Bowwowmeow
06-04-2008, 08:02 PM
I've just read Doug Graham's "Grain Damage" and "80/10/10". Has anyone else heard of these books?
"80/10/10" makes so much sense to me, and answers all the questions I have had about my own health challenges over the many years that I have been vegan., and even the few months I gave raw foodism a try.
Its basically a book about being a leafy-green eating fruitarian, instead of an exclusively fruit eating fruitarian, and going very lightly on the nuts and seeds, and fatty fruits like avocados. He examines the real sources of so many of our modern chronic diseases, and backs up everything he writes about humans being primates, and therefore are naturally suited to being primarily frugivorous. I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled "What kind of 'vores' are we?"
I've been at it for about a month, and the most amazing thing to happen was the complete relief of a painful stiffness in my hip joints, that came upon me suddenly right after I broke my foot almost two years ago. I became unable to sit cross-legged on the floor, with both knees touching the ground, and I had great difficulty putting socks and shoes on for at least a year and a half after my injury. I have read about accident-induced arthritis, and I though this had set in, and that I would never regain full movement in my joints again. In spite of stretching and yoga, I was only able to regain a little flexibility.
After about two weeks of being on the raw 80/10/10 plan, I went from being stiff to being completely flexible almost overnight. It was quite startling. I can only guess that the acid crystal deposits that form in joints and cause pain and stiffness were rapidly dissolved once my system went from acidic to alkaline. I was starting to feel like an old lady! Now I might attempt another somersault with Amelia one of these days! Or maybe not. :D
80/10/10 refers to the proportions of the percent of calories coming from carbohydrates, protein, and fat in your diet, by the way. You can do this raw or cooked, as long as you keep your fat calorie percentage at ten or below. I do "cheat" every once in a while, and I intend to allow myself to cheat on occasion when I really miss something I consider a treat, but the longer I go, the worse I feel when I do cheat, especially when I eat something grain based. I have been in denial about my inability to tolerate grains, because I've never known what I would base the bulk of my diet on without them. Though I've never obsessed about getting enough protein, I was never aware of how much protein there is in the plant world, without relying on grains and legumes.
Ten percent of calories coming from protein seems low to people who are so used to getting way too much, but in the China Study Campbell suggests that going as low as five or six percent of your calories from protein is more than sufficient.
Keeping the calories that come from fat at ten percent or less seems to be the key to good health, though. I have always felt that this is too extreme, mostly because I like fatty foods, but I have been won over, not just by the book's logic, and the research that backs it up, but so far by my own experience. My blood sugar levels have been creeping toward the diabetic range, and I have managed to reduce them back to normal, and by eating mostly fruit, which everyone who is diabetic is warned to avoid or limit.
Its actually the fat in the diet that leads to insulin resistance, because the fat plugs up the cell receptors. It seems that the ability of dietary fat to plug up many different cell receptor sites is implicated in most of the chronic diseases Westerners are plagued by. It is even implicated in B12 anemia, because dietary fat interferes with the ability of intrinsic factor to facilitate B12 absorption.
The clincher about fat percentages for me was the fact that when the government was trying to set national dietary recommendations, the reason they refused to recommend that fewer than ten percent of your calories should be coming from fat would require people to give up animal foods.
I'll stop going on about this now though. The post is long enough!
"80/10/10" makes so much sense to me, and answers all the questions I have had about my own health challenges over the many years that I have been vegan., and even the few months I gave raw foodism a try.
Its basically a book about being a leafy-green eating fruitarian, instead of an exclusively fruit eating fruitarian, and going very lightly on the nuts and seeds, and fatty fruits like avocados. He examines the real sources of so many of our modern chronic diseases, and backs up everything he writes about humans being primates, and therefore are naturally suited to being primarily frugivorous. I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled "What kind of 'vores' are we?"
I've been at it for about a month, and the most amazing thing to happen was the complete relief of a painful stiffness in my hip joints, that came upon me suddenly right after I broke my foot almost two years ago. I became unable to sit cross-legged on the floor, with both knees touching the ground, and I had great difficulty putting socks and shoes on for at least a year and a half after my injury. I have read about accident-induced arthritis, and I though this had set in, and that I would never regain full movement in my joints again. In spite of stretching and yoga, I was only able to regain a little flexibility.
After about two weeks of being on the raw 80/10/10 plan, I went from being stiff to being completely flexible almost overnight. It was quite startling. I can only guess that the acid crystal deposits that form in joints and cause pain and stiffness were rapidly dissolved once my system went from acidic to alkaline. I was starting to feel like an old lady! Now I might attempt another somersault with Amelia one of these days! Or maybe not. :D
80/10/10 refers to the proportions of the percent of calories coming from carbohydrates, protein, and fat in your diet, by the way. You can do this raw or cooked, as long as you keep your fat calorie percentage at ten or below. I do "cheat" every once in a while, and I intend to allow myself to cheat on occasion when I really miss something I consider a treat, but the longer I go, the worse I feel when I do cheat, especially when I eat something grain based. I have been in denial about my inability to tolerate grains, because I've never known what I would base the bulk of my diet on without them. Though I've never obsessed about getting enough protein, I was never aware of how much protein there is in the plant world, without relying on grains and legumes.
Ten percent of calories coming from protein seems low to people who are so used to getting way too much, but in the China Study Campbell suggests that going as low as five or six percent of your calories from protein is more than sufficient.
Keeping the calories that come from fat at ten percent or less seems to be the key to good health, though. I have always felt that this is too extreme, mostly because I like fatty foods, but I have been won over, not just by the book's logic, and the research that backs it up, but so far by my own experience. My blood sugar levels have been creeping toward the diabetic range, and I have managed to reduce them back to normal, and by eating mostly fruit, which everyone who is diabetic is warned to avoid or limit.
Its actually the fat in the diet that leads to insulin resistance, because the fat plugs up the cell receptors. It seems that the ability of dietary fat to plug up many different cell receptor sites is implicated in most of the chronic diseases Westerners are plagued by. It is even implicated in B12 anemia, because dietary fat interferes with the ability of intrinsic factor to facilitate B12 absorption.
The clincher about fat percentages for me was the fact that when the government was trying to set national dietary recommendations, the reason they refused to recommend that fewer than ten percent of your calories should be coming from fat would require people to give up animal foods.
I'll stop going on about this now though. The post is long enough!