I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Grant has NOT proven that vitamin A is non-essential
There may be other people here who have opinions about Garrett, I'm certainly not one of them. I'm glad other people on the web are into the low VA idea. I've never been a part of Garrett's group. I'm also not in the facebook group (where Andrew hangs out) ... for that matter. I'm glad there *are* groups. I am hopeful to see important stuff come out of these groups. I think it's amazing what Grant is doing and has done, but I have no desire to live like he does. I have no reason to join either group.
What you seem to keep overlooking is that I'm not looking for a guru, I'm not looking for special cures. I'm happy with my diet and the progress I have made simply swerving around vitamin A. I take zero supplements. I eat a diet that is pretty darn normal.
I'm divorced from the mind set that getting safely nourished is challenging. It took me 40 years. Life is good. Grant's idea has helped me and I'm grateful to him. His idea helped me scrutinize all the other ideas I've been exposed to through my long life of food experimentation. His idea filled in important holes and gaps in the knowledge. For instance, why are bland foods like denuded grains so important in so many cultures. (bread, rice)
Are you actually saying you believe there is NO use of retinoids in the retina?
I think it's perfectly plausible that the same substance used to photosynthesize could be used to turn light into pictures in the brain. Synthesizing things from light. If so, that is a special molecule.
The title of this thread might seem like it was dreamed up to piss off people, but in reality it is true
There is the old saw: you can't prove a negative.
Grant was (very probably) extremely full-up with vitamin A and may not ever run out for his lifetime. For all we know he could have 3 lifetimes worth stored up.
You'd have to go to some other planet to prove that vitamin A is non-essential. Really... It's so integral to life here on Earth that you can't know.
Personally I suspect that vitamin A is also used as a weapon and I worry that someday Grant will run out of weapons. That might be another way that vitamin A is essential (besides eyes)
I think that is why people who are vitamin A overloaded seem to have an immune system that has run amok.
I'm divorced from the mind set that getting safely nourished is challenging. It took me 40 years. Life is good. Grant's idea has helped me and I'm grateful to him. His idea helped me scrutinize all the other ideas I've been exposed to through my long life of food experimentation. His idea filled in important holes and gaps in the knowledge. For instance, why are bland foods like denuded grains so important in so many cultures. (bread, rice)
This post makes me feel really warm inside and say sappy things to a chicken handle (like totally inappropriate words like "I love you"). It's full of hard-earned wisdom. People here have this idea that if they abstain from certain foods long enough, they can turn themselves into supermen. But let's not forget the price you pay for eating only three foods for a decade. It's boring. Without any pleasure. Food is the easiest source of pleasure that anyone has access to. Tomatoes smell appetizing, yogurt is refreshing, bacon is crispy. Andy Bourdain traveled the world to experience and share the richness of food with his audience. Do you want to miss that? It's a personal choice. It takes a mature mind to balance pleasure without succumbing to it or denying it altogether.
And yes, I understand the impulse to tweak and improve a diet to achieve higher more noble goals than just being fed. One imagines a glorious future of great endurance and health. One dreams of a physique like Michelangelo's David. But there is also something to be said for being content and appreciating things as they are: not perfect, but perhaps good enough. No one achieves perfection in this world, that's reserved for the afterlife. In the meantime, many struggle, hoping to change things for the better. But at what cost? Perhaps part of the struggle is this deep-rooted desire for more, for better. Letting go of that is a relief. For now I want to be content. Inspired by the chick.
Not sure why the thread has been derailed…
In the works of Weston Price, the consumption of vitamin a is emphasised for 3 groups of mammals:
1. Pregnant mothers
2. Nursing mothers
3. Growing Infants
When vitamin A is absent in the diet, it seems that issues don’t necessarily manifest in the adult, but in the infant/future infant.
Thus I would like to add 2 further points:
4. Grant is a fully grown man.
5. (Assumption) Grant has no plans to have more kids.
@tommy I think that my position about not being extreme goes double for pre-conception, pregnancy, nursing and growth.
@sarabeth-matilsky has posted about her growing family and their results on lowering VA . Sarabeth is an amazing person full of courage and strength and smart as a whip. I've been reading her posts with great interest. She has had babies as a high-VA wapfer, and as a low-VA generouzer. Possibly as a vegetarian too if I'm remembering properly.
I wonder what her current thoughts are about whether VA could be essential, based on successes and challenges in her family at this time.
Could her recent teenager's perforated stomach be the result of something that went wrong beginning in the past on some other diet? Could it be a wake-up call regarding his current diet? Was it SIBO? Food intolerances? or just bad luck? I can totally see how going through the process that boys go through... to finish out their growth and become men... might be a process that runs down nutrients. Food intolerances seem to be a big challenge for her family.
If VA is needed (albeit in small amounts, not overloaded amounts) in the early phases of life, it would help explain why it seems to be present in higher percentages in egg and milk fat than in the human or animal or bird's body fat.
It isn't logical that the body would purposefully detox into the young. I can see how the fat given the young might be THE SAME as the current rates in the animal's body. But it appears that VA might be HIGHER in milk and egg fat.
There have been a few discussions and threads about this over time.
I'm quite sure I arrived here VA-overloaded, my diet was ridiculous and my symptoms were textbook. But I'm still willing to believe that there might be a balance needed (rather than zero VA as the goal) and that bets should be hedged and that tradition still has important lessons about family food.
There are some very interesting links in this thread Tim started about how flu symptoms might really be VA symptoms. (does this show that VA is mobilized as a weapon?)
This makes me think about how Grant, Jessica and I have all said, in the last couple weeks, that we "don't seem to get sick anymore".
Just recently another cold came through this household. I had no cold symptoms, although I did take a nap one day, which is weird for me. And I had one bout of runs out of the blue. Did I fight it off the cold in some way that did not involve a huge flood of VA?
Another thing that is mentioned in the above thread is that you enter a state of hyper vitamin A after a meal heavy in VA.
This is a thing that is also an important point. Stopping over-eating might be a very important part of becoming VA-balanced.
I've said before that I believe that eggs are an important food, but used in moderation. My reason is because I saw an old-school body builder have bad results from drinking BLENDERS full of eggs. Perhaps it is very important to regulate the amount of VA taken at one time.
Hence the square meal, a tenet of traditional eating.
I suppose his bad results could be just down to that, thanks Jessica. Still I think the anecdote is a reminder that extremes and experimentation can be fraught with issues.
Quote from lil chick on August 19, 2024, 10:31 amMy husband absolutely lives for sweet corn and my diet has been corn-heavy lately and I feel I'm experiencing more dry-eye and perhaps it is because of the zeaxanthins, i remember people complaining about lutein etc and their eyes over time here on Grant's site. I try to only eat white corn but I bet it still has lots.
Lutein and Zeaxanthin really bad for eyes , betacarotene didnt do anything to my vision , Only after a week or so of consuming lentils , I was blurry vision once . Discontinued and got clear