Mark Sisson's Blog, page 267

I Couldn’t Believe the Sudden Switch, Everything Suddenly Became So Easy!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

My weight has always been something that I have struggled with. From a young age I had a very love/hate relationship with food. As in I loved eating it and hated when it was gone. Due to this I was a very large teenager. After college, I decided to lose weight and I managed it… but I was eating barely anything, running three to six miles a day, Thai Boxing twice a week, gym five times a week and having two personal training sessions a week. It just wasn’t sustainable. As soon as I stopped all the “Chronic Cardio” I just piled the weight back on.

Over a year passed and I was heavier than ever (roughly 120 kg/18.89 stone). Just before Christmas I went to visit my sisters. My sister Nikk (your biggest advertiser over the pond I should imagine, may as well be a rep) introduced me to your book, The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation. One night over dinner she went through all the principles and what it entailed. She lent me the book and on my merry way I went. Over the next couple of days I couldn’t put the book down. I made it my New Year’s resolution to follow the 21-day reprogramming guide to get to 85 kg. And I did. From the 1st of January, I was Paleo. The first week wasn’t the easiest because I was used to having takeaway three to four nights a week and eating whenever I could during the day.

After the first week I couldn’t believe the sudden switch, everything suddenly became so easy. I wasn’t getting hungry and I felt better. For exercise I used to run a lot but unfortunately, with my weight being so high, I was prone to shin splints. So, I took the book’s advice and started walking after dinner. Headphones in, off I went. Before long I genuinely enjoyed the walks and started walking everywhere. My car became redundant apart from work and back.

Once I started realizing that I was losing weight at a rate of knots, I started weighing myself every day. I was loosing between 0.4 and 1.1 kg a DAY. Could this be right??? YES. I am really happy to report that at the moment of writing this I am 85.6 kg. I’m hoping to be my target weight by tomorrow… or the day after at the latest. And the best thing about this whole experience??? It’s so easily sustainable. I don’t have to devote hours and hours to training, and I am loving the food.

Thank you to everyone involved in the book and my sister Nikk, because it really has changed my life.

Richard

Are We Thwarting Our Children’s Instinct to Explore?

Needless to say, the topic made for fun water cooler talk this week…. We somehow never tired of sharing our exploits from those years – many exploits our parents to this day don’t know about. (Maybe we never want to give up owning those secrets.) They involved most of us running outside the second breakfast was done and only coming home during warmer days for lunch, dinner and bandaids. We rode dirt bikes at insane speeds over narrow root-lined paths (all without helmets), climbed trees higher than we’d ever admit to our mothers, and got ourselves regularly soaked in muddy creek water. Bee stings were a rite of passage as were eating insects on a dare, getting your first stitches, and instigating the occasional skirmish over certain kid principles. By today’s standards, I’d venture, we’d all be considered ruffians.

Beyond what used to be the typical rough and tumble antics of childhood, however, some stories revealed more compelling dimensions of youthful curiosity. Two brothers would mill around the congregants of a local church (they didn’t attend) on Sundays to make their way to the back door, where they regularly hid rocks or sticks in the door jam and then returned to explore after everyone had gone home. They would walk quietly through the rooms, visiting the empty auditorium, kitchen, gym and sanctuary. There was never any shortage of curiosities to examine in the after-hours darkness where they wouldn’t disturb anything but observe, wonder and bask in the ever present risk of being caught.

Along a similar vein, another neighborhood set of children would every summer day for years traverse a path in the woods and round a 10-foot high fence where they’d fortified a ledge to sneak into the local Catholic cemetery. They’d wander for hours comparing the oldest headstones, observing the numerous statues of angels and saints, admiring the flags and flowers, thinking big thoughts over the stones in the “children’s garden” where kids their own ages had been laid to rest. Sometimes they’d get bored and hike back to their swing sets, and sometimes they’d be chased back in a thrilling, fearful rush by the cemetery caretaker with his shotgun – or two snarling boxer dogs. Those kids never so much as left a lollipop wrapper on the grass or disturbed a single flower. And no matter how many times the police patrolled their street (they hid their smiles as their mothers wondered why) or how far that fence was extended, they would always create another way in.

It’s funny how much nostalgia these “out of bounds” childhood adventures tend to evoke, but I think it speaks to how seminal these experiences are in our development. For kids, these kinds of escapades are not, as we so often assume, to wreck or even “fool around,” but just to observe and wonder at what they see. It’s their time to test physical limits, explore their worlds, sense big questions, even face painful realities of life that adults try to hide from them.

To a child, a walk is never just a walk. They don’t think in wholly pragmatic terms as adults often do. We’re focused on schedules. They’re trying to open up a poppy bud and thinking about Wizard of Oz. We think of tetanus when we see an old dump (not a garbage landfill) like the ones they had in New England where I grew up. They see hours of sifting through ancient treasures they could collect and show off to their friends. We home in on a hundred dangers that could hurt the little people we love. They just feel their innate instinct to play and move through their own environment. Is that too much to ask?

And that’s where emails like this come into play.

I have been a fan of Mark’s Daily Apple for years. Recently my husband and I got in trouble with Child Protective Services…for allowing our kids to walk home from a playground without adult supervision.

This reader’s story is one among a growing number these days, and it’s spurred a movement called free-range parenting. Lenore Skenazy, author of the blog “Free-Range Kids” (and book of the same name) is often cited as the movement’s most visible leader. Those who support the movement see it largely as a response to the trend toward “helicopter parenting,” parenting styles that encourage hovering and over-involvement.

Several years back, Skenazy got in hot water herself for letting her son (then 9-years-old) take the subway alone. Her message, in her words, is to balance our fears against realities:

Hey! I know we are all scared for our kids! But maybe we don’t have to be quite so terrified! It’s an attempt to figure out how we got so much more worried for our kids in just one generation, and to separate the real dangers from the ones foisted upon us by the media, and by other folks with things to sell.

She’s right that things have changed – considerably – in the space of just a few decades. The stories we exchange reveal that, as does our hesitancy we have to let our kids do what we did….

In the late 1960s 41% of kids walked or biked to school, whereas today that number is a measly 13%. One survey showed kids play or explore outside for an average of thirty minutes per week, with half of parents citing safety concerns. To boot, time in outdoor spaces is more often spent in adult-directed, organized activities rather than free play and exploration.

All of this begs the question: where is the “new” balance between offering our children unfettered, healthy exploration and just irresponsible parenting?

As a parent, I get it. We moved from “urban” Santa Monica to Malibu precisely because I found myself walking my kids down the street three houses to bring them to a play date. Something felt wrong about that.

The fact is, it’s not just about urban or suburban or rural. I’ve known kids who grew up roaming miles of metropolitan streets and never had a run-in with any significant threat. But I’ve also read tragic stories of kids vanishing while they rode their bikes down a dirt road of their tiny farm community. It’s also about the nature of a particular neighborhood and the people themselves – how much neighbors watch out for kids, including everyone else’s kids. It’s about how well people know each other, how much they prioritize the community, how law enforcement works in a given area, and to an extent how savvy and self-confident kids themselves are.

A U.K. survey demonstrated that the two biggest fears parents have are kidnapping and traffic. I think every parent to some extent feels their heart drop with the mention of either. Media channels latch particularly onto the former, and these tragedies do exist, but The National Center for Missing or Exploited Children states from their latest comprehensive review (1999) that while 200,000 children were abducted by family members, stereotypical “stranger-danger” kidnappings amounted to 115 that year. Your child has three times the chance of drowning in a pool.

At issue here is how much risk we’re willing to accept for the benefits of exploration. I think first we need to recognize that most people probably have an inflated sense of the “risk” and no understanding of the advantages. As a result, they don’t view letting their kids explore the world worth any risk at all.

Psychologist Peter Gray cites the importance of risky play (which I believe could also include exploration) for the development of emotional regulation. Research also shows that play facilitates maturation of executive functioning skills – the skills that will help children discern good decisions and organize their behavioral responses when challenged.

When children learn to face minor challenges with success and self-control, they build the confidence to handle additional, more substantial risks. Is it fair to say that walking home a few blocks with a sibling in a safe neighborhood might work the same way?

Likewise, research shows that when kids avoid risky or scary situations (and thereby never get to see that they can do what they’re afraid to do and understand fear as a “manageable emotion”), they can actually become more anxious as a result.

So, what can you do if letting the kids wander to their hearts’ content isn’t a realistic option for your neighborhood – or nerves? How can you offer them the opportunity to feel like they get to cut loose, experiment, walk the edge – and do it without the “lame” parental hand-holding?

Seek out risks together.

Yes, you get to tag along on this one. The idea here is to learn on the job of life, so to speak. You get to be their guide not just for the safe stuff but for the scary stuff. Introduce it intelligently, let them relish the thrill and then offer perspective.

Likewise, research tells us that kids learn about dangers not from parents selecting all of their environments and choices but from discussing the actual hazardous elements of actions their kids are already in the midst of taking. The point is, kids will find ways to explore – now or later (or emotionally implode, which no one wants). Help them learn to make wiser decisions by showing them how to handle danger now – while you can keep the immediate example from getting out of control.

Check out Gever Tully’s Tinkering School and his TED talk (as well as his book which expands the same idea) on “dangerous things you should let your kids do.” My favorite has to be “throw a spear.” Grok would be so proud….

Call on other guides.

Okay, here’s where you as a parental unit need to hand over the reins. That doesn’t mean pushing the kids out the door to fend for themselves but to give them space and novelty – with the supervision of another qualified individual.

The fact is, kids will do things for other people that they won’t do for their parents. They’ll listen better. They’ll put in a little more effort. The reason? Because the parent-child dynamic can take on some enabling dimensions. Kids begin to assume parents will watch out for the dangers. They’ll cover things if they (kids) really get into trouble. They’ll repeat themselves and nag seventeen times. The result? Kids get lazy and don’t learn to take responsibility for their own safety. Good choices come not just from education but from the autonomy in which they can apply them.

Likewise, parents get attuned to their kids’ anxiety, reacting to it when we assume it’s going to set in. Eventually, our proactive “response” can actually perpetuate our child’s fear. Having the child try things with another adult (somewhat intelligent, compassionate but not coddling would be nice) can help break the established pattern. A child can hear another person differently. While he might have abandoned the activity with a parent around, with a lesser known person he’ll hang on a little longer and have a better chance at learning something about handling himself in this new activity/situation. By extension, he’ll have a better chance at experiencing success and the feeling of competence that comes with it. He’ll also be more likely to remember the guidelines that helped him get there.

Find some homes away from home.

If you can’t let your kids run your neighborhood, make a choice to frequent places where they can roam within a certain vicinity. Maybe that means spending more time with a particular relative or friend. Maybe you could spend part of each weekend at a certain park where there’s enough visibility to satisfy you and enough space to satisfy them. It could also mean choosing vacations in the same spot each year where you feel they can roam within a certain radius.

Find tribal activities for them.

This is another version of calling on other guides. Remember scouting? Have you heard of Outward Bound? How about old-fashioned summer camp? (I’m talking about the old-school live in a basic wooden structure for a week with other kids and camp counselors. Snakes and bats as residents of said structure are a bonus – another water cooler story there.) The group itself is less important than the activity. Look for a mix of structured and unstructured time, lots of hours in nature, and some adventure/skill building. Summer camps in particular own their land, which means your kids are safe unless they break an arm on the obstacle course. (Kidding.)

The old school camps still allow for plenty of free rein – enough independence to explore the fields in the immediate acreage and enough time to raid the cabin over the hill after dark.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. Have you bumped up against this question in your parenting or watched friends/relatives who have? What’s your Primally modern perspective on giving kids the right amount of exploration? Weigh in on the board, and have a great end to the week.

Are We Thwarting Children’s Instinct to Explore?

Needless to say, the topic made for fun water cooler talk this week…. We somehow never tired of sharing our exploits from those years – many exploits our parents to this day don’t know about. (Maybe we never want to give up owning those secrets.) They involved most of us running outside the second breakfast was done and only coming home during warmer days for lunch, dinner and bandaids. We rode dirt bikes at insane speeds over narrow root-lined paths (all without helmets), climbed trees higher than we’d ever admit to our mothers, and got ourselves regularly soaked in muddy creek water. Bee stings were a rite of passage as were eating insects on a dare, getting your first stitches, and instigating the occasional skirmish over certain kid principles. By today’s standards, I’d venture, we’d all be considered ruffians.

Beyond what used to be the typical rough and tumble antics of childhood, however, some stories revealed more compelling dimensions of youthful curiosity. Two brothers would mill around the congregants of a local church (they didn’t attend) on Sundays to make their way to the back door, where they regularly hid rocks or sticks in the door jam and then returned to explore after everyone had gone home. They would walk quietly through the rooms, visiting the empty auditorium, kitchen, gym and sanctuary. There was never any shortage of curiosities to examine in the after-hours darkness where they wouldn’t disturb anything but observe, wonder and bask in the ever present risk of being caught.

Along a similar vein, another neighborhood set of children would every summer day for years traverse a path in the woods and round a 10-foot high fence where they’d fortified a ledge to sneak into the local Catholic cemetery. They’d wander for hours comparing the oldest headstones, observing the numerous statues of angels and saints, admiring the flags and flowers, thinking big thoughts over the stones in the “children’s garden” where kids their own ages had been laid to rest. Sometimes they’d get bored and hike back to their swing sets, and sometimes they’d be chased back in a thrilling, fearful rush by the cemetery caretaker with his shotgun – or two snarling boxer dogs. Those kids never so much as left a lollipop wrapper on the grass or disturbed a single flower. And no matter how many times the police patrolled their street (they hid their smiles as their mothers wondered why) or how far that fence was extended, they would always create another way in.

It’s funny how much nostalgia these “out of bounds” childhood adventures tend to evoke, but I think it speaks to how seminal these experiences are in our development. For kids, these kinds of escapades are not, as we so often assume, to wreck or even “fool around,” but just to observe and wonder at what they see. It’s their time to test physical limits, explore their worlds, sense big questions, even face painful realities of life that adults try to hide from them.

To a child, a walk is never just a walk. They don’t think in wholly pragmatic terms as adults often do. We’re focused on schedules. They’re trying to open up a poppy bud and thinking about Wizard of Oz. We think of tetanus when we see an old dump (not a garbage landfill) like the ones they had in New England where I grew up. They see hours of sifting through ancient treasures they could collect and show off to their friends. We home in on a hundred dangers that could hurt the little people we love. They just feel their innate instinct to play and move through their own environment. Is that too much to ask?

And that’s where emails like this come into play.

I have been a fan of Mark’s Daily Apple for years. Recently my husband and I got in trouble with Child Protective Services…for allowing our kids to walk home from a playground without adult supervision.

This reader’s story is one among a growing number these days, and it’s spurred a movement called free-range parenting. Lenore Skenazy, author of the blog “Free-Range Kids” (and book of the same name) is often cited as the movement’s most visible leader. Those who support the movement see it largely as a response to the trend toward “helicopter parenting,” parenting styles that encourage hovering and over-involvement.

Several years back, Skenazy got in hot water herself for letting her son (then 9-years-old) take the subway alone. Her message, in her words, is to balance our fears against realities:

Hey! I know we are all scared for our kids! But maybe we don’t have to be quite so terrified! It’s an attempt to figure out how we got so much more worried for our kids in just one generation, and to separate the real dangers from the ones foisted upon us by the media, and by other folks with things to sell.

She’s right that things have changed – considerably – in the space of just a few decades. The stories we exchange reveal that, as does our hesitancy we have to let our kids do what we did….

In the late 1960s 41% of kids walked or biked to school, whereas today that number is a measly 13%. One survey showed kids play or explore outside for an average of thirty minutes per week, with half of parents citing safety concerns. To boot, time in outdoor spaces is more often spent in adult-directed, organized activities rather than free play and exploration.

All of this begs the question: where is the “new” balance between offering our children unfettered, healthy exploration and just irresponsible parenting?

As a parent, I get it. We moved from “urban” Santa Monica to Malibu precisely because I found myself walking my kids down the street three houses to bring them to a play date. Something felt wrong about that.

The fact is, it’s not just about urban or suburban or rural. I’ve known kids who grew up roaming miles of metropolitan streets and never had a run-in with any significant threat. But I’ve also read tragic stories of kids vanishing while they rode their bikes down a dirt road of their tiny farm community. It’s also about the nature of a particular neighborhood and the people themselves – how much neighbors watch out for kids, including everyone else’s kids. It’s about how well people know each other, how much they prioritize the community, how law enforcement works in a given area, and to an extent how savvy and self-confident kids themselves are.

A U.K. survey demonstrated that the two biggest fears parents have are kidnapping and traffic. I think every parent to some extent feels their heart drop with the mention of either. Media channels latch particularly onto the former, and these tragedies do exist, but The National Center for Missing or Exploited Children states from their latest comprehensive review (1999) that while 200,000 children were abducted by family members, stereotypical “stranger-danger” kidnappings amounted to 115 that year. Your child has three times the chance of drowning in a pool.

At issue here is how much risk we’re willing to accept for the benefits of exploration. I think first we need to recognize that most people probably have an inflated sense of the “risk” and no understanding of the advantages. As a result, they don’t view letting their kids explore the world worth any risk at all.

Psychologist Peter Gray cites the importance of risky play (which I believe could also include exploration) for the development of emotional regulation. Research also shows that play facilitates maturation of executive functioning skills – the skills that will help children discern good decisions and organize their behavioral responses when challenged.

When children learn to face minor challenges with success and self-control, they build the confidence to handle additional, more substantial risks. Is it fair to say that walking home a few blocks with a sibling in a safe neighborhood might work the same way?

Likewise, research shows that when kids avoid risky or scary situations (and thereby never get to see that they can do what they’re afraid to do and understand fear as a “manageable emotion”), they can actually become more anxious as a result.

So, what can you do if letting the kids wander to their hearts’ content isn’t a realistic option for your neighborhood – or nerves? How can you offer them the opportunity to feel like they get to cut loose, experiment, walk the edge – and do it without the “lame” parental hand-holding?

Seek out risks together.

Yes, you get to tag along on this one. The idea here is to learn on the job of life, so to speak. You get to be their guide not just for the safe stuff but for the scary stuff. Introduce it intelligently, let them relish the thrill and then offer perspective.

Likewise, research tells us that kids learn about dangers not from parents selecting all of their environments and choices but from discussing the actual hazardous elements of actions their kids are already in the midst of taking. The point is, kids will find ways to explore – now or later (or emotionally implode, which no one wants). Help them learn to make wiser decisions by showing them how to handle danger now – while you can keep the immediate example from getting out of control.

Check out Gever Tully’s Tinkering School and his TED talk (as well as his book which expands the same idea) on “dangerous things you should let your kids do.” My favorite has to be “throw a spear.” Grok would be so proud….

Call on other guides.

Okay, here’s where you as a parental unit need to hand over the reins. That doesn’t mean pushing the kids out the door to fend for themselves but to give them space and novelty – with the supervision of another qualified individual.

The fact is, kids will do things for other people that they won’t do for their parents. They’ll listen better. They’ll put in a little more effort. The reason? Because the parent-child dynamic can take on some enabling dimensions. Kids begin to assume parents will watch out for the dangers. They’ll cover things if they (kids) really get into trouble. They’ll repeat themselves and nag seventeen times. The result? Kids get lazy and don’t learn to take responsibility for their own safety. Good choices come not just from education but from the autonomy in which they can apply them.

Likewise, parents get attuned to their kids’ anxiety, reacting to it when we assume it’s going to set in. Eventually, our proactive “response” can actually perpetuate our child’s fear. Having the child try things with another adult (somewhat intelligent, compassionate but not coddling would be nice) can help break the established pattern. A child can hear another person differently. While he might have abandoned the activity with a parent around, with a lesser known person he’ll hang on a little longer and have a better chance at learning something about handling himself in this new activity/situation. By extension, he’ll have a better chance at experiencing success and the feeling of competence that comes with it. He’ll also be more likely to remember the guidelines that helped him get there.

Find some homes away from home.

If you can’t let your kids run your neighborhood, make a choice to frequent places where they can roam within a certain vicinity. Maybe that means spending more time with a particular relative or friend. Maybe you could spend part of each weekend at a certain park where there’s enough visibility to satisfy you and enough space to satisfy them. It could also mean choosing vacations in the same spot each year where you feel they can roam within a certain radius.

Find tribal activities for them.

This is another version of calling on other guides. Remember scouting? Have you heard of Outward Bound? How about old-fashioned summer camp? (I’m talking about the old-school live in a basic wooden structure for a week with other kids and camp counselors. Snakes and bats as residents of said structure are a bonus – another water cooler story there.) The group itself is less important than the activity. Look for a mix of structured and unstructured time, lots of hours in nature, and some adventure/skill building. Summer camps in particular own their land, which means your kids are safe unless they break an arm on the obstacle course. (Kidding.)

The old school camps still allow for plenty of free rein – enough independence to explore the fields in the immediate acreage and enough time to raid the cabin over the hill after dark.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. Have you bumped up against this question in your parenting or watched friends/relatives who have? What’s your Primally modern perspective on giving kids the right amount of exploration? Weigh in on the board, and have a great end to the week.

The Definitive Guide to Nuts

Of all Primal-approved food categories, none is more bedeviling to even seasoned followers of the lifestyle than nuts. The questions never end. What is a nut? When you’ve got all these nut-like gymnosperms, drupes, and legumes masquerading as nuts, what even qualifies as an actual nut? Does it even matter? Or phytic acid. Is it or isn’t it a problem? And soaking — am I supposed to soak every type of nut, just some nuts, or none of them? Aren’t nuts really high in omega-6s, which we’re supposedly trying to limit or at least balance with our omega-3 intake? How do we reconcile that conflict? Why is “hazelnut” one word, while “pine nut” is two?

I’m out of breath, but this is a fairly representative sample of the nut-related questions I receive from readers. It is confusing, so today I’m going to give you the definitive guide to nuts. After today’s post, you’ll have a solid grasp of which nuts you should and maybe shouldn’t be eating.

Almonds

Remember when you discovered almond meal? Suddenly, the world got a whole lot bigger and brighter. You cranked out Primal pancakes, cupcakes, cookies. You dusted chunks of chicken with powdered almonds before plopping them in hot oil to produce a chicken nugget that even Loren Cordain would begrudgingly accept. And then you gained some weight back, and your stomach felt kind of funny, and you started worrying about your PUFA ratios. So the almond meal got thrown out, and the sack of raw almonds soon followed. But wait: almonds themselves aren’t the problem. Your inability to moderate your use of almond meal is the problem. Give almonds another chance.

In an ounce:

163 calories
6 g carbs: 3.5 g fiber
14 g fat: 8.8 g MUFA, 3.4 g linoleic acid (LA), 1.1 g SFA
6 g protein
50% vitamin E
22% vitamin B2
31% copper
18% magnesium
28% manganese

Benefits:

Almond consumption improves fatty acid profile of serum lipids.
Almonds reduce lipid oxidation biomarkers in older adults.
Almonds reduce 24-hour insulin secretion in non-diabetics.
Almonds improve glycemic control in type 2 diabetics.
Almonds improve satiety and postprandial glucose when consumed as snacks and do not increase overall energy intake.
Almonds possess potent prebiotic fibers, particularly in the skins.
Almond consumption improves the endocrine profile of women with PCOS.

Concerns:

Almonds are a thirsty crop, with 10% of California’s yearly water usage devoted to growing almonds.
Phytate levels are high in almonds. Phytate has both good and bad sides (binds minerals and prevents their absorption on one hand, may be converted into beneficial compounds in the gut and have anti-cancer effects  on the other), but a good compromise is to avoid a nut-heavy diet. Almonds are snacks and supplements, not the main course. Soaking and/or roasting almonds can also reduce phytate levels.
Raw almonds are hard to procure. Most almonds advertised as raw on store shelves have been pasteurized. Purchasing directly from the producer/farmer can help you obtain truly raw, unpasteurized almonds.

Can you soak? Yes. 12 hours.

Brazil Nuts

Lining the banks of South American rivers are towering trees whose falling fruits are large and hard enough to stave in skulls. On the bright side, cracking open the fruit reveals up to 24 triangular, hard-shelled seeds containing delicious, slightly sweet nuts. These are Brazil nuts, and they deserve a spot in anyone’s diet.

In an ounce:

186 calories
3.5 g carbs: 2.1 g fiber
18.8 g fat: 7 g MUFA, 5.8 g LA, 4.3 g SFA
4.1 g protein
15% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
55% copper
25% magnesium
15% manganese
988% selenium

Benefits:

The incredible selenium levels are the most obvious benefit to Brazil nuts, as unless you’re regularly eating animal kidneys and wild salmon, selenium can be hard to come by. But selenium is incredibly important for thyroid function, antioxidant capacity, immune function, cardiovascular health, cancer protection, and, you know what? It figures into just about every aspect of our health. And you don’t need to eat an ounce of Brazil nuts to get the benefits. A nut or two a day will get you adequate selenium.

Brazil nuts acutely lower inflammation.
A single serving of Brazil nuts improves lipid profiles.
Brazil nuts improve selenium status, glutathione activity, and lower inflammation.

Concerns:

The extreme selenium density of Brazil nuts causes some to worry about selenium toxicity, but I personally don’t. Extremely high doses of selenium in the form of Brazil nuts appear to be safe.
Phytate levels are high in Brazil nuts, but since you don’t need to eat very many to obtain the benefits, it shouldn’t be problem.

Can you soak? Unclear. Some say yes, some say no. Do a trial run of a few hours with a couple nuts before soaking the whole batch.

Cashews

Cashews also hail from Brazil, where they grow alongside a strange fruit called the cashew apple. The apple itself is actually edible and, from what I hear, quite delicious. The cashew shell, however, is lined with a poisonous resin called cashew balm. (Whatever you do, don’t put the balm on.) Cashews themselves aren’t poisonous, because they arrive on store shelves well-laundered and ready for consumption. This also means that raw cashews aren’t exactly raw. They’re steamed (to extricate the nut from the shell).

In an ounce:

156.8 calories
8.6 g carbs: 0.9 g fiber
12.4 g fat: 6.7 g MUFA, 2.2 g LA, 2.2 g SFA
5.2 g protein
10% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
69% copper
24% iron
20% magnesium
20% manganese
15% zinc

Benefits:

There’s not a ton of research on cashews. What little exists isn’t very conclusive.

In one study, a high cashew diet had very little effect on markers of metabolic syndrome. If anything, blood glucose went up.
Another found that although a “prudent diet” containing cashews were higher in antioxidants than a control diet, it left serum antioxidant biomarkers unchanged.
One study did find that cashews improved baroreflex sensitivity, a marker of heart health.

On the whole, they’re probably fine to eat, but they aren’t superfoods.

Concerns:

Cashew allergy is more prevalent than people think, nearly as common as peanut, and it may even be more severe in children than peanut allergy. Cashew allergy often presents with mango allergy.
Easy to over consume. I think it’s the sweetness.

Can you soak? Yes, 2-4 hours.

Chestnuts

Though they hail from trees and enjoy membership in the nut club, chestnuts are unlike most other nuts: they’re starchy things, low in fat and protein, more akin to a tuber than a mac nut. But they’re decidedly Primal. They’re low in phytate, high in flavor, and can be eaten raw, roasted, or steamed. The taste of a perfectly well-roasted chestnut is uniquely satisfying. Nutty, sweet, tender. Kinda like Christmas.

In an ounce:

104.6 calories
22.2 g carbs: 3.3 g fiber
1.1 g fat
1.4 g protein
8% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
11% vitamin B6
8% folate
21% copper
15% manganese

Benefits:

Nutrient powerhouses these are not and few studies into the health effects exist. I’m sure they’re perfectly healthy. Just don’t expect miracles.

Concerns:

The carb content is high, as chestnuts are more of a starch than a classic fatty nut. That’s not to say you shouldn’t eat them. Just be aware of the carbs and treat them more like potatoes than almonds.
Chestnuts are really tricky to open. Anyone have a foolproof method?
Exploding chestnuts.

Can you soak? A half hour of soaking should make cooking and peeling easier.

Hazelnuts

Hazelnuts, AKA filberts, aren’t popular snacking nuts. Instead, you usually encounter them in desserts, baked goods, and chocolate confections. But according to archaeologists, hazelnut shells are “one of the most frequently recovered plant materials from Neolithic sites,” so humans have had an affinity for the filbert for millennia — and very likely much longer. As you’ll see from the list of benefits, I think our ancestors were really onto something.

In an ounce:

178 calories
4.7 g carbs: 2.7 g fiber
17.2 g fat: 12.9 MUFA, 2.2 LA, 1.3 SFA
4.2 g protein
15% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
28% vitamin E
54% copper
17% iron
11% magnesium
76% manganese

Benefits:

Hazelnut skin is “one of the richest edible sources of polyphenolic compounds,” with “3 times the TAC of whole walnuts, 7-8 times that of dark chocolate, 10 times that of espresso coffee, and 25 times that of blackberries.”
Hazelnuts improve lipid profiles, including a reduction in ApoB (a rough barometer for LDL particle number).
Hazelnut-enriched diets improve cardiovascular health beyond the effect they have on lipid profiles (which is positive by itself).
Hazelnuts also boost vitamin E status.
Hazelnuts reduce the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation.

Concerns:

Nutella is delicious, but it’s not an effective way to introduce hazelnut health benefits into your life. Sorry, guys.
Allergy, as always.
Moderately high in phytate.

Can you soak? 8-12 hours.

Macadamia Nuts

My favorite nut by far: the buttery, slightly sweet mac nut destroys all others. Sure, it may not have the densest nutrient profile. Sure, you’re not going to take care of your daily magnesium needs, and it has hardly any vitamin E at all (but that’s only because there’s no fragile PUFAs laying around requiring protection). But does every bite of every food we take need to be “optimized”? Or can it just be tasty and innocuous? And as you’ll see below, mac nuts do confer health benefits. I’ve yet to encounter a nut that doesn’t.

In an ounce:

203.5 calories
3.9 g carbs: 2.4 g fiber
21.5 g fat: 16.7 g MUFA, 0.4 g LA, 0.1 g alpha linolenic acid (ALA), 3.4 g SFA
2.2 g protein
28% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
24% copper
13% iron
51% manganese

Benefits:

Low in phytate. No need to soak or sprout or perform any complex nut preparation involving food dehydrators. Just eat.
Low in pesticide residues, even if conventionally grown. Organic mac nuts are great and all, but probably unnecessary if you don’t want to spend upwards of $20 a pound.
Low in omega-6 fats.
Mac nut consumption improves lipid profiles in hypercholesterolemic men. And in women. And in young Japanese women. And in middle-aged Kurdish women with evidence of considerable Neanderthal admixture (just kidding).
Mac nuts lower biomarkers of oxidative stress.

Concerns:

A little too good. Mac nuts are energy dense as well, so just tossing back handful after handful adds up quickly.
Allergy, although this is uncommon.

Can you soak? No need. I just soak them in my digestive juices.

Pecans

Another nut usually reserved for dessert applications, the pecan is underrated and underutilized as a snack nut. I get it. Pecans taste great encrusted in a syrupy shell and dusted with sea salt. They’re chewy, almost gooey when you roast them. Honey pecans pair marvelously with balsamic vinaigrettes and whatever leafy stuff you decide to eat them with. But I implore you: try a pecan without all the sugar. Try a raw pecan. No heat, no salt, just a raw nut in your mouth. Chew it, and savor the natural subtle sweetness. Pretty good, eh?

In an ounce:

195.9 calories
3.9 g carbs: 2.7 g fiber
20.4 g fat: 11.6 g MUFA, 5.8 g LA, 0.3 g ALA, 1.8 g SFA
2.6 g protein
16% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
38% copper
55% manganese
12% zinc

Benefits:

Pecans acutely increase antioxidant capacity and lower LDL oxidation.
A pecan rich diet improves the lipid profile in healthy men and women.
Compared to the oil and isolated polyphenols, whole pecans are the best at reducing inflammation and oxidative stress.

Concerns:

Allergy.

Can you soak? Yes, for 6 hours.

Pine Nuts

Pine nuts come from pine trees, obviously, although most species of pine produce nuts too small to merit harvesting. But when you do get your hands on legitimate pine nuts, you’ve got the perfect ingredient for great pesto sauce; as much as the alternative nuts like walnuts or pistachios make a decent pesto, I still prefer pine nut pesto to anything else. As a snack, pine nuts are uncommon. But that shouldn’t preclude you from giving them a try.

In an ounce:

178.3 calories
5.5 g carbs: 3 g fiber
17.3 g fat: 6.5 g MUFA, 7.1 g LA, 0.2 g ALA, 2.7 g SFA
3.3 g protein
29% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
33% copper
16% magnesium
53% manganese
11% zinc

Benefits:

Pine nut oil has an appetite-suppressant effect in overweight women, increasing postprandial satiety.
Pine nuts may increase LDL receptor activity.

Concerns:

Pine mouth is a condition where everything you eat tastes bitter, metallic, and disgusting. In susceptible people, it occurs after consumption of pine nuts and lasts about two weeks. Not everyone develops it, and even people who’ve enjoyed pine nuts for years might experience it out of the blue.
Allergies.

Can you soak? Just a few hours.

Pistachios

I really like pistachios despite the common complaints. They’re funny-looking, the wizened old men of the nut world. Green, too, which maybe makes them the Yoda of the nut world. And it can be really frustrating when you get an entire bag full of shelled pistachios with a nanometer of space between the two halves. But darn it if pistachios aren’t worth the trouble.

In an ounce:

159.3 calories
7.8 g carbs: 2.9 g fiber
12.9 g fat: 6.8 g MUFA, 3.8 g LA, 0.1 g ALA, 1.6 g SFA
5.7 g protein
21% vitamin B1 (thiamine)
28% vitamin B6
17% vitamin K
41% copper
14% iron
15% manganese

Benefits:

Pretty low in phytic acid.
A source of potent prebiotic fiber with beneficial effects on gut flora, even more than almonds.
Pistachios improve metabolic syndrome markers.
Pistachios reduce postprandial glucose.
Pistachios attenuate the glucose response to carb-rich meals.

Concerns:

Allergy.
Those impossible-to-open shells are really just the worst.

Can you soak? Up to 8 hours.

Walnuts

Many people in the ancestral health community avoid walnuts. “Too high in PUFAs,” they say. “Unstable bags of linoleic acid,” they say. And I used to be like that. But while I’m not eating an inordinately large amount of them on a regular basis, and I am aware of the PUFA content, I enjoy a good handful of walnuts semi-regularly. The literature in favor of the walnut is too broad to deny. Also, they’re really good, especially freshly cracked walnuts.

In an ounce:

185.4 calories
3.9 g carbs: 1.9 g fiber
18.5 g fat: 2.5 g MUFA, 10.8 g LA, 2.6 g ALA, 1.7 g SFA
4.3 g protein
50% copper
10% iron
11% magnesium
42% manganese

Benefits:

Walnut-enriched diets lower non-HDL cholesterol and ApoB.
Walnuts improve endothelial function in adults with belly fat. And in type 2 diabetics.
Walnuts improve lipid profile, lower oxidative stress, increase cholesterol efflux, and improve cardiovascular disease risk.

Concerns:

The PUFA content is high, but should be okay in the context of a Primal eating plan low in seed oils and other sources of processed, refined PUFAs and replete in omega-3s.
In my experience, walnuts are quick to go rancid. Buy small amounts, preferably in the shell. If unshelled, store in the freezer. Actually, I like keeping a small stock of all my nuts in the freezer. Improves the texture, in my opinion.
Allergy.
Moderately high in phytate.

Can you soak? Yes, for 4 hours.

There is a downside to nuts, of course: the overconsumption problem. Nuts are easy to overconsume. They taste good. They’re Primal. They’re fatty, crispy, and slightly sweet. They’re nutrient-dense, so you don’t feel “guilty” eating them. But, throw in some salt and a bit of roasting and you end up with a snack fit for binges. What can we do?

Buy them in the shell.

Only the ability to consume handful after handful of calorie-dense nuts and seeds without breaking the bank or spending an hour cracking them and removing little bits of shell is a recent development. Buying nuts and seeds in the shell makes it work to eat them. Keeps them fresher, too.

Avoid nut butters.

Nut butters make massive overconsumption even easier and more unavoidable. It crushes and condenses what’s already a dense source of nutrients and energy into a delicious paste. And c’mon: those tablespoons are never just a tablespoon. Avoid nut butters if you can’t control yourself around them.

Overall, nuts are just good for you. Pick a nut, any nut: it probably doesn’t matter much. Nuts are consistently associated with lower risks of heart disease and all-cause mortality. They’re probably responsible for the good press PUFAs get in the literature. They’re all fairly rich with antioxidant compounds. They all seem to improve lipid profiles and reduce inflammatory biomarkers. Including nuts in a diet generally improves the nutrient content of that diet. As long as you don’t go crazy and get a large percentage of your calories from nuts, you’ll probably benefit from their inclusion in your diet. They are snacks and supplemental foods, not the main course.

So, folks, what’s your favorite nut? What role do nuts play in your diet? Or, if you hate all nuts and think I’m completely nuts for writing this post, tell me why. Either way, let’s hear what you have to say on the subject down below.

Thanks for reading!

Prefer listening to reading? Get an audio recording of this blog post, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast on iTunes for instant access to all past, present and future episodes here.

The Autoimmune Protocol: What to Do When Nothing Else Has Worked

Today’s guest post is from my good friend Tara Grant, truly a superstar in the Primal/paleo/ancestral health movement. Tara started out as a success story: “Tons of Doctors and No Solution” – one of the most visited stories in our entire archive. She’s had a change of attitude since that article was published. As she says in this article, “Luckily, none of the doctors I saw over the years had any idea what was going on.”

In 2013, I published her remarkable book called The Hidden Plague, which details the painful and poorly understood skin condition of Hidradenitis supprativa (HS). (The Hidden Plague is on sale for just $3.99 this month. See the details below.) Enter Tara…

People by the thousands are reclaiming their health and shedding diseases as well as excess pounds. Their shouts from the rooftops are giving credence to our movement: eating and moving naturally works. Our bodies are designed to be healthy, fit and lean. If we just give our genes the right input, everything will magically fall into place.

Except when it doesn’t. Some of us have really buggered ourselves up by a lifetime of self-medicating and following conventional advice. We’re the ones that have to go the extra mile on our path to enlightened health and vitality—a standard ancestral diet just isn’t going to cut it. When autoimmunity is in the mix, all bets are off. You have to do things differently. (Click here to see if you may be suffering from an autoimmune condition.)

Before I found the Primal lifestyle, I used to smoke almost two packs a day. I medicated myself not only with any drugs doctors prescribed me, but also with sugar—and lots of it. My operating system was running on software it couldn’t communicate with and it started to get pretty buggy. I was very unhealthy but I didn’t realize it—all I could see was the excess weight and my inability to lose it. After all, there was a pill or a salve for whatever else was wrong with me. I wasn’t alone in the endless search for the magic cream that made everything better, and a quick trip to the drug store legitimized every problem I had.

At the time, if a doctor had told me I was suffering from no less than six separate autoimmune diseases that had no known treatment or cure, I probably would have ended it all. Luckily, none of the doctors I saw over the years had any idea what was going on. They treated each individual symptom with little to no success and then threw their hands up in defeat. It was up to me to change my life, my health and my perspective. I wanted to thrive, not just exist. I wanted to live.

Ancestral diet and fitness strategies took care of the excess weight and the sugar addiction. That part was easy. The other symptoms I had—the symptoms of autoimmunity—didn’t go away as advertised. I had to do some more digging to figure out what was going on.

If you’ve been Primal for a while, chances are you’ve heard of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP). Chances are you’ve also heard that no two people have the same triggers, that blood tests are fairly useless in trying to identify those triggers, that it “works for some but not for others,” that the AIP diet is devoid of anything flavorful and exciting, and that you will have to prepare every meal by yourself, at home, alone, because your friends and family, by day six, will have abandoned you and your constant stream of “I can’t eat that!” to go gorge themselves at HomeTown Buffet.

Unfortunately, most of this information is right. The AIP is really tough to navigate and it may even be harder on your friends and family than it is on you. Depending on which protocol you follow, you may not even be aware of certain potential triggers, like the wild yeast on your blueberries or the ashwagandha in your supplements.

The Hidden Plague is the answer to every question I had while I was navigating autoimmunity. While it concentrates on skin issues, the book also explains autoimmunity, leaky gut, the stress connection and how your hormones are involved in a very easy to understand way. It allows you to see the bigger picture—autoimmunity as the disease itself. The Hidden Plague also discusses all classes of potential triggers so that you can figure out what’s causing your symptoms. Finally there are step-by-step instructions on how to successfully reintroduce foods back into your life.

The Kindle version of The Hidden Plague is on sale for only $3.99 during the month of March (U.S. residents only). Stop guessing and start healing! Pick up your copy here.

Note from Mark: Coincidentally, the Kindle version of The Primal Connection is also on sale at the moment. You can get it and a bunch of other paleo books for just 99 cents each today only. Check them all out here.

Dear Mark: Vegetables on a Budget, Low Ozone Sun Exposure, Eating Breakfast, and PrimalCon 2015

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, we’ve got four questions. First up is from Chris, who wonders whether vegetables are worth buying on a limited food budget. He’s finding it difficult to justify spending money on low-calorie vegetation when fatty meats, avocados, coconut oil, and other calorie-dense foods are available. Is he right? Next, how do low atmospheric ozone levels modify my recommendations for sun exposure? Then, is there actually any justification for the oft-heard claim that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”? For some people, maybe. Find out if you’re one of them. Finally, rumors that PrimalCon 2015 has been canceled have been circulating. Could it be true?

Let’s go:

I am 4 weeks into my new Primal lifestyle. My wife has put me onto a $100 budget per week to sort out all my meals (slow cooker is my friend). It didn’t take me long to figure out if I am going to stay satiated I am not going to spend half my budget on spinach and tomatoes that provide little energy/satiation back – I would starve on them eventually. No, I am going to spend my money on energy dense high fat foods such as fatty meats, avocados, coconut oils etc that fill me up for the entire week. I do understand the importance of vitamins and minerals vegetables can provide – I just don’t have the luxury at the moment of them being the predominant item in my shopping basket. I thought that was a good analogy of what Grok might have gone through in lean times, he would have been straight after the high caloric reward foods before he harvested an acre of spinach. Thanks for the website, true to one of the videos I saw of you on YouTube my daily caloric intake has dropped substantially now that I am further into it. I find I am having more money left over in my budget every week which is good. It’s good to be finally kicking that emotional eating to the curb.

Chris

I know it’s tough to spend money on what essentially amounts to non-caloric leaves, grasses, and random plant trimmings when hearty chunks of animal flesh beckon. But they really are important, and they don’t have to shatter the budget: nutritious (often moreso than “fresh” vegetables that have been sitting around) frozen vegetables are your friend.

If nothing else, consider frozen spinach. At just 8 ounces a day – or half a pound bag of the frozen stuff costing a couple bucks — you’ll get:

Almost 50% of your daily magnesium.
Over 100% of your folate, vitamin A, and vitamin K (but not vitamin K2; you still need to eat aged cheese, natto, or take supplements for that).
88% of your manganese.
Almost 30% of your potassium.
77% of your iron.
And decent progress toward daily levels of vitamins B1 (15%), B2 (33%), and B6 (26%).

That’s a decent chunk of micronutrients, including many of the ones Primal or paleo eaters find themselves lacking (magnesium, folate, manganese, potassium), for maybe a dollar’s worth of essentially non-caloric leaves. And just because spinach is low in calories doesn’t preclude it from filling you up; spinach contains special alkaloids that reduce hunger and cravings, and adding spinach to mixed meals increases satiety and lowers blood glucose.

Pick up a few 16-ounce bags of frozen spinach a week and call it a day. Then, when the budget expands, you can branch out.

Dear Mark,

I would like to ask if all sun exposure is created equal. For instance, take Singapore and New Zealand as examples. While the former possesses a tropical climate temperate, it does not have a depleted ozone layer like the latter. Hence, the former’s sun rays are not scorching, unlike the latter.

While you have preached on the many benefits of getting some sun, should there be a difference in the way we approach our suntanning when it concerns ozone depletion? (i.e., would sun exposure under a depleted ozone layer area be more harmful than beneficial?)

Any light you could shed on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Josiah

Ozone depletion makes sun more “nutrient dense.” If Singapore sun is ribeye, New Zealand or Australian sun is grass-fed beef liver. You need far less of it to get the same effect, and going beyond that point grows more perilous. You don’t want to overdose on vitamin A with a pound of liver a day. You don’t want to overdose on UV radiation with an hour of full midday sun under a low-ozone sky every day.

You can still benefit from sun exposure in these conditions, but taking precautions becomes more critical than ever:

Avoid burning.
Avoid that dry, tight, leathery feeling your skin gets when it’s had too much sun.
Know how long it takes for your skin to turn pink and cover up or get out of the sun half way there.
Don’t go weeks without sun and then try to “catch up” with a full day of exposure.
Acute, infrequent sun exposure (like going on a vacation to a sunny place a couple weeks out of the year and spending the other 50 weeks indoors) is even more dangerous in a low ozone region; chronic, moderate sun exposure is safer and even healthier.

In other words, do everything you already do when getting sun. Only now, there’s less room for error.

Hi Mark,

I’ve looked through your blog and while you have many posts about eating/skipping breakfast, I’m interested to know how the conventional breakfast recommendation to “eat within 30-60 minutes of waking up” came to exist. I’ve been trying to do a little research on the web and through pubmed myself, but am coming up empty handed. From what I have found…there is no research to back it up; it’s just nutritional dogma that keeps getting perpetuated.

Brenna

If skipping breakfast works for you, as it does for me, keep skipping it. You can’t fix what isn’t broken. But I wouldn’t say there’s no research. There is some indication that for some people, breakfast helps:

Breakfast skippers who aren’t losing weight on their current eating schedule. Skipping breakfast can be a boon for easy weight loss. But some people just don’t do well with a morning fast (or any fasting). Women in particular seem more likely to respond poorly to skipped breakfasts.

Breakfast skippers with ravenous hunger early in the day. If you’re hungry in the morning, eat! Don’t try to hew to some imagined optimal eating pattern. Just because I typically skip breakfast doesn’t mean you should. I skip breakfast because I’m not very hungry in the morning — that’s it. If I’m hungry, I eat. When you do eat, make sure to get enough protein. A big protein breakfast can really help stave off hunger and keep you sated through lunchtime. A study in breakfast-skipping adolescent girls found that high protein breakfasts reduced their neural response to food stimuli later in the day, suggesting that steak and eggs for breakfast makes cafeteria chicken nuggets and French fries far less appealing.

Breakfast skippers who have trouble getting to sleep at a reasonable time. Food is a circadian entrainer, and eating late at night can blunt melatonin secretion and disrupt circadian rhythm. Women with “night-eating syndrome” — characterized by, well, eating at night — have their nighttime melatonin secretion delayed.

Breakfast skippers who have trouble waking up in the morning. Animal studies show that the timing of food availability conditions wakeup time. You feed a rat breakfast on a regular basis and it’ll start waking up earlier to get the food. Rodents even display distinct “food anticipatory activity” in the hours just before their regular mealtime if the master circadian clock is damaged or removed, suggesting evidence of an independent “food-entrainable oscillator” that responds to food intake schedules. Similar results in other mammal and primate studies lead me to believe that humans may also have it.

Breakfast skippers who are type 2 diabetics — or perhaps even related to them. Type 2 diabetics seem to benefit from getting more energy earlier in the day and less energy at night. Type 2 diabetics who eat larger breakfasts and smaller dinners experience lower daily blood sugar than those who eat smaller breakfasts and larger dinners. And these breakfasts should contain a nice whack of protein; a recent study in type 2 diabetics found that high-protein breakfasts, relative to high-carb breakfasts, induce lower insulin responses to subsequent lunchtime meals.

How to do it? Well, just eat, making sure it contains a good amount of protein — about 25-30 grams at least. Even if you have to force yourself to eat, the presence of the above symptoms may indicate that you’ll benefit from breakfast, or that it’s worth trying. It’ll get easier, too, the more you do it. The more you eat breakfast, the more your body will expect it, and the hungrier you’ll get earlier in the day.

If you’re happy skipping breakfast, and pleased with your progress, keep skipping it. Evidence suggests that habitual breakfast skippers have better responses to skipping breakfast anyway, while habitual breakfast eaters suffer more hunger, decreased satiety, and higher insulin responses to lunch when they skip it. If things aren’t working, though, consider breakfast.

Mark, I heard that PrimalCon has been canceled this year? Is it true?

Daniel

Unfortunately, I must admit with a heavy heart that it’s true, PrimalCon 2015 has been cancelled. We could not supply the resort with an adequate amount of reservations by the severe financial deadline they specified, so they had to release our contract with them for those allotted days.

We’ve had a fantastic run of 9 PrimalCons across North America over the past five years, but frankly these events are very difficult to justify from a business standpoint. Since I still love to connect with primal enthusiasts in person, we may consider the PrimalCon Vacation model in the future, where we simply descend upon an all-inclusive resort and everyone gets to enjoy a vacation, even our staff and presenters. Thanks for your support!

To wrap up this edition of Dear Mark I’ll leave you with the following teaser video and details about an episode of the new paleo cooking show Camille’s Paleo Kitchen I’ll be appearing on:

Camille’s Paleo Kitchen Episode 3: Paleo Myths & Fast Paleo Tricks with Mark Sisson airs Tuesday night at 5:30PST/8:30EST on FoodyTV. You can also view it on PaleoKitchen.tv.

That’s it for this week, folks. Comments? Concerns? Additional advice for Chris, Josiah, or Brenna? Add ‘em below!

Weekend Link Love – Edition 339

Chef Rachel Albert passed away last Saturday. We’ll all miss her dearly.

The 2015 Diabetes Summit doesn’t kick off until March 23, but my presentation – The Primal Solution for Type 2 Diabetes – is already available. You can register here to watch it.

The team at Thrive Market saw my Top 50 Essential Paleo Pantry Foods article last week, and offered to create a really handy gallery page that contains most of the paleo food items in the list. Saves a lot of clicking. Take a look.

I’m an investor in and advisor to a brand new bike company called Brilliant. They’ve got a really unique concept and value proposition, and they’re just about to go live to the world. Exciting times. To mark the occasion they’re giving a bike away to one lucky winner. Enter to win here.

Research of the Week

Removing fructose from obese kids’ diets for ten days cuts their liver fat and lowers de novo lipogenesis (you know, that thing that supposedly only happens in mice?).

Expensive fake drugs are more effective than cheaper fake drugs.

At least 130,000 years ago — well before the arrival of modern humans — Croatian Neandertals were making eagle claw jewelry.

Did widespread execution of criminals during the Middle Ages select for genetic pacification in modern Europe (PDF)?

“Increased intestinal permeability after gliadin exposure occurs in all individuals.”

The use of classical psychedelics was associated with lower risks of psychological distress and suicide in a recent survey.

Not just diabetes: statin use also linked to Parkinson’s.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 58: Eli Rhode: Eli Rhode is a Primal Blueprint Certified coach, yoga instructor, aesthetician, and former vegetarian with an incredible story of personal transformation. Learn how going Primal changed her life and revolutionized her work.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Top 50 Essential Paleo Pantry Foods
The Definitive Guide to Sugar
The Definitive Guide to Overcoming Procrastination
Is Constant Ketosis Necessary — or Even Desirable?

Interesting Blog Posts

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans committee may have exonerated dietary cholesterol in their latest report, but what exactly do they still have against saturated fat?

Author Neal Stephenson used a treadmill desk for 416 days, then wrote about it.

How you can — and why you should — play catch with yourself.

Habitat as tissue.

Maybe insulin does play a role in weight gain after all: Peter from Hyperlipid shows how an insulin analog lowers appetite and weight gain by preventing insulin from reaching the brain.

Media, Schmedia

How the sugar industry shaped dental research.

Publication of a Paleo cookbook for babies is being held up over health concerns.

The happiest pigs on earth, or at least in Germany, eat muesli.

Everything Else

Watch this 95 year-old man run 200 meters in record time. It’s one of the more beautiful videos I’ve seen.

Your DNA is garbage, bro.

Drinking some (but not too much) alcohol makes your face more attractive.

Humans didn’t need monotheism to develop complex societies.

Do you do the poo? The ultimate guide to natural hair care.

Wyomingers (is that right?)! It’s now legal to buy food directly from your neighbor.

We use more genes from our fathers.

Recipe Corner

It may be a bit warm here in Southern California for Paleo Cincinnati chili, but I understand there are pockets of cold weather throughout the country.
Portabello Philly cheesesteaks.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Mar 16– Mar 22)

Are Antioxidant Supplements Effective? – Yes, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to use them.
What Did Our Ancient Ancestors Actually Eat? – Learn about the foods that probably helped shape who we are today.

Comment of the Week

“Procrastinate” is an active verb. So even while I’m procrastinating, I’m still doing something…

– Hey, that’s not bad.

Sweet Potato Skins

Remember when potato skins were on the appetizer menu of almost every bar and casual restaurant? Looking back now through Primal eyes, there are so many things wrong with potato skins (starchy russet potatoes, loads of low quality grated cheese, Ranch dressing on the side) it seems wise to banish them forever. And yet, admit it….you still have a spot in your heart for potato skins, don’t you?

Whether it’s because of nostalgia or that crispy skin and creamy filling, cravings for potato skins may come up from time to time. And that’s okay, because this recipe for meaty sweet potato skins (cheese optional) gives the appetizer a Primal makeover.

The change from regular potato to sweet potato isn’t just about healthy eating, though. It’s about flavor, too. Why use a bland white potato, when the sweetness of an orange beauty tastes so good with seasoned ground meat, cilantro and green onions? Cheese is optional, and less necessary than with regular potato skins, because there’s already so much flavor going on.

It’s true that most of the anti-nutrients in potatoes can be found in the skin, but eating the skins every once in awhile isn’t likely to cause much harm. If you’re concerned, then skip the skins and simply scoop the potato flesh into a bowl and top with the meat and garnishes. It’ll turn this recipe into a delicious main course, instead of finger food.

Servings: 2 to 3

Time in the Kitchen: 1.5 hours

Ingredients:

6 small sweet potatoes
½ pound ground meat (230 g)
½ teaspoon cumin (2.5 ml)
1 teaspoon chili powder (5 ml)
¼ teaspoon coriander (2.5 ml)
1 small bunch cilantro leaves, finely chopped
½ cup sliced green onions (120 ml)
Optional: 1 cup (90 g) grated high-quality aged Cheddar and/or a dollop of sour cream, crème fraiche or full-fat Greek yogurt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 ºF/205 ºC degrees.

Wash the potatoes well and dry. Pierce each sweet potato a few times and bake for 40-50 minutes or until soft. Allow the potatoes to cool.

While the potatoes are baking, cook the ground meat over medium high heat. Season with cumin, chili powder and coriander. Salt to taste.

Slice the baked sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Scoop out most of the sweet potato and put it into a medium bowl, leaving a thin layer of sweet potato inside the skins.

Place skins back on the baking sheet, skin side up. Brush the potato skins with olive oil or butter and bake for 10 minutes, or until a little crispy but not overly browned.

Add the cilantro to the sweet potato flesh in the bowl. Salt to taste.

Remove the skins from the oven. Fill each one ¼ full with the sweet potato and cilantro filling. Top with ground meat. If desired, cover with a sprinkle of cheese.

Return the filled potatoes to the oven and bake just until cheese is melted, or just until warm.

Garnish with green onions and a hit of hot sauce before serving. A dollop of yogurt, sour cream or crème fraiche is optional.

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Sometimes 1000 Words Are Better Than Pictures

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

As you can see by the picture below, I haven’t changed much on the outside since going Primal. However on the inside things have never been better.

I was first introduced to Mark’s Daily Apple around March 1st, 2012, while trying to figure out the rules of a Whole 30 challenge a friend had conned me into. I will admit I found the ancestral health movement silly and arbitrary at the time. I had done a gluten-free challenge before with no results, and it was only selfish vanity and dreams of 6 pack abs that convinced me to try a Whole 30.

When I first started I had no intention of maintaining the Primal Blueprint diet as a lifestyle, but by the end of my first month I felt so good I realized I could never go back to the SAD way of eating.

Afternoon naps became a thing of the past and energy levels skyrocketed. I learned about the carbohydrate curve and at the end of my 30 days dove into ketosis. As one month became three months, I noticed that my painful cyst and warts had disappeared. This was amazing considering the amount of time I had spent at the doctor’s office trying to get rid of the things. I also noticed that I no longer had periodic breakouts of acne. And, miracle of miracles, the lactose intolerance that I had developed in college turned into a full blown tolerance. It was at this point that I really got into everything Primal. I checked out all the paleo/primal books at the library, started a garden, got some chickens, and really started to dig into the pros and cons of different oils and fats.

Primal was fun! I started cooking Primal group dinners with friends and espousing all the benefits to anyone who would listen. I convinced my mother to go Primal about six months in, and after a year got my dad to join in too. In the last year and a half, my Primal tribe has grown to include aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. As with me, the rest of the family doesn’t appear much different after a year of Primal eating, but I thought I would let them say a few words about their success.

Mom:

I always thought I knew a lot about nutrition until my son started reading diet and health books that threw into question all the things that I thought I “knew.” I have never been overweight, but I have always tried to eat reasonable amounts of “healthy foods.” I limited my fat, soda and dessert consumption. This all seemed to work fine for me and I didn’t really have health or weight issues other than that I needed to take thyroid hormones to supplement my under-active thyroid. My husband’s dietary habits included lots of sugar, ice cream and cookies if they were available, so I tried to keep those things out of the house. In restaurants he would always have at least three large glasses of root beer, something that always made me cringe. He never seemed to have any health issues either, but he did carry around an extra 20 pounds.

I just turned 60 years old and that feels like a major milestone. I never felt old at all until my early 50’s, after getting a chronic sinus infection and rheumatoid arthritis. The funny thing is that there are still occasions when I feel pretty much like my young self, unaware of pain, stiffness, and strength and agility limitations. Was it the water aerobics and walking that I did with just the right intensity and duration? Was it the laughter, joy and carefree hours I spent socializing with people I enjoy? Or was it what I ate? These are all mysteries to me. None-the-less, I can report a few positive things since I tried a very low carbohydrate, grain and sugar-free diet with lots of saturated fats, at my son’s urging. I felt buzzed. I lost weight immediately (more than I wanted) and found that my thyroid gland suddenly kicked into gear and my thyroid dose became too strong. I naively thought that I would not need thyroid replacement at all but that turned out not to be the case. I also found that my cholesterol levels became quite elevated and I decided that the ultra-low carbohydrate diet was too intense for me. Then, my son challenged my husband to a low carbohydrate, grain-free diet for 30 days along with cessation of his prescription of statins.

Dad:

I think being overweight is part of our family. My sister, brother and I have been overweight for quite some time. About 18 months ago, Eric challenged me to try a low-carb, high fat “paleo” diet for 30 days. Since I crave sweets, I thought it would be difficult to give up so much that I like, but I accepted the challenge. The pounds seemed to melt off, and I was eating bacon and

eggs for breakfast. I’ve stayed on the diet since then, and am now down to a reasonable weight.

Mom:

My husband promptly lost about 20 pounds. Unfortunately, his cholesterol levels became so elevated that he decided he would go back on the statins. However, we have both continued with a mostly paleo diet ever since. My husband still has no health issues but continues to take statins. We both sleep well and have good energy levels. My sinus congestion is almost completely gone. I am gradually weaning myself off of the ibuprofen. I keep thinking that my RA is greatly affected by my gut health and I hope that getting off of ibuprofen will help that. Though I am not at risk for diabetes, periodically I test myself with a glucometer and I can clearly see that when I stick with a low-carb, paleo diet (limiting fruit and high carbohydrate vegetables) my blood glucose levels (and triglycerides) stay very low. That in itself is a huge reason for people to eat a low carbohydrate, paleo diet. I also feel more sated having more fat in my diet (though now I don’t include as much saturated fat as I had consumed initially). The last time I checked, my cholesterol levels had gone back down. I believe I’m on the right track now diet-wise, but I continue to seek answers to the mysteries of good health.

Eric:

Three years of Primal living has fundamentally changed me. The more in touch I have become with the origins of my food, the more aware and caring I have become of social and and environmental problems in the world. In short, for the first time I feel connected with the rest of the world. I still read MDA every day and have started to implement all the other lifestyle changes like blue blockers, meditation, and movement practices. It is my greatest hope that by being an ambassador of Primal living, I can spread health, happiness, and a care for the environment to others.

Thank you MDA and the Primal community for all your support,

Eric and Family

P.S. I’m still working towards that 6 pack.

How We Die: End of Life Planning

Last week’s post on the fear of death got quite a discussion going, and I appreciated the perspectives that folks shared on the subject. One interesting issue that people raised involved the circumstances of dying itself – specifically dying within a traditional medical setting where interventions and technology to prolong life abound. It reminds me of the old Woody Allen quote, “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

As a whole we do, indeed, die differently these days compared to our ancestors – certainly Grok and his clan but perhaps even our grandparents/great-grandparents. Science, to its credit, has developed ways to save and even restore quality of life in situations that would’ve been our inevitable demise even a few decades ago. But it’s a different focus than efforts that simply prolong life in a technical sense. That leads me to today’s question: in a decidedly un-Primal medical world, what role can self-determination play in a “desirable” death as it does in a vibrant life?

Years ago I read a book by a German author, Rainer Maria Rilke, that talked about the “good death.”

Far from a romantic description, the narrator recounted in tremendous detail his grandfather’s dying, which had been larger than life itself, a force of nature that exerted its own astonishing power to all who witnessed it.

Those of us who have been with the dying – human or animal – have seen first-hand the magnitude of the experience. I’m thinking here particularly of those situations in which people choose to die – and/or are given the opportunity to die – without the surroundings of medical devices, without the barrage of technology and extreme medicating you find in most hospitals and sometimes in home hospice situations.

I saw an older family member die this way many years ago. She refused drugs – even pain killers. It was her way. We all knew her to be stubborn in life and it was little surprise these were her choices in death. The experience was nothing like Hollywood. The noise, the movement, the duration. People can be in the throes of death for days, even weeks.

By contrast, I’ve seen elderly family or even younger people whose vitality was cut short by accident exist for decades in a vegetative or near-vegetative state because loved ones wanted to continue “life”-prolonging interventions that even doctors advised against.

I think most of us want to envision the ideal death for ourselves (e.g. to die peacefully in our sleep) and on some level assume we’ll be fortunate enough to actually go that way when our time comes. Perhaps that will be our fate. But maybe it won’t. Are there alternatives we can’t bear to imagine? How many of these involve medical intervention – circumstances in which we could have a say if only we’d shared it (and signed it) before we were suddenly unconscious and unable to assert our preferences.

How we die (when given a choice)…it’s such an intimate question we must consider for ourselves. I don’t think it does much to sit in judgment of others around the topic as too often happens. People’s passions get stirred by a larger brouhaha, and they entirely miss the chance for stillness that can genuinely open up the question with any clarity. Better to observe the real facts and then look deeply within our own consciences. What does each of us want at the end of life? How do we even want that “end” defined for ourselves?

If we develop or already have a terminal disease, what interventions are we willing to accept to prolong life? If we’re in an accident or experience an acute event like a major stroke that leaves us in a vegetative state, what medical care do we want to be offered or withheld/withdrawn? Do we trust that people in our families would be able to intuit our real wishes, let alone act from those when faced with shock, grief and other pressures?

And another critical area of questions… What are our assumptions regarding the nature and success of medical interventions? Do these perceptions match what a physician would tell us? What would a doctor choose in these types of instances?

The results of a large, well-known study actually reveal some of these thoughts. In the Johns Hopkins Precursor Study, over 700 physicians responded to a mailing asking for their medical care preferences given dire health circumstances. Their choices might be surprising.

In the instance of irreversible brain damage, most (81%) reported they wanted pain medication to be administered. However, even more than that (90%) said they would not want CPR to be offered. Nearly 90% said they wouldn’t want ventilation or dialysis. Approximately 80% reported they wouldn’t want surgery, invasive testing or a feeding tube. Seventy-five percent said they wouldn’t want blood to save their lives.

A Radiolab interview shared more perspective on these choices, including the personal decisions of one doctor as well as facts about common interventions most of us believe are more effective than they are. Fictional television shows, for example, depict 75% of people revived after CPR, but in reality only 8% of people are still alive a month following CPR intervention. Of those, only 3% return to a “good outcome” with a “meaningful quality of life” as opposed to a vegetative or semi-vegetative state. In the interview, we learn that many doctors carry “no code” medallions that communicate their wish for no significant intervention in terminal or dire irreversible circumstances.

Their perspective on the effects – and effectiveness – of interventions gives pause. No one is arguing that we shouldn’t offer reasonable intervention to people with serious injury or health events when they have a chance of being restored to quality of life. At issue is technologically sustaining a literal threshold of “life” for someone who is already terminally ill or irreversibly incapacitated, unaware and perhaps even unconscious. When someone who is already on the brink of nonexistence begins to slip, what do we do – or accept and not do? As one doctor explained it in the Radiolab interview, “We do a poor job communicating futility to patients.”

Let me be clear, I’m talking about self-determination – as in self. It’s not about legislating other people’s choices. It’s about taking full responsibility for our own – while we still have the chance to.

A few readers mentioned advance directives, and that’s the best tool we have. Advance directive is an umbrella term that offers health care instructions or designates someone (a health care agent) who should make care decisions for you based on previously communicated plans/wishes.

We’re straying into legal waters here, and I make no bones about this being merely blog commentary and not legal advice. Generally speaking, however, with a living will, you can communicate ahead of time what medical care you would like offered, withheld or withdrawn in given medical scenarios. You can authorize, for example, the offering or withholding of everything from CPR to artificially provided foods, intravenous fluids, antibiotics, medications, testing, blood and other procedures/technology. You can also delineate acceptable health states or outcomes of treatment.

Amazingly, you don’t even need a lawyer to create a living will, but you need to consult your state’s requirements and have your document notarized. Likewise, you should also talk with your doctor(s) about your wishes, particularly if you have a diagnosis of concern. You can also ask your doctor about keeping your wishes on file in the clinic records. Certain national registries exist for this purpose as well.

In addition to a living will, experts recommend choosing a surrogate or proxy who you authorize to speak for you in health care matters. There are often instances when a living will may be contested by family members (even with the best planning and prior discussion) or when a situation might not be entirely clear given the language of the living will and the current circumstances. A legally designated agent in an advance directive will be able to speak for you when you are unable to and will have the authority to carry out your wishes.

We put a great deal of thought and effort into the good Primal life we want. We envision a certain level of health and work to sustain it because we want to define our lives a certain way. While it might not be the the most hopeful of considerations, I think the argument can be made for defining your end of life in certain circumstances.

Rilke, the author I mentioned earlier, captured the highly individual and intimate nature of death in a poem from his Book of Hours. He hoped that we might each be given “our own death, the dying that proceeds from each of our lives: the way we loved, the meanings we made, our need.”

That sounds to me like a fitting end to a vital and substantial life. Here’s to a good death…

Thanks for reading today, everyone. Share your thoughts, and have a great end to your week.