Ray Peat Diet, Food Choices, And General Guidelines

[tara]

ray talking about balance ratio protein with sugar (see first quote)
What ratio does he recommend for balance starch with fruit?

most weird is he use sucrose to prevent the spike in and drop in blood sugar???
Sucrose has a gi index of 65!!
that the same high't like white rice or oats have.
So confused why ray eat sucrose (table sugar) to prevert spike's

AIUI:
I've not seen him propose a starch: fruit ratio.
For people with serious gut dysbiosis, he has suggested some people do better avoiding starch altogether, but he doesn't do that himself.
He has pointed to some issues with starch.
He's a bit skeptical of the standard GI index measurements - says they vary too much by context.
Where did you get the idea Peat eats table sugar? My impression is that he might occasionally as a stop-gap in the absence of more nutritious food, like good fruit, milk, etc.

In general, he promotes learning and observing and thinking and acting accordingly.

 

[berk]

Where did you get the idea Peat eats table sugar?

where did i said that?

i just try to figure out the correct ratio fruit with starch is to prevent bloodsugar crash.
like charlie said: 1:1 fruit to meat, and about 2:1 fruit to cheese. (not that this says much because all fruit have different fructose/glucose ratio's but whatever...)

Whats does AIUI means?

 

[tara]

Where did you get the idea Peat eats table sugar?

where did i said that?

So confused why ray eat sucrose (table sugar) to prevert spike's

i just try to figure out the correct ratio fruit with starch is to prevent bloodsugar crash.

I doubt there is a single ratio that will work for everyone. AFAIK, what works best is individual - experiment and observe. Some people say they do well with little or no starch; some don't fare well with much fructose. Other factors affect blood sugars, including total carbs in meal, other components in meal (fats, protein, fibre, minerals and vitamins), exercise, glycogen stores, probably state of liver and pancreas.

AIUI = as I understand it. (Just being clear that this is my reading/interpretation of what I've come across so far, but I could have missed something.)

 

[Hgreen56]

since advice from rp eating a high nightshade diet al my inflammatory and injury's are gone.
Also belly fat is downsized but my weight stays the same what means i loss some water/fat and increase muscle mass at the same time by reducing inflammation and DNA damage in the body by nightshade's.

 

[Gone Peating]

since advice from rp eating a high nightshade diet al my inflammatory and injury's are gone.
Also belly fat is downsized but my weight stays the same what means i loss some water/fat and increase muscle mass at the same time by reducing inflammation and DNA damage in the body by nightshade's.

What nightshades did you eat and how much per day?

 

[Hgreen56]

What nightshades did you eat and how much per day?

potatoes, as mean carb sourche. 1.5 kg day.
tomato's, mushrooms (yess mushrooms are nightshades), bell peppers, eggplant, as vegatables sourche but mainly tomatoes, i loveeee tomatoes
whole tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato juices... jummm

 

[Gone Peating]

potatoes, as mean carb sourche. 1.5 kg day.
tomato's, mushrooms (yess mushrooms are nightshades), bell peppers, eggplant, as vegatables sourche but mainly tomatoes, i loveeee tomatoes
whole tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato juices... jummm

Have you tried eating potatoes only without the others? Curious what effects you’d see

 

[Hgreen56]

Have you tried eating potatoes only without the others? Curious what effects you’d see

not sure what effects will be different then.
without the fruity vegetables is less filling, less fiber, less nutrion, less energy and recovery, is more hunger, more stresshormones.
i dont see the point.

 

[postman]

since advice from rp eating a high nightshade diet al my inflammatory and injury's are gone.
Also belly fat is downsized but my weight stays the same what means i loss some water/fat and increase muscle mass at the same time by reducing inflammation and DNA damage in the body by nightshade's.

Are you saying you used to be sensitive to nightshades, but after applying Ray Peats principles you can now handle nightshades?

 

[Bash___]

Also read: Notes Toward an "Optimal Peat Diet" | Ray Peat Forum

The information below is pulled from other sites. We are in the process of putting together our own chart and food recommendation list at the link above based on Ray Peat philosophies.


*Graphic above is used with permission from Steven Smith.

Proteins:
Daily protein should be at least 80 grams, preferably 100 if you are working or otherwise active. An egg has about 6 grams, a quart of milk about 32 grams, meat, cheese, and fish are usually about 20% protein, so a pound would be enough for a day. It's important to have fruit or other carbohydrate with the protein for efficient metabolism. Milk, cheese, eggs, shellfish are good protein sources, and potato protein is high in quality, if the potato is very well cooked and eaten with butter or cream. Although potatoes contain only about 2% protein, a kilogram of potato has roughly the protein value of a liter of milk (which is 3% protein), because of its high quality. Unless you are buying eggs from a verified grass-fed, free range source he recommends limiting them to one or two a day, and making sure to have plenty of carbohydrate around the same time to prevent sugar crash.

Meats like ground beef, steak, liver, and pork chops are rich in cysteine, which “turns off” the thyroid gland as soon as your body uses up it’s glycogen and ideally shouldn't be your main source of protein. Muscle meats should be eaten with the gelatin it comes with, or supplemental gelatin (see below), to balance out an anti-thyroid amino acid called tryptophan (which is also found in whey protein formulations). Traditionally, muscle meats are eaten with the fat, skin and the gelatin that they come with, so this is mostly an issue in first-world countries where we have protein powders and pure muscle meats readily available. Chicken liver contains such a small amount of fat it's okay to have in addition to or instead of beef liver (which should be consumed weekly). Pork or chicken every 7- 10 days is okay if your metabolic rate (thyroid function) is good. When chicken is stewed, gelatin from the skin is valuable, and much of the fat can be skimmed off(just remember chicken is not optimal). With any of the muscle meats, including fish, gelatin is helpful for balancing the high cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan content. Regarding bacon, Peat says, “The nitrate isn't likely to be a problem if you eat it with orange juice. I fry the bacon to remove some of the fat, and then refry it in coconut oil, to remove most of the PUFA.”

Fatty fish like salmon and herring should be avoided because their fat content is mostly unsaturated; as a general rule, cold blooded animals like fish tend to produce unsaturated fats while warm blooded animals like cows and pigs tend to produce saturated and monounsaturated fats. Cod and sole are good fish, since they have the marine minerals (especially selenium), but low fat content. Tuna is good as protein, but the fat it contains is highly polyunsaturated; eating once a week, especially with homemade coconut mayo should be safe.of course

Regarding his recommendation of daily gelatin:
For an adult, gelatin can be a major protein in the diet, since the need for cysteine and tryptophan decreases greatly when growth slows. Ox-tail soup (boiled for 4 or 5 hours) and lamb shanks have a good proportion of gelatin. I think most stores have gelatin in one pound packages or bigger, for example Great Lakes gelatin is usually around $11 per pound. If a person eats a large serving of meat, it's probably helpful to have 5–10 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time, so that the amino acids enter the blood stream in balance. Asian grocery stores are likely to sell some of the traditional gelatin-rich foods, such as prepared pig skin and ears and tails, and chicken feet. Although the prepared powdered gelatin doesn't require any cooking, dissolving it in hot water makes it digest a little more quickly. It can be incorporated into custards, mousses, ice cream, soups, sauces, cheese cake, pies, etc., or mixed with fruit juices to make desserts or (with juice concentrate) candies.

Peat is a big fan of dairy. He prefers milk with no added vitamins, raw if you can get it, but uses standard pasteurized-homogenized when there’s no alternative. He prefers cheese made without enzymes, just animal rennet. He doesn't use yogurt because of the lactic acid and/or lactobacillus. He avoids anything with gums in it, like cream cheese. Ice cream like Haagen Dazs is okay since it has no carageenan or gums like guar/carob bean– these are often found in foods like cream cheese, canned coconut milk, and half-and-half; make sure that the ice cream does not have any vegetable oil in it as some varieties include this. Regarding yogurt, in quantities of an ounce or so, for flavoring, it's o.k., but the lactic acid content isn't good if you are using yogurt as a major source of your protein and calcium; it triggers the inflammatory reactions, leading to fibrosis eventually, and the immediate effect is to draw down the liver's glycogen stores for energy to convert it into glucose. Cottage cheese, that is, milk curds with salt, is very good, if you can find it without additives, but traditional cottage cheese was almost fat-free, so when they make it with whole milk you should watch for other innovations that might not be beneficial.

Although Peat basically scorns legumes, he said hummus in small amounts isn't nutritionally harmful, though chickpeas and tahini are both allergenic for some people.

Fats:
Best sources are coconut oil and butter; olive oil and macadamia nut oil sparingly. He is a big fan of (refined) coconut oil to stimulate the metabolism. Among nuts and nut oils, macadamia is probably the safest. See the Omega-6 list below for more info.

Carbohydrates:
Have some with every meal to prevent hypoglycemia after eating the proteins.
Fruit and fruit juices – If you're able to do it, try to consume fresh fruits and fruit juices every day. Orange juice is great because of it’s potassium and magnesium content. Tropical fruits and juices are excellent too. If you don’t have a juicer at home, you can buy pasteurized juices with no additives that say “not from concentrate” on the label. Juices that are from concentrate are made up of mostly added water that is flouridated. Fruits in general are fine (tropical are best), but grapefruit is full of phytoestrogens, so avoid it, and berries are full of small seeds you can't avoid, so it's better to skip them. He recommends avoiding bananas and other starchy-poorly-ripened-industrialized fruits, which includes most apples and pears (when these are ripe, peeled and cooked they are much more nutritious, and safer). Organic dried fruits are fine as long as they are not treated with sulfur dioxide; canned fruits are okay, especially if they are in glass. You can have a small apple and some cheese as a snack occasionally if it doesn't cause any digestive or allergic symptoms—the fat in the cheese is protective against the starch in incompletely ripened fruit.

Tubers – Potato, yams; occasionally well-cooked grains in the order of best to least desirable: masa harina, white rice or oats, brown rice. The phytic acid in the oats block absorption of much of the calcium; cooking the oats much longer than usual might improve its nutritional value. Canned plain pumpkin if eaten with some fat is okay, but carrots are less starchy for similar effects.

He recommends eating a raw carrot daily, particularly a raw carrot salad with coconut oil, for both its bowel-protective and an anti-estrogen effect. Summer squash and bamboo shoots are the best cooked vegetables; well cooked kale and broccoli are okay, too. Carrots are best salad. The fiber in whole vegetables helps protect against the effects of the unsaturated fats they contain (in comparison to fruit), which means that juiced vegetables with none of the protective fiber will act as a thyroid inhibitor because of the concentrated PUFAs. There isn’t anything wrong with using vegetables as a smaller part of your diet, but salads and steamed vegetable dishes shouldn’t be the main part of anyone’s diet. He recommends avoiding avocados as they contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic (toxic to the liver).

Beverages:
Coffee supports the metabolism but has to be consumed with some sugar or with meal to prevent stress response due to low blood sugar. Because of the tannins in tea, it's important to use either lemon or milk (or cream). The histamine in red wine is a special problem for hypothyroid people, usually it isn't harmful.

Avoid:
PUFAs and soy. PUFAs are found in processed foods, nuts and seeds and their butters, vegetable oils, margarine. Also keep in mind that if you have been eating PUFAs in the past, the oil change in your tissues takes up to four years during which your fat stores will be releasing enough PUFAs to cause you some troubles, so it requires some patience and also some skillful means to counteract their effects, like getting some extra vitamin E or a little thyroid to counteract their antithyroid action etc. It all depends on how your metabolism works.

Chocolate is okay as long as there are no additives.

For salty cravings, Peat recommends tortilla chips fried in coconut oil, and chicharrones (pork rinds) with no additive but salt (puffed in hot air). Another snack is popcorn popped on the stove in coconut oil, then salted & buttered; the oil and butter are protective against the starch, but it's harder to digest than tortilla chips or chicharrones.

For salt use Mortons Canning and Pickling salt.

Vinegar is a good antiseptic when it's used with raw carrot, but watch for sulfite when using regularly.

Maple syrup is heated to a fairly high temperature, and this creates some sugar-derived chemicals that can be allergenic and might be toxic.

Regarding whey protein, Peat says, “Powdered foods that contain tryptophan are extremely susceptible to harmful oxidation, and the best things are removed, for example calcium, lactose, and casein, with its anti-stress properties.”

Ray Peat Eating Guidelines : Semi Low-Carb Plans Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

I sincerely apologize if this question is redundant, but I see you stated that none of the meats mentioned above (ground beef, steak, liver, pork chops, and chicken) should not be the main source of protein due to their cysteine content. Do you recommend milk be the majority of the daily protein intake? If so, how often would you recommend one consume these meats in order to not negatively affect thyroid health?

 

[Nighteyes]

potatoes, as mean carb sourche. 1.5 kg day.
tomato's, mushrooms (yess mushrooms are nightshades), bell peppers, eggplant, as vegatables sourche but mainly tomatoes, i loveeee tomatoes
whole tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato juices... jummm

What are you saying? Are nightshades helping you or have you gotten better because you have quit nightshades?

 

[Hgreen56]

What are you saying? Are nightshades helping you or have you gotten better because you have quit nightshades?

Nightshades are nutritious, healthful foods and the idea that they cause inflammation is not supported by evidence. Nightshades can be problematic for people with autoimmune diseases due to their lectin, saponin, and capsaicin content.
But in overall are Nightshades very healthy because the high levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory polyphenols in addition to naturally occurring phytochemicals called alkaloids. Many alkaloids are considered anti-inflammatory in their own right, and others are used as traditional medicines.
Saying that nightshade foods cause inflammation is like saying that having a single piece of cake causes diabetes in a healthy person.
Some say they cause chronic inflammatory and digestive disease but that is to complex to say and develops over years. No one food or habit causes it. If nightshade vegetables were powerful enough to cause inflammation, all of Italy would be in big trouble lol.

So no, 99.5% of us should NOT be avoiding nightshade foods.

 

[Lollipop2]

Nightshades are nutritious, healthful foods and the idea that they cause inflammation is not supported by evidence. Nightshades can be problematic for people with autoimmune diseases due to their lectin, saponin, and capsaicin content.
But in overall are Nightshades very healthy because the high levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory polyphenols in addition to naturally occurring phytochemicals called alkaloids. Many alkaloids are considered anti-inflammatory in their own right, and others are used as traditional medicines.
Saying that nightshade foods cause inflammation is like saying that having a single piece of cake causes diabetes in a healthy person.
Some say they cause chronic inflammatory and digestive disease but that is to complex to say and develops over years. No one food or habit causes it. If nightshade vegetables were powerful enough to cause inflammation, all of Italy would be in big trouble lol.

So no, 99.5% of us should NOT be avoiding nightshade foods.

Thank you for this.

 

[Serge]

Dried apricots. I have different information about their fiber content (from 7g up to 18g per100g), in any case it is quite high. Can they be bad because of producing endotoxins?

 

[Hgreen56]

Juices that are from concentrate are made up of mostly added water that is flouridated.

I think this is depending where you live or where you buy it

Here in the Netherlands we don't put fluoride in our water anymore since 1976
Still the water has 0,05 - 0,25 milligram fluoride per liter. This is a safe amount.
Spring water has also fluoride. So you can't avoid it 100%. (Fluoride is naturally found in the soil and reaches the groundwater)
i think we have the cleanest water from the whole world... but i am not sure.

Anyways, i guess the concentrate juices that are made in the Netherlands have the lowers fluoride content and are safe.
But in America for example, they have much higher amounts.
But is still a lot of liquid.

 

[Salome]

B

Ray Peats own personal diet...

Ray Peats own personal diet from:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AV ... ssage/5523

Okay, Bruce, this is a summary from my correspondance with her about
what Ray Peat eats (or ate, if he's changed things) and what he
recommends. This is from 2005.

- dairy, fruit and meat are the core of his diet.

dairy for the protein, calcium, and other nutrients
fruits (or other sugars as 2nd choice) for the KAs and EAAs
gelatin to balance the aminos and to replace the need for eating
animal brains and other organs muscle meat as a supplement for
protein magnesium, etc.

- he gets from 120 to 150 grams of protein per day. Doesn't feel quite
right when he goes as low as 100. A few quarts of milk, several ounces
of cheese, gelatin in some form (broth, chicharrones, gummy bears,
etc.), at least a quart of orange juice (or equivalent other fruit),
and the occasional (rotating) eggs, shellfish, fish, and beef, bison,
or lamb, in one or two of his meals.

- says one must always balance protein with sugar (fruit being the
best) because protein alone lowers blood sugar and you need the sugar
to better metabolize the protein. So when he eats protein, he eats
sugar with it: about 1:1 fruit to meat, and about 2:1 fruit to cheese.

- says best to limit meat due to the tryptophan and antimetabolic
properties, but it can be handled if consumed with fruit and gelatin.
He does eat meat almost every day, or just beef or lamb broth When
the meat is aged he doesn't like the taste so he doesn't eat much of it.

- he eats meat with gelatin. The gelatin can be either from regular
powder or from broth cooked no more than 3 hours (otherwise you
degrade the nutrients he says).

- he avoids all fatty fish.

- says chicken should be eaten no more than one meal every 10 days due
to toxins and PUFAs.

- eggs where the chickens are fed corn and soy should be minimally
consumed (for him 2 per week if that), and with one egg you need about
10 ounces of OJ to balance it (because egg protein is a powerful
insulin activator).

- he eats shellfish about once every ten days. Shrimp, scallops,
lobsters have a high ratio of protein to unsaturated fat and help to
insure adequate selenium. Cooks them thoroughly, having known people
who got hepatitis from raw seafood.

- rotates his animal protein sources only because he gets tired of the
same meals, no health reason

- he avoids most vegetables due to their intrinsic (defensive) toxins.
He occasionally makes leaf broth for some extra minerals, but usually
prefers for a cow to process them for him. Mainly he thinks of them as
condiments.

- underground (root/tuber) vegetables are okay if cooked for about 40
minutes, and fruit-vegetables (tomatoes, peppers) are okay if you're
not allergic to them.

- he avoids all other above-ground vegetables, including greens and
many herbs (basil, etc) due to toxins (even if cooked) that far
outweigh the benefits.

- says that cooked young squashes are generally good for everyone, and
although raw shredded carrots are "nutrient subtractive," it's good to
have a plate of them every day because they lower estrogen (and thus
stimulate the thyroid) and accelerate peristalsis.

- he avoids fermented foods. Stopped using black pepper (a fermented
food, apparently) about 30 years ago when he saw the toxicity studies.
Avoids things like apple cider because it is frequently contaminated
with fungal poisons. Says that the more nutritious it is, the more
likely to contain fungal estrogen and other harmful things, unless you
know the actual materials and process used in making it.
Lacto-fermented foods are carcinogenic. Cheese is okay being fermented
because of the strong nutrients in the milk to start with that
vegetables don't have.

- says reason for people's negative reactions to dairy (if the milk
isn't contaminated) is from either preexisting gut damage (from
gluten, for example) or from a low thyroid or protein deficiency
problem. People who are under stress from low thyroid or protein
deficiency have considerable trouble adapting he says, but with
gradual changes (adding dairy back in) the tissues will adjust and do
what they have to do.

- says to eat liver only occasionally because it depresses the thyroid.

- he doesn't eat fruits with seeds that can't be avoided (berries,
figs, etc) because while the antioxidants are good, the benefits are
less than the toxins in the seeds. Other fruits like peaches, plums,
apples, etc should only be eaten if organic and tree-ripened;
otherwise they have very powerful toxins (if unripe or shelf-ripened)
that can cause gut damage. Melons, cherries, and citrus are the best
fruits.

- when off-season, says it's better to eat frozen fruit and juice
rather than rely on importation because many studies show that storage
methods and stress from importation and treatments make them carcinogenic.

- with cheese and milk, the feeding of the animals (grassfed vs.
grainfed) is more the issue than raw vs. pasteurized.

- he avoids all grains. Traditional "proper preparation" methods used
throughout the world to render them less harmful involved using
alkaline mediums such as wood ash (as opposed to "acidic" as Sally
Fallon suggests) and "lime" as in calcium oxide (as opposed to "lime
or lemon juice" as Sally Fallon asserts). Research shows that that
these methods will convert some of the tryptophan to niacin. Using
whey would be especially ineffective as well as problematic due to the
tryptophan.

Black pepper is NOT fermented.

 

[Jam]

mushrooms (yess mushrooms are nightshades)

 

[FitnessMike]

can anyone recommend bone broth brand ?

 

[SuperStressed]

can anyone recommend bone broth brand ?

FWIW I think Ray preferred a few hours boiled bone broth as opposed to all day and those selling products seem to brag about those long hour broths.