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aldehydes, scurvy, burgoo (oatmeal), early VA studies
Gosh so many interesting threads here and I've only got just this minute to post this idea that I'm plagued with today, haha
Anywho, my mind is linking all these things together:
I have had ONE and only ONE food attack this whole entire year (YAY! I was having them about monthly prior to reading Grant's theory) and it was after eating BBQ ribs. I know I can NOT eat this food. I've made the hypothesis that the cause is aldehydes? And my pathways (dehydrogenase enzymes) are probably overloaded with dealing with vitamin A?
I have already linked, in my mind, the idea that scurvy is not just about C but also about vitamin A overload and missing B's. The symptoms list is just so similar to VA overload.
I was watching "Townsends" yesterday about 18'th century sailor fare. Their diet had to be well thought out if the trips were to be successful. According to this video, they stopped the practice of saving meat fats and slathering it on their oatmeal because they linked it to scurvy. Now, I'm betting those meat fats were very browned, like fats on my ribs. (which were, btw, home made)
Also interesting is that the sailors were given a GALLON of beer a day. So, IMO, their alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes were probably already taxed.
Sometimes I do wonder how people managed to drink so much in the olden days. And why didn't they link heavy drinking with scurvy. However, we CAN be blind to our addictions! And sometimes I do wonder if the body actually craves alcohol sometimes in order to purge a bit of VA out of the liver? But from what I've seen, a "medicinal dose" is actually quite small. Alcohol can also be craved when life becomes painful.
Another thing that comes to mind is the pig fats fed during the early Vitamin A studies that left the study animals in ravaged health. Was it aldehydes?
Hey, I don't follow Dr Garrett, perhaps he talks about such things and I'm just behind the curve.
***EDITED TO SAY: I DON'T think the idea in this post here (regarding gentle redering) helped There were still reactions in the household. So, even failed experiments tell you something. I suppose one of the issues is, the process takes longer. So the fats are exposed to heat for a longer time. And I still ended up with a bit of browning ***
***original post edited for brevity:
Cooking idea here.
I looked online for gentler ways to cook bacon. The idea I found is so easy. You just put a few tablespoons in of WATER in the pan FIRST, at the beginning of cooking, and take the bacon out when it is just slightly browned. The water disappears in the process. Water is always part of gentle trad fat rendering.
***Edited to say I don't think this solved the issue.
@lil-chick Ah what an interesting connection! Yeah, Dr. Smith does talk about aldehydes now. It would make sense that browned fats are high in aldehydes. Fish oils are high in them, also. Even frying in vegetable oil creates aldehydes, too, right? That has lead me towards trying to get my fats from things like whole nuts and seeds and cold pressed oils.
I wonder if the sailors had many sources of beta carotene in their diets... I guess they would have retinol from fish.
There is also the idea that eating soluble fiber (oatmeal) with fats makes it unable to grab onto and detoxify the bile anymore (cause the soluble fiber is already full with the fat, so it cannot absorb anything else). That would mean less vitamin A was being eliminated via the bile when they had oatmeal with the fat.
I personally avoid pork because it makes me feel sick. High fat pork products seem to have the worst consequences. Even when I was a kid, I could never finish a pork hotdog because it made me queasy. So I dunno if there are some environmental toxins that I am sensitive to that build up in pork fat or what.
**** update on post #2, regarding gentle bacon cooking experiment
thanks for your post @puddleduck, and interesting thoughts about the oats and the fats! hmm! Everything is so interconnected.
For now, with my bacon habit, I suppose there is a reason that people drain bacon on paper towels, and I do think that will work for us. Especially if nothing else is cooked afterwards in the grease.
Bacon grease might be a thing best put off until more healing has been done.
@lil-chick Sounds prudent!
I have now watched the video you posted—how interesting to hear all about the sailors diets! I will share it with Dr. Smith’s network, because they are talking about scurvy over there. Dr. Smith is planning to cover the scurvy connection to vitamin A toxicity in an upcoming course, for anyone interested in more on that.