Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Re: Thyroid, iodine, and weight loss

Dr. Bert has been a pretty open moderator, but I do try to stick
to the topic. Problem is, nutrient intake does become an issue
when you are on ANY diet! And for human beings, we don't
really have a good consensus on what is "good nutrient intake" yet.
There is a lot more consensus on what makes a healthy cow
than what makes a healthy child.

I agree with you both, Churyl and Rick, about the importance
of figuring out what we are genetically geared for. It's very hard
to figure out: our genes underwent the most modification just
after agriculture was invented so we have THAT genetic history
too.

I'm not sure what to think about vegetables. It is true that we have
a very narrow bunch vegies at the supermarket, and they are
very new (and not, to my mind, very tasty). But it isn't true that
our ancestors didn't eat many vegies. They ate lots of vegies,
a lot more than we do, and any given group of people would eat
200 or so species. And I agree with Rick: algae and seaweed
are even better, as foods ... they are rarely toxic (unlike land
plants) and full of kinds of fiber that do good things for people.

Also, in terms of dieting and losing weight, having food digest
slowly, and getting the right bacteria in the gut, is important.
It's pretty clear that the lower gut wants butyrate, and the
only way to get that, that we know of, is to eat the right kind
of fiber/polysaccharide which feeds certain bacteria. It is
theoretically possible (though not ever shown in practice,
that I've read) that eating enough fat such that not all the
fat is digested, might also cause butyrate production.

You can get far better vegies at most Asian stores. Huge variety
too. I didn't know, for instance, that you could eat banana
flowers, or green papaya. Both are really good though. And
YouTube has videos for how to prepare them.

Fruits get a little weirder. Humans lack the ability to produce
vitamin C, which would indicate fruits were always a big
part of our diet. But some large portion of the population
(30%?) do not digest fructose correctly. Tropical fruits ARE
and always were quite sweet, so this doesn't make a lot of
sense, unless the fructose-intolerance came up more recently,
among Northern Europeans who didn't get sweet fruits much.
Or maybe we got our Vitamin C from algae!

Meats are weird too. Organ meats really are very high in
nutrients, and most tribes (and animals) crave them. And they
are tasty! But most human beings also had parasites until very
modern times, and people with parasites tend to be anemic. Anemia
was a huge problem, and made people very ill, unless they got
some good meat or fish source. But tribes that ate a LOT of meat
also tended to have things like "sweat lodges" and various ceremonies
that involved blood-letting, which might indicate iron overload.

Personally, I started having issues with iron overload (as evidenced
by blood tests: I'm not guessing here), and I think that very
much affected my weight. The wells around here are totally loaded
with iron, and the people who drink out of those wells seem to
have a higher percentage of grossly obese people and a
rather scary number of them have Parkinson's.
Heme iron (the kind in beef) makes the non-organic iron (the type
in well water or in processed food) get absorbed better.

Anyway, I'm not saying organ meat is bad: on the contrary, if a person
is low in iron it's great stuff. Mostly I'm saying it's something to
keep in mind for people with weight problems or blood sugar
problems: one blood test will let you know your ferritin levels
and you can go from there. So far the people who I know have
been tested have been at two extremes: either very very low in
ferritin (and they turn out, often, to have bleeding
problems and STILL have weight issues!) or very high in ferritin.
It would be wonderful if there was more good data about this.

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 8:10 AM, Churyl Zeviar <churyl@tmail.com> wrote:
> I just love all this! When I joined the fast 5 group, I never thought
> I'd have access to all this amazing discussion about nutrition.
>
> I also am interested in following a diet that humans have been evolved
> to eat. Funnily enough, this is what gave me the excuse to eat less
> veggies. Which I don't like! Most of the vegetables we have around are
> only because of agriculture and human tampering... and are only 10,000
> years old. A million years ago, you wouldn't find the sweet, lush
> lettuce or carrots, tomatoes, broccoli that we have now.
>
> Also, a big change I've made is in adding meat, and making sure to eat
> the organs and raw fat! I've read plenty of accounts which have said
> that hunter gatherers from 200 years ago prized the organs (esp brain,
> whic is fat) and didn't care much for muscle meat.
>
> Going to make some heart right now!
>
> Interesting stuff!
>
>
> On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 8:34 am, RickS wrote:
>> Heather-
>>
>> I don't eat any processed foods other than nori sheets. I can't find
>> cookies or flour growing outside, so I don't eat them. I don't eat
>> grains and I don't eat sugar. I've also started eating a lot more organ
>> meats and sardines. Anything a hunter gatherer could get outside is on
>> my list of things I can eat. It's sort of a litmus test: "Can I find
>> this or kill it outside?" Most mammalian predators and human hunter
>> gatherers tend to cherish and savor the internal organs and intestines.
>> I have been reading some older accounts of Native Americans which seem
>> to indicate over and over that they would eat nearly all parts of the
>> animal including the lungs, brain, tongue, genitals, etc. While I'm not
>> prepared to be THAT adventurous, I think there's something missing from
>> our modern tendency to just eat the muscle and throw the rest away. I
>> know some would think that eating like this is limiting, but really it
>> gets you away from the Nixon-esque paradigm that was created to
>> subsidize the most profitable crops. It gets you to look at many
>> different fruits and vegetables that otherwise would just go unnoticed.
>> I've taken a keen new interest in the produce and meat departments.
>> There's so much there that I never noticed before.
>>
>> I've read your blog and I like the ideas you've come across regarding
>> iron. Over and over I've come across literature that links improper
>> mineral levels or intakes to poor thyroid/endocrine function. I've read
>> some reports on aquatic algae being among the first life on this planet
>> and whenever the first animals started coming out of the water 500
>> million years ago, they had to remain close to the water in order to
>> maintain the nutrients that they required to live. Humans have lived
>> near the water's edge for most of their evolutionary time on earth
>> until the last 50,000 years or so. I just really think there's
>> something to eating a diet that's sustainable in a coastal area. We're
>> based on salt water, just like the stuff our predecessors crawled out
>> of. Here's a good link that discusses algae:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae . Asians do eat a lot of fish, but
>> they eat a significant amount of algae. The aforementioned Wiki article
>> mentions that the Chinese eat over 70 different types of algae!!
>>
>> I think the key the good health is definitely somewhere in our
>> relationship between our mineral intake, pH balance, and the sun. I
>> have a vague sense at this point of a bigger picture. When I figure out
>> exactly what I'm talking about and my random thoughts begin to congeal
>> into a cohesive whole, I'll definitely share. :)
>>
>> -Rick Stewart
>>
>> --- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@...> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've been playing with "Japanese foods" for the last couple of months
>>> and have noticed something similar. I'm not sure it's the iodine
>>> though:
>>> I've had iodine-rich foods for some time (mainly seaweed),
>>> but this time I added more fish, and stopped eating beef (still eat
>>> chicken and pork though). Also I added tea.
>>>
>>> There is decidedly something going on here, but it's hard to pinpoint
>>> what it is. The current theory I'm testing is that it might have to
>>> do with
>>> iron, esp. the heme sort. So in the spirit of scientific inquiry:
>>> when you added the fish etc, did you cut back on beef/liver/ etc?
>>> Also did you eat less pop and fruit juice? And I'm taking it that you
>>> eat fewer processed foods? (packaged cookies, cereals, etc)?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 5:19 AM, RickS <rstewart@...> wrote:
>>> > So, I let my weight creep back up to 204 over the last year, I
>>> think by snacking too much during my window. I've been reading about
>>> thyroid function and metabolism lately and I decided to add extra
>>> iodine containing foods to my diet like algae, seaweed, nori, fish,
>>> etc. Son of a gun, if I didn't lose 18 pounds in the last month and a
>>> half! It took me four months to lose that much last year! All I'm
>>> doing is sticking to one big healthy meal during my window and only
>>> eating things I could get if I were walking around outside.
>>> >
>>> > This morning I was 186lbs. I feel like if I keep this up I can
>>> easily get into the 170's. Last year I was following fast five pretty
>>> strictly and only losing a pound a week. I can't say the only
>>> difference has been iodine, but I feel like it has made a HUGE
>>> difference.
>>> >
>>> > Rick Stewart
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ------------------------------------
>>> >
>>> > Yahoo! Groups Links
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Heather Twist
>>>
>>> www.dunkers.us
>>> Kraut: the easy way!
>>>
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>