The Carb-Sane Asylum

So I listened to the Paleo Podcaster Roundup on Sean Croxton's Underground Wellness podcast guest hosted by Jimmy Moore.  Here's the intro: Guest host Jimmy Moore of the  Livin' La Vida Low Carb Blog & Podcast  returns to UW Radio for a roundtable with Paleo experts including Stefani Ruper, Dean Dwyer, Dr. Colin Champ, and Abel James. The gang discusses the importance of the Paleo and Real Food blogosphere, critiques of the low-carb diet, and important steps you can take to find the diet that is right for YOU. Yeah, Sean's on vacation, so perhaps Jimmy wrote this up, but for starters, how in heck did this gang become experts in paleo all of a sudden?  But ...

It's been a while since there was a truly funny search phrase that landed someone here.  But I think this one qualifies! hillary clinton pantyhose pics

From the Inbox courtesy of Sean Croxton: I'll be honest. As a podcaster, there have been many days when I've felt like my shows have actually confused listeners more than helped them. One week, a guest will advocate a particular way of eating as the absolute BEST diet ever. Then the next week, another guest will advocate something completely different. Ugh!  So, who's right? How do you navigate all of this contradictory info without losing your mind?  In this week's episode of UW Radio, guest host Jimmy Moore poses these very questions to a panel of fellow podcasters -- Stefanie Ruper, Abel James, Dr. Colin Champ, and Dean Dwyer. No comment.   No wait.  Jimmy Moore is the king of conflicting nutritional information with a hopelessly biased twist.  Ruper?  She bills herself as a nutritionist and ED counselor yet has no formal training in either and her inspiration for paleo is Nora all-body-fat-comes-from-glucose Gedgaudas.  Abel James is a hopeless TWICHOOB judging fro

Jack who?  Why Dr. Jack Kruse, Neurosurgeon!  (or is he still practicing?) of course.  There's more to say about some of the other fall outs from AHS12, but one that is unrelated to the sociopolitical drama in the community is the apparent re-emergence of Jack Kruse on the paleo web scene.  It began during AHS12 itself via Twitter.  Following Krusegate, having achieved all of his goals of his actions, with the possible exception of that pesky momentary rebuke, Jack retreated to his website and raked in the admission to the webinar on Factor X and various membership and consult fees (all exorbitant, some moreso than others) . Perhaps the fruits of his recruiting labors on PaleoHacks and Mark's Daily Apple had faded, or perhaps he just missed the limelight.  Having suffered no public rebuke from the organizers of AHS, and absent any official word from Jimmy my-stateroom-was-5-doors-down-from-the-action Moore about what really happened on the cruise ship that got Jack out of his

In the last installment I discussed how atoms in Groups IA and IIA have only 1 and 2 e's in their valence shells respectively. These atoms satisfy the Octet Rule by losing those electrons to become +1 and +2 cations.  On the other side of the periodic table, Groups VIA and VIIA have almost filled valence shells containing 6 and 7 e's respectively.  One way these atoms can satisfy the Octet Rule is to take on 2 or 1 electron to become -2 or -1 anions.  Ionic compounds are formed between at least one cation and one anion so that the substance formed is electrically neutral, held together by the electrostatic force of attraction between oppositely charged ions.  Ionic compounds must contain at least one metal (cation) and one non-metal (anion). Covalent compounds are bound by means of electron-sharing.  Covalent compounds are formed from non-metals only.

Sigh ... I see Mark Sisson has addressed the concept of ion therapy in a recent post .  I had ions on the mind while constructing my last post and just had to weigh in here.  In it he makes the following statement: Because they are either positively or negatively charged, ions are “mobile.” Umm ... say what?  I think he's referring to dissolved ions that move within the solvent liquid (usually water).  They do this by means of diffusion in still water, or by going along for the ride in a moving liquid such as a babbling brook or your shower.  But I'm sitting here staring at a bunch of ions in my salt shaker and they're looking rather sedentary to me.   If by "mobile" he means they jump out into the air, then this an even more misleading statement. He then says (bolded emphasis his) Negative ions generally appear in natural settings in greater numbers than positive ions.

In the last post, I discussed the Group A, aka the Main Group, elements.  The chemical behavior of atoms  -- how they react/combine with other atoms in "the environment" -- is determined by the way electrons are configured orbiting about the nucleus.  All Main Group elements (with the biochemically relevant exception of hydrogen) share a valence shell (outermost shell) with 8 "vacancies" for electrons.  Having a filled valence shell with 8 electrons is the preferred energy state for these atoms -- this is called the Octet Rule -- and these atoms react/combine in order to satisfy this rule.  The atoms in each group (or column) contain the number of electrons in the group number, thus Na is in Group IA has 1e, C in Group IV has 4 e's, and Br in Group VII has 7 e's. The Group IA and IIA elements lose electrons to form cations to meet the Octet Rule when the next lower filled shell now becomes the valence shell.  The Group VIA and VIIA elements have mostly fil

Ahh, well Jimmy Moore has posted his 90 day update on his nutritional ketosis experiment.  While he's refusing to divulge his menus until the 180 day experiment is complete (wanna bet he writes a book about the experience and stupid people will buy it?) he did finally post a typical meal complete with "recipe" and pictures. Why anyone is even interested in mimicking his foods is beyond me, but that's besides the point. Here's a "meal", I've added Charles' calorie estimates from nutritiondata.com direct image link

This notion of being a "sugar burner" vs. a "fat burner" -- with the latter being touted as preferable based on nothing I've seen in the scientific literature -- is getting really out of hand.  This is not a new idea, but it certainly seems to be being pushed more lately, particularly in the area of athletic performance.  There were a smattering of posts about the diets of Olympians about the net and I just have to shake my head at the one that goes something like "just imagine how much better fill in the blank  would do if (s)he didn't eat grains" or "ate LCHF" or "went paleo".  C'mon already ... Michael Phelps is a prime offender of all laws and gods nutritional, but will someone please remind me how many medals he's earned and records he's held/broken in his career?  Gawd forbid any of these elite athletes set a bad example by having their face put on a box of Wheaties!  I dunno ... it all seems so silly when Phel

In the previous part of this series, Atoms & The Periodic Table , I went into how the structure of atoms is related to the construction of the Periodic Table of elements.  Some take home points: The mass of an atom is highly concentrated in the central nucleus made up of protons and neutrons The volume of an atom is determined by the space "swept out" by the essentially massless electrons orbiting the nucleus.

As I outlined in the introductory post,  Biophysical Electrochemistry and Human Metabolism , many of the reactions involved in human metabolism might well be better understood by understanding electrochemistry which deals with redox chemistry and the physical chemistry of ionic gradients and diffusion.  But in order to get to that, I think it is important to lay the groundwork of the chemical nature of all matter.  And while I could send you to any number of tutorials about the net, I thought it worth my while to put the content here.   Atomic Structure The basic unit of all matter is the atom.  While there have been all manner of subatomic particles and such in the news, we really don't need to "go there" and the most simplistic model of the atom holds up fairly well for discussions of both biochemistry and electrochemistry.  Atoms are comprised of three particles: direct image link Protons:  mass 1 amu, +1 charge Neutrons:  mass 1 amu, 0 charge Electrons:  massle

If you've heard it once, you've probably heard it a thousand times, that ELMM = Eat Less Move More is a failed strategy for weight loss.  The rationale is something like one or more of the following: A calorie is not a calorie, because two people who eat the same amount won't weigh the same, or gain or lose the same amount of weight The 3500 cal/pound fat figure is wrong because with deliberate overfeeding or caloric restriction, people don't gain or lose exactly as this formula would predict  If you eat less your metabolism will just slow down to compensate If you move more deliberately, aka exercise, you'll just move less later in the day and/or be so hungry you'll compensate by eating more. 

P ragmatic  A ncestral- L ineage and  E volutionarily  O riented   (Claiming copyrights!  You read that here first!) It's been a while since I wrote Me & "The Community" ~ Part I: Where I'm coming from ... , and this time of reflection in the aftermath of AHS12 seems like as good a time as any to finish off Part II which is about where I see myself fitting -- or not -- into the community as a whole.  These two posts were inspired by an email I received way back in June that read in part: Subject: Here's some support from a random paleo dieter

One of those posts I need to apologize in advance for the length of ... A goodly portion of this post was written around a week ago, and I was conflicted on whether or not to hit the publish button.  I'm not sure the wisdom of posting this ... but in the end I decided to, and I've interspersed some additional thoughts now that AHS12 is over.  I apologize for the various awkward wordings, typos and case changes that resulted that I just don't have the time or patience to correct. Let me start by saying that I am amused by the predictable reactions of some about the web to my not going to AHS12.  If I had a dollar for every time I've been accused of  "not having a life" I'd be rich, but when my life outside this blog actually gets in the way?  Well then, now there's really got to be some other reason, ulterior motivation or nefarious cause for my "backing out" of attending the paleo event of the year.  Well folks, it really is as simple as m

I just went to reply to a comment on my opening post for the Palisades Shore  series, and lo and behold there are these double-underlined pop-up links there.  I noticed the same when I was reading elsewhere on the net.  So quick question -- did I inadvertantly install some sort of "helpful" junk on my computer lately, or has Blogger foisted this upon my blog?  I know I don't want this linked to my content, that's for sure.   

For background on my tongue-in-cheek paleo/ancestral inspired reality series, see this post (scroll to the picture of Giada to skip the AHS commentary).  But for a quick summary this shall do:  Imagine if you will that an alien species, the Giada, came to Earth and traveled through time selecting various specimens of human cultures and transported them to caves carved into the Palisades cliffs.  Along with the humans they were able to perfectly duplicate the environments.  Now these caves have been discovered, and the cast of Jersey Shore has been chosen to portray real-life modern day members of these ancient humans.   What we've learned about these long-hidden cave populations is that through the millenia contact and interactions occur fairly regularly while drinking that universal ancestral beverage coffee,  at Buck Star.  Still, the Giada insisted on maintaining cultural purity so intercultural mating was strictly forbidden.  Also, for whatever reason, the Giada installed

Soooo ... I've been following the #AHS12 hashtag on Twitter, and I'm not sure this came directly from there or from me clicking on an ID on one of the tweets and then checking out other tweets ... but anyway, I stumbled across this exchange between Aaron Blaisdell and Robb Wolf: 9 Aug Robb Wolf  ‏ @ robbwolf Ruminant fermentation converts cellulose to fats. Cows actually run on a 60-70% FAT diet. Expand   Reply     Retweet     Favorite 16h Aaron Blaisdell  ‏ @ AaronBlaisdell @ robbwolf  Paul Jaminet wrote the same thing in his book Perfect Health Diet Expand   Reply     Retweet     Favorite 7h Evelyn  ‏ @ CarbSane @ AaronBlaisdell   @ robbwolf  SCFA are not metabolized as "fats" . Ruminants convert the bulk of these via DNL to LCFA. http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-is-fat-fat.html FWIW, Robb retweeted this.  Now I'm pretty sure since he's at AHS12, this tweet came from a statement so

Just a quick note as I've received a few email alerts about this.  A little while back I began a little revamping of the website, nothing major, but wanted to update the Welcome Brochure and Who is CarbSane pages.  Well, I forgot to save the originals so can't re-instate them while the updates are under construction.  I'll try and get them finished and back up ASAP, but this isn't really high on the priority list right now.  Feel free to email me or ask in comments if you have any questions in the meantime.  Thanks for your patience.  

Oxidation is a word that gets tossed around a LOT in discussions of nutrition and metabolism.  And for good reason -- it is integral to how our bodies "burn" fuels for energy and how that energy is harnessed to drive all manner of chemical reactions.    I spent my graduate years studying oxidation -- in metals -- but in many ways the principles are the same.  A little while ago I came across the following paper:   The Pecking Order of Free Radicals and AntiOxidants: Lipid Peroxidation, α-Tocopherol and Ascorbate .  In it we find the following chart:

As the trend towards even higher fat diets continues in a faction of the community, it should  become ever the more clear to those not engulfed in dogma that this is not consistent with our evolution.  There is no way, repeat NO way, that our ancestors could have eaten a diet of the 80-10-10 variety -- as in 80% fat, and 10% protein, 10% carbs ... or any of the various higher fat lower carb ratios, perhaps allowing for an extra couple few percent of protein.   One would have to believe that humans evolved in an environment of such abundance where killing was accomplished with such ease, that they would kill another animal to eat just its fatty parts before consuming the meat.  Does that sound plausible to you?  Or that humans foraged for only fatty plant stuffs like nuts and fatty fruits like avocados and left the sugary and starchy stuff they may have happened upon in the process alone.  Sounds right, eh?  We're to believe that cultivation of plants has altered their sugar and s

I'm kinda surprised the community didn't go a bit a buzz when Anthony Colpo included this in a recent reader mail roundup :   Reader Glen sent along a link to comments made on FaceBook by Marilyn Diamond.  Who you ask?  Well as AC reminds us: ... she co-authored a runaway best-selling diet book in 1985 with her then husband Harvey titled  Fit For Life . It was enthusiastically endorsed by folks like Merv Griffin and Tony Robbins so, hey, it had to be scientifically sound. The diet was reportedly  “based on Harvey Diamond’s exploration of Herbert M. Shelton theories of food combining. Both authors claimed to be able to bring about weight loss without the need to count calories or undertake anything more than a reasonable exercise program. In the first version of the program, Diamond claimed that if one eats the foods in the wrong combination they “cause fermentation” in the stomach. This in turns gives rise to the destruction of valuable enzymes & nutrients. Diamo

Hello all!  I was hoping to hold off on this announcement until tomorrow or Sunday, but I will be traveling with unknown internet availability this weekend,  and AHS12 folks changed their refund/transfer policy So ... it is with some regret (and several other thoughts I will blog on in due time) that I'm informing my readers that I cannot attend AHS12.    The short story of the long is that my husband's recent change in employment leaves me without a travel companion and chauffeur -- again, there'll be a bit more in the long story ;-)    I have tried to contact any donors who made donations specifically for this purpose, but I may have missed a few.  The PayPal interface isn't that friendly for such things and I had missed quite a few changing accounts back and forth.  If you donated spcifically for AHS12 and are learning of this for the first time just now, please email me and I'm more than happy to make things right.  On to the next order of business.  AHS12