Here is a simple how-to guide from the great Owsley "The Bear" Stanley, a zero-carb eater for over 50 years. This guide was originally published on Zeroing In On Health. After a comment about organ meat, I wanted to share The Bear's opinions on the matter, and this is a concise way to do so:
SEVEN SIMPLE RULES FOR THE HUMAN CARNIVORE
1) Eat only from the animal world (eggs, fish, redmeat and fowl and some dairy are all animal sourced foods, i.e.: meat).
2) Eat nothing from the vegetable world whatsoever. (Very small amounts of flavourings such as garlic/chillies/spices/herbs which may be added, are not ‘food’).
3) On diary: avoid milk and yoghurt (heavy carbs- lactose), use only pure (not ‘thickened’- heavy) cream (read the label), cheese and unsalted butter.
4) Don’t cook your meat very much- just a little bit on the outside- for flavour- blood-rare or bleu. For this reason I advise against eating pork.
5) Eat liver and brains only very infrequently- they are full of carbs.
6) Be sure to have plenty of fat of animal origin at each meal and eat mostly of the fat until you feel you have had enough- you can eat more lean at this point if you like- calories are not important, nor is the number of meals/day. Vegetable oils are not good food.
7) You do not need any supplements of any kind. Drink a lot of water and do not add salt to anything.
That is all there is to it.
DO NOT obsess over what you eat, follow the rules and it will become second nature, and you will not have to think about it at all. What you eat is a social conditioning, most people will never alter their diet from what their mum fed them as babies, only those rare individuals who have a strong will and desire for a normal-sized, healthy body can do it. Even the grossly obese have trouble with my path. You may feel low on energy for a few days or weeks, but as soon as you keto-adapt to zero-carbs that will pass and your energy will be increased.
GGP - So while I'm 'obsessing' in order to track this experiment, I actually feel much more freedom, since I can eat when I want, until I'm satisfied, without having to think about carbs or calories. Calories aren't calculated until I log my food in the evening, and is sometimes higher that I would let it run if I were truly obsessing. And the inverse - some huge meals end up being far lower in calories than my sated sensation would suggest! :)
Friday, July 24, 2009
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I cut out grains, sugar and starches at the beginning of 2009. I have been keeping a journal as I have progressively shed my bulges and my processed foods. I am aiming to live a clean, primal lifestyle, and I wish to share my eating habits with those who wish to clean up their lifestyle and live happily and healthfully. As the cliche states - if I can do it, so can everybody else.
6 comments:
You got me craving bacon today! Thanks for all the updates.
Work it girl! I've been ZC myself for a month now and it's going great guns.
Just wanted to comment briefly on an older pre-ZC post where you mentioned you wanted to eat not just in a way that was healthy for you, but sustainable for the planet? In the course of a conversation last night with a friend, I realized my first priority is me...each of us only gets one life, and the planet/universe will be around long after I'm gone.
It's a hard grey area when you realize that every positive advance in civilization as a result of agriculture has come at such a horribly high price to our health. I'm more a Julian Simon-type than a Paul Ehrlich, but it's pretty clear that the human population wouldn't be anywhere near as large if it weren't for those damn grains. I believe the transition can be made on a scale larger than the individual, but in the interim, it's going to cause just as much social unrest (or more!) as a transition away from fossil fuels...'nuff said.
Thanks for everything you post -- wishing you continued joy and good health!
Thanks for the comment, froggy! :)
I actually did a lot of research into the vegetarian-fueled myth that livestock is not environmentally sustainable, that it takes more land and resources to raise animals, etc. It's actually false. As you say, to support the growing population we would have to eventually shift to eating an all-grain/soy diet, at which point we would all wither and die, helped by GM crops, contamination, and the narrowing of our genes (thanks, Monsanto). Even if we were able to transition all agro-suitable areas currently used for livestock into veggie crops, we would not be able to adequately meet our nutrition needs, and would eventually wither and die. In fact, to meet the world's caloric needs on a vegetarian diet, we'd have to be growing plants on more of the Earth's surface than we currently use (inc. spaces which are impossible to farm and would need geo-scaping first), which means robbing natural wildlife of its environment and therefore survival.
Meanwhile, if the world's (especially America's) corn fields, grain supply and soy plantations transitioned into livestock farms with trees to both counter gas emissions and provide shelter for the animals, basic maths shows the outcome for both the environment and our survival as a species is far more promising. Let's not forget that most of the grains/corn currently produced is wasted or used as non-food. The human dietary 'need' (loose use of the word, referring to contemporary intake by the uninformed) is very small in comparison with the available supply.
Admittedly, in both scenarios we desperately need to cap the growth of the human population.
Shifting towards smaller farms, whether livestock of vegetable producers, is the answer. We need to maintain and enhance the quality of our soil so that we're not leaving huge areas infertile and therefore unsuitable for plants or animals, we need to rid the industry of their reliance on devastating machinery (adding to soil infertility and pollution and use of fossil fuels), and we need to revolt against the control of the corporations (i.e. supermarkets) which continue to lessen the quality of our food and drive organic permaculture farmers out of their livelihood.
My first priority is me - my education and my health - primarily so I can use the (lengthened) time I have left to pass on my learning and help encourage others to be more aware and more active citizens. My heart is so warmed by the ripple effect I already see taking place within the staff at my workplace (100+ strong). I can lead by example.
I support small businesses. I eat organic meat from local farms. (Much land in Victoria is unsuitable for agriculture, thanks to hills and the weather, but it's perfect for livestock!) I spend much of my free time engaging with information, constantly challenging my growing perception to ensure I don't develop bias. And I'm always willing to learn and share and be corrected :)
Now all I need to do is work on my forgiveness of others who, in the face of clear and simple fact, still follow their id and chase the short pleasure of a cake or a cocktail or a drive to work when it's walking distance... A choice they repeat every single day.
As a livestock farmer (small family farm) I want to remind readers (again as you did) that crops can only be produced on certain sorts of land, whereas livestock can utilise MANY different areas - many of which are unusable as cropland.
If people would be open to all sorts of meats that would make things more feasable - goats, for example, can grow fat on areas that cattle and sheep have already picked over, due to their taste for browse rather than grass.
Guinea fowl, who eat insects, pair beautifully with geese, who eat grass.
And so on.
But people - especially Americans - must embrace all forms of meat: deer, rabbit, goat, even snake and 'gator - why not?! - to make this work.
You said:
"1) Eat only from the animal world (eggs, fish, redmeat and fowl and some dairy are all animal sourced foods, i.e.: meat). 2) Eat nothing from the vegetable world whatsoever."
Wow! That seems pretty extreme.
I'm trying to follow a low-carb high-fat diet, but I prefer to get most of my fats from vegetable sources like avocados, ground flaxseed, pecans, walnuts, chunky peanut butter, and extra virgin olive oil.
I want to eat lots of fiber. I just don't get that from animal foods.
Best wishes to you.
Hi Jim,
I didn't say it, "The Bear" created this list to describe his beliefs and lifestyle. It's not really that extreme - if you were living in the wild, it's pretty much what you'd do to survive, and hence it's what the human species did throughout two million years of evolution.
Why do you want to eat lots of fibre?
Do make sure you are getting good amounts of saturated fats - they're essential to good health.
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