How do people come up with this stuff? - PaleoHacks.com

How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T09:33:14Z

I recently went away on holidays with a bunch of friends, all into 'health and fitness', including a vego and 3 people who are on a special 'low fat' diet, then there was me smashing down bacon and eggs cooked in a fat knob of butter every day, and ordering pork belly at dinner, you can imagine the conversations that came up. I really had to bite my tongue and hold back from slapping everyone upside the head with a raw steak.

Anyway, one of my mates was explaining that they only eat red meat once every two weeks because, and I quote, 'red meat is really difficult to digest and sits in your gut for hours...' This comment really tested my composure but I let it go. Where do people get this stuff from?

Answer by VB for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T09:42:23Z

Rob, I have gastritis and red meat is really difficult for me to digest. It sits in my gut for hours. But I have to eat it - I have no choice. If I don't, I will be low on iron.

The only meat that I found that is easier on my digestion is liver. Beef liver is much easier on my digestion than muscle meat. Raw(rare) meat is a bit easier as well.

The easiest things to digest for me - raw milk and raw vegetables.

I really don't know why - maybe I am lacking some important enzymes or whatever, but that's the truth.

EDITED: there are certain things that are MUCH worse on my stomach than meat:

Anything with additives/chemicals, MSG
Anything with sugar
Anything with gluten
Anything with grains, processed
Pasteurized dairy.

The list above is basically killing my stomach. I get very very sick after eating that. Meat does not, it just hard for me to digest, that's all.

Answer by raydawg for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T10:08:04Z

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke... "A Paleo eater, a SAD eater, and a Vegan walk into a bar..." :)

In most folks, meat is very easy to digest, unless you either have some sort of allergy, I knew a guy that would get sick from eating any meat but chicken, or more likely they're so starved of minerals that they're no longer producing stomach acid.

When I came to paleo I had digestion issues too, but they were caused by over the counter PPI's: zantac because I had very bad acid reflux. (I also had my gall bladder removed and of course no one told me to supplement with digestive enzymes, until I found paleo, so that was a huge improvement in my health.)

It turned out the reflux was a cow dairy and wheat allergy/intolerance. However, as I took those out and supplemented with magnesium, potassium, zinc, and got my stomach acid back to normal levels, my digestion improved.

There was a period of time, where I couldn't digest eggs protein - the yolk I had no issue with, but the protein just sat there like a brick, but later on, I no longer had any issues at all.

So I don't doubt it that there are people that have had the experience of a steak just sitting in their stomach like a brick and thinking that red meat must be bad, when in truth, their digestion is not working, and could have been easily fixed through supplementation of minerals, betaine HCL, or digestive enzymes. Sometimes there's more than one factor, and the symptoms aren't clear, so people can misinterpret these things - I did at first.

Eating overcooked meat also makes it very tough to digest, where rare is very easy to digest, but some people freak out when they're faced with rare beef. Of course, there's a huge vegetarian/vegan propaganda myths about "meat rotting in our guts", and "meat sits in our colon for years and causes cancer" (which probably was the start of the coffee enema craze) so don't rule that out, and there are folks that are gullible.

Answer by borofergie for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T10:09:43Z

Anyone that has had the misfortune to use the toilet after a vegetarian will tell you that a diet consisting only of vegetables is not optimal for digestion.

Answer by hunts-with-wolves for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T10:29:29Z

that would be one of the scare stories people use to convince people to eat a vegan diet.. horror stories that meat stays in your system for weeks at a time festering with maggots.. if you are dumb enough to believe that and go vegan.. then darwin would be proud!! lol

Answer by AlphaCog for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T10:47:54Z

They probably read that from some pro-vegetarian sites. Here's a bunch more myths.

From gnolls.org:

“Can Humans Digest Meat?”

“Because I had such an extremely short bowel, my output was very high because no absorption had taken place. I was fed and hydrated by infusion and could literally live without eating or drinking at all. Because of my excessive output, we had to make a rig that had a hose extending from the ostomy bag that drained into a one gallon jug. Often the hose would get clogged and my wife or sister would have to use a coat hanger wire to unplug it. Now if vegan pseudoscience is right, we would suspect that the hose was being plugged by pieces of meat.

“Never once did we see any solid chunks of meat. I became so curious about this that I once swallowed the largest chunk of meat I could possibly get down without choking. Because of the shortness of my bowel, it only took about twenty minutes for my stomach to empty into the ostomy. Better than two hours later, there were no signs of any meat chunks. What was always clogging the ostomy tube were pieces of vegetables that were not fully chewed.

“Entire pieces of olive, lettuce, broccoli florets, grains and seeds were found. Yet, large pieces of fat were never witnessed. As a matter of fact, all the fat from the meat was already emulsified by the bile into solution. Over time, fat would coagulate on the side walls of the ostomy bag, but never were there any solid pieces observed.”

(Click for full article: Can Humans Digest Meat?)

Answer by Renee for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T10:48:30Z

I don't want to eat for six hours after eating steak. Unless the salad is huge, I need to eat two or three hours after eating salad. I don't think food sitting in the stomach is necessarily a bad thing.

Answer by John Sorrentino for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T11:24:52Z

It all started with a man named Ansel Keys and some false assumptions and preconceived notions.

Answer by CD for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T11:49:04Z

Last December, I was right there with them. Eating my oatmeal and raisin bran muffin with a big glass of heart health OJ for breakfast every morning. A 6 oz salad with 3 oz steamed chicken breast on a whole wheat bun for lunch. And some healthy whole grain pasta for dinner.

I worked my ass off running 50+ miles per week, eating "healthy" and could never get below 190 lbs despite low calorie, high exercise. I was doing everything I knew to do, and nothing worked. But that's ok. Some people just gain weight after 30. Some people just live with back pain. Sore? Yeah, that's because your workout is good!

That's all most people know, that is what has been crammed down our throats from "experts" for years. It's what we learn in school, from our parents, from nutritionist... I consider myself lucky to have had a good friend suggest I look into Paleo when I was looking to drop a "few" pounds when I crept over the 200lb mark. He wasn't pushy just said to give it a go. I found the Primal Blueprint, and 45 lbs later, I can go to sleep and wake up without an alarm clock, I can make it through a whole day without needing coffee to keep me up, I can play with my kids whenever where ever...

So I don't look down on people who just plain don't know better. I was one of them for 31 years. I consider myself lucky to have found what "healthy" really means.

Answer by Want2BHealthyGirl for How do people come up with this stuff?

2012-09-05T19:23:43Z

I used to think it was too difficult to digest meat as well... I barely ate it for a couple years. Little did I know the real problem was I wasn't eating enough fiber or veggies - that helped me digest my food. (lack of enzymes). So much misinformation out there.