributes to the psychological addiction component.

Addiction isn't Permanent
Just keep this in mind: addiction can be overcome, especially when you make a good plan that allows you to replace the foods that are addictive, with foods that you enjoy but are more in line with your goals.

Side Effects of Avoiding Wheat and Sugar, plus some x-fit

When I first stopped eating the majority of sugar and began eating an evolutionary based diet, I definitely had some cravings for candy, soda's, baked goods, and all that good stuff... but what I did is replace those foods with things that I enjoy, but aren't negatively impacting my health in moderate quantities: 

• Dark Chocolate
• Berries and Cream
• Coconut Macaroons
• Fruit
• Full Fat Ice Cream

After a few months of this, my cravings for sweet and wheat completely disappeared.

Now, when I see sugary foods and baked goods, I am mildly revolted. If I actually taste them, they are disgustingly sweet, evidence that my taste buds are probably much more sensitive now.

What are your experiences with food addiction or overcoming a sweet tooth?
Are there other foods that you prefer now?

Be sure to check out Kris' article here: Junk food causes addiction in the brain.

Real Food 6: Classic Breakfast - Homegrown Eggs, Bacon, Sausage

Fresh Eggs
One of my friends is taking care of a couple acres with a small greenhouse and garden on it, so I went over and helped him out with some gardening stuff. He also has a chicken coup with the chickens laying an abundance of eggs, so he sent me off with a dozen fresh eggs!

He has three types of chickens which all have distinctly different eggs.

Here's a picture of the dozen:

Yum

In case you didn't know, the eggs from chickens that get to scratch around outside for their natural diet of fresh plants and insects have a much higher vitamin content.

Conventional vs Free-range

Compared to conventional, pastured eggs have: 

• 1.6 times the Vitamin A 
• 6 times as much Vitamin D
• 8 times as much Beta-carotene
• 3 times as much omega-3

Keep in mind, all these wonderful vitamins and fatty acids are found in the yolk, so be sure to eat it.

Organic vs free-range

This is evident by the vibrant color of the egg yolks. Here I have three organic eggs from the Co-Op and one free-range egg:

Can you guess which is from the free-range hen?

Organic vs free-range

Here is another picture, the lighting is not great in the first...











So after eating a couple of the yolks raw, I decided to fry up some of the eggs with some bacon and sausage.

First I threw some bacon on a baking sheet, put it in the oven, turned it on to 400 degrees, and set the timer for 15 minutes. I have found this cooks the bacon perfectly, and leaves the stove open to cook other stuff.

When the bacon had about 5 minutes left, I threw some sausage in the pan to start cooking. When the bacon was done, I took it out of the oven and poured the rendered fat in to a pan and cooked the eggs in it.

Last, I seasoned the sausage and sprinkled salt, pepper, and a little paprika on the eggs.

I like my yolks runny, and although I don't have any direct evidence of this, I suspect that they retain more vitamins and minerals when not fully cooked.

Here's the result:

Paleo power breakfast

For some more info on pastured eggs check out: Stephan Guyenet - Pastured Eggs