Re: Nutrition 101

[Guest guest]

>I'm in the process of transitioning to NT and have a few questions.

>

>1. In general, do most of you get all your nutritional needs just

>using foods prepared in accordance with NT? Does that include

>superfoods, a few select ones, many of them? Or, do most supplement

>in addition? If so, how do you go about determining what you need?

>Do you figure it out on your own? Or, do you use a health care

>professional? If so, what criteria do you use in selecting one?

I use supplements. It isn't my ideal, but I don't absorb vitamins well and I

had a lot of " issues " from years of dietary problems. I started taking

calcium because of tetany, and kept taking more till the tetany went away.

Also vit B for arthritis (again, until the symptoms were gone) and vit C

(1000 mg a day, based on what " people say " ).

>2. As far as I can tell NT doesn't prescribe any specific

>carb/protien/fat ratios, calorie guidelines, etc. So how do all of

>you determine what is best for you (and your kids)? Some of the

>calorie amounts mentioned in some of the posts seem high by most

>standards. Is this typical of those following NT? If so, how is

>this accomplished without weight gain?

I experimented a lot, and, via this list and esp. , ended up using

the Warror Diet protocol (eat 4 hours out of the day). That seems

to make your own inner " appestat " work more efficiently, so your

body tells you what you need. I don't try to tell myself how much macronutrient

to eat, just eat " what I feel like " . I do try to make sure I get greens though.

I let my kids and hubbie follow their own appestats. Seems to work --

we've all gotten skinnier and more muscular. Without me nagging, they

seem to follow the WD more or less ... they snack during the day

and gorge at night. Mind you I " stock " the house with good food

(esp. with good beef and vegies).

We also dropped gluten from our lives, which made a big difference.

This isn't NT specific ... it is based on other research I did (esp. the

book " dangerous grains " . But if I were to sum up the philosophy of

NT, it would be something like " whatever works " ... i.e. don't

follow ANY philosophy of eating just because someone says

it SHOULD work. There is no one diet that works for

all people, and a lot of it depends on genetics.

>3. Since I have very little knowledge of the basics I would like to

>find a Nutrition 101 textbook. Is there such a book that someone can

>recommend, something with everything in one place, just basic facts,

>no `political' agenda?

Besides Nourishing Traditions? That is the classic!

Beyond that, all the books I've ever read have a sort of agenda. There is no

consensus on what are " the basic facts " at this point. The big

issue is fats ... one camp says they are BAD and another says they are GOOD

(if from a good source).

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/7/04 11:55:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, jrd416@...

writes:

> 2. As far as I can tell NT doesn't prescribe any specific

> carb/protien/fat ratios, calorie guidelines, etc. So how do all of

> you determine what is best for you (and your kids)? Some of the

> calorie amounts mentioned in some of the posts seem high by most

> standards. Is this typical of those following NT? If so, how is

> this accomplished without weight gain?

Well, I'll answer this one since I'm sure this refers to *me* :-)

There's nothing high-calorie about NT. I personally have an admittedly

extremely high need for food-- in part, because I seems to have some sort of

hypermetabolism that wastes it as heat, and in part because my intention is to

gain

weight. I wouldn't increase your calories as part of your transition.

Sally has said that 15-20% is about the constant protein portion of

traditional diets, while fat ranges from 30-80% and the rest is made up in

carbs. You

have to find your ratio through experimentation-- trial and error-- or, with

the possible guidance of one of these metabolic typing regimes, or knowledge of

your ancestors' diets.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I agree with Heidi's post regarding the " do what works for you " philosophy and

that ALL nutrition books (including NT and ESPECIALLY textbooks that may have

received funding from agribusiness) have an agenda...so, I say, eat what makes

you feel good! Personally, snickers and m & ms make me feel great until I crash

from the sugar, so be realistic!

In terms of supplements, I take about a T. of butter oil and cod liver oil daily

and I plan to add 1000 mg. of C (from acerola powder) and folic acid as well.

Generally, I try to get all my nutrients from food (ideal, IMO) but I live in

NYC and it is sometimes hard to get nutrient dense food. Plus, with modern soil

depletion, I want to cover my bases. The butter oil/clo combo is straight from

Price and the C is just a gut feeling and the folic acid is because I will

eventually (within the next five years) get pregnant and when I do, I don't want

to put the fetus at risk.

Nutrition 101

I'm in the process of transitioning to NT and have a few questions.

1. In general, do most of you get all your nutritional needs just

using foods prepared in accordance with NT? Does that include

superfoods, a few select ones, many of them? Or, do most supplement

in addition? If so, how do you go about determining what you need?

Do you figure it out on your own? Or, do you use a health care

professional? If so, what criteria do you use in selecting one?

2. As far as I can tell NT doesn't prescribe any specific

carb/protien/fat ratios, calorie guidelines, etc. So how do all of

you determine what is best for you (and your kids)? Some of the

calorie amounts mentioned in some of the posts seem high by most

standards. Is this typical of those following NT? If so, how is

this accomplished without weight gain?

3. Since I have very little knowledge of the basics I would like to

find a Nutrition 101 textbook. Is there such a book that someone can

recommend, something with everything in one place, just basic facts,

no `political' agenda?

Thanks,

[Guest guest]

> In terms of supplements, I take about a T. of butter oil and cod

liver oil daily and I plan to add 1000 mg. of C (from acerola

powder) and folic acid as well.

---> are you taking 1 Tablespoon or did you mean teaspoon?

Just curious.

BTW...I've been doing 1 tsp of each for quite awhile now and really

feel it's helped. When I talked to Wetzel's wife (of Green

Pastures the butter oil company) she said she took 1 Tablespoon of

butter oil, plus extra as she packages it, all through her last

pregnancy and had a hugh, healthy, calm baby.

Lynn

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/8/04 4:53:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,

wanitawa@... writes:

> BTW, didn't you recently say you had some Greek ancestry? Maybe you

> could handle more carbs than others with ancestry to shorter growing seasons

> and longer winters.

>

I don't recall saying it, but yes, I do, a little. I'm about 1/8 Greek, 1/8

French, 1/4 Irish, some undefined and probably minute amount Native American,

and up to 50% Polish, with other possible ancestries on my biological father's

side that I don't know about.

Chris

[Guest guest]

@@@@@@@@@ :

--- In , " yjrd416 " <jrd416@j...>

wrote:

> I'm in the process of transitioning to NT and have a few questions.

>

> 1. In general, do most of you get all your nutritional needs just

> using foods prepared in accordance with NT? Does that include

> superfoods, a few select ones, many of them? Or, do most

supplement

> in addition? If so, how do you go about determining what you need?

> Do you figure it out on your own? Or, do you use a health care

> professional? If so, what criteria do you use in selecting one?

@@@@@@@@@@@@

I think a lot of people following NT take supplements while some take

hardly any at all. People with existing health problems are more

likely to supplement. The only supplement I use is a little

magnesium, which I add to my soup broths. As far as superfoods, I

take CLO and a tiny bit of acerola. I definitely get everything I

need (am not really sure about magenesium though) from foods, and I

follow all the core NT-style methods of food preparation. But I am

also young, free from health problems, and have no family/kids to

worry about.

@@@@@@@@@ :

> 3. Since I have very little knowledge of the basics I would like to

> find a Nutrition 101 textbook. Is there such a book that someone

can

> recommend, something with everything in one place, just basic

facts,

> no `political' agenda?

@@@@@@@@@@@

I have a ton of thoughts on this topic, but don't want to spend all

day ranting. Basically, the nutrition textbooks you'd find used in a

college class have lots of great info on basics, but also omit tons

of huge topics and fail to deal with a lot of really basic issues

like fermentation, source quality/soil/animal diet, allergens,

evolutionary considerations, human traditions, etc. They fail to use

their position to give a balanced and scientific take on " hot button "

ideological-warfare topics like cholesterol and fats, though I think

some might now be going more into the macronutrient fray. In fact,

some act as mouthpieces for government/industry-approved dogma.

These books are almost ridiculous in their detached way of giving

some facts with plenty of references but not really dealing with the

important issues or connecting physiological theory with the actual

practical reality of food. I'm lucky having a very well-stocked

university library at my disposal and I've heavily browsed the

textbook literature and studied a few of the authoritative books, and

I find them all variants on each other and uniformly disappointing.

You also have technical scientific literature on cutting-edge

important topics that's either inaccessible to us laypeople or

unwilling to take the extra step of connecting scientific theory to

human practice. As is widely-known, sometimes this literature also

reflects the economic biases of corporate funding.

But then on the other hand you have this huge corpus of writings from

alternative viewpoints, from fringe websites to best-selling books,

where the science and documentation is very sloppy and usually based

on a narrow agenda. Often people fail to look at the big picture and

consider opposing viewpoints. Some of it is driven by ideological or

financial biases unrelated to health or nutrition. There's also a

tendency for extremism or a focus on single issues instead of a broad

spectrum of interacting issues. Short internet articles are often

driven by supplement companies trying to sell their products.

Popular ideologies, " -ism " 's, diets with an official name and special

rules, etc are often driven by authors/gurus/publishing houses trying

to sell books. Very well-intentioned volunteer writing by laypeople

or health professionals (like email groups and " volunteer guru "

websites) is often an endless bandying about of second-hand and

poorly researched/documented information and

oversimpflications/overgeneralizations driven by ordinary people

trying piece together their own worldview, usually heavily biased by

incidental parts of their personal history and desires to force their

understanding of nutrition/health to be consistent with pre-existing

personal ideologies. Another part of this " motivated laypeople "

genre is the practice of taking current technical scientific

literature (often just abstracts from PubMed or something) and

drawing questionable conclusions about practical matters from it.

All of this discourse is eye-opening and important, but also

ridiculously inadequate.

So on one end we have nutritional info that's conservative to the

point of being useless, and on the other end we have nutritional info

that's liberal to the point of being unreliable. What frustrates me

deeply is that there's little in-between these two ends of the

spectrum of possible nutritional discourse. There are tons of

people qualified to fill this gap, but somehow it is not filled.

NT/WAPF is one of the few things that ventures into that ideal middle-

ground, and has been by far the biggest influence on my nutritional

worldview, an amazing contribution to society that I'm endlessly

grateful for, yet it still has enough toes on the unreliable side and

a lack of encyclopedic scope, so the gap is still pretty wide open.

Probably the only nutritional idea you'll need to be healthy is to

avoid foods manufactured by large corporations. When you think about

what that wipes out and what it leaves, it's pretty profound.

Everything else is tweaking details for fun, stacking the odds, extra-

nutritional context (e.g. social structure, ecology, ideology,

seasonality), or special health situations.

Mike

SE Pennsylvania

[Guest guest]

BTW, didn't you recently say you had some Greek ancestry? Maybe you

could handle more carbs than others with ancestry to shorter growing seasons

and longer winters.

Wanita

> Sally has said that 15-20% is about the constant protein portion of

> traditional diets, while fat ranges from 30-80% and the rest is made up in

carbs. You

> have to find your ratio through experimentation-- trial and error--or

knowledge of

> your ancestors' diets.

>

> Chris

>

[Guest guest]

I buy quite a few things from large corporations if its a good

product. Example, cascadian farms frozen berries I think are very

good quality, owned by General Mills. Organic Valley is gettin

pretty big pretty fast too. In fact I hope as people become more

aware and start to demand better food more large companies will sell

more good food. Once you become a certain size you can take

advantage of things like economies of scale to make good food less

expensive. I believe food technology will be used in a good way once

the populations smartens up.

-Joe

> In a message dated 1/8/04 2:06:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,

> heidis@t... writes:

>

> > >Probably the only nutritional idea you'll need to be healthy is

to

> > >avoid foods manufactured by large corporations. When you think

about

> > >what that wipes out and what it leaves, it's pretty profound.

> >

> > That thought right there is awfully profound.

>

> What constitutes " large " ? Eden seems to be pretty big, and I

think their soy

> sauce is a fantastic product-- fermented for 2 years.

>

> Chris

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I disagree. I think the health problem in industrialized countries

is more a lack of knowledge rather than a lack of desire. Look at

the rapid growth f the organic industry. So many people really want

to eat right, but they get so much conflicing info from

the " experts " they just give up. All lies die with time.

-Joe

> The population will never smarten up.

>

> Simple reason is Money. I know many ppl who are really money

hungry and do

> not care about health.

>

>

>

> Unfortunate but it's the sad truth and its just so well imbedded

now.

>

>

>

>

>

> _____

>

> From: Joe [mailto:jzbozzi@y...]

> Sent: Friday, 9 January 2004 10:35 AM

>

> Subject: Re: Nutrition 101

>

>

>

> I buy quite a few things from large corporations if its a good

> product. Example, cascadian farms frozen berries I think are very

> good quality, owned by General Mills. Organic Valley is gettin

> pretty big pretty fast too. In fact I hope as people become more

> aware and start to demand better food more large companies will

sell

> more good food. Once you become a certain size you can take

> advantage of things like economies of scale to make good food less

> expensive. I believe food technology will be used in a good way

once

> the populations smartens up.

>

> -Joe

>

>

>

> --- In , ChrisMasterjohn@a...

wrote:

> > In a message dated 1/8/04 2:06:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,

> > heidis@t... writes:

> >

> > > >Probably the only nutritional idea you'll need to be healthy

is

> to

> > > >avoid foods manufactured by large corporations. When you

think

> about

> > > >what that wipes out and what it leaves, it's pretty profound.

> > >

> > > That thought right there is awfully profound.

> >

> > What constitutes " large " ? Eden seems to be pretty big, and I

> think their soy

> > sauce is a fantastic product-- fermented for 2 years.

> >

> > Chris

> >

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Yes, true. But I think there is something else going on that allows

people to lie and get away with it. I don't think we have yet

learned how to live as an industrialized society. isolated groups

such as those studied by Price must have refined their diets and

traditions over many generations to fit their environment. I think

we are going through the same thing now. Its will take time for us

to adapt and understand our new environment. Just as humans nature

can lead someone to take advantage of people out of their own self

interest, it also leads people to look after their own and

childrens' welfare out of their own self interest. It just takes

time to change and learn.

-Joe

> > > In a message dated 1/8/04 2:06:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,

> > > heidis@t... writes:

> > >

> > > > >Probably the only nutritional idea you'll need to be

healthy

> is

> > to

> > > > >avoid foods manufactured by large corporations. When you

> think

> > about

> > > > >what that wipes out and what it leaves, it's pretty

profound.

> > > >

> > > > That thought right there is awfully profound.

> > >

> > > What constitutes " large " ? Eden seems to be pretty big, and I

> > think their soy

> > > sauce is a fantastic product-- fermented for 2 years.

> > >

> > > Chris

> > >

> > >

> > >

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the responses to my questions.

1. For the Nutrition 101 book I'm just thinking of something pretty

basic, that covers what's a carb, what's a protein, how does your

body use them, etc. More detail than what is in NT. Just for my

own knowledge base and also to teach my kids. They are skeptical

and somewhat resistant to what I've done with NT so far. Since they

are 12 & 14 I would like to be able to be able to explain the why to

them. One has already covered some basics in biology, so I should

be able to extend what they are already learning. They need to

learn how to navigate through the tons of misinformation we have to

deal with in this world so they may as well start learning now on

this topic.

2. Concerning supplements, one view is that since hybriding has

reduced the nutritional content of food in order to extend shelf

life one needs to supplement to adjust for it, otherwise you wind up

consuming too many calories to meet nutritional needs. I would

assume this hybriding affects organic as well as conventional

produce. So even though some NT preparation techniques improve

nutrient content in some cases, it seems that we would still never

be getting the same nutritional value out of our apples, carrots,

etc. as compared to the apples, carrots, etc. of our ancenstors.

Comments?

[Guest guest]

> 2. Concerning supplements, one view is that since hybriding has

> reduced the nutritional content of food in order to extend shelf

> life one needs to supplement to adjust for it, otherwise you wind

up

> consuming too many calories to meet nutritional needs. I would

> assume this hybriding affects organic as well as conventional

> produce. So even though some NT preparation techniques improve

> nutrient content in some cases, it seems that we would still never

> be getting the same nutritional value out of our apples, carrots,

> etc. as compared to the apples, carrots, etc. of our ancenstors.

> Comments?

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

that's a great point! it's also nice to acknowledge that this

applies equally to organic farming. i've been thinking a lot about

this lately. i think posted something many months ago about

less mineral intake in some hybridized plants, and certainly the

general tendency to breed for greater sugar and starch content

dramatically decreases nutrient-density. my response has been to

learn about wild foods, and, like Katja, to become interested in

older breeds of both plants and animals, both of which are

definitely " works in progress " ... the wild food part is certainly a

lot cheaper! and of course the bigger issue of soil management is

behind all of this... i'm especially interested in the changes in

magnesium content of common vegetables due to hybridizing, but

whether or not this is significant i don't know.

Mike

SE Pennsylvania

[Guest guest]

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 22:41:53 -0800

Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>I experimented a lot, and, via this list and esp. , ended up using

>the Warror Diet protocol (eat 4 hours out of the day). That seems

>to make your own inner " appestat " work more efficiently, so your

>body tells you what you need. I don't try to tell myself how much macronutrient

>to eat, just eat " what I feel like " . I do try to make sure I get greens though.

Thats kewl. I must say that if it wasn't for you eating kimchi would

still be a good idea stuck in my brain. And of course you have

thoroughly educated me on gluten to the point where the only gluten in

my diet on a regular basis is BEER <weg>.

I must second you on the not having to worry about macronutrients. I

just eat what I feel now on the WD. And the WD has allowed me to

reintroduce carbs into my diet and eat lots of them.

Funny how an off handed comment about diets for losing weight that have

worked for me over the years (don't know the message # but I mentioned

Atkins and various other low carbing approaches, Fit For Life, and the

now infamous WD) started a thread that seems to have helped a lot of

people. Neat.

So if I come to your house for a steak, does it mean I have to find some

gluten free alcohol to bring with me? <g>

Democrats, We Are Begging You

Return to the days of yesteryear

http://tinyurl.com/2ryhp

[Guest guest]

:

>Funny how an off handed comment about diets for losing weight that have

>worked for me over the years (don't know the message # but I mentioned

>Atkins and various other low carbing approaches, Fit For Life, and the

>now infamous WD) started a thread that seems to have helped a lot of

>people. Neat.

Most of my major life changes were started by " off handed comments " .

They kind of go ZING! into my brain and stick and I KNOW something

is going to come of it, don't know what though.

>So if I come to your house for a steak, does it mean I have to find some

>gluten free alcohol to bring with me? <g>

We are pretty permissive, but people who bring beer are kicked out

immediately ;--) Fortunately most alchohol is GF, but we've gotten

addicted to red wine (white doesn't cut it, anymore).

I DO miss a good dark porter. Makes me itch like crazy though, so

it's not all that tempting.

-- Heidi