Dr. Barry Groves - Free The Animal

Dr. Barry Groves | Free The Animal

Despite following this shockingly high-fat diet for more than 40 years, Barry now weighs 6lb less than he did on his wedding day in 1957 when he tipped the scales at 11st 7lb.

He and Monica break every single diet diktat that has been trumpeted as “healthy eating”. And yet, here they are, trim, fit and full of beans, albeit metaphorical ones. How on earth do they do it? And where are the rest of us – eating piles of fruit and veg, and steering clear of cholesterol-laden butter – going wrong? After all, we’ve never been subject to so much education on good dietary practice, and yet prey to so many illnesses, ranging from diabetes to heart disease.

“Most people are eating in a way that is unnatural to us as a species,” says Barry, who holds a doctorate in nutritional science and has just written a book called Trick and Treat: How Healthy Eating Is Making Us Ill. “We’re a carnivorous species – our gut is identical to that of a big cat. Yet we’re encouraged to eat foods that have been padded out with modified starch and vegetable oils, and complex carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, which have all been labelled healthy – but not the fatty meat that our body actually recognises.”

Totally carnivorous - Augustus Owsley Stanley III

 

iconic figure of the 1960's Augustus Owsley Stanley III, who died in a car crash this year at aged 76, is famous for a lot of reasons, perhaps the least known being his carnivore diet (see also: 50kzone: Largely carnivorous - "dont buy into fruit & vegetables").  in his own words:

"I have been eating the natural human dietary regime for over 47 years now. I do not eat anything whatsoever from vegetable sources. The only things veggie I use are spices. My diet is usually 60% fat and 40% protein by calories.

I used to eat 80/20 when younger and about twice as much quantity of meat also, but that seems too much energy at my age, which is 71- even though I am very active. I think the body actually becomes more efficient with energy as you age, but I have no way of proving it true. Otherwise, my body today is very like it was at the age of 30.

I figure most of what we call ‘aging’ is due to insulin damage to the collagen and other body structures. No carbs = no insulin. I don’t heal quite as fast when injured as I did as a youngster, however. But I have few wrinkles, and my skin is still strong and elastic.

Largely carnivorous - "dont buy into fruit & vegetables"

Phd nutritional biochemist and bodybuilder Dr Greg Ellis (pictured - and see: 50kzone: Body fueled by fat, not carbs - Dr. Greg Ellis ) talks about why he has hardly eaten any fruit and vegetables for 15 years.

now 64, he eats largely meat (see also: 50kzone: Totally carnivorous - Augustus Owsley Stanley III).  his approach is partly  to minimise glycation, a topic he has written a book on called the "Glycation Factor", and  see:
- 50kzone: Glycation - Wikipedia
- 50kzone: Glycation - causes disease and aging
- 50kzone: Glycation - heart disease and cancer

his approach is also based on the view that fruit and vegetables are nutritionally unnecessary.  he says:

"I want to keep glucose out of my body, and I can only do that by not eating carbohydrates"

"fruits are very high in carbohydrates.....and fructose is a nasty actor too"

"I see no nutritional need for fruit and vegetables....that all started 100 years ago....I don't buy into the need for them"

Ellis says that our bodies can run amazingly well on a fat and protein based diet, and with very little carbohydrates (in his case less than 50 grams per day).  further resources on him:

• linked here at the Jimmy Moore podcast website is a detailed interview with Ellis - 461: Dr. Greg Ellis Tells Clients To Say ‘Bye Bye, Carbs! and here

• bodybuilder website interview: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/mahler11.htm

• video of interview: http://www.youtube.com/user/bionicbrown#g/search

• his You Tube video library: http://www.youtube.com/user/Byebyecarbs#g/u

Largely carnivorous - "dont but into fruit & vegetables"

Vegetable sceptic, vegetable heresy

Dr Kurt Harris - questions the empirical basis for the universally accepted support of higher fruit and vegetable diets: Archevore - Archevore Blog - William Munny eats his vegetables

Extract:

"At the same time as I’ve scoffed at the cultural obsession with fruits and vegetables, it has always seemed plausible to me that eating some plant matter along with your animal products is probably healthier than otherwise. It’s just that most of the usual justifications for fruit and vegetables don’t ring true, and the few intervention trials where subjects have been exhorted to eat more fruit, vegetables or fiber have failed to show benefit. Such as:

1) Women’s Health Study

2) WHEL Trial

3) Polyp Prevention Trial

Note that these trial results leave open the idea that eating some vegetables or fruits is healthier than none. They only refute the conventional wisdom that the more you eat of them, the better.

Analyses of RDA percentages, where vitamin requirements have been derived from the SAD, have never been convincing to me. I have tended to agree with Dr. Bernstein that eating some veggies is a hedge against going without unspecified beneficial compounds.

As I find meals garnished with and flavored by veggies more enjoyable, I’ve eaten plenty of veggies and some fruit even when I’ve been eating VLC. My addition of starchy vegetables (and limited rice) 6 months ago was purely for reasons of physical performance due to increased physical activity.

So to date I’ve felt that animal products should generally be favored over plants (If forced, take the steak over the potato) but eating some plant based whole foods has had two benefits besides the obvious one of palatability:

1) Eating some starch/ sugars avoids chronic deep ketosis and improves physical performance and work capacity

2) Eating a variety of plants should be a hedge against micronutrient deficiencies in our Neolithic/industrial food environment

I’ve so far read nothing to change my thinking about these intuitions, but now Stephan has recently posted a two part series, replete with up-to-date references, which provide some scientific backing for my rejection of the “magic compounds” meme.

At the same time, he has provided an additional highly plausible reason to include a moderate variety of colorful plants in your diet, besides starch for fuel and the micronutrient hedge.

Polyphenols Part I

Polyphenols Part II

I’ve clipped some key quotes from these excellent essays, and followed with comments of my own in roman:

Stephan says:

Polyphenols are a diverse class of molecules containing multiple phenol rings. They are synthesized in large amounts by plants, certain fungi and a few animals, and serve many purposes, including defense against predators/infections, defense against sunlight damage and chemical oxidation, and coloration. The color of many fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries, eggplants, red potatoes and apples comes from polyphenols. Some familiar classes of polyphenols in the diet-health literature are flavonoids, isoflavonoids, anthocyanidins, and lignins.

 

Polyphenols are often, but not always, defensive compounds that interfere with digestive processes, which is why they often taste bitter and/or astringent.

So we are not forgetting that plants can’t run. Plants elaborate defensive secondary compounds, some of which are specifically designed to mess with “plant predators” like herbivores, vegans and even normal people like us.

Polyphenols that manage to cross the gut barrier are rapidly degraded by the liver, just like a variety of other foreign molecules, again suggesting that the body doesn't want them hanging around.

Things that are rapidly arrested by the liver police should not be recruited en masse – this argues against taking antioxidant supplements or try to “load up” on one particular substance.

The most visible hypothesis of how polyphenols influence health is the idea that they are antioxidants, protecting against the ravages of reactive oxygen species.

This is the mainstream view of “antioxidants”. You can’t turn around without seeing an article advocating that we load up on blueberries, or red wine, or green tea, or whatever, for the supposed “antioxidant” effects.

For a good discussion of the basis for this meme - the idea that we need to fight the damage caused by leakage of free radicals from our mitochondrial furnaces with 

supplements - I recommend Sex, Power, Suicide by Nick Lane. This book is a must-read.

Suffice to say this antioxidant supplementation idea increasingly seems not just implausible, but totally back-asswards.

Here are a few references that show the perverse effects of trying to fight oxidation by eating excess antioxidants.

4) Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of exercise

5) Vitamin C decreases muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and hampers training-induced adaptations in endurance performance

6) Lasting antioxidant effect of flavonoid-free diet "

Stephan Continues:

The body treats polyphenols as potentially harmful foreign chemicals, or "xenobiotics" 

Both radiation and polyphenols activate a cellular response that is similar in many ways. Both activate the transcription factor Nrf2, which activates genes that are involved in detoxification of chemicals and antioxidant defense**(9, 10, 11, 12). This is thought to be due to the fact that polyphenols, just like radiation, may temporarily increase the level of oxidative stress inside cells.

In other words, the benefit of low doses of radiation – the kind we get naturally all the time from cosmic rays and naturally occurring radioactive isotopes – and the slightly toxic colorful compounds called polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables, is that both act through hormesis.

Hormesis is when a small stress induces a healthy response in an organism, such that the organism is healthier than without the stress exposure. Any stress that we have defenses for, that we would expect to encounter on an evolutionary basis, is a candidate to be hormetic. Think of this as a necessary, but not sufficient, set of conditions, though.

The perfect example of hormesis is exercise. Exercise creates oxidative stress, and resistance exercise in particular literally destroys muscle tissue. Hormesis explains the “paradox” (which is no paradox at all) that marathon running and other extreme endurance sports could be quite bad for your health, but that more moderate exercise is much better than no exercise at all.