Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Top 10 people you’d like to see go paleo

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Awhile back I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Richard Feinman. Feinman is someone about whom I never would have even known had it not been for Jimmy Moore promoting his work. Dr. Feinman made the point that if someone of considerable “Q score” (e.g., name recognition) adopted a low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (LCKD) then perhaps enough critical mass would follow of other notables and people in general (e.g., your brother Larry, etc.) that the science and healthy results behind a “normal carb” diet would actually get the proper forum it deserves.

So, I thought I’d come up with my Top 10 list of people that might make little dents in the lowfat ceiling if they adopted an evolutionary diet.

10. Dean Ornish

Can you imagine if Dean gave up grains or at least limited them? Dr. Andrew Weil is the only doctor with any former name recognition in the lowfat world that has come out to admit that the relationship between insulin and metabolic syndrome may have something to with carbohydrates, and fat may not be the culprit after all. Good for Dr. Weil. If Dean could stop pushing nutrient poor grains in favor of even a modest nudge toward a paleo diet, he would literally be welcomed with open arms.

9. Rush Limbaugh

Telling Rush Limbaugh he’s Full of Crap (by Leftake.com)

Al Franken once called Rush Limbaugh a big, fat idiot. I’m not going to comment on the idiocy part, but I always kind of thought Franken’s “big” descriptor was a cheap shot that was only apropos because Limbaugh was…well, “fat.” Rush Limbaugh is a Lean, Skinny Idiot” probably wouldn’t have been published and Al Franken might not have been elected to the Senate. Now, if that doesn’t sit well with you, at least consider that if Rush went paleo all of the ditto heads would follow and adopt a paleo diet. Unfortunately, when you’re living paleo you can’t be a ditto head and just parrot what other people say… that’s not how we roll in the paleo world. So either Rush would change a lot of his message or the ditto heads would become paleo heads.  So, whether you’re politically left or right leaning, it would be a wash with Franken out of the senate and ditto heads going paleo.  Not a bad deal.

8. Gwyneth Paltrow

My goodness. Her recent health problems are a direct result of her simply unhuman diet. She’s a smart lady and a memorable actress. If Gwyneth went paleo and basically said that the diet she used to follow was like an Emperor with no clothes, I mean we all see what it did to her and others, right!?, then I wonder how many other starlets would rethink starvation, marathons, and whole grain mainlining.

7. Christopher Hitchens

I mostly read Hitchens’ articles to see just how much I will disagree with him. However, when I am on the same page as he and even when I’m not, he’s a brilliant writer. He uses his pen as a very effective propagandist when that’s what he thinks is called for.

I remember once Hitch saying that he enjoyed while going through school and starting out in his career having the sense that he was just simply smarter than so many of his teachers and rivals. I don’t consider the fact that Hitchens smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish as a sign of stupidity. However, it’s been my experience on a paleo diet that it’s a bit difficult to drink heavily. And not to give smoking a clean bill of health either, but it would be fascinating to see a study of lung cancer among smokers eating the Standard American Diet (with or without junk food) and lowcarb dieting smokers.

What pains me, though he be a Trotskyite, is to see someone so intelligent, currently having health problems, throat cancer to be specific, that will be recommended to cut back to a healthy lowfat diet. I don’t know Hitchens’ opinion of Tim Russert, but it’s a good bet that he’s going down the same medical care path though they be afflicted with different ailments. If Hitchens meets the same fate, smoking and drinking will be blamed and his probable lowfat diet prescription will get off scot-free, because after all it was just too little too late. I hope that this isn’t going to be the sad stupid way to die for someone so smart. I’m calling you out Hitch, right here, right now. Give proof that on the subject of healing yourself that you’re as smart as you say you are.

And no, I’m not saying a paleo/lowcarb diet can cure cancer, but would it be more advisable than what’s going to be prescribed to Hitch?  Absolutely.

6. Kirstie Alley

I remember having my doubts about Kirstie when she first took over for Diane during the era of the Cheers television program on Thursday nights. She won me over. Though her weight issues in a way have prolonged her time in the limelight, it’s a good bet that she’s had about enough of the spotlight’s pressure. Every pound gained or lost is guessed at in every new picture. I can’t help but see it on the magazine rack when I buy groceries. Someone like Kirstie going paleo, eating when hungry, working out 20 minutes per week (maximum), and speaking out that it’s not that hard to follow would put paleo and her in the tabloids. Maybe the soccer moms (and dads) that I see at the store would then purchase less of the lowfat yogurt for themselves and the juice boxes that they buy their kids. Come on, Kirstie, go paleo, go where everybody knows your name.

5. Fat Joe

Yes, Fat Joe makes the list! I like Fat Joe’s raps, and think that he plays a unique role in the hip hop community. I would imagine that he (like many of my Mexican friends and I) enjoys the high carbohydrate diet of corn, beans, flour tortillas and rice. Thank goodness for gluten free Mexican restaurant menus on the one hand, but on the other hand you put me in a Mexican joint and one margarita later I’m eating burritos like that Japanese hotdog eating champion. If Fat Joe went paleo he could change his name to Phat Joseph and set a great example that life as a latino can go on without heaping helpings of starches.  By the way, I realize that Fat Joe aint Mexican.

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger

arnold-schwarzenegger

Can you imagine if the Terminator Gubernator ate like a barbarian of old? “Arnold, how did you get back into such great shape at your age of 70 for the latest Conan film showcasing the warrior king’s last battles?” “It was easy,” answered Arnold, “I went paleo, raised more bison then Ted Turner, burned down all of the grain fields that got in my way, and delighted in the lamentations of the dietary advisory board.”

3. Ricky Gervais

I love Gervais’ sense of humor (and sense of humour), in other words I really enjoy both the US and UK version of “The Office” TV show. Do yourself a favor and check out Ricky’s comedy routines, especially the one about Humpty Dumpty. Now, our Brit funnyman recently came out saying that he doesn’t understand why anyone can’t find the will to make themselves less fat (fat like he used to be that is). All you have to do is eat less and get off your duff. Ricky went on to explain that his weight loss is due to running his arse off, cutting back on fatty foods, blah, blah, blah.

I imagine Gervais’ diet consisting of lowfat yogurt, whole wheat toast, and skinless chicken breast, or probably some variant of a lowfat/high sugar diet. He’s lost some weight not because he’s eating less fat, but because he’s reduced his caloric intake of sugary foods, however his diet remains high in its % of carbohydrates. His chronic running is burning off a lot of his dietary sugar/carbohydrates, but the pounding of his joints and lack of fats and proteins are setting him up like an exhausted hamster on a treadmill. Not sustainable. When he stops spinning, that high sugar/lowfat diet is going to get old real quick. Ricky, I wish you all of the best, but if the wheels start coming off, go paleo. It would be rich in comedic material.

2. Alec Baldwin

I’ve already done posts on this: Part I, Part II, and Part III. There’s a lot of talk about Alec being more of a sex icon and a more successful comedic actor now with his heavier frame. Not a bad argument to just continue what he’s doing. Alec’s role on 30 Rock is iconic. However, being there for your family for another 30-40 years might be something you’d call a success, too. I wouldn’t want him to end up like his Jack Donagy heart attack prone character, he doesn’t have to. And I think a healthier Alec would still continue to win Emmys.

1. Oprah

The ultimate conversion. There is no doubt. Here’s a review of some of what has already been written by the paleo community about Oprah Winfrey and how paleo would benefit her rather than her trying to implement this torture plan.

1.  Oprah’s Weight Loss Yo-Yo Woes

2. Oprah’s Paleo Recipe for Success

3. Clueless, how Oprah could go Paleo

By going paleo, Oprah would do more for women (especially African American women) dealing with weight and self esteem issues than any conceivable person ever could. Heck, I’d even tell friends that I was on the Oprah diet instead of the paleo diet if she was on it. I’m still hoping that De Vany will be a guest on her show when he launches his book.

Besides the person residing in the #1 spot, the others are in order of when I thought of them. Given that this is a dream list, I didn’t want to over analyze it too much. What do you think of this list? Who did I leave off?  

Please understand that hunter-gatherer/paleo/evolutionary diets have a broad range of application and may not necessarily have the same low carbohydrate as the LCKD which researchers like Feinman, Volek and many others are studying. However, I think in either case the point is that these diets are closer to the default human diet than what is being advocated by the Standard American Diet. Therefore, my use of paleo in this post for the sake of argument is meant to be synonymous with lowcarb though for many paleo diet adherents your carb intake may vary upward to the point that lowcarb is not an accurate descriptor.  

The Paleo Post has been updated

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

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.

Deficits are similar to carbs: the more you eat, the hungrier you get. –Nassim Taleb.

Keynesianism is akin to binging on Neolithic foods.

Cheap carb binging is to metabolic syndrome, as deficit spending is to an economy with a hyperinflated debased currency. After awhile even a wheel barrel of money won’t buy a loaf of bread, and no amount of insulin will provide your resistant cells energy.  

The Paleo Post has been updated

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

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.

Be sure to check out the interesting analysis by Joe Rogan (comedian, blackbelt, tv star, mixed martial arts commentator, and, yes, a rather interesting and funny philosopher).   There’s a few really good oldy but still goody links also in this edition of The Paleo Post that paleo folks who’ve been around for a few years might take for granted but for some just starting out may have overlooked.

Learn more about the Nutrition and Metabolism Journal and the Nutrition and Metabolism Society.

Here’s a couple more. In this essay by Stephan of Whole Health News there’s some fantastic content in the article itself and a great dialog between Stephan and the king of all cholesterol analysts, Chris Masterjohn, that’s really worth checking out.   And finally, the epic interview of Robb Wolf on the Livin La Vida Lowcarb Show is here, the wait is over.  

Nassim Taleb and a circle

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

I wrote a piece that was featured on Darwin’s Table (Part I and Part II) about how the road I took to eating like a human again was probably facilitated by my understanding of Austrian economics.  Or, to be specific, by understanding how centrally planned economies that use a fiat money to inflate their way out of debt is doomed to fail in the same way that the lowfat diet dogma advice, which came to us from the centrally planned nexus of government subsidized medicine and government subsidized agriculture, is doomed.

Fiat Money
Houses and projects were financed and started but not completed because they were fueled by a bubble of credit made possible by the centrally planned interest rate near zero.  Think of how many resources went into projects that never should have been financed, think of how these resources are locked into abandoned houses or businesses that the government is propping up with more money they’re printing out of thin air.  Think of how much of this capital could have been put toward more productive purposes instead of being invested in projects that never should have been financed to begin with had it not been for a centrally planned interest rate and a printing press.

Fiat Diet and Health
Fields and fields of corn, soy, rice, and wheat are financed by a bubble of subsidies paid by US taxpayers via the US government.  The centrally planned government advice of eating lowfat and high carb has made us into a nation of obese diabetics with hypertension.  Think of how many resources are locked into all of the agricultural equipment, fields and medical industries to feed and then treat this diseased citizenry.  Think of how much of this capital could have been put toward more productive purposes, more healthy investments of grassfed cattle and vegetables with more nutritional value than crops producing High Fructose Corn Syrup and Metabolic Syndrome.  (“…No system can be created that will not ultimately implode under the weight of a diseased citizenry…”, hat tip to Theory to Practice).

Money being printed out of thin air is paying for propagation of this NonHuman HighCarb Diet by funding medical professionals grants to parrot (not research) the lowfat dogma.  Money being printed out of thin air to grow the high carbohydrate and low nutritional crops of  corn, soy, and wheat.  Money being printed out of thin air to treat our diseased citizenry in effect subsidizing and centrally planning health care.

On healthcare epistemocrat, Brent writes that he was introduced to De Vany/Evolutionary Fitness via Nassim Taleb.  For me the circle goes a bit in the opposite direction and went around again, and now the circle is just spinning.  I went from an understanding of Austrian economics (albeit a layman’s), to practicing an Evolutionary Fitness approach to an appreciation of Taleb’s work made known to me by his application of Evolutionary Fitness.  And I should note, this appreciation of Taleb’s work really was facilitated by Brent and in turn Brent’s multi-faceted pursuits.  Thanks, Brent.

This interview may be the best interview I’ve heard of Taleb, but it’s also surprisingly a great representation of almost all of my life’s (until now!) contemplations.  I say “surprisingly is a great representation” because I’m frankly shocked at how much I understand of what Taleb is talking about, and a bit surprised by how much I understand now regarding what I don’t know.  From the business cycle to the paleo diet, from history to complexity, from freedom to Black Swans…   As is mentioned in this interview, all of this complexity is rather simple to understand, as long as you are searching for what you don’t know instead of vainly trying to confirm what you do know to predict what will happen next.

I mean, I can see the Black–Scholes model and prejudices against Saturated Fat as bowling partners now.  Stock picking gamblers using a silly formula and lowfat silly people both wearing jackets with a logo on the back of bowling pins clinking together.

Orangutans aren’t supposed to eat fish

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Check out this slide show from New Scientist (h/t John Hawks).

Orang-utans supposedly can’t swim (at least not well) and don’t eat fish.  Well…

“Orang-utans aren’t supposed to eat fish, let alone hunt them,” says Russon. “They’re primarily fruit eaters, and they rarely hunt.” So it came as a surprise when the Kaja orang-utans were seen grabbing live fish from streams and eating them.

So, if you were to come up with a symbol that represented when we as primates went from a fruit/vegetables/insects diet to include fish and meat, and how our brain development took off as our stomachs shrank from these energy rich foods, and how when we cooked the meat we unlocked even more nutrients to feed our brain and make our stomachs do less work, thus shrinking our stomachs and giving even more energy to an energy-thirsty brain, well, what would that symbol look like?  I’ll give you a hint.  

The Paleo Post has been updated

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

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.  

The Paleo Post has been updated

Monday, March 29th, 2010

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.  

Food or Poison, Crap or Ham Sandwich

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

The following post is dedicated to Diana Hsieh and her colleagues who recently launched: Modern Paleo

I have been a reader of Diana’s writings and those of some of the contributers to Modern Paleo long before “going paleo.”  In a recent piece I noted the overlap between those with classical liberal (in the current vernacular that would be libertarian or independent minded world view) and those in the evolutionary living community that favor a human birthright diet, healthy metabolic fitness, and a lifestyle that is in harmony with the world.  Go here to find out more about Modern Paleo Principles and why and how to subscribe to their Paleo Bloggers email list.

Yes, folks that means meat eaters (along with vegetables and fruits) may make grass fed beef purchases that are more environmentally friendly than a grain-eating vegan/vegetarian buying tofu, and the paleo diet adherent may not even be conscious of it!  In fact, a primal adherent’s food purchases may respect property rights and voluntary division of labor much more than an objectivist’s purchasing twinkees.  But that is neither here nor there.

One doesn’t have to define themselves as one or the other (Paleo or Objectivist), or even know what they have in common, but it’s an interesting overlap that may draw one “camp” to the other’s lingo.  Other than reading her masterpieces I’m not an expert on Ayn Rand’s objectivism philosophy, but as a layman disciple of the Austrian economics school, let’s just say that we’re on the same side of the barricades here.  Peace and Freedom.

Again, you don’t have to read or for that matter agree with everything that Hayek, or Mises, or Rand espouse to understand the underlying economic and environmental principles of how “things need to be” to allow the paleo/primal lifestyle to be obtainable and allowed for the human race to thrive in health and continue with mutual benefit towards each other with optimal efficiency.  Ok, so, this one’s for you folks over at The Modern Paleo Blog.

Food or Poison, Crap or Ham Sandwich

“In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” — Ayn Rand, ‘The Anatomy of Compromise,’ “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”

Please suspend your political thinking for 2 minutes.  This post has nothing to do with left, right, socialism, capitalism or a fantasy of a return to a paleo libertarian communal life.  Believe me, I’m not even suggesting that people who don’t eat like me or advocate a different diet than me are evil.  But when there is a choice between food and poison….

Ayn Rand’s quote above  in context was talking about an analogy of if you were given a choice between FOOD and POISON, there is no compromise.  If you eat all or a just a little bit of poison as a “compromise”, poison and death win.  It’s like a ham sandwich and crap (h/t Joe Rogan).  If it’s a 95% ham sandwich and 5% crap, you may call it a ham sandwich but would you eat it?  If it’s 95% crap and 5% ham sandwich, can you really even call it a ham sandwich?

Here’s a quote from an MSNBC article (h/t Free The Animal) that really does a decent job explaining that high levels of bad cholesterol come NOT from fat, but from high carbohydrates.  On the third page of this article we have a quote from Dean Ornish, who, in addition to being a devout believer in phrenology, is also a believer that a nonhuman highcarb/highsugar/lowfat diet full of Healthy Whole Grains is what’s best for you.

Here’s the quote from Ornish:

“I like Ron Krauss and admire his work,” says Dean Ornish, M.D., a fellow Bay Area heart-disease researcher and surely the most visible proponent of the idea that a diet low in saturated fat and high in carbohydrates can help reduce the risk of heart disease. But Dr. Ornish says Dr. Krauss shifted his study participants from pattern A to pattern B by having them eat more of the processed carbohydrates. “The carbohydrates they fed people were predominantly refined, like sugar and white flour,” says Dr. Ornish. “That’s not what I’ve been recommending.”

So what exactly is Ornish recommending?

He’s recommending Healthy Whole Grains.  And as I’ve seen elsewhere on paleo sites, since “whole grains” are always preceded by the word “healthy”, I shall disparagingly call them HealthyWholeGrains, and ask you to read that phrase a bit louder and out loud when you see it, as if you’re overfilled with joy.  HealthyWholeGrains!!! Yippee!!

I remember listening to a Jimmy Moore interview of Michael Eades, when Eades said that Ornish’s recommendation of eating “healthy” whole grains (I’m paraphrasing here) to someone who may be intolerant of high levels of glucose (and may be gluten intolerant, too) is like saying eating sugar is OK as long as it’s wrapped in a coating of fiber.  Great old school interviews by the way with both Michael and Mary Eades, Part I here and Part II here.

I’ll go a step further, Ornish is not just telling you to eat HealthyWhole Grains (yippee!), he’s telling you to make a compromise between your food and poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).  The whole gang advocating 6-11 servings per day of grains to complement a lowfat diet want you to be bipartisan when it comes to food and poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).

HOWEVER, going along with the crap/ham sandwich analogy, Ornish isn’t recommending that you eat a 100% crap sandwich of refined sugar and white flour.

He’s not even recommending that you eat a 95% ham sandwich with 5% of refined sugar/white flour and/or HealthyWholeGrains.

Dean is recommending that you eat the equivalent of a 95% carbohydrate-crap sandwich with 5% of HealthyWholeGrains fiber.  In other words, the HEALTHYWHOLEGRAINS distinction is really just fiber wrapped around the high level of carbohydrate that you’re eating.  It would be like thinking an M&M is OK if it had a fibrous coating instead of a hard candy shell.  Even though the M&M would have sugar in the middle, since it’s wrapped in healthy fiber, it won’t spike your blood sugar!!!!…….  ahhhh, no.

Since this hypothetical M&M would be wrapped in healthy fiber, it just wouldn’t spike your blood sugar as fast.  But if you eat 6-11 servings of M&M’s wrapped in a fibrous coating your pancreas is going to have a nice workout, your blood sugar is going to be spiked, and you’re going to march down the road to metabolic syndrome  (coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes).

Unless you’re “metabolically talented” eating that much carbohydrate from grains devoid of any real nutrition while limiting your fat and protein intake from meat is going to make you, hmmm, how I shall I say?…    the opposite of healthy.

white-vs-wheat-v21

Slice of White Bread from refined flour: 69.2 calories.  Slice of Wheat bread from HealthyWholeGrains!: 68.9 calories.

White bread: 13.2g of carbohydrate (which will turn into glucose upon digestion).  Wheat bread: 12.3g of carbohydrate.

WOW! If you were to switch from white flour to whole grain flour you’ll reduce your carbohydrate intake by 6.8%!  6.8% IS NOTHING.  NOTHING.  NOTHING.

12.3g of carbohydrate from a slice of Whole Wheat Bread is the equivalent carbohydrate level as 2.9 teaspoons of sugar.  If you eat 6 slices of Whole Wheat Bread daily that would be eating the carbohydrate equivalent as 17.4 teaspoons of  sugar.  If you were to eat 6 slices of White Bread it would be eating the carbohydrate equivalent of 18.7 teaspoons of sugar.  Like I said, WOW!!!  About 1 teaspoon of sugar’s carbohydrate content less by switching to fantastic Wheat Bread!  6.8% is nothing.

I am not the food police here.  I have wine on the weekends.  Usually on a Saturday night I have Lindt 87% Chocolate.  It got out of hand there for awhile with the chocolate, now it’s only once a week.  I sometimes have BBQ sauce on my meat.  Ketchup with some chicken breast every now and then.  However, given my prior state of being 50+ pounds plus overweight, hyper tension, kidney stones, and probably prediabetic, the one thing I don’t do is eat wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, and anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup and think that any of it is healthy because I have fiber wrapped around carbohydrate.

My coffee is black, no sugar.  I don’t drink juice.  Decent amount of water.   I eat meat, vegetables and fruits.  Yup, that’s it.  Dairy, nearly zilch.   Cheese rarely and only on my salads.  I eat nuts very rarely given my previous diverticulitis symptoms that magically disappeared the day I gave up grains, whether they were from refined flour or HealthyWholeGrains.  The only time I ingest grains is if I don’t know about.  I talk my way out of birthday cake now.

If you’re a person that handles grains, and you choose to continue eating them, fine by me.  For me (and millions of others out there who are eating like I used to), it’s not an option.  Again, choose your own path.  But please don’t tell me for my health I must eat 6-11 servings of grains, or the carbohydrate equivalent of 17-32 teaspoons of sugar without any of the vitamin and antioxidant benefits that I would get from vegetables and fruit that also contain carbohydrates, but at much much lower levels.  Just what is the benefit of eating grains again?  If it’s simply that that’s the only way we can feed all of the people in the world today cheaply (not necessarily healthily) just say it.   Define the choice with truth.

Ornish, you’re telling me to choose between Food or Poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).

T. Colin Campbell, you’re offering me an M&M wrapped in fiber.

Dr. Oz, you’re telling me that a sandwich that is 5% ham (whole fiber) and 95% crap (wheat carbohydrate) is a healthy choice.

Excuse me, gentlemen, though I certainly wish you health and success, I disagree with your conclusions and must refrain from becoming full of crap.  

Uniting Freedom

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I write here on The Paleo Garden primarily because I want to make a contribution in getting the good word out about the transformation I went through to some people that may connect with some of my perspective and/or writings of our other contributers here.

Over the last 10 years or so, my world view of life takes into account an Austrian economics perspective.  In the same way that I’m fallible in a lot of things in life, I’m not necessarily able to wed all of my actions with this line of thought, in the same way, that I fall short of being “paleo” 24/7.   I try to live my life the best way I can, make no enemies, and promote freedom.

I’ve come to the understanding that many people who grok Austrian economics (classical libertarian/liberal thinking) have the same core set of beliefs of the primal/paleo/evolutionary community, they just may not eat that way.

And vice versa.   Many people who grok like grok have the same core set of beliefs of classical-liberal/libertarian/Austrian-economic/independent thinkers, they just may not talk that way.

I enter into the evidence Exhibit 1, Karen De Coster’s recent piece “On Mark Sisson’s Book and Vegans.”  Great article, recommend you read it, but to keep this particular post short, I’ll just include my comments here:

“Keep uniting the clans, Karen.  The paleo diet adherents (and all of its adherents of various persuasions) over time whether they realize it or not come to way of thinking that in order for this lifestyle and diet to be truly possible there has to be freedom, and that freedom is threatened by ag subsidies that cause us to overgrow cheap carbs, overpopulate, over pollute, overeat, over medicate….   Cheap credit and then the crash.  Cheap carbs and then the sugar crash.  Cheap subsidized carbs are akin to fiat money because it is fiat money that have made them possible.

I’ve said this before on your blog, and please allow me to say it again…   it’s one thing to be libertarian and decry that fat taxes or soda taxes threaten our freedoms, it’s quite another thing to claim to be libertarian and not recognize that the obesity/metabolic syndrome epidemic ISN’T the price we pay by allowing the government NOT to raise taxes on unhealthy foods that are cheap to begin with because of government interference/subsidies.

When I see an Austrian/libertarian author blab on about the evils of the Philadelphia city council considering a soda tax but NOT mention why and how that very same soda is killing people with HFCS made possible because of government subsidies… excuse me, they may know more about the business cycle than I, but they’re ill informed and actually PROMOTING the damn consumption of soda and all the other shit.

Again, Karen, awesome article on LRC today, unite these clans, sister, because they have more in common than either side truly understands.”

Of course, I should point out in case it wasn’t clear, I wouldn’t support the subsidy or the fat tax… both have to be bookends to any analysis of the issue, the issue of freedom.

It truly is a surge day for Mark Sisson.    His book will undoubtedly be pushed up to #1 today on Amazon in the Health and Fitness section, and I hope this will cause a spike in awareness of evolutionary living, e.g., eating, laughing, sleeping, living how are bodies are designed to.

Here’s my thoughts on Mark’s success:

“Mark,
I may have been one of the first people to buy your book when it first hit the street (I remember hitting the purchase button pretty darn quick after it became available at any rate). My signed edition of PB is on my bookshelf. I have used it successfully on more than several occasions as a presentation aid to explain to my friends and family just what the heck I’m doing living this healthy way. I plan on hitting Amazon to buy a few early birthday gifts for people I know that would benefit from your PB construct. Truly am glad that you’re “doing well by doing well”, this community needs a successful entrepreneur such as yourself to educate and inform, I wish you continued success doing so.
Best Regards,
Zach”

So here’s to a greater understanding of what we truly have in common amongst us.  Peace and Freedom.  

The Paleo Post has been updated

Monday, March 1st, 2010

In the left hand column of the The Paleo Garden you will find The Paleo Post, the latest snapshot of pretty cool stuff to read.  In the mix, as usual, there’s some older posts thrown in, as well.

Other stuff to check out, too.  Jimmy did a landmark interview with Lierre Keith, author of The Vegetarian Myth.

And in honor of Stephan’s fantastic write up of how corn oil literally is bonecrushingly healthy, I aim to ruin the song Killing Me Softly.  Please DO NOT read below if you value this song, because after you read the revised lyrics, it will never be the same for you.

Here’s the original (youtube video below):

Killing me softly with your corn, The Paleo remix

Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs
killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids

killing me softly with your corn

I heard corn gave a good diet
I heard corn had a style
and so i came to see
and eat corn a while

and there corn on my child’s plate
a stranger to my eyes
Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs

killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids

killing me softly with your corn

I felt all inflamed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt corn raised my blood sugar
and its fructose syrup blared out loud
I prayed that corn would finish
but corn just kept right on
Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs
killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids

killing me softly with your corn

corn syrup as if it owned me
In all my darkness fair
and then corn syrup was in all my food
and added visceral fat everywhere
and he kept on singing
singing clear and strong
Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs
killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids

killing me softly with your corn

ohhhhhhhhhhh oohhhhhhh…lalalal..ohhhh lalaaaaaaa

Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs
killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids
killing me (softly)

Harvesting my pain with its kernels
Singing my life with its carbs
killing me softy with your corn

killing me softly with your corn

telling my whole life
with food pyramids

killing me softly with your corn