Mark Sisson's Blog, page 315

Weekend Link Love

We’ve got new dates for the Primal Blueprint Luxury Retreat: February 6-9. Space is limited, so get on it!

Have you seen the new book? Death by Food Pyramid is now available, and we’ve got a special offer running through Dec. 31.

Research of the Week

Dogs and babies do mix, at least if you’re interested in preventing asthma and allergies. Results may not apply to those owned by silly people who never let their dogs outside.

It looks like sucralose, the artificial sweetener behind Splenda, is anything but inert and harmless, according to a new review from the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health.

Instead of giving statins to everyone over 50 years to protect their heart, you could just prescribe an apple a day and get comparable results without the muscle pain, rhabdo, cognitive decline and diabetes often caused by the drug.

Interesting Blog Posts

How a fat-adapted endurance athlete wearing minimalist shoes broke a long standing ultra-endurance record while eating a mostly Primal, carb-cycling diet.

Birthday Shoes just reviewed the hottest, newest minimalist shoe currently on the market. Luckily, these won’t sell out.

Speaking of apples, they appear to be a highly underrated fruit on the health front.

Media, Schmedia

Meet Fred Kummerow, the hipster nutrition researcher who was warning everyone about the dangers of trans-fats before it was cool. His formerly unpopular stance now widely accepted, he’s now turned his ire toward industrial seed oils.

Drug-resistant bacteria are present on about half of America’s chicken breasts.

A school in Melbourne is now offering a “standing classroom” where students can stand or sit at height-adjustable desks.

Satire or Serious?

Dump your extra virgin olive oil, folks. Corn oil is way, way better for you. Good to hear. There’s nothing quite like drizzling corn oil over fresh baby greens, beets, and goat cheese with lemon juice, or taking a little sip straight from the bottle when no one’s watching just to swirl those corn sterols around and savor the pleasant lack of depth.

Everything Else

How wearing a mushroom burial suit to your grave can reduce the dissemination of all the industrial and commercial pollution you’ve accumulated throughout life into the environment. Watch the video and whatever you do, don’t become a cannibal.

Something tells me this took more than 10,000 steps.

If you’re gonna chop wood, you better do it right. This is how.

Can sunlight exposure and vitamin D deficiency explain the seemingly inevitable triumph of good over evil in The Hobbit? The only glaring omission I noticed was the failure to control for beards and fur.

When it comes to food cravings, sugar content takes precedence over fat content.

Recipe Corner

In case you were wondering what to do with the bottle of fish sauce I convinced you to buy, try Thai beef burgers with smashed avocado as a nice easy introduction.
I don’t believe I’ve ever had an Indian dish that featured pork. Here’s one: Boti Gosht.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 22 – Dec 28)

21 Simple Things to Do to Prepare for a Successful 2013 – Although you may not want to think about how the next year is already upon us (is it Christmas, already?), you can take a few simple steps to improve your life and your chances. Note: these work well for 2014 (and subsequent years).
Primal Actualization: Realizing Your Inner Potential – Why – and, kinda, how – you should get fully engaged with life, whatever you mean when you say that word.

Comment of the Week

The nutritional niche research article was fantastic, and free-to-access!

I especially like this part:

“… the high lipid content of brains including macaque and hominins is also a potential driving force for the crushing of skulls and consumption of brain grey and white matter.”

At last, my hobby has been justified by evolutionary science!

- I appreciated that part, too. What’s your favorite, the grey matter or the white matter? I like grey.

Death by Food Pyramid, the Highly Anticipated New Book by Denise Minger, is Now Available! Get FREE Gifts When You Order by Dec. 31. Learn All the Details Here.

Whole Roasted Fish with Clams and Spicy Scallion Relish

A whole fish is an impressive entrée, especially this one roasted with clams and red peppers and topped with spicy scallion relish. It’s a fresh, vibrant meal that’s gorgeous to look at and has so much more flavor than a boneless, skinless fillet. Don’t be intimidated by cooking a whole fish; it’s actually quite easy and hassle free. A whole fish can be grilled, or roasted in the oven as shown here, with extra goodies like clams and veggies.

The clams in this recipe are more like a garnish, adding iron, copper, and selenium to the meal. The red pepper is the requisite veggie and could be accompanied by thinly sliced fennel, carrots or zucchini. The spicy scallion relish gives this dish some attitude. The longer the relish sits, the bolder it tastes, so make it a day ahead if you can.

Visit your local fish shop to see what’s available and fresh. When shopping for a whole fish, look for clear, bright eyes and shiny scales. To make life easier, ask the fishmonger to clean the fish for you (leaving the head on.) When you buy a whole fish, plan to cook it within a day so it’s as fresh as possible.

Serves: 2

Time in the Kitchen: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cup thinly sliced scallions, green parts only (save the white bottoms) (about 100 g)
1 jalapeno or other small hot pepper, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro, plus a handful of extra sprigs (15 ml)
1/4 cup cold-pressed high-oleic/high-stearic sunflower oil (60 ml)
2 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar (10 ml)
1 whole fish (2 pounds/900g or slightly less), cleaned with the head left on
1 lemon, thinly sliced
A dozen or so clams
2 red peppers, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock (120 ml)
Several tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

Mix together the scallions, hot pepper, tablespoon of cilantro, sunflower oil and rice vinegar. Add a pinch of salt. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 475 ºF (245 ºC)

Line a baking pan with foil, leaving enough hanging over the edges so you can fold it up and over the top of the fish.

Pat the fish dry and set on the baking pan. Cut angled slits across each side of the fish, about 1 1/2 inches apart. Cut deep enough to expose the flesh, but don’t go all the way down to the bone. Rub the fish down with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and generously season with salt and pepper. Put a half slice of lemon into each of the slits on one side of the fish.

Stuff the cavity with the cilantro sprigs and the reserved scallion bottoms.

Spread the red pepper and clams out around the fish. Drizzle the stock around the fish. Fold the foil up over the fish to form a tent.

Roast for 35 to 40 minutes. Carefully open the foil – watch for steam. Serve with the scallion relish on the side.

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It IS Possible to Take Control of Your Health and Your Life

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 name Kevin Pollack. I’m 34 years old, I’m happily married for 8 years, and have three boys ages 6, 3 and 15 months. I’m 5’10″ and weigh 195 lbs, and I consider myself in good health (at least I do now). But that wasn’t the case two years ago. I’m about to share with you my personal struggles with my weight and with my health, the rude awakening I received that made me change the way I approached my daily living, and how I came across the Primal Blueprint and my current means of exercise.

Let me take you back to when it all started. I was 15 years old when I got my first “on the books job.” I was working at a fast food restaurant called Roy Rogers. It was a fun job. I worked the grill and made the best damn fried chicken in that store, but more importantly (at least for me) was that I could eat all the food and drink all the soda I wanted for free. I was a very active kid growing up. I played baseball, football, soccer, basketball (I had a mean jump shot), lifted weights and rode my bike everywhere, so burning off the food that I ate was not a problem for me. Unfortunately for me, Roy Rogers closed down when I was 16, so I was left without a job, and an appetite the size of the Grand Canyon. Like my father would say, I would have an egg sandwich in one hand and a hot pocket in another – come on, those things were good. So I did what any other kid who liked to eat would do, I got a job at another fast food restaurant, Burger King to be exact, and couldn’t have been happier. I loved whoppers and french fries and those chicken tenders were awesome. I worked a lot there after high school and never had time to make food at home. I didn’t really need to because of where I worked. Soon my diet consisted of lots of fast food cause that’s all I ate, but I wasn’t really gaining weight or if I was I didn’t notice because I was always a big kid. My high school weight was 220 lbs. I had pudge but you would never have known it. I carried my weight pretty well. Soon I was promoted to team leader, then shift manager, and then eventually store manager. My job consisted of very long hours and to make things worse I had a 110 mile round trip commute to my job. All I did was work, sleep and eat at the job, and could barely make it to the gym. Although I did go at least four times a week. I literally had no time to go food shopping, let alone cook.

I don’t know when it happened because it didn’t hurt, but I had what they called a sports hernia (no, that was not the rude awakening I mentioned) and I needed surgery to fix it. It was a big tear (I have a 6 inch scar because of it) according to the doctor. After I recovered from the surgery I was too afraid to go back to the gym because I didn’t want to risk tearing the hernia so I didn’t go, but my appetite was still there. I gained weight and became depressed because of it (plus other reasons that I would not like to mention) and I knew I had to stop eating all this fast food but I couldn’t. I guess you can say I became addicted. That was my life till I was 22. I quit my job because I was too stressed out and was not happy (my weight was about 260 lbs) and my current job came along, that was Feb. of 2002. I work for the post office as a mail handler. For the past 11 and a half years I have been working overnight and my eating habits only got worse. I would wake up in the afternoon at 3 or 4 o’clock and I would eat nothing but heroes and dinner type of foods for breakfast. On my way to work I would stop by a fast food joint and spend 10-15 bucks on food for the trip to work (I would eat in the car on the way to work). I commuted 80 miles round trip, and when I got to work the only thing that was open was Chinese food and pizza places, and it didn’t help that there was a 24/7 bagel shop down the road that made the best bagels on Long Island. So that’s all I ate for years. During this time my weight ballooned up too 315 lbs at my heaviest, my weight would fluctuate a lot. I was fat.

In early February of 2005 I had gone to my doctor because I was drinking a lot of fluids (soda, juices and all sorts of sugary soft drinks, etc.) and nothing would quench my thirst. After a simple blood test I found out that my A1C level was close to 9% and my blood sugar was 450. The doctor told me I had type 2 diabetes which made me even more depressed and to add insult to injury I had high blood pressure (no, this not the rude awakening I was referring to, I’ll get to that soon, there is just a lot to my story). He gave me metformin, 2000 mg a day, for my diabetes and 10 mg lisnopril for my blood pressure. I started to feel a little better soon afterwards and decided to go back to gym and go on a “diet” (I’ll explain why the word diet is in quotation marks a little later). I tried doing the Atkins diet, and along with going to the gym I lost about 30 lbs in five weeks. A lot of it was water weight. I weighed 250lbs. I was feeling good again, but I found that my energy level was low and I started to have intense cravings for all the foods that made me sick to begin with. Little by little I would “cheat” on my diet until I gave in to the cravings and gave up. I got married in May of that year to my beautiful wife Kelly and I remember that morning when I jumped on the scale, it said that I weighed 275lbs. I said to myself that after our honeymoon I would go back on my “diet” and try to lose weight again. Well, we went on a cruise to Alaska, and anyone who has been on a cruise will tell you all you do is eat, eat, and eat some more, and that’s all I did, but I didn’t care cause I knew I was going to go on a “diet” as soon as I got back. (By the way, I’ve been on many cruises as a kid and by far Alaska was the best one. I tell people all the time the scenery alone was worth the trip and that I’d love to back someday.)

When I came back I jumped back on the scale, it said 285, 10 lbs in one week. I started my “diet” like I said I would and was doing really well. Instead of the Akins diet, I went on low-fat “diet” because I knew I loved bread and pasta and pizza and all those other high carbohydrate foods that Akins tells you not to eat and this time I was watching what I ate which was low fat stuff like cottage cheese, low fat yogurt, whole wheat bread and pasta, cold cuts, and, well you get the idea. I was still taking my meds, but my blood sugar and BP was still high, probably because of all the bread and pasta I was eating, but I didn’t care so much. I was going to the gym four days a week again and feeling great. I was back down to around 245 lbs.

I have a younger brother and in late August of 2006 he went missing. Ten days later his body was found. He had committed suicide. He was only 21. I’m grateful that earlier that year in May we had celebrated his 21st birthday at my house. All of his family was there for one last time, I have some of the last pictures taken of him while he was alive. This really hurt me. My brother and I were close. We shared a room together while growing up and I can still remember all the late night conversations we had while going to bed. He was a very curious kid growing up and extremely smart. I have a tattoo on my left leg to memorialize him with one of the last things he said before he took his own life.

Needless to say, I lost my will power for my diet and stopped going to the gym and I sank into another depression. I started binge eating, not caring what I ate and when I ate it. Six weeks later I went to Stony Brook hospital emergency room because I was having really bad stomach pains. I was admitted for four days with what they said was IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and a bad case of pancreatitis. My triglycerides were threw the roof. They starved me for two days, no food or water, only an IV to keep me hydrated. They doped me up with meds and sent me on my way. I was feeling better. When I came home from the hospital I was still depressed, but I kept it all inside and put on a happy face because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do, be strong. Soon after, the pain in my stomach was gone, but I still wanted nothing to do with a “diet” and sure as hell had no motivation to exercise. I don’t remember what meds they gave me for it because I stopped taking them soon after I came home. I was young and dumb. My first son was born later that year in December and for the next two years I went about my life.

In May of 2008 I weighed 315 lbs and because I had no regard for the food I ate. I found myself back in the ER with the same pain in my stomach only this time it was on my left side, a blood sugar of 400 again, and of course my BP was high. They didn’t admit me, (I had gone to Brookhaven hospital because it was closer). They gave me pain killers and morphine and something else for what they were now saying was UC (ulcerative colitis). I checked up with my doctor and he prescribed me a round of steroids and something else for it but I forget what. I think it was asacol and antibiotics. This kind of opened my eyes a little bit into what I was doing to myself, so I went on another “diet”. Actually, I went on several. This time I was sure that I would stick to it because I didn’t want to feel that pain again. I tried everything, South Beach, Atkins, no sugar “diets”, Mediterranean and any other fad “diet” that was going on at the time. I never felt satisfied and when I was hungry, I would find myself cheating on my diet again. The pain never really went away. It was just numb, not severe. I just learned to deal with it. I just said to myself “this how you are supposed to feel while trying to lose weight and have UC, this is normal”. I was also going back to the gym to get into better shape. My routines at the gym became boring, just like all the other times that I went and I stopped going and came off my “diet”. I yo-yoed a lot with my weight during the next three and half years. I’d lose 40 pounds and put back on 30. When I started having that severe pain again, I just went back on my diet and then stopped after I saw results and had that numbing pain. This happened several times during that time, but I managed to get down to 210 lbs.

This is the part where I received my rude awakening. Some parts may be a little graphic, but I tell you to give you a good idea of what was going on with me.

In late September of 2011 I fell off my diet. I started gaining weight again. I’m not sure how much I weighed at the time because honestly, I didn’t want to get on a scale. A few days after Thanksgiving of 2011, I started to get that pain in my left side again, only this time it was really bad and each day it was getting worse. It felt like someone was reaching in my intestines and squeezing with all their might. It hurt. I was also having bowel movements about 20 times a day and the only thing coming out was blood and mucus. I called my gastroenterologist at the time and told him what I was experiencing. He gave me a three week round of steroids and prescribed me Lialda, two pills a day. During this time I stopped going to work because I just couldn’t even get up off the couch without having to use the toilet. After about a week of this not working and still having about 20 bowel movements a day with the same stuff coming out and experiencing extreme pain, I called him up again and told him that it wasn’t working, I asked him if should go the hospital and he said that it wasn’t necessary, and that the meds just needed a little bit more time. So, I listened to him because, after all, he was the doctor. I waited another couple days and nothing got better, so I called my doctor again, but this time he gave me a stronger dose of steroids and upped the Lialda meds to four a day, saying that I should see improvement within a week. After about another week of excruciating pain and 20 trips to the bathroom daily, I didn’t see any improvement. I thought that it just need a little bit more time, so I started procrastinating saying to myself , “just one more day, and I’ll start to feel better.” This went on for about one more week and by this time Christmas was two days away. At this point I wanted to go the ER but I didn’t want my kids having a memory of their dad in the hospital for the holidays, so I waited until afterwards to go. In the early hours of 12/27/11, my wife finally drove me to the Stony Brook hospital ER, a whole month after this ordeal started. I weighed 205 unhealthy pounds. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even walk inside to triage, they had to wheel me in. After a bunch of tests and an 18 hour stay in the ER (and tons of pain killers), they finally admitted me. The next morning the doctors said that I lost so much blood that I needed not one, not two, but three blood transfusions. After that they had me on a heavy dose of antibiotics through my IV and a powerful dose of steroids, all the while my blood sugar hovered around 450 because of the steriods. I was given the powerful pain killer oxycodone, 50 mg every 6 hours on top of the morphine every 4 hours and a host of other meds that I took orally and through my IV. I still had pain but it wasn’t as bad. I was put on a strict diet. After the ninth day I wasn’t getting any better and the pain was still there, it was just numb and I was still going to bathroom about 20 times a day. I told the nurses, the doctors and anyone else who was seeing me at the time. They didn’t ignore me, but I was thinking that they didn’t believe me. I honestly was thinking that they thought I was some drug addict who was making up my symptoms just to score some pain killers, so I took matters into my own hands. Let’s just say that I had a pretty bad bowel movement that day and instead of just flushing it away, I showed one of the nurses. She took one look at it and her exact words were “wow, that’s a lot of blood, let me go the doctor.” After the doctor came up and took a look, he ordered me for a colonoscopy for that Friday morning. After the colonoscopy I remember the doctor coming in and asking her if everything was normal. She looked at me wide eyed and after a long pause said “Mr. Pollack, your intestines are so badly inflamed that we had to stop the procedure because we didn’t want to risk tearing the wall of your intestines, we couldn’t see inside because of this.” This was not good. Later in the day the doctor came back and said that I have two options, the first one was that the next morning they were going to give me a medication called Remicade. I asked her what the second option was and what she said scared the crap out of me (no pun intended). She said that if the Remicade didn’t work, my only other option would be to have an emergency surgery in which they removed my entire large intestine because this was the only known “cure” for the type of UC that I had. That night I looked up on the internet (I had my smartphone with me the whole time) the procedure she was talking about and after reading up on it I thought to myself that this can’t be, how did it come to this. I thought I was too young to be having all these health issues, but in the end I had no one to blame but myself. The next morning they started me on the Remicade and thankfully, by Monday the pain, for the first time in six weeks, started to get better. I was in the hospital from 12/27/11-1/10/12, exactly two weeks and when I left I weighed 183 unhealthy pounds. I didn’t return to work until 2/15/12. I was out of work for almost three months. To this day, every seven weeks I have to go to the Stony Brook Cancer Center to receive the medication Remicade. I’m hooked up to an IV for three to four hours every time. As crazy as this sounds, I look at this as constant reminder of a time when I was down and out and I use this as one of my motivations every day.

After I came home I started to regain my weight before I started to go back to work and by the end of March, I weighed 225 lbs. All the while the pain was still there but it was like the numbing kind I mentioned earlier, and again, I thought that this was normal. Knowing now and fully understanding what was at stake, I wanted to get better, not just for myself but at this time my wife and I were pregnant with our third child. I had to be there for these kids and stop punishing myself for all the things that went wrong in the past. It was not fair to my kids or my wife. So I sat back and thought about all the times in the past when I went on these “diets” and what I did, down to what I ate. Now don’t get me wrong. When I would “diet” in the past, I would actually like the foods that I was eating, it’s just that they all said it was ok to eat processed food and grain based foods which is what my weakness was, and my body craved and eventually led me to cheat each time leading me to gain more weight. So I took a different approach. I said to myself, “what if I stopped looking at my diet as a ‘diet’ and started to think of it as a change in eating habits.” I knew what foods to avoid that would cause flare-ups to my UC and started to eliminate them from my every day consumption. This was fried foods, fast foods and sugary soft drinks. I did this for a while and started to notice that the numbing pain was getting less and less (but never really went away), but my blood sugar was still kind of high along with my BP. I didn’t care because now the pain was less and I was eating better and feeling better too. I still ate whole wheat breads and pastas and pizza and processed foods. I would treat myself to cheat meals and noticed that when I did, the pain would come back. But I thought that it was a small sacrifice for being good all week. My weight went back up to 250 lbs and hovered there for the next eight months. My new year’s resolution this year was to get off of taking my diabetes meds and BP meds that I was still taking every day and to try to find a way to get rid of this numbing pain in my left side.

I remember googling ways to get off diabetes meds and came across several blogs and forums that kept mentioning this thing called The Primal Blueprint. I googled the Primal Blueprint and it brought me to Mark’s blog and website Marksdailyapple.com and I started reading about what it was all about. It sounded simple and not complicated at all, and most of all it made sense: eat what our ancestors ate. This involved getting rid of processed foods and eliminating sugar from the diet and only eating foods that are not only good for you but that are also nutrient dense – things like any type of meat (preferably grass-fed free range), free range eggs, organic veggies and fruits, along with nuts and dairy, and most importantly, bacon. It also mentioned that I should incorporate more healthy fats into my foods. This put a smile on face because I was remembering all the “diets” that told me to eliminate fats. I thought, why not, nothing else that I have tried seemed to be working or gave me the results that I wanted, and looking at the types of foods that were allowed I knew I would like them because I have eaten them before. I could do this. I weighed 255 lbs when I started my new change in eating habits. I say change in eating habits (that’s why I was putting the word diet in quotation marks), because I believe diets don’t work. People approach them wrong. They see short term results and wind up falling off the bandwagon due the cravings their bodies have, and go back to eating what they ate before, leading to more weight gain. I realize and acknowledge that this is not the case for everyone who chooses a diet that works for them. I’ve always said, to each his own, but in my case I couldn’t look at this as a “diet” but rather a change in eating habits. So I started the Primal Blueprint in mid-January of this year and was eating all the different foods that were allowed. I found recipes on Mark’s site and others for some creative meals, and found that they were easier to make than some of the classic dishes like lasagna, chicken parmesan, fried chicken, fried french fries, etc., that I made before I found this way of eating. I found myself enjoying what I ate, it tasted good plus I knew it was healthy for me because I wasn’t using anything artificial or processed, everything was fresh. I ate when I was hungry, which was often, but only ate what Mark outlined and said was good to eat. I ate a lot, but was surprised to find that after a couple of weeks my appetite between meals was less and less and that I was also eating less food at meal time. I was feeling satisfied, but more importantly that numbing pain in my left side was getting better. I still had cheat meals and ate some sugary foods, but I would only keep it one meal. I lost 25 lbs in five weeks and at the beginning of March. I was feeling good and looking good. I figured that now was the time to experiment with no meds. Little by little I weaned myself off my diabetes meds and my BP one too. I was testing my blood sugar and BP six times a day because I was paranoid that it would get to high, but it wasn’t. My 30 day average for my blood sugar was 108 (when I started my 30 day average was 131), and my BP was steadily going down. By May, my 30 day average was 85 and my BP was 115/75 so I stopped taking my meds altogether. I still tested six times a day but found that as long I stuck to the Primal Blueprint, my levels were right where they should be. This made me happy because for the first time in seven years I wasn’t taking any meds for my diabetes and BP. I actually found something that worked without having to starve myself or go on a fad “diet”, and found that most of the foods that I was eating I really liked.

One of the side effects of the Primal Blueprint was that I had an abundance of energy. This was not a bad thing. I wasn’t going to the gym during the time I had started my new change in eating habits because I wanted to get to a weight that I was comfortable with where the muscle heads weren’t judging me. I knew the look that they would give and what they were thinking. I’ve seen it before all the other times I went to the gym and tried to get in shape. I wanted to do something different. While I was reading up on the Primal Blueprint and reading other blogs and forums related to this type of eating, people kept mentioning this thing called CrossFit. I knew of maybe two people who were doing this type of exercise and wanted to know more, so I googled CrossFit and tons of articles and blogs and sample workouts popped up. I started reading CrossFit blogs and forums and thought to myself that there was no way that I can do this type of exercise. These people were out of their minds. I mean after all, who does muscle-ups, burpees, wall balls and WODs called “Fran” and “Grace”? It looked hard, but the more I kept reading about it I found that most of them had one thing in common: they were eating the same stuff I was, paleo/primal. It seemed like the two of them went hand and hand, the ying and yang. The more I read the more to me it looked like a sport rather than a gym type of exercise and coming from an athletic background I started to get curious. So I did a quick search of CrossFit gyms (or boxes as we like to call them) and found that there was one within 10 minutes of my house called CrossFit Kryptonite. I went to take a look. When I got there I was talking to the owner/trainer Mariana Goncalves-DeTore. She explained to me what CrossFit was all about. I was able to see up close what these WODs were all about and noticed that people of all shapes and sizes, young and old, were doing them and more importantly for me, it seemed like nobody was judging you based on your ability. Mariana also explained that all the different types of moves and lifts can be modified to your ability. I mean come on, who can do muscle-ups right off the street without practice? So I signed up for the ramp classes (intro classes to get you accustomed to the lifts) and on July 1, 2013 I started my new workout regime. I weighed 228 lbs. I had a goatee for 12 years and shaved it off the day after I started CrossFit because I figured I needed a change in my appearance to help motivate me; nothing big but something to help me psychologically tell myself that I can’t go back to the old me – overweight, lazy and unhealthy. The first three weeks were brutal. It was hard. I was sore everyday (I still get sore after every workout) and my body had never worked that hard before. The summer heat didn’t help. I just wanted to give up. But a funny thing started to happen and by the end of my one month trial (that’s the amount I gave myself to see if this was for me), I noticed a HUGE difference in the way I looked and felt after I completed the WODs. I liked the fact that CrossFit challenged me the way that no other gym based workout could and most of all I liked the fact I was in competition with myself. The fact that Mariana and Scott (her husband and an owner/trainer himself, he won the 2011 CrossFit games, masters division, with Mariana as his coach) were extremely friendly and eager to assist me in reaching my goals, and that everyone there was friendly and willing to help and explain certain ways to train that have helped them, I knew that this is what I wanted to do, so I signed up for three more months, and after those three months were up, I signed up for another three months.

Photo credit: CrossFit Kryptonite

I now look and feel incredible. No one recognizes me anymore and they all ask me the same question, how did you do it? My answer is simple. I tell them that there is no magic pill, that it’s just good old fashioned diet using the Primal Blueprint, and exercise. Since I started CrossFit back in July, I have lost a total of 35 lbs and 63 lbs in combination with the Primal Blueprint. I currently weigh 193 lbs and my body has gone through a transformation that even I didn’t expect. I don’t feel tired during the day or have hunger pangs, and gone are my cravings for sweets and processed foods. Never did I think that I would look and feel this great after just a few short months. The pictures speak for themselves. With the help of the Primal Blueprint and CrossFit, I’m happy to report that I have no pain in my left side, nada, zip, zilch and that I no longer take my diabetes medicine or BP meds. My current A1C level is 5.1, my BP is 110/70, and my triglycerides have gone back in the normal range. My gastroenterologist is starting to lower the dosage of the Remicade and the frequency at which I receive it. Getting off the Remicade is my next challenge.

I don’t know how to end my story because quite frankly, I’m not finished. I’d like to one day in the near future open my own box and share with as many people as possible my struggles with my weight and my journey that led me to the Primal Blueprint and CrossFit. To show them that it is possible to take control of your health and life. I hope that my story has inspired you to do the same. I’d like to leave you with a line from a song I feel suits me and my situation in terms of my new lifestyle. It’s from the band Audioslave from the song “Show me How To Live”: “is this a cure, or this a disease.”

Special thanks to my wife Kelly – for without her support I would have never been able to accomplish my goals – Mark Sisson for creating the Primal Blueprint and to CrossFit Kryptonite in Center Moriches, NY.

Kevin P.

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A Primal Take on the Holidays: Surviving or Thriving?

Often I hear people talk about “surviving” the holidays. I read “holiday survival guides” and the like. I’ve even used the term myself in the same way on occasion. You could say perhaps the whole survival reference is purely tongue-in-cheek, but the fact is too many people do feel imposing stress this time of year. According to one sizable survey (PDF), close to 40% of us (higher for women than for men) experience stress around holiday preparations/family gatherings, financial pressures, commercial hype, limited time and food temptations (especially true for those who embrace a counter cultural diet). That doesn’t sound like much of a Primal party to me.

The older I get and more I think about it, the more I wonder at the “survival” reference as much as I get the joke in some cases. Surviving the holiday routines, the carb-happy buffets, the office parties, the in-laws’ visit, the onslaught of expenses – it’s all in the five plus weeks of every year we put under the umbrella of the holiday season. (Yet so are all the good memories.) “Surviving the holidays” suggests to me a distant and unhappy (or at least blase) tolerance of it. In life as in food, I always juxtapose the concept of what it takes to survive versus what it takes to thrive. The very comparison throws a whole new light on the subject.

The truth is, I always enjoy this time of year in my own way. That said, I’ll admit I’m not the sentimental type who’s buoyed by my own creative vision of the season. (I admire people who are – like kids and certain friends/family because their enthusiasm is uniquely genuine.) For my part, the commercialism wears on me. The gargantuan expectations fatigue me. I’m not one for large crowds. So forth. I don’t let that stop me from making these weeks some of the best of the year. I do what I enjoy and what makes me feel revitalized. I spend time with family. I do a bit of traveling. I usually snowboard to get a week of true winter experience and to just get away from the business of life for a while. I also say no to a lot of things I’d rather not do. When it’s time to change the calendar, the fact is, the holidays were ultimately my holidays as much as anyone else’s. I don’t anticipate getting these weeks of my life back at a later time through the tail end of a random time warp. I hope I can do more than tolerate this or any other period of my life. I’d like to think my Primal perspective (and basic sense of life expectancy) asks it of me.

If we up the ante on “surviving” the holiday, how do we own the experience and take responsibility for our enjoyment, sanity and health throughout these weeks? Think about those cornerstone Habits of Highly Success Hunter-Gatherers. Why should these weeks be any different? What about the Primal lens could suggest an alternative to the stress inducing routine? Maybe you all can come up with a better word for it, but let me call it mindfulness for now. If we push aside the “shoulds” and “have to” and “but we always” and “everyone is expecting,” we can get off the roundabout for a few minutes and be in the actual moment. When we do, we realize we always have a choice. (Anything, really, is possible, which can be unnerving.) That means awareness of how we participate and how we really feel about the choices we make – be they social plans, holiday menus or family activities. Rather than another list of shoulds to practice, maybe a Primal approach is busting open the question itself. What does it mean to bring a Primal mind and mindfulness to the holidays? I hope you’ll help me take this one apart and add your own best thinking.

The basic customs of the holidays of course hearken back to Grok era communal rituals that contributed to the complex social evolution of our species. Back then perhaps participating in social ritual really was about survival. It was dangerous to be a loner in those days. Today as products of our evolutionary patterns, we’re still impelled to fit in to some degree. We value or at least recognize something of the value of participating in the larger culture we call home. Still, the intense and commercialized expectations today feel like a far cry from those simpler social times. As is often the case, what was once adaptive necessity has been distorted by modern magnification, stretched far beyond its original sense and proportion – hence the literal “fight or flight” experience we put ourselves through shopping in large crowded malls. The irony…yes?

They say when you say yes to something, you’re intrinsically saying no to something else because every yes is a directing of time and focus. What are you saying yes to these holiday weeks? Are they keeping you away from the things that make you feel healthy and happy? What good things are you saying yes to?

Sometimes it’s not quite as much the things themselves (e.g. events, gatherings, etc.) as the attitude and expectations we bring to them. Take a step back, and think for a moment about the energy you’re bringing to something holiday related: a gift you’ll give, a visit you’ll make, a dish you’ll cook, a party you’ll attend, a dinner you’ll share, an activity you’ll participate in. That energy – does it rise from a genuine place? Does it feel positive (I love the chance to get out more and get involved), or does it feel like a nagging stressor? (How many months will it take to pay off all these gifts and travel expenses? What will I possibly be able to eat at dinner that night?) Does it breed gratitude and good will (It will be so good to see them again. I’ve really missed our old times together) or a half-conscious sense of resentment? (Oh, great, another party to show my face at.) Sure, there are days when we need an attitude adjustment because we didn’t sleep well or decided to skip the gym. But if we’re going to be responsible for our experience, does it make sense to ask (in just about every situation), what would it take for me to enjoy this event or meal or day? That’s where it all begins, isn’t it?

Think back to those common stresses people cite under holiday pressures. For example, when we’re wondering about how to deal with our decidedly non-Primal relatives, there are genuine practical concerns that come to mind. That said, how much time and energy do we spend being bothered by a preemptive rendition of the event we play in our minds? Instead of dissecting their penchant for Pilsbury crescent rolls or imagining your mother’s reaction to bringing your own dish, you can enjoy planning for things that would make the day enjoyable for you. Perhaps that means preparing a dish or two to bring along. On the other hand, maybe it means eating before we go, being excited to just talk and enjoy the memories instead of the meal and then cooking up a magnificent Primal feast back at our own homes the next day. The point is, there’s power in setting the clear intention to make the day a success by our own definition. No apologies. No skulking around with our contraband food. Do what you have to do. Eat what you want and be done with any guilt or conflict. (Much of it is our own internalized self-talk anyway.) We’re there with a more important agenda – to enjoy our family. Resolve to let the rest go.

When it comes to stress, how do our choices set us up? What would make us feel abundant this holiday? Maybe it’s not what others we know do or what we’ve done in the past. What could we buy or not buy, what experiences would we prioritize, what time could we preserve, what kinds of play would we enjoy? How much would we get outside? What new adventures would we try? What are the activities you would like to make a tradition because they fill the well for you and expand your and your family’s joy? Likewise, what cultural or family routines should we, for our own sake, let go of? It’s a personal question but an important one.

When we decide to do more than survive – a season or a situation, we take responsibility for our experience and choices to a new level. We become responsible for our own happiness. The holiday – or life in general – becomes that much richer in possibility. The healthiest thing we can often do for ourselves is be honest about what we need. The answer – especially this time of year – might not be convenient, but the result will always be worth it.

What personal Primal intentions are you bringing to the holidays this year? Have you found yourself letting go of any common holiday routines to make room for what you choose to prioritize? Share your thoughts, and thanks for reading, everyone.

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10 Common Arguments Against Dairy Consumption Explored

I’ve celebrated the goodness of dairy fat quite enthusiastically in recent weeks. If you were just joining us, you might have gotten the wrong impression that you’d stumbled into a PR wing of the dairy industry, and that the streets of Mark’s Dairy Apple run whitish-yellow with grass-fed milk fat. No, children aren’t busting open fire hydrants on warm days to dance around in the effervescent spray of kefir, and on winter days it doesn’t rain milk and snow globs of thick Greek yogurt in these parts.

I’m well aware of the darker side to dairy, and today I’ll be exploring the common arguments against dairy consumption. Let’s jump right in:

Grok didn’t drink milk.

True, but the evolutionary argument cannot prove the suitability or unsuitability of a food – it can only generate hypotheses that we can then test or research. The same goes for grain consumption, nighttime artificial light exposure, sedentary living, or any other evolutionary novel activity. It has to be tested.

Takeaway? The relative newness of dairy in the human diet definitely raises concerns about its healthfulness, but it’s not a resounding argument in and of itself.

We’re the only species that drinks the milk of other mammals.

It does seem a bit weird. That’s mankind, though: we do weird things that no other animal could ever conceive of doing. That’s what makes us the top of the food chain. We’re smart and dominant enough to impose our will on nature. It gets us into trouble – see industrial agriculture and artificial trans-fats – but it also improves our station – see the decision of hominids three million years ago to “see how this dead herbivore flesh tastes.” Like the previous argument, this one can only raise hypotheses.

Takeaway? Our species’ departure from, or modification of mammalian norms isn’t always bad. Or good. The specifics matter.

Dairy raises insulin.

It’s true, it does. Both the lactose and dairy proteins exert an insulinogenic effect that when taken in concert rival that of many carbohydrate sources. I actually covered this topic in a post several years ago and found that acute dairy-induced spikes of insulin don’t seem to be related to body fat gain or insulin resistance in healthy people, and that the studies showing a connection between dairy and insulin resistance used skim or low-fat milk, rather than whole. And in athletes trying to recover from training, these insulin spikes may actually promote recovery. Hyperinsulinemia, where insulin is chronically elevated, is another story. If you’re already insulin-resistant, dairy could be problematic.

Takeaway? Dairy’s insulinogenic effect is good for some groups (lean, insulin-sensitive, athletes or trainees looking for muscle recovery), bad for others (insulin-resistant). Context is important.

The betacellulin in dairy can increase cancer.

Betacellulin is a growth factor found in whey that plays an important role in infant growth. In some in vitro studies, isolated betacellulin has been shown to contribute toward the growth of cancer cells. Chris Masterjohn takes apart this argument fairly well, explaining how similar in vitro studies that incorporate conjugated linoleic acid (a trans-fatty acid especially abundant in pastured dairy fat) show that CLA has an inhibitory effect on the promotion of cancer by betacellulin; how most epidemiological studies show no relationship between commercial milk and cancer; how some only support a relationship between low-fat dairy and ovarian and prostate cancer, but not high-fat dairy; and how whole fat milk is actually associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer.

Takeaway? If betacellulin has cancer-promoting tendencies, it’s probably only when isolated from protective dairy compounds such as CLA and saturated fat. Stick to full-fat, pastured dairy.

Dairy is a general growth promoter and can increase cancer.

Loren Cordain and Pedro Bastos (with a couple other collaborators) released a very interesting paper in which they suggest that rather than being just food, milk is an “endocrine signaling system” whose various components – particularly the proteins – are meant to stimulate hormonally-driven growth in a “species-specific” manner. So human breast milk is perfect for how human babies are supposed to grow and tissue differentiate, cow milk is ideal for calf growth, goat milk for kid growth, and so on. Milk proteins stimulate growth by activating the mTOR pathway and stimulating IGF-1 release. Cordain and Bastos link dairy-induced mTOR activation and IGF-1 release with prostate cancer, citing in vitro and epidemiological evidence that milk consumption during certain developmental phases (prenatal, immediately postnatal, and adolescence) can predispose developing prostates to cancer later in life.

More generally, IGF-1 is a growth promoter which is elevated in childhood – because that’s when people are growing at a fairly steady rate – and in certain types of cancer - because that’s another kind of growth, only unwanted. Since dairy protein consumption is pretty consistently linked to increased IGF-1, it’s easy to assume that dairy can increase cancer risk. Good for growing bodies, bad for growing cancer cells.

So, people with cancer or at risk of cancer should avoid dairy, right? I’m not sure. This study found that a whey protein supplement actually increased the vulnerability of cancer cells to chemotherapy among patients with carcinoma. Another study identified several potential roles for milk proteins in cancer prevention. And there’s the classic tale of Campbell’s rats, where high-casein diets were protective against the development of aflatoxin-induced cancer but increased cancer progression once initiated.

Plus, the mTOR pathway is also where muscle growth happens, which may be why GOMAD (gallon of milk a day) is a popular tactic for strength trainees.

Takeaway? Dairy is a growth promoter, which can be good (muscle) or potentially bad (cancer, particularly prostate when consumed at certain developmental stages). It’s unclear if dairy actually promotes tumorigenesis or promotes growth only once the cancer has been established – or neither.

Dairy increases intestinal permeability, thus allowing proteins and other bioactive compounds entrance into the bloodstream. This can precipitate or exacerbate autoimmune diseases.

For years, I’ve heard that “dairy is designed to increase intestinal permeability.” After all, infants need a bit of a leaky gut to allow absorption of large things like colostrum. It would make sense for milk to increase permeability so this could happen. But it turns out that infant guts are innately permeable, not permeable because of dairy. If anything, it looks like dairy might actually make guts less permeable. I didn’t find any human research to this effect, but I did find some interesting studies with surprising results:

Hydrolyzed casein restored intestinal barrier function and prevented diabetes in a diabetes-prone rat. A later study confirmed these results. A specific casein peptide was also shown to reduce intestinal permeability in another study, and beta-lactoglobulin (another protein component of dairy) had similar effects on intestinal tight junction function. And finally, a component of whey has also been shown to reinforce tight junction integrity.

Yeah, I was surprised too.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t connections, even causal, between dairy consumption and autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes, but the presence of leaky gut may be a prerequisite. This would jibe with the observations that people with type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other autoimmune diseases sometimes linked to dairy intake have higher intestinal permeability.

Takeaway? Although these were either rodent or in vitro studies using isolated components of dairy, it seems like the evidence points toward dairy upholding intestinal integrity, if anything. Given existing permeability, dairy proteins can slip through and obviously cause problems, but I’m unaware of evidence showing they increase leaky gut or autoimmune disease on their own absent intestinal permeability.

Dairy has a high acid load, which can lead to bone calcium loss.

I’ve always been skeptical of this one because using the same criteria, meat also has a high acid load on the body. Should we forgo eating meat, which has been shown to improve bone mineral density? Plus, one recent study found that dairy doesn’t actually make the body acidic. Milk and dairy products “neither produce acid upon metabolism nor cause metabolic acidosis.” Further, dairy is a good source of calcium and – particularly in the case of gouda cheese – vitamin K2, both important co-factors in bone metabolism.

Takeaway? Dairy consumption may not ensure or be necessary for good bone health, but it doesn’t seem to negatively impact it.

Dairy contains ample amounts of bioactive hormones which can have negative health effects.

Since a common practice nowadays is the milking of pregnant cows in order to maximize production and estrogen goes up during pregnancy, it seems reasonable to expect elevated levels of estrogen in dairy. Most studies I came across found that some estrogen is present in dairy, with skim milk containing the most bioavailable form of estrogen (conjugated estrogen, the same kind used in oral hormone replacement therapy). For the most part, the amount of active estrogen found in dairy seems too low for physiological relevance. We have too much already in circulation for it to be impacted by dietary sources, some of which will be nullified by digestion.

Dairy proteins can certainly increase IGF-1 (as shown previously) in people, but it’s unclear whether the actual IGF-1 found in dairy has an effect on serum levels. If you’re worried about IGF-1, fermentation takes care of most of it. Stick to fermented dairy like yogurt, kefir, or cheese (which already has health benefits over regular unfermented dairy).

Takeaway? Hormone levels in dairy vary according to production method, pregnancy status of the animal being milked, and chance. For the most part, the amount of hormones in dairy pales in comparison to the endogenous amounts circulating in our bodies at any given time, so even if we had the leakiest gut in the world and everything we ate was absorbed directly into our blood, it would likely have minimal impact on our hormone levels.

Dairy causes acne.

Among food-sensitive acne sufferers, dairy is probably the most commonly reported offender. Indeed, recent studies suggest a connection between skim milk consumption and acne in teenage boys (less so for whole milk) and in girls. Researcher Bodo Melnik points the finger at the mTOR/IGF-1 activating qualities of dairy (and the Western diet at large) as the culprit. It’s a compelling line of argument.

However, one recent study found that fermented dairy enhanced with lactoferrin reduced the incidence of acne, suggesting that dairy isn’t always antithetical to skin health. Raw dairy might work better than pasteurized dairy, since pasteurization destroys the natural lactoferrin content of milk.

Takeaway? Dairy is a common aggravator of acne and is worth removing or avoiding if you have it.

That bovine serum albumin in dairy resembles human collagen type 1 and can increase rheumatoid arthritis through molecular mimicry.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients do seem to produce antibodies to bovine serum albumin, and one case study found that an RA patient achieved relief with cessation of milk consumption and saw symptoms return with resumption. Still, another more recent paper found that BSA antibodies weren’t associated with disease progression or activity (flare-ups) in rheumatoid arthritis, so it’s still theoretical. I would imagine that the problem (if extant) is exacerbated by the presence of leaky gut.

Takeaway? Seems worrisome enough that people with RA might try avoiding dairy, at least as a trial to see how it affects their symptoms. One confounder is that bovine serum albumin is also found in beef muscle meat. RA patients who are reading this: do you notice problems with beef?

Overall, it appears that dairy has both benefits and risks, and that where you fall depends on several factors, like gut health, insulin sensitivity, activity level, age, as well as the quality and form of the dairy (which though I didn’t really get into are implicit when discussing dairy). In other words, it’s extremely variable and personal.

What do you think, folks? Any other anti-dairy arguments out there? Let me know in the comment section!

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Amber Waves of Shame

The following passage is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Denise Minger’s riveting new book Death by Food Pyramid . Order your copy of Death by Food Pyramid by December 31 and get free gifts plus a chance to win Primal prizes valued at $1,800. Learn all the details here.

On a spring night in 1968, thousands of Americans witnessed the televised death of an infant, body no bigger than a toy doll, lying limp as he took his last breath beneath the unflinching gaze of the camera. “This baby is dying of starvation,” the narrator’s voice boomed. “He was an American. Now he is dead.”1

The gut-wrenching footage was part of a CBS documentary called Hunger in America—an exposé on the nation’s hidden plague of starvation. From the backwaters of Alabama to the dusty Navajo reservations of the Southwest, the program pulled viewers into a world of struggle and pain, sending shockwaves throughout the country. Under the nation’s rippling flag of freedom lay a shadow few knew existed: deep poverty and malnutrition in a land that prided itself on abundance.

Among those most deeply affected was Senator George McGovern, who’d been watching the documentary with his wife and daughters. As he recounted decades later, one scene in particular burrowed deep into his conscience and refused to leave. The filmmakers had zoomed in on a young boy standing against the wall of his cafeteria, eyes downcast and solemn. “When you get to school, what do you have to eat there?” one of the CBS reporters asked him.

“Nothing,” the boy replied.

“You don’t have anything to eat when you’re at school?”

“No, sir.”

With the boy’s gaze lost to the floor, the interviewers prodded further, asking how he felt about his situation—standing there day after day with an empty stomach, watching the other children buy their lunches and eat while he could not.

“I feel ashamed.”

It was a pivotal moment for McGovern. He turned to his family, seated beside him in the comfort of their upper middle-class home. “You know, it’s not that little boy who should be ashamed,” he said. “It’s George McGovern, a United States Senator, a member of the Committee on Agriculture.”

The very next day, McGovern marched into the Senate with a mission. He would leverage his political clout for the welfare of the nation, launching a committee dedicated to abolishing America’s hidden hunger. He had no trouble gathering the support he needed. The documentary’s shocking—and, for the country’s pride, disgraceful— exposure of hunger had been enough to galvanize both the public and Congress into action.

A few months later McGovern was named chair of the soon-to-be Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, whose membership would include a number of political big-hitters ranging from the liberal Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts to the conservative Bob Dole of Kansas. It was a rare instance where partisan scuffles fell by the wayside and politicians from both sides of the aisle linked arms for a unified goal.

By 1970, the committee had successfully rekindled the food stamp program, which had lain mostly dormant since the 1940s after piloting during the Great Depression. As the months and years rolled forward, the committee approved a series of specialized “safety nets” to protect low-income individuals and families against hunger and malnutrition, including the launch of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), still in place today.

Just as McGovern’s anti-hunger mission began to see success, he announced that he would run for president of the United States, a campaign that proved to be an uphill battle nearly from the start. McGovern had already tussled with the Nixon administration over letting him expand the food stamp program, but with the stakes now raised to presidential proportions, animosity became even more cutthroat. And one of McGovern’s rivals was Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl “Rusty” Butz—a man whose legacy, to some, was almost as foul as his mouth.

While McGovern was busy tackling national hunger and juggling his campaign efforts, Butz had his hands tied with a pursuit of his own: siphoning every drop of political support away from McGovern and depositing it back into the Nixon administration. Not shy about his vote lust, one of Butz’s most prized possessions was a woodcarving of two elephants in the heat of passion, which he gleefully whipped out from behind his desk whenever he had visitors—explaining, somewhat poetically, that it symbolized his quest for Republican farm votes to be fruitful and multiply.2 And his chief plan for making that happen? Dangle the promise of bigger profits in front of the nation’s food growers.

As we shall soon see, opportunity came in spades just when Butz needed it most.

The Great Grain Robbery

The year 1972 gave us more than just The Godfather and Watergate: it also heralded in an international food scandal whose impact is still reverberating. The Great Grain Robbery, also known as the Soviet Wheat Deal, remains so unknown today that it might read more like a bad conspiracy theory than a historical event. Sneaky Soviets. Clandestine contracts. A man with the last name “Butz.” Yet it’s a tale that is as true as it is fantastical—and its effects not only helped seal McGovern’s defeat, but also launched a period of agricultural tumult that would ripple through our food guidelines for decades to come.

In the early 1970s, the world’s food outlook was a thing of much misery. Global soybean production was down 7 percent. America’s corn crop had been ruthlessly clobbered—first with drought, and then by early frost—resulting in what could only be deemed a mass cereal killing. Canada’s wheat supply hit a ten-year low. Monsoon-ravaged Asia found itself short on rice. And the USSR, suffering both from unfortunate weather and its own questionable agricultural practices, was in the direst situation of all.3

Clearly in a jam but tight-lipped about just how sticky of one, the Soviet Union turned to America with a somber plea and open wallet. Their goal was to purchase a hefty amount of US wheat to make up for their shortage—a move that would become the single biggest grain trade the world had ever seen, kicking off a massive shift in America’s relationship with its own food system.

Fig. 7. Senator George McGovern displays cans of soda, sugar, and fat during a 1977 news conference to discuss the Dietary Goals for the United States

In 1971, when President Nixon first pulled Butz into the USDA’s fold, American agriculture was still trembling under decades-old fears. Since the 1930s, corn farmers had been cashing paychecks in exchange for leaving some of their land fallow in the face of over-production—a strategy to keep supply in line with demand. The pay-not-to-plant system had emerged as part of the New Deal, a series of economic programs intended to combat the effects of the Great Depression. While farmers had previously endured boom-and-bust cycles that shot their income all over the map (too often in the wrong direction), the New Deal aimed to turn those profit roller coasters into something more even-keeled.

Butz, eager to squash out anything with even the faintest aroma of socialism, decided it was time for a change. Viewing America’s agricultural system as a caged animal that needed to be freed, he deregulated the market for the first time in decades—tearing down the supply management policies that’d been in place since the Depression, abolishing production limits, and letting the free market reign once again. His selling point—trumpeted loudly to the farmers whose votes he was chasing—was that food producers could rake in more money if they grew as much as possible and sold their surplus overseas, reveling afterward in their products’ price hikes.

So when the Soviet Union came knocking on America’s door looking to gobble up its grain surplus, Butz saw nothing unpalatable about the situation. In fact, shuttling America’s bounty overseas would help push grain prices higher than they’d been in quite some time. Higher prices would impress the nation’s farmers. And impressing the nation’s farmers would earn Butz the political support he was vying for. His copulating elephants, had they not been pint-sized and inanimate, would have surely rejoiced.

Thinking the maneuver would be a political coup for Nixon and a sting for McGovern’s campaign, Butz helped seal the grain deal and waited for his farm-profit-boosting plan to take root. It didn’t hurt that McGovern, a native of South Dakota who was born and raised in a small farming community, had already been labeled the candidate of “amnesty, abortion, and acid” due to some of his public opinions; outshining the Democratic hopeful on the farm front would only further tarnish his image in the conservative Midwest.4

There was just one problem: along with their above-board agreement with the US government, the Soviets also made secret alliances with some of the nation’s top grain producers. So instead of buying just $150 million worth of wheat as expected, they secured nearly $1 billion of the grainy treasure—all at dirt-cheap subsidized prices. With deft timing, the USSR tiptoed away with a full quarter of America’s wheat crop before market prices had a chance to shoot up from increased demand.

Although the Great Grain Robbery’s aftermath would eventually cause rampant inflation and riot-inducing surges in American food prices, farmers saw their promised profit boost just in time for the 1972 election. And to Butz, that was the only thing that mattered. He developed his own gravitational force for political support, drawing in votes from the Midwest farm belt and earning back pats galore from big agribusiness. Butz’s dictum—“Get big or get out!”—ensured a food production future where farming practices could revolutionize and expand like never before.

Michael Pollan best summarizes this shift in his book Omnivore’s Dilemma, stating that Butz, because he believed big farms were more productive, pushed farmers to consolidate and regard themselves not as farmers but as “agribusinessmen”—or as he put it in another one of his quotable quotes, “adapt or die.” Pollan goes on to write that by the 1980s, the big grain buyers like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) took a hand in shaping the farm bills, which predictably came to reflect their interest more closely than those of farmers.5

But for now, it’s still 1972. And with former fence-sitters firmly won over to Nixon’s side, the election became a landslide victory for the Republican party and an utterly annihilating loss for McGovern—with Nixon’s percentage of the popular vote coming in second only to Lyndon Johnson’s record-setting win in the 1964 election. Barry Goldwater, the candidate Johnson had mercilessly crushed, later mailed McGovern a political cartoon that placed the two of them side by side, spoofing the dourly father and daughter in the painting “American Gothic,” linking them by their devastating defeats. “George—if you must lose, lose big,” Goldwater had scribbled on the cartoon.6

The levity wasn’t enough to soothe McGovern. Scarred and anguished by the loss, he and his wife contemplated moving to England in the months following the election.7 He opted instead to remain state-bound and threw himself with renewed vigor into tackling American health and hunger. In the end, he still yearned to leave an impact on the nation.

Pritikin and the Lowfat Revolution

It wasn’t long before McGovern’s concern with diet bled across political borders and into his own life. Following the election, he encountered a man whose radical message would reform McGovern’s kitchen, profoundly influence his views on health, and ultimately trickle into the nation’s future. Enter Nathan Pritikin: an inventor-turned-diet-guru who’d famously declared, “All I’m trying to do is wipe out heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.”8

After securing patents in fields ranging from photography to aeronautics to engineering, Pritikin turned his gaze to the most intricate machinery of all: the human body. He’d developed a fascination with heart disease after discovering its rates had mysteriously plummeted in wartime Europe. An established problem-solver, Pritikin was determined to figure out why. His own sleuthing—which launched him on a journey through various universities, scientific papers, and doctor’s offices—eventually landed him at the door of Dr. Lester Morrison, a California-based cardiologist who’d also been intrigued by the drop in heart disease during World War II. Speculating that the lowfat, low cholesterol, rationed diet forced upon much of Europe might have something to do with it, Morrison spent the early 1950s testing the theory on his patients. For fifty of the most ill men under his care, Morrison prescribed a diet mimicking that of wartime Europe; for another fifty, the control group, he let them eat whatever they chose.

The results were profound. While patients in the control group were dropping like flies, those on the mock-rationed diet saw their cholesterol level plunge and their survival rates double.9

In 1956, after catching wind of Morrison and his experiments, Pritikin stopped by the doctor’s clinic for a checkup of his own. The news was discouraging: with a cholesterol level topping 300 and an electrocardiogram showing coronary insufficiency, Pritikin, at the young age of forty-one, was himself a victim of heart disease.

The diagnosis was enough to spur him into action. Unconvinced by the era’s standard advice to cardiac patients—to stop exercising, stop climbing stairs, rest often, and take naps in the afternoon—Pritikin plowed deeper into research, eventually stumbling across population studies showing that when blood cholesterol fell below 160, heart disease seemed to vanish. It was a compelling solution in Pritikin’s mind. By 1960, after adopting a lowfat, sugar-free, salt-free vegetarian diet and adding a three-mile run to his daily schedule, he managed to slash his cholesterol to a mere 120—and a new stress test showed the coronary insufficiency that first frightened him into action was now gorgeously reversed.

In the following decades, Pritikin conducted a series of projects testing whether his spartan diet-and-exercise regimen could save hearts other than his own. By 1975, with mounting evidence in the affirmative, Pritikin opened his namesake Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Barbara, California, inviting members of the public to take part in the same program that had saved his own life. Soon rolled in the book deals, the magazine articles, and the television interviews, including a popular segment on 60 Minutes that brought Pritikin’s message to the nation.

Though Pritikin’s plan seemed impressive when it came to slaying heart disease, its effects on health weren’t universally glowing. As former Pritikin Center director Joe D. Goldstrich noted, when long-time adherents of the Pritikin diet returned to the center for follow-ups, many had developed dry, itchy skin—an outward manifestation of an essential fatty acid deficiency.10 The complaints were copious enough to convince Pritikin to add a weekly helping of salmon to the diet. And while the program enjoyed success in battling chronic disease and excess weight, its multifaceted approach—reducing not just fat intake but also sugar, refined grains, salt, and most heavily processed foods—was often lost on the public and media, who interpreted the program mainly as a lowfat boot camp.

And so it goes that McGovern, whose own cholesterol level totaled a worrying 350, ventured to California to participate in Pritikin’s increasingly famous program. Perhaps it was the “filling but not thrilling” menu that stopped him short of becoming a puritanical devotee.11 Or maybe it was the senator’s demanding schedule and social obligations that didn’t easily bend to such a rigid diet. Either way, McGovern spent the next several decades steering his diet in a Pritikin-esque direction, noting in a later interview:

You can’t go to somebody’s house and say, “Oh, I can’t eat any of this.” So I try to cut down on overall consumption. When I’m traveling, I always can order a salad with only vinegar—no blue cheese. For breakfast I can get, almost anywhere, oatmeal with skim milk, a sliced banana, unbuttered wheat toast. A piece of fish for lunch is fine.12

A description of his food choices at a banquet in 1988 reflects a similar theme. According to Philadelphia’s Inquirer, McGovern “ate heartily through lowfat courses consisting of precisely 2.5 ounces of chicken breast, assorted salt-free and butter-free vegetables, a baked potato with a dollop of fat-free yogurt, and a piece of carrot cake sweetened with apple juice concentrate.”13 And while it may seem baffling that a man showered with an abundance of delicious, catered foods would opt for such a modest menu, McGovern had good reason to stay motivated: even rough adherence to the Pritikin diet had slashed his cholesterol to 170, pleasing both him and his physicians.14 It didn’t hurt that his wife Eleanor—who had also spent time at the Longevity Center—was a gifted cook who, per McGovern’s own words, “makes the Pritikin diet the best of anyone I know.”15

After Pritikin committed suicide in 1985—taking his own life rather than endure the final days of the radiation-induced leukemia he’d been battling—McGovern spoke as the principal eulogist at his funeral, celebrating the man’s life instead of mourning his death. Describing their relationship as “fast friends, mutual admirers, and fellow crusaders,” McGovern’s ongoing admiration for the lowfat diet king shone through his words:

Nathan Pritikin is one of the great men of our time. I say is a great man rather than was, because he achieved in the way he lived an immortality that will enrich all of us for the rest of our lives. …

He demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that the American diet—rich in fat, sugar, salt, nicotine, and alcohol—was the enemy of health and longevity. … When a reporter asked me if Nathan were [sic] controversial, I laughed and said ‘Of course he was controversial. So was [sic] Louis Pasteur, and Thomas Edison and Madame Curie. You show me an original thinker with a mobilizing vision, and I’ll show you a controversial figure.’ That is another mark of a great man.16

Given what the future had in store for McGovern’s own name and image, the statement was strangely prophetic. McGovern, too, would go down in history as an icon of controversy, for much the same reason as Pritikin.

Get Death by Food Pyramid Today and Learn How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Ruined Your Health… and How to Reclaim It!

Notes

“Video: Making America Stronger: U.S. Food Stamp Program,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 8, 2007, http:// www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&am....
Richard Goldstein, “Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98,” New York Times, February 4, 2008, http:// www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/washington....
“Food Conference: Let Them Eat Words?” Science News 1, no. 18 (1974): 278.
“’Meet the Press’ Transcript for July 15, 2007,” NBC News, aired July 15, 2007, transcript, http://www.nbcnews.com/ id/19694666/page/7/.
Michael Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 52.
Michael Leahy, “What Might Have Been,” Washington Post, February 20, 2005.
Joe McGinniss, “Second Thoughts of George McGovern,” New York Times, May 6, 1973, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract. html?res=F20B13FD3954137A93C4A9178ED85F478785F9.
“Biography: Nathan Pritikin, Founder,” Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa, accessed February 20, 2013, www.pritikin.com/ home-the-basics/about-pritikin/press-room/item/biography-na- than-pritikin-founder.html.
Ibid.
Joe D. Goldstrich, personal phone interview, February 8, 2013.
“McGovern Lauds Pritikin,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 1, 1985.
Darrell Sifford, “A Dozen Years Later, McGovern Defends Diet Recommendations,” Spokane Chronicle, March 4, 1986.
Curtis Rist, “McGovern Tastefully Moderate,” Inquirer, February 6, 1988.
Sifford, “A Dozen Years Later, McGovern Defends Diet Recommendations.”
Ibid.
Eugenia Killoran, “The Remarkable Friendship of Senator George McGovern and Nathan Pritikin,” Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa, accessed February 20, 2013, http://www.pri- tikin.com/success-stories/194-myblog/....

Dear Mark: Peppermint Tea, Heirloom Wheat, Dips, Waking Up When It’s Dark, and Feeding an Adopted Infant

For today’s Dear Mark, we’ve got four questions. Actually, there are five because one of the questions has two parts. First, I discuss the anti-androgenic effects of peppermint tea. Beneficial for PCOS, a mixed bag for males? Next is a two-parter about heirloom wheat (is it Primal?) and failure stories (do I get email from people who haven’t had resounding success with the Primal lifestyle?). Then, I explain what your dip technique (tricep exercise, not chip consumption method) should look like in order to minimize the risk to your shoulder health. Finally, I help a reader out with a conundrum: being unable to get going in the morning because it’s so dark outside upon waking. My wife Carrie takes over from there, giving her take on a few approaches to feeding an adopted infant.

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I noticed while reading Tara Grant’s The Hidden Plague, that drinking spearmint tea can lower androgens and can help with PCOS in women.

I don’t have HS or PCOS, but have always enjoyed throwing a bag of peppermint tea into my green tea a couple times a day.

I’ve never had a particularly strong libido, so should I stop with the peppermint tea?

On the opposite end, I have some thinning hair at the temples, so lowering DHT might help.

What do you think?

Regards,

Joe

You might be looking at the potential double-edged sword of pharmacological intervention, Joe.

Sure enough, mint tea can reduce androgens. In rats, peppermint tea lowers testosterone and increases follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone levels. The reduction in testosterone could very well lower libido. A close relative of peppermint – spearmint – has also been used to lower hirsutism in women by way of lower free testosterone and greater luteinizing hormone levels. That may sound like a bad thing for hair loss – less hirsutism means less hair, right? Not exactly. The same mechanisms that induce hirsutism in women tend to induce hair loss in men. That’s why hair loss drugs like finasteride (also known as Propecia) are used to treat hirsutism in women. Of course, a well-known side effect of finasteride is the destruction of libido. Again, double-edged sword.

I’d suggest giving a peppermint-less green tea a shot for a couple weeks to see if anything changes. There’s no right answer here. There’s only experimentation, and a weighing of costs and benefits. What’s more important to you? Libido or hair around the temples? It might not even come down to that, of course. You could drop the tea, see a boost to libido, and suffer no further hair loss. Or vice versa. Good luck.

Dear Mark,

1. Are Emmer and Einkorn wheat primal, or a treat in the 20%? Grok didn’t grow grains, but he must have encountered and harvested limited amounts in season.

2. Every Friday you post a Success Story. Do people send you failure stories where Primal didn’t work for them (assuming they truly followed it). And is there anything to learn from failure stories?

April

1. Heirloom or “ancient” wheat varietals are definitely not Primal, but they’re probably “better” than modern wheat varieties. Einkorn, for example, has been shown to cause less intestinal toxicity in patients with celiac. Emmer has more antioxidants than regular durum wheat, but less than quinoa. Plus, the very fact that they aren’t dwarf wheat, which comes with its own set of problems – including enhanced gluten reactivity and poorer mineral density – is a big plus.

But it’s still wheat, and it’s still got many of the same anti-nutrients as regular old wheat. There’s gluten, of course, but there are also amylase inhibitors. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what constitutes an acceptable 20%. I personally avoid grains, particularly the gluten-containing kind, because I can feel the effects immediately upon eating a decent amount. A bite of really good, really crusty bread with butter at a restaurant? It’s been known to find its way into my mouth without much ill effect. You won’t see me eating pizza, muffins, or pasta, though. That’s my choice. Yours is entirely up to you.

2. I don’t get failure stories, per se, though I do get plenty of emails from people who are still having issues despite having gone Primal. That’s actually my intent. It’s why I bill our Friday stories as “Primal Blueprint Real Life Stories,” not just “Success Stories.” Real life isn’t composed entirely of pristine, perfect lifestyles and triumphant, resounding victories over everything that ever ails you. Real life is real people with real problems – problems that don’t always go away in an instant. There are successes and failures and slip-ups, and repeats of each in turn.

I learn a ton from the struggles! Whether it’s because they write back after having figured out the issue on their own, or because I decide to research and write an answer to their question (either through Dear Mark questions or an entirely new post), I’m often forced to challenge my beliefs and reevaluate previously-held opinions. It’s really not an option. I can either face (new) facts or become irrelevant. And that goes for everyone – the struggle is how we grow and evolve.

Hey, Mark! I love to do dips along with the 4 basic movements (pushup, pullup, squat, plank) for my workouts, but are dips good for us in the long term? It seems to me like they might cause shoulder problems after years of doing them.

Nathanael

Dips are great, until they’re not. I used to be a dipping machine until I hurt my shoulder, probably going too low and ignoring the warning signs my body was giving off among other things. If you’re going to do dips, be very aware of your technique. Some tips:

Stay as upright as possible. Avoid leaning too far forward.
Chest up, shoulders back. “Pack” your shoulders back and down so that they are aligned with your ears; this will protect them by helping you engage the lats and abs to stabilize the body. It’s pretty common to see people doing dips with “hunched” shoulders, which is why dips are so commonly associated with pain and injury.
Only go below parallel if your mobility is up to par. If you feel like your anterior shoulder/pec is stretching excessively, you’re probably sacrificing technique for depth. Stop when you feel the stretch.
Aim to keep your forearms perpendicular (or close to it) to the bars.
If you have existing shoulder issues, be very careful. Use assistance as needed. I’d already tweaked my shoulder going for a 1 RM on bench, so this could have made things worse for me.
Consider using gymnastics rings. They’re far more difficult, but when done correctly they allow your shoulders more freedom. You’re not locked into a specific grip width as with parallel bars. If you’ve never done ring work, you’ll probably have to work up to a full rep by using support (one foot on a box or chair).
Balance them out with external rotation exercises: Cuban presses, face pulls, and shoulder prehab routines. Make sure you’re doing plenty of pulling, too: pullups and rows.
Listen to your body! If you’re experiencing pain, stop. If your shoulder is popping and clicking – even without pain – stop and reevaluate your form. If a rep feels “weird,” just stop for the day. It’s not worth it. The shoulder is a fragile thing (that’s partially why it’s been so important to human evolution!).

You can think of dips as upper body squats. Very powerful and effective, but dangerous if you’re not using proper form. If you’re smart about it, I don’t see why you couldn’t do them for the foreseeable future.

Today, I read this article in the New Yorker, which not only explains why hitting the snooze button is probably counterproductive, but also how many of us are shortchanging our sleep due to “social jetlag.” I was particularly struck by this sentence: “It’s bad to sleep too little; it’s also bad, and maybe even worse, to wake up when it’s dark.”

But what do you do in the winter at a northern latitude? I live in Berlin, Germany, which has a latitude of something like 52.5 N. In North America, this would be the equivalent of living in Newfoundland. Right now, it’s still dark at 8 am, and it’s dark again by 3:30 pm.

Stephanie

Yeah, that’s a rough one. It used to be that cities set their own time zones, at least in the United States, according to the availability of light. Noon was whenever the sun was highest in the sky. This made time zones more “natural.”

Unfortunately, we are now privy to the constraints of schedules set to arbitrary times established without regard to natural light cycles. To beat it, we’ll have to continue the trend and impose artifice to “beat” nature. The easiest and most effective way is probably to expose yourself to massive amounts of bright light immediately upon waking. And not just regular old house lighting, but rather ultra-bright lighting designed to combat seasonal affective disorder by mimicking natural light. Something in the range of 10,000 lux should do, like this. Plan for at least 10 minutes, preferably 20, of direct light exposure. Put it in the bathroom as you get ready. It works well with few side effects and may even reduce your sweet cravings.

Consider getting a wake up light, too, instead of a regular alarm clock (or use your alarm clock as a backup). The folks at Philips, makers of the morning wake up light I’ve linked to in the past, actually ran a study (no doubt biased of course, but that doesn’t necessarily negate the results; see the PDF here and decide for yourself) on the effects of switching from a standard alarm clock to their wake up light. People in the experimental group using the wake up light reported feeling more alert, more awake, and that it was easier to get up in the morning. They were also more likely to report having become morning people.

And now, let’s hear from Carrie:

So I am still a few years away from this, but I have been thinking of this question for awhile now. When I am ready to have children, I want to adopt. I just read that you breastfed your children for at least 1 year, and that children under 6 months should really just be breastfed, however that is something I will not be able to do since I will be adopting. I will be adopting a new born, and I am not sure what I should feed my future child before I can feed them solid food. What would you suggest?

Julie

Well, if you’re lucky and the anecdotes are to be believed, some adoptive parents can actually begin lactating. A case study from the Journal of Human Lactation points to an adoptive mother who used a combination of therapies and pharmaceuticals (bilateral pumping, metoclopramide, and syntocinon) to induce lactation. It took four months for milk to actually appear, but by the fifth month of the child’s life he was exclusively breastfed and gaining weight on schedule. I’ve also heard from friends and lactation consultants that adoptive mothers can sometimes even spontaneously lactate just from the surge of motherhood hormones. According to Kelly Mom, most adoptive mothers who induce lactation are able to supply between 25% and 75% of the child’s needs through breast milk. That means you may want to have supplementary food on hand just to be safe. Also, note that even if you can’t feed your baby entirely from the breast, you’re still improving your bond with your new child by breastfeeding some of the time and that’s arguably just as important as the nutrition.

If you end up trying to start lactation via pharmaceuticals, you’ll want to discuss that with your OB/GYN. Otherwise, breastfeeding as an adoptive mother involves trying the same things a birth mother might try to increase supply, only more so!

Explore galactogogues like fenugreek, blessed thistle, and fennel which have been shown to increase supply.
Feed as often as possible, about every 2 to 3 hours. Feeding increases demand and therefore supply.
Use your breast as comfort, even if the baby isn’t really hungry. Fussy baby? Offer the breast.
Pump and/or hand express. It’s not as effective as nursing at increasing supply, but it definitely helps, especially on top of regular feeding.
Read more tips from Kelly Mom, pretty much the premier site for breastfeeding advice.

If breastfeeding isn’t an option, the next best step is using donor milk. A Facebook group called Human Milk 4 Human Babies can help you get set up with a local donor. There’s also a great website called MilkShare with lots of resources for finding a mother-to-mother milk donor.

Some will try to scare you away from unregulated donor milk, saying it can contain live viruses like HIV. And while that’s technically true, it’s extremely rare and really shouldn’t be an issue if you use milk from someone you know and trust. Ultimately the choice is yours.

There are also donor milk banks, but the problem with those is the milk is pasteurized, thus negating many of the immune benefits and altering the composition of the proteins. It’s definitely better than not using breast milk, though.

Homemade formula is a thing, too! And it’s actually pretty good! The Weston A. Price Foundation has a few recipes for making formula using either raw cow milk, raw goat milk, or liver as the base. If you can get your hands on raw milk, that’s probably the best alternative for you and your baby. Even if you can’t, vat-pasteurized, non-homogenized milk can work, too (after all, standard formula uses high heat-treated milk). See if there’s any raw milk near you.

I found that during breastfeeding eye contact happened naturally and it was a meaningful bonding experience. While bottle feeding I had to make a conscious effort to maintain the same level of eye contact and connection, so make sure to emphasize that!

Another way I bonded with my babies was through infant massage. Today I would use coconut oil for this and if you’d like to learn more you can go to the International Infant Massage Website. I started massaging them as infants and even today Kyle at 19 years old asks for a back massage if he is sore from his workouts. It is a sweet way to stay connected to your own grown son.

Good luck! Whatever happens, as long as you love your new baby, everything will work out great!

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and be sure to send in your questions!

The Perfect Holiday Gift, The Primal Blueprint Box Set Is Now Available! Get FREE Apparel and Grok Decal with Purchase Through Dec. 18. Learn All the Details Here.

Weekend Link Love

Submit a story about how your life would benefit if you won to Tara Grant, (possibly) win five copies of her smash hit The Hidden Plague!

New dates/locations have been added to the Primal Blueprint Transformation Seminar series.

Have you seen the new book? Death by Food Pyramid is now available, and we’ve got a special offer running through Dec. 31.

Only 3 days remain on the Primal Blueprint Box Set limited-time offer. Learn all the details here.

Research of the Week

Paleolithic hunter-gatherers residing near the English Channel area of England and Northern France just so happened to select sites with the greatest availability and density of important macronutrients and micronutrients. This suggests that true Paleolithic diets were replete with desired nutrients; they weren’t scrounging on the outskirts of starvation just to get by.

Exercise is as effective as many leading pharmaceuticals at preventing death, according to a new analysis (the first of its kind to compare drugs to exercise). Seeing as how most typical exercise prescriptions involve chronic cardio and other inefficient methods, I’d wager that exercise has the potential to be even more effective than most medicines.

Well whadya know: hidradenitis supparativa has been linked to metabolic syndrome.

Interesting Blog Posts

How eating tofu – even the fermented kind – made Seth Roberts stupid.

The Diet Doctor explains what’s really going on with butter and heart disease in Sweden.

Creatine: not just for muscles.

Media, Schmedia

Speaking of butter, in the last Dear Mark, I misspoke. It turns out that US butter consumption has reached its highest level in 40 years. I like to think we have something to do with that.

Dr. Cate Shanahan, who is presenting at PrimalCon Vacation Tulum and hard at work preparing for our launch of a unique metabolic consulting program in early 2014, has made national news for her assistance with NBA All-Star Dwight Howard – helping him reduce his sugar consumption – and the Los Angeles Lakers:

Nutrition in the NBA; Part I: Lessons learned in L.A. help Howard’s career
Nutrition in the NBA; Part II: Paleo diet takes hold for myriad reasons
Nutrition in the NBA; Part I: Dwight Howard Q&A
The Los Angeles Lakers PRO Nutrition Plan

Wheat avoidance isn’t just about gluten. Wheat germ agglutinin (a lectin) might be an even bigger problem for more people.

A school in Melbourne is now offering a “standing classroom” where students can stand or sit at height-adjustable desks.

Everything Else

What the new cholesterol guidelines should really focus on.

If you’re gonna drink milk, drink organic milk. It has more beneficial fatty acids than conventional milk.

From Melicious comes a great list of Christmas gifts from the kitchen – that you make yourself.

A bison family farm has run into some unforeseeable issues; their well has just died and they need a new one (or expensive repairs) before their herd dies, too. Check out their Indie Gogo campaign to see if you’d like to contribute.

If you’ve got an hour and a half to spare (and even if you don’t, you should make time), check out Vanishing Point, a great documentary about what happens when a group of Inuit reject “gas and sugar” culture in favor of traditional ways.

A cubic foot of space in a Cape Town public park contains 30 different plant species and 70 different insect species. The same space in a Costa Rican strangler fig tree 100 feet off the ground entertains more than 150 different species of plants and animals. How about a cubic foot placed in an Iowa corn field? What did it contain? One mushroom, one tiny ant, a red mite, several grasshoppers, and a ton of corn.

Recipe Corner

Every self-respecting Primal eater should know how to produce the perfect soft boiled egg. Here is a method that one person swears by.
This paleo Asian chicken and kelp noodle stir-fry from the preppy paleo looks fantastic.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 15 – Dec 21)

15 Primal Ways to Savor the Holiday Season – The holiday season is frequently a manic period of rushing about at breakneck speed, elevated blood pressure readings, and cortisol spikes. Here are fifteen ways to relax and savor what should be a rejuvenating time.
Should You Get Your Genome Sequenced? – Does personal genetic sequencing provide actionable, evidence-based data that we can utilize right here, right today?

Comment of the Week

If I took a poo pill it would have to be one made by you Mark 

- Actually, you’ve just blown the lid off an upcoming Primal Blueprint product: Primal Crapsules. Enteric-coated caps filled with fecal matter from healthy dieters. For a premium, we’ll even be offering restored coprolite samples from various paleolithic sites. Want Neanderthal gut flora? You’ll be able to!

Death by Food Pyramid, the Highly Anticipated New Book by Denise Minger, is Now Available! Get FREE Gifts When You Order by Dec. 31. Learn All the Details Here.

Grill-Roasted Prime Rib

There’s nothing quite as decadent as prime rib. A crispy, salty exterior and rare, tender interior marbled generously with fat is pure meat heaven. The only thing sinful about prime rib is cooking it wrong, resulting in a flabby or tough roast with little flavor.

The cost of prime rib makes screwing up especially painful. There are a million different recipes for how to cook prime rib in the oven, all very similar and all claiming to be the best method. But those recipes are all wrong. The best method, hands down, is throwing that big expensive hunk of meat on a charcoal grill first then gently roasting it in the oven until prime rib perfection is reached.

If cooking prime rib over a real live fire makes you nervous, relax. Cooking outdoors with the smell of charred beef wafting through the air is about as good as life gets. A charcoal fire gently and perfectly browns the meat in a short amount of time. You get a crispy, browned crust without causing any of the interior meat to overcook; it remains pink all the way through. Plus, grilling gives the meat a subtle smoky flavor you’re going to love.

Once the meat is browned on a charcoal grill (a gas grill isn’t recommended for this recipe), the roast is finished in a low heat oven where it’s easy to control and monitor the temperature. That’s it! Simple, right? The roast that emerges will be legendary – perfectly cooked prime rib that’s crispy, tender, rare, juicy and flavorful.

Servings: 8

Time in the Kitchen: About 4 hours, plus 2 hours to bring the meat up to room temperature

Ingredients:

4 rib standing beef rib roast (about 8 to 10 pounds/3.6 to 4.5 kg)
2 teaspoons kosher salt (10 ml)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (30 g)
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper (5 ml)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed (5 ml)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary (30 ml)

Instructions:

Salting the Meat:

There are two approaches to salting the meat:

Salt 24 hours ahead of time and leave the roast uncovered in the refrigerator, then leave it uncovered at room temperature for 2 hours before cooking.
Salt 2 hours before cooking and leave the roast uncovered at room temperature.

Salting the meat 24 hours ahead of cooking means the salt will penetrate deeper into the meat, producing a more evenly seasoned roast. Salting only 2 hours ahead will produce a saltier crust that is balanced by less salty meat. Neither method is necessarily better; it’s a matter of personal taste.

Either way, 2 hours before cooking the roast you’ll mix together the melted butter, black pepper, garlic, coriander and rosemary in a small bowl. If you haven’t already rubbed down the roast with salt 24 hours before, then also add the 2 teaspoons of salt to the mixture.

Rub down the roast with the seasoning mixture. Let the roast sit at room temperature for 2 hours.

Prepare the coals for your charcoal grill. Arrange the heated coals so there is a hot side and a cooler side of the grill. Set an oiled rack above the coals and let the rack get hot before putting the roast on the grill.

Over the hottest side of the grill, sear the roast for about 5 minutes per side, until the entire roast is nicely browned. In between turning the roast, keep the lid on the grill.

When the roast is browned, move it to the cooler side of the grill and cook for another 8 to 10 minutes with the lid on. This will give the meat a gentle smoked flavor.

Preheat the oven to 250 ºF (121 ºC).

Put the meat on a roasting pan fat side up and ribs down. You can use a rack in the roasting pan, but don’t have to because the rib bones lift the meat up off the surface of the pan.

As a general rule, roast the meat in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes per pound. However, keep your digital thermometer handy and check it often.

Prime Rib Meat Temperature Guide:

120 F to 125 ºF for rare (48 to 51 ºC)
125 F to 130 ºF for medium-rare (51 to 54 ºC)

Remember, the meat will continue to cook a little after it’s taken out of the oven, so it’s wise to take the roast out about 5 degrees before it reaches your ideal temperature.

Allow the meat to rest outside of the oven for 20 to 30 minutes before carving.

Recipe Notes:

This recipe was adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s Grill-Roast Prime Rib recipe. According to him, the prime rib can be grilled up to 2 days ahead before roasting it.

This recipe can be adapted for smaller or larger roasts by following these guidelines:

For a bone-in prime rib, figure 2 servings per rib bone or 1 pound (450 g) per person (you should have leftovers)
For seasoning, use 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) of kosher salt and 1/4 teaspoon (a pinch) black pepper per rib bone if you’re seasoning just 2 hours before cooking the roast. If seasoning 24 hours before, double the amount of salt and pepper.
For the butter, use 1/2 tablespoon (7 g) for every rib bone in the roast




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For the First Time Ever, I Feel Healthy and Happy

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!

Hi Mark,

I was always a little on the big side as a kid, but as I got older my weight became a huge (pardon the pun) issue. From quite early on, I was conscious of my weight but hadn’t got a clue how to change things. I went to boarding school at 12, and was dreadfully homesick. My mum sent me back to school with piles of treats to try cheer me up. She was trying to help, but really it did the opposite. Another problem was the poor nutrition in the school. Cereals for breakfast, starchy food for lunch and pizza for dinner. Schools in Ireland need a serious wake up call when it comes to educating students about nutrition. I’m hoping that I can work with schools on this one in the future. So years of eating poor quality food created bad habits, nasty comments in school contributed to low self confidence and body image issues. By 16, I was heavily overweight and had stopped all organised sports in school because of poor fitness and my dented confidence.

That year was the first time my weight had really impacted my health. During the summer, I woke one morning with swollen glands all over, my eyes were almost swollen shut, as was my throat. My mum was so concerned she took me to hospital where I remained for three weeks. I was diagnosed with Glandular Fever. For the next 18 months, I suffered from chronic fatigue, low mood, psoriasis, eczema, cold and flu like symptoms and endless doctors visits. In all that time, no doctor ever suggested elimination of wheat or a change of diet. My diet remained carb and processed-food heavy, and my weight rocketed as my self esteem plummeted.

In hindsight, I don’t think I ever fully recovered from the period when I had glandular fever. Or perhaps I’d done such damage to my body with processed foods that I didn’t know what feeling good felt like anymore. Or maybe I never actually knew what feeling good meant.

I spent my early 20s miserable and depressed, with very little motivation or passion for anything. At 22, a CT scan showed two tumors in my temporal lobe. Now that made me sit bolt upright and think about my life. I had laser therapy, surgery, cryotherapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and for a long time, nothing worked. At the same time, because of all the blood work I was having done, I was diagnosed with ITP (a blood disorder which causes your body to destroy platelets). My body had turned on me, and seemed intent on destroying me. I struggled with bouts of serious depression, and after confiding in my medical team, the only solution they saw was hospitalisation for depression and more medication. I spent three weeks in a psychiatric hospital that consistently served processed foods to the patients.

I decided it was time to change. I looked at a photo of myself, and realised I needed to take drastic action and do everything I could to help my recovery. I wanted to get better. I wanted to feel well. Up until I saw this photo, I wasn’t ready to make changes to my lifestyle. I didn’t really know how, I was afraid people would judge me, and I really don’t deal with failure well. Fear held me back. Seeing that photo pushed me into action. I didn’t want to spend the next 50 years depressed, sweaty and obese. I also didn’t want to die. I decided to take every step I could towards improving my physical and mental health. I stocked up on healthy foods and joined a commercial gym. I went religiously every day, and ate according to common nutritional advice (namely the food pyramid). As I started to see progress (my weight was decreasing from a shocking 341 pounds), I started to research how to use nutrition as a tool to improve my health. As I learned more about the inflammatory effects of wheat, and the addictive properties of sugar, I discovered Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution and consequently your blog and The Primal Blueprint.

I jump between paleo and primal, but what is far more important to me than the label of either plan, is the knowledge that I’m eating real food which hasn’t been destroyed by processing and the addition of chemicals. The main reason I find it such a sustainable way of life is that it’s simple. There’s no hard sell of supplements or meal replacement shakes, it’s all about eating clean food which thankfully is in plentiful supply in Ireland.

After cleaning up my diet, I finally started to see progress in overcoming illness. The tumors miraculously shrank, my depression lifted, I had more energy and things looked a little brighter.

I joined an amazing new gym, with amazing coaches and members and I love strength training now. I’ve always had their full support to train during treatment cycles and keep pushing to improve my health. I owe my trainers a lot for their encouragement to keep going.

A year ago this week, I was diagnosed with MS (which I’ve only recently learned is strongly linked to Glandular Fever). That was a tough one to deal with, but I got on with it. I kept training, stuck to my new lifestyle and I’ll keep on going. It will take a really strong tranquilliser dart to stop me living my life!

I’m continuing with DMD for MS and platelet transfusions for the ITP, but as I get stronger and healthier, I’m hoping that nutrition will be my primary medicine and I can step away from traditional methods, despite being told by a neurologist that “no hippy fad diet would keep me from a wheelchair”. I’m not sure Dr. Terry Wahls would agree with that!

Since going fully Primal 15 months ago, my health is the best it has been in years: MS flares are at a minimum, my hair has finally started to grow again despite serious radiation burns to my scalp, I jump out of bed every day excited about what’s in store for me, I honestly never look in the mirror and feel unhappy. There are things I’d like to improve, but that’ll come with training.

It’s now just over two years since I decided to make a change and I have lost over half my body weight, dropped 8 dress sizes, train really hard, lift heavy (who knew that lifting heavy stuff wouldn’t turn girls into men!), eat incredible real food, and have so much energy!

For the first time ever, I feel healthy and happy. Life is fantastic, and I absolutely credit my change in lifestyle with all the positives I’m experiencing now.

I’m four days away from being a fully qualified Personal Trainer, and I am so excited about helping people discover how amazing it feels to be healthy and happy through strength training and nutrition.

Discovering the Primal Blueprint has without a doubt saved my life and changed my life for the better.

Thanks, Mark!

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