Saturday, 21 October 2017

Veganism - on Sardinian and Okinawan diets, people live long lives, live well


Hi all. I am a vegan and I've been following this group for quite some time, and while having read the pinned posts, as well as the miscellaneous threads, I do have some questions. I will try and muddle them down into just two questions. Forgive me if either has been answered before; I am not an avid facebook user. (I put a tl;dr at the bottom for those who do not have time for my ramblings)
1) Vegans. I know we all come in many varieties, and as I've seen here, many of you have been vegan before, too. I consider myself a vegan for the welfare of animals. This means I am strongly opposed to factory farming; however, if I am able to catch a fish in the wild, I would gladly eat it. If I had chickens, I would eat their eggs. You get the idea.
My question here is, it is stated under Principia Carnivora that all meat is fair game (no pun intended), so long as it doesn't exceed carb counts, however, is it common on ZC to consume factory farmed animals? If so, welfare aside, how do you reconcile the health benefits of ZC with the consumption of (usually) very diseased and hormone pumped animals?
2) The second question is regarding health. I'm young myself, so give me a pardon if I sound like I'm trying to know it all... I've been studying the effects of various diets, and have given each about 6-8 months of experimentation. The diets I have done have been keto, paleo, vegetarian, pescetarian, and vegan. I was curious how each one would make me feel. Perhaps 8 months was too short a time span? I digress.
My point being, most research points to the Sardinian and Okinawan diets as being the healthiest. These are from the Mediterranean and Japanese areas, respectively. It is also not hard to believe this, as Okinawa and Sardinia have the highest rates of centenarians (people who live to be over 100 years old), so while they live long, they also live well. These two diets are primarily made up of seafood, little grain, in season vegetables and fruit, high fat, and little to no red meat.
From a ZC perspective, how would this be refuted? And I would like to make clear that I am not interested in weight loss (though I understand its importance). I am interested in longevity.
tl;dr:
1) Do you consume factory farmed products? Why or why not?
2) Why is a ZC diet superior to other diets that have proven to provide longevity and health?
Thank you for your time
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Carly Beth Ingerson Okay, well... I personally consume both factory farmed beef and pastured beef, I only consume pastured poultry and eggs, I only eat wild caught seafood and grassfed lamb. If I do eat/drink dairy, I get grassfed or as high quality as I can. Most of that is for price reasons. Now, the second. Agriculture is recent in our evolution, so for well over 4/5ths we ate what we hunted or foraged in times of famine. This way of eating also removes plant toxins and natural chemicals from our diets, for obvious reasons. It relieves chronic constipation, cures diverticulosis(spelling?), increases bone and muscle density, strengthens teeth, repairs joints and tendons, fixes malnourished body parts, and clears the skin of blemishes. The only issue on longevity is too much methionine(muscle and fish). Glycine helps abate that(organs, cartilage, bones). You will soon find amino acids and proteins are just as potent as so called "phytonutrients", and they don't remove other nutrients like their plant counterparts.
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Carly Beth Ingerson Ruminants also detox those toxins on their own, so it is fairly okay to eat farmed cattle or sheep. Fish and omnivores are a different story.
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October 18 at 1:48amEdited
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Jenya Sourgaeva Interesting, I'd have to research the science of that further.
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Carly Beth Ingerson Jenya Sourgaeva Basically they have a liver that works like ours, and cattle are large enough for it to not affect much. And if you worry about detoxing problems like I did, eat eggs. Yolks specifically.
Gregg Sheehan Hi there, Jenya. I live in New Zealand and most of the cattle here are raised on grass and are looked after their whole lives. Humans have moved to an agrarian lifestyle over the last 15,000 years or so and while there are a number of places in the world where people are still predominantly hunter gatherers, they are few and far between. We have not however changed much in our nutritional needs. We still need the nine (out of 22) essential amino acids and two essential fatty acids. The most straightforward way to get these are from animal flesh.

For most of us these days it is going to have to be a compromise. We have, as a society, moved away from living off the land. This may change in the future, but we have no way of knowing for certain. There is little doubt in my mind that the most nutrient dense way (and therefore most efficient) is to eat animals. Everything else represents a compromise as to how far one will go toward plants as food. 

One thing for certain is that our species is rapidly outgrowing the capacity of our system to provide the most nutritious food for us. We may have to take steps to reduce our population (it does seem to be slowing). We need to make sure we are managing the land in the best way and that may mean going back to the prairies of old and allowing the soil to remain healthy.

Gail Cashin The info on the Sardinia diet might be wrong as they eat a lot of pasta, pizza bread and beans. Maybe look at the Greek or Maltese diets as they would be the same as the Okinawa as in fish, veg and rice. I get a delivery direct from a farm every two weeks, I sometimes top up from a supermarket. I buy mainly for the quality and taste and yes to avoid factory farming.
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Leah Murphy The Okinawan diet also apparently includes more meat (mostly pork) than is generally reported.
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Vincent Lefebvre same thing for greek diet; they eat much more fat and animals than generally said.
Michael Frieze ZC all meat diets have not really been studied yet. If we look at cultures such as primitive Inuit, they lived very long lives without any sort of medicine. Also, they are the only known people to not suffer with tooth decay. Besides the Icelandic middle-age people who also ate carnivorous diets. 

So, we can't really compare diets right now since this way of eating is sort of lost in history.
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October 18 at 1:52amEdited
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Carly Beth Ingerson Well, it is common knowledge tooth decay is caused by sugar in any form. Be it table sugar or leafy greens. Apes and most of our primate ancestors have tooth decay, yet you turn to carnivores and their teeth are perfect. Remove sugar and your teeth will stay strong.
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Michael Frieze Yeah, Stefansson found over 200 Inuit skulls with perfect teeth. Plus another 600 from Icelandic middle-ages.
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Jenya Sourgaeva The Inuit is a culture that is commonly brought up, understandably since it's one of the only ones to have been all meat based. My only concern with that one, (and this apples to any cultural diet) is that the Inuit would have adapted to consume meat differently than someone from Ghana or Italy or wherever else, since it's all they had for centuries.
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Michael Frieze Jenya Sourgaeva, there is not enough time in evolution for that to be true. We are all anatomically similar to Inuit. Slight genetic differences might allow us to be able to handle carbohydrates more so than they were, but that is about it. It is our anatomy and biology that really matters here and we are not a different species than Inuit.

Larissa Yulika As have lived in Okinawa for half of my life, there diet is based on vegetables fish and a lot of pork and goat meat. A lot of info you get these days are not accurate...
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Michael Frieze Thanks Larissa, I had no idea.
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Jenya Sourgaeva Thanks, I wasn't aware of that
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Dave Robertson I am half Okinawan. +1 on what Larissa has stated.
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Ævar Austfjörð I am not Okinawan but lucky enough to have been there to train karate with one of the great Senseis. Being the nutritional nerd that I am I did a little observation about their diet and asked around a bit. Thats when i found out exactly what Larissa stated. They do eat quite a lot of meat.
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October 18 at 5:31amEdited
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Irena Kalinacova What about grains? Do they eat any and how much?
Leah Amber Moon You have misconceptions.. no one makes big money off diseases or hormone pumped meats. If you honestly researched this topic, you would know this isn't happening. 

Secondly, large scale plant farming is very detrimental to animal habitats.


Third, diets need far longer than 6 months to see how they will affect the body

Julie Redeye

How can one refute historical Asian diets? No one should try.

It's the dwarf wheat of the last 50 years which have destroyed guts and eliminated the ability to handle carbs.

I consume factory farmed meats and I raise my own chicken, rabbits.

ZC works for some because of extreme carb sensitivity.

All hormones, brain, nuerology, rely on saturated fats.

I'll drop links under this
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Jenya Sourgaeva I'm not convinced you read my post? This seems like a generic answer aimed at the average vegan.

I didn't say anything about money. Hormones make animals grow faster so they can be killed and sold quicker. They don't go through their natural cycles.


Large scale wheat farming is planted to feed factory farmed animals. Again, I didn't say anything about this, nor am I pushing for a vegan diet.

I already said that I may have needed longer than 8* months to learn about the diets.

Again, I didn't say anything about wheat.

Thanks.
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Leah Amber Moon You don't have to say anything about money. In most areas hormonal injection is actually against the law, and no farmer wants diseased animals because diseased animals will not breed, fatten and cannot be taken to market.

I also didn't say you said an
ything about wheat, but wheat is the major killer here and the major common denominator among the United States, Mexico, Britain, any country taking usda grain... They all use the dwarf wheat created in the 1960s by the Dow Corporation and the USDA. 

Yes, you did mention the eight months. But that doesn't negate the importance of rementioning a few months on a diet is not enough time to work.

So you can either choose to read things and educate yourself or you can choose to get defensive. In any event, vegan diets are not physically healthy and they do not save animals.
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Jenya Sourgaeva I am aware of the wheat problem, I don't consume wheat products myself. I just wasn't sure why it was relevant to what I said.

I wasn't promoting a vegan diet. Please re-read my post.
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Melvin Midlam Jenya Sourgaeva corn with soybeans (not wheat) is the main ingredients in the cattle feedlot diet.

Leah Amber Moon Vegan Truth -

The human brain, neuro system & all hormones are developed & maintained by cholesterol & saturated fats. All tribes ever found around the world have animal products in their diets. Yet all civilizations with high grain consumption & low 
meat consumption have more health problems, shorter life spans & rotten teeth. 

98% of plant life isn't edible by humans, yet 98% of meat is. The body works 3x as hard to digest plant proteins over meat. Most of the world doesn't have access to natural whole plant based saturated fats like avocado or coconut.. Big plant agriculture is detrimental to natural plant & animal life. Remove the ability to ship in coconuts & avocados, now what? 

Research the damage done to animal life habitats & the earth via plant based agriculture. Humans developed on meat sources because meat sources may eat the plants we don't.

Most "healthy" vegan diets are low in natural saturated fats, high in grains & plant sources which need massive human intervention to maintain. The dwarf wheat created in the 1960s has been found to be a toxic gut eating poison, yet many vegans have high grain based diets.

http://roguehealthandfitness.com/carbohydrates-not.../

"Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients. They are “powerful, psychoactive, somatotoxic drugs”, similar to alcohol or nicotine. Carbs are an “endorphin-releasing drug, not a hunger satisfying food”. 
"It took decades for doctors & patients to accept the addictive properties of nicotine. Similarly, society has yet to accept the toxic, addictive nature of carbs" says Dr Robert Cywes, one of the authors of Diabetes Unpacked.
http://foodmed.net/.../type-2-diabetes-addicts-athletes.../

From keto female past vegans

"I was vegan for 11mths & while I felt great at first, I gained & gained more weight due to the carb overloading to remain full. We all have a choice & my choice now is keto"
"I gained a LOT of weight as a vegan. I have also lost weight as a vegan. Problem is, when eating refined carbs, I don't have an "off" switch."

"I stopped being vegan because I felt awful. I started being vegan because I felt bad & I was fatter than I wanted to be. I would have horrible egg farts, meat felt sluggish stomach & I thought it gave me heart burn. I couldn't run after eating, etc. so much info out there supported it. I thought it was the meat. It was what I ate with the meat. I felt better with some animal products. So back to vegetarian with eggs & dairy. Then went GF. Felt better. Went grain free. Felt better. Craved meat. Ate meat. Felt better. Went paleo. Tried W30. Got rid of sugar & seed oils. Discovered animal fats. Fats. Went Keto. Gained 8lb in my first week, but shrunk. Tried PSMF for fat loss. Ate a ton of protein. Warped my mind for fat. Tried ZC. Easy. True love.️"

"I read "The Vegetarian Myth", she is an ex vegan or vegetarian. She gives many good arguments against the things she used to believe in. Trying to grow her own organic vegetables without harming any animals was an eye-opener (gophers, rabbits, deer, slugs, insects, organisms in the soil). She talked about how the American Plains were wiped clean of their eco-system in order to grow grains: Buffalo, antelopes, prairie dogs, coyotes, bobcats, all kind of birds, etc. (On the other hand, grazing livestock co-exists with the environment.) Looking at the pictures in "Nutrition & Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price was terrifying. In the end, she went to some guy who "reads auras", he said she was very sick, had "no aura", she needed to eat meat. She reluctantly got a can of tuna & it was "like waking from a coma". Her body NEEDED it so badly. She cried for two weeks straight realizing that she destroyed her health with her own hands, in an effort to be healthy."

"I was literally dying from a LCLF vegan. (Yes I was a fat-phonic vegan then) My heart rate was slowing, hand-eye coordination became terrible, I could no longer walk or bend down to pick up anything that I've dropped. 

I had pitting edema & my bgl or anxiety never improved. Sure I was losing weight but I was also dying. My dietician & doctor had to intervene & pretty much made me go full carnivore."

-"I regret every moment of it. I made myself very ill. I was admitted to a psych hosptial, diabetic, autoimmune disease, using a cane, my husband put my shoes on me. I was 42 planning my disability, not planning my retirement. Now 10 mths in keto, eating clean, eating the majority of calories in meat, even being sure to include some internal organs, a few animal based supplements, I'm down 35lbs. I started a pastured pork operation. I no longer have that brain fog & constant hunger that went along with a carb based diet. 

I was even a good vegan, not a junk food vegan, everything home grown organic & home cooked. For crying out loud I even harvested my own yeast & ground my own wheat. I wish I had been able to see the bigger picture but I couldnt, I come from a medical family, we diligently removed meats, salt & fat from our diets when I was a kid. 33 years later I finally feel like I had some eureka moment. I am finally on a healing path. 

My biggest fault is that I was what they call a "complier". I did exactly as I was told, got sicker & sicker & sicker. I mean they are doctors after all, we pay them to tell us what to do, well not anymore.

In fact, I will adamantly defend not only is eating meat better suited for our biology but true sustainability is dependent on eating ruminant animals, as it maintains a healthier habitat. Ruminants are a keystone species. We can't just remove them from the grasslands & feedlot without consequences. I firmly believe we need a food revolution where people go back to producing their own food." #longlivebacon
#julieredeye

This may help fight the vegan dogma ://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food.../dp/B003PJ7JXY

"I was vegan for 10 years & loved it but I nearly killed myself with "healthy" carbs. My fasting blood sugar was 387-518, AIC 14.4. Cholesterol panel had astronomical numbers & I was struggling with obesity. After 6 mths of eating LCHF/Keto my fasting blood sugar ranges between 95-102, A1C 5.3, cholesterol panel all within normal range. I've lost 88lbs. This way of eating has saved my life! " -AG Pearson

Dr. Nora Gedgaudas The Holy Grail of Primal Health - high fat diets
https://youtu.be/qamxC3fV870

Carbivore to Carnivore Taming the Carb Craving Monster Nora Gedgaudas - also discusses menopause, food sensitivities, parasites, more here

https://youtu.be/lUen3G4J7U4

://www.dietdoctor.com/demonization-deception-research...


Carbohydrates, Not Saturated Fat, Are Correlated with Cardiovascular Disease -…

Davide Pattibiomed Hi Jenya, as a scientist I am fascinated about your experimental attitude. I did as well, I am not 100% carnivore. I wanted to correct just one sentence as I am southern Italian. Sardinians have always consumed primarily lamb amongst their meat dishes, which is red.
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October 18 at 2:16amEdited
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Jenya Sourgaeva Hi Davide, thank you for correcting me. Is lamb all that was available?

It would be a very long message to say how each affected me, with all the details. But I can certainly give an overview:


First, I am Russian, and I think my background is important, because I think genetics are important when talking about diet. Anyway, I found the best diet for me was a pescetarian diet. I ate mostly fish (salmon, as I am from the west coast), rice, and green vegetables. I would eat berries when in season, as well. 

I decided to try veganism after that, but boy was that a mistake. I became very anemic and needed infusions. Later, though, it turned out that I just was unable to process gluten, and because of that, it was causing me to not absorb nutrients, hence, anemia. Once I took gluten out, I was pretty okay, but maintaining the vegan diet gave me regular brain fog. I'm an engineering student, and this was very bad for my exam season.

As a timeline, I went from the SAD (Standard American Diet), to paleo, to vegetarian, to keto, to pescetarian, to vegan. I have been vegan for 4-5 years, or so, and so I have the most experience with it. 

Keto was okay for the first few months, but I soon started noticing that I had sallow skin, my fingerails broke very easily, my hair was thinning, and I started to ... sweat, with a bad odour. I also had 3 yeast infections in the time I was doing keto, I'm not sure if that was related somehow, but I wrote that down anyway. I had blood tests done and there was nothing out of the ordinary. I decided to ease up on the meat, kept the fish, and reintroduced vegetables, and all my problems solved themselves. 

Maybe TMI, but I was the most regular on a pescetarian diet. 

Let me know if I missed anything?
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Irena Kalinacova Thank you for sharing some of your experiences Jenya. I work in natural therapies and have observed over the many years that different people do well on different diets. The problem is that no matter the approach, most of them still eat a lot of "junk food", be it omnivorous or vegan diet and anything in between. You seem to eliminate such poor food choices. I would love to read more about the experiences you have with your different ways of eating, if you want to share them, as well as if you have/had some pre-existing medical conditions you were/are trying to control. 
Either way, thank you for initiating this conversation and for your clear and logical reasoning.
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Yesterday at 4:29amEdited
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Dan Giovanni Jenya Sourgaeva [Keto was okay...sallow skin, my fingerails broke very easily, my hair was thinning, and...sweat, with a bad odour.]
My experience is just the opposite on keto. Sounds like not enough protein and perhaps too much or the wrong type of fat.
Doing better on fish suggests a higher intake of omega-3 was better for you.



Ann Singh Marshall I eat steak and bacon only. I do not eat other animals...I find no need and have no desire. I was a vegetarian for 25 years, ethics was my motivation. I do not purchase factory farmed steaks. I sleep well at night knowing that I'm serving my body well while still being as compassionate as I am able to be while living this way. I do not plan on returning to a plant based diet again. Ever. It cost me my health. It is not sustainable for me, long term. I should have accepted that decades ago. 
I wish you the best of luck. I know first hand about the soul searching required.
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October 18 at 2:24amEdited
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Jenya Sourgaeva Thank you, I appreciate your response.

Amber St John Goss I'm with the crowd on the death/pain thing. Not to mention the animals that die and lose habitat to farmland. 

As far as the blue zones go, I think an unspoken truth in many of them is that these were very poor areas with low food intake, mimicking fa
sting, which probably contributed to their longevity moreso than diet content per se. I am far more interested in the dietary habits of regions that are not living on a starvation basis and still manage to achieve longevity. Thanks to refined carbohydrates, it is exceptionally easy in the industrialized world to be a fat vegetarian. I speak from experience. If you have a chance to read The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung, he explains his analysis of animal foods versus vegetables and it just comes down to it is easier to maintain a healthy weight eating high-fat which is easier to obtain from meat. I appreciate that you're not currently interested in losing weight but the sad fact is many young vegans and vegetarians have not been on that diet long enough to cause the gradual insulin resistance that they will see in 10 to 20 years. There is a reason why they call it the middle-age spread. It is an insidious process that does not develop overnight.
I am like you and I am a member of this group but not presently following a zero carb diet. I have determined that I need some dietary carbohydrates for Phase 2 liver detox due to some liver damage that happened during an infection after my second pregnancy. I am also very open to the idea that plants are primarily nutritious in a medicinal sense. If it were culturally easier to pull off in this country, I would be comfortable eating very little and it would be fine with me if it was mostly vegetables. Wherever I am in my dietary habits, I'm am at that place primarily for health benefits and I am totally open to the idea that those benefits may change over the course of Life due to health issues and / or that society may be wrong about health benefits or I may be. Zero carb was easy to pull off culturally. Fasting is harder. Eating very little is harder. Vegetarianism may be easier some places but not where I live lol. Healthy vegetarianism around here requires making your own grain foods if you want whole grains (necessary if you have insulin issues) and careful choosing of restaurants for veggies. It's plain freaking hard. 
This is such an interesting thread that triggers so many thoughts for me. One thing I've noticed is that many PubMed articles concluding red meat is inversely related to longevity have been conducted in Asia, and that by red meat they mean exclusive pork. Which of course here in the US we eat less of than beef, and we don't even think of as red meat. This group clued me in to issues humans have with digesting pork, proven by science, and tbh most of the headlines about red meat are based on something totally different than what vegetarians here are for the most part abstaining from. The more I dig into studies that form the bases for dietary advise the more I realize that science doesn't know what it doesn't know, and that my personal assessment of inflammation and health issues is far more reliable than any generalities made with studies that start off with carb based rat chow being the control.
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Jenya Sourgaeva This is a beautiful answer, thanks for the well thought out response. Fasting is not something I considered in those areas.

Eric Osselborn The real history of the Okinawan diet has been hijacked. The traditional Okinawa diet consisted of large amounts of pork and every single part of the animal was used. I would also argue that the real history of the Sardinian diet has been misrepresented as well as they have been known to enjoy large amounts of pecorino romano cheese, olive oil, and fatty fish.
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Jenya Sourgaeva Hi Eric, I said specifically that the Sardinian diet is a high fat, fish diet. Thanks for your input on the Okinawan diet.
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Eric Osselborn I think it's cool that your a vegan because you believe in animal welfare. It's just that it's a choice that certainly is not for everyone. I tried it a long time ago and my testosterone dropped almost 400 points and my joints felt like I was 90 years old. It was not until I focused on the teachings of Dr. Weston Price and A. Vonderplanitz that I regained my health.

Rachel Cobb Chamness I do not buy from CAFO farms, just can't stomach the idea.

Please know people also live longer in places that get good clean fresh air and close to the water- on islands like Okinawa and Sardinia, these things are a HUGE factor. There's also a town in
 Greece where people are very laid back, mostly fisherman and spend a lot of time out in the sea, and they live very long. I think the less toxic your environment, the better off you are no matter what you eat. Also, less stress.

I think ZC is superior because it is what our ancestors ate, what we are made to eat. I tried every type of diet and ZC smoked every single other one I tried (esp raw vegan). If you didn't read this article someone posted earlier, I ask you to- it's pretty awesome. http://www.doctor-natasha.com/feeding-versus-cleansing.php

We are hunters. Do you feel bad for the bird if the cat catches it to eat it? We are supposed to hunt meat and eat it- buy from local farms or hunt yourself, but eat meat for your health.
A 21 year old Helen was brought to my clinic by her worried aunt. Helen was dangerously underweight and…
DOCTOR-NATASHA.COM
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October 18 at 5:28amEdited
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Elena Carter Stress is a huge factor. I tend to stress over everything. ZC has helped, but didn't heal my tendency to find stress everywhere. Once I started raising my own animals, they have become a real therapy for me. No matter how stressed I may be, I walk out ...See More
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Rachel Cobb Chamness Island living- there is a reason we all love to vacation on islands!
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Sammy Sedky For those like myself working a traditional 9 to 5 we simply don't get enough sunlight. We are constantly under fluorescent energy efficient blue lighting that is detrimental to our health. The EMF produced by wireless technology, 4G/5G cell towers, and wireless routers is also not good for us, but unless you live somewhere like in the NRQZ it's impossible to avoid completely. The only doctor I know of that talks about light as a nutrient and these sort of things is Dr. Jack Kruse. It's tough knowing knowledge about these things and being stuck in something you know sucks. https://www.facebook.com/drjackkruse/
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Ævar Austfjörð 1) I live in Iceland and we don't have factory farms here...yet. And rather strict on importing raw meat. I eat only meat. More than 95% is red meat, grassfed free range lamb. Grassfed beef and horse.
2) I have no evidence zc is superior to any other diet. But according to my blood tests it is the best diet for me. And I've tried a lot. Never tried vegan or vegetarian though cos plants just don't ring my bell.
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Ævar Austfjörð Yes we have very high life expectancy here. Been eating mostly lamb and fish through the centuries

Julie Redeye I was vegetarian/vegan for 33 years, just made me sick. I raise as much of my own meat as possible now.

Leah Amber Moon "Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients. They are “powerful, psychoactive, somatotoxic drugs”, similar to alcohol or nicotine. Carbs are an “endorphin-releasing drug, not a hunger satisfying food”. 

"It took decades for doctors and patients to acce
...See More
In a brilliant new book, a US bariatric surgeon says that…
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