Are Fibrous Green Vegetables And Beans So Bad?

[Brian]

I wouldn't say vegetables are bad, but they just aren't useful to the body past a fairly small amount and if they are filling you up before you have eaten enough calories and other food then you are starving yourself. Your body then must lower metabolism to compensate. Some people consider this good for longevity, but even if that's true (which is very debatable) it comes at a high cost.

A diet like you describe can sometimes keep you thin, but a lot of things associated with wellness like high libido, excellent cognition and mental health, high muscle mass probably are going to be hard to maintain especially as you leave your early 20's on a diet like this.

I know quite a few vegans/vegetarians/(health food nuts) who eat similar to you. They have little body fat, little muscle, lots of grey hair at a young age, and deal with fairly high depression and non-existent libido. Some monastic traditions eat this way, probably in part because of how much it removes the sex drive.

I still eat vegetables regularly, but only as a small side dish and very well cooked (especially broccoli). I will never eat a large amount of raw broccoli again. It single-handedly crashed my thyroid through goitrogens. I have no desire to feel like a monk.

 

[welshwing]

I wouldn't say vegetables are bad, but they just aren't useful to the body past a fairly small amount and if they are filling you up before you have eaten enough calories and other food then you are starving yourself. Your body then must lower metabolism to compensate. Some people consider this good for longevity, but there is a cost.

A diet like you describe can sometimes keep you thin, but a lot of things associated with wellness like high libido, excellent cognition and mental health, high muscle mass probably are going to be hard to maintain especially as you leave your early 20's on a diet like this.

I know quite a few vegans/vegetarians/(health food nuts) who eat similar to you. They have little body fat, little muscle, lots of grey hair at a young age, and deal with fairly high depression and non-existent libido. Some monastic traditions eat this way, probably in part because of how much it removes the sex drive.

I still eat vegetables regularly, but only as a small side dish and very well cooked (especially broccoli). I will never eat a large amount of raw broccoli again. It single-handedly crashed my thyroid through goitrogens. I have no desire to feel like a monk.

Thanks Brian. Would you say I'd be alright the rest of my life if I eat the Ray Peat diet, but instead of eating all the sugar I replace it with fortified cereal/grains and I try to eat as much fiber as possible?

You make a good point that monks probably eat that way to lower their sex drive and metabolism as well to help them be more "deadened" for meditation. Is there any way I can eat healthy without killing my metabolism? I see vegans who are still into competitive sports and even bodybuilding, they're the minority but they exist.

Once again, It's really hard to believe the Ray Peat diet. I'll need to go read his site before I become a Peatarian.

 

[Brian]

The vegan athletes that do well eat very high calories. It's low calorie, high fiber that will really mess you up.

For someone your age I wouldn't really recommend any diet unless you are dealing with something severe like hypogonadism. Maybe supplement some of the fat soluble vitamins(A,D,E,K) and just avoid obvious industrial PUFA filled junk food and go live life. I never ran into metabolism problems until I started over analyzing what I ate.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

If you like beans and greens, eat them. I eat them often and I've noticed noting but improvements. Some say that the so called "blue zones," areas of the world with the most centenarians, all eat beans. I think most negative so called "effect"s of beans are gone form cooking. Peat's view on vegetables can be confusing. He's said broccoli was a good source of vitamin K in an email with Kasra:

"Some fibers, such as raw carrots, that are effective for lowering endotoxin absorption also contain natural antibiotics, so regular use of carrots should be balanced by occasional supplementation with vitamin K, or by occasionally eating liver or broccoli."

I recall audio interviews where he said that leafy greens are good sources of minerals and vitamin K. And as Brian pointed out, Peat said he occasionally makes a mineral supplement concentrated broth from leafy greens. If you digest the leaves fine, then it's not a problem. Here is Peat's own personal diet, as of last year:

"The details vary slightly according to what's available. Daily, milk, fruit (mainly orange juice), eggs, butter, cheese, and coffee. As available, liver, shrimp, squid, oysters, cod, sole, ox-tail soup, chicharrones (puffed pork rind), sapotas, pawpaws, cherimoyas, guanabanas, guavas, carrots, bamboo shoots, small turnips, corundas."

Small turnips are vegetables. His own daily diet is vegetarian, and as available diet more pescetarian. In one audio interview he did say he ate ribs that night, and in a recent article from his website, he recommended buying high quality beef, if you are going to consume it, but he clearly does not consume it often as pointed out by his views on inflammatory amino acids in meats.

You are concerned with getting fat, which is a good thing. You are correct to be focusing on visceral fat as a problem. You're still young. Don't make the same mistake I did which was gaining too much fat by eating whatever I wanted to. At first I thought it was funny because I was lean my whole life. I would tell friends "Hey, isn't this funny? I'm finally gaining weight." But I was stupid and took it too far. I am now slowly losing weight every single day as I've figured out a way of eating that causes me to lose the excess fat tissue every day. It is literally by the point (decimal) everyday fat loss, as it should be, because fast weight loss is damaging, as stored fat is released into the bloodstream and is either oxidized which causes damage, or is safely peed out (Peat interview) It averages about 5-7 pounds a month weight loss by way of visible and physical fat loss. Even though it happens slowly, it's important that after you've pooped and peed and before eating your first meal, that the scale decimals keep going down. Thats how true fat loss works. In about 4 months, I should be around my goal weight of 155 at 5'10"1/2 (no shoes) and 28 years old. I'm not concerned with muscle weight as fat loss is visible.

Don't believe people when then tell you that "having some excess fat is ok." Or do, it's your choice. Try getting fat by eating "whatever you want" and see how you feel. See if you have blood sugar fluctuations. See if you get any negative symptoms. Do the experiment. I did. But I don't recommend it. Getting fat was one of the stupidest things I've ever done, and a huge waste of time. But now I know what not to do.

There are many emotions that arise when this topic is brought up. Songs like "All About That Bass" are popular because people, mostly westerners, like to delude themselves. It's not just aesthetics that I'm concerned with. Although there is an aesthetics paradox, because if you do become out of shape and fat, your sex life may suffer, (depending on what your sex life is, you may be celibate, married etc, but most people are not) therefore causing you to suffer, high stress hormones etc., thus, aesthetics play a role in health.

Ray Peat is not fat. The picture of him with the hat you posted is a very old picture and it's hard to tell if thats a tummy. Here are the most recent photos of him:

http://beesandbutterflies.org/48998/mos ... f-ray-peat

It's hard to tell if he has a tummy in the first picture there as well. I don't think he does. He looks lean.

"4th, Omega-6 and polyunsaturated fat is unavoidable, even in green vegetables and carrots. Not sure you can detoxify from it, but you can stop eating oils and junk food that everyone agrees is bad."

The naturally occurring PUFA in whole foods is not the problem. Focus should be on limiting free, unbound oils, not whole foods. For example, I sometimes consume a fresh seared tuna, which has PUFA, or a small amount of peanut butter, but I'm not concerned with that PUFA, it's the free unbound oils that I avoid.

The main free oil foods are mayonaise, all salad dressings (the first ingredient in salad dressing and mayo is pure oil), all snack foods and potato chips, (besides honest brand coconut oil chips) I would avoid the chip brands sold in health food stores that use olive and avocado oil as well, restaurant food, fried food, supplements like fish oil, evening primrose oil, flax oil, and don't eat too many nuts or ground up seeds (tahini etc.) at once.

Ray Peat shares many similar views to other nutrition oriented "doctors" (anyone who has a doctorate degree, not just an MD) such as: Caldwell Esselstyn who says:

"Why does the diet eliminate oil entirely?

Avoid oils. They injure the endothelium, the innermost lining of the artery, and that injury is the gateway to vascular disease. All oil is also empty calories.

NO OIL! Not even olive oil, which goes against a lot of other advice out there about so-called good fats. The reality is that oils are extremely low in terms of nutritive value. They contain no fiber, no minerals and are 100% fat calories. Both the mono unsaturated and saturated fat contained in oils is harmful to the endothelium, the innermost lining of the artery, and that injury is the gateway to vascular disease. It doesn’t matter whether it’s olive oil, corn oil, coconut oil, canola oil, or any other kind. Avoid ALL oil."

http://www.dresselstyn.com/site/faq/

That is a shared Peat view of heart disease, though the two disagree about nitric oxide and coconut oil. Although Peat had this to say about coconut oil:

"10/11/12) How beneficial are coconut oil and coffee to a healthy person with a good diet?

Ray Peat wrote:
If the basic foods were chosen for minimal unsaturated fats, then coconut oil wouldn't add much of value. Coffee is a good source of magnesium and niacin, and has smaller amounts of other essential nutrients, besides the caffeine and antioxidants."

And in one of the audio interviews, he said he "hasn't had coconut oil in a long time" and when asked if someone should consume three tablespoons of coconut oil a day he laughed and said "no, more like three teaspoons." (one of the Herb Doctor interviews, Sarah asked him that question) So his view seems to be that it has to be used in the context of someone who should be using it.

In this 1996 interview, Peat said that "The ideal calorie source, I think, is tropical fruits" sharing that assertion with the many high fruit eaters like Dr. Doug Graham (Doctor of Chiropractic)

viewtopic.php?t=5413

Though Graham is a little weird, fruit being the best fuel is a shared Peat view. The fruit based diet is something that is gaining popularity around the world, in which Graham was mostly responsible for starting.

These Norwegian brothers travel to the tropics to get the best fruit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDkVhDrXODE

"Once again, It's really hard to believe the Ray Peat diet. I'll need to go read his site before I become a Peatarian."

Get out of that mindset. Don't "become" anything. Use common sense and become your own expert on yourself through self experimentation, because there is no better tool.

 

[EnoreeG]

I wouldn't say vegetables are bad, but they just aren't useful to the body past a fairly small amount and if they are filling you up before you have eaten enough calories and other food then you are starving yourself. Your body then must lower metabolism to compensate. Some people consider this good for longevity, but there is a cost.

A diet like you describe can sometimes keep you thin, but a lot of things associated with wellness like high libido, excellent cognition and mental health, high muscle mass probably are going to be hard to maintain especially as you leave your early 20's on a diet like this.

I know quite a few vegans/vegetarians/(health food nuts) who eat similar to you. They have little body fat, little muscle, lots of grey hair at a young age, and deal with fairly high depression and non-existent libido. Some monastic traditions eat this way, probably in part because of how much it removes the sex drive.

I still eat vegetables regularly, but only as a small side dish and very well cooked (especially broccoli). I will never eat a large amount of raw broccoli again. It single-handedly crashed my thyroid through goitrogens. I have no desire to feel like a monk.

Thanks Brian. Would you say I'd be alright the rest of my life if I eat the Ray Peat diet, but instead of eating all the sugar I replace it with fortified cereal/grains and I try to eat as much fiber as possible?

You make a good point that monks probably eat that way to lower their sex drive and metabolism as well to help them be more "deadened" for meditation. Is there any way I can eat healthy without killing my metabolism? I see vegans who are still into competitive sports and even bodybuilding, they're the minority but they exist.

Once again, It's really hard to believe the Ray Peat diet. I'll need to go read his site before I become a Peatarian.

Welshwing, I also eat a lot of vegetable fiber and have no problem with it at all. Cooked greens, and a lot of salads which include above ground fruits such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. I agree, it's totally strange to read what people tout as a Peat diet and conceive of it being more healthy than what I eat and have quite astoundingly good health from at my age (72).

I rarely eat grains, or even quinoa, and have a few nuts and a fruit now and then. I eat meat when I wish, usually once a day, and I eat eggs several times a week. The only dairy I eat is cheese and butter (lots of it on cooked greens and sweet potatoes). I eat no refined foods except that I consider butter and olive oil refined. That's it. 90% of my foods are vegetables, but the other 10% (by weight) is very important also.

I don't run away from unsaturated fats. They are in food and there's no way to escape them. I just make sure I eat food as fresh as possible and from whole organic sources and if I cook, it's lightly done, like boiling or slow roasting.

I'm posting this mostly for your benefit, so you know there are others out there who eat somewhat like you do. Keep an open mind and search for better eating ideas. Be willing to look everywhere, and willing to remain skeptical of some things that Peat's followers already have embraced.

Keep exploring and keep posting your results, and don't lay off the veggies if you feel healthy and strong -- they are loaded with way more vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and enzymes than you can possibly get from things such as meats and dairy. I think of animal products and even root crops as necessary evils that help you maintain health via their proteins, etc., but are otherwise robbing me of precious things like vitamins that are more plentiful in vegetables, and even in fruits.

 

[YuraCZ]

Beans, legumes, nuts, seeds and all those really badly digestible foods with anti nutrients etc. along with grains(gluten) and PUFA oils they should be BIG NO NO for someone who wants to be healthier...

 

[tara]

Once again, It's really hard to believe the Ray Peat diet. I'll need to go read his site before I become a Peatarian.

You don't have to change your identity to Peatarian, and you don't need to adopt someone else's specific version of a Peat diet unless it makes sense to you. You get to design your own, from the information you learn and by paying attention to your own body. You might learn some useful ideas from this forum too, but bear in mind that there are various viewpoints, and what helps one person does not always help another. The more threads you read, the more you realise that there is not a single specific solution that we all adopt and which solves all our problems, and also that there are some common threads that seem to be helpful for many.

Reading Peat's articles and interviews is a good idea. Have you seen this one? http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/vegetables.shtml

Peat has said that sometimes people get improvements by just making one or two key changes.

Vegetables all have pros and cons. If you eat a variety of them and cook them thoroughly, you reduce the risk of getting an overload of particular poisons. Many leafy greens have substances that are toxic to discourage overgrazing by mammals. Even people who promote heavy green smoothie consumption acknowledge this - they recommend rotating greens.
There are lots of useful minerals to be gained from veges if you can reduce the toxic aspects - cooking helps. Some provide significant calcium, magnesium, potassium and smaller amounts of other important minerals.
Excess oxalates can be an issue, and some people counter this by adding a little baking soda to the water they boil high oxalate greens in. Some people have trouble converting carotene to useful vit-A, and can get an overload of carotene if they eat too much of some kinds of vegetables. Sometimes you get better value from drinking the broth than eating the solids. There are one or two threads about this if you look.
Roots and fruits tend to be lower in those toxic anti-grazing chemicals.

Fortified cereals are often fortified with problematic iron compounds, as well as sometimes excessive fibre. Peat has warned agains the dangers of excess iron, and many here try to avoid getting too much of it (though there are also a few who need more). http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/iron-dangers.shtml

One of the issues with excess fibre, from Peat's PoV, is that the gut produces serotonin in response to stretching and friction, and he sees high serotonin as a culprit contributing to health burdens in a number of ways. Also some kinds of fibre tend to feed excessive bacterial growth, producing extra amounts of endotoxin. On the other hand, it is useful to have some fibre to help carry out some of the endotoxin and some of the estrogen excreted with bile into the lumen.

My understanding is that sprouting beans before you boil them, and discarding the first batch of water from boiling before boiling them again (for a long time) can somewhat reduce their toxicity. (I have seen a group of people become quite sick from a particular kind of undercooked beans.) Many people find beans hard to digest well, and find they produce a lot of gas. Peat says they are still not great. I would think that small quantities might not be a big deal for most people, but some people are better off avoiding them altogether.

Soya beans are particularly high in PUFA and also have some a particularly estrogenic compounds, so even if you are eating other beans, you might want to go easy on them.

Fruits also provide a lot of useful minerals, as well as a lot of relatively easily digested sugars, and many of them are low in toxins - they are more designed for consumption. From a Peaty PoV, sugar has been given an unjustifiably bad rap. http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml
Liver is also nutrient dense.

If you are allergic to shellfish, that is probably a really good reason to avoid them. You might want to check out other food sources of zinc, instead of oysters.

Icecream and coca cola may be processed foods, but whole milk and cream are not, and have been consumed to good effect by many people for thousands of years, and coca leaf a has been chewed medicinally for a long time too, and I think cola nuts may also have a long history. Sugars have traditionally come from fruit and honey and milk, which are still Peat's favoured sources. You don't have to eat icecream and cola if it doesn't seem right/or doesn't fill a need for you.

This may not be the case for you, but it would be easy to fill oneself so full with low carb veges and lean meat as to undereat wrt ones energy needs. This may lead to leanness, but also to reduced metabolism and catabolism of important organs if it is taken too far. There are worse things (healthwise) than being fat, and sometimes the extreme avoidance of fat can lead subsequent rebound fat gain, or to much greater dangers.

Personally, I do eat some vegetables fairly regularly, but I eat less and enjoy them more now that I am not assuming that the more the better, and I usually cook them to death, which is locally unfashionable.

 

[tara]

Seeing the common problems people post about here like poor oral health and balding, these are both avoided from eating a low fructose diet with high fiber.

Oral health can suffer if teeth are constantly coated in sugar. I think Peat has said he usually rinses his mouth after sweet drinks. High metabolism and good mineral status are also reportedly helpful for oral health. Milk can help with this for many people, along with other things.

I haven't studied this rigorously, but my off the cuff hunch is that balding reported here is often reported by people coming from a low carb and/or low calorie diet.

Have you read Peat's take on milk?: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/milk.shtml

Personally, I haven't got a handle on improving the health of my teeth, but much of the deterioration happened on a low sugar diet. And some of us, including me, have some trouble with milk, but others really seem to thrive on it.

 

[charlie]

If you like beans and greens, eat them. I eat them often and I've noticed noting but improvements. Some say that the so called "blue zones," areas of the world with the most centenarians, all eat beans. I think most negative so called "effect"s of beans are gone form cooking.

Peat has written about beans and leafy greens leading to lower metabolism.

"Besides fasting, or chronic protein deficiency, the common causes of hypothyroidism are excessive stress or “aerobic” (i.e., anaerobic) exercise, and diets containing beans, lentils, nuts, unsaturated fats (including carotene), and undercooked broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, or mustard greens. Many health conscious people become hypothyroid with a synergistic program of undercooked vegetables, legumes instead of animal protein, oils instead of butter, carotene instead of vitamin A, and breathless exercise instead of a stimulating life."

Peat's view on vegetables can be confusing. He's said broccoli was a good source of vitamin K in an email with Kasra:

"Some fibers, such as raw carrots, that are effective for lowering endotoxin absorption also contain natural antibiotics, so regular use of carrots should be balanced by occasional supplementation with vitamin K, or by occasionally eating liver or broccoli."

Nothing confusing about occasionally.

The naturally occurring PUFA in whole foods is not the problem.

Tell that to the hibernating animals who ate all that natural food and put them in a state of torpor.

 

[jyb]

I don't run away from unsaturated fats. They are in food and there's no way to escape them. I just make sure I eat food as fresh as possible and from whole organic sources and if I cook, it's lightly done, like boiling or slow roasting.

Although you disagree with the need to avoid all pufa, what you describe as diet so far is not necessarily so bad in my opinion. Because a lot if not most of the pufa people usually consume comes from the frying and cooking oils. If you restrict yourself to what's in food, the quantity is much less. Unless you eat a lot of fatty fish like salmon. There are some in nuts, but if nuts are just use as a seasoning then again the quantity is limited. So, even though I think pufa is poison, maybe you're not eating that much of it.

Also, you eat a lot of vegetables. While some of that is bad according to Ray's insight due to toxins, finer irritant and gut fermentation, I'm not sure if its as bad as starches people usually eat such as bread. Because these can feed bacteria easily too, but also the wheat protein are very toxic. So, if you are eating a lot of these vegetables and you have less of bread, that's better than average. Especially if you have healthy digestion with no signs of irritation.

So, compared to an average diet, it's possible what you're eating is much much better. I don't see the fact that you're healthy at 72 is as a contradiction, even if I think you might be even healthier replacing the excess veges by dairy for example.

 

[tara]

Peat's view on vegetables can be confusing. He's said broccoli was a good source of vitamin K in an email with Kasra:

"Some fibers, such as raw carrots, that are effective for lowering endotoxin absorption also contain natural antibiotics, so regular use of carrots should be balanced by occasional supplementation with vitamin K, or by occasionally eating liver or broccoli."

Nothing confusing about occasionally.

The naturally occurring PUFA in whole foods is not the problem.

Tell that to the hibernating animals who ate all that natural food and put them in a state of torpor.

 

[EnoreeG]

Seeing the common problems people post about here like poor oral health and balding, these are both avoided from eating a low fructose diet with high fiber.

Oral health can suffer if teeth are constantly coated in sugar. I think Peat has said he usually rinses his mouth after sweet drinks. High metabolism and good mineral status are also reportedly helpful for oral health. Milk can help with this for many people, along with other things.

I haven't studied this rigorously, but my off the cuff hunch is that balding reported here is often reported by people coming from a low carb and/or low calorie diet.

Have you read Peat's take on milk?: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/milk.shtml

Personally, I haven't got a handle on improving the health of my teeth, but much of the deterioration happened on a low sugar diet. And some of us, including me, have some trouble with milk, but others really seem to thrive on it.

On dental health, here's a couple of inputs that imply it's not really just about avoiding sugar:

Notice in these that milk (dairy) and calcium are not the important inputs. A few people may be a little low on calcium input, but much more prevalent in the USA and many countries, is Magnesium and Boron deficiency. As you may have heard, you need both Magnesium and a little Boron in the diet to properly direct Calcium into the proper locations (teeth, for one) and not have it expelled into the blood plasma and soft tissue where it causes problems. So check this out on how important Boron and Magnesium are to bone/tooth health:

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/borax.htm

Regarding building enamel (yes you can restore tooth enamel) vs destroying it, it seems avoiding grains is one critical step:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/12/dr-mellanbys-tooth-decay-reversal-diet.html

(I don't agree with the recommendation to take supplemental vitamin D, but that aside, I think this is a good little article).

 

[EnoreeG]

I don't run away from unsaturated fats. They are in food and there's no way to escape them. I just make sure I eat food as fresh as possible and from whole organic sources and if I cook, it's lightly done, like boiling or slow roasting.

Although you disagree with the need to avoid all pufa, what you describe as diet so far is not necessarily so bad in my opinion. Because a lot if not most of the pufa people usually consume comes from the frying and cooking oils. If you restrict yourself to what's in food, the quantity is much less. Unless you eat a lot of fatty fish like salmon. There are some in nuts, but if nuts are just use as a seasoning then again the quantity is limited. So, even though I think pufa is poison, maybe you're not eating that much of it.

Also, you eat a lot of vegetables. While some of that is bad according to Ray's insight due to toxins, finer irritant and gut fermentation, I'm not sure if its as bad as starches people usually eat such as bread. Because these can feed bacteria easily too, but also the wheat protein are very toxic. So, if you are eating a lot of these vegetables and you have less of bread, that's better than average. Especially if you have healthy digestion with no signs of irritation.

So, compared to an average diet, it's possible what you're eating is much much better. I don't see the fact that you're healthy at 72 is as a contradiction, even if I think you might be even healthier replacing the excess veges by dairy for example.

Thanks for the agreements and good effort at looking at my point of view jyb. Generally, though I've just started participating on this forum this week, I find a lot of open-mindedness and great, empowering communication skills at play. I was thinking there would be a hard-line Peatarian philosophy to deal with on each thread, but so far, people here on this thread are great.

Yes, I have fantastically healthy digestion while ignoring Peat's guidelines about vegetables. It seems he writes as a Endocrinologist mainly. There are a lot of other points of view about human physiology that consider a lot of other things than hormones and metabolism. Immunity for example.

As Tara wrote above, on the 28th

One of the issues with excess fibre, from Peat's PoV, is that the gut produces serotonin in response to stretching and friction, and he sees high serotonin as a culprit contributing to health burdens in a number of ways. Also some kinds of fibre tend to feed excessive bacterial growth, producing extra amounts of endotoxin. On the other hand, it is useful to have some fibre to help carry out some of the endotoxin and some of the estrogen excreted with bile into the lumen.

This is probably a somewhat accurate interpretation of Peat's ideas. Mostly from the point of view of hormones. Notice the use of "feed excessive bacterial growth, producing extra amounts of endotoxins"? And then the mention that the fiber is useful to carry out some of the estrogen?

From my reading, and experience, this is such a very, very small part of what fiber is all about. Peat has hardly scratched the surface, and what he comments on is mostly negative aspects of fiber (as he sees it). There are books out there explaining fiber and how it nourishes the gut, helps bacteria produce vitamins and saturated fat, helps lubricate the gut. In addition, the bacteria talk to the enteric nervous system (your second "brain") to fortify your immune system. This is all about digestion, immunity, and the nervous system -- not Peat's domain. You can't expect him to comment on these aspects of how to carefully select food. He has an endocrinologist's point of view. We can't expect him to be a well-rounded diet guru. I say listen to him, but read a lot of other ideas from dieticians, cardiologists, etc.

On the PUFA subject, it's silly to try to avoid it. It's in everything. But if you choose a healthy mix of only whole, healthy foods (not too many nuts or fish as you say) then you get very small quantities, which turns out to give you what you need. Or as you might wish to see it, "not a damaging excess".

Here's one of Peat's recommended foods, orange juice, broken down into it's components. Notice that in 1 cup of OJ you're getting 27 mg. of omega-3 and 71 mg. of omega-6, a fairly good ratio of PUFA between those two, and definitely a low amount compared to what you would get from grains or nuts, but still.. :

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1971/2

Here's a good series of web-pages on fiber:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/?s=fiber

Once on the page, find the link to "The Fiber Manifesto -- Part 1" to start at the beginning.

Enjoy! And keep learning and teaching others!

 

[jyb]

From my reading, and experience, this is such a very, very small part of what fiber is all about. Peat has hardly scratched the surface, and what he comments on is mostly negative aspects of fiber (as he sees it). There are books out there explaining fiber and how it nourishes the gut, helps bacteria produce vitamins and saturated fat, helps lubricate the gut. In addition, the bacteria talk to the enteric nervous system (your second "brain") to fortify your immune system. This is all about digestion, immunity, and the nervous system -- not Peat's domain. You can't expect him to comment on these aspects of how to carefully select food. He has an endocrinologist's point of view. We can't expect him to be a well-rounded diet guru. I say listen to him, but read a lot of other ideas from dieticians, cardiologists, etc.

He is constantly thinking about serotonin and the brain-gut connection. The disagreement is more about what's a reasonable threshold of serotonin and endotoxin for example, and leads you to different conclusions on whether to eat plenty of vegetables or just carrot and occasionally well cooked vegetables. The fact that the gut can start producing a huge lot of serotonin if there is fermentation is a problem for Ray for example. But you know, if you digest all fine without irritation, then you don't have that. That's why I think there are worse things than vegetables if you're not sick and have healthy fast digestion.

Cardiologist and dieticians have been advocating things high pufa, low sat fat. I think they have lost all credibility by now, and this is not coming just from Ray Peat circles.

 

[XPlus]

Hello, I'm seeking the truth, not to argue. I just want tips on modifying my diet which I thought was perfect. Ray Peat's is so different that I can't ignore his research. To put things simply, he recommends a lot of sugar and not much fiber, my diet is high fiber low sugar. The staples of my diet are green vegetables, legumes and fortified cereal or oats with lean meat on occasion. Ray Peat's is pretty much the opposite cutting out green veggies, grains and beans - all fiber.

I can go without grains but to say that veggies and beans are bad is too extreme for me to take seriously, and that I should eat ice cream and cola instead is weird but It's not unbelievable. This is why I can't dismiss Ray Peat, I need to know if I can still at least eat veggies and legumes (maybe even grains). Maybe Peat says they're "bad" but are they so bad I can't eat them or just "okay" to eat?

My problems with his diet:

First problem, I'm allergic to most shellfish. If I eat them my throat swells up and I go to the hospital. beans-veggies-grains don't make me feel worse after eating them. I think Peat said not to eat leafy greens because they have some poison in them that's bad for the hormones and metabolism. He also says that cooking them well makes them okay. The problem with that is he's saying the staple to my diet is bad because it has 1 poison in it that's bad for people with hyperthyroidism, but some of his staples are bad for me and I'm an athletic young male. Many people can't eat dairy, others who are diabetic can't even eat sugar - in my diet I restrict dairy and sugar because I think they do nothing but bad.

Second problem, I'm concerned with aging well and health but Ray Peat seems to be very viscerally fat and using a lot of supplements, like pregnenolone which made him look much younger than he really is, so who's to say It's his diet that makes Peat look so young and not the pregnenolone? If you need supplements then is it really a good diet?

Third, eating so much sugar must be bad for your oral health.

4th, Omega-6 and polyunsaturated fat is unavoidable, even in green vegetables and carrots. Not sure you can detoxify from it, but you can stop eating oils and junk food that everyone agrees is bad.

And though not so important, a lot of the foods on the food chart like carrots, ice cream, cola... had to be made by humans, they weren't available to primitive humans.

Ray Peat's advice seems sound, he's got a lot of credentials and isn't selling anything, he's trustworthy. I just don't want to eat Ray Peat diet yet because of the reasons I stated, but I'll definitely cut down on PUFA's, Omega 6 and oils completely.

If something is problematic for you (i.e. shellfish), then don't eat it.

The most likely way for someone to understand why including a large portion of vegetables in the diet is not ideal is when they have a leaky gut. Until then, too much fiber seems fine.

I personally, haven't found much benefit from including more vegetables in my diet.
Actually, I suspect that that the very large quantities I used to eat of greens, grains, legumes, salad raw veggies have contributed to my digestive problems.

Now, you said "so who's to say It's his diet that makes Peat look so young and not the pregnenolone".
The only way to find out is to study and experiment yourself

 

[VanillaBean]

How old is Peat supposed to be in that photo?
I forget.
his mid-late '70's...?

He's looking pretty good, imo.
It is mostly about mental/imaginative longevity to me.
A photo won't show that.

Have you hung out with a lot of 76 year-olds or whatever he is?
He's looking good!

I agree. He looks good to me especially for his age.

 

[VanillaBean]

If you like beans and greens, eat them. I eat them often and I've noticed noting but improvements. Some say that the so called "blue zones," areas of the world with the most centenarians, all eat beans. I think most negative so called "effect"s of beans are gone form cooking.

Peat has written about beans and leafy greens leading to lower metabolism.

"Besides fasting, or chronic protein deficiency, the common causes of hypothyroidism are excessive stress or “aerobic” (i.e., anaerobic) exercise, and diets containing beans, lentils, nuts, unsaturated fats (including carotene), and undercooked broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, or mustard greens. Many health conscious people become hypothyroid with a synergistic program of undercooked vegetables, legumes instead of animal protein, oils instead of butter, carotene instead of vitamin A, and breathless exercise instead of a stimulating life."

Peat's view on vegetables can be confusing. He's said broccoli was a good source of vitamin K in an email with Kasra:

"Some fibers, such as raw carrots, that are effective for lowering endotoxin absorption also contain natural antibiotics, so regular use of carrots should be balanced by occasional supplementation with vitamin K, or by occasionally eating liver or broccoli."

Nothing confusing about occasionally.

The naturally occurring PUFA in whole foods is not the problem.

Tell that to the hibernating animals who ate all that natural food and put them in a state of torpor.

I'm glad you posted this. Beans bloat me up real bad. So does broccoli - I think I need to cook mine more. I like it in certain dishes.

 

[EnoreeG]

From my reading, and experience, this is such a very, very small part of what fiber is all about. Peat has hardly scratched the surface, and what he comments on is mostly negative aspects of fiber (as he sees it). There are books out there explaining fiber and how it nourishes the gut, helps bacteria produce vitamins and saturated fat, helps lubricate the gut. In addition, the bacteria talk to the enteric nervous system (your second "brain") to fortify your immune system. This is all about digestion, immunity, and the nervous system -- not Peat's domain. You can't expect him to comment on these aspects of how to carefully select food. He has an endocrinologist's point of view. We can't expect him to be a well-rounded diet guru. I say listen to him, but read a lot of other ideas from dieticians, cardiologists, etc.

He is constantly thinking about serotonin and the brain-gut connection. The disagreement is more about what's a reasonable threshold of serotonin and endotoxin for example, and leads you to different conclusions on whether to eat plenty of vegetables or just carrot and occasionally well cooked vegetables. The fact that the gut can start producing a huge lot of serotonin if there is fermentation is a problem for Ray for example. But you know, if you digest all fine without irritation, then you don't have that. That's why I think there are worse things than vegetables if you're not sick and have healthy fast digestion.

Cardiologist and dieticians have been advocating things high pufa, low sat fat. I think they have lost all credibility by now, and this is not coming just from Ray Peat circles.

jyb - well said! I think you have a marvelous understanding and interpretation of Ray!

I like that you point out that Peat may claim raised serotonin IF there's fermentation. I think that's the crux of any differences some people may have with Peat regarding serotonin. It's the TYPE and LOCATION of the fermentation. As I see it, with Peat encouraging minimal fiber, but higher fruit carbs than others, his diet encourages fermentation in the small intestine, as soon as the fruits get delivered there. Yes, this is bad fermentation, and may be the only fermentation causing serotonin production. The solution may just be to switch away from use of so much simple sugars that start and encourage that fermentation in the wrong place. You definitely don't want fermentation in the small intestine. I agree with Peat on that. And when he says eat minimal carrots, it's probably because he know if you eat too much you get the fermentation. Carrots are the sweetest of all veggies that aren't actually a fruit! Have to go easy there!

In my case, I NEVER have gas. That indicates that whatever fermentation is going on is in the lower GI tract and is totally minimal, even though long lasting, and further, encourages a diverse and robust variety of microbes. Just what you need for good gut health, and what you get by eating plenty of fiber as in leafy greens which are NOT digested in the small intestine, but pass on down to ferment a bit and still deliver all the vitamins, enzymes, minerals to be absorbed in the large intestine and colon.

Spot on, regarding the run-of-the-mill cardiologists also!

 

[XPlus]

I don't run away from unsaturated fats. They are in food and there's no way to escape them. I just make sure I eat food as fresh as possible and from whole organic sources and if I cook, it's lightly done, like boiling or slow roasting.

Although you disagree with the need to avoid all pufa, what you describe as diet so far is not necessarily so bad in my opinion. Because a lot if not most of the pufa people usually consume comes from the frying and cooking oils. If you restrict yourself to what's in food, the quantity is much less. Unless you eat a lot of fatty fish like salmon. There are some in nuts, but if nuts are just use as a seasoning then again the quantity is limited. So, even though I think pufa is poison, maybe you're not eating that much of it.

Also, you eat a lot of vegetables. While some of that is bad according to Ray's insight due to toxins, finer irritant and gut fermentation, I'm not sure if its as bad as starches people usually eat such as bread. Because these can feed bacteria easily too, but also the wheat protein are very toxic. So, if you are eating a lot of these vegetables and you have less of bread, that's better than average. Especially if you have healthy digestion with no signs of irritation.

So, compared to an average diet, it's possible what you're eating is much much better. I don't see the fact that you're healthy at 72 is as a contradiction, even if I think you might be even healthier replacing the excess veges by dairy for example.

Thanks for the agreements and good effort at looking at my point of view jyb. Generally, though I've just started participating on this forum this week, I find a lot of open-mindedness and great, empowering communication skills at play. I was thinking there would be a hard-line Peatarian philosophy to deal with on each thread, but so far, people here on this thread are great.

Yes, I have fantastically healthy digestion while ignoring Peat's guidelines about vegetables. It seems he writes as a Endocrinologist mainly. There are a lot of other points of view about human physiology that consider a lot of other things than hormones and metabolism. Immunity for example.

As Tara wrote above, on the 28th

One of the issues with excess fibre, from Peat's PoV, is that the gut produces serotonin in response to stretching and friction, and he sees high serotonin as a culprit contributing to health burdens in a number of ways. Also some kinds of fibre tend to feed excessive bacterial growth, producing extra amounts of endotoxin. On the other hand, it is useful to have some fibre to help carry out some of the endotoxin and some of the estrogen excreted with bile into the lumen.

This is probably a somewhat accurate interpretation of Peat's ideas. Mostly from the point of view of hormones. Notice the use of "feed excessive bacterial growth, producing extra amounts of endotoxins"? And then the mention that the fiber is useful to carry out some of the estrogen?

From my reading, and experience, this is such a very, very small part of what fiber is all about. Peat has hardly scratched the surface, and what he comments on is mostly negative aspects of fiber (as he sees it). There are books out there explaining fiber and how it nourishes the gut, helps bacteria produce vitamins and saturated fat, helps lubricate the gut. In addition, the bacteria talk to the enteric nervous system (your second "brain") to fortify your immune system. This is all about digestion, immunity, and the nervous system -- not Peat's domain. You can't expect him to comment on these aspects of how to carefully select food. He has an endocrinologist's point of view. We can't expect him to be a well-rounded diet guru. I say listen to him, but read a lot of other ideas from dieticians, cardiologists, etc.

On the PUFA subject, it's silly to try to avoid it. It's in everything. But if you choose a healthy mix of only whole, healthy foods (not too many nuts or fish as you say) then you get very small quantities, which turns out to give you what you need. Or as you might wish to see it, "not a damaging excess".

Here's one of Peat's recommended foods, orange juice, broken down into it's components. Notice that in 1 cup of OJ you're getting 27 mg. of omega-3 and 71 mg. of omega-6, a fairly good ratio of PUFA between those two, and definitely a low amount compared to what you would get from grains or nuts, but still.. :

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1971/2

Here's a good series of web-pages on fiber:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/?s=fiber

Once on the page, find the link to "The Fiber Manifesto -- Part 1" to start at the beginning.

Enjoy! And keep learning and teaching others!

Mr. Eno.

I congratulate you for your robust physiological state of health.
There a couple of Pakistani gentlemen I work with whom are around your age.
Despite the PUFA, vegetables, fast food, grains and legumes they eat, they're in good health for their age - except maybe for a bulging belly. One of them is 79, he has a grip of steel when he shakes my hand, he can literally shake my whole body. He also has a full head of hair and wears no glasses.

When I asked about where he was brought up, he told me that it's in the mountain region. He told me that his mother breastfed him until he was 4, and they had no doctors around. They used to eat lots of ghee, milk, and fruits.

Since for many of us around my age, who are in their 20s & 30s, we seem to suffer from many perplexing health issues. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, hairloss, gynocomestia, bad back and knee pains and digestion issues. Mind you, where I live is a modern urban area, with access to good medical facilities.
Many of our mothers were prescribed contraceptive pill when they're young, most of us have been delivered in the hospital, had all the compulsory vaccinations and our moms fed us formulas because it they found it more convenient.

Prenatal imprinting is a big piece of the perplexing puzzle. I remember Dr Peat once saying that no body knows the effect what something given to pregnant women might be because sometimes take a long time to show, later in life and sometimes even generations. Now the health problems our generation struggles with are very likely influenced by this earlier imprinting.

While your diet and lifestyle may not be ideal at a Peat scale, your capacity to handle stressors seems obviously much more that I can take at this point of my life.

 

[jyb]

The solution may just be to switch away from use of so much simple sugars that start and encourage that fermentation in the wrong place. You definitely don't want fermentation in the small intestine. I agree with Peat on that.

Hum just to be clear, Ray likes the simple sugars precisely because they don't ferment - or minimise fermentation. A lot of the sugars people here use is from things like *filtered* OJ, so the potential for fermentation is low. And I think its true that milk, eggs, meat, some filtered simple sugar, etc don't ferment much - I can't remember the last time I farted (I'm slightly but barely exaggerating).

Now, that was just the "side effects" of fermentation, irritation and serotonin aspect. On the positive effects that different foods deliver, there are other considerations Ray has for favouring more dairy and fruit rather than more vegetables. Like a few other health writers, he believes animal products have more useful nutrients like very high calcium, A/D/E, etc. But you have to read his articles to know in detail which nutrients he consider useful and why. And I think on that subject, on the vitamins from diet rather than from fermentation, he is not unique. All the Weston A Price stuff is also a lot in that vein, but since then I've seen others writing about animal products being more dense or just good due to the saturated fats and then asking "why bother?" when it comes to vegetables.