The Steaks Are High

Interview with the Carnivore

Jimmy Moore posted this week about a ludicrous "Interview with a Carnivore" posted by Allena Rose Tapia over at DietDective.com. Check out Jimmy's answers to her questions here: "Moderate Vegetarian" Goes To Extremes In Her Mock Interview With A Carnivore. I'd like to offer my own answers to Tapia's questions, since I think some of these questions are valid and deserve real answers:

Question: What's the one thing that keeps you from being vegetarian?

Answer: Credible research up to this point indicates that humans need a dietary source of amino and fatty acids. Some of these are only available from animal sources.

Question: What about the fact that alot of these tastes can be replicated by meat substitutes?

Answer: They absolutely cannot be replicated by meat substitutes! Are you kidding? You think a juicy steak and a Boca Burger taste anything near alike?
(Also, it's "a lot" not "alot".)

Question: I notice you have children. Do you worry about the environment you're leaving them?

Answer: I don't have children, but the argument about meat-eating being bad for the environment is based on faulty logic. Vegetarians like to tout the "one acre of land can produce 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 potatoes" line, but let's examine that briefly.

Firstly, while you do get more potatoes, potatoes are a vastly inferior source of nutrition to beef. If you doubt this, let's go head-to-head, and I'll eat only beef for a year while you eat only potatoes, and we'll see who's alive at Christmas.

Secondly, this argument rests on the faulty premise that every acre of land in the world is suitable for arable farming. This simply isn't the case - there are many areas where it is impossible to farm, but animals like sheep can graze freely. Until humans evolve a mechanism to derive nutrients from grass, perhaps we could continue to eat the ingenious devices which turn grass into nutritious protein - animals.

Question: Why aren't you worried about it?

Answer: I think there are more pressing concerns, like 8,500 people dying from AIDS every day and a largely ignored genocide ongoing in Darfur.

I am concerned about damage to the environment, however. To that end:
- I recycle whatever I can
- I use a canvas bag to go grocery shopping instead of using environmentally-damaging plastic bags
- I pay a carbon offset charge when I fly (for example, $70 for a round trip flight from Montreal-Orlando for two people)
- I don't smoke or litter
- I don't own or drive a car

Care to rack up your environmental damage next to mine just because you eat veggies instead of delicious meat?

Question: You're familiar with some of the methods by which meat animals are killed and tortured. How do you get past that when you bite into a burger?

Answer: I find the inhumane treatment of animals disgusting and unnecessary. I absolutely favor reforms so animals are raised and slaughtered in the most pain-free way possible. Temple Grandin has made some great progress with slaughterhouse improvements around the country. Buying free-range grass-fed beef, and free-range eggs are just a couple of ways to support more humane farming. Plus, happy cows taste better!

Question: How much do you worry about your health in connection to what you eat?

Answer: I pay very close attention to my health in connection to what I eat. I've noticed that eating a diet full of high-quality protein from meat, fish and eggs, and a few vegetables thrown in has made me healthier and happier than ever before. I also don't have the sallow complexion and the big dark circles you often see under vegetarians' eyes from iron deficiency.

Question: Would you be willing to reduce your meat-eating days to 3 per week, plus one fish day?

Answer: No way. Would you be willing to reduce your eating days to 4 per week?

Intermittent Fasting

I've been encouraged by a few people to blog the bad as well as the good...so here goes.

I'm completely annoyed. I've stuck to low carbing faithfully since October 19th, mostly doing the shake plan during the week, and just regular Atkins-style eating on the weekends. I've been going to the gym 4-5 times a week, doing a mix of cardio and weights.

Since gaining weight on my honeymoon and the following month, so far I've lost a grand total of...11lbs. And, honestly, most of that was the first whoosh of water weight. I lost 11lbs in a week and then nothing since then. This is dangerous territory for me. When I work out, eat well, and don't cheat, I expect to lose. When I don't lose, I get discouraged and start thinking things like, "Well, if I'm not losing weight anyway...hand over the Krispy Kremes!"

Okay, clearly that is not a good solution here. The thing is, low carbing is the only thing I know how to do, and the only thing that has worked for me. I know I could see the scale move if I did something drastic like Kimkins, but I also know that wouldn't be a long term, sensible fix. I figure if I'm going to keep eating low carb (less than 20g per day), one of the things I could play around with is the timing of my eating, rather than the content.

Dr. Mike Eades' seductive introduction to Intermittent Fasting reads as follows:

"How would you like it if I told you there was a way to eat pretty much anything and everything you wanted to eat and still maintain your health? Or better yet, what if I told you that you could eat pretty much anything and everything you wanted and even improve your health? Would you be interested?"

Intermittent Fasting, as the name implies, involves fasting for a given period of time. Most people recommend a fast less than 48 hours long, since after 48 hours, you will start losing muscle mass. Some practitioners fast one day, eat the next, fast the next, and eat the next. Others do an up-day, down-day approach where they eat high calories one day, and low the next. Interestingly, across schedules, the average caloric intake doesn't change. Fasters make up for it by eating more in one sitting.

From what I have read, it is more common for intermittent fasters to try to get one meal in per day. How is this a fast? Well, check out my schedule for the last two days:

Thursday
Brunch 11:30am-1pm

Friday
Brunch 10:15am-11:45am

Saturday
Lunch: 12pm-2pm

So, from Thursday to Friday I fasted for 21 hours. From Friday to Saturday, my fast was 24 hours. Fasters talk of their eating time as an "eating window". You choose your fasting period, and your eating window. Schedules look like this:

15/3 = 15 hour fast, 3 hour eating window
22/2 = 22 hour fast, 2 hour eating window         ...and so on.

Old-timers recommend easing into a longer fast, starting with 15 hours and working up to a comfortable number. Many people who try intermittent fasting (IF) and hate it are usually trying too much at once and shocking their bodies.

You can read more about the Eades' experience on fasting here:

Fast way to better health

Protein Power versus intermittent fasting

Inflammation and intermittent fasting

There was also an interesting story on NPR about IF, which you can listen to here:

Retune the Body with a Partial Fast

Some benefits listed on the NPR site:
- Improving glucose regulation, which can protect against diabetes
- Lowering blood pressure
- Potentially beneficial effects on the brain, protecting against Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and stroke
- Reducing inflammation
- Reducing cancer risk

                        

Partial fasting may even extend lifespan, in the same way calorie restriction has been shown to do in monkey studies!

I am just beginning my research on this fascinating topic, but I'll post more links as I come across them. One thing that seems to fit intuitively to me is thinking about the way Paleolithic humans ate: probably not three square meals a day, with snacks in between. The theory is that they would eat a larger meal after a kill, and then rest and digest. Think lions devouring their dinner and then sleeping until they need to hunt again. If you believe, as I do, and many in the low carb community do, that our bodies are naturally adapted to a Paleolithic style diet (focusing on meat, a few vegetables, and very occasional berries), why wouldn't we be adapted to a Paleolithic style eating schedule, too?

I'm sure I'll be posting more info on this soon, but for now I'm just going to try it. Essentially, it shouldn't be too much harder than the shake fast...just without the shakes! So far I haven't felt particularly hungry or deprived, and man, does that meal taste amazing when you finally eat. 

Other tips:

• Make sure you aren't going too low on calories. Lengthen your eating window to get a sensible amount of food in for the day if necessary.
• Drink water or other non-caloric drinks (diet soda, black tea, black coffee, herbal teas) to keep hydrated during your fasting.
• Don't go crazy with hunger. If you feel hungry, have a shorter fast for that day. It's not about starving yourself. Listen to your body.
• You can intermittent fast intermittently. You'll get benefits from doing it even once or twice a week. The important thing is to let your body go for some time without any caloric intake - that means no cream in coffee, no protein shakes, no juice.

If anyone feels like trying this, let me know how it goes!