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Formaldehyde in Foods
Read the UK Committee on Toxicity document in the first post of this thread. The main source of formaldehyde in the diet is from fresh fruits, vegetables and legumes. Gut flora convert pectin to methanol in the gut, the methanol is absorbed and is then metabolized to formaldehyde. It's unlikely to be a problem for healthy people eating a balanced diet but it's something to be aware of for those that are dealing with folate/B12 issues and in general it seems like a bad idea to consume large amounts of fruit.
I'm very much in favour of moderate amounts of fruit, vegetables and legumes in the diet. My concern is with people trying to consume more than they would normally choose to eat in an effort to eat healthily.
@tim-2, I have had this pervasive thought for years that all the toxins in foods are only toxic when consumed in excess. I think many of us got in trouble by overdoing on the “healthy foods” like beef and cod liver for me, green smoothies before that, carrot salad every day, etc. When eaten at reasonable quantities and in season, many so called toxins probably just stimulate and challenge some physiological functions and organs to become stronger and better functioning. Extreme diets like a vegetarian or carnivore have more chance to create imbalances that bring health.
However, once the imbalance and toxicity occurs, it is a bloody difficult journey to correct it, with the ever present possibility of over correcting and creating a new imbalance. Then it is a slippery slope and fast way down.
Totally agree @beata-2. So sensible. Moderation is my favourite word. VA toxicity is often caused by overdoing it. Once the body is knocked out of balance though it often gets stuck in self perpetuating negative vicious cycles. It’s these vicious cycles that need addressing imo to get well again. Many ways to do this (different levels of healing too). However, I think removing excess vA is a major factor for many.
However, imo it must be done slowly (at least in those of us who are older and more sensitive) otherwise it depletes resources and causes other issues. I believe that the vA detox has depleted my resources. Having covid twice during this time has certainly not helped either, perhaps without it I would have been fine. Covid throws out a lot of vA at once and pushes detoxification to the limit. I think this then triggers unhelpful pathways that get stuck ‘on’ (or upregulated). I’ve been looking at the de novo NAD pathway (kynurenine pathway) or the ‘troublesome tryptophan’ pathway as Dr Wentzel’s long covid group call it. I’ve found out that metabolites from this pathway do all sorts of unhelpful things including apparently slowing ALDH, which is essential for detoxification of vA and formaldehyde. Don’t want the ‘troublesome tryptophan’ pathway upregulated but many things can do it, including lack of NAD, stress and covid.
Quote from Jiří on March 25, 2021, 12:06 pmQuote from salt on March 25, 2021, 11:42 amI just spotted an apple juice with 25 grams of fiber per liter/quart.
We have two types of apple juice. One is džus(juice) which is transparent and liquid like water. That has just trace amounts of fiber and the second is called mošt and that looks like dirt water and is much thicker. That will be filled with pectin for sure..
Most, the same word in German just without the glyph above the s letter. My father used to have most in huge 25-liter bottles with a hose attached to it in the cellar. It was a nice treat as a kid.
Kind of like @jiri said, it all comes down to how you define "extreme" and the toxic dose for an individual.
"Extreme" is a relative term that just means "not normal", and normality is based on frequency of occurrence, NOT on merit. The carnivore diet (i.e. plant-free) is only considered extreme because is it rarely followed, whereas the concept's foundation has a lot of scientific, anthropological, and clinical merit. Vegetarianism/veganism (i.e. meat-free), on the other hand, is becoming more normal as it is more widely adopted, yet it has no real scientific merit, and minimal clinical merit (the benefits seem to be very temporary, if there are any).
It pisses me off to no end when people tell me "you would probably be better off eating more things in moderation". The reason it pisses me off is because these people usually haven't given the first thought to how you define what "moderate" means. That term is highly relative to the individual food and the individual person eating the food. The concept of a "moderate" quantity of any food is highly influenced by our modern agricultural environment and the relative availability (literal physical access and figurative access via cost). More often than not, "moderation" is in reference to the RDAs/RDIs, which we know are highly unreliable in many circumstances, because, again, they are based on "normality" of modern disease states, which is relative. Thus, the argument for "moderation" is usually a circular one without any concrete foundation.
A "moderate" amount of milk is going to be defined very differently between people that subsist on it, like the Maasai and certain Mongolians, and people that don't live anywhere near large, domesticated mammals, like many tropical indigenous groups.
A "moderate" amount of any vegetable is going to be defined very differently between hunter-gatherer groups that have excellent access to meat but no access to domesticated plants that have had much of the toxicity bred out of them, and any "civilized" person who is brainwashed by shitty science and marketing and can drive their car 5 minutes to the nearest grocery store and fill an entire cart with a single type of plant.
My epiphany years ago was that modern "civilized" humans don't know what to eat anymore because that knowledge was gained empirically over thousands of years and was location-dependent, and it has been washed away by globalization and modern agricultural technology. This is why it is so important to study the few remaining modern hunter-gatherers...they certainly do not represent the ideal situation, but they are a lot more informative and closer to the truth than most of the terrible reductionist dietary science (usually conducted on non-human animals, if not in a test tube) that we are otherwise using to guide our decisions.
I'm still convinced that plant compounds are at the base of my own Vitamin A problems. It's clear you can become toxic from animal retinoids alone, but it seems like a lot of people who went carnivore and overdid the organs manage to back their way out of that situation pretty quickly compared to those of us who loaded up on beta carotene and other carotenoids in addition to eating animal retinoids. I continue to wonder if carotenoids occupy the sites that retinoids are supposed to occupy, and thereby simultaneously create localized Vitamin A deficiency (by blocking the real functionality of Vitamin A in those sites) and Vitamin A toxicity (by slowly converting to retinoids, which overwhelm the body's storage if it was already full of retinoids from animal sources consumed before or at the same time as carotenoids).
I should clarify that my annoyance is not directed at @beata-2 or @jaj... It's that I just went to a holistic dentist for the first time yesterday, and while they were certainly more enlightened than the average dentist, they were still suggesting that I eat a "balanced" diet with not "too much" of any one thing. I'm certainly in agreement about that idea...what I'm opposed to is the implication that that means eating more plants for a reason that they can't clearly specify.
@wavygravygadzooks, I agree with everything you said. However, we are looking at things from a slightly different angle.
I see the carnivore diet as born from desperation to regain health.
In 60th and 70th we were still relatively healthy and fit. I came across a pic of a beach in 70th and wow! We were hot!
Then we got seriously fecked by the agri business and well meaning health gurus. We stuffed tons of “healthy greens” (extra large salad anyone? How’bout a gallon of green smoothie?), causing out guts to distend, inflame and prolapse. We were never supposed to eat so many plants and plant toxins; plants that lost most of their nutritional values due to industrial scale production. Even organic produce is hardly better, grown in greenhouses and collected while still green.
The carnivore seems like a good solution to stop this madness.
Ever since my daughter established a small biodynamic garden, she needed to buy a new set of dishes - small bowl and small plates because a minuscule amount of plants and some meat at a meal is all she needs. Her food is full of sunshine and energy that most of us rarely experience in food.
So this is where I see moderation, in eating nutrient dense meats for nutrients and plants for hormetic effect on the immune and other systems.
Lastly, my confession 😉. I really like the carnivore diet. In Britain we have access to amazing array of farm raised meats. Had it worked for me, I would have gladly stayed with it. But for several reasons it didn’t. Adding plants for me is for now a solution to have a well functioning gut and significant health improvements.
@jaj I admire your diligence in finding the issues and working to correct them. You have your work cut out for you!
I am taking a lazy approach…I am focusing on my intuition as a guide while paying attention to the low VA diet. I also got some “experimental” supplements (shilajit, marine plasma, strophanthus) and will see if together I can move into some sort of harmony and alignment.
Covid created some major issues for many of us. For me it was a mild flu that took me not long to recover but robbing me of my sense of smell. I find it really annoying and am not sure what else to do.
I am looking forward to your updates. Sorry that covid causes some mischief for you too. 🌹