Once there was a Momma frog and a baby frog walking down the road. All of a sudden the baby frog started hopping away. The momma frog said where you going baby? The baby frog said Momma Momma there’s a cat coming down the road and he is going to eat us. The momma frog said Oh little baby that cat won’t eat you cats don’t eat frogs. They went on a little further and the baby frog started hopping away again. The Momma frog said where you going baby? The baby frog said Momma Momma there is a big ol dog comin down the road and he is going to eat us. Momma frog said Oh little baby frog that dog won’t hurt you dogs don’t ear frogs. So they continued on down the road and all of a sudden the momma frog started hopping like crazy. The baby frog said Momma Momma where are you going . The Momma frog said Baby frog that there is a Cajun. Cajuns eat anything. Hop for your life baby frog
I had a friend in the Atchafalaya I used to visit every year. A few years ago I went to Jazz Festand went over to see him between weekends. While i was in NOLA I read an interview with Dr. John. Any interview with any New Orleans musician (or anybody from NOLA for that matter ) will always include food.The good Dr. said his all time favorite was squirrel brains. I had never heard of squirrel brains being eaten. I had heard of squirrel stew with the eyeballs staring up at you though.
So I told my friend about it and he got this dreamy look on his face and said in his heavy Cajun accent. " Oh man dem squirrel brains man dem is da best"
I have been a vegetarian for 50 years and thought I had stumbled into an alien encampment
Base, I agree except for one thing: Vegetables are just as, if not more, important. This wasn’t true for my family; we simply could not thrive without more protein yet we can get along fine without veg (not that we do - love to eat veg, a treat that tastes like sugar).
I only bring this up for the random reader who, like me, once believed otherwise (my stomach cannot take legumes/milk to get protein). I experienced exactly what Adam did: a complete health change, but only by cutting back on veg and replacing with tons of meat/fish/eggs. This was shocking, never would have predicted it.
How can one empirically test their diet? We kept changing until we got:
- Waist to height ratio <0.45. It may take literally years of diet changes and experimentation to reach this level that correlates with longevity and health.
2) Visible 6-pack stomach/strong posture/low BP/low glucose. One is only as old as their arteries and spine. - No cavities/straight white teeth/clear skin/rich hair/good vision.
- Never hungry; easily able to go 48 hr without food. This is a solid sign of health.
- Run <7 min mile, and Lift (bench/deep squat/deadlift) 1.5X to 3X BW, Pack 50% BW all day.
- No injuries. Nutrient dense diets (with proper sleep/exercise) heal old injuries/damage from prior bad grain/fruit/milk diets.
Most of the above statistically correlate with an active and long life. So why trust anyone spouting off about nutrition unless they can claim all 6 of the above until 65 yo at least? Just experiment until you get there.
Currently in the US, there is an epidemic of deer chronic wasting disease. It is a prion disease. The animal literally becomes skeletal, disoriented and dies. Spread by feces on grass, shared water, etc. It is like BSE in cattle for which huge swaths of UK cattle were destroyed.
Prions are “naked” bits of DNA that when entering the host, multiply and create neurological disease and eventually death. Although infected animals can transmit even in muscle meat, neurological tissue is rife with them. Cooking/heat doesn’t destroy them.
In humans one prion disease is familial insomnia. Strikes around 40yo. Always fatal.
I’ll pass on anything’s brains.
Ok diet-meisters, I really enjoy this juice I make for myself. It started out as an anti-oxident blend, but it kind of morphed over time. Tell me if this is bad:
Ingredients:
- apple (3)
- carrot (6-8)
- passionfruit (8-10)
- beetroot (3)
- ginger (3")
- turmeric (2")
This is literally the tastiest juice ever. My body seems to like about a cup of it at a time, with meals, but no more. I use a slow juicer.
If I don’t put the ginger, its totally not right. Adding the turmeric was additive too, although it turned the juicer insides orange. Passionfruit is required. I can substitute pomegranate for apple.
So what do you think? Instant insulin shock?
Hi Dave
I am not going to say anything about putting BTC in my juice lol
There is an interesting balance between the glycemic index and how much fructose you may wish to take in. A food my have a low glycemic index yet be high in fructose. You want to limit your fructose intake as much as possible. Reason being fructose blocks the bioavailability of VIT D.
I use a Norwalk juicer which is recommended by the Gerson Institute. They recommend using tart green apples like Granny Smith as the glycemic index is lower.
My usual blend is carrot, granny smith and ginger. I sometimes add beet. My wife likes using turmeric root as well.
I highly recommend the Norwalk but the Pure is just as good. They are expensive initially but pay for themselves if you juice a lot. They produce more juice and higher quality.
Of course I am sure you are using organic produce.
If you check out Norman Walker he has a lot of info on juicing and what different combinations are good for treating.
MKI,
Have you gone long time without eating vegetables? Shackleton’s crew came home in excellent health after eating nothing but meat for months, but traditional Inuit ate some plants and non muscle meat parts of animals to get certain key nutrients.
The reason I said vegetables were as or more important is that I got curious a few years ago and tracked where my vitamins and minerals came from. Even though plants made up a smaller portion of my diet calorie wise, they were actually the source of most of the vitamins I consumed. Minerals and calories primarily came from meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.
We find veg critical for the gut and micro biome. I’m not dissing veg at all to us they taste like sweet like candy. We just found protein to be more important and the key to fixing health and getting the good metrics, YMMV. <0.45 w/h year is tough.
So what do you think? Instant insulin shock?
Dave I really wish I could drink that tasty drink. But we don’t eat fruits at all except home-picked crabapples that we save for desserts. Everything else is just too much sugar; I’m envious of those who can eat regular fruit and keep the 0.45 w/h metric & six pack (I’ve never met anyone in the flesh who can though). Our motto: fruit is candy and treat it as such.
Like able to leap tall buildings at a single bound or launch fireballs from your eyes and lightning bolts from your arse, lol.
But seriously, where did you get this list? Some things are valid, some things do not account for age or genetics or early environment, and some things are a bit out in left field. I did graduate work for a while in a U.S. military physiological testing facility so I’m curious about your source material.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841576/
Mean antioxidants in plants = 11.57, vs 0.18 in animal based foods.
Same goes for nutrients, flavonoids…
All nutrients come from plants. Getting nutrients indirectly by eating animals is more than somewhat suboptimal.
Need a good quality Tee shirt I can were to the GYM. something 100% polyester. 
https://www.graciemag.com/en/2015/11/24/7-facts-you-need-to-know-before-you-adopt-the-gracie-diet/
It’s hard to imagine folks who are more functionally fit than the members of the Gracie jui-jitsu clan.
Also, our closest members of the primate family would disagree with you about the fruit as well.
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating the Gracie Diet as the optimal diet but just as an illustration that there are many roads to Rome.
But if your diet works for you, I’d stay with it and congratulations on your success. I would say though that if someone in your family is squatting or deadlifting 3x body weight at a more advanced age, they need to enter the Olympics. They would win, hands down, lol.
I don’t have a lot of familiarity with passion fruit though. I know it’s supposed to be healthy for you but it’s been so long since I’ve had any, it gets mixed up in my mind with other tropical fruits. We don’t have them in our stores here. How big are they? The reason I’m asking is, the mix sounds a bit heavy on the fruit. I did look up passion fruit in a couple of juicing books that I picked up for next to nothing through my wife’s thrift store job called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Juicing” and “Power Juices” but they didn’t have much information about it other than to include a small number in a couple of juices. I’m not necessarily recommending these books but when you get them for 50 cents each through a job credit system so they essentially cost you nothing, what the heck.
The Hallelujah Diet folks have a saying, “Eat your fruit, juice your veggies”. Of course, they may juice some fruits and most definitely eat tons of veggies in non-juice form but the emphasis is much more on vegetable juices than fruit juice. I would go along with Mohammed on recommending N.W. Walker’s book, Raw Vegetable Juices. It’s old school and dated by many people’s standards but it’s a classic and remains the “bible” on vegetable juicing and his studies and empirical observations are valuable. Vegetable juices are generally more valuable in healing and conferring health than fruit juices. As others have noted here, fruit is high in sugar (especially certain kinds of fruit) and too much is not good. As I always say, BALANCE is all things.
I switch around with my juices but have been consuming vegetable juice mixes almost exclusively. It keeps me from overdoing the fruit. The foundation is about 2/3rds carrot juice (which contains a particular acid, the name of which I can’t find now, which is anti-carcinogenic … maybe someone can help me here) and 1/3rd celery juice (which gives the body alkalinity and was recommended by Edgar Cayce). My favorite at the moment is this combination of carrot and celery juice with a small amount of beet root and cucumber. It just supercharges my energy level and it’s a lasting energy, surprisingly enough.
My juicer (an old Champion, with an electric motor built like a battleship) doesn’t like greens. As a result, I have to chop them up to use them so I probably don’t use them as much as I should. Today, I’ll be trying a carrot and spinach juice mix but I’ve used kale, Swiss chard, beet greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, etc.
The turmeric and ginger sound good. I’m not a fan of ginger myself (although it’s very healthy for you) but I hadn’t thought of using it in my juice. Maybe I’ll give it a try.
This is what I love about this site. We can all learn from one another.
Passion fruit is quite tart. Eating passion fruit on its own is…challenging since it is so sour - unless you like sour things. It is like a lemon, but more complexity. As a foodie, I like it because it provides good acid for the juice mix. Hmm. It does have lots of different vitamins in it. Who knew?
Picture and details in the link below:
https://www.nutrition-and-you.com/passion-fruit.html
I checked, “Celebrating 90 Plus Years of Healthy Living” by Jack LaLanne, another thrift shop book find, lol. He gives high marks to passion fruit with a lot of very positive information on nutrient content including beta carotene (precursor to vitaminA), vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, and fiber. The juice equivalent is 4 fruits equals 1/4 cup of juice. There’s even a little protein with 5 gm. of protein/cup of juice.
In my book, Jack LaLanne and Helio Gracie were the studliest of the studly. They were both human performance specimens, both lived to a ripe old age (96 and 95, respectively), both were highly functional up to just before they died (often surpassing those decades younger in their performance), and both consumed fruit.
Whether you are going with a Biblical/creationist/Garden of Eden scenario or an evolutionary scenario, fruit seems something we were designed to eat. With regards to fructose, there are problems with it, certainly, but that’s with such things as high fructose corn syrup which is purified fructose consumed without all the associated fiber, minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, etc. that we would find in normal fruit. There is a huge difference between the two. If there’s one thing I’ve learned with regards to health, it’s that it’s very hard to trump Mother Nature.
Ok, it sounds like maybe increasing the veggie balance a tad is probably the right thing to do. More carrots and beets. And (MM) yes I agree with granny smith. Those are my choice if they are available. I forget where I got this basic juice from (carrot-apple-ginger) but that’s a pretty good base. But ginger is required to get the food-feel right.
I have to say - passion fruit is literally the best thing ever. I mix it in with my oatmeal when I cook it - maybe 3-4 fruit in a big batch, the seeds add a bit of crunch, along with some coconut palm sugar and butter. Best breakfast ever. Cream on top too. I’m sure the seeds are good in some way also.
That’s another COVID find for me. It turns out Artemisia Annua leaves (DLA tablets) cures malaria more rapidly and more completely than the single-isolate Artemisinin, to which the little malaria bugs can develop resistance. But the WHO doesn’t want anyone to use DLA for malaria. Hmm, I wonder why that is? [WHO has been running the evil Pharma game in Africa for - a very long time, I suspect]
So in that vein, getting the vitamins from food is probably tons better than from a pill, due to some who-knows-what effect that ends up doing better in surprising and incompletely-defined ways. Flavonoids. Or whatever they’re called.
So more veggies, and passion is good stuff, but maybe pull back a bit. Thanks guys.
I was big on juicing. But it does seem to get expensive , as if I am juicing, I use organic. My go to was Carrot, Apple, Beet, Ginger, and some italian parsley or cilantro. I can feel an immediate increase in alertness and energy after juicing. ( eating the same , did not seem to have the same effect )
I have a background in nutrition. I actually have some theories about diet and even diet I intend on patenting. Though that is usually a difficult go
But yes, what works for one does not work for another. But in some more specific empirical experience of people I know. One could easily and freely lose weight with just eliminating one substance from their diet… It was coke. They could lose 15lbs in two months and then the would start drinking again…after gain again, rinse and repeat. Another person, had a sweet tooth and good appetite for chocolate and other snacks. But even with continued eating or not eating of these items, weight stayed. However, once reducing and eliminating meat( going vegan ) they saw dramatic weight loss even with continued snacking. So their may be the one thing in your diet that is your nemesis … Fat is generally not the thing to eliminate , and eating egg yokes, and bacon, does not translate to clogging arteries. High triglycerides in the blood has nothing to do with fat consumption , only sugar consumption… There is so much confusion about diet. A lot of people like the paleo diet. It will work for a lot - but its not really a pleasant diet… It can be easier. Same with a high protein diet , its a lot of work. I think its easier to find your one enemy, whether it coke or meat, carbs, etc. But speaking of Carbs, I am in susan powter’s camp on those.
Thanks for sharing your information. You are not alone in experiencing what you experienced. I was a vegetarian many decades ago and it didn’t work out for me then. Of course, it was a MUCH less healthy vegetarian diet than I am following now. I just didn’t know as much as I do now. Vegan/vegetarian diets can run the gamut from extremely unhealthy to extremely healthy. But that dissatisfaction with how I felt was why and how I shifted towards a paleo type diet. I followed this type of diet for decades and was extremely healthy, strong, energetic, etc. with it … until recently.
Cancer is exceedingly complex so diet may not even be a factor in its causation for me. We just don’t know. But the more I’ve studied and learned and the more I’ve experienced over the years, the more I’ve realized the enormous role that psychological and spiritual factors play … BIG! When you are afflicted with something like this, a reflective person will tend to do a life review and see where they may have gone wrong. I can look back and see emotional factors that influenced me that were not always the healthiest. I am working on this area but am still very much a work in progress.
I don’t think we yet have a good explanation for why some folks like you and MKI respond so well to this type of diet. I’m sure I would feel good too (and I did) but what would the long term, multi-decade results be? Truthfully, I really can’t say for sure. There may be different microbiomes, different genetics, or … different intentionality and different consciousness. These latter two trump all else (and I alluded to them above) but it’s the area we understand the least. New German Medicine touches on this subject somewhat but it’s an area that is extremely difficult to study and control. Metaphysics, psychics, empaths, medical intuitives, etc. have all provided some insights but it is a very fuzzy area where hard, straight, scientific answers are difficult to obtain.
And so the search continues for me and I always remain open to changing my mind and actions in light of new and convincing evidence.
Thanks again for sharing and I wish you well.
P.S. I don’t necessarily look at juicing as a life long practice but as a short term practice for healing from disease, its benefits are undeniable.
P.P.S. If you read the references in my post #55, you’ll discover that early man was NOT a big meat eater, as commonly believed. The video, The Game Changer, also explains such things as the vitamin B12 conundrum.