My Intestinal Saga, Part 6: It's All Digestive, My Dear Watson

On Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet, I felt the strongest I had felt since I was a high school athlete working out at the gym 6 days a week.  My body composition was extremely desirable to me.  I felt solid and seemed to build muscle very easily.  Eating gobs and gobs of fat along with just enough protein, I was never unsatisfied with meals.  The satiety factor of this dietary pattern was incredible, and I happily stuck to it for close to a year even though I had odd muscle tension throughout my body and would toss and turn in my sleep, sometimes waking up for three hours around 3:00 A.M.  My breath also was absolutely horrible, as my girlfriend at the time made perfectly clear to me.  There were so many things right with the Optimal Diet and, yet, so many things were wrong.  I had the body and strength that I wanted, but, good Lord, was I slothful at times.

Me on the Optimal Diet

During the Optimal Diet, I began to tweak my mealtimes to see whether or not my symptoms were fully attributed to the digestion and absorption of my food.  I experimented with one meal a day, which was easy to do and get adequate calories from since the foods I was eating were so low in fiber and very calorically dense.  As I had expected, my symptoms suddenly became isolated to certain times, depending on when I ate.

First, an hour after eating, my chest would usually begin hurting and feeling tender and then subside over another hour.  Also during this time, I would often get a headache and a bit of lower abdominal discomfort along with a unique "pins and needles" feeling in my chest/upper abdomen.  About 8-10 hours after the large meal, in addition to bloating, I'd feel heaviness come over me in the form of shoulder, abdominal, and -- oddly enough -- left calf tension.  From my studies of human digestion, I knew this is when the food would have been traveling through my small intestine (food typically empties from the stomach in 3 hours).  So I thought maybe something was wrong with that part of my GI tract, but had no clue what it could be.  Sometimes the abdominal tension (which felt like a rock) would be so bad that it would "push up" my stomach, and I'd actually have to vomit.  Taking the experiment further, I learned that if I fasted for a day, I would feel absolutely amazing the entire next day.  Upon eating again, I'd experience some "tender chest" pain, but no "pins and needles," headache or lower abdominal discomfort.  I realized after eating the next day and then feeling those symptoms coming on that they were actually happening 24 hours after my last meal.  I came to call these the "24 hour symptoms" as a result of this discovery.  The "8-10 hour symptoms" consistently happened the same time after mealtime.

So I had my answer.  My detective work paid off.  It was all digestive.  It wasn't "all in my head" as some of my close friends and family suggested.  It wasn't due to poor posture or not exercising enough.  It wasn't because I was some kind of hypochondriac.  It was because I had friggin' digestive problems.

Abdominal/Pelvic CT scan

At this point, some of you may be thinking, "Ryan, why the heck didn't you just go to a doctor to diagnose all of this?"  Well, I did.  I saw quite a few M.D.'s, Naturopaths, and body workers, and they all provided some pieces of the puzzle, but I never got a definitive answer from any of them.  I was subjected to various tests, as well -- barium swallow abdominal/pelvic CT scan, gall bladder ultrasound, and stool/blood analyses of all kinds -- and nothing informed me that I had specific digestive problems.  Yet, here I was with direct experiential proof that all of my symptoms were, in fact, digestive.    

I felt defeated, worn out -- ready to be done with these problems that plagued me over the years.  I knew I was having GI problems, and I had tried the herbs, enzymes, HCL, etc., etc., and the only thing that worked was to either eat nothing or eat less.  And to do that meant I would be back at an unhealthy weight, feeling weak and hungry.  Wonderful.  I was stuck with this sh*t.  But I wasn't ready to give up.  In fact, I was entirely prepared to do whatever it took to get well again.  Onward into the fascinating world of *drumroll* fecal bacteriotherapy.  Say what?!  Yes, this is where it gets interesting, folks.

Part 7 coming up next.  Warning: May not be suitable for the squeamish!

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My Intestinal Saga, Part 5: Monastyrsky and Kwasniewski

After my introduction to the man known as "The Bear," I followed the zero-carb "path" and ate nothing but rare-cooked steaks, liver once in a while, bites of butter, and occasional eggs.  To my surprise, I remained at a stable weight during this extreme dietary experiment.  I also had energy to go on long walks, infrequent runs, and swim for hours whenever I could find a body of water large enough.  Despite all of this energy, though, I was still bogged down by the same heaviness that I had felt since I began eating lots of meat again.  The only thing that seemed to alleviate it was eating one meal a day in the evening, after which I would feel the heaviness but it would be gone by morning.  The other problem I had -- hard stools -- was still plaguing me, as well.

In the meantime, I was still reading a lot of zero-carb material on the internet, trying to sort things out.  One man, Jeff, started his own forum dedicated to proving that human beings thrive when there are no sugars and starches in the diet.  He also made it a point to exhibit that, no matter how many calories he ate on a zero-carb diet, he would not gain or lose weight.  At one point he was as high as 4,500 calories a day, literally drinking more than a quart of heavy cream each day.  He also was out to show that exercise is completely different while avoiding carbs and eating an extremely high-fat diet, and his daily and weekly logs displayed how many miles he'd ran and how he felt for days afterwards.  One thing that struck me was that he claimed to not feel sore at all after running over 20 miles in a day -- this coming from a guy that was not, by any means, a runner before the experiment.  I was certainly impressed by all of this and similar reports from others, so I kept on with zero-carb hoping that I would adjust as other folks had.

I never adjusted, and I was starting to get frustrated.  Spending time on forums, I couldn't find anyone that shared a similar predicament aside from a handful of folks.  I had a few "gut buddies" who related to much of what I had going on, and we would all communicate what seemed to be working and what wasn't.  We each individually tried manipulating our eating patterns and supplementing digestive aids like enzymes, herbs, probiotics, and all of those things that are typically recommended to people with the catch-all health problem known as "irritable bowel syndrome."  While some approaches appeared to have benefit, by and large nothing did the trick.  In the end, we still had the same symptoms.  Seeking to deepen my understanding of what was going on, I returned to studying the human digestive tract.  I payed careful attention to where I was feeling what and how the symptoms could be related to certain organs and functions within my GI tract.  Much of the information I came across was pretty dry and lacked experience.  I needed to find someone who had resolved his or her digestive problems experientially and could help me along.  The problem was that every digestion expert out there seemed to recommend fiber as the Holy Grail of gut reparation.  I was already skeptical of this method of improving intestinal problems because 1) it hadn't worked for me and 2) fiber appeared to be completely unnecessary in digestive functions anyway -- lots of folks I was in contact with weren't having any problem with a zero-fiber diet.  But why the heck was I having problems?  Enter Konstantin Monastyrsky, author of a book called Fiber Menace.

I caught wind of Mr. Monastyrsky's gut manifesto on a forum I frequented.  Reading excerpts from his book, I knew this was the guy to learn from.  His story was very similar to mine -- a vegetarian who developed digestive problems and then realized that things needed to change.  Fiber only seemed to make his problems worse, and so Monastyrsky looked at other means of getting well again, delving into medical texts and other research to find out more about human physiology.  Like me, he was a health detective, and he labeled this approach to wellness "Forensic Nutrition." In Fiber Menace, Monastyrsky laid out the fundamentals of what got him better and built a strong case against many of the mainstream health mantras of our time, such as the supposed "dangers" of a low-carb diet and the necessity of drinking eight glasses of water a day.  I found his viewpoints fascinating and quickly devoured his book.  Shortly thereafter, I tried out some of his supplement recommendations, which included a non-habit-forming laxative (a form of vitmain C) and probiotic bacteria with small amounts of soluble fibers to feed them.  These were things I'd tried before, but for some reason I always ran into problems with.  But when I tried Monastyrsky's supplement regimen, I was free of hard stools for the first time in several months.  Astoundingly, the heaviness in my body went away, and I felt lighter and tension free like I hadn't in a very long time -- probably since I had been eating very little food as a vegetarian.

Dr. Jan Kwasniewski

After a close to a year of eating zero carbohydrates, I began to feel like it was time to eat like a somewhat normal human being again.  I wanted to add some starches back into my diet, but not so much as to disturb the "keto-adaptation" (a term coined by The Bear) I had worked hard to achieve.  I still wanted my body to use fat for fuel, as this felt like very efficient energy and I had certainly grown used to it.  So I went with what I felt was a good dietary transition and began the "Optimal Diet" -- a way of eating developed by a Polish doctor, Jan Kwasniewski.  This diet was all about the ratio of protein, fats and carbohydrates and keeping them in balance to achieve optimal health.  The ratio to be followed was 1 : 2.5-3.5 : 0.5 -- protein : fat : carbohydrates.  What that meant was that I would literally be eating sticks of butter and drinking heavy cream.  And I did gladly.  I love fat.  Always have.  Always will.  So it was easy to eat the Optimal Diet -- however, the heaviness seemed to return as I began eating more consistently and the supplements I was on slowly started to lose their effectiveness.  Crap.  Could I ever win?

Part 6 of "My Intestinal Saga" coming soon ...
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My Intestinal Saga, Part 4: Gurus and Rotten Meat

Rotting meat in mason jars.

So there I was.  It was late summer 2006.  The sweltering Tucson sun beat down on the city relentlessly.  White tail doves could be heard flapping and cooing on rooftops and power lines, and the cicadas' symphony was in full swing.  I sat inside, bathing in the cool air of the swamp cooler, a plate of raw ground beef sitting in front of me.  I took a bite.  It went down easy.  I took another and my body screamed for more and more -- so I fed it.  I followed the meat with a few spoonfuls of raw, "unheated," honey and some raw butter.  I was satisfied like I hadn't felt in years.  And it was all thanks to a man by the odd name of Aajonus Vonderplanitz and his book, The Recipe For Living Without Disease.  In this book, Vonderplanitz outlined the key to optimal health and vitality through food, and it enthralled me.  Raw meat, unheated honey, raw dairy, raw vegetable juices -- these were the ingredients to becoming well again, and I had no problem eating all I wanted and enjoying the heck out of it.  My family and friends were somewhat worried about me at his point.  Salmonella, E. Coli, and countless other bacteria existed in raw food products -- how would this negatively affect my health, particularly my already stressed out gut?  Surely I would get food poisoning at the very least.  And straight butter?  Heart attack city!  Well, after several weeks of the eating all of the foods suggested by the quirky Aajonus, I was happy to report that I had absolutely no problems.  In fact, I had more energy than I could remember feeling in my whole life.  Then I thought, "Hmm.  I wonder if I could feel even healthier?"

Aajonus Vonderplanitz believed if raw meat was healthy, then rotten or "high" meat is probably even healthier.  The Inuit traditionally enjoyed rotted flesh as part of their diet, and so did many cultures around the world.  I was insanely curious about this.  Would it feel good in my body?  Or would I get really sick?  So I began making "high" meat -- filling mason jars with sliced up beef and airing them out every few days.  Oddly enough, the rotten smell that developed over a few weeks began to please my senses.  It smelled good, it looked good -- I couldn't wait to eat it.  Then the day came when it was ready.  So I took a jar filled with rotting, slimy meat outside, opened it, and reached in for my first taste of this supposed health elixir.  I loved it.  Weird, I know.  It just tasted way good for some reason.  Although the little white beads on the meat that had developed over the weeks somewhat disturbed me.  Were these some kind of worm eggs or something?  Was I ingesting parasites?  Well, even if I was, Mr. Vonderplanitz assured me in his book that they would merely detox my body and consume my unneeded intestinal wastes.  Win-win for me and my little worm buddies.  They get to eat and I get better!  Oh lord, I have done some interesting things in my life, and this one is up there on the list.

Again, much to my surprise, the most shocking thing that happened was -- well, that nothing happened.  I remained healthy and feeling quite good overall on my raw and rotten diet.  After a few months of this "primal diet," I encountered something even more alluring in my continual research: the raw paleo diet.  I joined a forum where there were a handful of folks experimenting with this diet -- consisting of nothing but raw meat and fat -- and experiencing great results.  (Apparently these folks still exist.)  Their stance on eating mostly organ meats made a lot of sense to me, as this was where the most nutrients exist, and if my goal was optimal health, well then I wanted all the nutrients I could get, gosh darn it!  I began the raw paleo diet with enthusiasm, picking up raw liver and raw beef fat from the butcher at a local organic foods store.  Damn, did that stuff taste good to me.  I swear, at the time, the liver tasted like chocolate and the beef fat tasted like ice cream.  Soon I was gorging on kidneys, spleens, tongues, and any other raw offal I could get my grubby little hands on.

Pretty soon I realized that zero-carb, raw paleo was the way to go (naturally, right?).  I felt great -- well, for the most part.  My back pain was pretty much gone at this point, but I seemed to have developed hard stools from the sudden transition to zero carbs + zero fiber.  Not only that, but I began to see fat chunks in my stool, which, at first I thought were gall stones until, ahem, closer inspection.  There also was this "heavy" feeling in my body at times, like I was walking underwater.  Also, another problem --chest pain -- came about when I started to try to eat only one large meal a day, as some folks on the raw paleo forum were suggesting as the optimal eating pattern.  It would sort of come and go and actually wasn't too bad ... until I tried to do some push-ups -- ouch.  I thought I was having a heart attack.  I calmed myself and decided that maybe it was just some kind of strain.  It hurt horribly for two days.

The Bear

During my raw paleo stint, I was also floating around the Active Low-Carber forum and talking with some zero-carb folks on there.  (You can probably still look up my posts; just search for my username, "rk900.")  We were a ragtag bunch of wandering souls.  There were people who swore that the only thing that kept their weight stable was absolutely no carbs -- not even too many eggs or liver.  Others were on the paleo bandwagon.  Still others were curious about the diet, but were not bought in due to fears of losing their cherished carbohydrates.  I felt proud to be one of the few who was practicing full-on paleo zero-carb, just as primitive humans had done for millions of years before me (or so I thought).  Then, all of the sudden a post appeared: "The real human diet is a totally carnivorous one."  The author of the post was a man simply known as "The Bear."  It began:

I have been eating the natural human dietary regime for over 47 years now. I do not eat anything whatsoever from vegetable sources. The only things veggie I use are spices. My diet is usually 60% fat and 40% protein by calories. I used to eat 80/20 when younger and about twice as much quantity of meat also, but that seems too much energy at my age, which is 71- even though I am very active. I think the body actually becomes more efficient with energy as you age, but I have no way of proving it true. Otherwise, my body today is very like it was at the age of 30. I figure most of what we call 'aging' is due to insulin damage to the collagen and other body structures. No carbs = no insulin. I don't heal quite as fast when injured as I did as a youngster, however. But I have few wrinkles, and my skin is still strong and elastic.

The guru had arrived.  Responses came pouring in.  The Bear had answers for everything.  His healthy 47 years of experience with the zero-carb "regime" proved that modern humans could live well on such a diet without problems.  There was a very strong divide on the forum: some loved him and others thought he was full of crap.  One guy even started a dedicated blog on the "Zero Carb Path."  The Bear validated everything I believed at the time, and I followed guru's advice on eating and living well.  I still had the aforementioned problems with my gut, but decided that I felt better than any other time in my life, so I continued on "the path."


The saga continues in Part 5, coming soon.
  

My Intestinal Saga, Part 3: Making Connections

With the realization that my back pain was somehow related to what I was eating, I began connecting some dots.  Less food + Simple food = Less back pain.  More food + Varied foods = More back pain.  But what the heck did food have to do with muscle pain?  Why would my lower right back hurt so incredibly much based upon my dietary choices?  Why did I feel so much lighter and tension-free when I ate less or fasted?  I began researching the human body and its inner workings to find out why my pain was so localized to this one place on my body.  It turned out that, in the lower left abdomen where the junction of the small intestine and large intestine, there exists something called the ileocecal valve.  This little valve controls when undigested food exits the small intestine and begins the journey into stool formation in the large intestine.  Hmm.  Did this area have something to do with my back pain?  I pressed on my abdomen where the ileocecal valve was located.  It was tender.  Not only that, but I felt the pain from my back transfer to this spot when applying pressure.  It was an epiphany for sure.  I thought, "Wait just a gosh-darn minute here!  Does this mean my pain is actually intestinal, not muscular or skeletal?"  Apparently it was.  Fascinating!

My entire school of thought shifted.  No longer was I wholly committed to a purely external yoga or massage-manipulated path to healing.  I believed I had found the root cause of the pain and tension I was experiencing, and now I only had to figure out how to manage this internal problem.  Easier said than done.  For several months I experimented with herbs, digestive supplements of all kinds, probiotics -- the whole gamut of intestinal warfare.  Nasty herbs for any parasites that might be still hanging out.  Enzymes to aid the breaking down of food.  Good bacteria to repopulate my sad, miserable gut.  All these things, along with continued yoga and the like -- yet, aside from simply eating nothing at all, I experienced little or no improvement.  What hadn't I changed?  Was there anything else I could do?  Or would I have to live with this inconvenient pain the rest of my life?

Finally, the cognitive dissonance had to come to an end.  I was underweight.  I was fatigued.  I had little zest for life.  I asked myself a difficult but honest question: Was I unhealthy because I was a low-calorie vegetarian?  It was time.  I was ready to take a good, hard look at this mostly philosophically-driven food choice -- one that I had always thought could only make me healthier.  That's what all the books I was reading at the time were telling me.  Everything in my mind up to this point had said "yes" to a vegetarian diet.  All these years, however, my body had been crying out a resounding "NO!"  Time to eat some meat.  And, while I'm at it, why not eat nothing but meat for a while?  Oh, how I loved extremes at that time in my life.  So on I ventured into the world of zero-carb, "The Bear," and a sudden fondness for the Inuit.  More digestive lessons were soon to come.

Part 4 of "My Intestinal Saga" up next.

Obesity & Heredity, Part 4: Epigenetics

I first heard about epigenetics from Dr. Theodore Belfor, the man behind the adult palate expansion device called the Homeoblock.  It is his opinion that epigenetics will be the most important field of science in the next decade.  In brief, epigenetics is the study of  the changes that take place within the epigenome – literally, "on top" of the genome – due to environmental factors, such as food and pollution, without affecting the DNA sequence.  Here's a more lengthy explanation from a website  published by a European group who call themselves “The Epigenome Network of Excellence:”

Conrad Waddington (1905-1975) is often credited with coining the term epigenetics in 1942 as “the branch of biology which studies the causal interactions between genes and their products, which bring the phenotype into being”. Epigenetics appears in the literature as far back as the mid 19th century, although the conceptual origins date back to Aristotle (384-322 BC). He believed in epigenesis: the development of individual organic form from the unformed. This controversial view was the main argument against our having developed from miniscule fully-formed bodies. Even today the extent to which we are preprogrammed versus environmentally shaped awaits universal consensus. The field of epigenetics has emerged to bridge the gap between nature and nurture. In the 21st century you will most commonly find epigenetics defined as 'the study of heritable changes in genome function that occur without a change in DNA sequence.'

Take home quote from above: “...epigenetics has emerged to bridge the gap between nature and nurture.”  This is extremely important in the study of health and nutrition, as there are many questions of what brings about good health and poor health in the context of inheritance, none of which can be fully answered without evaluating specific individual choices – dietary, environmental, etc. – made within each generation (which affects future generations).   In other words, nurture – how we are taken care of as children and how we take care of ourselves as adults  – is what molds and shapes nature – the way our bodies and minds express themselves epigenetically, which is then potentially passed to our children.

How do epigenetic changes take place?  The Epigenome Network of Excellence reporter, Brona McVittie, puts it this way:

The genetic blueprint, like a complex musical score, remains lifeless without an orchestra of cells (players) and epigenotypes (instruments) to express it... Epigenetic factors include both spatial patterns, such as the arrangement of DNA around histone proteins (chromatin), and biochemical tagging...With some 30 000 genes in the human genome, the importance of silence, as with any orchestral performance, must not be underestimated...As cells develop, their fate is governed by the selective use and silencing of genes... Failure to silence genes can produce a hazardous cacophony.

What does all of this have to do with obesity?  Well, scientists have discovered that epigenetic changes in mice that are pregnant mothers can directly impact the health of the offspring.  How?  By turning on or off specific genes through dietary or environmental means.  One of these health effects, in addition to cancer and diabetes, is a tendency of the offspring to become obese as adults.  In one study, if a single gene, called the “agouti gene,” is overexpressed through the failure to suppress another gene (Avy), it greatly influences the ultimate health of the offspring (emphasis mine):

Failure to epigenetically suppress the Avy gene during development causes the agouti gene to be ectopically overexpressed later in life. This high level of agouti expression in essentially all tissues causes numerous downstream metabolic and endocrine effects that ultimately affect gross biological end points such as obesity and survival. This agouti overexpression and its physiological effects have been termed the yellow agouti obese mouse syndrome. This syndrome includes a yellow or mottled yellow coat color, altered metabolism and obesity from a young age. It also results in adult diabetes, increased cancer susceptibility and, by 24 mo of age, twice the mortality seen in normal mice.

Interestingly, whether or not a mouse becomes obese seems to depend on the levels of methyl-donating substances, such as folic acid (a vitamin naturally found in high amounts in organ meats, many kinds of legumes, and dark leafy greens).  The reason behind this has to do with the way that DNA passes information to cells in the body -- a process called  DNA methylation.  Whether or not certain genes are expressed has a lot to do with this process.  Without enough methyl-donating substances, such as the B-vitamins, betaine, choline, SAM-e and genistein (from soybeans), DNA methylation is disturbed and abnormal cell expression, along with switching on or off certain genes, results.  You can see why folic acid supplementation is recommended for pregnant women and why women in traditional cultures consume "sacred" foods rich in methyl-donating nutrients, such as liver, before and during pregnancy.

So, if obese people supplement their diet with folate or genistein, can they reverse the epigenetic changes that may have brought about their obesity?  Short answer: we don't know.  In animal studies, there's more certainty.  Here's what Randy Jirtle, an expert in epigenetics, has to say:

Weaver et al. (Nat. Neurosci. 7: 847-854, 2004) at McGill University, however, have shown recently that maternal nurturing behavior can stably alter the epigenotype in rat pups soon after birth. Moreover, these epigenetic changes are reversible in adulthood following methionine supplementation or treatment with histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (Weaver et al.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103: 3480-3485, 2006). Thus, data supporting the reversal of environmentally induced epigenetic changes via dietary supplementation or pharmaceutical therapy in adulthood is mounting.

The implications for humans are far-reaching.  Perhaps someday we'll have a way of epigenetically treating obesity, diabetes, and cancer.  For now, the best we can do is eat a nutrient-dense real-foods diet while avoiding processed and refined foods -- the foods that have most likely brought about our health dilemmas in the first place.

For a great overview of epigenetics, check out PBS Nova's educational page on the subject.  Also, here's a nice website by the University of Utah.
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SIDEBAR: Is Plastic Making Us Fat?

Aside from diet, another significant factor in the tendency of the agouti mice to become obese comes from the mother's exposure to biosphenol-A (BPA), a common plastic found in many food and beverage containers.  Here's Randy Jirtle again to explain:

We have demonstrated recently that when female pregnant mice are exposed to BPA, the incidence of yellow Avy offspring is markedly increased because DNA methylation of the agouti gene is decreased (Dolino et al.,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 13056-13061, 2007). BPA also epigenetically alters gene expression of at least one other gene, indicating a genome-wide effect. Yellow agouti mice become obese in adulthood and have a high probability of developing diabetes and cancer. Consequently, BPA exposure leads to adult diseases in agouti mice by altering the epigenome during the earliest stages of development—a condition that can be counteracted by maternal nutrient supplementation with methyl-donating substances (folic acid, etc.) or genistein.

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SIDEBAR: Weston A. Price & Epigenetics

Epigenetics may seem obvious to folks out there who are familiar with Darwin's theory of evolution.  “Of course our bodies and minds are shaped by our environment; and of course we evolve (or devolve) throughout time and generations.  That's the way nature works!”  The big difference, as far as I can tell, is that unlike DNA, epigenetic changes actually take place within one lifetime, not over eons of evolution.  The way the epigenome appears to be altered is by dramatic changes in environment, particularly diet.  Think Nutrition and Physical Degeneration or Pottenger's Cats.

Actually, one might say that Price and Pottenger recognized epigenetics when they observed physical degeneration in the people and animals they respectively studied, although they didn't call it that.  The changes in facial structure and lowered immunity in their studies appeared to be a direct result of poor diet generation after generation.  Once again, during one lifetime, the epigenome can be altered significantly.  Could it be that the mothers and fathers eating a modern diet and the cats eating cooked food altered their epigenome and then passed on these traits on to the next generation?  Is this why each generation appeared to be progressively worse than the last?  The field of epigenetics suggests this is the case.
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Obesity & Heredity, Part 3: Why Are Thin People Not Fat?

Below is an intriguing BBC documentary, called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?"  In this film, ten thin people who have no history of obesity overeat whatever foods they want for several weeks and the results are evaluated at the end of the experiment.  One especially interesting facet of the documentary is the fact that the Asian participant gains the least weight of all the participants and also appears to have the most elevated metabolism.  Could it be that his genes are more pure -- i.e. less degeneration in his family -- than the others?  Watch and decide for yourself!

Obesity & Heredity, Part 2: You Are What Your Parents Ate

Stephan Guyenet at Whole Health Source wrote a brilliant blog series a few months back, called “The Body Fat Setpoint,” in which he describes the mechanisms behind an individual's ability to maintain a  very specific weight.  No matter how much a person overeats and how much weight is gained, his or her body is simply primed to be at this “setpoint” and will “defend” it diligently through natural fat regulation mechanisms.  Stephan references a study where:

They overfed lean and modestly overweight volunteers 50% more calories than they naturally consume … After 6 weeks of massive overfeeding, both lean and overweight subjects gained an average of 10 lb (4.6 kg) of fat mass and 6.6 lb (3 kg) of lean mass...  Following overfeeding, subjects were allowed to eat however much they wanted for 6 weeks. Both lean and overweight volunteers promptly lost 6.2 of the 10 lb they had gained in fat mass (61% of fat gained), and 1.5 of the 6.6 lb they had gained in lean mass (23%).  

To me, the most interesting aspect regarding human overfeeding studies like this is that, once the overfeeding period has ended, the participants return to their original weight without dieting.  As Stephan indicates, this means that our bodies have the inherent ability to maintain our “normal weight.”  Refer to the post I wrote on tribal fattening practices and the fact that the fattened women who refuse to overeat their real foods diet return to a healthy weight in short order.  Normal weight, however, appears to be different for every individual. For example, when a person has a normal weight – a setpoint – that, by all standards, can be seen as obese, we are left with the question of just why in the heck this is happening.  Why does the body insist on remaining in such a biologically abnormal state?

Many scientists and researchers claim that leptin – a hormone which regulates appetite – plays a key role in obesity, as many people who are overweight exhibit low levels of the hormone.  Much research has been conducted on the validity of this theory and it is now recognized that leptin resistance – in which the body can no longer can recognize when it has had enough food – is what enables a person to eat more than they need, thus leading to obesity and keeping that person obese.  And, surprise, surprise: artificial fructose is a prime culprit in leptin resistance because fructose doesn't stimulate leptin (or insulin for that matter).  No stimulation, no appetite regulation.

Skinny Jeans & Skinny Genes

Okay, so leptin appears to play a role in weight maintenance.  That's all fine and good, but why can some people eat and drink whatever they want -- including artificial fructose -- without affecting their body composition while some people become obese?  This is where I believe heredity comes into play.  Depending on what stage of degeneration a person is in – first, second, or third generation of processed food consumption, let's say, and/or what a person's mother ate while pregnant with him/her – obesity can be more or less of a potential complication.

In my case, for example, my mother wasn't overweight when I was in the woom and neither of my parents are overweight now.  This is despite consuming a lot of high-fructose corn syrup and omega-6 vegetable oils for much of their lives.  I was raised on this typical industrial diet and never experienced issues of overweight as a child, and I have no issues now.  At age 18, I altered my diet and cut out processed foods, which is how I eat now, eight years later.  But my older brother, now age 29, has continued to eat our childhood foods without gaining significant weight.  Other health problems aside, my family has no weight issues.  Is there something about us genetically that is behind all of this?  I think it's a strong possibility.  And maybe this is because, like Don Gorske, we may have a closer-to-pure hereditity.  We are not yet degenerated to the point where the disease of obesity has set in.

In contrast, I know of a few childhood friends (two brothers) who now appear to be on the receiving end of metabolic discord through familial degeneration.  In their twenties now, they are both experiencing weight problems.  They also drink a lot of beer and don't seem to have the best diet in the world.  Observing their parents, the mother has been overweight for at least half of her life (including several years before becoming pregnant) and the father has always been slim, despite drinking a lot of beer and not having the best diet in the world just like his sons.  Why is dad slim while having very similar dietary habits to his overweight sons?  Are his genetics more pure and less degenerated – less overall processed food consumption – than the mother's genes, which appear to have a hereditary predisposition to being overweight?  This may be the case, and it would explain the weight issues of the two sons, as they would inherit half of their mother's genes.        

Several studies have been done evaluating the role heredity may play in obesity.  The most compelling subset of these studies are those that include data from adopted children, their adoptive parents, and their biological parents.  Here's an abstract from one of these of these studies, called “Genetic contributions to human fatness: an adoption study:”

A strong relationship was found between the degree of fatness of biologic mothers and that of their adult offspring who had been separated from their mothers at birth and adopted during the first year of life. This relationship persisted even after age, height, and possible confounding environmental factors were controlled. There was little evidence for either selective placement on the basis of parental fatness or gene-environment interaction. There was no relationship between the degree of fatness of adoptive parents and that of the adoptees.

It's interesting that the weight of the child was directly affected by the weight of the biological mother and is not affected by the environment of the adoptive home.  This supports my theory on the two sons who I described above.  There is, however, one glaring confounding factor in all of this talk about obesity and heredity, and that is the increasing consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in the last 30 years.  This amazingly effective human fattener was not significant in the industrialized diet until 1980, when Coca-Cola officially began adding this biochemically engineered sweetener to its popular soft drink.  This also happens to be the time when obesity levels really began to take off.  Check out the graph below from the paper, “High-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity:”

So does that mean that heredity may not be as important as diet in the development of obesity?  Not necessarily.  I believe the two go hand-in-hand and, as I said earlier, it's possible that it is heredity and the diet of the mother which determines susceptibility to the effects of HFCS or other processed foods.

So what lesson have we learned here?  Well, there's still a lot of questions, but I think we can safely say that some people have more difficulty with weight than others, and that reason may not necessarily be connected to dietary choices in all cases.  Rather, there are several lifetimes of degeneration that may be influencing each individuals propensity to gain – and keep on – the fat.

For solutions to inherited susceptibility to obesity, I refer you back to Stephan, who I think provides some good advice.  As far as my recommendations, the best change anyone can make in their diet to make a difference in health, and perhaps body composition, is to simply eliminate the four nasties: artificial fructose, gluten, trans fats, and vegetable oils.  Eat real food.  And please, please, please raise your children on real foods so they don't have the same health difficulties that many of us adults have!  

Obesity & Heredity, Part 1: Don Gorske

For better or for worse, we inherit much of the body composition tendencies of our parents.  This can be argued as merely adopting their food habits, which directly affects our health, and I believe that's a big part of why our bodies are the way they are.  However, there are most certainly genetic predispositions to certain body shapes and sizes, as well.  Often times, I focus on diet as the #1 instigator of health and disease, but when it comes to issues of overweight and obesity I often find myself wondering just how much genetics can play a role in whether a person is thin or fat, muscular or lanky, apple or pear-shaped.  Many of us know folks who can eat whatever the heck they want without any apparent health effects or significant body composition changes.  

Case in point, Don Gorske, the infamous McDonald's enthusiast who has eaten 24,000 Big Macs since 1972.  Despite this indulgence -- and the sodas that come with it -- Gorske appears to be in good health.  (I say “appears” because he is not overweight and has good cholesterol numbers; not so sure about his teeth, triglycerides, HDL:LDL ratio, VLDL levels or other markers of health.)  He has a full head of dark hair, walks every day, and also has a positive outlook on life.  Arguably, these are signs of good health.  How can this be?  Isn't fast food one of the prime suspects in modern disease?  Could this mean that fast food is off the hook?  Well, before you go out gorging on McDonald's because of one man's seeming success on such fare, read on.

Mr. 180, Matt Stone, recently blogged about Gorske, pinpointing dietary, philosophical, and hereditary  reasons as to why this man's physical health seems to be unaffected by the foods he eats.  Of all the reasons listed by Matt, I believe heredity to be the most important factor.  For one thing, as Matt says in his post, Gorske grew up “...in cow country and didn't start eating fast food until age 18 ...”  Developmentally speaking, this Big Mac-lover had a head start in good health -- especially if we consider that he only started eating fast food after his body and metabolic tendencies were well-established.  And while it's interesting to observe Gorske's apparent well-being and question the assumption that fast food is detrimental to our health, the picture would not be complete without full consideration of his unique heredity.  Perhaps he is the fortunate heir of health not-far-removed from that of our ancestors.  What of his genetics, his childhood health, his parents' and their parents' health?

Unfortunately, I don't have access to this information, but I would hazard a guess that his parents were closer to a traditional diet than not for most of their lives, and that they were maybe the first or second generation of degeneration.  In contrast, many of us have parents or grandparents who were well on their way to degeneration during their life time and this directly affected our health -- epigenetics influenced strongly by diet. (See section below, “Degeneration in the Cafeteria.”)  Maybe some of us, like Gorske, are able to avoid some of the dramatic metabolic changes seen today -- namely obesity -- simply because our parents and grandparents hadn't quite reached that particular stage of degeneration.  Obesity, if we think about the very low historic levels and the high levels of today, appears to be a stage of degeneration that comes after maybe three generations of poor food habits.  It also appears to be in direct connection with the consumption of the modern franken-foods -- artificial fructose, trans fats, white flour, vegetable oils.    

Whatever the case may be, it's evident that obesity is an abnormal human state brought about by heredity, which is influenced by dietary changes.  What's interesting, however, is that some people -- like Don Gorske-- due to perhaps a closer-to pure heredity, are able to escape the effects of poor food habits during their lifetime.  How their children might fare is another question.    

You know what would be an awesome experiment?  Taking a bunch of thin people who appear to do just fine on junk-food, like Gorske, and feeding them lots and lots of food and seeing how quickly they gain weight, how their metabolism reacts, and whether or not they return to their normal weight when the experiment is over.  Maybe this would provide answers as to why thin people are thin.  That post is up next.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SIDEBAR: Degeneration in the Cafeteria

Imagine a line at a cafeteria with a limited amount of food.  There's (1) the traditional foods of our ancestors: raw dairy, grass-fed meats, fish, fresh grains, fruits and vegetables; there's (2) a mixed-diet of these traditional foods with some processed foods (mainly sugar and white flour); then there's (3) the factory-raised meats, white flour, artificial fructose, and rancid vegetable oil-laden diet of today.  First in line, our great grandparents, enjoyed a diet primarily of traditional foods and experienced good health.  Second in line, their children (our grandparents) approached the front of the line and much of the traditional foods had already been eaten by their parents, so they began eating some white flour and sugar with some ill health effects, notably lowered immunity and dental disease.  Third in line, these childrens' children (our parents) arrived at  the food and they were left with more white flour and sugar than traditional foods; they developed physical deformities from nutritional deficiencies and might have developed some issues with weight and diabetes as well as other degenerative diseases, depending on their parents' food choices.  That brings us to the last ones in line (the 20 and 30-somethings of today) who are left with the most processed of all processed foods: high-fructose corn syrup, rancid vegetable oil, trans fats, and the like.  These poor folks not only have a poor diet, but may inherit the traits of their parents 100-fold, possibly becoming obese and diabetic at an early age, in addition to a slew of health problems that come along with being at the end of a long line of degeneration.  Below is a (purely theoretical) visual representation of this. 

Adult Palate Expansion, Part 2: A Brief Chat with Theodore Belfor, DDS

As a follow-up to my last post on palate expansion in adults, I decided to give Dr. Theodore Belfor a call to find out more about his Homeoblock palate-widening appliance, as well his background and interest in the subject of craniofacial changes.  What followed was a brief, yet fascinating chat that delved into many subjects.  Here's a bulleted summary our conversation.

• The cost of the Homeoblock procedure: anywhere from $2600-6000, depending on your own personal facial structure, which can be evaluated at Dr. Belfor's clinic in New York through a catscan and 3d image analysis.  He tries to keep the cost of the Homeblock close to the popular teeth-straightening product, Invisalign 
• Human de-volution: Dr. Belfor acknowledges that human beings have rapidly devolved in a very short amount of time -- i.e. the last 100 years.  While Darwin's theory of evolution recognizes changes in species over millenia, our rapid de-evolution is an indication that something we are doing externally is influences our physical deformities.  He suggests diet and pollution as main causes.  
• Epigenetics: (This is the changing of genes through influences other than DNA -- i.e. facial deformities)  Dr. Belfor believes this is going to be the most important field in science in the 21st century as people come to realize that many of us are not expressing our genes fully and that we must find out why and do something about it.
• Sudden infant death syndrome: Recently, Dr. Belfor spoke with a doctor in Australia who connects craniofacial deformities with sudden infant death syndrome.  With a lacking craniofacial development, the 9th (Glossopharyngeal) nerve in the head, which controls swallowing, gag reflex, and speech, could very well play a role in SIDs in that arterial blood flow to it may be be restricted, which could lead to a lack of signaling to baroreceptors, Belfor says.  Baroreceptors signal the central nervous system to regulate blood pressure levels and with their malfunction could lead to possible cardiac arrest.  (Hopefully I'm getting all of this right.)
• Weston A. Price, DDS: Dr. Belfor is familiar with Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and says that Price's research is the basis for the realization of our physical deformities and, thus, influences any dental work (including his) that seeks to restore the facial structure of the human genetic blueprint.

Unfortunately, Dr. Belfor had to leave the conversation somewhat abruptly because he had patients to tend to, but I'm extremely grateful that he was willing to speak and share what he did for the ten minutes we were on the phone.  It seemed that if he was not busy, he would have talked to me for much longer, as he definitely has a passion for what he does and seems to enjoy very much sharing that passion with others -- even if they are some random blogger/independent health researcher like myself.  What a great guy!  If I was in the New York area, I would not hesitate to go in for a craniofacial evaluation.

Adult Palate Expansion

I am deformed.  I look nothing like my ancestors.  As a child, I had braces.  I was a frequent mouth breather.  At age 16, I said bye to my wisdom teeth.  I have only 24 teeth left.  My dental palate is not broad and sweeping; my jaw isn't square; my nasal passage isn't wide.  I'm a human being raised on a processed food diet, and this is the result.  When I first read Weston A. Price's book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, it was hard to find out that I'm not developmentally optimal.  I thought, "Well, crud, there's yet another thing that's wrong with me that can't be fixed."  I began comparing photos of myself as a child with some of the photos from Price's book.  Here's me next to a traditional Swiss gal:

See the lack of resemblance?  Check out the overall roundness of the Swiss girl compared to my more narrowed facial structure.  Compare my nasal passage to hers.  Cheek bones?  Jaw?  And, wow, how about them teeth!  This isn't due to genetics, as many of you know.  It's all about nutrition during the developmental years, as Price discovered.  Damn you, margarine, sugar, and white flour!

The other day I was thinking about how it might feel the have the facial features characteristic of the healthy cultures in Weston Price's studies as opposed to the narrow palate, brace-straightened teeth, weak jaw, narrowed nasal passage, and lackluster cheek bones that characterize my own facial structure.  If I were all of the sudden blessed with an optimal facial structure and all the teeth the good Lord intended me to have, would I breath easier?  Speak better?  Smile more fully and more often?  Have less tension in my jaws?  Feel a heightened sense of well-being?  While it's interesting -- if not somewhat depressing -- to imagine such a possibility, I never thought once that this would ever be achievable.  I guess you can say that's why I've come to terms with my deformed self.  I can't change it, can I?  What other choice do I have besides acceptance of my not-so-optimal lot in life?  Sigh.

I was impressed by a study about two twins recently referenced in Wise Traditions, the Weston A. Price Foundation journal.  One twin received palatal expansion, while the other did not.  Here's a photo that shows the dramatic difference in the two -- not just in their teeth, but their overall facial structure:

Impressive, eh?  It's readily apparent that dental appliances can make a huge difference towards regaining the facial structure of our ancestors.  But I'm far beyond the developmental time period during which such devices can help me attain a facial appearance closer to that of the human genetic blueprint, right?  These things only work for the growing child or teenager.  At age 18, the bone plates are fused, and there's no budging them.  Once you're an adult, there's no room for any adjustments, right?  Well, I began to wonder: Is there such a thing as adult palatal expansion?  And, if so, would it make any difference health-wise if I were to apply such technology to my own head?  Let's just find out.  (Google, you are my friend.)

The first website I came across, called Facial Development, is absolutely fascinating.  It's authored by Theodore R. Belfor, DDS, who has a clinic in New York state that actually specializes in expanding adult palates using a dental appliance called a Homeoblock.  From his website:

The Homeoblock™ appliance is a revolutionary patented oral device that is much like a retainer in looks, but the results go way beyond teeth straightening...The Homeoblock™ appliance works with the body, so that physiological changes occur naturally; developing the bones of the face and resulting in the strengthening of facial muscles. These changes occur due in large part to each person’s genetic potential  Often, facial development does not reach its potential due to the food we eat, polluted air and poor dental care to name a few.

Wow.  A dentist who acknowledges that facial development is influenced by diet?  I wonder if he knows about Dr. Price.  Browsing the website further, I came upon a paper that Dr. Belfor wrote called, "Facial Changes as a Result of Palatal Expansion in Adult Patients Using the Homeoblock Appliance."  Check out this before and after 3d image taken of one of his patients who used a Homeoblock:

Look closely and notice the differences in the cheek bones, chin, and lips.  Pretty incredible.  So not only does palatal widening make for straighter teeth, it also induces significant changes in the overall facial structure -- even in adults.  Dr. Belfor markets his work as a way of creating a more youthful appearance in addition to straightening teeth.  An interesting effect of palatal widening is reduced wrinkles.  But he's also very enthusiastic about other changes that occur with the procedure (emphasis mine):

 I am experiencing the most incredible excitement on a daily basis. I routinely expand adult underdeveloped maxilla and mandible taking the teeth along for the ride. There are many different goals, as many as there are different patients. However, the result is always the same; more prominent cheekbones, wide smiles, and strong jaws!"  

Prominent cheek bones?  Wide smiles?  Strong jaws?  Is this guy Weston Price incarnate?  So, wait a minute, how can any of this actually work if the bones are fused by age 18, as is commonly believed?  Well, let's let Dr. Belfor answer that one:

Bone is essentially plastic in nature. Tension and intermittent pressure persuade the bones to redefine at any age. In fact, our typical patient is between 30 and 60 years old. In the upper dental arch nature has provided a suture line front to back between the two bones that form the palate. This allows for an easy widening process and as the palate expands, the cheekbones as well, creating more prominence.

Okay, so maybe there's a chance for a "deformie" like me to experience optimal facial structure after all!  I would like a second opinion, though.  I  mean, isn't there a possibility of teeth relapsing or other complications happening?  Let's see what one scientific study had to say about adult palatal widening procedures and the risks involved, in this case using an implement called a Haas expander:

Rapid maxillary expansion (RME) in the adult is thought to be an unreliable procedure with several adverse side effects and, consequently, surgically assisted RME is considered the preferred procedure...Rapid maxillary expansion using a Haas expander was examined in 47 adults and 47 children...The results indicate that nonsurgical RME in adults is a clinically successful and safe method for correcting transverse maxillary
arch deficiency.

This study had a follow-up time of an average 5.9 years, and the patients' teeth remained in place.  Here's a dramatic before-and-after image from the study showing one case of palatal expansion, a 30-year-old female:

Now that's just amazing.  30-years-old and there's still room for correction of the dental arch.  I wonder, though, are there any health benefits to having the palate expanded and the resultant craniofacial changes that take place?  Dr. Belfor, what do you think?

Orthopedic jaw development, particularly arch expansion, allows for improved sinus drainage and widens airflow passages. This can result in snoring reduction and lessened symptoms of sleep apnea...Voice enhancement. Improved facial balance and skin tone. Arresting and reversing the premature aging of the face. 

 Sounds to me like it would be worth it.  Only one problem, I have no idea how much the procedure actually costs.  I'm sending an e-mail to Dr. Belfor to find out.  Also, I'm going to ask him if he's influenced at all by Weston A. Price, as he seems right there with the 1930s dentist philosophically.  If anybody out there has more information on the procedure, please leave your comments.

Here's one more link with an article and video on adult palate expansion: "Skull Stretching."

See "Popular Posts" to the right for all of my updates on palate expansion.

Primitive Nutrition Talk: Health Stories (Continued)

Here's some more footage from part one of the Wintercount discussion.  Here I continue my health story and recount fond memories of my experiences with zero-carbohydrate diets, digestive problems, and giardia.

Primitive Nutrition Talk: Health Stories

Here's the first of a series of videos from my discussion/presentation on Primitive Nutrition, which took place at the Wintercount Rendezvous 2010.  In this video are a few of the diet experiences shared by folks that sat in on the talk, as well as my own health story.  I'll be publishing more videos of this presentation in the coming weeks, covering many nutrition and health topics from an evolutionary and anthropological perspective, as well as diving into the work of Weston A. Price.

By the way, if anybody knows how to sync video and audio, I'd greatly appreciate some advice, as you can see that the second half of the video is a few seconds off.

Small Game in Primitive Living, Part 3: Cooking For Maximum Nutrients

Indigenous peoples all over the world applied universal cooking practices to their animal foods for optimum nutrition.  For larger game, a common practice was to consume nutritious organ meats -- liver, kidneys, heart, etc. -- in addition to muscle flesh and fat after roasting over the fire, boiling in stews, or burying in pits lined with hot rocks.  The full spectrum of amino acids, water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins exist in these parts of the animal.  For minerals, bones were added to long-cooked broths or cracked open to extract the rich, creamy marrow inside.  Smaller bones were sometimes gnawed on; the flavorful juices perhaps provided a dose of calcium and gelatin, similar to the nutrients found in bone broths.  The Townsend Newsletter For Doctors and Patients (2005) published an article about the properties of traditional bone broths and had this to say about nutritional content:

Broth can be thought of as a protein supplement, and a calcium supplement. The chemical ingredients extracted from broth are glycine and proline (collagen/gelatin), calcium and phosphorus (minerals), hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate (GAGs), and other minerals, amino acids and GAGs in smaller amounts.

If my memory serves me correctly, I once read an anthropological account of a few hundred years ago in which one Native American tribe always had a pot of broth on the fire and added scraps and bones to this pot continuously.  The observer of this practice states that this tribe drank "copious" amounts of the broth.  

Aside from the boiling of bones to release their minerals and nutritive elements, some tribes went to great lengths to supply yet another source of fat -- in addition to marrow and body fat deposits -- called "bone grease."  This type of fat was attained by the long boiling of smashed bone and skimming the resultant grease off the surface.  In a book called Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains, author Jack Brink goes into incredible detail about the production of bone grease, even going so far as to reproduce indigenous boiling techniques by adding hot, fire-heated rocks to buffalo hide containers filled with water.  He explains how bone grease is different than marrow:

Though bone looks to be solid, it is really more of a latticework of twisted strands of bone tissue interspersed with tiny spaces ... The tiny spaces ... aren't empty; they are filled with small globules of fat.  Called bone grease, it is a fat separate from the marrow in that is located in the bone structure itself, not the marrow cavity. (p. 190) 

Another universal practice among primitive cultures is the use of blood.  In a class I took at Wintercount one year, called "Using the Whole Animal," we caught the blood of a freshly slaughtered goat in a bucket and consumed the thick, scarlet red liquid after cooking it in a frying pan over a fire.  It resembled ground meat and tasted very rich and satisfying.  Of course, many of us know of the Masai and their practice of drinking raw, fresh blood -- so cooking isn't a requirement.  Blood is a good source of electrolytes, especially sodium, which are sometimes hard to come by in primitive living.  It is also high in protein and, in and of itself, a very sustaining food.

Powdered Woodrat

Now that we've reviewed some of the primitive cooking and eating practices for larger animals, let's examine how this information relates to the main subject of this series: small game.  While it goes without saying that all of the nutrients present in large game are also present in smaller game, the difference in cooking techniques to maximize these nutrients requires some explanation.  The cooking of small game is perhaps a simpler, more effective means of maximizing nutrition in primitive living due to the simple fact that long boiling times and extensive processing and butchering is not required.  In fact, many small animals can be eaten whole, bones and all (of course, removing the intestines is a probably good idea in any case).

Author Paul Campbell, who I've met at several primitive skills gatherings, documents the traditional hunt and preparation of white-throated woodrat in his book, Survival Skills of Native California (pp. 340-345).  A Kiliwa Indian named Sam Ochurte leads Campbell on the hunt and, after procuring a few woodrats by way of bow and arrow, the native builds a small fire to cook his quarry.  He then singes the hair off, cooks the skin to a crisp, bacon-like consistency and removes the charred pieces of skin, eating each with a pinch of salt.  Ochurte then removes the intestines from the woodrats and returns them to the coals to finish cooking.  When thoroughly cooked, the whole rats are set upon one rock and pounded with another, as in a mano and metate setup, until they are a small pile of shredded meat and crushed bone.  He then picks out any uncrushed fragments and the rest -- smashed up bones, teeth, meat, and organs -- he eats.  As Campbell acknowledges, "The nutritional value of even one complete rodent must have been considerable."

Campbell notes that similar processing techniques were observed historically in several other California tribes.  Rabbits, hares, squirrels, and other small game were prepared this way.  In addition to this, larger game bones, such as deer vertebrae, were also pounded and stored or eaten -- ancient calcium supplements in a sense.  He describes other cooking methods for small game, including the boiling of whole small animals -- taken out temporarily to remove the skin similar to the above account -- and eaten whole, guts and all.               

By using the whole animal, primitive peoples easily attained the nutrition required for optimal health, and modern abos would be wise to follow suit in primitive living excursions and experiments if they are to sustain their health and maximize nutrients to thrive in the wilderness.   
          

Small Game in Primitive Living, Part 2: Protein, Fat, & Calories

Without a doubt, the procuring of adequate food while in a primitive living situation is one of the most consuming (pun unintended) tasks that any modern abo-wannabe participates in.  After several days in the backcountry with a group of fellow primitive living enthusiasts, food fantasies inevitably come up.  "Oh, man, it'd be so great if we came across a pizza smothered in cheese, topped with pepperonis and meat. "  Sometimes these food fantasies take on a spirit of their own and the resultant food combinations are often dishes that no normal, well-fed human being would enjoy (or even think of, really) in civilization.  I once heard a guy say, "I had a dream last night that I was gorging on Church's Chicken topped with ice cream and chocolate syrup."  Mmm ... fried chicken and Ben & Jerry's in one glorious conglomeration.

What does it take to keep a person satisfied in the wilderness when he or she is living on the land, solely utilizing what is in nature to fill his or her belly?  Is it possible to live primitively, happily, with a full stomach while keeping the food fantasies at bay?  First and foremost, it depends on the environment in which one is attempting to get fed.  Many natural areas in the world are sorely lacking in many of the abundant plants and animals that used to flourish only a few hundred years ago.  In the Sonoran Desert, for example -- my stomping grounds -- wild antelope, grazing on extensive, lush grasslands, used to be a common sight.  Now, in most areas where the antelopes once roamed and the grass once grew, there remains scrubby, sad-looking mesquite trees, strangling the land and creating an impermeable barrier of interlaced thorny branches.  Along with over-hunting and over-population, this is a direct effect of over-grazing cattle on lands where they never ranged historically. 

Human beings have left a profound mark upon the earth, and this leaves folks who want to recreate a primitive living experience with limited resources.  What modern abos are left with is but a miniscule piece of nature's pie.  "The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be."  And, unless we go to Alaska or other relatively unspoiled places, we cannot simply walk out into our backyards and find dinner.  Or can we?

A question I've pondered often is whether or not human beings can live comfortably and successfully with what is available in these altered natural places -- can we work with the limited resources available?  While the abundance of large game animals and wild plant foods in most places -- especially deserts -- has dwindled, perhaps there remains an underestimated, underutilized opportunity for sustenance in small game animals, whose populations have remained relatively stable over time.  Can squirrels, rabbits, birds, mice, and other tiny creatures provide all that a person needs to live well in the wild or elsewhere? 

Matt Graham's experience suggests that it is indeed possible to meet at least one person's caloric and nutritional needs on such fare.  By setting traplines of two simple traps -- one being a spring snare and the other being a Paiute figure-four deadfall -- checking them every day, and cooking the caught animals (mostly squirrels and rabbits) for optimum calories and nutrition, Matt was able to provide for himself during his three months of full-on primitive living in the southern Utah desert.  However, over those three months, he also ended up slowly losing body mass, indicating inadequate caloric intake over time.  Just how many squirrels and rabbits was he eating day to day?  If he had attained more, would he have felt more satisfied and maintained a better body composition?  And what quantity of small game would that require?  I hope to discuss some of these questions with Matt at Wintercount.  Until then, I thought it would be interesting to speculate a little.

Using the data from a research paper (intended for the evaluation of predators' diets in zoos) called "Nutrient Composition of Whole Prey (Excluding Fish) Fed in Zoos" -- and a lot of help from Stephan at Whole Health Source -- I was able to make some calculations and come up with the protein, fat, and calorie content of a few small game animals per pound of whole carcass (note: some animals are eviscerated, meaning their hides and internal organs are discarded):

Here we see that, while a pound of each animal provides adequate protein, when it comes to fat and overall calories, any person would be feeling pretty darn hungry after a while on such a dietary regimen.  Aside from that, there's also the reality of just how many successful traps one can set in a day and just how many animals such traps can provide.  Let's say we want a minimum of about 1500 calories per day, give or take.  That would require roughly:

• 56 adult mice (avg. 20 grams each)
• 2 gray squirrels (avg. 1.1 lbs each)
• 1/3 of an eviscerated domestic rabbit (avg. 9 lbs each)*
• 1/2 of an eviscerated black-tailed jackrabbit (avg. 8 lbs. each)
• 6 Japanese quail (avg. 1/3 lb each)**

*Wild cottontail rabbits, for comparison, weigh an average of 2.3 lbs
**Similar in weight to Gambel's Quail of the Sonoran Desert

If we want to have enough calories to maintain body mass and even build muscle in primitive living, it would require twice those numbers.  Realistically, no person is going to be able to procure the amount of mice it requires to sustain a person in this way.  I certainly wouldn't be up for setting the number of traps that it would take, considering the fact that one whole mouse is only one bite and down the hatch!  However, when we look at some of the larger animals, surviving comfortably in the wild becomes more than a pipe dream.  Catch a few squirrels, maybe some mice and quail, and a rabbit or two per day and you have the makings of a successful primitive living experience!  The question of fat, however, is inescapable, and may require the taking of some animals soley for the fatty parts, which would add on a few more squirrels or one more rabbit to account for this need (if we are to achieve an ideal 60/40 or, best, 80/20 ratio of protein to fat).

Of course, not all of the animal can be eaten in most cases (aside from the very tiny ones) so we are left with the question of just how much of each animal can, in fact, be digested and utilized for nutrients.  In the next post, we'll discuss cooking small game in primitive living.

Note: I realize I'm leaving out the addition of plant foods to the primitive diet and their caloric contribution.  Seasonal variation and environmental degradation, not to mention the extensive processing many wild edibles require, makes them a questionable food source for practicing abos in many parts of the world.  If they're abundant, though, definitely eat 'em!