Peating- Take Two

[Dean]

Hi all,

I've had lifelong issues with hypothyroid symptoms/issues and digestion. Frustration with not being able to put things together (intellectually, emotionally, physically) and access the potential I've always innately felt I had, has lead me to a 20 year adulthood that has been plagued by depression and other mood issues. In the last few years, hormonal issues have become more physically apparent (even lower sex drive, gynocomastia).

I discovered Ray Peat while I was traveling long term in SE Asia. I was doing some searching on thyroid issues and ended up finding the long thread on the low carber forum, leading me to spend a few weeks holed up in a Cambodian guesthouse reading Dr. Peat's articles and listening to his radio interviews as best as I could. I was feeling pretty miserable at the time. My poor digestion and sensitive gut was giving me constant troubles with the food there (as it had in a previous lengthy stay in South America).

I jumped on the milk and oj bandwagon even though I'd had long term issues with both, but the break from eating was appealing. All I could find was UHT milk from New Zealand and an oj from Singapore. I did well on it for 3 weeks or so, (other than insanely frequent urination-despite eating lots of local sea salt)- but one morning I hit the wall on the milk with intense stomach cramps and mucous discharge in my stool, which continued for a few weeks even after stopping with the milk.

Anyway, being in Cambodia, Peating wasn't really doable without the milk- so I dropped it and continued on with my traveling for another 4 or 5 months until depression and a major episode of diarrhea resulted in a Cipro intervention that led me to throw in the towel on the travels and return home to U.S. just before Christmas. Now here I am, climbing back on the Peat bandwagon, reacquainting myself with his writings and reading this forum and the Peatarian website. It's amazing how much more discussion is going on around Dr. Peat's ideas just in the 6-8 months that passed from my initial introduction.

I've always believed that diet was at the core of my issues and have been obsessed with that belief my whole adult life. I've tried about every diet or WOE from gluten, soy, and sugar free veganism to "zero" carb and everything in between. For the first time, I really have some reason to believe I'm on the right track. To finally get a glimpse of the big picture of how all the seemingly disjointed problems I've had are actually related, actually gives me a little hope. Yes, it's aggravating to think about all the SSRI's, the self-experimentation with Tryptophan and 5 HTP supplementation, the Omega 3 obsession that had me eating alot of salmon, grinding and sprinkling flax seeds, dressing salads with walnut oil. Then, of course, there is the copious quantities of nuts Ive eaten over the years and the long term alcohol abuse...not to mention the periods I've leaned heavily on pot and tobacco to cope.

Oh well...

Right now I'm working on my dairy issues, have got beef gelatin on order and am getting ready to take the plunge on a juicer for potatoes so I can get my protein in order. Also hitting the sugar hard and trying to get my salt intake up. Learning alot here and looking forward to learning more and getting to know others blazing this new frontier.

 

[gabriel79]

Hi Dean,
Welcome to the forum! My suggestion would be that you don´t overdo the milk if you´re not diggesting it OK. Use cheese instead if that´s OK, I prefer fresh cheeses not long stationed cheeses. Eat some sugar along (like honey) to compensate the lack of lactose in the cheese. Use milk but very small amounts that don´t cause you any issue (e.g. half a glass). With time you may be able to drink more milk.
I don´t know how´s the rest of your diet, but really watch out to limit the PUFA intake. That makes most other things easier, even when you don´t embrace a peat style eating.

 

[Dean]

Hey Gabriel,

Thanks for the welcome. Other than two hard boiled eggs in the last week, my body has been a no PUFA zone. I'm looking forward to receiving my gelatin so I can get my protein content up without anymore dairy. I'm getting closer to taking the plunge on a juicer for potatoes too.

Right now, I'm relying on heavily sugared whole milk. I am having bloating issues, but I tolerate it better than low fat milk which gives me instant stomach upset. I tolerate yogurt, cheese, junk ice cream much better than milk but then you've got the gums and lactic acid.

I like the Daisy brand cottage cheese and have seen the suggestion to wash it in order to remove the lactic acid. I think I'd rather go buy a mesh strainer and cheese cloth and make my own cheese from the milk. Charlie and others seem to have found the milk more digestible that way. I can't afford the clean hard cheeses right now and they would bind me up in any significant quantity anyway.

 

[gabriel79]

I prefer fresh cheeses not long stationed cheeses.

Sorry, I´ve just made up a new English word I meant aged cheeses. I prefer cheeses that have almost no aging, like port salut type (if you have that one in the US).

 

[BingDing]

Hi Dean

Welcome to the forum. Your litany of past WOEs, etc. when we thought we were doing the right thing is (dreadfully) familiar, I'd guess only the youngest Peaters don't have similar histories. Just want to mention that grass fed dairy is recommended and might be easier to use, high quality raw milk might also make a difference since you know there are no additives/processing causing the problems. Different small farm dairies produce noticeably different milks, I think RP said find one that tastes good.

It seems to me that regaining a healthy, good life is mostly a matter of persevering once we get the basics down, which you clearly have. Not that there isn't a lot of fine tuning and adjusting for particulars, of course. Best, BD.

 

[narouz]

Hey Gabriel,

Thanks for the welcome. Other than two hard boiled eggs in the last week, my body has been a no PUFA zone. I'm looking forward to receiving my gelatin so I can get my protein content up without anymore dairy. I'm getting closer to taking the plunge on a juicer for potatoes too.

Right now, I'm relying on heavily sugared whole milk. I am having bloating issues, but I tolerate it better than low fat milk which gives me instant stomach upset. I tolerate yogurt, cheese, junk ice cream much better than milk but then you've got the gums and lactic acid.

I like the Daisy brand cottage cheese and have seen the suggestion to wash it in order to remove the lactic acid. I think I'd rather go buy a mesh strainer and cheese cloth and make my own cheese from the milk. Charlie and others seem to have found the milk more digestible that way. I can't afford the clean hard cheeses right now and they would bind me up in any significant quantity anyway.

Dean-
I eat the same Daisy cottage cheese sometimes.
I'm honestly not sure on this,
but when I investigated the cottage cheese/lactic acid thing,
I think I came out leaning toward thinking--if well/traditionally made--
it shouldn't require that rinsing.
As I recall, what I found was,
when the curds are separated from the whey in the process of making cottage cheese,
that whey is rinsed away.
I admit I may be wrong on this.

 

[Dean]

LOL...I'm in on the long stationed cheese as long as there are no enzymes or veg rennet

Yea, I've been on the grass-fed bandwagon in terms of meat for many years. I've never looked for grass-fed milk before. Is it out there? Trader Joe's perhaps Not sure if I can afford it at the moment, but yes, if it is available I need to make the switch.

I've also followed the raw milk.real milk (WAPF) thing for many years, but have never taken the plunge. Generally, I've been in the "dairy is bad" or at least "dairy is bad for me" camp throughout my WOE wanderings. Of course, the periods between WOE plans usually were mostly binges on ice cream, pizza, and cheese. Go figure.

The cottage cheese thing has me perplexed as well. I bought and ate a container of Daisy, but while I was enjoying it I reread Peat's comment about lactic acid having the same effect as serotonin has on the mitochondrial. Major bummer. So, I'm not sure what to think, but considering that reducing the excess serotonin effect is probably my most pressing dietary need, I'm inclined to think I'm better off abstaining, unless I hit the wall with milk again and have no other option.

Thanks for the welcome and support. I've been reading all of your posts for the last few weeks and learning alot.

 

[jyb]

@Dean: you can do powdered eggshell as a safe calcium supp to complement milk if you can't get much, since a lot of calcium is recommended. Check out Danny Roddy's website for instructions.

 

[narouz]

LOL...I'm in on the long stationed cheese as long as there are no enzymes or veg rennet

Yea, I've been on the grass-fed bandwagon in terms of meat for many years. I've never looked for grass-fed milk before. Is it out there? Trader Joe's perhaps Not sure if I can afford it at the moment, but yes, if it is available I need to make the switch.

I've also followed the raw milk.real milk (WAPF) thing for many years, but have never taken the plunge. Generally, I've been in the "dairy is bad" or at least "dairy is bad for me" camp throughout my WOE wanderings. Of course, the periods between WOE plans usually were mostly binges on ice cream, pizza, and cheese. Go figure.

The cottage cheese thing has me perplexed as well. I bought and ate a container of Daisy, but while I was enjoying it I reread Peat's comment about lactic acid having the same effect as serotonin has on the mitochondrial. Major bummer. So, I'm not sure what to think, but considering that reducing the excess serotonin effect is probably my most pressing dietary need, I'm inclined to think I'm better off abstaining, unless I hit the wall with milk again and have no other option.

Thanks for the welcome and support. I've been reading all of your posts for the last few weeks and learning alot.

Dean-
Yeah, the cottage cheese/lactic acid/rinsing debate...
I think it was here on this site a long time ago,
or maybe it was another site,
there was a humdinger of a debate about that.
It got pretty abstruse.

There has a lot of confusion about how cottage cheese was/is made.
Traditionally is was, apparently, made much differently than it sometimes is today.

As I recall some of the contours of the discussion,
it seems that cottage cheese was traditionally made so as to yield a lowfat product.
But nowadays maybe some of the cream/fat is added back in?
Foggy on this now.

That is why I am a little suspicious of the Daisy cottage cheese.
As one ingredient it lists "cream."
Perhaps the add cream back in after the separation of curds from whey?
Actually, I don't see how that could result in lactic acid--
just higher fat.
The Daisy is 2%, so....

On the rinsing:
In reading about how cottage cheese is traditionally made,
I found that after the coagulation, and after the separation of curds from whey,
that whey is then rinsed away.
The whey is what contains the lactic acid.
(The rinsing process did worry me some,
because--in the description I read--that rinsing utilized chlorinated water.)

But anyhow...if the whey is indeed rinsed away, that would seem to solve the lactic acid problem.

As for "Peat's recommendation" about rinsing:
I don't think I ever satisfied myself that Peat did indeed say that.
Even if he did, he may have been responding to a question about some
non-traditionally made cottage cheese
in which lactic acid still might be present.

So, I've been eating the Daisy cottage cheese.
I've longed to sprinkle some nutrional yeast upon it,
like I used to in my pre-Peat era,
but alas...much glutamate awaits one down that path.

What I've been wondering about lately is Daisy sour cream.
Because it is "sour,"
I suspect it is more like yoghurt--lactic acid city.

 

[gabriel79]

oohhh.. So cottage cheese is Ricotta! The reason I don´t consume Ricotta (other than occasionally) is that it´s protein is mostly whey, which is higher in tryptophan than cheese. It can contain some caseine after they add some milk back to make it more pallatable, but it´s mostly whey. I believe it has some lactic acid too unless they process it somehow to remove the remaining serum after the filtering.

 

[narouz]

oohhh.. So cottage cheese is Ricotta! The reason I don´t consume Ricotta (other than occasionally) is that it´s protein is mostly whey, which is higher in tryptophan than cheese. It can contain some caseine after they add some milk back to make it more pallatable, but it´s mostly whey. I believe it has some lactic acid too unless they process it somehow to remove the remaining serum after the filtering.

gabriel79-
Now, I don't know about Ricotta.
Are you saying you know this about Ricotta, gabriel?
I was thinking Ricotta is what is used in making cheesecake,
something which can, I've heard, be a good Peat treat
(no bad crust, of course, but....)

So I was hoping/thinking Ricotta is okay.
No?

 

[charlie]

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottage_cheese

Cottage cheese is a cheese curd product with a mild flavor. It is drained, but not pressed, so some whey remains and the individual curds remain loose. The curd is usually washed to remove acidity, giving sweet curd cheese.

 

[narouz]

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottage_cheese

Cottage cheese is a cheese curd product with a mild flavor. It is drained, but not pressed, so some whey remains and the individual curds remain loose. The curd is usually washed to remove acidity, giving sweet curd cheese.

"...washed to remove acidity..."
-that would be lactic acid acidity.
"...usually washed..."
-so maybe, with some makers, it is not completely removed.

 

[gabriel79]

Hi Narouz. Yes, I´m not sure we´re talking about the same. Seems like cottage and Ricotta may be similar but not the same. I´ve no idea what they use in cheesecakes (it should be something more creamy and consistent, ricotta is very "granulous" or whatever). But yes, ricotta in my country is mostly whey and a bit acidic in taste, so some brands add milk or cream back to the product.

 

[gabriel79]

BTW, I don´t think some ricotta or cottage is bad or "not Peaty"... I just wouldn´t use it as often or in the amounts I use cheese or milk.

 

[narouz]

Here's a good discussion of Ricotta cheese making.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/02/...a-fast-easy-homemade-cheese-the-food-lab.html

Looking like it could be very Peatian, depending.
Looks like lactic acid is sometimes used,
but that vinegar is the agent of choice.
Agent of what?
Well, I need to read more closely,
but it would seem the agent of coagulation.
And perhaps some flavor properties.

So gabriel79, and acidic taste could result from lactic acid,
but...at least in some processes...vinegar.

There may be hope for ricotta!

 

[gabriel79]

Yes, according to the info I have says that it´s obtained "by precipitation of the proteins in the milk or cheese serum, induced by heat in an acidic medium" The acidic medium can be result of "lactic bacteria or organic acids, which can be: "acetic acid (vinegar), lactic acid, citric acid, alone or combined).

 

[narouz]

One thing in that ricotta making article above with relation to lactic acid:
it seemed to suggest that the rinsing of ricotta was perhaps not as thorough as with cottage cheese.
Indeed, there might not be any rinsing at all.
I'll have to read more carefully.

But...if the acid used to make the ricotta were vinegar,
then it would seem that rinsing would not be necessary for Peatanity.
Well...unless acetic acid (from vinegar) is non-Peatian.

I've heard Peat talk about eating cheesecake.
I guess he could make it from cottage cheese?
Come to think of it, back in my Protein Power era
I think we made cheesecake from cottage cheese--recipe in the Protein Power book.

 

[Dean]

LOL...I was researching this cheese stuff (ricotta vs. cottage, etc.) the other night and ended up more confused than when I started. I believe I've read somewhere awhile back on a Peat friendly site about someone using ricotta cheese heavily as their dairy protein source and doing fine.

I was in a European focused market nearby the other day and found a ricotta cheese that was clean of gums, cultures, and nasty additives. It was basically dairy and vinegar. It was whole milk... and also pretty expensive. They also had a "farmer's cheese" in those one pound deli containers that only had one of those deli labels slapped on it. No list of ingredients that I could see or info about how it was made. It looked like a dry cottage cheese. I was going to email the manufacturer to get some info but it is also out of my price range at the moment, but could be an option for me in the near future.

The homemade milk cheese recipe that Charlie brought over from the arkofwellness site I believe is something I am going to have to try as I have more time than money at the moment. I wonder what it is about it (since it isn't cultured) that makes that cheese more digestible than just drinking the milk for Charlie and others? Is it the lemon juice or vinegar or the draining process? Does some of the tryptophan end up getting drained out?

 

[Dean]

I don't want to veer off the present discussion point but I have another issue related to my milk tolerance that involves some interesting experience/experimenting with my carrot/carrot salad that I thought someone might have some feedback on.

As I've mentioned, drinking low fat or skim milk gives me immediate stomach upset whereas I can drink whole milk without any immediate similar trouble. So is it the difference in fat or, more likely, the added Vitamin A that is creating the trouble? Which leads me to the question how similar is the beta carotene in a carrot to the Vitamin A added to milk?

Here's why I ask...

Since I've been working back into Peating starting 10 days or so ago, I'd been eating a carrot or a handful of baby carrots whole, coated with vinegar and salt and dipping it back in the bowl for more between bites. I was also nibbling a little chunk of coconut oil with it. I didn't have a grater and kept forgetting when I was at the store to pick one up.

Three days ago, still grater-less, I decided to use a paring knife and cut long, slender slivers off the carrot to get closer to the salad benfits of rinsing out excess betacarotene and making the carrot more digestible and palatable. I was able to rinse very little orange out of the carrot slivers though and when I ate them I got a very upset stomach (similar to what I experience when I drink skim or low-fat milk) and also a very light-headed, spacy, blanked out feeling in my head that reminded me of how I felt at times in my SSRI days.

The next day I found a vegetable peeler and laboriously used that to finely grate some carrot for a salad. Four or five rinses and squeezing out the carrot drained an awful lot of bright orange color in the water, yet I didn't get it completely clear before just deciding to eat the dang thing. I was also surprised given how much color was in the rinse water that there was no discernible diminishing in the color of the carrot salad. At any rate, I ate the carrot salad without any stomach or head upset.

The rest of the carrot was too small to try and grate with the peeler so I slivered the rest of it like I had the day before and stuck it in the fridge.

(Yesterday, I skipped the carrot salad as I was curious to see if the extra bloating I've been experiencing could be attributable to the remaining fiber in my diet from the carrot. I did feel a little less bloated yesterday, but there are other factors that could be at play to draw any conclusions.)

Today, I pulled the leftover slivered carrot out of the fridge. It hadn't lost any color. I let it soak twice for a few minutes and there was a slight tinge of orange to the rinse water, but not much. Having read last night someone's suggestion (I think on the Peatarian site) that the carrot salad not be eaten with fat to lessen the strain on the beta carotene to vitamin a process, I skipped the coconut oil and just used vinegar and salt. No upset stomach and perhaps only minor head upset sensation.

Anyone have any take on this or do I have too much time on my hands? I'd been thinking about going heavier on the carrot to help with the stomach cleansing, but now I'm not so sure that is a good idea. Perhaps it would even be a good idea to switch to bamboo shoots? The possibility of forgoing fiber all together and trying charcoal or something else more powerful to tackle my gut has also crossed my mind.

Thoughts?