Effect of grain on livestock

It’s interesting to think about why farmers feed grain (including corn) to livestock: they do it to make them fat.  Grain-fed livestock don’t just “mature early”; they’re obese.  Unfortunately, feeding them grain also weakens their immune systems and makes them prone to infection, which is why they require antibiotics.  Grass-fed livestock don’t have those problems.  In fact, grass-fed cattle can be amazingly lean animals.

[[MORE]]What’s surprising to me is that more people don’t make the connection between the obvious effect on livestock, and the same effect on people: grain makes us fat, and weakens our immune systems, too.

Oh, and FWIW, I would avoid livestock that are finished with grain, as well as those who are raised on it.  Just a few weeks on a grain-based diet can completely distort / reverse the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in favor of omega-6 – which encourages inflammation, pain, etc.

Paleo questions from a newbie

1. Do we know the quantities of types of foods that Paleo people ate?  If not, would this knowledge change the diet recommendations?

One thing we know is that a typical hunter-gatherer tended to eat a few leftovers in the morning, hunt/gather all day, then have a big meal at the end of the day.  They were metabolically well-equipped to handle food scarcity / fasting.

[[MORE]]An important aspect of the diet recommendations is that they are based on the metabolic conditions that we evolved under.  Since those conditions are only loosely associated with quantity, I think even if we knew more details about exactly how much the Paleo people ate, that it wouldn't significantly affect the recommendations.

2. Humans obviously ate grains (they got the idea to cultivate them after all), but was the quantity just greatly reduced to the post- agriculture quantity? Or perhaps they started eating them just recently before agriculture was developed?

Monocot grass seeds and gluten cereal grains were at best inconsistent and trivial sources of food prior to the advent of agriculture.  Also, the fact that a food was available or sometimes used tells us nothing about its long-term impact on health, or whether it's better to eat that food vs. something else.

Unfortunately, cereal grains (and legumes, including peanuts) contain anti-nutrients with clinically significant health effects -- and we are poorly adapted to consuming them.

4. Honey, agave nectar, coconut sugar, stevia, maple syrup....good, bad, same as cane sugar? I don't understand the differences well. From what I've read, people seem to think that while they may be less processed and have a lower GI than cane sugar, they all still have the same addictive properties.

From a health perspective, there are three primary factors to consider with sweeteners: total carb content, and the fraction that's fructose, and whether it's artificial.  It turns out that GI or GL are poor indicators.  What's more important for long-term health is total insulin produced, rather than the size of the post-meal spike -- and the total is directly correlated to carb content.

Fructose is evil, and I would avoid it as much as you can.  It's responsible for conditions like gout; it goes directly to the liver, where it's converted to triglycerides; it drives insulin resistance in the liver.  Fructose may be the single biggest cause of a broken metabolism (although gluten is right up there too).

For artificial sweeteners, history says they don't have a good record when it comes to health effects.  Also, even though they're artificial, they can still cause insulin to be released.  Even brushing your teeth with an artificially sweetened toothpaste can cause an insulin spike.

The sweetener I prefer is glucose, also known as dextrose -- although I only use it in very small amounts.

The Big Fat Lie about what causes obesity

OK, I keep reading articles about how Americans are "rich, fat and lazy," as though each has something to do with the other. Time for a short rant.

The idea is based on yet another Big Lie told by doctors, health professional and others: that overeating makes you fat. News flash: that's not the cause. The whole concept of "net calories" is fatally flawed, since the body adjusts absorbtion and metabolic rate based on intake and activity. If you look at modern poor countries, where nearly everyone is undernourished, you will often find a mix of those who are obese and those who are thin, even in the same family. If it was overeating, then all poor people should be thin, right?

[[MORE]]The other half of the Big Fat Lie is that exercise makes you thin. If you're fat, you must be lazy. Also not true.

Look at the indigenous peoples of the world. Most started out thin and trim, but over the last 100 years or so, have evolved into obesity epidemics. Most are very physically active, so it's not laziness.

Here's the truth: insulin is what makes you fat, and insulin is released when you eat carbohydrates. Putting my rarely-used tin foil hat on for a second, guess who funds many of the "fat is evil, carbs are good" research studies? The large cereal companies. General Mills, for example, is a long-time sponsor of Harvard.

Example: look at Type 1 diabetics, who make no insulin of their own: no matter how much they eat, they stay thin, and can actually die from malnourishment.

If you're overweight, you don't need any diet books to get thin. The answer is simple: cut down on carbs, which will reduce your insulin level, and keep cutting until you achieve the weight you want. Calories (mostly) don't matter. Fat by itself isn't evil; it's the carbs that are the problem.

This is yet another example of societal brainwashing through non-stop propaganda. Just like "there's nothing wrong with FRNs," "school is where you go to learn how to support yourself," "your vote matters," and "the banks are safe."

Books for teaching math

I love math, and it makes me ill every time I think about how badly it's taught in public schools.

I looked into the subject of good math books extensively, for use in home high-schooling my kids. Here are the best ones I found:

[[MORE]]Elementary Algebra, by Jacobs
Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding, by Jacobs
Mathematics, A Human Endeavor, by Jacobs

Jacobs has a great knack for explaining math.

I've known several people who "hated" math, until they learned it the right way. One of them loved it so much afterwords that she went on to get her degree in math and to teach it at the college level.

Telescopes

I love astronomy and astrophotography.  If I had the right equipment, asteroid hunting is right up my alley.

If you can afford it, the Questar is a very nice, compact scope:
http://www.company7.com/questar/index.html

Televue also makes some very nice refractors that are less expensive than Questar:
http://www.company7.com/televue/index.html

[[MORE]]Unless you're planning to do serious astrophotography, you probably don't need much more than about 4 inches of aperture. You will be limited by atmospheric seeing, so a bigger scope doesn't buy you much.

Don't skimp on the mount or the eyepieces. A good mount can cost almost as much as the scope.

Benefits of intermittent fasting for me

When I cut grains and refined carbs from my diet, my near-constant hunger went away within about a week, after I adapted to being in mild ketosis. I get hungry now only many hours after I wake in the morning. With a lite lunch, I get hungry again about 8 hours later for dinner, and generally feel no need for between-meal snacking. The net result is intermittent fasting that lasts about 15 or 16 hour per day.

[[MORE]]I also find, though, that a meal moderately high in complex carbs, including certain vegetables, can throw a wrench into things for a day or so. I get more hungry those days, and I also see my blood glucose go up.

It's interesting to me that one of the recommendations for diabetics from experts like Dr Richard Bernstein is to keep blood glucose within a range of about 10 points, 24 hrs a day. Yet non-diabetics often have huge swings, ranging from perhaps 80 to 140 or more over the course of a day. Due to the pro-aging effects of insulin, I am increasingly convinced that non-diabetics would also benefit from keeping their blood glucose under equally tight control.

Paleo oils and MCTs

When choosing a good oil, ones that are rich in medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) offer some interesting advantages.  They can directly flow into cells and be used as fuel, without the requirement for carnitine. Also, since MCTs are a saturated fat, they don't oxidize easily, which makes them suitable for cooking and long-term storage.  MCTs also don't get stored as body fat. If you consume more than your body needs, they are just excreted. Coconut oil, for example, is 50% MCTs. Butter has about 5%.

[[MORE]]So, if you have a choice of oils, the MCT-rich ones have some benefits. Flax oil and fish oil, on the other hand, in spite of being rich in Omega-3's don't keep as long, and aren't well-suited to cooking, because they oxidize easily.