On the basis of what diet though?

On the basis of a modern diet it is absolutely essential, and the recommendation of 30 grams per day is completely off, it should be at least 1 gram of fiber per 10 grams of carbs, because that is what is typically found in whole-grain foods and will regulate glucose/insulin response.

On the basis of a zero carb diet like eating sardines, eggs, and butter for some days it is not essential.

To induce vomiting

And how much of the stuff one shouldn't get too much of is included in all of that?

Certainly we must disagree on what "essential" is. And still, you seem to dismiss the fact that you don't just eat a diet consisting of eggs, fish and meat.

None of the above foods contain any of the stuff one shouldn't get too much of when consumed whole, unless they are striving hard to overfeed themselves.

Definition of essential nutrients: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrie...tial_nutrients

I'll probably regret asking this, but what has me or anybody else eating also nuts, seeds, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit has do with the fact that a diet consisting solely of eggs, fish, and meat (with the organs) would actually cover all essential nutrients?

So - I basically did just that for about 5 years. I would only add some nuts and the occasional broccoli.

During that time I rode my bike over 5k per year.

I was the leanest and by the numbers, the healthiest I've ever been. 6 prescriptions down to 0. Advanced T2 diabetes put into remission - talking A1c of 12, down to normal.

Since then - to help train at higher intensities and fuel longer/faster rides - I've added small doses of carbs/grains even limited fruit here or there. I gained 10#'s, and am not much faster on the bike - if at all. If anything, I'm slower uphill.

I always had reactive hypoglycemia - since my mid 20's, even as a very fit cyclists/weight lifter. For my body - carbs, grains, fruits... always = poison.

For some of us fiber/carbs are not only not essential, they are harmful.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different genetics.

Cancer and heart disease were almost non-existent in the old days because life expectancy in ancient times (say around 100 A.D.) was about 30 years and stayed at that level until the early modern age.

Edit:

It's ironic, but cancer and heart disease rates have increased because modern diets (in addition to improved sanitation, vaccines, etc.) have resulted in people living longer.

Living longer means that your cells go through more cycles of regeneration, with the likelihood of mutation increasing with each new cycle. (A depressing thought for those of us in our 70's who have escaped cancer and heart disease so far. As far as we know.)

It's astonishing, by the way, that people are now living long enough to develop heart disease. I can't fathom how it is that hearts are lasting two and three times longer than they did for the vast majority of human history.

The same reason they eat poop.

How would I not consume them whole? You use that word a lot "whole". I'm not sure what other way I can eat just a egg or just meat or just fish. If I put it with anything else it's not just a eggs, fish and meat diet. So lets forget about whole.

Protein is the main thing one will be getting too much of in that diet. Fat will be the next thing. I'm not calling fat or protein bad. But just like water and most anything else, too much can be a bad thing. And there are more than a few other things that might arguably be too high a quantity and arguably might be detrimental at that high level.

A diet consisting of only eggs, fish, meat/offal will likely give health issues long term. If you don't believe that getting too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, then I'll never convince you.

I'm not as down on saturated fats as others might be. However this diet will have way too much. And long term, it'd be expected that LDL will be high and risk for heart problems will increase. Also, too much protein will in the long term have potential for gout and kidney issues as well as liver issues. Gout also will probably affect a higher percentage of those on such a diet.

The nutrients that are not there that you ignore, vitamin C, B9, magnesium and potassium , can in the long term result in a weakened immune system and bones. Essentially scurvy. Which in the 18th Century it was realized that people with severely limited diets will benefit from fresh fruits and vegetables.

And while you don't consider fiber a nutrient, it is needed just like water isn't a nutrient but is needed. Insufficient amounts of fiber will likely bring bouts of constipation during the short term and colon cancer in the long term.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Other than you are purporting a diet that you don't even partake in. And it's a bad diet strategy that you suggest.

But by your own admission, you didn't eat just eggs, meat and fish.

Many of us can talk about the diet that had us all feeling the best. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy long term.

Many people have been living long enough to die of heart disease for a long time. In 1900, heart disease mortality was 137.4 per 100,000. In 2010, it was 192.9 per 100,000.

An increase, certainly, but not an increase from zero. What changes drove the sharp increase in heart disease? Living longer? A little. The biggies were (are): smoking, sedentary lifestyles, and crappy diet.

Personal data point: my grandfather died of a heart attack in 1926, at the age of 45.

"What changes drove the sharp increase in heart disease? Living longer? A little."

In 1900, the global life expectancy was around 32 years. In 2010, the global life expectancy was just short of 71 years.

I'm no public health expert, but an ex-girlfriend with one PhD in public health and another in epidemiology was. She's the one who pointed out to me, when I raised many of the points that you did above, that mutations accumulate linearly over time in organisms regardless of the usual risk factors that get blamed for increased rates of diseases.

Thus, she said, it's often difficult to winnow out which diseases are caused by environmental factors and which by mutations that would have occurred anyway.

So, I'm not saying that the factors you listed are not important. Only that, living as we are between 2 and 3 times longer than humans did until very recently, mutations accumulate, and that you rarely see that fact mentioned, let alone explored in depth, when discussions like this one arise.

I'm going to estimate that my diet at that time was about 98% meat/eggs/protein/fat.


Here is the point you are missing - I wasn't just feeling "the best" - every single one of my health markers went from way out of spec (I was actually given two years to live) - to completely in spec, better than in spec - with zero medications.

Why do I say that? Because you question if something is healthy "long term". I'm stating that long term health from diet is individual - no one way of eating suits all people from different genetic backgrounds.

Personally, if I add the grains and fruits - I am not healthy. Eggs/meat/fat MAY make me unhealthy long term. Grains/fruits/carbs DO make me instantly unhealthy.

You're definitely right about that, it is redundant, but for example some people count a McDo hamburger as meat and cake as eggs.

I would do just fine with eggs, fish, dairy, and meat, as I have done during small periods of time out of laziness. But diet is not just the nutrition, it involves pleasure and has a social aspect too, among many other things, so for instance I find that walnuts pair really nicely with my scrambled eggs and give a satisfying crunch, and when it's strawberry season I'll support some local producers.

Here is my template: I ballpark 2 to 2.5 grams per kg of ideal/lean body weight from a distribution of eggs, fish, dairy (cheese + yogurt), and meat, sometimes it is less, sometimes it is more, I don't really care to track it precisely, and this adds up to roughly 25% of my energy intake. These foods themselves, along with some cooking fat/oil, are about 50/50 protein/fat in composition, so I'm also getting a bit more than 55% of energy from fat already. Finally, there is something like 20% of energy intake remaining, which comes from one thick slice of whole-grain rye bread, a handful of nuts, minimal seeds, vegetables about once or twice per week or so, some fruit like prunes or dates, a bit of dark chocolate, a bit of honey, etc.

No issues to report, except that I have to do at least a couple of hours of some activity per day, be it cycling, strength-training, walking, etc, otherwise I won't be tired enough to fall asleep easily.

For me, that would be 130-162 g of protein per day. Unless my calculations and the app are way off, that would be very difficult, even with a protein shake. Maybe ideal, but that would venture from paying attention to an outright job. Not going to hit that.

Have you been tested for fatty liver disease? Based on what I've read, it's a possible long-term risk of a high-saturated fat, low-carb diet. It also affects pancreas health, which makes glucose intolerance worse.

Look up de novo lipogenesis - fatty liver from a high carb diet. And "high carb" is different from person to person, its relative to their built in tolerances. The treatment -

• Reduce Carbohydrate Intake: Lowering intake of sugar and refined carbs is crucial to reduce DNL.

I had fatty liver disease - now I don't. I had crazy high cholesterol - now I don't. I had stupid high blood pressure - now I don't. I had stupid crazy high blood sugars - now I don't.

We can say well - could be from the weight loss and the exercise. Except those numbers started to come into check the moment I changed my diet, before I lost weight, and 2 years before I started riding again.

My entire point to all of this - can't paint a "healthy diet" or "essential nutrients" with a broad brush. It's all very individual.

What I do know - whatever the old food pyramid morphed into once in the hands of the gen pop - well, that is self evident. We have a nation of fat/sick/pre diabetic or full blown diabetic people. In short - it didn't work.

There is some individuality, yes. But not as much one might suspect. I think you would need to look for very special cases of people who don't do well on the Mediterranean diet. And even those people only need to modify their diet, not avoid it.

For example, chronic kidney disease (avoid certain foods), Crohn's disease (reduce fiber), food allergic (duh), highly active athletes (more carbs, more protein).

Breakfast: 6 eggs with 100 grams of Ricotta cheese, or Cottage cheese if you want to go lighter (> 50 grams of protein)

Lunch: 250 grams of fish or meat (> 50 grams of protein)

Dinner: A can of sardines or some other oily fish, mackerel is nice, and 200 grams of Greek yogurt (> 35 grams of protein)

Add some other small protein snacks here and there as needed and some roughage if you want.

Sad but true, lead and other chemicals can be found in produce at the grocery store. Just not at the levels that are considered immediately dangerous when consumed. And this applies to organic labeled produce too. Even your homegrown foods from your own garden might have such.

Maybe Consumer Reports should be testing produce too. But I say that with sarcasm. As too many wouldn't understand the insignificance of the amounts of those chemicals listed.

I've worked on the bulk chemical production side for fungicides, pesticides, herbicides, weed killers...

You don't want to know what is sprayed on your fresh produce in the USA. Chemicals no other country allows in any dose.

Full on chemical plants make these products, many worse than the industrial chemical plants I visit (ones that we hear about all the time), nasty nasty places. Stuff is made in bulk - at the point where zero human exposure is considered safe - then watered down and sprayed on our crops.

Why? Money.

I live in farm country - crop dusters flying over the farms for the entire growing season - and I know what kind of crap they are spraying. Nasty nasty nasty nasty stuff.


Plants = healthy, yes - I agree 10000%. Genetically modified plants sprayed with some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet? Not so much!!

How do any of us know if what we are consuming is free from all of these chemicals? Unless we grow it ourselves...

The main hazard seems to be to the people who live near where pesticides are sprayed. One region in the Central Valley of California is called "Parkinson's Alley", because of its high prevalence of Parkinson's Disease:

UCLA Health - High risk of Parkinson's disease for people exposed to pesticides near workplace

Edit: Also, this study that found increased rates of Parkinson's disease in people who live near golf courses.

"After adjusting for patient demographics and neighborhood characteristics, living within 1 mile of a golf course was associated with 126% increased odds of developing (Parkinson's Disease) compared with individuals living more than 6 miles away from a golf course"

We are founding members of a local food coop, not part of a chain or larger organization. The coop (Sno-Isle) was founded 30 years ago. It has great variety of certified organic produce, canned goods, bulk grains, etc. You don't have a coop? Start one. There's an organization that'll help you with that.

Our diet is probably 90%+ organic foods. We're lucky in that there are many local small farms, but the larger market has a lot of organic content available. One just needs a small group of people capable of figuring out how it all works, and of course, a local market, consumers. Our town has about a 125K population. Membership is about 10K families, and we have many shoppers who are not members. We started small and grew.

^^
Whenever these types of things come up - what the few are able to do- we have to consider what the entire population can do.

Its great that you are able to eat organic.

But the reality is - only 15% of our produce is organic. That means the overwhelming majority can’t eat like you.

Nor would it be commercially viable to produce 100% organic food. Yields would drop, costs would go up…

Could we use less toxic chemicals - probably. But we don’t.

I haven't been in the US in a long time, but in Mexico City, your extended neighborhood, you could eat a grape with a fork and a knife, those things were gigantic! The same held true for strawberries. But it could be due to the climate (lots of sun) and the varieties.

The new pyramid feels right for us on the bike – more protein and fats, less grain means steadier energy and quicker recovery.