I needed to disable self-signups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type sign-ups lately. Please contact me directly if you want membership on this forum. Thanks.
chickadee's rough start, and hopeful recovery
Grapes dont have to be peeled. Apples you can peel but you dont have to. I peel my apples because I dont want to eat the pesticides, that are even on organic apples.
Bone broth should be safe. But I personally never tested it. You dont have to drink bone broth to heal.
Which veggies are safe?
- Everybody has different tolerances, I personally eat mainly parsnips, turnips, daikon and chinese cabbage. I also peel the veggies or remove the other leaves to get rid off the pesticides.
- Just make sure to never eat veggies that are histamin liberators like tomato, brussel sprouts, onions etc.
@wavygravygadzooks, thanks! I love black-capped chickadees too. They're some of the only birds flitting about at sunrise on those subzero mornings... And same, we have tons of birds in the summer, but only a few stick around for our icy taiga winters. I always appreciate them when it's that cold. I also enjoy how they herald spring with the change in their call!
Yes, I may have been bitten by a lonestar tick at some point. But it is weird because the change in my being able to tolerate mammals happened 8 years ago, when I was already up north (out of common lonestar range). I have had a few sudden bizarre, severe food intolerances appear in the post-partum period after having each of my children. I was hoping it was just ground meat the first few times, but then steak and bacon were apparently issues too. Hence my trial of lamb, but that also failed, and I'm talking violent GI episodes that take weeks to resolve... Yup, lyme is on the radar too. The blood tests are always negative, but there is a more comprehensive screening my naturopath likes. The only reason I haven't done it is that it's quite pricey.
I seem to do well with most fats. My stools are normal in color and the consistency varies based on my IBS flare-ups. Usually in the type 4-5 range on the Bristol stool chart, with some 2-3, and always some type 6-7 when my guts are really angry. My guess is food intolerances are the trigger, but I'm not sure.
Thanks for the tidbit about Mary Ruddick. One thing I noticed about the bone broth I prepared this week is that it is very deep yellow-orange in color. It makes me wonder about vitamin A content. I don't go out of my way to buy bones, but I prefer to buy whole chickens / turkeys since they've been processed less and it's more appealing to me than buying a package of a bunch of the same body part. So I just make broth with my leftover carcasses, but I do wonder about it. Of course, I'm suspicious about anything out of the ancestral community these days, after my horrid experience with cod liver oil, and their obsession with all things liver.
Here's a link to the nutritionist's post about why the carnivore diet is bad (point #5 says it acts like a drug): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-4AI4QBzaplQehIHrUFf8rT0Y4nDJWBA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104107396423916895718&rtpof=true&sd=true It used to be on his website, but the link is broken. Not saying that I agree with this theory.. Others have said similar things, i.e. Chris Kresser, etc. And I often don't agree with him either. I don't know anyone I agree with at this point haha.
Hmmm the ADH and ALDH lists on Garrett Smith's website sound handy. I was kind of floored that he charges $60 just to get in. And $1,000 to work with him. So yeah, I am going to try to do a little more research... I've already shelled out way too much to people who are peddling supplements that made me sick and probably set me back in my recovery. I know he's kind of the go-to expert in the vitamin A detox field, but I am quite hesitant to pay anyone at this point. I appreciate your candor about there being incorrect information.
Good call about Judy Cho, it seems like she has some great information. I wish she had info for people like me who can't eat red meat... Seems like we're excluded from the carnivore diet, but the whole thing is quite intriguing, as it does seem to create a fasting-like, healing state for the body.
Candida / SIBO may also be issues for me. There is mail-in lab testing for comprehensive stool analysis and breath testing, but they are also quite pricey... I have to decide if it's it worth it, and/or if I just want to experiment with my diet.
Huh, taiga you say? Do you live in Alaska or Canada? I'm in Interior Alaska...that would be pretty funny if we were not far from each other!
If you haven't looked into the lonestar tick thing, I would definitely do that. I can't remember what the lag time was for the onset of meat allergy symptoms.
Is there no obvious yellow color in the rest of the chickens and turkeys you're using for broth? Chickens tend to accumulate a lot of beta-carotene in their fat when there's a fair amount in their feed. I raised meat birds for a few summers and they always had disgusting bright yellow fat. Not sure how much might get into the bones themselves though, I don't recall seeing it in any broth I made from them.
I wonder how you would fare on a high-fat diet where the protein came from poultry and fish and most of the fat came from tallow... Do you react to any form of fat that comes from read meat?
That nutritionist's page you linked to is plainly wrong. The major carnivore figures have thoroughly debunked the entire list.
Yes, it seems like everyone in the health space has a blind spot, or is just a little too zealous about something or other. Having seen that in others, I try to keep myself in check by looking for my own undue biases. I appreciate Shawn Baker's "I'm not your mom" approach. He's definitely a lead-by-example type, putting the proof positive out there, showing that a muscle meat diet based around beef works, questioning the validity of labwork when real life experience is a better measure of vitality, and ultimately letting people choose whatever path they want. On the other hand, I like that Anthony Chaffee harps on the problems with dairy, because I really don't think dairy (or most domestic eggs, for that matter) belong in a "species appropriate" diet. Judy Cho is the mom of the carnivore world these days, and she prefers the "rainbow" approach...more guarded and less sure of the beef-only version.
@wavygravygadzooks Yes, taiga indeed, but not quite as extreme as Alaska! I'm in Northern New England, USDA zone 4 for gardening. We had snow last week, and just starting to see 50s/60s during the day...
I did get tested for the Lonestar tickborne disease alpha-gal, but I had no antibodies. I'm not sure if that's because it's been so long, or if it's an unrelated issue. Regardless, I know my body doesn't like mammal meat. I'm not sure about tallow, doesn't seem like something that would go well... And re: bird stock, I simmer the skin too, and the fat isn't especially yellow. I may have just reduced it so much that it took on more of a golden color. Interestingly, I'm noticing that stock doesn't make me feel good at all! I noticed palpitations/PVCs (another ongoing issue) when I had some yesterday.
@alastair, thank you for sharing that link by Eric Levinson about Candida and EMF on another thread. I watched a few of his videos and find them quite interesting. He calls out vitamin A as a toxin, not a vitamin. And he talks about aldehydes and their pathways, and how this mechanism exacerbates the toxicity of vitamin A. These videos helped me understand more:
https://youtu.be/z0NWYLQkr8U
https://youtu.be/cH4LDSU_S1A
In this article, he has some intriguing recommendations, e.g. avoiding polyunsaturated fatty acids:
https://naturallyconnectedlife.com/2021/11/18/what-the-research-says-about-diet-and-covid-plus-practical-nutrition-guide/
Not everything he suggests works for me personally, but I am fascinated that he doesn't totally avoid vitamin A even though he fully recognizes it as toxic. His approach seems to be whole-foods based, focusing on pasture-raised meat, raw dairy, and eggs with other foods, like berries and tubers, in the mix. That is an interesting approach to me, because we know that there is vitamin A in butter, eggs, etc.
It makes me think about how there are some known trace toxins in almost all foods, and looking at each food holistically for its net effect. Organic ghee, one of my favorites, has vitamin A, but perhaps because the VA is emulsified and ghee is a great source of saturated fat, it's more beneficial than harmful on the whole. I'm not sure, and it may also have to do with our individual biochemistries. But I'm also reminded of the story in Grant's first book, with the sledding dude in Antarctica surviving on butter for months. Of course, he could've ended up with VA toxicity, we should ask him haha. Fascinating stuff...
@chickadee is there any way I can send you a private message?
Quote from kathy55wood on May 2, 2022, 11:13 am@chickadee is there any way I can send you a private message?
Sure thing, send me an email. It's my username here then "70x7" at gmail.com, no spaces, dots, etc.
@chickadee I like Eric Levinson’s work so glad you highlighted it. I’ve become v interested in PUFAs and I think oxidised PUFAs are a huge issue. I currently think Eric Levinson’s list of health issues (carotenoids, oxidised PUFAs, dysregulation iron/copper and calcification due to vit D supps) is on the money!
Quote from Jenny on May 3, 2022, 10:58 am@chickadee I like Eric Levinson’s work so glad you highlighted it. I’ve become v interested in PUFAs and I think oxidised PUFAs are a huge issue. I currently think Eric Levinson’s list of health issues (carotenoids, oxidised PUFAs, dysregulation iron/copper and calcification due to vit D supps) is on the money!
I worked with Eric Levinson about 1.5 years ago; I was a client of his specifically for detoxing vitamin A and did not have a great experience with him overall. I consider it a huge waste of my money. Overall, I stopped following his newsletters and have not kept up with what new information he has been providing, but around the time I stopped working with him, he basically seemed to be regurgitating most of Ray Peat's ideas. :/
@mmb3664 I’m sorry to hear about your bad experience. That doesn’t sound good. I have no personal experience at all.
I just think his list of issues correlates with some of the things I think. I’ve been looking into oxidised PUFAs as I realised they were a big trigger for some red eye issues I was having post covid, presumably increasing inflammation. I’ve been looking at the work of Dr Cate Shanahan. She spoke at a recent online IHCAN conference in the U.K.
Eric Levinson seems like yet another tool, even if he's well-meaning. He got hurt by Accutane and is therefore all too eager to paint Vitamin A as nothing but a toxin. Those videos are 90% him reading a list of complications from Vitamin A toxicity...those are not symptoms of Vitamin A consumption, but TOXICITY.
I love how he claims he can explain how all the functions of Vitamin A indicated in the research can actually be carried out by other molecules like fatty acids, but instead of explaining even a single one in his 30 minute video, he just keeps reading off a list of symptoms associated with Vitamin A toxicity.
Best of all, after he harps on the hypercalcemic effects of Vitamin A toxicity, he then suggests in his blog post that people load up on raw dairy (which contains Vitamin A and is extremely high in calcium) in part to get more lactoferrin (which the adult human already produces in appropriate quantities when needed).
When he admits to previously being into biohacking, all the pieces fall in place...he is another one of these people that puts way too much emphasis on crap reductionist dietary science and not enough emphasis on anthropological and evolutionary science.
If someone wants to listen to a level-headed clinician discuss PUFAs, I recommend Paul Mason.