eatkamloops.org

Cholesterol: Foe or Friend

Our Society’s views about cholesterol are based on the work of Ancel Keys and the Lipid Hypothesis. The Lipid Hypothesis “proposes a connection between plasma cholesterol level and the development of coronary heart disease”.

In the last few years there has been increased questioning of the Lipid Hypothesis. What if the Lipid Hypothesis is wrong? This would mean there is a lot of misinformation in the general population. Our society has spent an enormous amount of resources to battle the evils of cholesterol. There is a whole industry developed to fight this scourge. This means there is a lot of resistance to change, because so many people’s livelihood depend on the battle continuing.

The Weston A. Price Foundation does not support the Lipid Hypothesis. This is part of an email correspondence with someone interested in the views of the Weston A. Price Foundation on saturated fat and its evil twin cholesterol:

I have written very little about cholesterol on eatkamloops.org. This is mainly because of embarrassment. I completely believed the Lipid Hypothesis. It was very hard for me to admit I could be so wrong. The only writing on this topic that I can find is The Grease Bucket - Something from Nothing.

The issue around fats is a very important area to get clear on. There is research that shows that people with cholesterol below 150mg/dL are at a high risk of cancer. Also, that women with the highest cholesterol levels live the longest. The research is very confusing and I am not going to tell you I know the answer because I don’t.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet radically improved my health but it was after going high fat with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that my health problems finally resolved. I would have never gone high fat if it wasn’t for the Weston A. Price Foundation and their materials. I was brainwashed. I couldn’t see that what I thought was a “healthy diet” wasn’t working for me. I nearly crashed my endocrine system. I will say this: a low fat diet is a slow killer. If you stay on it long enough, you want to die, because you feel so crappy and are sick all the time.

The Weston A. Price Foundation’s website has a number of excellent essays on this topic. Do your own research. Check out the facts, and make your own informed decision:

Know Your Fats Introduction
The Skinny on Fats
Cholesterol and Heart Disease: A Phony Issue
The Oiling of America
Cholesterol: Friend or Foe?

And no, I do not think industrial vegetable oils are safe at all. Remove all new fangled foods from your diet. Eat butter, coconut oil and grease for cooking. Use organic extra virgin olive oil on salads. The other “healthy” cold pressed oils high in omega 6-9 can cause inflammation in some people. So anyone with asthma, allergies, joint pain, or other inflammation disorders should eliminate these oils for a few weeks and see if their condition improves.

If you are looking for a laugh, please watch the trailer for the movie Fat Head called Big Fat Lies. In the eternal words of the creator of Fat Head, Tom Naughton:
“You’ve been fed a load of bologna.”

Updated December 5, 2009: Here is a link to an interview with Utte Ravnskov called Does High Cholesterol Really Cause Heart Disease? Utte Ravaskov is the author of The Cholesterol Myth. If you would like further reading about cholesterol Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes will give a historical perspective on the issue. Both books are available at the Kamloops Public Library.

25 Steps to Eating Nourishing Traditional Foods

1. Purchase your food as whole ingredients and as close to the original natural state as possible. Avoid processed foods. Avoid all additives, coloring, stabilizers and fillers. Avoid Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). If you are wondering what is wrong with GMOs please listen to Dr. Mercola and Jeffery Smith on GMOs: Who Do You Want to Believe. Make it a point to understand the system used to process your food. If you cannot understand the process, do not eat the food.
2. Try to source your food locally. Get to know your farmers and ranchers. Show appreciation for all the work that goes into producing your food. Look for pastured raised or organic. Find the local suppliers for un-sprayed products. There are many local suppliers which are not certified organic but follow organic principles. Un-sprayed products are usually cheaper than certified organic. Use eatkamloops.org to find local farmers and ranchers. For some guidelines about assessing food quality read WAPF Shopping Guide for Canada.
3. Eat local foods seasonally. The food has better nutrition and is cheaper. If you would like to eat these foods out of season, find a suitable storage method. Get a large deep freezer and find an area in your home for dried stores. Consider building a root cellar or cold room. For more information read Winter Storage Part I and Winter Storage Part II.
4. When buying from non-local sources try to buy certified organic. When we can’t talk to the producers about their practices, having a third party certification is a good idea. If certified organic foods are not in the budget, read about The Dirty Dozen and avoid foods with the most contamination.
5. Consider growing your own food. Use container gardening on small properties or a big garden on larger lots. If labor is an issue, you might be able to trade garden space for labor. Depending on your zoning, you might be able to have laying hens for eggs or a miniature goat for raw milk.
6. Start a grease bucket. Save all your drippings and fat from roasted meat and fowl. Use the grease for any high heat frying or roasting. For more information read The Grease Bucket - Something from Nothing.
7. If you eat industrial vegetable oils or foods containing industrial vegetable oil, stop now. For cooking, replace these industrial vegetable oils with your grease bucket, butter, or coconut oil. Save your extra virgin olive oil for salads and uncooked foods. Other cold-pressed oils may be used occasionally in very small amounts. If you have any condition involving inflammation, removing even quality cold-pressed oils may improve your condition.
8. Make bone broth. Save all your bones from meals and store in the freezer until you have a pot full. Cover the bones with water and add 4T cider vinegar and simmer for 6-24 hours. For more information read Beautiful Bone Broth.
9. Eat some fermented foods each day or with each meal. Fermented foods improve our digestion. Fermentation can remove anti-nutrients from our food and increase nutrient availability. Fermented foods are not commonly available in the Industrial Food System and must be made at home. For more information read Wild Fermentation.
10. Start making some fermented foods at home. A good place to start is making yoghurt or kefir. If you do not consume dairy, try making lacto-fermented vegetables or use sourdough for breads and biscuits. Contact eatkamloops.org for free starter cultures. For more information about what starters we have read I Got Culture!
11. If you eat grains, beans, and legumes, soak them overnight in water, salt and fresh lemon juice before cooking. This soaking will remove the anti-nutrients from the food and make it easier to digest. Use bone broth when appropriate for the recipe in place of water. This will improve your digestion of these foods. If you are wondering why you need to soak grains read Be Kind to Your Grains.
12. Purchase all of your grains whole. If you are making flour, grind it yourself, and use it within four days. Flour is very perishable and will go rancid very quickly. Freshly ground flour can be stored in the freezer for later use.
13. If you eat nuts and seeds, soak them overnight in water and salt. Nuts and seeds can be then dried and consumed uncooked. These store well in the freezer for quick use.
14. Look for a local supply of grains, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds. There are many local varieties which will be fresher. Look for un-sprayed or organically grown.
15. If you eat rice, buy organic brown rice. Since this is not a local product, buy certified organic. Brown rice does not need to be soaked overnight but cooking in bone broth will help with digestion and improve flavor. If you would like to try fermenting rice to improve mineral availability read A New Way to Soak Brown Rice.
16. Buy your meat by the whole animal. This allows you to have a variety of cuts, offal, fat and bones. The butcher will package the meats in sizes that are best for your family. Get all the products from the animal even parts you do not know how to cook. They can always be used to make bone broth. For more information read Cooking with Grass-Fed Meat and Fowl and Visit to the Killing Floor at Kam Lake View Meat.
17. If you consume dairy, find a source of raw milk or raw milk products. This will involve having your own cow, goat or sheep or being a member of a herd share program. If you are wondering what is so great about pastured raw milk please read Let’s Talk about Raw Milk Safety. For more information about herd share programs in the province read Birdsong Farm - Cow Share Program.
18. If you are concerned that you have a deficiency in your diet and want to take a supplement, consider using whole foods, sometimes called superfoods. Examples of superfoods are: fermented cod liver oil, high vitamin butter, liver, spring and fall butter, raw milk products, bone broth and fermented foods. Other superfoods are related to the health problem of the person such as: various fresh or dried glands, kelp, assorted clays, probiotics, assorted high vitamin berries and herbs. For more information about superfoods read Supplement or Superfoods.
19. Look at your cosmetics and decide if you would eat them. If you would not like to eat them, consider stopping use. Our skin is far more porous than was once believed. The use of coconut oil can be a excellent moisturizer. Consider making your own soap or buying brands with very few ingredients. A good source of information about the safety of your cosmetics can be found on Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database.
20. Look through your medicine chest and decide if you can do without most of your medication. Many medications mask symptoms while the condition worsens. It is better to feel the pain and make fundamental changes in our lives, rather than masking symptoms while the condition gets worse. Think about the other drugs you take on a daily basis. Assess if these drugs might be adding to your health problems.
21. Think about food preparation in the home and how the task can be done efficiently. The job of running a traditional household is more work than eating convenience foods. This means someone must be willing to allot time for this important work. Some people use one day a week where they spend a morning in the kitchen producing meals for the whole week. Others cook larger meals and consume the leftovers.
22. Remove all plastics from your kitchen and replace with glass containers. Remove Teflon and aluminum from your kitchen and use stainless steel, glass, cast iron or enameled cast iron. Stop using a microwave for cooking or reheating foods.
23. If you are thinking about having a child, start thinking about what you eat before you conceive. All traditional populations had a special feeding schedule for mothers and fathers to be. For more information read Thinking about Motherhood.
24. If you continue to have health problems after changing over to a nourishing traditional diet, consider looking at the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. This diet is also known as Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS). This diet is for very sick people. For more information about SCD and GAPS please read Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
25. Continue getting educated about health. eatkamloops.org has donated a number of books to the Kamloops Public Library. For a list of donated books read Recommended Reading List.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet: Common Problems

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) has a number of problems associated with the diet. Even though most people feel great on the diet, they have problems staying with the program long term. I hope this posting will help newcomers to the diet overcome these common pitfalls.

The SCD restricts all processed foods and food additives. This in itself can make a big change in a person’s health. The number of chemical additives put in processed foods has increased at an alarming rate in the last 50 years. There is a great amount of controversy about the safety of these additives. Nevertheless, these additives are everywhere. Avoiding additives means avoiding all processed food and any food produced in a standard restaurant. To the sensitive person even a minute amount of the problem substance can cause great damage.

The SCD is not necessarily a low carbohydrate diet but compared to the Standard American Diet (SAD) it will be lower in fiber and carbohydrates. Grains, legumes and beans are by far the greatest source of indigestible fiber and carbohydrates in a healthy person’s diet. By removing these foods and changing nothing else, your diet will become lower in fiber and carbohydrate.

1. The Crash Landing is constipation. A vast majority of the volume of a healthy bowel movement is bacteria, not indigestible fiber. Constipation that is caused by the reduction of dietary fiber is a symptom of gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis is a lack of healthy intestinal bacteria. There are a number of ways to increase gut flora. Start by introducing lacto-fermented foods and drinks into your daily diet. This is a very inexpensive way to get probiotics and will solve the problem for most people. If whole, fermented foods does not work within a month or two consider trying therapeutic probiotics.

You might be wondering why I am not recommending eating supplemental fiber. Fiber is good for us, right? I would suggest reading Fiber Menace by Konstantin Monastyrsky and coming to your own decision on the safety of fiber. It is a funny book that will make you forever look at the contents of your toilet in a new way.

2. Carb Addiction is a common symptom that will appear from nowhere. When a person starts the SCD there will be a sudden reduction of the person’s normal carbohydrate load. This reduction of carbohydrates will induce an unbelievably strong force which will drive a craving to eat the very foods that are likely to be causing the problem. The person’s “gut flora” will be calling for their feeding of carbohydrate using the “gut brain”. The gut brain is very primitive part of our nervous system. It is completely nonverbal, causes action without higher thinking, and is the powerful force behind craving and addiction.

The gut brain cannot be controlled. The only way is to live through the “die-off” of the bacterial strains causing the addictive behavior. The die-off can take a week or a month. It is horrible to live through but there is a world on the other side without craving and addiction.

Carb addiction is a symptom of gut dysbiosis and gut flora imbalance. Carb addiction is the beginning of the long road to diabetes. If a person has a problem with yeast infections, hypoglycemia or diabetes, it would be wise to go low-carbohydrate with the SCD. Please see Life Without Bread for a low-carbohydrate protocol that works with over 90% of people.

3. Eating Out is very challenging. High end restaurants that make all the food in-house might be safe. I still have to be very careful and I never know if the waiter has transmitted the information to the kitchen. I have heard of people who do a lot of traveling making up a business card with their dietary restrictions. Generally, I do not eat out. When I am traveling I bring my own food in a cooler and have a bin full of dried food. I eat my dried stores and shop at local grocery stores for fresh foods.

The SCD will cause social and family problems. The people who love me are just happy to see me well again. They help make the diet easier by their acceptance. Not everyone will be as supportive. It is my responsibility to take care of myself and do what is necessary. What I put in my mouth is completely under my control. No amount of pressure from the outside can change that fact. Just watch out for the “gut brain”!

Recommended Reading List

Over the last few years, GO BOX Storage have donated a number of books about nourishing traditional foods and healing diets to the Kamloops Public Library. The Weston A. Price Foundation considers most of these books recommended reading.

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Dr. Weston A. Price
Pottenger’s Cats by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall
Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
Put Your Heart In Your Mouth by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
Life Without Bread by Dr. Christian Allan and Dr. Wolfgang Lutz
The Fourfold Path to Healing by Dr. Tom Cowan
Know Your Fats by Dr. Mary G. Enig
The Cholesterol Myth by Dr. Utte Ravnskov
The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid
The Whole Soy Story by Dr. Kaayla Daniel
Performance Without Pain by Kathryn Pirtle
The Garden of Fertility by Katie Singer
Honoring Our Cycles by Katie Singer
The Yoga of Eating by Charles Eisenstein
Seeds of Deception by Jeffery M. Smith
Genetic Roulette by Jeffery M. Smith
The GMO Trilogy (DVD) by Jeffery M. Smith
The World According to Monsanto (DVD) by Jeffery M. Smith

Update May 12, 2009: If you would like more suggested reading please go to the WAPF Thumbs Up Book (and Other Media) Reviews.

Supplements or Superfoods: A Personal Story

Past:
I first started taking the standard synthetic multivitamins found in most drug and grocery stores. I took these standard preparations for most of my life. I felt that these vitamins were “insurance” against my less than ideal diet. As for my diet, I was a vegetarian for six years. But most of my life, I consumed the Standard American Diet (SAD) with a low fat focus.

In 2001, I fell sick after the birth of my first child. I tried all the normal medications recommended by the medical profession. These drugs helped with symptoms of my disorder but never seemed to treat the root cause. I started thinking about diet and nutrition. I upgraded my multivitamins to the kind found in health food stores.

In 2003, after the birth of my second child, I went on Weight Watchers. The diet is an eat anything you want but be low fat program. I lost over 40 pounds on Weight Watchers. I was still on all my medications. I frequently got sick and I was extremely tired all the time. I was taking a standard multivitamin found in health food stores.

In 2004, I decided to update my multivitamin supplements. I chose the “best supplements in the world” produced by Life Extension Foundation. They have an extensive program which focuses on longevity and using nutraceuticals for treatment of common chronic disorders. If you would like to see Life Extension’s program read: Top 10 Steps for Achieving Ultimate Health. I did most of this program which is not cheap. I was spending about $2500 a year or $6.85 a day on supplements. I used their program for about three years.

Continue reading Supplements or Superfoods: A Personal Story…

Specific Carbohydrate Diet: A Personal Story

I became very sick after the birth of my first child. My childhood asthma and allergies came back with a vengeance. I developed chronic sinus infections. I did course after course of antibiotics only to become sick again with new infections. I was taking very high doses of corticosteriods daily without much improvement in my condition. All these new medications I added to my anti-convulsion medication for epilepsy. I started having problems with yeast infections. The doctors said this sometimes happens taking corticosteriods. So, I had to decide which was more important, breathing or itching. More drugs were needed.

My doctor told me that if I lost some weight my asthma would likely get better. I joined Weight Watchers and lost over 40 pounds. I did so well on the program, I became a leader, and worked for Weight Watchers for a year. Everyone thought I looked great. My doctor even gave me a big hug after losing all that weight. But I was still on all the medications, coughing all night long, tired all day long, and starting to wonder if I would be alive to see my children become adults.

We made the painful decision to leave Victoria, BC for a dryer climate. We sold our house and started looking for another place to live. During this time of desperation, I paid to see a doctor who specialized in peak performance. He talked to me for about three hours, ordered a ton of blood tests, and offered me a book to read. The book was Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall. I read the book that night. Something written in the book resonated with me on a very deep level. I started the diet, and within three days was feeling better. It was like a fog lifting from my mind. I didn’t even know my thinking was foggy before changing my diet.

Continue reading Specific Carbohydrate Diet: A Personal Story…

Diabetes: A Modern Epidemic

I became very interested in diabetes a few years ago as I started realizing it was an emerging epidemic. Something is very wrong with the diabetic’s metabolism. It is a strange disease that ages the sufferers at an increased rate. Whatever the diabetic is doing wrong, it’s something we as a population are doing wrong.

Diabetes is a modern epidermic. Once a disease of old age, it is now an emerging disease of children. This is a serious situation. According to the Center for Disease Control, a child born after 2000 will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. All because we as a population are doing something new that is making us all sick very slowly.

Continue reading Diabetes: A Modern Epidemic…

Funny Troubles

It’s funny the trouble a person can get into by doing something different from the crowd.

When my family started eating nourishing traditional food, we found sharing breakfast and a late lunch together, satisfied our hunger on a normal day. Eating this way, gives us nutrient dense food, which means we need to eat less often and are satisfied longer. Now, if my family were working all day at manual labor, we would need a third meal. But most days we are working at our desks or computers.

Eating nutrient dense foods doesn’t fit into the school system very well. Children are expected to eat one or two snacks and a full lunch each day. This makes sense if your diet is based on nutrient poor processed foods which are usually high in carbohydrates.

Continue reading Funny Troubles…

The Great Grease Bucket - Something from Nothing

When I started eating traditional nourishing foods, the biggest change in my life was reintroducing fat from an animal source into my diet.

As a child, I remember the grease bucket that sat beside the kitchen stove and was used anytime frying was required. It was continually refilled with grease from bacon, sausage and drippings from roasted meat. We never used vegetable oils and I remember making delicious biscuits from the grease.

The grease bucket disappeared from my family’s kitchen when I was about eight years old. The grease was thrown into the garbage and we started buying vegetable oils and margarine. At the time, the Canadian government recommended limiting saturated fat because it caused heart disease and cancer. Unfortunately, the outcome of these recommendations over the last 30 years has not been a reduction in heart disease and cancer.

In my search to improve my health, I found there was great controversy about saturated fat even causing heart disease and cancer. Of course, I couldn’t believe that such a basic nutritional fact could be wrong. It took months before I could seriously consider that my dogmatic beliefs about saturated fat might be wrong.

The arguments are complex. It appears the basic error was traditional saturated fats became the villain in a complex misinterpretation of modern “new fangled” fats and industrial vegetable oils.

There is some great writing on this topic, and I believe it is best to go to the source of information and make your own informed choice. If you are Confused About Fats, the Weston A. Price Foundation has some excellent essays.

Dr. Mary Enig, a renowned lipid specialist, wrote a book called Know Your Fats which is a great primer for understanding fats. Thirty years ago, she was one of the first scientists to raise the alarm about trans fatty acids and advocated for labeling. Know Your Fats is available in the Kamloops Public Library.

Update August 4, 2009: I have had a number of people ask me about the title of this blog. I guess it was my attempt at a pun. “Something from Nothing” is what a frugal housewife would get when she went to the trouble to save drippings from roasted meats, sausages and bacon. “Something from Nothing” is what the Vegetable Oil Companies created when they convinced everyone that the grease bucket was unhealthy and would cause disease or possibly death.