Ray Peat and Turnips

[narouz]

Is a turnip:
1. ...

I'm sorry, tara.
I'm afraid not.
Very good try, though.

 

[pboy]

so I was looking at some info on turnips, and it appears a lot of the fructose in them is in the form of inulin...which is an indigestible fermentable long sugar. That explains why they don't taste sweet. I wonder how bad it is, or if its even bad at all...or beneficial. Not sure ive ever heard Peat mention it, but I guess if he eats them on occasion he must not think it too bad

 

[Daimyo]

Maybe Ray Peat doesn't follow Ray Peat diet?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Try to understand him, thrive... try to eat like him, fail.

 

[Zachs]

Inulin is a prebiotic/fodmap. You wouldnt think Peat would approve.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Inulin is a prebiotic/fodmap. You wouldnt think Peat would approve.

There are some two grams per hundred. And that is a big salad already.

 

[narouz]

Well, anything goes, does it not?

Pop Quiz

Is a turnip:

1. a mostly starchy, carbohydrate-y root vegetable?
2. a nut containing a lot of PUFA?
3. a fruit composed mostly of sugars with about 50% fructose and 50% glucose?
4. an effective, albeit somewhat painful, baby suppository?
5. a root vegetable composed of about 95% water plus a slight amount of sugar and fiber?
6. all of the above?
7. none of the above?

Well, actually, only 1 out of 7 answers goes.

Let's consider
(and the crafty reader may note implications for the larger questions earlier
concerning the existence and nature of a Peat diet :) ):

1. Helpful forum posters were able to overcome my ignorance
about a turnip being a starchy vegetable.
Gradually, we arrived at what is, at least tentatively,
a pretty good notion of what a turnip is.

2. Would it have been helpful to have said?:
"There is no such thing as a turnip."

3. Would it have been helpful to have said?:
"Nothing should be said about a turnip,
because to do so would be an act of Authoritarianism!
To attempt to state the properties of a turnip would be to create Dogma!
To attempt to state the properties of a turnip
would foreclose all imaginations of what a turnip could be!

4. Let's imagine someone wanted to push The Amazing Turnip Diet.
Most of us, our first question--if we bothered to ask--would be:
"What is a turnip?" "What are its properties?"
These are not silly questions, in my opinion.

Now let's imagine that the pusher of The Amazing Turnip Diet answered us by saying,
"There is no such thing as a turnip."
And what if we replied (I would hope we wouldn't, but...let's say we did):
"Okay, that sounds pretty cool. Is it a restrictive diet?"
And the pusher answers:
"No, because there is no turnip, I can say with complete honesty that
it is a completely unrestrictive diet!"
To which we, sadly, might reply:
"Awesome...that sounds like the perfect diet!"

 

[narouz]

Try to understand him, thrive... try to eat like him, fail.

I am sympathetic with the gist of this, Such.
My interpretation of what you're saying is:
we should not strive, primarily, merely to copy exactly what Peat eats.
Instead we should seek to understand the principles underlying why he eats as he does.

I agree.

But I would add this.
The principles guiding Peat's dietary recommendations are numerous and scattered and complex.
There is no sin in attempting to round up those scattered suggestions
and distill--I will avoid use of the word "reduce" as it induces apoplexy hereabouts--them
into a summary form.

Rather than being a sin,
it would provide many benefits.
For one, it would be intellectually honest and scientific.
There is nothing deceitful nor unscientific about summarizing.
Second, it would provide an easy starting point for beginners.
Third, it would allow us to assess basic questions like
"How many have abandoned a Ray Peat diet?"
or
"Does a Ray Peat diet bring good health?"
or
"Do you gain weight on a Peat diet?"
etc...
(Just for starters. :) )

Curiosity about the exact nature of Peat's diet is understandable.
Knowledge of it can be helpful, in my opinion.
Especially when Peat offers advice privately,
one will find that that advice sometimes seems somewhat inconsistent with his general, scholarly principles.
Also, because his scholarly writings are so abundant,
there is a lot of room to inaccurately interpret his views.
There is a tendency to interpret his dietary suggestions
in the light of what we wish them to be--
what we like to eat or feel comfortable eating.

Given these difficulites,
knowing the specifics of Peat's own diet
can be a helpful piece of the puzzle--
the puzzle being: what is an optimal Peat diet?

 

[4peatssake]

 

[pboy]

there is no spoon!

 

[Such_Saturation]

Try to understand him, thrive... try to eat like him, fail.

I am sympathetic with the gist of this, Such.
My interpretation of what you're saying is:
we should not strive, primarily, merely to copy exactly what Peat eats.
Instead we should seek to understand the principles underlying why he eats as he does.

I agree.

But I would add this.
The principles guiding Peat's dietary recommendations are numerous and scattered and complex.
There is no sin in attempting to round up those scattered suggestions
and distill--I will avoid use of the word "reduce" as it induces apoplexy hereabouts--them
into a summary form.

Rather than being a sin,
it would provide many benefits.
For one, it would be intellectually honest and scientific.
There is nothing deceitful nor unscientific about summarizing.
Second, it would provide an easy starting point for beginners.
Third, it would allow us to assess basic questions like
"How many have abandoned a Ray Peat diet?"
or
"Does a Ray Peat diet bring good health?"
or
"Do you gain weight on a Peat diet?"
etc...
(Just for starters. :) )

Curiosity about the exact nature of Peat's diet is understandable.
Knowledge of it can be helpful, in my opinion.
Especially when Peat offers advice privately,
one will find that that advice sometimes seems somewhat inconsistent with his general, scholarly principles.
Also, because his scholarly writings are so abundant,
there is a lot of room to inaccurately interpret his views.
There is a tendency to interpret his dietary suggestions
in the light of what we wish them to be--
what we like to eat or feel comfortable eating.

Given these difficulites,
knowing the specifics of Peat's own diet
can be a helpful piece of the puzzle--
the puzzle being: what is an optimal Peat diet?

If you notice, nobody really has claimed on that thread to have "abandoned the Ray Peat diet", nor has anyone complained of not being able to do so because of the lack of a definition for that diet. They have certainly changed the food items of their days considerably, but they still do not feel comfortable in answering "yes" to the original question. The refusal to simplify in that deceiving manner means that they have retained what they have learned and still implement it, and in fact many food choices such as PUFA end up requiring an excessive zeal to "simplify" things about the world.

A hardened general has a diet which mostly consists of:

1. Meatloaf
2.15 years old Scotch
3. Cigars

Why does he have such a diet? Man, he must be onto something... better try it even though I'm not feeling it...

Six months later, on facebook...

Do not eat the General's Diet! This diet gave me a heart attack. Doc absolutely sure it was the whiskey. Plus, the General shot himself last week, WTF? What a scam. 89 People like this post.

If you take the hint that there can be no borders between what we think is the diet and what we think is the person, everything seems to go smoother. If at any time there might be lines, let them draw themselves. If you pick your diet off of an infographic, you are not letting them draw themselves.

Replace "disease" with "diet":

...And that would really upset medicine if they had to consider everyone as a unique individual, all the way down to the way their genes worked, because there would be no exact definition of a disease, it would be "your disease, this month"

Consider these words:

Having the power to assign names is a source of power and wealth.

Pavlov said that he studied nutrition to understand consciousness and the nervous system, because eating is our closest interaction with the world. Our brain is part of our digestive system. But eating has become highly institutionalized and influenced by our cultural beliefs. If people begin to think about the meanings of eating, they are beginning a process of cultural and philosophical criticism.

 

[narouz]

If you notice, nobody really has claimed on that thread to have "abandoned the Ray Peat diet"...

They would not be able to do so because:
1. Many/most here claim there is no Peat diet,
or
2. if they do grant its existence, its description is so loose
as to be useless.
Thus, nobody really knows who has abandoned a Peat diet
because we can't say with any scientific accuracy who was on it in the first place. :)

The refusal to simplify in that deceiving manner...

If I'm understanding you here,
you would seem to be restating the oft-used argument
that to distill or summarize
is to deceive.

I don't believe this to be true.
Peat often generalizes.
For example, he said that some native Indian people
had a very healthy diet consisting of cooked greens and meat, mainly.
He didn't feel the need to apologize for this generalization or reduction
because he knew in his heart he was being deceptive.
And he didn't feel it necessary to try to track down the exact, specific details
of every individual Indian's dietary idiosyncrasies.
He simply did what most good scientists do when useful: he generalized.
He summarized. He distilled.
He reduced.

Generalizing is not deceptive if presented as generalization. :)

If you take the hint that there can be no borders between what we think is the diet and what we think is the person, everything seems to go smoother. If at any time there might be lines, let them draw themselves. If you pick your diet off of an infographic, you are not letting them draw themselves.

Accurately describing an optimal Peat diet
would exert no control over anyone's freedom
to agree with it or disagree with it.
It would not in any way control anyone's freedom
to draw lines, erase lines, modify lines, make dotted lines,
eat a Peat diet, not eat a Peat diet,
eat a non-Peat diet and claim it was a real Peat diet, or whatever.

Hovering behind your passage there seems to be
an unwarranted defensiveness
(in the case of this proposed motion to admit the existence of a Peat diet
and to accurately describe it)
against a presumed Authoritarianism.
And too with your other unattributed quote:
"Having the power to assign names is a source of power and wealth."

I am not after any authority regarding this Peat stuff,
nor any power and wealth.

Let's return to the analogy of the turnip.
And I would also like to pull in a quote of Peat's from a poster up the thread a bit
which likewise bears upon the fear of Authoritarianism:
"The attempt to steer a person can make it hard for them to move, because it inactivates their own guidance system."

Earlier in this thread,
when we moved from an inaccurate description of the nutritional profile of a turnip
to an accurate description,
would you think that, by doing so,
we were "attempting to steer a person" and to "inactivate their own guidance system"...?

 

[tara]

Can't resist wading into this debate, either.

Try to understand him, thrive... try to eat like him, fail.

I am sympathetic with the gist of this, Such.
My interpretation of what you're saying is:
we should not strive, primarily, merely to copy exactly what Peat eats.
Instead we should seek to understand the principles underlying why he eats as he does.

I agree.

But I would add this.
The principles guiding Peat's dietary recommendations are numerous and scattered and complex.
There is no sin in attempting to round up those scattered suggestions
and distill--I will avoid use of the word "reduce" as it induces apoplexy hereabouts--them
into a summary form.

Rather than being a sin,
it would provide many benefits.
For one, it would be intellectually honest and scientific.
There is nothing deceitful nor unscientific about summarizing.
Second, it would provide an easy starting point for beginners.
Third, it would allow us to assess basic questions like
"How many have abandoned a Ray Peat diet?"
or
"Does a Ray Peat diet bring good health?"
or
"Do you gain weight on a Peat diet?"
etc...
(Just for starters. :) )

Curiosity about the exact nature of Peat's diet is understandable.
Knowledge of it can be helpful, in my opinion.
Especially when Peat offers advice privately,
one will find that that advice sometimes seems somewhat inconsistent with his general, scholarly principles.
Also, because his scholarly writings are so abundant,
there is a lot of room to inaccurately interpret his views.
There is a tendency to interpret his dietary suggestions
in the light of what we wish them to be--
what we like to eat or feel comfortable eating.

Given these difficulites,
knowing the specifics of Peat's own diet
can be a helpful piece of the puzzle--
the puzzle being: what is an optimal Peat diet?

I think it can sometimes be very useful to distill and summarise broad and complex information, including Peat's. But it just doesn't distill down to a very specific diet in terms of specific foods that Peat recommends for everyone. You could hypothetically design a specific diet, but it wouldn't be what Peat would recommend for everyone, and it wouldn't be much use for answering questions like:
"Does a Ray Peat diet bring good health?"
or
"Do you gain weight on a Peat diet?"
As soon as you make the diet specification too exac, you would rule out most people on the forum as adhering too it to begin with, and we can't abandon what we had not followed in the first place. Even if it didn't, the answers would be 'sometimes, for some people, some of the time, depending on ...'.

Lots of the foods Peat eats and recommends in various contexts are great for some people and very stressful for others, as you will have read here as much as I have. Some people thrive on OJ, some don't. Same with milk, potatoes, gelatine, coffee, liver, oysters, etc.

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

I think a good summary might be made as a list of principles that are likely to benefit all or most people. It would probably have quite a few conditional elements.

In interview recently transcribed by aquaman, Peat responded to a question like
Q: What is the optimal diet? with:

The Blood type has almost no effect, you can see in very different species of animal which have very different ways of living, you can see the same processes [lost] so there's a universal animal diet which is optimal, but the proportions vary with the type of activity and size, and metabolic rate and personal history. Your previous stresses will affect what you need.

And later in the same interview, to a question about vegetarians:

If you concentrate on well cooked greens, the protein and minerals balance in leafy greens is about the same as milk, just less concentrated because of the high cellulose diluting it. If you can cook away or wash away the anti-nutrients, for example too much spinance contains oxalic acid which tends to take the calcium out of your teeth, and some leafy vegetables have chemicals that block your stomach digestive enzymes, but a variety of cooked greens will provide the same type of protein as milk provides as well as the balance of calcium, magnesium like milk.

and

Potatoes are almost the perfect food if very well cooked, because you want to break down the starch and the non-starch ingredients of a potato have almost a perfect balance of nutrients, b vitamins, essential amino acids, carbs in the right proportion, and the only thing that is lacking in a pure potato diet is vitamin A and vitamin B12. THey are a very balanced food.

 

[narouz]

I think it can sometimes be very useful to distill and summarise broad and complex information, including Peat's. But it just doesn't distill down to a very specific diet in terms of specific foods that Peat recommends for everyone.

Hey tara! :)
By its very nature a summary or distillation
will have to omit specifics.
This is why it should not be regarded a final destination--
just a starting point and outline.

But, there would be a place for some specifics.
If you browse various diets of the world,
it seems to me that some specifics are appended to the summary or distillation.

Such (above) is right insofar as
trying to gain a deep grasp of Peat's nutritional ideas from a few charts is silly.
Only a silly person would think otherwise.
An accurate distillation would not be intended to substitute for broader and deeper study.

You could hypothetically design a specific diet, but it wouldn't be what Peat would recommend for everyone...

Well, again: a distillation could not be specific.
Wouldn't try to be.
It would by nature be general.
And I honestly can't see any reason why it would not be able to encompass in its generalities
what a Peat diet is for...I don't know?...like 95% of humans.

For which human will a Peat diet be
4 cans of Leseur canned green peas and 22 walnuts?
For which human will a Peat diet be
1 bag of Purina cat chow and 2 bags of Wheat Thins?
Or, to generalize:
For which human will a Peat diet be
75% polyunsaturated fats and 25% pure starch?

If a Peat diet cannot be generalized about
either we have repealed the laws of epistemology
and the Peat diet will be the first diet in human history which cannot be generalized about.
Or...there truly is no Peat diet.

A "diet" means, simply,
a way of eating that selects certain foods
and un-selects others.

"...and it wouldn't be much use for answering questions like:
"Does a Ray Peat diet bring good health?"
or
"Do you gain weight on a Peat diet?"

I do have to respectfully disagree with you here, tara.
It would, I believe, be an essential and first step in exploring that question.
Its kinda a no brainer if you like the scientific method, in my opinion.
Can't very well claim a diet works if one won't accurately and generally describe the diet.
Gotta have a working hypothesis.
Gotta define your terms.
Etc, etc.
All things Peat is very down with.

As soon as you make the diet specification too exac...

Of course.
Again: you wouldn't make it exact and you should not.
The whole thing with a summary/distillation is that it must be general.
And we have a ton of general statements about what constitutes a healthy diet
from Dr. Peat.
And they do cohere to form a pretty clear general picture.

...you would rule out most people on the forum as adhering too it to begin with...

I'm not sure why you think so, tara
(but I'm keen to know :) )
Perhaps your vision of a really good Peat diet is...a difficult diet...?
In any case,
I would think a way we might approach this particular worry is...
do you have Whole Foods Markets where you live?
When you go to the meats section
they have a ranking system.
1 through 5 or so.
If you buy meat from the 1 section,
it is minimally healthy and humane.
From the 5 it is exquisitely healthy and humane.
(Might have that a little wrong but that's the gist.)

So...one way this concern might be addressed
with a Peat diet distillation
is to offer a range of possible Peat diets,
from...I don't know...starting with a number 1 Peat diet
which is conforting and not too hard but also not as healthy as it could be for most people.
Etc.

...the answers would be 'sometimes, for some people, some of the time, depending on...

Again...inevitible with any distillation of any diet.
There is no reason a diet summary has to forbid flexibility.
That's why it is general. :)

Lots of the foods Peat eats and recommends in various contexts are great for some people and very stressful for others, as you will have read here as much as I have. Some people thrive on OJ, some don't. Same with milk, potatoes, gelatine, coffee, liver, oysters, etc.

Couldn't agree more.
See above.

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

I think this applies well to what I'm advocating.

I think a good summary might be made as a list of principles that are likely to benefit all or most people. It would probably have quite a few conditional elements.

Agree again, but with the question:
why must it be in the form of a "list"...?

In interview recently transcribed by aquaman, Peat responded to a question like
Q: What is the optimal diet? with:

The Blood type has almost no effect, you can see in very different species of animal which have very different ways of living, you can see the same processes [lost] so there's a universal animal diet which is optimal, but the proportions vary with the type of activity and size, and metabolic rate and personal history. Your previous stresses will affect what you need.

I don't see anything here to quash the possibility of articulating a Peat diet distillation.
As you say above there will be conditional elements for sure.

If you concentrate on well cooked greens, the protein and minerals balance in leafy greens is about the same as milk, just less concentrated because of the high cellulose diluting it. If you can cook away or wash away the anti-nutrients, for example too much spinance contains oxalic acid which tends to take the calcium out of your teeth, and some leafy vegetables have chemicals that block your stomach digestive enzymes, but a variety of cooked greens will provide the same type of protein as milk provides as well as the balance of calcium, magnesium like milk.

and

Potatoes are almost the perfect food if very well cooked, because you want to break down the starch and the non-starch ingredients of a potato have almost a perfect balance of nutrients, b vitamins, essential amino acids, carbs in the right proportion, and the only thing that is lacking in a pure potato diet is vitamin A and vitamin B12. THey are a very balanced food.

Extremely interesting on the greens diet, especially on the point of protein.
I confess I've never heard that before.
I have heard Peat say in an interview that a certain Indian diet
consisting of meat and cooked greens was very healthy.
There, one can see how the meat would supply protein.
I admit I am a little dubious about getting adequate (Peat-wise) protein just from greens.
Thank you for that!

 

[Such_Saturation]

Reduction goes along with many other things or paths, and I think the way Ray Peat talks about these (in this case, health) issues is a method above any and all of those particular things, which contains them and generates them. Failing to make this the central piece of your efforts will eventually spit out either something vulnerable or something which really adds nothing and takes nothing from the mass of other "diets" you can find around.

Oh, and all quotes are from Raymond Peat unless stated otherwise

 

[Such_Saturation]

starting with a number 1 Peat diet
which is conforting and not too hard but also not as healthy as it could be for most people.
Etc.

Again you would have to draw lines where we have no idea what we are even drawing on. For example there can be felt certain changes at very low PUFA intake which people would never discover by just picking a package.

And I honestly can't see any reason why it would not be able to encompass in its generalities
what a Peat diet is for...I don't know?...like 95% of humans.

What is there that is insufficient as a description as well as an inspiration in something as:

A fruit and dairy dietary pattern is associated with a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22209672]

An accurate distillation would not be intended to substitute for broader and deeper study.

"Eating good food can alter your consciousness; so can thinking about how we’re going to get it.” Ray Peat

You are cutting out the latter if someone does it for you.

A deep study of the diet would be outside of the scope of Ray Peat's writings I think, unless it were prompted by a more central interest in one's own perception of the world and in how it has been castrated for a long time and in how diet has an undeniable role in this. A vague zooming-in, like when a curiosity about a particular food is told, would thus be more productive than an accurate distillation of a whole diet in this context, unless you have resources and maliciousness enough to force people to eat from a list or to study a list until they aknowledge the advantages of it. Of course this is unsustainable as well as defeats the purpose of that man, which is to foment happiness.

'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I hold – I do not think that 'principles' can be used and fruitfully discussed outside the concrete research situation they are supposed to affect – but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look at history.

I have been having an idea about something, more like an ecosystem than a list, and since you seem into the issue I will start it and publish it to see whether it can be acceptable as an answer to your point of view as well as my own.