Friday, September 3rd, 2010

  • The Paleo Post has been updated

    In the left hand column of the The Paleo Garden you will find The Paleo Post, the latest snapshot of an attempt to find the various points in the Venn diagram where our old Paleo Garden’s ways may overlap with the modern world.

    This dude essentially conducts his diet and activity in an evolutionary fitness type of way…

    Young One: Still toned and fit, Sir Cliff shows off his beach body as he prepares to turn 70

    Yeah, and the dude is a “Sir” and he’s 70 years old.  How in the world can he do this without taking statins, eating fat free cardboard and downing large quantities of HealthyWholeGrains! (yippee!)?  I don’t agree with his approach of downing soya lecithin and the Blood Type Diet thing… but the rest of the approach sure seems spot on to me.

    More news on S. 510, ”Food Safety Modernization Act.”  You may notice that in this edition of The Paleo Post it is a bit heavy on articles concerning the over regulation and/or over promotion of foods and drugs (depends on the food or drug), while at the same time diabetes explodes and the food handout lines grow longer.  Well, looks like S. 510 will just contribute further to the problem.

    The regulators/legislators have taken out the verbiage “credible evidence” and replaced it with “reasonable probability” thus giving greater power to the FDA to take over or shut down  private businesses in search of any illness that is foodborne.  Also, “presents a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals”  has been stricken from the bill.  Instead, “is adulterated or misbranded.” has been added.  What exactly does “adulterated” mean?  Does it mean grassfed meat, does it mean raw milk, does it mean homemade tomato sauce, or your little girl’s lemonade stand?  A bureaucrat from the FDA will make that decision for you, don’t worry.  (info courtesy of John Tate)

    The following senators are pushing for this bill:  Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Richard Burr (R-NC).  If you live in one of their states, I highly encourage you to let them know what you think of this bill.

    Or, if you do agree with this bill, please consider how on earth could raw milk be considered adulterated and the boxes of crackers that you consume aren’t.

    Please stop your blind devotion to HealthyWholeGrains! (yippee!) loaves of bread, now with High Fructose Corn Syrup for extra flavor!  

    By zachary on August 31st, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

  • The Paleo Religion And Why It Must Be Stopped! (Guest Post by At Darwin’s Table)

    Dan, or in our circles - Dr. Dan, from At Darwin’s Table graciously agreed to do a guest post here on The Paleo Garden.  His writings immediately became one of my favorite blogs in the paleo subculture and he very much inspired the creation of this site.  I could say so much more about Dan’s influence in this community, but my verbosity would get the best of me… so on to it.  Thanks Dan for the post, and for any readers here who aren’t already familiar with it, check out At Darwin’s Table (new and improved!).

    The Paleo Religion And Why It Must Be Stopped!

    by Dr. Dan

    The other day I was searching through google images looking for an appropriate picture to put on a post defending science. I found an old powerpoint slide, and on it it said:

    Science

    If you don’t make mistakes, your doing it wrong

    If you don’t correct those mistakes, your really doing it wrong

    If you don’t accept your mistakes, your not doing it at all.

    Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of nutrition. The classic example, of course, is Ancel Keys and his six countries study. Almost overnight he turned the world against saturated fat and lead them down the path of margarines and vegetables oils, in other words trans fats!!! We now have enough evidence to make a strong claim that saturated fats were never bad for us, and that the low fat hype was based more from a political movement than from any good sound scientific advice.

    Today no one knows this more than the tribe that is paleo. Regularly you can hear the blogs blowing the trumpets of war against the low fat camp. Indignant that for so long we have been lied too, and our bodies have suffered the damage. But lately those drums have been getting louder and louder. So loud in fact I can’t think straight, and perhaps that is the danger. Perhaps we too are falling into the same trap that Ancel Keys, and his low fat camp, fell into many years earlier.

    Paleo blogs scream at the very top of their lungs that low carb is the way to go, and that low fat is a clear path to failure. Yet is this really true? A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine put low fat and low carb to the ultimate test. A two year study, and whatever group lost the most weight won. Yet, after two years, the differences were miniscule. Im afraid there is no brush we can use to paint a prettier picture here. After two years there simply was no difference. Sure you could look into the details and claim that it was for reason x, but you don’t think the low fat camp isn’t doing the same. The fact is low carb did not win it was a tie.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t even true. The more gloomy reality is that neither won, or even drew, they both failed miserably. After two years each group had lost a pathetic 7% of their weight. That’s it. That’s NOTHING. So this leads me to the next logical question. Do diets even work! Does dieting make you healthier! The answers to these questions are so engrained into our psyche that it seems almost insulting, maybe more like betrayal, to even question them. Yet many long-term mortality studies have shown that fat people actually live longer than thin people, and may be less likely to succumb to, amongst other things, cancer, heart disease, osteoperosis, and diabetes. To add insult to injury the Finnish Twin Cohort study found that over an 18 year period those people who actively lost weight died more than those that did not lose any. So I ask you now my paleo friends……..with this evidence can we really claim that low carb diets are better (or even work), or that losing weight will make us healthier.

    The studies I have outlined above are not the be all and end all. But they do highlight that there is something still missing from our expertise on low carb diets, or diets more generally. The fact is that after all these years we still don’t know. So we must not make the mistake of Ancel Keys, and blindly believe something just because we like to, or worse, are told to. As we know in science – if you don’t correct your mistakes your doing it wrong! But it is OK to make mistakes. But once we have evidence to the contrary we must re-evaluate our stance. Otherwise we are as bad as Ancel Keys. The fact is low fat diets worked too. And why wouldn’t they! Many hunter gatherers around the world eat diets very low in fat, the best example I can think of is the Australian Aborigines. So is it so strange that a low fat diet would do as well as a low carb diet. Alternatively, perhaps both diets failed because each group was allowed to eat processed foods, and that is one thing we know for sure, that hunter gatherers never ate processed foods. It is these undisputable facts that we can claim with some solid ground. Perhaps when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what you weigh, or what macronutrient ratio you have, just stick to the unprocessed foods and you’ll be right, mate!

    By zachary on August 26th, 2010 Posted in Guest Post, The Paleo Garden Party | 19 Comments »

  • Moving

    The Russians have a saying.  “Moving is worse than war.”  Take a moment to think about Russian military history in the late century—from the Tsushima Straits to Tannenburg to Stalingrad, their wars were pretty rough.

    The Russians have a lot of sayings, but this is about the moving being worse than war thing, because, well, I’m moving.

    It’s rough, in a way.  I’ve got my brood, my mini-tribe, my wife and my daughters and my dogs and my cat, to uproot and move, not across town, but a thousand kilometers.  I’ve got to find us a place in the new place, load up our gear, arrange for movers and school and utilities and all the impedimenta of modern life, of modern luxury.

    I’ve mentioned the Central Asia thing.  Yeah, once or twice, right?  Sometimes it seems like I’m a one trick pony, and that trick is talking about Central Asia, but so what?  I’ve been thinking about the differences in how I look at moving, a modern, settled, domesticated Westerner, and how my iconic Central Asian nomads looked at moving.  For me it’s a chore, for me it’s stressful, for me it’s nerve-wracking.  For them it was just what they did, loading their gear onto horses and camels, driving the sheep, breaking down and packing the yurt.  Just doing what they did, at a pace dictated by sun and wind, under the endless skies.

    The world is ever changing, the world is fluid.  Things change, as David Mamet reminded us.  A fluid situation demands a flexible response, and that’s what we’re good at.  We’re adaptable little monkeys.  Adaptable little monkeys, killer apes with a spark of the divine, whatever.  Things change, and we change how we act in response to that.

    My iconic Mongol, with his family and his yurt and his herds, moved from place to place, looking for something better, for better grazing, better climate, better terrain.  I’m looking for a quieter place, fewer people, less crowding, a more salubrious environment for regular outdoors play, recreation and exploration.  I’m a vague echo of that nomad, a pale shadow of Davy Crockett, moving when neighbors were close enough to see the smoke from their fires.

    And the move, while stressful, is the good kind of stress: it’s the short-term, high intensity kind, the kind that’s tied to goals and accomplishments.  Outrun that bear!  Make it back to shore after your kayak capsizes!  Get the heck out of Houston!

    The move won’t change everything, but it will change things.  Maybe it will work out, maybe it won’t.  This world doesn’t come with a guarantee.  But by educated choice, careful consideration and irrational calculation, I’m looking for a new home on the range.  Temujin did it.  I’m doing it too.

    By Uncle Lew on August 21st, 2010 Posted in Uncle Lew | 1 Comment »

  • Interests of Illinois PUFA growers trump Kenyans

    As shocking as it may sound but it appears that the US president favors with subsidies his fellow citizens from Illinois, farmers (e.g., big corporations operating out of his home state), who grow PUFAs (e.g., soy crops that fuel the polyunsaturated fatty acids vegetable oil industry).  It seems that he cares not whether this may further impoverish Kenyan farmers let alone further damage the health of his other fellow Americans (e.g., the consumers that eat the PUFAs, h/t Ted Hutchinson via the Ev Med Forum).

    From the paper of record, The New York Times:

    It was a point Mr. Obama had to make when he was asked at a news conference on Friday about lowering American subsidies on farm produce so African farmers could compete.

    He responded that many of his constituents were soybean farmers. “It’s important to me to be sure I’m looking out for their interests,” he said. “It’s part of my job.”

    A farmer gathers arid corn crops on his farm in Kenya's coastal town of Kwale. Food shortage, which has left over 10 million Kenyans hungry, has forced the government to divert budgetary development funding to import maize. Photo/FILE

    “A farmer gathers arid corn crops on his farm in Kenya’s coastal town of Kwale. Food shortage, which has left over 10 million Kenyans hungry, has forced the government to divert budgetary development funding to import maize. ”

    And how did this food shortage happen?  Even NPR, not the best supporter of free market principles, understands and reports on the issue:

    Bags of U.S. cornmeal are stacked in a Malawi warehouse.

    “Bags of U.S. cornmeal are stacked in a U.N. World Food Program warehouse in Blantyre, Malawi. The United States ships millions of tons of food aid to Africa each year. While the food is desperately needed in many parts of the continent, some activists and economists say the inflow of huge amounts of surplus Western-grown grain stifles agricultural development in Africa.”

    SO THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENS…

    -The US grower receives a US taxpayer subsidy. The extra padding of this subsidy allows for the US grower to price the product lower than an unsubsidized product grown elsewhere, sometimes even lower than production cost.

    -This US subsidized lower priced product is shipped/dumped in a foreign market of the third world. The foreign local growers find it difficult to compete by selling their locally grown unsubsidized products.  Their domestically grown products may or may not have higher productions costs, but these locally grown products in these third world countries don’t have the benefit of the US subsidy which allowed the US product to be priced lower than the foreign country’s market price.

    -Many farmers of the third world abandon their fields unable to compete with the US government subsidized grain that entered their countries. Given that they’re working 100 hours a week and yet can’t sell their crops for a price that’s competitive with the US subsidized product that’s entered their market, many of these 3rd world farmers have no choice but to abandon their farms, especially if the US subsidized grain is being sold at or below the production costs of these farmers.

    -Domestic production in these foreign third world markets decreases. Now that farms have been abandoned there is less domestic production.  This causes shortages which sends the alarm to start/increase US foreign aid (again paid for by the US taxpayer).

    -The US growers continue to receive a subsidy from the US taxpayer to grow these crops.

    -Now, the US growers also have their products purchased by the US government (e.g.,  US taxpayer) as food aid. Now this US subsidized crop is then bought by the US government to be shipped to some poor place half way around the world.

    -US production of these subsidized crops increases. After all, as a farmer if you see a crop that the US government is subsidizing you to grow and then buying from you, it seems like a good bet.

    -More US subsidized products are then dumped on these foreign third world markets. Now,  in the forms of “humanitarian food aid” and/or with subsidized prices (still lower than the domestic unsubsidized price of this third world country’s production) more US grown grain floods these third world markets.

    -The foreign domestic prices drop further. As the third world markets react to these huge dumpings of US food aid and subsidized goods, the increased supply further lowers the price.   The profit margin for these foreign farmers in these third world countries is further squeezed.

    -More farms in these countries are abandoned.  The domestically grown supply of grains further decreases as domestic production decreases as third world farmers leave their fields.

    -More US food aid is needed as 3rd world dependency grows.  Now that US taxpayers via subsidies and food aid have decreased the grain production of 3rd world countries, the calls to increase US food aid grow louder.

    -The US taxpayer foots the bill for all of this. In return we get poor Kenyans, and really cheap products made from grains and High Fructose Corn Syrup.

    -The reasons given for continuing the US humanitarian food aid now are in perpetual motion.  More food must be sent!  More subsidies must be paid to the US growers!

    Please ask yourselves, if you, as a US taxpayer, really wanted to see Kenyans, Africans, Asians, Latinos, Europeans… all humans fed!, wouldn’t you think it would make more sense that they be given the opportunity to feed themselves?  Wouldn’t it make better sense that rather than having corn, wheat and soy shipped half way around the world from the US that poor countries should become enabled to feed themselves?

    If these US subsidies were to stop, if food aid were to stop, and all of those US taxpayer funds were diverted to Africa for 5 seasons for them to grow food for themselves…. wouldn’t that be more of a sign that US food aid had an interest in feeding starving people?  Mind you, I’m not in favor of this option either, as I’d rather see the talented and strong Kenyans compete in a fair market and undoubtedly feed themselves without any interference… but given the disarray caused by the US subsidies and the last 50 years of “humanitarian aid”, it would make more sense than shipping corn from Iowa and soy from Illinois all the way to Kenya while in the process destroying Kenyan farms.

    And on these Kenyan farms weren’t just corn or wheat or soy, but other crops and animals that got shut down, too.  In other words, US subsidized grains not only outcompeted Kenyan domestically grown grains, but also these US subsidized crops acted as cheap substitutes for other Kenyan domestically produced items.

    Do I really think that Obama hates Kenyans and would rather see  Kenyans suffer nutritionally and economically than lose votes by not showing enough sentimentality (e.g., love via subsidies paid for by the US taxpayer) in favor of American Big Agriculture?

    No, I just believe that he is completely economically ignorant on this subject… as was Bush… as was Clinton… as was Bush the elder.  It is either that these people don’t understand the economic hardships US subsidies cause in the third world countries , or all of these previous presidential administrations (and congresses for that matter) are truly beholden to the grain lobby at the expense of the impoverished foreign farmers and the US taxpayer’s wallet and health.

    Or it can be both, I suppose… but it can’t be neither.

    Interesting that The New York times article mentions how Obama supports these ag subsidies because he’s looking out for the “small soy farmer in Illinois” (ahem, you ever see a small soy farmer?), not how he’s looking out for the Africans’ interest because they somehow can’t grow enough food for themselves.  After all, he could have corrected the Kenyan questioner in that these subsidized US crops are for Kenyans’ own good…. but he didn’t say that.

    Was it an omission that Obama didn’t mention how important it was for these US subsidies to continue for the sake of  Kenyan food security?  Or was it the inclusion of truth to admit for whose interests these subsidies were really intended?

    Obama in Iowa Corn

    “It’s important to me to be sure I’m looking out for their interests,” he said. “It’s part  of my job.”

    This is not a political attack on Democrats or a defense of Republicans.  I’m simply highlighting Obama because he is the current president, and he has gone on record to say that US ag subsidies are in fact part of his job in looking out for his big ag constituents’ interests.

    US ag subsidies causing damage to third world food production has been going on for decades, this is simply a fact, and remains a fact regardless of whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or not.  If you have a knee-jerk reaction to defend your political party regarding US subsidies and their intentions but you are blind to their immoral results (at least when your candidate is in power) then ask yourself why.

    If cognitive dissonance is forcing you to say… “yeah, but the other party did it, too!” or “yeah, but the other party did even worse things…”, then I’m afraid my points in this essay may not be ready for your contemplation.  For the paleo living movement I’m interested in exploring has people with concern for property rights, freedom of division of labor, cares about the interests of their own families, and respects how these interests may indeed affect others’ property rights and freedom of division of labor.

    US ag subsidies are a disrespect toward your property rights as a US taxpayer.  Your wealth denoted in dollars is being degraded by debt and inflation as more dollars are printed to give to a few select US politically favored citizens, US grain farmers.  US grain farmers receive subsidies and then have their crops purchased by the US government for food aid to be dumped in third world countries.  Almost like a guaranteed financial annuity.  Well, until too much money gets printed, I suppose.

    US ag subsidies are a disrespect toward third world farmers’ property rights and freedom of division of labor, as well.  These cheap US government subsidized goods flood their markets forcing them off of their property and denying them the ability to receive the proper market price for the fruits of their labors (I suppose fruits of their labors when talking about grain crops is a bit out of line…).

    We should not be interested in moral intentions that result in immoral consequences.  If you judge the free market immoral somehow but it results in the moral consequences of Africans being able to feed themselves and paleo nutritious food being able to compete against the state sponsored granaries …

    Then ask yourself, “why am I AGAINST the moral consequences of a free market for food production that would help Africans AND Americans better feed themselves in a healthy way and FOR the immoral consequences of US ag subsidies and food aid as long as they have good intentions espoused by MY CANDIDATE’s rhetoric?”

    Have you ever asked yourself this question?

    Does it really have to be this way?

    By zachary on August 16th, 2010 Posted in Granary | 7 Comments »

  • Tribes: I’m a Texan

    When I was a kid, I thought some foolish things.  It is, perhaps, one of the things about being a kid, believing foolish things.  One of the things I believed as a kid, which I now regard as foolish, was that words like tribe and tribal were negative, and connoted something primitive, somehow.  The older I get, the more words like tribe and tribal sound like community and communal to me, and that doesn’t even sound that bad.

    I’m not using tribe (or tribal) as a proxy for race, ethnicity, religion or language status, or, at least, not exclusively.  The way I see it, you can belong to a bunch of different tribes, particularly nowadays.  Like I said earlier, I regard a tribe as a community, and, certainly in today’s relatively fluid and interconnected world, you can be a member of bunches of different communities.  I’d argue that anyone who regularly visits the Paleo Garden is a member of the Paleo Tribe—-or the Primal Tribe, or the Evolutionary Fitness Tribe, or whatever tribe we decide to call it.

    So, my tribes.  I carry a spear in the Paleo/Primal tribe.  Although I’m out of the Marine Corps (and didn’t do much of anything when I was in), I still feel a strong tribal pull, not towards the Marine Corps, but to other Marines.  I’m a Christian.  I’m partially Scots by ancestry, and I feel an ancestral pull towards Scotland, although you might call that a clan thing rather than a tribal thing, which is, isn’t it, a distinction without a difference?  And I’m a Texan.

    If I remember rightly G.K. Chesterton’s knock on Rudyard Kipling, it was that Kipling loved England because it was powerful, not because it was his.  (I’ve never quite agreed with Chesterton’s interpretation, but that’s neither here nor there.)  Well, I love Texas because it’s mine, at least as much as I love Texas because of the cool things it contains.

    I’ve lived in other places, but no place feels as much like home as Texas does.  It took me a long time to accept that I’m a child of my time and my place (as everyone is a child of his time and his place).  Like I say, I’m a Texan, and my whole being has been shaped, subtly no doubt, by the people and geography and history and food and climate and music and mores and mythologies that go into Texas.

    Dr. Pepper, Willie Nelson, slow smoked brisket, Kris Kristofferson and West Texas drawls and the Hill Country whitetails, about as big as a fat Chihuahuah, the red dirt and pine woods of East Texas, greasy and cheesy Tex-Mex food (a very distinct critter compared to “Mex-Mex” or Mexican Mexican food).  It’s where I’m from.  It’s who I am.

    Like I said earlier, I love Texas because it’s mine.  That kind of love doesn’t require running down other places, or other tribes.  It’s just, I think, a recognition of a closer affinity for some things, some tribes, than for others.  Take Midwesterners, for instance.  (Please!  Rim shot.)  Great folks, really.  I’ve known some great folks from the Midwest.

    But they’re different.  Different accents, different histories, different foods, different sense of humor, different slang.  Kansas City style barbecue isn’t bad, but I’m always aware that it’s not Texas style.  I can hang in the Midwest, but it always feels like wearing a heavy pair of shoes.  In Texas, I feel barefoot.  The Paleo Tribe understands how it feels to be barefoot, to be freed, to feel your feet breathe easier and stretch and flex more.  That’s how Texas feels to me.

    Sometimes we can choose our tribes.  I chose Paleo, and I voluntarily joined the Marine Corps, voluntarily steeped myself in those tribal rituals.  Sometimes, you’re just born into a tribe.  I was born a Texan, and a Texan I am.  It’s a tribal thing.  As the gunwriter John Taffin says, to those who understand, no explanation is necessary, to those who don’t understand, no explanation will suffice.

    By Uncle Lew on August 13th, 2010 Posted in Uncle Lew | 5 Comments »

  • No Whole Fat Yogurt, only at the Speak Easy

    A Speak Easy is where in the 20’s during the prohibition of  alcohol you could covertly buy your favorite spirit from behind the bar.  You had to “speak easy” (e.g., softly the name of your contact or the password) at the front door, so they’d let you in, and you’d have access to the outlawed substance.

    Yesterday, I was at the supermarket trying to buy yogurt.  I’m trying to get the haflings to eat more fruit (well, any fruit or vegetable) and thought that a smoothy recipe might do the trick.  As I vainly searched for the Whole Fat Yogurt amongst the lowfat, nonfat, 0% fat, 1% fat, etc., I thought of the Lewis Black bit on the subject of milk (h/t Robb Wolf’s The Paleolithic Solution #38).

    I walked up to the checkout counter with a few items sans the whole fat yogurt for which I came there.  The following dialog took place:

    Checker #1: “Did you find everything alright?”

    Me: “Why, actually, no.  You have every possible combination of skim, lowfat, 0%, 1% milk and yogurt, but you don’t have any whole fat yogurt.  I’d settle for 50%, but that’s not an option either.”

    Checker #1: “Yes, we sometimes carry it, but lately it’s been harder to come by.”

    Me: “Are the inspectors coming to make sure that you don’t sell it?  It kind of reminds me of the medicinal marijuana shops in California operating legally under one set of laws, and illegally under a different set.”

    Checker #2: [who had no customers at the adjacent checkout counter] “Excuse me [chucking], did I just hear you compare whole fat dairy with a controlled substance?”

    Me: “Yes, of course, I was joking about the whole fat yogurt, but if I were talking about raw milk [something I honestly don't partake in regularly] it would be more of a crime than pot.  If I had a cow right here, and I milked it, and then offered you a glass, I’d be sent to jail faster and for longer than if I were to try to sell you a joint”

    Checker #2: “I find that hard to believe.”

    Checker #1: “No, it’s probably true.  I’ve read about it.”

    Me: “Couple the overstated warnings against raw milk and it being banned with the campaign against fat and you’ve got the makings of a product like whole fat yogurt or milk that’s nearly illegal even if it’s pasteurized. ”

    Checker #2: “Well, we don’t order a lot of it because it’s more expensive to process.” [Trying to save a bit of face]

    Me: “It would seem to me since you’d actually be leaving the fat in the product that it would be less processing of the yogurt?”

    Checker #2: [scratching his head, literally] “Well, because demand is so low, the supermarket may not be able to buy the high enough volume to make it worth it.  And it may be more expensive to market as a result.”

    And on this point, he absolutely does indeed have a point.  The law of supply and demand is definitely relevant here as it finds a place to hop and skip amongst the ridiculous whole fat health warnings and the even more silly claims that skimmed dairy magically helps you lose weight.

    I went in there to buy some good whole fat yogurt to mix with some strawberries and blueberries with a splash of milk.  What I got was the confirmation of just how deeply rooted the lowfat propaganda is, and an economics lesson from a grocery store clerk.  I would like to think that both he and I learned something in the exchange for the better.

    But I probably won’t see him that often when purchasing yogurt as I will heed his advice and go to the vegetarian promoting Whole Foods store which is farther away but is the only store in a 20 mile radius ironically and thankfully where I can find Whole Fat Yogurt.

    I will whisper what I want before entering.  As crazy as it may sound, when I read this fictional piece written 30+ years ago it made me think that we’re not far from whispering for milk, we’re not far from 1984 when it comes to milk.  The Milk Whisperers.  How crazy.  

    By zachary on August 9th, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

  • Eggplant Sandwiches

    If you’re new to the party, I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m fascinated by Central Asia.  I’m curious about how many places call bread nan, and the transitions and mutations leading from pilau to plov to pilaf.  Although it is derided some these days as romantic, Orientalist fluff, I am fascinated by the Silk Road—I mean, imagine that, imagine if you were a caravaneer four hundred years ago, taking spices or silk or . . . whatever, from here to there.  That’s cool.

    I eventually spent some time in Kazakhstan, just a couple of years, with trips to other republics and, memorably, Mongolia, and I met a woman there, in Kazakhstan, I mean, not Mongolia, and we fell in love and got married and have kids and a family, and she cooks home cooking for us.  It’s like the home cooking my grandmother used to do, up in East Texas, only of course it’s different.

    Only, of course, it’s different.

    The popular image of most Russian cuisine is that it is doughy and runs to boiling.  This is not an inaccurate image, I must admit.  However, although my wife is Russian, she’s not from Russia.  She’s from Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan, and Central Asia in general, only became Russian in the 19th century.  Central Asia has its own indigenous cultures and peoples and foods, all of which are more or less adapted to the environment, and my wife’s home cooking is, well, like Tex-Mex.  My wife’s home cooking is a fusion, a blend of old traditions and new realities.

    It’s also pretty dang good.

    I’m a carnivore from way back.  Even when I was eating the modern American diet, I was a big meat eater.  If I sat down to eat and there wasn’t meat to hand, it wasn’t a meal I was eating, I was just snacking.  Needless to say, going primal/Paleo hasn’t cut back on my meat eating, but the dish I’m about to describe is so good, it doesn’t need meat.

    I’m talking about eggplant sandwiches.

    I don’t know how many variations on the theme there are, but here’s my wife’s.  You’ll need a nice, good eggplant, “firm yet yielding,” like a Bond girl.  Mayonnaise, the more primal the better, and extra points for making your own per Mark Sisson’s post on the subject. A head of garlic.  A few tomatoes, and as Guy Clark reminds us, there ain’t nothing better than home grown tomatoes.

    So yeah, you get extra points again if you use a home grown tomato.  You’ll need some olive oil, coarse black pepper and coarse salt.  Kosher salt is the easy way to go here.  You’ll need some butter, to pan fry your bread.  Yeah, I said it.  I went there.  I dropped the b word.  Bread.  I avoid bread, but from time to time, I’ll indulge.  Wheat, yes, grain, yes, bad for me, yes, yes.  I treat bread like I treat whiskey—-an occasional indulgence in John Barleycorn, done in moderation, with full knowledge that there’s better things to put into my body.  Still, bread.

    Not WonderBread, but real bread.  Bread with a list of ingredients that runs more to salt, flour, yeast and water than twenty-nine varieties of shelf-stabilizers, high fructose corn syrup and polysaccharides.  (Just kidding about the polysaccharides, I think.)  A French baguette works fine.  For us, if a baguette’s not to hand, we pop down to the Polish store around the corner and get one of their fresh baked loaves.

    As for the cooking itself, I prefer to give general guidelines.  If you start with good ingredients, you can assemble them a lot of different ways.  But here’s how we do ours.

    Slice the eggplant to the thickness of thick sliced bologna—-or thick sliced, uncured bacon, which would be better than bologna of any thickness.  Brush each slice, on each side, with olive oil.  Heat your skillet to high heat, and grill the eggplant for about three minutes per side.  This will smell wonderful, and set the stage for the rest of the experience.

    Slice the baguette or Polish loaf of bread to the thickness you desire.  My wife likes Texas toast sized slices, but you can slice it a good bit thinner as well.  Slather on the butter.  As always, it’s vastly easier if your butter has warmed and softened.  In a fresh skillet, pan fry that bread.  Now the smells will be hitting you hard, but hold out!

    Now it’s time for the sauce.  Honestly, you can make the sauce in advance.  Based on my wife, Russians are crazy for mayonnaise, and Russians are crazy for garlic, and this sauce is basically a mayonnaise and garlic mix.  Peel your garlic and run it through a garlic press, to better release the essential oils.  (An equally valid alternative is to simply finely chop your garlic, which doesn’t diffuse the flavor so much, but provides little garlic explosions in your mouth, which is also a good thing.)

    Mix up your garlic and mayonnaise.  Proportions will vary by taste.  A little garlic goes a long way, so I like to use a lot of garlic, to go a long, long way.  Slice up your tomatoes.  (There’s only two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and home grown tomatoes.)

    Assemble the sandwich as follows: the bread goes on the bottom (duh), followed by a slice of eggplant, then a generous layer of the sauce, and topped with a slice of tomato.  Serve open faced.  Prepare lots, because you’ll eat ‘em up faster than you could even imagine.

    By Uncle Lew on August 9th, 2010 Posted in Food ideas, Uncle Lew | No Comments »

  • Uncle Lew: Not Dead, Not Fled, Not Disinterested

    When you read the title aloud, you have to pronounce “disinterested” with the emphasis on the final syllable; it comes out more euphonious that way.  Anyway.  I’ve been absent from the pages of The Paleo Garden for a while now.  I wanted to let everyone know that I’m not dead, haven’t fled the jurisdiction, and haven’t lost interest in the paleo lifestyle.  Been some other stuff going on.

    The other stuff has been, in essence, thinking about getting out of Houston, Texas, my home town and where we’ve been living, the wife and I, and the ankle biters, since we came back to the Continental US from overseas.  As Steve Earle sings in “Fort Worth Blues,” Houston really ain’t that bad a town.  Still, I haven’t been happy here, and my wife hasn’t been happy here, and my kids haven’t been happy here, and like the wise old man down at the checker board beside the pot bellied stove at the general store around the corner from the courthouse likes to say, if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.


    I’ve been looking around for a place to live that’s more paleo friendly.  You can sum that up, in short, as fewer people and a climate that’s more conducive to doing things outdoors.  If you’re not familiar with Houston, let me sum it up for you.  It’s the fourth largest city in America, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t be the fourth largest city in America if it wasn’t for air conditioning.

    Houston runs hot, guys.  Lyle Lovett used the expression, in one of his songs, that it was hotter than concrete in July in Houston, and he wasn’t just bumping his gums when he sang that.  Houston runs hot.  The average temperature in Houston in July is about 95 degrees, but that’s not the real hickey.  As we like to say, it isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity.  95 degrees at 50 percent humidity is one thing: 95 and 95 is a whole different critter.

    As for population itself, well, Houston has almost 3 million residents, and if you consider the greater Houston metropolitan area, you can add almost another three million.  That’s a lot of people.

    To modify a quote from Gen. Phil Sheridan, if I owned Hell and Houston, I’d live in Hell and rent out Houston.

    That’s not to knock Houston, too much.  Those six million people didn’t move here because they didn’t have any other choice, and they don’t stay here because they can’t leave.  Oil and natural gas, aerospace, biomedical research: all of them are significant players in the Houston economy.  We’ve got people from all over the world here: Russians, Vietnamese, Nigerians, and a few Mexicans.  Houston is a very international city, and I mean that in a good way.

    But the heat and the humidity and the crowding all add up to a mostly indoor existence, and “mostly indoor existence” just doesn’t show up on the paleo checklist.  It doesn’t make Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint, either, come to think of it.

    So I’m doing what any self-respecting hunter gatherer would do:  I’m hunting for a new range to roam, I’m gathering information, I’m spending time walking around new places, smelling new smells, looking at new sights, checking out the tribal mores and tribal ways of the tribes already roaming the new ranges that I, too, am looking to roam.  This has been cutting into my PG productivity.

    Bushman Art 2

    But now, I think I’ve made a decision, and it’s time to get moving on implementing said aforementioned decision.  It’s going to be pretty stressful for the next few weeks, but it’s the right kind of stress: short term, intense, and oriented around a goal.

    Bushman Art

    I’ll keep you posted.  And remember: not dead, not fled, and not disinterested, that’s Uncle Lew!

    To view Uncle Lew’s other articles in The Paleo Garden Archives, click here.

    By Uncle Lew on August 6th, 2010 Posted in Uncle Lew | 4 Comments »

  • A Day in the Life of… (Part V, Feet of Clay)

    A Day in the Life of… warts and all. I’ll go into meticulous detail assuming you have the same knowledge of food and cooking as I did 2-20 years ago.

    Here are:

    Part I (breakfast),

    Part II (lunch),

    Part III (dinner),

    Part IV (the witching hour).

    I wrote this series to show you that as Uncle Lew often says, we all have feet of clay. I have my paleo heroes out there. But they aint perfect. And certainly neither am I. The pursuit of perfection has made me quite miserable in my life, including my pursuit of paleo perfection.  I’m much happier taking a different tack.

    Fasting once every 3 days, working out and doing a sprint session once or more every week, not eating anything Neolithic, embracing grassfed meat and wild caught seafood at all times…  all of that sounds well and good, it doesn’t always work out like that.

    I’m not perfect, and neither should I want to be. I work out once every 7-21 days. Sometimes it’s 2-3 times a week. I don’t like going into workouts exhausted from work. I sprint once every 7-21 days. I buy meat at the grocery chain store from time to time, usually organic, but when the beef is labeled vegetarian cornfed… yeah, I know the deal. When I have time (and money) to buy the grassfed and wild caught, I do. When I don’t, I don’t.  I’m progressively getting better.  I do an 18 hour fast from 3pm on Friday to 9am on Saturday once a moon, sometimes more often though, maybe once every 7-14 days randomly skipping a meal, usually breakfast.

    These are the things that cause me to go off the rails:

    -Dairy. Usually cheese and cream up regulate my desire to have some corn chips.

    -Mexican food. It’s impossible to have Mexican without the rice, corn chips, and tortillas. Try you will, not succeed you will. In the 4-5 times I’ve eaten Mexican, I was successful in avoiding all of that 50% of the time, the other 50% of the time it led me to continue with other stuff, usually stuff involving a lot chips with salsa and drinks with salt on the rim.

    -Cheese cake. Cheese cake leads to donuts and other kinds of cake.

    -French fries.  When I have potatoes, any kind of potatoes, it leads to French Fries cooked in PUFA’s.  If I have a potato I know I’m one step away from justifying a big sack of fries at a fast food place.

    If there’s cheese in the house, a pound of it will be eaten after 8pm if the Witching Hour strikes me. That’s where I depart company with lacto-paleos. Great quantities of cheese makes my intestines a bit sore the next day, mucus in my throat and nose, and given that cheese will spike my insulin levels, I’m probably not improving my insulin sensitivity that much.

    Cheese and potatoes, again may work for some in moderation. I don’t know how to do moderation with cheese and potatoes, because unlike meat, seafood and vegetables, I can keep eating both of these items until my belly extends like a dumb horse that eats the overturned barrel of oats until he nearly dies. I’m a HUGE fan of Robb Wolf, bordering on Kathy Bates. His recommendations for eating yams I can deal with. If I only buy 1-2 yams a week at the grocery store, and thus there are only 2 yams in the house, I will stop at 2 yams. If there are 5 yams in the house and the Witching Hour strikes… I’m eating 5 yams.

    I have a system that I do the shopping on Saturday or Sunday. I freeze large portions in small freezer bags (e.g., 3 thighs, 5 burgers, 1 steak, 2 pork loins). All in all, I’ll make about 14-21 bags of these various kinds of meat on a Saturday after shopping for the upcoming week’s consumption. Each evening throughout the week I’ll rotate 1-2 of these frozen bags from the freezer to the fridge so that by the next evening or the evening after next it’s thawed out. I always have 1-2 packets of bacon ready to go in the fridge.  I cook (usually grill meat) in the evenings for what I’m having that evening for dinner, and what I’m having for lunch the next day.  I chop my salads for that evening’s dinner and the  next day’s lunch while listening to Jimmy Moore, Robb Wolf or whatever music may strike me.

    If you look at the foods I listed for breakfast, lunch and dinner it’s easy to imagine my grocery list. It’s really simple and doesn’t really change that much from week to week. I usually over buy eggs, bacon and all the other kinds of meat. I try to only eat food from these items that I bought myself at the store. And sticking to just these items from my grocery list is really simple most of the time.

    After all, it’s a lot of nutritious food, good variety, and though it may be bland for some people at first compared to their preferred sprayed on cheese puff flavorings, over time my taste buds have thrived on this diet. I try once every couple of weeks or so some of the awesome recipes on Girl Gone Primal or the countless other sites out there. Son of Grok is always a good place to search, too.  Marc’s Feel Good Eating is another great one.  Being a paleo foodie is cool, and when opportunity meets desire, eat like a paleo gourmet.  But just eating good real food isn’t a consolation prize, it’s not falling short.  I don’t find eating my way boring at all, though some have told me they couldn’t get by on it.  I’m fancy in the kitchen about once a week if I’m doing the cooking.

    These unnecessary feelings of falling short of paleo perfection lead to running off the rails in a big time manner. Because if you fail, you might as fail big time, right?

    This is how I’ve increased my lean muscle mass and sustained and maintained a weight loss of 65 pounds for the last 21 months from my high back in the spring of 2008. It’s not a lot of work. I work out and sprint as often as I can, without stressing if it doesn’t happen. I’m working on doing an intermittent fast more often, but not beating myself up. When I can go to bed without resorting to 8pm bacon or chocolate, it indeed is a much more pleasant sleep and a more energetic next morning. I’m learning to deal with the Witching Hour, and if combating it with bacon, or another burger, or 90% Lindt chocolate keeps me from paleo sainthood, that’s OK.

    I could be stronger, leaner, faster, and even more metabolically fit.  But right here and right now, it’s a trade off to playing, spending time with family and for now working some long hours.  What I have noticed is that every week despite my leanings that I could have done more, that I could have done better… my body composition and mental acuity improves progressively.  There’s no rush.

    I have experimented and played with the typical day in the life of meals that I have written about here.  I’m not afraid or opposed to try something new, or sticking to what I know shaking my fist that I’m right… this simply has worked for me.  Milk and potatoes for me are gateway drugs to ice cream with cookie dough and fried meats with flour based gravy.  I cook with butter, and lots of it, and that’s where my dairy line is drawn.  I don’t need raw milk for growth like I don’t need creatine.  But, that’s just me.

    If following some of these “A Day in the Life Of… protocols” work for you, that’s great, because it’s rather easy.  It’s 100% effective!  I’m telling this diet is fool proof, it’s the best the world has ever seen!  In the history of mankind nothing like this has ever come along!

    But that really just means, it works for me.  It works for me, for now.  It may change.

    It took me awhile to develop a flexible diet/lifestyle that worked for me.  You can use this as a starting block, or just a template.  If something already works for you, then do what you’re doing and be happy.  But don’t be afraid to vary it up, especially if life asks you to deviate from your routine.  Find what works for you, be more creative than I am, or be less. In the end, I don’t know how to give you directions to the freeway, all I can tell you is how I get there.

    There is no one way.  There is no perfection, only disappointments in your perfect little plan which tried to predict the future but yet didn’t adhere to the outcomes from the probabilities that you had all worked out.   All of us have Feet of Clay, even folks who wear Vibram’s.  

    My next series will be on my strength training, which will mainly be a recount of my top influences. Not sure when it will drop, but it will come.

    By zachary on August 2nd, 2010 Posted in Daily Routine, EF-De Vany reference, Food ideas, Normal Carb Diet | No Comments »

  • Milestones at The Paleo Garden

    June 2010 and The Paleo Garden’s 1-year anniversary came and went without me taking notice.  I suppose that this is as it should be.

    My article “Fiat Money, Food, and Health All Go Bust” was published on the premiere libertarian website in the world carrying on the legacy and ideas of the great Austrian economists like Mises and Hayek. I have written elsewhere about the common principles between Austrian economic thought and biological systems that cooperate together to perform various actions. The Paleo Path, Part I and Part II. Wooden Nickels and Metabolic Syndrome.

    A lot has happened over this last year. Now is a good time to go over our most popular posts of the last 6 months.

    1. Bread is like sugar on the tongue

    This outrageous post shows how quickly sugars from bread break down on the tongue and register on a glucose testing strip. The indifferent reaction of the lady still recommending heap loads of bread as part of a diet to manage diabetes is THE exemplar of maintaining the lowfat/high sugar dogma regardless of the scientific counter evidence literally right in front of your face.

    2. Sex. Lies, and …Fibre to Combat Vice? (Part I)
    and here’s     Part II.

    Did you know that the fiber movement (no pun intended) had its origins in some seedy, sleazy thoughts about SEX? And these same “sordid” opinions in a completely ironic way are now being used by these same fiber pushers (no pun intended)? Lorette C. Luzajic gives you the straight poop (and I do admit that that pun was indeed intended).

    3. Wolves Among Dogs: Paleo-riffic

    “I’ve always been fat.  Not “fat fat” and not “American fat” in that I have always been able to walk, and touch my toes with a little grunting and straining…    I always knew I could get in shape, with sufficient effort, and I always thought that the effort would be high and prolonged.  Although it pains me to admit it, I was flat-out wrong.  I’m losing weight, I’m getting stronger, I’m getting healthier, I sleep better, I feel better . . . and it’s easy, and getting easier all the time.”  Uncle Lew explains why after going paleo he feels Paleo-riffic.

    4.  Kairos, the right time to start evolutionary living

    Learn about the word Kairos, it may help explain why you “got it” and why others don’t.

    5.  Evolutionary Women

    If you’re looking for role models for your daughters…. or sons, or YOU!, then look no further. These Evolutionary Women are making paleo less brutish sounding. When we can get to the point where when initially explained about the paleo perspective the first thing a woman thinks of isn’t a caveman pulling a cavewoman by her ponytail then we’ll have really made progress. By the way, this list was compiled just a couple of weeks after Melissa started Hunt, Gather, Love, so her “honorable mention” at the end of this list is hugely outdated!

    6.  Vegetarian Lies

    Lorette C. Luzajic sheds some light on the stories we’ve been told that not eating a vegetarian diet will make us unhealthy.

    7.  High Carbohydrate Diabetes Inducing (HCDI) Diet

    There is ONE diet that does exactly what it sets out to do, and you can look at reams of research from Nutrition and Metabolism if you have any doubts. The HCDI diet is promoted by various camps all doing their part in making sure that this diet lives up to its name. Good job, guys.

    8. Inside Baseball

    Are you sometimes going off about paleo with such incomprehensible lingo that it’s like explaining baseball to a cricket player? Or better yet, like explaining cricket to anyone living in North America? If so, then you’re talking “Inside Baseball.” Uncle Lew explains how you may get your point across more lucidly.

    9. They’re Happy Because They Eat Butter: Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions

    Lorette C. Luzajic gives a spectacular overview of the accomplishments of the evolutionary woman, Sally Fallon, and her work to carry on the legacy of the great Weston A. Price.

    10.  How Dr. Bernstein Rescued my Health: A Diabetes Adventure Tale

    This piece by Andrea Isom was the first guest post ever on The Paleo Garden. It is a wildly popular post which is no surprise given Andrea’s awesome professional writing skills. Thanks, Andrea, for sharing your story so that people who were in your shoes may find a safe ending to their Diabetes Adventure Tales.

    My wife will be participating in the Ancestral Health Symposium next year presenting how bariatric psychology may incorporate a Paleolithic perspective.  There is much to say about this and about what she’s doing between now and then, but there will be time to talk about that later.

    By the way, in this Fiat Money, Food, and Health All Go Bust piece there’s a link under “produce prodigies of Keys” for Denise Minger’s article “The China Study: Fact or Fallacy.”  Kudos to Richard Nikoley of Free The Animal for mobilizing our community to highlight Denise’s findings.  I hope by linking to it in my “Fiat Money, Food and Health” article, I may humbly further contribute to the attention being given to exposing the faulty data/science on which rests the lowfat/high sugar dogma that’s causing so much horror.

    And lastly, on the left hand column of the The Paleo Garden you will find The Paleo Post, the latest snapshot of an attempt to find the various points in the Venn diagram where our old Paleo Garden’s ways may overlap with the modern world.

    On many issues we may be on different ends of the spectrum, but we’re on the same side of the barricades in The Paleo Garden. Be excellent to each other.

    By zachary on July 26th, 2010 Posted in Popular Posts, The Paleo Garden Party | 2 Comments »

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