Your Personal Paleo Code: The 3-Step Plan to Lose Weight, Reverse Disease, and Stay Fit and Healthy for Life (17 page)
Authors: Chris Kresser
Tags: #Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Diets, #Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Weight Loss
Pasture-raised-animal products are the richest known source of CLA in the diet, and they are significantly higher in CLA than grain-fed-animal products. When ruminant animals like cows and sheep are raised
on fresh pasture alone, their products contain three to five times more CLA than products from animals fed grain.
Grass-fed beef is also much higher in key micronutrients than grain-fed beef; it has:
•
Seven times more beta-carotene
•
Three times more vitamin E
•
Higher levels of glutathione
•
Twice as much riboflavin (vitamin B
2
)
•
Three times as much thiamine (vitamin B
1
)
•
30 percent more calcium
•
5 percent more magnesium
Grass-fed meat also has more selenium than grain-fed products. Selenium plays an important role in thyroid function, has antioxidant effects, and protects the body against mercury toxicity. Grass-fed-bison meat has four times more selenium than grain-fed-bison meat.
Here’s a good reason to put some thought into how you shop for meat. A 2013 analysis of data by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found significant levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in conventionally raised meat that was being sold in supermarkets across the country. These so-called superbugs can cause serious foodborne illnesses and infections that are becoming increasingly difficult to treat. The EWG reports that antibiotic-resistant bacteria was found in:
•
81 percent of ground turkey
•
69 percent of pork chops
•
55 percent of ground beef
•
39 percent of chicken breasts, wings, and thighs
Researchers also found that 87 percent of raw-meat samples were contaminated with both normal and antibiotic-resistant enterococcus bacteria, which indicates that the meat came into contact with fecal matter.
Industrial livestock producers routinely give their animals antibiotics to encourage more rapid growth or prevent infection in overcrowded, stressful, and unsanitary living conditions. Today, 80 percent of the antibiotics manufactured each year are given to food-industry animals.
Superbugs that have evolved because of misuse of antibiotics (in both humans and livestock) have increased the risk that people will succumb to severe infection. An increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria means that a common problem like strep throat or a scraped knee could be fatal.
•
The EWG report recommends the following steps to reduce your exposure to superbugs in meat: Choose meat from organic, pasture-raised animals that have not been given antibiotics. If you’re budget-conscious, buy cheaper cuts of meat, like brisket, chuck roast, sirloin, tenderloin, rib roast, shoulder roast, ground meat, bone-in chops, or bone-in thighs and breasts.
•
Bag raw meat before it goes in your grocery cart, and be especially careful with ground meats.
•
Store meat on the lowest rack in the fridge, away from fresh produce. Thaw it in the fridge, not on the counter.
•
Use separate cutting boards for meat and produce. Don’t wash meat; splashes spread bacteria.
•
Use a food thermometer to ensure that the meat is adequately cooked, which will kill any bacteria. See http://foodsafety.gov for more about how to cook meat safely.
•
As a general rule, avoid food that comes in a bag or a box. Focus on fresh ingredients.
•
Buy organic, locally grown produce as much as possible. Shop farmers’ markets or join a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm. Consider springing for organic varieties of the Dirty Dozen Plus; save money by buying conventional varieties of the Clean Fifteen.
•
Buy pasture-raised-animal meat, dairy, and eggs whenever possible. They will have more nutrients and fewer toxins, and they will be less likely to harbor antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Choose tougher, cheaper cuts (which are among the most flavorful, and can be made more tender by slow/wet cooking methods) and buy in bulk or directly from local farmers to save money. If pastured meat isn’t available locally, buy it from online vendors. See the Resources section on my website for recommendations.
•
Buy wild-caught fish. If fresh wild fish is not available locally, you can buy it canned from online vendors. See my website for recommendations.
Notes for this chapter may be found at ChrisKresser.com/ppcnotes/#ch8.
Cheaper, More Nutritious, and Better-Tasting: Cooking and Eating from Nose to Tail
One of the most remarkable things about traditional hunter-gatherer diets is that, despite the fact that early humans developed them without the benefits of modern science or even the concept of micronutrients, they often provided all of the nutrients required for optimal health. Our ancestors learned which types, amounts, and combinations of nutrients they needed the old-fashioned way: through experimentation over thousands of generations.
In his book
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,
Weston Price—the Ohio dentist-turned-documentarian-of-traditional-peoples-and-their-diets (see
chapter 1
)—recounted the experience of a prospector who went blind while crossing a high plateau in the Rocky Mountains. The prospector was discovered by a Native American, who fed him “the flesh and the head and the tissues of the back of the eyes, including the eyes” of a trout. Within a few hours, the prospector’s sight began to return, and a few hours after that, his sight was normal. Today, we know that this type of temporary blindness can be caused by a deficiency of vitamin A. We also know that the eyes and the heads of fish are rich in retinol, preformed vitamin A.
Another example is the use of special preconception diets of mothers-to-be (and sometimes fathers-to-be) in traditional cultures like the Masai (see
chapter 5
), who only allowed marriage and pregnancy after couples spent months drinking nutrient-rich milk from cows who grazed during the lush wet season. Other cultures used special foods like fish eggs, animal glands, spider crabs, or even the ashes of certain plants to supply additional amounts of nutrients that are important for fetal development, such as choline; iodine; vitamins A, D, and K
2
; and EPA and DHA. And almost all traditional diets contained liver and other organ meats, bones and skin, fats, seafood, and wild plants, all of which are also high in nutrients crucial for pregnancy and lactation.
Today, unfortunately, much of this ancient and time-tested wisdom has fallen by the wayside. Organ meats, bone broths, skin and cartilage, fish eggs, egg yolks, and many other nutrient-dense parts of animals consumed have all but disappeared from the modern diet. Your grandparents may have eaten these foods, but chances are you don’t. This has happened in large part because of the misguided campaigns against saturated fat, cholesterol, and red meat. But it’s also a consequence of our love for all things modern and our tendency to discount the knowledge of the past.
The problem is that these now-unpopular foods provide nutrients that work synergistically with those found in more commonly eaten foods and are difficult to obtain elsewhere in the diet. In other words, we may be well fed, but we’re undernourished. The solution is to return to the practice of our ancestors and “eat from nose to tail.” This means eating not only the lean muscle meat (like steak or chicken breast) of animals but also the organs, skin, cartilage, bones, and fattier cuts.
These parts of the animal contain nutrients that work best when combined with the nutrients found in muscle meats and other lean proteins. For example:
•
The amino acid methionine, which is abundant in lean proteins, can’t fulfill its important functions without adequate amounts of B vitamins (especially B
6
, B
12
, and folate), choline, and glycine.
•
Vitamin A is crucial for a variety of biochemical processes in the body, yet it is found in significant amounts only in the liver of land mammals and the liver oils of fish. Beta-carotene, which is found in vegetables like carrots and red peppers, is often mistakenly referred to as vitamin A. However, while some beta-carotene can be converted into vitamin A in humans, that amount is very small: about 3 percent in the case of raw carrots. Too much vitamin A without enough vitamin D promotes bone loss, whereas too much vitamin D without enough vitamin A leads to kidney and bladder stones and calcification of the arteries. Vitamin K
2
works in concert with vitamins A and D to regulate calcium metabolism.
With this in mind, I suggest balancing your intake of lean meats and fish with liberal amounts of choline, glycine, B vitamins, vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin K
2
. You can do that by following these guidelines:
•
Consume
one-half to one cup of homemade bone broth
daily, in soups, sauces, stews, or as a beverage; eat
tougher cuts of meat, like brisket, chuck roast, oxtail, and shanks;
and don’t shy away from
skin and cartilage.
These are all excellent sources of glycine.
•
Eat
one to two three-ounce servings of chicken and/or beef liver
per week. See below for tips on how to prepare it. Liver is rich in B vitamins, vitamin A, and several other nutrients.
•
Eat at least
four to five egg yolks
per week, preferably from eggs that come from pasture-raised chickens. You’re free to eat more if you’d like, since dietary cholesterol does not have a significant impact on blood-cholesterol levels or the risk of heart disease. Egg yolks are the highest source of choline in the diet.
•
Take
one-half teaspoon of high-vitamin cod-liver oil
per day. Cod-liver oil is the richest source of vitamin A, but it also contains vitamin D, EPA, DHA, and—in the case of fermented cod-liver oil (see the bonus chapter on supplementation on the website for more info)—vitamin K
2
.
•
Eat
two servings per day of fermented foods
(for example, sauerkraut, kefir, natto),
cheese and butter
(from pasture-raised cows), and/or
eggs (
from pasture-raised chickens) to obtain adequate amounts of vitamin K
2
.
Aaron, thirty-four, came to see me complaining of depression. He had suffered from it on and off for years, but it had gotten worse during the year leading up to our visit. He had tried over-the-counter remedies, like Saint-John’s-wort and SAMe, but they didn’t help. Aaron wanted to avoid drugs if possible, so he asked me if there was anything else he could do.
I noticed that he had started a strict Paleo diet right around the time his symptoms began to worsen. Aaron was passionate about CrossFit, an intensive strength and conditioning program, so he was eating large amounts of protein to support his workouts. He had been told by the personal trainer who introduced him to Paleo to focus on lean meats and avoid saturated fat. He also consumed whey protein shakes and avoided egg yolks because he had a family history of heart disease and was worried about his cholesterol.
I explained to Aaron that his diet was rich in methionine and low in glycine and that this imbalance could be contributing to his depression. His body wasn’t able to produce adequate serotonin on such a diet. I asked him to start eating fattier cuts of meat and egg yolks and reduce his consumption of whey protein. I also prescribed a grass-fed-animal gelatin supplement to provide extra glycine as well as high-vitamin cod-liver oil to provide fat-soluble vitamins (see below). Aaron was skeptical that such simple dietary changes could have any effect, given everything he had already tried. Yet after he spent six weeks on this new regimen, his mood improved significantly. After three months, his depression was completely gone. His sleep had also improved, and he felt calmer and more at ease throughout the day.
There are three other reasons to eat from nose to tail. The first is economy. Organ meats; more gelatinous cuts, such as brisket, chuck roast, oxtail, chicken breast or legs with bones and skin; and fish heads are typically less expensive than muscle meats, boneless (and skinless) chicken breasts, and fish fillets. Some butchers will even give beef bones away if you ask for them. Grass-fed-animal (or pastured-animal) products are often more expensive than conventional grain-fed alternatives, but choosing the more gelatinous cuts and organ meats of grass-fed animals is one way to make them more affordable. Including these cuts in your diet is less wasteful, as these cuts often go unconsumed, an important consideration in a world with a growing population and dwindling natural resources.
The second reason is flavor. In many cases, to save money you have to sacrifice quality or flavor. Not so with these cuts: they are some of the most flavorful, tender, and delicious parts of the animal if they’re prepared properly. This was no secret to our grandparents and our ancestors, who regularly included them in their diet. But today, many people have forgotten how to cook them. Fortunately, there’s a nose-to-tail revival happening in culinary circles, and numerous books are available to provide instruction. For some excellent inspiration and recipes, check out two of my favorite books:
The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating,
by Fergus Henderson, and
Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal,
by Jennifer McLagan.
The third reason is convenience. Let’s face it: Most of us are busy and don’t have time to cook from scratch at every meal. One of the advantages of the fattier cuts of meat is that they tend to be larger and will feed you and your family for more than a single meal. This can save you both time and money.
If you’re new to preparing these cuts, here are a few ideas to get you started. Check out my website for recipes.
•
Make a stew.
Chuck roast, chuck shoulder, bottom round roast, round tip roast, and rump roast are good cuts for stew.
•
Make a pot roast.
Pot roast cuts come from the fore-and hindquarters of the cow. You can also use the cuts listed above for pot roast.
•
Make chicken broth.
Roast a chicken and eat the meat for dinner, and then put the carcass in a large pot and make some homemade broth. It’s one of the most healing foods you can eat and rich in glycine and minerals. Use it for soups or sauces, or just drink it warm like tea.
•
Make fish-head soup.
Another time-tested remedy, fish-head soup is rich in glycine, iodine, selenium, and other minerals. It can also be used for soup and as a base for sauces, especially in Thai food.
•
Make oxtail soup.
Oxtails are like braised short ribs but with even more flavor. They’re incredibly gelatinous and thus high in glycine, and they have all of the other vitamins and minerals beef contains. The segments are vertebrae so they’re also rich in nutrient-dense bone marrow.
Organ meats can be prepared in numerous ways. (See the additional meal plans on my website for some ideas.) It’s worth pointing out that while some people love the stronger flavor of organ meats, others don’t. In that case, here are three ideas for how to include liver (which is one of the most nutrient-dense foods by weight you can eat) in your diet:
•
Choose recipes that mask or mellow the strong flavor.
•
Mix liver into other meat dishes. See
here
for instructions.
•
Dice fresh liver into pill-size pieces. Arrange them flat on a small baking sheet that will fit in your freezer. Freeze them for at least two weeks to kill any potential pathogens in the raw meat. Then simply swallow several frozen liver pills each day. Aim for about three to six ounces a week, total.
People often object to eating liver because they believe it is toxic, since the liver is the primary organ of detoxification. While it’s true that the liver is in charge of detoxification, most of the toxins in the body are stored in fat, not in the liver. (For this reason, it’s best to buy pasture-raised and
organic items when you’re choosing high-fat animal products such as fattier cuts of meat, butter, whole milk, and yogurt.)
Hemochromatosis is a hereditary condition that causes excess absorption of iron in the body. It’s the most common genetic disease in North America, affecting as many as one in two hundred people—a prevalence ten times that of cystic fibrosis. It’s associated with a wide variety of disorders, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s, and if untreated, it can literally rust the organs (especially the liver, pancreas, heart, and brain) and cause early death. Unfortunately, hemochromatosis is often misdiagnosed or simply just missed. A 1996 CDC study found that the average hemochromatosis patient had seen three doctors over a period of nine years before being properly diagnosed. What’s more, even mild iron overload that isn’t associated with hemochromatosis can cause serious problems, including metabolic disease, male infertility, and severe fatigue.
Iron overload is more common in men and postmenopausal women than in premenopausal women. Why? The only way to get rid of excess iron once it’s stored in the body is through bleeding or chelation therapy. Premenopausal women lose a little bit of iron (in the blood) through menstruation each month, whereas men and postmenopausal women simply accumulate iron without losing it.
Ask your doctor about testing your iron levels. If they’re high, I’d recommend the following steps:
•
Avoid consuming organ meats, clams, and oysters, which are very high in iron.
•
Moderate your intake of red meat, such as beef and lamb, and wild game, such as venison, which are also relatively high in iron.
•
Donate blood three to four times a year. Men and postmenopausal women can do this as a preventive measure. Studies have shown that frequent blood donors have better blood-sugar control and lower levels of hypertension.
•
Ask your doctor about phlebotomy (the therapeutic removal of blood), the treatment of choice for many cases of iron overload.
•
Avoid high doses (over 300 mg/d) of vitamin C or betaine hydrochloride, both of which increase iron absorption.
•
Don’t consume alcohol with meals containing iron; alcohol also increases iron absorption.