Gyroscopic Investing

Here's an interesting study on placebos:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200802 ... _sys.shtml

Basically, expensive placebos work better than cheap ones!

Xan wrote: Here's an interesting study on placebos:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200802 ... _sys.shtml

Basically, expensive placebos work better than cheap ones!

Cool!  That doesn't surprise me at all.  In the future I'm thinking medicine will begin to dabble more in the placebo arena, although it is sorta like going back to the shamans, who pretty much exclusively relied on the placebo effect.

Gosso wrote:But the more I have researched diet and health the more skeptical I have become of any supplements (although I do take some b and d vitamins, since I live and work in an unnaturally stressful environment).

...

Of course it is important to eat a whole foods diet, but it can only do so much.

I happen to believe that synthetic supplements are pretty much useless and toxic. Naturally occurring vitamins are more easily assimilated by the body. So, I tend to look at fermented cod liver oil as a food — rather than a vitamin supplement. The point of fermented fish liver oil is to essentially concentrate the enormous amounts of naturally occurring vitamins found in fish organs. It's really the equivalent of eating a lot of fish organs on a regular basis — an attempt to eat the way people used to eat before modern diets, when heart disease was very rare. But, taking the equivalent allowance of synthetic vitamins would almost certainly be toxic. So, my feeling is that it's pretty much useless to compare synthetic vitamins from naturally occurring vitamins.

It would be one thing to take fermented cod liver oil and feel a difference in your own body — which could be attributed to the placebo effect. It's quite another to give fermented cod liver oil (along with high vitamin butter oil) to an unsuspecting toddler and have everyone see a noticeable improvement in their mood and temperament. My toddler's noticeable improvement made me consider that our diet choices has a huge impact on our moods.


I never considered myself to be a health nut. And I doubt many people would consider my diet to be very "healthy" now. But, since this discussion thread started a few weeks ago, I've started eating a fair amount of natural saturated fats (only cooked in natural fats), raw whole milk, 1 daily Tsp fermented cod liver oil, 1/2 daily tsp high vitamin butter oil, daily raw pastured egg yolks, whole milk kefir, whole milk yogurt, fatty grass-fed beef, local organic roast chicken (with fat drippings), pastured butter, liver (once or twice a week), fish, oysters, crab, scrapple, local fatty bacon, sausage, pastured sweet cream, occasional homemade bone broths, locally grown vegetables, overnight-soaked porridges with butter (soaked with a tablespoon of natural acid, such as buttermilk), occasional kombucha tea (which has very noticeable healing effects, btw). I've reduced my sugar intake considerably. I don't eat processed cereals anymore. I avoid carbs when I can. I avoid cooking with the microwave as much as possible (which some people believe might change food in ways we might not suspect). I replaced synthetic poly-unsaturated cooking oils with organic extra virgin coconut oil and I've even tried cooking with locally rendered lard a few times. I've also taken a spoonful of raw coconut oil before some meals, as well, for good measure. And I started visiting farmers' markets regularly. (I've basically followed many of the Weston Price recommendations that I could mange to do).

Truth be told, the first few days I was in a fog, my skin became a little inflamed, and I generally felt a bit worse. Supposedly I was detoxing from my modern diet, so I kept at it. Within a few days I was feeling really good. And now, a few weeks later, I feel amazing. I've never felt so relaxed and happy. My skin has never been so supple. A few wrinkles have actually disappeared and dry/scaly Rosacea spots have vanished. My joints don't creak as much as they used to. I have always been thin (I'm 35 years old, 165 Lbs, 6'1" tall), but I actually lost a few pounds since starting this routine — and that's surprising for me because my weight rarely ever fluctuates. I never feel hungry anymore, and my digestion has improved considerably.

What seems like a very unhealthy diet (and maybe it is) has made me feel great and look younger. Hard to imagine this was a placebo effect when I was actually pretty nervous to give this all a try.

I dunno. Everything seems backwards now. I can't help but wonder if all of the "expert" recommendations are actually making a world full of depressed, diseased, overweight and undernourished people. It's no wonder people rely on so many synthetic supplements these days. So, now I completely avoid synthetic supplements, and I attempt to eat the way people used to eat, rather than try to fit the modern mold.

Gumby!  That's my diet!  I get my raw whole milk, kefir, cream, lard, tallow, pastured beef, eggs, chicken, and pork from a couple of Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. A few years ago I learned to make bacon and butter, and haven't looked back.  I even ferment my own ketchup.  And two months ago I learned to roast beef leg bones to make marrow, a fatty, melt-in-your-mouth delicacy.  We make chili and Swedish meatballs from the grass-fed beef, and crusts from the lard make great fruit and meat pies.  And every now and then (but not everyday) I'll fry potatoes in the beef tallow.  My house is party central when it comes to traditional food.

The doctors can't figure out why my cholesterol, blood pressure, and other measures have not shown any batsh*t pathology since I started eating like this four years ago.  I don't worry about it:  I kick back and make myself a blueberry kefir smoothie, and all is well with the world.

smurff. Wow. I'm impressed. What resources do you use for your recipes? Old world cookbooks? or are there blogs you prefer to follow?

I can't help but wonder what a person from the 1800s would say about our eating habits. I've sort of imagined that it would go something like this:

Old Timer: So, do you have any milk?

Modern guy: Oh yeah, what kind? 1% milk fat, 2% milk fat, skim or whole.

Old Timer: I beg your pardon, but why would someone ever choose less milk fat? The cream is the best part!

Modern guy: Well, modern doctors believe that the milk fat is bad for you. It causes heart disease and makes you fat.

Old Timer: Am I considered fat in your modern world?

Modern guy: No, not at all. You're actually quite thin. You must do a lot of labor.

Old Timer: No, I do no such thing. I have slaves for that. What is "heart disease?"

Modern guy: It's when your arteries and heart become clogged with deposits and your heart stops working properly. It's one of the leading causes of death in our country now.

Old Timer: I've never heard of such a widespread heart malaise. Back in my day, everyone drank milk as it was from the cow itself.

Modern guy: Well, I hate to tell you this, but there are some states where it's illegal to sell milk directly from the cow. Almost everyone has their milk boiled to high temperatures, to improve the shelf life, and the milk fat is processed by homogenization so that you don't have to shake the milk anymore before you drink it.

Old Timer: So, I can't have a glass of real milk, as it comes from the cow?

Modern guy: I'm afraid not.

Old Timer: How strange. Well, how about some animal food. What can I have to eat? Do you have any calf brains or goat liver?

Modern guy: Uh no. We have a steak cooked with healthy vegetable oil and not very much salt?

Old Timer: I beg your pardon. Is there are salt shortage? And what is a "healthy vegetable oil?" I thought you said that many people are getting heart disease in your modern world?

Modern guy: Well, that's because those people ate too much animal fat and salt. So, instead, people eat less salt and corporations take vegetable seeds and heat them to really high temperatures and crush them into a fine oil that's easy to sell and everyone says is healthy.

Old Timer: I'm quite confused. Everyone used to cook their meats in animal fat, cream and butter in my day. The animal would eat the grass, and the fat would be "healthy" as you say. We also used a lot of salt to preserve our food. And very few people had heart problems.

Modern guy: Well, modern doctors disagree. They are scientists and they know better.

Old Timer: So, other than this heart disease, I assume modern medicine has eradicated all other forms of disease?

Modern guy: Yes and no. We eradicated almost all infectious disease, but there is a thriving pharmaceutical industry to treat chronic disease.

Old Timer: Ah, yes. Snake oil salesmen.

Modern guy: Yes. But, it's serious business. People have lots of problems. Depression, cholesterol, infertility, autism, anxiety, obesity, erectile disfunction, sleeping problems, aches and pains. You name it.

Old Timer: Dear lord. It's worse than I thought. I don't think I've ever met too many people with those problems. Are these problems fairly widespread?

Modern guy: Generally, yes. But, that's why we have modern medicine — to help make us better.

Old Timer: Fascinating. Do people ever suspect that the modern diet is causing some of these problems.

Modern guy: Oh sure. They are called vegans. They don't eat meat, dairy, fish or eggs at all. They only eat plants. They are convinced that all our health issues originate from animal consumption.

Old Timer: I beg your pardon?! That's preposterous. How do these people survive without the nutrients one gets from animals?

Modern guy: Well, the pharmaceutical companies put all of those nutrients into a pill and you swallow it. They also put a lot of vegetables into machines that mash them up into a drinkable form.

Old Timer: You must be joking. I never heard of such a thing. Are you sure these people are healthy?

Modern guy: Well, they think they are. And many scientists support their lifestyle. It's hard to argue with scientists.

Old Timer: I'd like to go home now.

And scene...

Nice work Gumby.

You forgot to tell the old timer that obesity is one of our primary health problems and it only really became a serious problem when we started eating the diet you are describing.

Thanks, MT. Good point. Just edited it and added obesity into it.

Gumby wrote: Old Timer: Am I considered fat in your modern world?

Modern guy: No, not at all. You're actually quite thin. You must do a lot of labor.

Old Timer: No, I do no such thing. I have slaves for that. What is "heart disease?"

I'd say that the old man's selling himself short -- what looks like "labor" to me probably just looks like simply "living life" to him.  I'm willing to bet that he gets way more physical activity than the average American couch potato!

I bet this gentleman would be just as shocked to see us sitting at computers the entire day without getting outside and picking things up every now and then.

Lone Wolf wrote:

Gumby wrote: Old Timer: Am I considered fat in your modern world?

Modern guy: No, not at all. You're actually quite thin. You must do a lot of labor.

Old Timer: No, I do no such thing. I have slaves for that. What is "heart disease?"

I'd say that the old man's selling himself short -- what looks like "labor" to me probably just looks like simply "living life" to him.  I'm willing to bet that he gets way more physical activity than the average American couch potato!

I bet this gentleman would be just as shocked to see us sitting at computers the entire day without getting outside and picking things up every now and then.

Not really. Upper society (plantation owners) had slaves, maids, cooks, butlers, nannies and farmhands to do their heavy lifting. In fact, most upper society wore formalwear and avoided breaking a sweat in their fine clothing (ever watch Downton Abbey?). Many upper society Southern women even wore tight corsets that prevented them from exerting too much energy. What you didn't see was much obesity or heart disease. Certainly these people took leisurely strolls, but they did not exercise regularly or perform any sort of labor — exertion was considered lower class work.

It's sort of ironic that most weight-loss diets today are essentially controlled forms of starvation with very little fat and more exercise — yet most starvation-type diets cannot be sustained for very long without reverting to modern portions and modern eating habits. Pre-1900 portions were smaller because the food was far more filling and satisfying.

Gumby wrote: Not really. Upper society (plantation owners) had slaves, maids, cooks, butlers, nannies and farmhands to do their heavy lifting. In fact, most upper society wore formalwear and avoided breaking a sweat in their fine clothing (ever watch Downton Abbey?). Many upper society Southern women even wore tight corsets that prevented them from exerting too much energy. What you didn't see was much obesity or heart disease. Certainly these people took leisurely strolls, but they did not exercise regularly or perform any sort of labor — exertion was considered lower class work.

That's an interesting argument about the upper class.  I see where you're coming from there and I do agree that nutritious food is the most important factor (including fats!)  There is no way for normal people to out-exercise a bad diet.  (Michael Phelps, you get a pass.)

For another angle, though, consider the harder life of the settler or laborer.  Australia did a study comparing the activity levels of early settlers and office workers and came out to a difference of around 1000 KCal in additional energy needs!  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11837872  And the settlers, of course, had no access to "cardboard carbohydrates".

Gumby wrote:It's sort of ironic that most weight-loss diets today are essentially controlled forms of starvation with very little fat and more exercise — yet most starvation-type diets cannot be sustained for very long without reverting to modern portions and modern eating habits. Pre-1900 portions were smaller because the food was far more filling and satisfying.

For a good example of what you're talking about, check out the diet that Gwyneth Paltrow used to "get in shape" for Iron Man 2.  (Summary: eat barely anything at all, most of it vegetables, no saturated fat, and almost no protein.  Exercise for nearly two hours every day, lifting no weights heavier than 3 pounds.  God forbid you gain strength, bone health, or muscle mass of any kind.)

http://tracyandersonmethod.com/2010/05/ ... r-gwyneth/

Lone Wolf wrote:For another angle, though, consider the harder life of the settler or laborer.  Australia did a study comparing the activity levels of early settlers and office workers and came out to a difference of around 1000 KCal in additional energy needs!  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11837872  And the settlers, of course, had no access to "cardboard carbohydrates".

It's true that early settlers worked harder. But, they were also skilled at obtaining the proper energy requirements. They learned about Maple Sugar from the Indians and their fatty diets gave them plenty of stored energy on low portions of food. For instance, eating a serving of liver gives people huge amounts of energy.

Also, tossing modern people into that old-fashioned lifestyle for a week is a silly experiment in terms of analyzing one's response to it. Most people feel pretty run down after the first week of switching to a high-fat/high-protein diet — even without doing any labor. My guess is that those actors were doing terribly by the end of the one-week study. After a few months of living that lifestyle, they would have felt like they could have done anything.

Lone Wolf wrote:For a good example of what you're talking about, check out the diet that Gwyneth Paltrow used to "get in shape" for Iron Man 2.  (Summary: eat barely anything at all, most of it vegetables, no saturated fat, and almost no protein.  Exercise for nearly two hours every day, lifting no weights heavier than 3 pounds.  God forbid you gain strength, bone health, or muscle mass of any kind.)

http://tracyandersonmethod.com/2010/05/ ... r-gwyneth/

Right. It sounds awful.

Actually, one of the first recorded low-carbohydrate diet to fight obesity was recorded — in high detail — in the mid-1800s. But, the original diet was actually a high-fat/protein and low carbohydrate diet. And it worked much better than low-carbohydrate/low fat diets. The diet was called the "Banting diet" — named for a man named William Banting who discovered it. What separates the Banting diet from other low-carb diets is that the Banting diet was high in fat.

It's a fascinating story...

Read: William Banting: author of the first low-carb diet book

It seems that in order for the body to lose fat, the body must be convinced that it has regular access to an ample supply of natural saturated fats. Otherwise, the body just holds on to fat in case food becomes scarce.

In fact, over the past century, researchers have compared the Banting diet to other dieting. Here's what they found:

In 1933, a clinical study carried out at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh studied the effects of low- and high-calorie diets, ranging from 800 to 2,700 kcals.

Average daily losses:

• high carb/low fat diet             - 49g [like a modern slimming diet]
• high carb/low protein            - 122g
• low carb/high protein            - 183g
• low carbohydrate/high fat      - 205g

Drs Lyon and Dunlop pointed out that:

"The most striking feature of the table is that the losses appear to be inversely proportionate to the carbohydrate content of the food. Where the carbohydrate intake is low the rate of loss in weight is greater and conversely."

In other words, the less carbohydrate was eaten, the greater was the amount of weight lost.

In 1955 Dr Albert Pennington in the USA also found that: 'weight loss appeared to be inversely related to the amount of glycogenic materials in the diet. Carbohydrate is 100 per cent, protein 58 per cent and fat 10 per cent glycogenic.' (In other words, the more a food increased insulin production, the less weight was lost — and in this respect, to lose weight, again carbohydrate was worst and fat best.)

Pennington continued: 'The recommended diet is a calorically unrestricted one, very low in carbohydrate, high in fat and moderate in protein. Neither fat nor protein is restricted, however.'

Pennington's diet was so successful that it was reported in Holiday magazine, where it became known as 'The Holiday Diet'.

Professor Alan Kekwick and Dr Gaston Pawan had similar results: In a trial at the Middlesex Hospital, London, overweight patients:

• lost the most weight on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet
• lost the least weight on a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet
• Lost weight even at 2,600 calories a day — but only on a high-fat diet.

In 1959, Dr John Yudkin, Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University of London, confirmed Kekwick and Pawan's findings when he showed that a diet with unlimited protein and fat, but with little or no carbohydrate was far more effective in causing weight loss than a calorie-controlled, low-fat diet.

During the 1950s, another British physician, Dr Richard Mackarness, found that the low-carb, high-fat diet was so successful with his overweight patients that he wrote a book that was in print for nearly twenty years — a feat almost unheard of in the slimming book industry. It was Dr Mackarness who introduced this concept to me in 1962 and so dramatically changed the lives of my family and me. In the forty years since, none of my family has been overweight, although we were before that date.

As time passed and praising the value of fat became politically incorrect, it became more difficult to get such trials published. Nevertheless, it did happen occasionally.

Published in the year 2000, a prospective study was conducted to evaluate the effect of a low carbohydrate, high-protein/fat diet in achieving short-term weight loss. Researchers at the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Durham, North Carolina, reported data from a six-month study that included fifty-one individuals who were overweight, but otherwise healthy. The subjects received nutritional supplements and attended bi-weekly group meetings, where they received dietary counselling on consuming a low-carbohydrate, high-protein/fat diet. After six months, they had lost, on average, more than ten percent of their weight and (remember this for later) their total cholesterol dropped by an average 10.5 mg/dl (0.27 mmol/l).

Twenty patients chose to continue the diet after the first six months, and after twelve months, their mean weight loss was 10.9 percent and their total cholesterol had decreased by 14.1 mg/dl (0.37 mmol/l).

Dr William S. Yancy, M.D. admitted that:

"This study of overweight individuals showed that a low carbohydrate, high-protein/fat diet can lead to significant weight loss at one year of treatment."

All these recommendations and evidence could have saved a great deal of grief, trauma and ill-health if two other doctors had been listened to in 1994. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Susan Wooley and Dr David Gardner highlighted the role of the professional in people's increasing weight. They said:

"The failure of fat people to achieve a goal they seem to want — and to want above all else — must now be admitted for what it is: a failure not of those people but of the methods of treatment that are used."

In other words, blaming the overweight for their problem and telling them they are eating too much and must cut down, is simply not good enough. It is the dieticians' advice and the treatment offered that are wrong. Wooley and Garner concluded:

"We should stop offering ineffective treatments aimed at weight loss. Researchers who think they have invented a better mousetrap should test it in controlled research before setting out their bait for the entire population. Only by admitting that our treatments do not work — and showing that we mean it by refraining from offering them — can we begin to undo a century of recruiting fat people for failure."

But of course there is a 'better mousetrap'. William Banting wrote of it nearly a century and a half ago.

Source: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/banting.html

In other words, you'll lose weight much faster if you eat saturated fats, protein and few carbs than if you avoid fats.

Speaking of liver... check this out...

Liver’s as-yet-unidentified anti-fatigue factor makes it a favorite with athletes and bodybuilders. The factor was described by Benjamin K. Ershoff, PhD, in a July 1951 article published in the Proceedings for the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Ershoff divided laboratory rats into three groups. The first ate a basic diet, fortified with 11 vitamins. The second ate the same diet, along with an additional supply of vitamin B complex. The third ate the original diet, but instead of vitamin B complex received 10 percent of rations as powdered liver.

A 1975 article published in Prevention magazine described the experiment as follows: "After several weeks, the animals were placed one by one into a drum of cold water from which they could not climb out. They literally were forced to sink or swim. Rats in the first group swam for an average 13.3 minutes before giving up. The second group, which had the added fortifications of B vitamins, swam for an average of 13.4 minutes. Of the last group of rats, the ones receiving liver, three swam for 63, 83 and 87 minutes. The other nine rats in this group were still swimming vigorously at the end of two hours when the test was terminated. Something in the liver had prevented them from becoming exhausted. To this day scientists have not been able to pin a label on this anti-fatigue factor."
Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/liver-files

Crazy. A traditional diet — including organs and saturated fats — could easily explain why early settlers were able to expend so much energy.

Gumby wrote: smurff. Wow. I'm impressed. What resources do you use for your recipes? Old world cookbooks? or are there blogs you prefer to follow?

Gumby, some of my recipes are in my memory, being raised in the Deep South where people do not fear animal protein and fats. 

BTW, Southerners carry a lot of fat on their bodies because they consume lots of starches and sugary sweets--Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and their ilk (RC Cola, etc....) were invented and perfected in the South as medicines and exported to the rest of the country as casual drinks.  Southerners also tend to put sugar in recipes that ordinarily don't contain sugar elsewhere in the country, like spaghetti sauce, mac and cheese, meat loaf, etc. And the Great Cornbread Debate--whether sweet-tasting cornbread or non-sweet cornbread is the best--still rages.

Here's a good blog for traditional recipes:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/
Today's front page tells you how to make ricotta cheese.  I'm in the frame of mind to make some lasagna, so I might just try it.  This is where I learned to cook marrow.  Lots of instructional videos, too.

"Nourishing Traditions" is the classic book (required reading by anyone who wants to eat this way)  by Sally Fallon with lot of traditional recipes:

http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Tradit ... traditions

There was a great raw milk debate in February featuring Sally Fallon at the Harvard Law School:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLRdihFi ... GStYY2P77G

Lots of old cookbooks around.  There is another, "The Joy of Cooking," originally published in the early 1930s with traditional recipes from the 1920s and earlier.  Try to get a pre-1980s edition; some of the older recipes have been dropped or modified in newer editions.

If you like web-surfing, the Weston A. Price Foundation is a great starting point:

http://www.westonaprice.org/

I would caution people against eating like I do via supermarket (grain-fed) beef, milk, and lard.  There's a big difference between grass-fed cattle and grain-fed cattle--to say nothing of industrialized meat production generally.  Grass-fed results in a golden cow; grain-fed results in a animal that transfers its deficiencies to the people who consume it.  Supermarket lard contains preservatives and other chemicals.

There is a reason that cattle ownership, more than ownership of any other livestock, equated wealth in the Old World.  Cattle were extremely valuable, as everything that comes from a healthy cow can be used for something humans need. Milk, meat, bones, horns, hooves, fat, entrails, hair, and skin can be consumed directly or preserved as food, worn as clothing, used to construct furniture or shelter, transformed into grooming tools, etc.  Cow manure fertilizes the soil, and when dried into dung, is a good fuel source. 

And don't get me started on A1 vs. A2 milk.

Gumby wrote:

Lone Wolf wrote: I'd say that the old man's selling himself short -- what looks like "labor" to me probably just looks like simply "living life" to him.  I'm willing to bet that he gets way more physical activity than the average American couch potato!

I bet this gentleman would be just as shocked to see us sitting at computers the entire day without getting outside and picking things up every now and then.

Not really. Upper society (plantation owners) had slaves, maids, cooks, butlers, nannies and farmhands to do their heavy lifting. In fact, most upper society wore formalwear and avoided breaking a sweat in their fine clothing (ever watch Downton Abbey?). Many upper society Southern women even wore tight corsets that prevented them from exerting too much energy. What you didn't see was much obesity or heart disease. Certainly these people took leisurely strolls, but they did not exercise regularly or perform any sort of labor — exertion was considered lower class work.

I'll bet the effort to avoid sweat failed almost every day, given that there was no air conditioning and the South in the summer is HOT.

MediumTex wrote:

Gumby wrote:

Lone Wolf wrote: I'd say that the old man's selling himself short -- what looks like "labor" to me probably just looks like simply "living life" to him.  I'm willing to bet that he gets way more physical activity than the average American couch potato!

I bet this gentleman would be just as shocked to see us sitting at computers the entire day without getting outside and picking things up every now and then.

Not really. Upper society (plantation owners) had slaves, maids, cooks, butlers, nannies and farmhands to do their heavy lifting. In fact, most upper society wore formalwear and avoided breaking a sweat in their fine clothing (ever watch Downton Abbey?). Many upper society Southern women even wore tight corsets that prevented them from exerting too much energy. What you didn't see was much obesity or heart disease. Certainly these people took leisurely strolls, but they did not exercise regularly or perform any sort of labor — exertion was considered lower class work.

I'll bet the effort to avoid sweat failed almost every day, given that there was no air conditioning and the South in the summer is HOT.

I can certainly attest for that. I've lived in Charleston, South Carolina for 2 summers and in Atlanta, Georgia for 1. It can be quite the steamy place.

1NV35T0R wrote:

MediumTex wrote:

Gumby wrote: Not really. Upper society (plantation owners) had slaves, maids, cooks, butlers, nannies and farmhands to do their heavy lifting. In fact, most upper society wore formalwear and avoided breaking a sweat in their fine clothing (ever watch Downton Abbey?). Many upper society Southern women even wore tight corsets that prevented them from exerting too much energy. What you didn't see was much obesity or heart disease. Certainly these people took leisurely strolls, but they did not exercise regularly or perform any sort of labor — exertion was considered lower class work.

I'll bet the effort to avoid sweat failed almost every day, given that there was no air conditioning and the South in the summer is HOT.

I can certainly attest for that. I've lived in Charleston, South Carolina for 2 summers and in Atlanta, Georgia for 1. It can be quite the steamy place.

I assume you had air conditioning, right?

Imagine it with no air conditioning.

MediumTex wrote:Imagine it with no air conditioning.

Good point. Many wealthy families had tricks to keep cool (slave-pulled fans, hand-held fans, architectural-engineered breezes, etc). But, you're right. When it was damn hot, the wealthy wore loose casual clothing and guests were expected to drop calling cards in advance so that formalwear could be donned by the time their guests arrived.

Thanks for the recommendations smurff. I've already been researching on westonaprice.org and TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com a fair amount. Good to know I'm headed in the right direction in terms of resources. I already got a copy of Nourishing Traditions a few days ago, but must admit some of it's a bit daunting — I haven't quite mustered up the courage to cook many organs just yet and I've never made my own bone broths, but I'm looking forward to trying. The old Joy of Cooking is a good recommendation. Thanks so much!

MediumTex wrote: [
I assume you had air conditioning, right?

Imagine it with no air conditioning.

In South Carolina yes. In Georgia, ehh, not so much. The place I was in seemed to have the air conditioner in our place only able to put out hot air for a few weeks. Just kept the window open and had a fan which worked reasonably well.

As an aside, I lived for the past month with a Japanese exchange student while in Atlanta and because of him I started using chopsticks more often. I like them since they tend to make me eat slower and in turn I believe I eat smaller portions and get fuller faster. Just another way of eating healthier I suppose, or at least smaller amounts that is.

Smaller plates have the same effect. 

It's not unusual for an individual to be served a restaurant meal piled high on a platter--the kind of serving dish that when I was a kid was used to serve two adults and four children from.  No wonder Americans are getting fat.

Gumby wrote: But, even if the research is somehow flawed, my overall point is that people used to eat more saturated fats than I would ever choose to eat, and heart disease wasn't an issue. And they got a lot of their fat-soluble vitamins that way. So, my sense is that if I was transported back to the mid-1800s and ate a diet that was high in raw milk, pastured butter, pastured cream, traditional porridges (pre-soaking, etc), and animal meat, I probably wouldn't get heart disease. I don't need a flawed study to tell me this. The historical record already supports it.

I've been keeping an eye on this issue as I've been doing my usual research on other health topics.  I am not really finding a "smoking gun" for saturated fats being harmful as is easily found (by me) for other contentious issues.  Leaving aside my personal experience with saturated fat (which could as easily just be too much Omega-6 vs Omega-3 in factory farmed meat -- I'll have to try a grass fed meat self-test again, although I think I tried it before with negative results), the most I can find is that the cholesterol hypothesis is based on at least one flawed study with rabbits conducted way back in the 1930's and 1940's. 

In a classic example of setting up the test to get the outcome they wanted, the researchers were feeding cholesterol (which is all they could identify given the technology at the time) to rabbits (which are NOT meat eaters) but not getting the CHD result they wanted, so they begin feeding the rabbits cholesterol along with carbohydrates, finally getting the CHD effect, and omitting that convenient fact in the published results.  So it seems to me that cholesterol gradually got conflated with saturated fats & CHD over time, ultimately culminating in the Center for Science in the Public Interest getting it banned out of the food supply in 1989 (the last time french fries had any real taste!).

Sadly, myths and urban legends like the above easily persist in the medical community for decades when there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other (i.e. testosterone causing cancer), or conclusive negative evidence is widely ignored for sake of huge profits (i.e. oncology).

I'm not ready to throw the towel in yet, but there damn well better be some modern scientific evidence, because a bunch of markers on a basic blood test isn't going to cut the mustard.

Xan wrote: Here's an interesting study on placebos:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200802 ... _sys.shtml

Basically, expensive placebos work better than cheap ones!

The same effect works when drinking wine.  Your expectations set the characteristics, whether or not it is cheap or uber-expensive (even if it is the exact same wine in differently priced bottles).  However, I don't think that is going to be a huge factor with, lets says, "advanced anti-aging" supplements whose effects are definitely physiologically noticeable and are backed by unbiased scientific research.  But certainly for the overpriced scam crap peddled by MLM hucksters to Americanus Boobuses, the placebo effect has to be H-U-G-E!

Gumby wrote: What seems like a very unhealthy diet (and maybe it is) has made me feel great and look younger. Hard to imagine this was a placebo effect when I was actually pretty nervous to give this all a try.

I'd say its only unhealthy if you eat unbalanced long-term.  By that, I mean if you ignore the vegetables and fruits necessary to balance off the acidity and toxic-byproducts of all the acid-forming meat and fats, and missing out on the antioxidants, phytonutrients, flavonoids, and all the other micro-nutrients that are in plants.  Assuming you do get enough fat soluble vitamins from the fatty meat, the bigger issue to me would be ingesting enough of the macro-nutrient minerals which have been deficient in our soils for at least 70 years.  That's essentially potassium and magnesium (since calcium and phosphorous would be taken care of by the dairy or meat), which can be dealt with by using top-shelf true chelated multiminerals (Albion) and using Himalayan pink salt or unrefined sea salt (grey color) instead of regular salt to get the trace minerals (i.e. gold).  Getting the RDA for potassium is notoriously difficult (the FDA limits a serving to 99mg because it threatens blood pressure drug profits) without consuming a lot of vegetables, so just fill your plate up with 'em.

The large ingestion of calcium Westerners ingest will promote organ and artery hardering over time, so unless you want to wind up suddenly dying like Jack LaLanne, you should make sure you are smarter than he was and marry all that Vitamin D3 with the two forms of Vitamin K2 so the calcium stays where it belongs.  K1 from veggies won't cut it but its typically provided along with the K2's.

The other big risk with ingesting so much red meat is the iron which is the most potent free radical anyone can ingest.  Cruciferious vegetables along with the red meat is ideal to deal with this.  Horseradish too!