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Optimal diet
What would you do differently since the Low vitamin A diet - had you known then what you know now? Would your diet be any different? Would you take or eliminate any supplements? Anything else?
Grant, @ggenereux2014, I wonder of you could elaborate. I remember you saying that you didn’t think your diet was the best. How would you improve it after 6 years of experience?
Hi @beata-2,
In addition to the bean, rice, and bison, I do drink black coffee.
If I had to do it again, I think I would have put more effort into finding a few additional safe foods. But, I like to keep things simple; my very limited diet is fine for me.
In the first few years of my diet I did take some vitamin C, maybe ~ 500 mg per week kinda thing. I did not record it, and I was not at all consistent about it. However, I wonder if I would have benefited from taking it more regularly. I don’t know, that’s pure speculation.
The reason I said I don’t think my diet is ideal is because I put very little research into it, and just went with the few basic foods that I felt were safe. So, it’s very likely there’s a more optimal diet.
@ggenereux2014 , Thank you your reply, Grant.
I have been trying to figure out how much I could divert from what you have done in relation to the diet and still experience health recovery. Or perhaps even experience faster recovery with a “better diet” is there is such a thing.
I think that a diet of meat and beans (and rice) is perfect to heal: meat providing necessary nutrients and beans providing the soluble fibre to aid in detoxification. Rice for those who need to maintain or increase weight.
Incidentally, this is a fusion of the Carnivore diet with Karen Hurd’s The Bean Protocol but without the vegetables.
The average carnivore will eat* a pound+ of meat per day and the average beans recommendation by K.Hurd ** is 1.5 cups+ per day. Any less would diminish the effects due to insufficient nutrients and fibre.
*some Carnivores eat much more.
**1.5 cups of beans is the minimum and often much more is recommended.
The addition of some mushrooms and sauerkraut would make the diet more interesting and perhaps even slightly more nutrition. I doubt that with the adequate quantity of meat and beans any supplements would be required for most of people, unless there are deficiencies to begin with.
These are just my musings as having gone through 21 month of carnivore and 3 month of Karen Hurd’s Bean Protocol I can now fully appreciate your system of eating and finally adhere to it with strong inner conviction.
Grant, thank you again for your tremendous works and generosity.
@somuch4food
Grant’s diet is ‘superior’ in that it is vitamin A free - if this what you need to focus on to regain health.
Karen’s diet consists of beans, meat, vegetables (starches and nuts if you like) - and eliminates that which could stimulate the adrenals: coffee, tea, sugar and other sweetness but also any fragrances and chemicals. It has a different focus and it doesn’t consider the issues with vitamin A.
I like Karen’s research in the area of soluble fibre from the beans about its ability to dispose of the bile which otherwise gets reabsorbed and with it everything that it carries like hormones and toxins. I follow Grant’s approach because I need to be low VA.
Hope this is helpful. 🙂
Well, my vote would always be to look back at what your ancestors ate. (but not the tourist version)
Today, I was listening to this "IZ" interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bACmCagxzV8
I had seen a picture of him and he was in the star-gazing position that was mentioned on another thread. On searching other photos, it appears he didn't always take that posture. I wondered if I could see any other signs of high VA in his appearance. He died of out-of-control obesity.
It got me to thinking about what IZ's genes would have expected versus what they got. We have this idea of "polynesian" food, and I can see how that might be high carotene.... probably zero dairy....plenty of fish... but what did Hawaiians really eat?
"Liko Hoe of Waiahole Poi Factory, who is also a Hawaiian Studies professor at Windward Community College, says taro was really the backbone of the Native Hawaiian diet. “Poi was the basis—everything else was just flavoring, additions,” he says."
It is interesting to me that in an island paradise full of fruit, they decided to go to the trouble to dig up bland white roots and make them the center of their diet..
One cup of poi
Retinol 0.0 mcg
@beata-2
Thanks for the feedback. I'm coming back to this myself. I'm pondering how low I want to go. I'm a bit stuck since my kids go to daycare and have a more typical diet, so I can't really push a really low A diet, plus my oldest is 3 years old and is starting to make sense of everything. It would be so weird that I teach him to avoid vegetables, yet at the daycare they push them. I'm hoping that Karen Hurd's approach could overcome the vitamin A I do get from my diet.
I was wondering if there was a particular reason that you chose not to continue with mainly Karen Hurd's approach. Is it because you think you will heal faster on low A? What convinces you that you need to be low A?
@sonia, I really liked Karen’s protocol and I appreciated her research into the soluble fibre and its bile clearing properties. However, for me the consumption of all the colourful vegetables and eggs ended up in returning of the yellow spots on the palms of my hands and yellowish skin hue. Also, my thyroid antibodies are almost exactly the same they were one year ago. Although I was on Karen’s Bean Protocol for only 3 months, I was hoping for even a small change.
Now I adapted Karen’s protocol to fit the low vitamin A diet and will test again in December. If nothing changes, then I will have to look into other things that might be causing the antibodies to be above range.
I hope you will find a way to deal with your children. There are vegetables that are low in carotenes that you could serve at home.
I think that beans have a great potential to help with elimination of vitamin A.
Best wishes to you and your little ones.
@lil-chick, my vote will always go for the ancestral diet for many reasons: local, organic and seasonal! As a child, I eat seasonally and I am sure that this system spread the nutrients in such a way that the abundance of any in one season was mitigated by the lack of it in another. Also, occasional fasting kept things well levelled.
We rarely practice this sort of eating anymore. Worrying about nutrients deficiencies we probably more often cause nutrients excess and health issues that result from it. I also observed that on my many various nutritional protocols I usually thrive for about 3 months and then the effect diminishes. Perhaps there is something to be said about the seasonality.
I dare say that more people in the world die from obesity than from malnutrition. Perhaps it is time to get back to the basics?