This blog is about the intersection between evolutionary biology and food. But also about practical applications, sustainable agriculture, and general tasty things. I originally started eating this way to heal from chronic health problems and...it worked!
Melissa McEwen
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My Diet: Good, local, whole foods. Mostly meat, fish, and vegetables with some traditional whole grains and legumes.
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diet
11/05/2011 - 16:45
Andrew (of Evolvify) got me looking up ancient Scottish diets. I found this article from 1890. I don't know how accurate it is, but I do know it is awesome (emphasis mine):
SCOTS FOOD.
THE Scots national vegetable was the green kale, of which nettles, leeks, onions, ranty-tanty (sorrel), carrots, and turnips were—most of them—probably late and—all of them—certainly inadequate and partial rivals. For unnumbered centuries the place of kale in Scottish domestic economy has been almost as peculiar as that of potatoes during the last two hundred years in the domestic economy of Ireland.'Although my father was nae laird,
'Tis daffin to be vaunty,
Me keepit aye a gude kale-yaird
A ha' house and a pantry';and indeed a 'gude kale-yaird' was as indispensable to the old Scottish cotter as the potato-plot is to the Irish peasant. A recent writer on Ireland has bemoaned the adoption by the Irish of ' Raleigh's fatal gift,' which he describes as a 'dangerous tuber' and a 'demoralising esculent.' No dangerous or demoralising tendencies attach to the green kale, nor has it manifested any tendency to 'swell the population,' except in a merely gastric sense. It forestalled the potato to some extent, which in Ireland had become the chief and universal food of the masses before the end of the seventeenth century, but did not come into general use in 'the land o' cakes' and kale till nearly a century later. For a long time the Scottish peasant's treatment of potatoes was curious and tentative. At first his view of them was probably identical with that of the housewife who refused potatoes offered by a neighbour—they would ' eat sae fine with the mutton,' she said—on the ground that' we need nae provocatives in this house.' He regarded them, that is, as less palatable than kale—(which is essentially the vegetable of a carnivorous race, in that it must be used as an adjunct of meat to be at all beneficent)—and less nourishing than oatmeal; and when towards the latter half of the eighteenth century the farmer began planting them in the fields there was a certain apprehension lest it should be attempted to substitute them for the latter. But the potato was bound to win in the end, and in the end the potato won, though the feeling of the Scot for it has never been excessive. He has mastered it, indeed, as completely as the Irishman—who is nothing if not lazy and disposed to rely on every form of energy, from miracles downwards, except his own—has been mastered by it; and he may now be said to have succeeded in making the most that can be made of it, whether as an article of diet or as a source of profit. Its fortune has somewhat modified the position of green kale, but the cotter's garden-plot is still the kale yard, and the time-honoured vegetable, though used less variously than of old, has not been ousted from its place in the nation's esteem. We should explain, however, that it was chiefly among the Lowlanders that kale attained to extraordinary vogue. It is a vegetable essentially Saxon and non-Celtic. The more unsophisticated Highlanders regarded its use as a symptom of effeminacy; so that the Grants who, living near the Lowland line, had grown fond of it were contemned as the 'soft kale-eating Grants.' When the Highlander indulged in such a luxury as broth he preferred the common nettle as more appropriate to the cateran. As for thei aboriginal mountaineer, his appetite for vegetables was chiefly fed on wild fruits and nuts, the roots of wild herbs, and the leaves of certain trees.
In the very early centuries oats and kale were probably far less important staples of diet among the poorer classes than they subsequently became. In the case of Europeans vegetarianism, like teetotalism, is essentially a modern fad, chiefly affected by persons more or less languid and unhealthy both morally and physically. A vigorous and energetic race is always carnivorous, and in later times it was simply the scarcity of flesh that,compelled the Scottish peasant to feed on it so sparingly. The aboriginal cave-dwellers were mighty eaters of meat, and as long as it abounded meat must have formed the chief food of the whole community. Abundant it seems to have been till at least the sixteenth century. Bishop Lesley records of the Bordermen of his time that they made very little use of bread, living chiefly upon flesh, milk and cheese, and sodden barley. The northern Highlanders, who also were marauders, ate flesh largely, and often ate it raw. Lesley, indeed, affirms that they preferred it dripping with blood because it was then 'mair sappie' and nourishing; but his information on the point appears to have been defective, for though they did frequently eat beef and venison raw their custom was to prepare it by squeezing the slices dry between wooden battens. One reason for this ultra-savage style of feeding was probably the original scarcity of cooking utensils, for the Highlander's antipathy to the arts of the craftsman was inveterate. But he was ingenious in a way, and contrived a kitchen-range and buttery of his own. That is, he built a fire, and over that fire he hung the paunch of his last kill, and in that paunch he seethed the flesh of the original owner. According to Lesley, the 'brue ' he got in this way was so excellent that not the best wine nor any other kind of drink might compare to it; and no doubt its quality was very similar to that of the strong Lowland soup called 'skink.' To his habit of battening himself on raw flesh may probably be traced the tradition that now and then he was addicted to cannibalism. (The men of Annandale were also famed for just such dietetic eccentricities.) No doubt the calumny—if calumny it were—obtained a wider and more permanent acceptance by reason of the fact that the authority of St. Jerome could be quoted in support of it. But, calumny or not, it had gained such credence even in Jacobite times in England that when the outlandish host appeared across the Border some nervous folk were seriously concerned lest they or any of theirs should be ravished away to grace some conqueror's board.
As a matter of fact, the ancient Highlander, or at least the Highlander of the later middle ages, was very temperate in food and drink. No doubt he now and then indulged in frantic ' spreeing,' especially after a more than commonly successful foray; but as a rule he despised luxury and eschewed both gluttony and drunkenness. He broke his fast with a light meal, and took nothing more till in the evening he dined in the great hall of his chief. Here the character and quality of the food provided were regulated to some extent by the rank of the guest. But all ate sparingly: corpulence—pace Sir John Falstaff an inconvenient endowment for the professional thief—being held in high abhorrence.
It is quite sad to think now that Scotland is one of the places of the world most affected by bad food. Rates of heart disease, alcoholism, and obesity are unusually high there. People think of soda and shortbread as being "traditional foods." I would say the dietary history of oppression of indigenous customs and adoption of cheap poverty foods as "traditional" is quite similar to what has happened with Native Americans or Pacific Islanders. There may also be some genetic predispositions unique to people who were hunter-gatherers (or mostly hunter-gatherers) until somewhat recently.
Also, it explains how Andrew's potato skepticism may be an ancient cultural trait...
Edit: here is some Irish info from a similar source:
In hunting, the flesh was occasionally eaten raw, after the blood was squeezed out; but the Irish were more accustomed to this barbarous food, and Campion remarks, that the flesh thus swallowed "was boyled in their stomaks with aqua vitae, which they swill in after such a surfeite by quarts and pottles." They also, he says, bled their cattle, and baked the curdled blood spread with butter. A French writer, some centuries ago, describes Scotland as "pauvre en or, et en argent, mais fort bon en vivres;" and again, "assez des veaux et vaches, et par le moyen la chair est a bon compte."
Comment?: 0
09/05/2011 - 12:45
I've certainly read enough diet books myself, but I am always looking for ones to recommend. Unfortunately no one has written the one book to rule them all yet. The individual strengths and weaknesses of each author are evident in each. Perhaps now that more and more of us are talking to each other, this will change in the future, but for now I suppose it's wise to make recommendations with caveats. The same qualification can be evident in reviewers. Admittedly, while I have some strengths, I have very little education in things like molecular biochemistry beyond the undergraduate level, so that's why it's important to read many reviews. Someday when Chris has more time perhaps we can review things together.
Several people asked me to read Deep Nutrition, which is by mainly by Dr. Cate Shanahan with the contribution of her husband, Luke Shanahan.
The premise of this book is that we all have the potential to be well-formed healthy individuals in our genes, but that poor nutrition has led to detrimental changes in how our genes are expressed. Wait...genes can't be changed by food right? That's the magic of epigenetics: the underlying genes are not changed, but their gene expression or cellular phenotype are. This is called epigenetics and scientists are just uncovering the secrets of this process. Scarily, that means that the diet and lifestyle of your grandparents and parents is affecting you right now!
When I was a child I slowly became aware that something was wrong. It didn't make sense that I had to have some teeth pulled and then be tortured every month. They said my teeth were "crowded," but why? My mother said it was probably because my father had bad teeth, so it was genetic, but looking at old family photos it was clear that my great great grandparents didn't have such bad teeth. When I was a teenager I realized I was deformed. It sounds quite awful, but the reality is that my face was not formed correctly. The oral surgeon said I would need to have my jaw broken and put back together. At that point I had functioning decent looking teeth, so I declined. Surgery is a serious thing.
When I discovered Weston A. Price it was very exciting because he was someone who also asked "why?" He found that some people who live traditional lives and have special healthy foods did not have dental abnormalities. The latter part is important because some people have the impression that Dr. Price thought that traditional-living people had good teeth and modern people had bad teeth, when the reality was that not all traditional-living people had good teeth and he was looking at what the people with good dental structure had in common.
Deep Nutrition is about reclaiming our health original structure by relying on these special foods. The book divides them into four pillars:
- Meat on the bone
- Fermented and sprouted foods
- Organs and other "nasty bits"
- Fresh (and raw) unadulterated plant and animal products
Notice what's missing here? There is no mention of specific nutrients or macronutrients. The emphasis is on real whole foods. This is going to be hard for some people to swallow. Some might ask if they can take a supplement instead, but Dr. Cate emphasis that only real foods have the synergy that we need, a synergy modern science has only barely begun to understand. She also explains how modern industrial foods like vegetable oils hurt our health and the health of our future generation, as well as the fact that foods like butter and liver have been unjustly demonized.
Another interesting concept described in the book is "second child syndrome." You may have noticed in many families that the eldest child is often better looking and healthier. Babies take a lot of their nutrition from a mother's body, not just the food she eats during pregnancy and lactation. Depletion of these nutrients can lead to sub-optimal development, which is why spacing is important in order to allow these nutrient stores to build back up again.
Unfortunately in some of these chapters things can seem a little like the nutritionism she criticizes. Readers who are not very interested in science might have a tough time with her explanations of the biochemistry behind things like heart disease, despite her efforts to simplify the language.
I also think things go awry in her emphasis on beauty. She goes beyond the idea that good food allows us to have facial and bodily structural integrity into some rather contentious territory. She claims that models are not freaks of nature, but remnants of what we once were: "This is why beautiful people of every race share the same basic skeletal geometry, and why for the bulk of human history, Hollywood beauties were as plentiful as the stars."
I've seen a lot of skulls from the Paleolithic and faces of traditional living peoples. Most of them look robust and healthy, but I've never looked at them and thought "hmm, this person could have been a famous model!" Beauty does have a adaptive evolutionary component. Some things that we consider beautiful are markers of health, but it also has a fuzzy cultural component that layers on top of that and can sometimes mask the adaptive forms of beauty. For example, Dr. Cate uses Marquardt's Mask as an example of the mathematical ratios behind beauty. Perhaps there are such universal ratios, but Marquardt's Mask has been rightly criticized because it is based on Western fashion models. They are actually a perfect example of cultural ideals of beauty that tarry on the edge of the maladaptive, as fashion models often are dangerously low in body fat, which is essential for fertility, as well as somewhat masculinized, which makes sense considering the sexuality of many in the fashion world. I was heartened to hear that recently a bit of honestly has been injected into this world, as they are now unapologetically using men to model women's clothes.
Many skulls of Paleolithic people have traits we many of us no longer consider beautiful, but which may have once been adaptive, such as brow ridges and large noses. There have been a few forensic reconstructions of Paleolithic people and they do not remind me of Christy Turlington or Ralph Fiennes.
But in the end I would agree that we could all be much better looking if we had the optimal nutrition and lifestyle.
I think Deep Nutrition would be a great book for someone suffering from chronic joint, muscle, or bone problems, as Dr. Cate has wrestled with them herself. She emphasizes the value of the collagen, cartilage, and minerals present in things like bone broth. However, it may not be the best book for those with digestive problems. She recommends that people giving up bread might want to substitute sprouted Ezekiel bread instead. If I could revise I would qualify that statement with a caveat that many people with delicate stomachs are going to have issues with the harsh fiber and excessively large amounts of hindgut fermentable carbohydrates in things like Ezekiel bread. There also isn't much information about autoimmune issues, particularly the role of gluten and she recommends a breakfast porridge that can contain wheat berries or barley. She also recommends fresh peanut butter and says that fries made in peanut oil can be an occasional treat. I don't recommend peanuts at all (SO SAD, because they were definitely a favorite food of mine) because of their high omega-6 levels and the fact that crops are often contaminated with aflatoxins that many people are sensitive to.
Overall while this isn't the "one ring" book that will rule them all, it's a good read that emphasizes the importance of real food, particularly when paired with a complementary books like The Primal Blueprint (more info about things like gluten), The Paleo Solution (more info about autoimmune issues and things like gluten that irritate them), and The Perfect Health Diet (more info about autoimmune, digestive disorders, etc.).
Comment?: 0
07/30/2011 - 09:10
Sometimes it seems like NYC government isn't sure what to do about food. There is a push towards a more paternalistic food policy, but it's rather laughable. For example, the "food desert" issue. Some time ago, food policy researchers started talking about "food deserts", places where it's almost impossible to get fresh fruits and vegetables without traveling a great distance. Some places in NYC were pegged as food deserts and the city had a few insipid initiatives to "help" the situation. One of them was fresh fruit and vegetable carts, called "green carts." They subsidized these carts, hoping to encourage them in these "food deserts." The problem was that savvy folks were more than happy to take the subsidy and set up in a gentrified area on the edge of a "food desert," such as Morningside Heights near Columbia University. They set up near upscale grocery stores, who were unhappy that the city was subsidizing their competition. In the meantime, I wonder how well those food policy experts who study food deserts looked into the grey market here. Get off a subway in East New York and you'll usually find several hawkers of fresh mango and other fruit. The problem is that these carts are illegal for some reason. So at the same time the city has been subsidizing Green Carts in areas where they weren't needed, they have been cracking down on some of these sidewalk vendors. The crackdown has unfortunately also happened in my neighborhood, which is economically mixed. The government says the produce might be unsafe because of car exhaust from the roads. I wonder if the government has ever heard of pesticides? The government has also been cracking down on people gathering wild berries, greens, and mushrooms from parks, a hobby of both immigrants and locavores.
Either way, I think in urban areas like NYC, the idea that people are suffering from diabetes because they don't have fruit is delusional. Harlem is a diabetes hotspot and there is PLENTY of healthy fresh food in most of the same areas where diabetes, obesity, and heart disease is rampant. Every other store seems to have sidewalk displays of ample fresh produce, some very exotic
Display of fruits and vegetables in Hamilton Heights in Harlem, the restaurant next door is Dunkin Doughnuts
The problem here isn't lack of produce, the problem is that every other store that doesn't have produce seems to be a fried chicken joint or Dunkin doughnuts. People are so focused on the myth that produce is a magic bullet that they forget that plenty of unhealthy people eat fruits and vegetables. What's more important in making someone healthy? The inclusion of fresh produce or the exclusion of vegetable oil and sugar? Remember how much better the latter two taste anyway. In areas of the city with less of an immigrant population, efforts to get bodegas to sell fruits and vegetables have led to many bodegas having displays of rotting bananas and apples. If your store sells slurpies and apples, which one are the children going to pick? There is also the issue that in many immigrant communities vegetables might actually be a source of unhealthy eating, as they are frequently fried in the same way as in places like China, where produce consumption is connected with obesity. I find that in many immigrant communities there isn't much awareness about the health effects of using things like vegetable "ghee" or hydrogenated lard. Indeed, now that researchers are finally studying such immigrant communities, they are finding that access to produce doesn't have a connection with obesity. There have been some efforts in certain cities to limit the number of fast food restaurants, usually targeting chains, but a lot of restaurants serving fried sugary food are not chains, they are little mom and pops like the arepa stand in my neighborhood, where the well-meaning woman blissfully coats all her arepas with the cheapest margarine available. I have to wonder if she really knows that margarine isn't a good choice? The government certainly isn't about to tell her.
Comment?: 0
06/12/2011 - 19:38
Weekend meals are waaay fattier for me since I have time to cook and Chris is here and lower in carbs since I seem to suck at storing roots and found that all my potatoes had sprouted.
Friday: fasting, ate some Thai Papaya salad at office lunch
Saturday:
Breakfast was eggs, plantains, and Spring Lake Farm bacon from Meatshare. Chris had some yogurt and berries.
Dinner was at Takashi with Patrick from PaleolithicDiet.com. I've mentioned this temple of raw and lightly grilled meat before. The first course is raw meat and the second is cooked. We enjoyed the raw liver (seriously it's good and I don't know how they make it taste so awesome), raw chuck flap with sea urchin, raw chuck eye tartare, and flash-boiled shredded achilles tendon. Second course we had "the tongue experience," heart, kalbi, sweetbreads (HIGHLY recommended, like a piece of delicious fat), and beef belly. I also recommend the stomach and cheek.
Sunday:
Oops, I exhausted my eating out budget for the week, so I only ate what was already in the fridge. For breakfast we had "double yolk" baked eggs adapted from Michael's Genuine Food, a cookbook from a chef in Miami. They have a layer of tomato sauce and sour cream, a layer of eggs (mostly yolks), and a layer of cheese. I just made a small dish of these baked in the toaster oven (my summer oven since it doesn't heat up our tiny apartment) and it was very satisfying.
For lunch we had some pork chops from Spring Lake Farm and yogurt with berries. We drank some cold-brewed Oolong tea.
For dinner we had a leftover hash inspired by the hash at Red Rooster in Harlem. I baked some sweet potatoes in the toaster oven until crispy, tossed in some chopped bacon, cooked some plantains in the bacon fat, and topped with key-lime Hollandaise sauce. Fantastic! We had some small, but fatty goat chops from Glynwood farm and some hibiscus cinnamon tea. I like that Hollandaise tastes pretty darn good even when I mess it up and it's lumpy...I'll try the Alton Brown method next time.
Comment?: 0
06/12/2011 - 17:54
Last year I wrote that I had cured my keratosis pilaris, an annoying and unattractive skin condition. I thought it was because of different bathing habits. I was wrong. It came back really badly when I started an office job and I brainstormed possible causes:
- Less sunlight?
- Trace vegetable oil and gluten from eating out?
- Too hot showers
Unfortunately, when I tested each of these theories they didn't pan out. I tried sunbathing, not eating out, and cold showers. The keratosis remained.
When I learned I had a polymorphism that meant I that most of the Vitamin A in my favorite orange vegetables was not getting converted to retinol, I decided to try to get more retinol. Since synthetic retinol has been tied to some issues in studies, I got it mainly from liver and cod liver oil.
Within a few days my keratosis started clearing up and just in time for swim-suit season! I guess I wasn't getting enough retinol in my diet because I was eating fairly conventionally and eating more vegan meals when I didn't have access to grass-fed meat. By conventionally, I mean an ancestral diet that's just normal diet minus junk, but without the addition of things like offal. Think meals like a burger without the bun and a salad. I guess the lessons here are
- An "ancestral" diet that is just a normal diet minus gluten, sugar, and grains might not provide as many benefits as one that involves eating nose to tail
- Nutrient needs vary among people
- Animal sources of most nutrients are usually more usable
Comment?: 0
06/08/2011 - 21:51
I'm perfectly comfortable with blood, guts, and that sort of thing. But when it comes to the food of simple Americans, I can be quite squeamish. There is nothing so horrible as things such as meatloaf, casserole, "hamburger helper," or lasagna. Add some steamed mixed frozen vegetables and I'm in Hell. I'll never forget the one horrible summer at camp in Wisconsin where I was served mac & cheese with pearl onions and pieces of boiled ham.
In a tiny bookstore in central Illinois I discovered that this sort of horrible cuisine devoid of true flavor has been adapted for the low-carb lifestyle. I unfortunately neglected to record the name of this dread Necronomicon placed upon the dusty shelves of Jane Addam's of Champaign. But this recipe will live in my nightmares forever:
Busy Day Cake
1/3 cup coconut oil or butter. Hmm sounds OK...
1/3 cup soy protein isolate OH GOD
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten flour NOOOOO
1 cup ground almonds
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon SteviaPlus
6 packets sucralose
1/2 cup cream thickened with water
2 eggs
vanilla extract
I won't record the exact specifications of this miserable recipe for fear of what innocent souls might encounter if the instructions were to be followed. The victim might think they were following a healthy diet because it is low in carbs and be mystified when they feel like crap and accidentally eat the whole thing despite a complete lack of true culinary virtue. Don't worry, paleos" are victims too. I once ate half a tray of "paleo" cupcakes. Baked goods of any sort are really not a good idea for anyone, no matter what they are made of. Reminds me of what I feel are the habits of highly ineffective dieters:
- Candy cigarettes: sorry "paleo cupcakes" are still cupcakes and are not healthy food
- Low quality food
- Foods of neolithic invention such as breaded and deep-fried foods.
- Food that is engineered by food scientists to taste good. Be very suspicious of anything made in a lab.
- Liquid calories.
- insipid food. I part ways with Stephan here in that I don't think blandness is key. I think very bland food is very satiating, but so is very complex food with many spices, fermented sauces, bitter and unusual flavors.
I think the meal Chris and I had after we went to the bookstore illustrates this. Portions were very small at Bacaro, but we left satisfied. Flavors like black truffle in risotto, liver-based sauces, and olive oil gelato walk the line between grotesque and delicious that puts you in a state of culinary satisfaction without incitement to overeat.
We also had an incredible lunch at Blackbird in Chicago. The portions here were also very small, but the flavors were unlike anything I'd ever had. Smoked ham hock with sturgeon, lamb with lavendar and broccoli, and licorice root for example. My new goal is not to eat out unless it's something really good like this.
Perhaps this jives with Seth Robert's set-point theory:
3.6.2. Birth of the idea. In June 2000, I visited Paris. The food was excellent. I wanted to eat three meals per day but to my surprise and disappointment I had little appetite, even though I felt fine and was walking a lot. I realized that the new weight-control theory suggested an explanation: It had been hot and I had drunk two or three sucrose-sweetened soft drinks each day, about 630 kJ (150 kcal) each. All of them had been new to me because they were brands not available at home. The novelty meant that their flavors were not yet associated with calories and therefore would not have raised my set point. They had been sweet, of course, a familiar flavor that presumably was associated with calories. But maybe sweetness was effectively a weak flavor, I thought, and what I had observed was another instance, similar to Example 9 (sushi), of bland food reducing the set point.
My weight loss definitely coincides with my growing interest in complex flavors. Of course it's very possible to get fat on Haute Cuisine; there are plenty of expensive restaurants serving baskets of bread and fried cheese balls (maybe a fancy cheese, but still very stimulating to the appetite).
Comment?: 0
05/30/2011 - 19:14
Inuit only ate meat right? Wrong, the Inuit have an extensive variety of plant foods as well, documented in this wonderful ethnography.
Comment?: 0
12/18/2010 - 17:53
TIMOTHY FERRISS, nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007,” is author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been published in 35 languages.
Wired magazine has called Tim “The Superman of Silicon Valley” for his manipulation of the human body. He is a tango world record holder, former national kickboxing champion (Sanshou), guest lecturer at Princeton University, and faculty member at Singularity University, based at NASA Ames Research Center.
When not acting as a human guinea pig, Tim enjoys speaking to organizations ranging from Nike to the Harvard School of Public Health.
Oh man, this reminds me of this hilarious video
For those of you who don't have time to watch videos, it's Michael Cera's parody on the hilariously arrogant video resume of Aleksey Vayner.
The video opens with a staged interview between Vayner and an offscreen voice. However, the "interview" ultimately consists of a single question, to which Vayner gives a lengthy, rambling response. Using considerable amounts of business-speak jargon, Vayner praises himself and shares his various insights on success, talent, and overcoming adversity. Interspliced with the interview are clips of Vayner performing various feats designed to look impressive, including bench pressing, skiing, playing tennis, ballroom dancing, and finally karate-chopping a stack of bricks. The video ends with a dedication to Radomir Kovacevic, and a fairly lengthy credits sequence.
Since moving to NYC, I've had the displeasure to meet many flaky young single men who idolize Tim Feriss. I was reminded of them recently when I saw this excellent Facebook Question: "Why is there such a strong correlation between the "paleo diet" movement and douchebags?" really worried that this would contain mostly douchebaggery, but then I heard Tim Feriss had become a man and gotten married. (Oops, this isn't true, which isn't surprising considering his relationship descriptions in the book, so I guess he's still out there testing his loathsome techniques on women).
So this book has got some great stuff. It's more like a collection of blog entries, though they are very high-quality blog entries. That makes this a very hard book to review. Even more difficult because it contains 5 millions pictures of vaginas, which means I can't read it on the subway without getting paranoid that some creepy dude will read over my shoulder.
To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it “more boiled.” Higher temperatures just consume more resources that could be used for something else more productive.
That's kind of how I feel about this book. A lot of it is devoted to hacking your body in ways I simply can't be bothered to do. At least he admits that this is a sort of smorgasboard reference-type of book. Pick the chapters you need and just read those.
For me, that's not too many chapters. "How to Hold Your Breath Longer Than Houdini" Why would I want to do things like this? Maybe I'm just lazy though.
I'd love to sleep less, but the polyphasic thing sounds like torture to me. The "Slow carb" diet he pushes is kind of gross to me. He seems to be under the misconception that you need to eat beans for some reason.
"Vegetables are not calorically dense"
Um, no shit?
"so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load."
No, it's critical that you add fat for caloric load. It's clear people still get good results on his diet, but I think they would have better digestion and potentially eliminate autoimmune issues if they didn't bother with legumes.
BUT this book does feature some great foods: Kerrygold butter, raw milk, and grassfed beef for example. I think in 10 years maybe Tim's wife will civilize him and he'll come out with a book that has less powder, sugar-free Jello, Egg Beaters, and other things only single men consider edible.
MISTAKE #4: BELIEVING THAT YOU’LL COOK, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A BACHELOR In a sentence: if you don’t normally cook, get canned and frozen food for the first few weeks. Don’t buy a bunch of food that requires cooking skills if you don’t have them. Don’t buy foods that spoil if you’ve never prepared a proper meal. Unfounded optimism will just result in rotten food and frustration.
How about getting married? Or even easier, taking a cooking class?
He's already starting to get it though:
Go fermented. Dr. Weston Price is famous for his studies of 12 traditional diets of near-disease-free indigenous communities spread around the globe. He found that the one common element was fermented foods, which were consumed daily. Cultural mainstays varied but included cheese, Japanese natto, kefir, kimchi (also spelled “kimchee”), sauerkraut, and fermented fish. Unsweetened plain yogurt and fermented kombucha tea are two additional choices. Fermented foods contain high levels of healthy bacteria and should be viewed as a mandatory piece of your dietary puzzle. I consume five forkfuls of sauerkraut each morning before breakfast and also add kimchi to almost all home-cooked meals.
And perhaps it might convince the general public that calories in=calories out is bunk?
It wasn't until the end that I realize why so many young single men idolize Feriss: he's a nerd who's "made it." Hot women, buff body, tons of money. He can quote Dune and still have all these things. While I do worry he'll create a legion of wannabe Casanovas*, I'm happy he's warning men about the dangers of a modern lifestyle on their manhood and encouraging them to think about female orgasm from a technical perspective.
Also, it features two of my favorite bloggers Chris Masterjohn and Seth Roberts.
As for the bonus content...you have to hunt for passwords in the book? Talk about something I don't have time for.
*Honestly, if you want consistently good sex, a long term relationship/marriage is where you'll get it.
And this is the best review of the sex chapters ever:
I wanted to mention this in my initial review, but lacked the adequate time. The "15 Minute Orgasm" section is not nearly as enticing as it sounds. Basically, it's a trip to third base that is strange and just plain...ick. Ladies, picture a man grappling your lower body with his arms/legs pretzeled around your waist and thighs like he's wrestling a crocodile. Then, he uses his hands to spread your girl business open as if he's inspecting a large salmon fillet for stray bones. Now for the really sexy part: he uses his index finger to very gently stroke one tiny area of your little man in a boat for 15 minutes. That's all he does. FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES. Keep in mind, there's no other movement by either the male or female. Also, the woman shouldn't talk unless it's to answer specific questions. Why? Because women only talk during sex to distract themselves and not concentrate on enjoying it. Okaaaay. Thanks for the stereotype that we're all frigid and naturally inclined to deny ourselves any fun if it's left up to us. Hogwash.
Comment?: 51
09/15/2010 - 16:59
One common question is "What the difference between paleo, primal, and Atkins?" So I made this chart. But in some ways it's very hard because as the science becomes stronger, there has been a strong convergence between the three. For example, many Atkins devotees have realized that they just don't do well on low-carb Frankenfoods. And Cordain has come around with regards to saturated fats.
I put markers on for the most popular "gurus." Kurt Harris at PaNu basically espouses a unprocessed carb-restricted version of paleo which could pass for Atkins. Mark Sisson advocates a fairly laissez-faire approach with the goal basically to avoid the worst foods that aren't on this diagram anywhere. Robb Wolf recommends different things for different goals as I wrote in my review. Loren Cordain is mostly about specific foods and is still down on dairy and nightshades. I guess now that he's writing more and more about how bad those are, they might end up next to dairy in this diagram.
Where am I? I guess the closest to what I do it Sisson + Wolf. I'm moderate carb and do eat some dairy sometimes. Where are you? Quibbles? Questions?
Comment?: 24
05/22/2010 - 08:33
Frugal it's not, but for busy New York City professionals time is money and Freshdirect does save time. Luckily, their product line has also improved recently and there are several wild local seafood options and even a limited selection of grass-fed local meat. I usually only use Freshdirect if I'm working on an important project with a tight deadline. Despite being kind of expensive, it's a lot cheaper and healthier than the alternative when I'm busy...which is eating takeout.
So what's good at Freshdirect?
100% grassfed local ground beef is an obvious choice. It can be quickly made into patties and seared. If you eat dairy there are several good grassfed cheeses available, as well as grassfed milk and cream. Unfortunately, the local chicken and eggs are fed a "vegetarian diet" which is a euphemism for grains.
But the seafood options are great. My favorite is the local sea bass, flounder, and cod filets. You can also order wild salmon and crabs. I hate to say it, but when you are busy and don't have access to real cooking equipment, a fish cooked in a microwave can be a good option. When a microwave was my only option, I would put the seasoned fish in a microwave-safe glass dish with some chopped vegetable and microwave until cooked.
The Thai coconuts I've ordered from there have been the best quality that I've found in the city. I often get purple spoiled ones at the coop, but the Fresh Direct coconuts are well...fresh. They also sell coconut oil now.
They have local vegetables and fruits too, which are usually pretty good. If you are truly pressed for time, they also sell vegetables that are pre-prepped.
Overall the OMGIDONTHAVETIMEFORANYTHING Fresh Direct diet is: grassfed beef patties and local fish cooked in coconut oil with some easy-cook vegetables like asparagus. Now if they only sold lard...
Comment?: 4
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