My Analysis of True Human Nutrition

This is my analysis of nutrition and why I no longer believe that Raw Vegan is best:

Where do I start?? At this point I feel I need to post an essay on everything I’ve come to understand about nutrition, if even one person gets it, it will be worthwhile. Let me start by saying, I am no one. I have no qualifications other than being a certified personal trainer. Everything I’m about to tell you will be straight up, with no BS. If you or your kid benefits from me writing this than I'll happily take the time to write every word carefully. I am a martial artist of the most honest kind, my goal is to see things with unbiased eyes. Last spring I started my raw food adventure and it has been interesting, to say the least. My desire to be a great athlete and the best martial artist of the 21st century sparked my strong interest in nutrition. So far I have spent about 300hrs researching nutrition and health. Just reading, learning and testing everything I can. I don’t have kids yet, just to be clear. In the thread, I meant to say, if I did have kids, I wouldn’t feed them raw vegan. My goal last spring, was to figure out, "what should I eat?" and also, "what is the natural diet of he human animal?”. Now finally in the last few months I really started to piece it together. (Of course there will always be evolution and more to learn/unlearn).

Most of my information as been drawn from 4 general sources: athlete diets, Paleolithic diets, raw vegan diets, and scientific papers. My aim is to achieve great health. I am really only concerned with health vs. non-health. I am not concerned with vegan vs. non-vegan OR raw vs. non-raw, that is why you can trust that I am telling you what I believe is healthiest, period. I have found it is best to leave the philosophy in the books and just concentrate on what you need to do. Please keep this point in mind, I can’t stress this enough, philosophy and health don’t always mix well.

Anatomy?:
Luckily for us the human being is the most adaptive animal the world has ever seen. Just going by anatomy comparisons alone it appears as though the human is slightly more carnivorous than the chimpanzee (whom we do share approx. 98.2% of our physical makeup (suggested by our slightly less volumeous and shorter digestive system and larger brain). You may or may not know that the chimpanzee generally eats approximately 5% of its foods from animal sources. This is not insignificant! In fact as far as primates are concerned scientists put us on the borderline between a frugivore (fruit is a staple), and a faunivore (animal foods are a staple). This has been beneficial to humans because it has allowed us to draw on a large range of foods and live in a large range of climates (even if our lifestyle was not optimal, we could still survive).
Refer to this scientific paper for more info:
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-toc2.shtml
I hope this is enough to convince you that humans are indeed non-vegan by nature’s standards, like it or not.

What I suggest as an approximately "ideal" diet;
(By volume or approximate servings)

Raw Fruit 50%, but 30%-60% is the general range

Raw Vegetables 35%, but 20%-50% is the general range
(at least 50% being greens)

Raw Nuts, seeds, meat, eggs, insects 15%, but 5%-30% is the general range

These suggestions are based on my research and interpretation of science.


Specialty Diet Comparisons: The Raw Vegan diet and the Paleolithic Diet

While I admire the simplicity and brilliance of both diets, it seems that advocates of both camps, "can't see the forest for the trees". Touching on anatomy again, the comparison of digestive system length to diet composition, would require a continuum chart. Generally speaking the mammals with the shortest digestive systems (cats) eat mostly meats while the animals with the longest digestive systems (herbivores like cows) eat mostly green plants and leaves. Fruit lies in the middle of this continuum. I like to use this fact to point out flaws in the Paleolithic diets that advocate low sugar and fruit and excessive meat and vegetable intake. Few animals eat heavily from both the vegetable and meat category. Anatomy comparisons do not support this. Pros of the Paleolithic diet include fat soluble nutrients and others from animal sources. Examples may include Vitamin A (retinol), Vitamin D, Vitamin K, EFAs, cholesterol and B12. Also there are a few others that are more available from animal sources, such as zinc and iron. Another pro of this diet (but only when alkaline body chemistry exists) is extreme hard tissue strength of bones and teeth. It is possible, using raw animal products to heal cavities and teeth enamel. Luckily we as humans can draw on alternative sources of these nutrients, in fact our unique makeup allows us to draw on two or more unique sources of many nutrients. The con of the Paleolithic diet is that it lacks the soft tissue regeneration capabilities of the raw vegan diet and the other legendary benefits(picture a wrinkly 60 year old tribesman). This diet could benefit from more fruit. Another con is the availability of safe and healthy sources of animal foods in our western society. As I'll mention later, I’ve successfully added raw organic eggs to my diet, with no ill effects.

But I can get all those nutrients from plant sources?
While you probably can (at least somewhat), obtain all these nutrients from plant sources. These particular nutrients are better obtained from animal sources for the same reason that carbohydrates are better obtained from fruits instead of grains. Since you need to obtain your energy from sugars one way or another, it is more efficient to obtain them from fruits instead of grains because there is less conversion required. The same will go for vitamin A, K, EFA's, B12, Iron and Zinc from animal sources, its just easier. The conversion of beta carotene to vitamin A is a lengthy process. Vitamin B12 eh? The info on this vitamin is mixed at best. All B12 is originally produced by bacteria. Supposedly these bacteria live inside the body but presumably not in the area of the intestines where the vitamin is absorbed. Whether this is true or not, I cannot say. I would suspect that this bacteria will grow more prolifically in the intestines of a person who is eating only natural foods and following food combining rules. However I’ve read, some raw vegan fed apes that live in zoos will develop b12 deficiency.

The Raw Vegan diet is great but unfortunately it is a fad. It wont stay popular forever, how can it, it lacks significant contributors to healthy human nutrition. Believe me I wish the whole deal about humans being true vegans was true, I really wish it was, I don’t really enjoy eating animal foods, but it simply isn't true. That is just dogma, based on philosophy, which is man made. Nature doesn't believe in philosophy, it simply is what it is. The pros of this diet are the high water content, the one step nutrition (fruit more efficient than grains, energy wise), the very low toxicity levels (allowing the body to clean and heal from degenerative diseases), and its correction of body chemistry (helps you become alkaline again). It is very high in antioxidants, phytochemicals and its soft tissue (skin and organ) regeneration capabilities are tremendous. The cons of this diet are the lack of fat soluble vitamins from animal sources. Another con is it does not follow the true way of nature, which may ultimately result in "hitting the wall" that some raw vegans experience. There are likely many more micro-nutrients that we are unaware of at this time. I would not reasonably suggest avoiding an entire food group that is part of your natural diet. This may explain David Zane Mason's blood test (slightly low in vit A and D, even though he eats plenty of beta carotene and lives in Florida?) This is just an idea only, and may or may not be the case.

This is from Storm’s Blog:
"But now after over thirty years I find myself besieged on all sides by intolerable food and drug cravings. I'm experiencing a level of agony that I never experienced up until now. When I first started I never experienced what is commonly known as detox. It did take a certain amount of discipline to change life long eating habits. But right from the start I was so excited by the incredible results until I was just swept away by the momentum of the discovery of a new frontier."

One would assume that after thirty years that he wouldn't have food cravings unless something was missing...? Just a thought. As far as kids are concerned, my readings suggest that it is more critical for children to include the fat soluble vitamins as they are still developing. This is especially true for their teeth and bone health. If your kid is experiencing tooth decay, than steadily increase animal sources of the nutrients I mentioned while making sure to include ample vegetables for minerals. Increase until the tooth decay stops. Toothy decay should not take place if the diet is good. Adults are more in a maintenance state. Therefore many adults will succeed and many will fail on a raw vegan diet depending on each individuals own deficiencies and health conditions. That is why you must do what works for you. This is the recipe for strong teeth and bones in kids and adults:

Fat soluble vitamins from animal sources +
alkaline body chemistry+
lots of minerals from veggies= strong bones and no cavities

It is interesting to note that the International Natural Hygiene society no longer promotes the original raw vegan diet advocated by their founder Dr. Herbert Shelton because too many of their clients and advocates have developed deficiencies. http://naturalhygienesociety.org/diet.html
Interestingly the diet that I suggest is similar to the Instincto-omnivorous diet on this page. Shelton was a genius and brilliant logician but he was too philosophical in my opinion, that was ironically his greatest asset and downfall.

The Primal diet: my dietary strategy
What to do? I feel it is best, since neither raw vegan nor Paleolithic diets hold an entirely accurate view of reality. To combine the two in a way that works best for you, philosophy be damned! You have to do what is best for your personal health regardless of what certain people may think. This diet I will call your Primal diet. This diet you must make your own and you must combine everything you know and feel to obtain optimum physical health and mental health. Take into consideration your current health, ethnic background, and mental preferences. Your diet must possess the openness of flexibility or else, like the stiff tree in the storm, it will break. Your goal should be to obtain the benefits of both diets with the cons of neither. For instance, I don’t believe generally that supplements are healthy because you shouldn’t eat things that aren’t food, but in some cases they might be helpful. Same with dairy, it is obviously not a natural food for humans. Why would an animal use the milk of another animal?? However some peoples have traditionally used raw grass fed milk from cows with no ill health effects. This is why I say take into consideration your ethnic background, for instance, if your oriental, you might consider keeping some rice in your diet. No one can say for sure what will work best for you. If you genuinely follow your intention to be healthy than you must be flexible, without philosophy, and eventually you will find your own primal diet, and then your optimum nutrition will be guaranteed. I am personally just getting started on this path, and it is exciting and liberating. In my own diet I decided to only add 4 things to my un-supplemented raw vegan diet. I added raw eggs from organic free range hens, cod liver oil because it is extremely high in Vitamin A, D and EFA’s, brown rice and millet. I added the grains because I like them and they helped me stop yo-yoing on and off raw. While they may not technically be optimal on paper, they are optimal for me because I was able to stabilize my eating patterns. More research needs to be done, because there is something in animal foods that our bodies just like to have, plain and simple, that is why I added the eggs. I also added them because I don’t know where to buy healthy meat around here and I don’t feel like eating raw meat or insects, but technically we should be able to eat them if there is nothing wrong with them. Let me tell you right now that the difference between factory farmed animal foods and healthy organic properly fed animal foods is like the difference between SAD eaters and raw vegans. Treat your animal foods like raw nuts, you obviously don't want to eat to much. Remember products from healthy animals are not necessarily bad for you! It comes down to what is the diet that your body is adapted for. Humans have made use of cooked foods for 1 million years or so. Is this long enough to adapt to cooked foods? I do not know. Ancient tribes made use of what foods they had available to them , this often included more animal foods than was optimal for pure health. But this has caused the human race to adapt even further to animal foods, there was no vegan tribes. This is another reason to not avoid this food group because we have adapted to it, at least to a certain degree. Probably if we only ate grains for a million years, than a million years from now it would be unhealthy to eat a diet that does not include grain. To summarize, the point I'm trying to make here is that you have to consider what your body is adapted to and I'm advising you to disregard the clear cut rules, if you listen to both your body and mind, you'll know what direction to take.

Sincerely,
The Workoutman