The Primal Parent

There is one problem with the Paleo diet for oh, about 30-50% of Europeans and maybe 15-20% of Americans – the low starch approach that encourages eating more fruit and sweet potatoes exacerbates many digestive, mood, and skin problems.

You hear about it often. “I’ve made all these positive dietary changes and suddenly I’m more sensitive to everything.” After years of wondering about the same thing, I may have slowly stumbled upon one, of maybe many, possible reasons for this.

What Is Fructose Malabsorption?

According to Wikipedia “Fructose malabsorption, formerly named “dietary fructose intolerance,” is a digestive disorder in which absorption of fructose is impaired by deficient fructose carriers in the small intestine’s enterocytes.”

This means that our ability to break down fructose is impaired and so fructose molecules travel down to the colon undigested. When anything makes its way down to the large intestine without first being broken down, the situation can get pretty ugly.

Many people with fructose malabsorption experience digestive troubles such as diarrhea or constipation, rashes, melancholy or anger, among others. I myself started to see a connection to fruit and my skin as well as my mood and digestion. This led me to some pretty strict elimination diets. If only I had known years ago that there were just some specific foods I needed to avoid…
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The worst thing about so called dietary cures for acne is that many of them are written by people who don’t actually have acne. There is no “in theory” when it comes to acne or at least we don’t know what it is yet. I have followed every single acne plan prescribed by every genius PhD, MD, or Joe Schmo. They haven’t worked, so clearly the theory surrounding the cure for acne is still largely unknown. Aside from that, on an emotional level, those that suffer from acne definitely don’t need clear skinned, small pored beauties telling them how they do it. They don’t do anything. They simply don’t have the problem.

Some or many aspects of the modern diet have changed the way acne sufferer’s pores secrete oil, the way the pores clamp down and stop healthy circulation, the way hormones are secreted in the skin, and the way the immune system goes overboard to mount an attack on a small cyst.

Yes, acne is a disease caused by a bad diet but no, it is not a disease which is cured by a good one. It can be managed. The acne can be stopped, but as soon as the person starts eating modern foods again, it will return. When an acne sufferer so much as cheats, she will probably get pimples again. This is why the term orthorexia is so offensive to me because these modern diseases are only manageable. Strict eating is requisite. Once a system has gone wrong in the body it isn’t repaired over night.

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I don’t mean to be a raw meat pusher but I’ve had a whole lot of questions since the last raw meat article – how I stopped being afraid of it, how to start eating it, whether it is really safe, etc. – so I thought I’d offer a little more insight as to why some of us can get away with eating tons of raw meat and never seem to get sick.

Parasitic infestation is not just a numbers game as many like to suggest. Contact with parasites, bacteria, and viruses is common and should not be feared by healthy people.

Where Parasites Are Found

It’s not that in all these years I haven’t encountered a parasite. Who knows how many times I have, really. I’ve eaten pounds upon pounds upon pounds of raw meat and seafood over the years and the chances that I’ve run into some living creature are actually pretty high. Parasites are everywhere. We bump heads with them all the time.

Parasites can infect us through:

• the bites of blood sucking insects
• water from streams and even from surface water treatment plants
• walking barefoot on infected dirt
• eating improperly washed vegetables which had traveled from farms using fecal contaminated fertilizer
• shaking someones hand who has bad bathroom hand washing habits
• eating food from a restaurant where employees had bad hand washing habits

With all the places we come into contact with parasites, it’s a wonder that people blame raw food for all instances of parasitic infection. Raw meat simply isn’t the only contact we have with them.

Some parasites such as the tapeworm Taenia solium infect us through human feces. The worms we eat in undercooked pork are much less of a problem than the eggs we might ingest from contaminated food. Feces contaminated vegetables or restaurant meals can invite the brain eating worm into our bloodstream.

As weird as it might sound this can easily happen – someone is in too much of a hurry to wash his hands after wiping, some microscopic eggs get on his hands, he shakes your hand at lunch, and you lick the butter off your fingers, or maybe he’s a cook who heads back to the kitchen and prepares somebodies sandwich.

This kind of thing isn’t too common in our culture, but it does happen and when it does those eggs get into the blood stream, hatch, and head off to the brain to gorge on yummy brain tissue.

Realizing that parasites, viruses, and bacteria are out there no matter what you eat or what you do is the first step to getting comfortable with eating raw meat.

Parasites Are Only Doing Their Job

Every animal on the planet including grass eating, free roaming cows can get parasites. Even healthy, primitive humans get parasites. It’s a good thing too because parasites help clean up filth. They are like tiny little, ugly garbage men. We need them as much as they need us. The problem isn’t that we come into contact with parasites (and bacteria and viruses) but that we are just so filthy they have a whole lot to feed on when they get here.

And the more we steer clear of parasites and feed our fear of bugs the more of a “problem” they will be.

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Just the bread? Nah. Just the butter? Nah. But the two combined? Irresistible!

While scientific research and theories of evolutionary nutrition are great, I tend to take observation and experimentation above all that. One thing I have carefully observed over the years is my own tendency toward food cravings. What do I crave, when, and why?

I like to visit Gnolls.org from time to time for some interesting perspectives on just this issue. While he offers plenty of facts and references, occasionally I don’t agree with his conclusions. I hate to tear into somebody’s well researched and carefully considered article but where I come from, that’s just what you do. The fact that you don’t agree with everything a person says doesn’t mean you don’t like them, and adore J.S. Stanton I do.

The article in mind is entitled, “Why We Crave Fat”. The hypothesis is that

“animal fat is the primary constituent of the evolutionary human diet.”

The conclusion is that we crave it because we evolved to need it. Additionally, he contends, it is the lack of animal fat in our diets (the lipid hypothesis disaster) that drives us to eat junk food.

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This spiky, scratchy look of wheat is how it feels going down

Beware, graphic mental images ahead!

I ate wheat on Sunday evening. I don’t usually eat out because of multiple food allergies, celiac disease, and my inability to break down fiber. So while traveling to San Francisco last week I planned to eat very carefully. My general travel strategy is always to not eat much at all, which is actually super easy if you eat Primally. I also try to eat simply – only a couple of ingredients at a time.

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