Some Final (Brief) Thoughts on the Great Health Debate--Listen Inward, Plants, Keep Pleasures Simple, Get Outside! And Questions

I was getting all ready to make a bunch of tables and charts showing which experts on the Great Health Debate said what, who agreed with whom on what, what the overall numbers might suggest. But I have a billion other things to do today, my computer's memory is maxed out and internet connection falteringly slow, and I paid attention to Sean Croxton and Mike Adams in the wrap-up talk on Sunday night, when they said that the major problem they both faced was too much computer time and not enough outside time! I also concluded that detailed person-by-person final analysis and number-crunching on frequency of recommendations would be missing the point of the Debate itself, the dizzying array of different presentations and worldviews as to what works for health.

Instead, then, I offer something more in keeping with the time available to me today and also more in keeping with the spirit of the Debate, I think. It can be summed up in the title to this post, and here are a few more thoughts.

Look Inward
No two experts offered completely identical world views; all experts believed that what they do works. Since I'm celebrating this blog's anniversary, it seems an appropriate moment to link to a post I wrote over a year ago now, on Pyrrhonian Skepticism and its relationship to diet. This school of philosophy observed that there are conflicting phenomena and opinions about everything and advocated suspending judgment to reach the goal of absence of perturbation. This array of different interpretations of different claimed phenomena seems a perfect example of that.

Plants
It seems obvious that eating more plants is beneficial, that eating a diet based on plants is healthful and ecologically sound. Even the proponents of meat-eating or of low-carbohydrate diets recommend eating plenty of vegetables.

Keep Pleasures Simple (not Refined)
This is one of the more important ones to me. You'll remember that I was uneasy about Dr Young's and Dr Goldhamer's rebukes against pleasure, and that I then observed that for me, 'overstimulating' foods are not pleasurable. I've given that some more thought, and compared notes with my husband, who can eat a whole plate of brownies at a sitting and find it very pleasurable, and realized that I do understand what they are saying, agree with them, in fact, and that it comes down to a matter of definition of 'pleasure.' Very concentrated foods, especially very sweet/salty/oily foods (or foods laced with 'excitotoxins'), produce a physiologically overstimulating response that can lead to compulsion around that food--and for sound evolutionary reasons. These are the foods that are most refined, farthest removed from 'ancestral foods,' least familiar (evolutionarily speaking) to our organisms, and most associated with obesity, heart disease and other 'diseases of civilization.' They tend to increase appetite and weight-set-point, especially if the additional stress of guilt and compulsion surround them.

This isn't to say that one shouldn't enjoy one's food. Food can be--should be--pleasurable, but keep the pleasures simple. Note to self: this includes my current yen for almond and peppermint extract and other intense flavors...

Get Outside!
It's essential to health...

and there is so much magnificence...

I seem to be overcoming my own lack of inclination to get outside these past few days and am looking forward to going for a good hike soon if it doesn't snow too hard. I do think that feeling guilty/obligated to get outside, like I was feeling, is counterproductive, though, as once again, pleasure and delight is part of why it's good for us!

A Few Questions
Who gets to be an 'expert?' Sally Fallon made the important distinction between primary researchers (in the lab) and secondary researchers (reading the data, comparing, number-crunching)--and doctors in clinical practice fall somewhere in between, or partake in both. Are the conclusions of someone who has focused in narrowly and knows certain aspects of a particular field completely intimately more valuable than those of someone who may not be as minutely, specifically trained but who is looking at a much larger picture? To complicate the question further, the 'primary' researchers are often funded or otherwise have an agenda, and we know that you can prove anything with research by setting up the study correctly (which is why it was striking that Colin Campbell mentioned in his 'bonus' talk that he hadn't expected to find correlations between animal protein and childhood cancer in the Philippines). Secondary researchers can also have axes to grind, but generally they may stand a better chance of impartiality. People who have had 'road-to-Damascus'-type conversion experiences in their health transformation may often be great experts in their own bodies, and may be inspiring simply for that reason, that they really have discovered what works for them. Often, however, they may wind up less open to accepting that what works for them may not work for everyone.

What research is relevant? In the very first talk, Drs Mercola and Cousens agreed that they keep an eye on research only for 'trends' and do not set enormous store by individual studies--for the abovementioned reasons in part--preferring to rely on their own findings in clinical practice. This was a very striking statement, especially on the very first night, and lent some skepticism to some of the glib citing of research statistics on later nights. For those of us in pursuit of knowledge, it seemed like a good reminder to pay attention to individual studies but to withhold absolute judgment based on them. Any further advice on how to answer this question, of what research deserves attention, is something for which I'd be most grateful.

I will share some odd thoughts over the next while about how my personal thinking has been affected by this Debate, but this is my final 'objective' post about what was offered. So I'll come back and add on if I think of more that needs to be included, and would be grateful for any comments on what else needs to be covered.

much love.

Missed Anniversary and Letter-day; Blog Accountability; More on the Great Health Debate; Mountain Dragon

Missed Anniversary and Letter-day

Perhaps it's not surprising that I missed my blog's first anniversary, given that my parents don't remember their wedding date and we don't even know my mom's actual birthdate for certain (they never quite got clear on converting the date from the Jewish lunar calendar to the western solar calendar). But there it is: in the midst of all this discombobulated to-ing and fro-ing between here and Anchorage, February 1st, the anniversary of this blog's beginning, came and went unremarked. So, happy belated birthday, little blog!

I don't have much to add to that today, but over the next week or so, I will offer some reflections on what this year of blogging has allowed me to offer, what it has brought me, where it came from and where it's going.

Another milestone that came and went this week was my completion of a second 12-week chelation cycle. This is the end of a huge detoxification procedure that began with the removal of mercury fillings last April and May and hopefully leaves my body largely free of the mercury and lead with which she was riddled. Which means that the coast (or tract) is clear for some effective yeast cleansing--on with the rollercoaster and more dietary tweaks coming up soon. 

Chelation involved taking capsules of DMSA, a sulfur-based compound that escorts metals from the body, following each week of this with a Vitamin C IV and then a rest week of mineral replacement. It's a harsh process (nausea, paresthesias (weird physical sensations), crankiness, constipation, mood swings), which I mitigated by sweating in the steam shower--that seemed to help me not to feel quite so lousy. I have to say, though, that the last couple of cycles really were not so uncomfortable and nauseated. This was probably due largely to diminishing amounts of toxic metals mobilizing out, but the addition of starch to my diet and resultant improvement in general 'motility' may have helped too.

I want to get on to talking about The Great Health Debate, so I'll table the post-chelation talk too, but I believe that it's important to celebrate the end of this arduous process.

The Great Health Debate and Blog Accountability

Since my last post, we've heard David Wolfe and Daniel Vitalis, both of whom I know personally and am very familiar with, and Drs J. E. Williams and Alan Goldhamer, both of whom I hadn't heard of before. Tonight, it's Mark Sisson and Frederic Patenaude--I know Frederic and have worked with him (but years ago now) and am at least somewhat familiar with Sisson's work. Two more nights to go after this!

It's probably not at all surprising, but I confess that at this point I'm feeling very confused about diet and nutrition! Just to help that confusion, I've recently been making dietary experiments on my own account, between decreasing PUFAs and adding starches, so I was hardly on firm ground to begin with. However, Tina recently talked on her blog about feeling grateful for the feeling of accountability it engenders and I'm with her on that. When this whole Great Debate is over, after I've summarized what I see as the most important points, I'll talk a bit about my personal dilemmas. 

For now, though, I'm going to continue offering selected observations about the last two nights of talks, as objectively as I can. 

The last two nights were an interesting foursome of talks indeed: a nice contrast for me in that the first pair were very familiar to me and the second totally unfamiliar.

Wolfe and Vitalis

Wolfe and Vitalis share a keen interest in wild plant and fungal foods (superherbs) and their nutritional and vibrational importance, as well as the recognition that it is difficult to acquire adequate calories from these alone: they address this shortfall in very different--opposite ways. Vitalis' approach is atavistic: a return, as near as possible, to 'our ancestral diet,' turning his back on farmed, mass-produced, altered foods: a local, all-wild-food diet, which inevitably means going to animal foods for caloric bulk. Wolfe, instead, turns to the state of the art that modern technologies can offer, bringing the ultimate distillations of the most powerful foods from all over the world. He agrees on the importance of local foods, but eschews animal products to avoid the karmic implications of eating them. I appreciated this spiritually-oriented approach: spiritual karma is really the other side of the physical fact of toxin accumulation associated with eating higher on the food chain. Just because it's spiritual/non-tangible, it's not to be dismissed.

I love David Wolfe's charisma and dedication to creating positive energy: however, a lot of the time I wish that he had his facts straighter! As a Classical Linguist, I find many of his etymological and historical excursions very frustrating, and the inaccuracy contained there tends to make me doubt the credibility of some of his other assertions. I wish that I'd gotten in his face back when I was a regular in the kitchen at his events and asked him to have me edit for him! His comments on chocolate were a whitewash, for sure. He simply dismissed the notion that it causes a problem for anyone (which already makes his claims suspect, because so many have experienced trouble) and insisted that in historical studies, together with olive oil and honey, it's the number one longevity food! (Now, where do those three coexist? I can think of many places where honey and one of the others coexist locally, but where do olives and cacao both grow? I've seen some olive trees on the Kona side in Hawaii, but marginally...)  Something else that David said about which I'm somewhat dubious is that it's a scientific fact that Caloric Restriction creates longer lifespan. Now, as a diehard restricter, you'd think I'd be all over that! But from the research that I've been looking at lately, I'd have to say that the CR hypothesis remains that and is not an established fact at all. But the overall message of increasing your vibration, seeking out the best, doing your best, is always delightful.

Daniel Vitalis is also a very charismatic and persuasive speaker, and his points about the equation between agriculture and deforestation, between cultivating and diminution of potency, are very thought-provoking. The contrast in vigor, speed of growth and herbal properties between wild and cultivated greens in climates as diverse as Hawaii and Alaska has always frustrated me as a gardener and provoked a lot of thought about the value of cultivating at all. I also loved that he made the point that if you're going to eat meat, you should use the whole animal, both from the 'karmic' and from the nutritional perspectives. I strongly believe that if someone is going to eat meat, they need to pay attention to that. I think that like David, however, his silver tongue allows him to get away with some assertions that may not be totally accurate: for example, his discussion of our anatomy versus that of our primate relatives left something to be desired. And while he addressed epigenetic decay and deformity, he did not address the glaring possibility that epigenetics means that we have physiologically evolved to a modern, agrarian diet and may not be able to simply reverse all the problems by reverting to a putative atavistic diet.

Williams and Goldhamer

Drs Williams and Goldhamer shared a focus on whole foods but were very different in personality and approach. Dr Williams, who has been described as 'The Indiana Jones of nutritional research,' was so personable and easy to listen to. Dr Goldhamer was more bombastic and insistent and came across as more of a zealot, somewhat as did Robert Young. 

I really appreciated Kevin Gianni's gracious appraisal of Young's zealotry as being due to the fact that he works mostly with people with very serious ailments and the frustration of working with such people and having them be non-compliant. I suspect that the same is true for Dr Goldhamer, who runs a fasting retreat center and has had some amazing successes with reversal of serious illness through fasting and moving patients onto a no-sugar, no-salt, no-oil high-raw vegan diet. However, I mentioned my wariness of Dr Young's apparent total discounting of the role of pleasure in nutrition. Dr Goldhamer goes even further in this: his main book is called The Pleasure Trap and he alleges that sugar, salt and oil trigger an addictive dopamine response in everyone, causing repeated bad food choices and downwardly spiraling health. Fasting, according to him, is perhaps the only way to cut through this pattern and restore sanity to the palate. 

Now, I have an 'austere' part as big as anyone's, and this kind of reasoning would seem like an obvious hook for me. Which is why it may be a good thing for me that I'm married to Phil, Mr Eat-anything-and-everything-and-remain-pretty-darn-healthy, and have been reading Matt Stone's work, encouraging a more abundant and accepting approach, moving away from demonizing common foods. Because I wasn't totally hooked by this: I had to note that obvious dopamine junkies, like my own husband, are not dying of their habit, and would probably trade extra pleasure for extra years of life. As I said in my last post, wouldn't it be good 'to be able to transmute some of the gray areas and rough edges of perfection with grace and gratitude, to let pleasure and appreciation round out the nutrient levels?' I should also note that my experience with the dopamine-triggering foods that make me feel compulsive (sugar, artificial sweeteners, sometimes chocolate) is very definitely not one of pleasure: it's a compulsive, dirty, unpleasant-turn-in-the-rollercoaster feeling. Icky, not pleasant at all. But maybe that's just me.

I respect Dr Goldhamer and am glad that he provides the service that he does: it sounds like he has really helped a lot of people. However, with respect, I didn't agree with everything he had to say. For example, he placed oils in same the 'deranged-excitement-causing' spot as refined sugar and alleged that as refined, processed foods, lacking in fiber, they give no satiation indication and lead to overeating and that whole doomed road. I used to believe this: I used to avoid anything with any oil in it at potlucks--even olive oil on a salad--let alone eat any at home! But nowadays, I eat a lot of coconut oil and even without fiber, it sure does have a satiation index. Sometimes, if I'm way too hungry, I just pop a little piece of coconut oil and it usually keeps me stable until I can eat something. My experience is that fats generally add satiation. 

I should also say that he was explicit that the health challenges that his center most often addresses are the 'diseases of civilization' like heart disease, hypertension, etc, as well as the autoimmune diseases. In my ND's parlance, I would guess that his patients are mostly 'disease of excess' patients, whereas a 'disease of deficiency' person like myself might not benefit so much (I have to say this, for myself and for any other recovering compulsive faster)!

Dr Williams is so interesting, especially because of his decades of experience with indigenous peoples. He has spent time with Bering Sea Siberians, walrus hunters living almost entirely on animal foods, a very high-fat diet, and with Q'ero Indians near Cuzco, Peru, who lived almost entirely on starchy plant foods. Both peoples were very healthy, as healthy as one another despite the extreme difference in their diets, until they moved to cities and started eating processed foods, pointing up the fact that what their very different diets had in common was the absence of any processed foods. This is, no doubt, a familiar story, but hearing his first-hand experience both as a doctor and a human being, really brought it home.

This experience is perhaps what allows Dr Williams to exude such a sense of balance. He recommended a largely vegetarian diet, but had had the experience of seeing some vegetarians failing to assimilate plant-based protein, even though they were taking in an adequate amount, and had remedied that with small amounts of animal proteins in certain cases. He still came across as recommending predominantly plant-based nutrition, but with caution and circumspection. I really appreciated that he made the distinction between taking in enough nutrition and actually assimilating it once you've eaten it. This is such a crucial issue and I've been surprised that it hasn't received more attention as yet.

I don't want to go on too long, so I'll leave it at that for tonight and come back in a day or two with some comments about the next few speakers.

I forgot to share this in my last post: on the beautiful drive to Anchorage, I look forward to this particular view every time we take the turn up into the mountains. 

Do you see the dragon head? I think I managed to capture it.

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on the Great Health Debate. And if you're not listening in, is my analysis helpful so far or is it too abstract?

Taking Trips/Trip Apathy, More on The Great Health Debate

On Sunday, we diverted to Whittier, three quarters of the way to Anchorage, to meet up with a couple of friends and spend most of the day on their boat in Prince William Sound.

It was a gloriously sunny day, although the kerosene heater they had on board made the all day sojourn much more bearable than it might have been. Swift little boat, speedy driver--we left quite a wake in the stunning wilderness of ocean...

This is Phil's element, his delight, his absolute joy and fulfillment.

On our drive home yesterday, we spent some time talking about the trips Phil is hoping to make come spring-time, some of them challenging, dangerous, lengthy; all of them involving significant time in the wilderness with minimal equipment. Some of them, I'm invited on, others, not. Then, we have guests coming up this summer, as we always do, some of them supercharged athletes. I'm feeling so much stronger than I was last year and have been looking forward to being able to join in for more of the adventures, but some of our guests may be so intent on hardcore long-and-hard-going that I may not be able to keep up.

Lately, however, I simply haven't been feeling drawn to go out much, let alone far out in the wilderness. Given that we're surrounded by semi-wilderness, and given that it's Phil's life-blood, I've been feeling some guilt around this. Shouldn't I be stoked and excited to go out and be in the midst of such gorgeous wilderness, with the best possible guide and companion too? I don't really know what to say about that, except that I just need to watch it, and that mostly, when Phil is going somewhere and it doesn't sound like 'too much,' I go too: I allow myself to be taken out there and exposed to it, and I keep the space open for the desire and delight to return.

Is it a defect and deficiency in me, this inward-lookingness, this lack of desire to be outside? Of course, it's cold out, but I'm learning to cope with that pretty well and not to feel emotional pain around the simple fact of cold/fatigue/hard going.

Some More Thoughts on The Great Health Debate

It's the fourth night of The Great Health Debate tonight--David Wolfe and Daniel Vitalis, two wonderfully engaging speakers, both of whom I know personally (although I haven't seen them for years). I haven't heard all of tonight's yet, so I'll talk about the last two night's offerings from Jonny Bowden and Joel Fuhrman on Monday and Donna Gates and Robert Young on Tuesday. For all kinds of logistic reasons, these were presented as individual lectures, rather than conversations like that between Cousens and Mercola, which was fine, as having each pair juxtaposed allows the listener to compare the approaches quite handily. For me, last night's pair of talks from Donna Gates and Robert Young was the most informative and also the most unsettling so far, largely because I was less familiar with their work than that of anyone else so far. Joel Fuhrman was a pleasant surprise too, though.

I've read books by Jonny Bowden and as a 'voice,' he was pretty much as I'd expected him to be--pleasant, personable, a mine of important if somewhat specious information. Before hearing Fuhrman speak, I'd had him pegged as a low-fat vegan zealot, but it turns out that he is much more open and balanced. He does not recommend super-low-fat diets but recommends a good amount of high-quality fats. He does recommend a vegan diet, so long as one is conscientious about it, but doesn't condemn other styles of eating. His suggestion that if one is going to eat animal products, one use them 'as a condiment,' sounds sensible and accessible even for die-hard meat-eaters. I found it interesting that although he said that eating a lot of raw vegetables is a good thing, he said that not eating things like cooked bean soups didn't gain you anything. That was an interesting way of putting it, that you don't accrue a benefit from omitting something. On this path, it's very easy to get into thinking that omitting things is a holy grail.

Donna Gates continued the balanced, compassionate, non-zealous espousal of what has worked for her and in her clinical practice, with a special emphasis on the importance of fermented foods traditionally for humans and in therapeutic settings, especially to do with the yeast epidemic. I found it a good reminder to eat my kim chee and drink my kombucha!

But then Robert Young came on and said that all fermented food is toxic. I'd have to say that he was the first genuine zealot in the series of speakers. Everyone else so far, even those espousing a strong position in favor of veganism or of omnivory, of low-glycemic diets or anything else, has emphasized the importance of individuality and the necessity that everyone experiment and find out what works best for them. It was quite humbling to hear these very eminent experts all acknowledge that human health and nutrition are so complex and compass so many factors that there is not a definitive black and white truth to be preached.

Well, Dr Young does believe that there is a truth, that he knows what it is, and that anyone who does anything different is going to an early grave. He puzzled me at the outset by saying that vegetarian and vegan diets 'don't work,' and then, moments later, saying that if you eat meat you're killing yourself. It turns out that the diet that he espouses is an 'alkalarian diet,' completely vegan and largely raw, but also predominantly 'green.' Everything should be alkaline, your poop should be green, you need fat for fuel but protein and carbohydrate are life-destroying. No middle ground, no exceptions.

It was striking to me that Dr Young was also the first speaker who did not in any way acknowledge the component of pleasure in food. Dr Fuhrman, (who thinks that salt is a killer), agrees with Dr Young (who thinks that salt is essential) that 'cravings' are not a good way to make food choices, that they are the product of addiction and deranged gut flora. But Dr Fuhrman still talks of making delicious salad dressings and other delicious foods. I didn't detect anything in Dr Young's talk to suggest that enjoyment was a worthwhile component of nutrition. There have been times in my life that I've found such an approach very attractive, but at this point, I think that enjoyment is an important piece.

I am really grateful to receive such a variety of perspectives (I'll say a little more about this when the series has ended). For someone like myself, with a tendency to extremism, it's especially welcome to have some of the more 'extreme' viewpoints and espousals juxtaposed with different others, as it curbs my tendency to fall into the latest most extreme most restrictive most austere... What if I can mend my metabolism and eat wholesome food without being afraid? What if I don't have to follow the most forthright and browbeating of the 'gurus'? I'll never be able to eat 'anything and everything' like Phil does: I don't think I'd want to. But to be able to transmute some of the gray areas and rough edges of perfection with grace and gratitude, to let pleasure and appreciation round out the nutrient levels? That sounds good to me. And meanwhile, it is important to me to learn as much as I can and to expose myself to the greatest possible variety of approaches: great therapy for an extremist.

Revisionist Peas!


I'm continuing to make that favorite cherry-almond smoothie I shared recently as an oft-chosen part of lunch.

I've made it a few different ways: the most surprising recent one, when I didn't have any (coco)nut milk handy and needed a little more 'substance:' I added a cup of frozen green peas! I've been loving those so many different ways lately: they're a great value. Couldn't taste them in there at all and they gave it a great texture...

Are you tuned into the Great Health Debate?
What's your most surprising addition to a smoothie?