Paleo Baby

I strive to try and maintain some semblance of online anonymity with this blog. Because of this, I've deleted many an intended post here and elsewhere as I was composing it, because it gives away too much personal info. I've had several life altering events I've blogged about in the past year, but one thing I haven't touched on yet has been the birth of my first child. In order to write this post while attempting to keep up my pretenses of anonymity, I will refer to my child as "Paleo Baby" for the rest of this piece and avoid gendered references to the child.

Now, I've spent a good deal of time blogging about dietary and nutrition issues, and have related many of my own personal experiences I've undergone since I began eating foods contrary to the conventional wisdom of mainstream society. But I've done more than put my money were my mouth is...I've put the dietary principles I blog about into practice with raising my child. In short, my baby is being raised loosely following the Paleo diet guidelines. Another way to put it, is that I've not only put my money where my mouth is, I've put my progeny where my advocacy blogging has been.

It has been an uphill battle with most people. Paleo Baby's doctor, my wife, my in-laws, my own parents...all have argued, disagreed with me or have expressed incredulous amazement when they see me do things that are against conventional wisdom with regards to raising and caring for paleo baby.

I don't give a damn. As far as I'm concerned, the results speak for themselves.

It started at conception. That is when I essentially took over the grocery shopping (my wife loves pasta and bread, I had to take over the shopping to get that stuff out of the house) and cooking at least 50% of the meals in my household. I made sure to feed my pregnant wife ample supplies of proteins and fats, while eliminating all sugars, processed snack foods, and Omega-6-rich vegetable oils. I highly restricted all grains, bread, pasta and other such high-carb fare...including "heart healthy whole grains."

I fed my wife plenty of bacon, eggs (from our own pastured chickens) fried in a mix of bacon grease and butter (the highest quality butter from grass fed cows - either Anchor brand from New Zealand or Kerry Gold brand from Ireland), and a wide assortment of vegetables also sauteed in butter/bacon grease. This was breakfast every single day for the past two years.

Dinners were largely consisted of vegetables and meat...especially red meats - buffalo, grass fed beef, free range chicken and pork, as well as fresh caught fish. All vegetables were liberally buttered and salted with fresh ground sea salt. We would also regularly eat tubers like sweet potato and yams deep fried in extra-virgin coconut oil. In short, if you believe in the lipid hypothesis, my pregnant wife should have gained 300 lbs. and died of a heart attack shortly after birth.

Except she actually lost weight in all the right places. Her pregnancy was all belly, while she burned off excess fat in her arms, legs, upper body, neck and face. See, prior to pregnancy, she would regularly eat junk food. While she was basically following my paleo diet at home, she regularly ate pasta, bread, fast food, restaurant foods and drank soda and ate snacks and such while at work and out with her friends. Once she got pregnant, she got serious and cut all of that out "for the baby." When she was 9 months pregnant, you could not tell she was carrying if you saw only her back view.

Another thing that nearly everyone couldn't believe we did, was eschew any prenatal vitamin supplements. The only supplement my wife took during her entire pregnancy was a high quality fish oil pill to get EPA/DHA.

When Paleo Baby was born, there were a number of things that confirm to me that we did the right thing.

Paleo Baby was born with eyes wide open. I have no doubts Paleo Baby could see within minutes of birth. When I held baby for the first time, I was greeted to two wide eyes that tracked my head and hand movement from the get go. I've never seen a newborn like that before. This seems to jibe with this article: Vegetarian Mothers Depriving Young Children & Unborn Babies of Essential Vitamins

What Parents Should Know About DHA

In order to fully understand the importance of choosing the right omega-3 fatty acid supplement, it is necessary to understand how crucial a role these nutrients work to maintain health. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is one of the most important fatty acids in the body. It makes up 40% of the fatty acids found in the brain and 60% of the fatty acids found in the retina, which is why it is so crucial for thought processes and maintaining healthy vision, and why parents should ensure that the body has enough of it. DHA is also one of the building blocks of neural cells, supporting mental faculties on a cellular level. In infants and fetuses, the addition of DHA to formula has been shown to improve cognitive function and improve macular development. The benefits of DHA do not only extend to infants and fetuses. In pregnant women, DHA has been linked to improved eyesight and attention.

Paleo baby had plenty of DHA in utero.

Paleo Baby head was being fully supported by the neck since 10 days of age. At 10 days, I could hold baby upright without having to support the neck. Sounds unbelievable?

Paleo Baby is also the most cheerful, easy going baby I've ever encountered. Paleo Baby regularly sleeps the entire night through, and only occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night to breastfeed. In those cases, baby than falls back asleep and stays that way the rest of the night. It's been like this from newborn to the present day.

Paleo Baby is the very anti-thesis of a colicky baby. 80% of the time baby awakens without crying. Paleo baby will coo, giggle or laugh until my wife or I awakes to feed or change the diaper.

Thinks this sounds preposterous? Check out this article: Why a steak for pregnant mothers could stop babies crying

It's not just the steak. It's the FAT. All that glorious, "artery-clogging" and "fattening" saturated FAT.

Note that while the article suggests that expectant mothers should eat steak, it still has to end with a quote from a so called "nutritionist" (who turns out to be a VEGAN!):

But nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston warned: 'Meat comes with saturated fats which can hinder the body's use of essential fats needed for the baby's brain and nervous system development.'

I suggest all nutritionists and dietary experts who peddle such garbage should all be rounded up and shipped off to FEMA camps where they can be fed all the high-carb low-fat vegan crap they try to guilt trip the rest of us into eating. If it's so good for us all, they should thrive, no? They can eat like birds, I'll stick the diet of an omnivorous predator species, thank you very much.

But I digress.

The following is a list of food and practices I do in raising Paleo Baby, for which I get raised eyebrows and regular objections to, by doctors, relatives and friends alike when they here or see me doing as such:

- No formula. Ever. Breast milk 100% for the first 4 months, and still only breast milk in addition to solid foods.

- First solid food at 4 months? Pureed buffalo, salted and sauteed in butter. I looked at the sheet of paper Paleo Baby's pediatrician gave us that recommended a schedule for introducing solid foods. I ignored it. The supposed first food was supposed to be pureed grains like rice, corn along with other vegetables. It recommended only introducing meat when baby reaches 9 months. I laughed out loud at that one.

- We make 95% of all the baby food paleo baby eats from fresh ingredients. Grass fed beef, free range chicken, wild caught fish, free range pork. All cooked and salted with fresh ground Hawaiian sea salt, and pureed with a wide variety of vegetables and butter. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potato, asparagus, spinach, zucchini, green beans, peas. The only fruit is an occasional little bit of banana or pear, and only given after eating full portions of the main food first. We always feed paleo baby until baby is full and doesn't want anymore.

- Paleo baby also eats 100% organic, whole milk (full fat) yogurt, and full fat sour cream, as well as a wide variety of, high quality cheeses like brie, cheddar, mozzarella, muenster, feta and organic cream cheese.

- I regularly give paleo baby hunks of meat, bacon, fish, and seafood. Pieces that are too big to swallow, but perfect to gnaw on to get the flavor and the FAT.

- Paleo baby has never eaten any sugar, high fructose corn syrup or any kind of soy or wheat derived food product. No cookies, crackers, cereal, "num nums" etc.

- Paleo baby also sunbathes every day at high noon if the weather is conducive. No sunscreen. We carefully monitor baby as we sunbathe. We've been doing this regularly for months now, and Paleo Baby has a nice tan, and has never been sunburned. This is the big one that gets so many friends and relatives upset with me. When we go to the beach, I'll take Paleo Baby into the water and some relative or friend will ask me if I'm going to put any sunscreen on baby. When I politely decline, they look at me like I'm some kind of monster purposely going out to broil my child into a burnt crisp.

- Paleo Baby has only had one head cold to date. Paleo Baby is almost 1 years old, and has been exposed to a variety of sick people, and has only gotten sick once. No ear infections, diarrhea or other common childhood ailments.

- Paleo baby only had diaper rash once (because we were out and about, and didn't change the diaper for over 4 hours or so). We have tubes and tubes of diaper rash paste given to us as baby shower presents, sitting unused and unopened.

- Paleo Baby's diapers are almost too easy to change. The crap is solid, not that smelly, and easily cleaned up with a single baby wipe. It is very rare that more than one wipe is required to adequately clean up after changing a diaper. I know this is related to Paleo Baby's diet...because we recently went on a trip and bought a bunch of "organic" jarred baby food for the convenience of not having to bring along our baby food maker. Baby did not like it (probably because none had good FAT in it, like all the butter Paleo Baby is used to), and ate with half the gusto as usual. Paleo Baby had soft, runny, stinky diapers that required multiple wipes to clean up. Within a day of returning home and resuming the fresh homemade paleo foods, crap diapers went back to solid and less smelly and easily cleaned as before.

On the most recent check up with Paleo Baby's Pediatrician, she commented that we were the most well-rested, relaxed and least distressed parents of an infant she's ever seen. We are not sleep deprived, and we do not have frayed nerves because baby cries so infrequently, and is easily pacified.

The Pediatrician also informed us that Paleo Baby is in the 94% percentile of all babies in the country with regards to height...and 40% percentile in weight. In other words, Paleo Baby is taller than most, and is at what she described of as the perfect weight. She essentially told us that most babies are fat all over, Paleo Baby only has fat thighs and cheeks. Paleo Baby actually looks somewhat muscular (for an infant). I believe that's because most babies are fed soy formula and lots of sweets and grains. Not many babies have a diet for which the majority of the calories comes from fats and proteins like Paleo Baby.

Paleo Baby also has not manifest any sort of allergies as of yet...which also jibes with the idea that gut bacteria is the primary component of the immune system, and babies not fed formula or high carbohydrate grain-based foods will have a much better immune system than babies on the standard American diet (SAD starts at birth...). Paleo Baby's gut bacteria is obviously thriving and doing it's job as it was intended.

I note that the average parent of a newborn nowadays is continually handing off grain/sugar based cereals and snacks to their kids, and the kids will actually start crying until they get their fix every hour or so. The only grains Paleo Baby ever gets is some white jasmine rice blended in with some form of animal protein, and that is only during meal time. Paleo baby eats 3 square meals and nurses 2-3 a day.

Yes, I'm aware that many parents will often brag about their progeny and proclaim them special and unique. It's natural. I'll just say that I'm no stranger to baby's. I come from a large family. I have been babysitting and tending younger siblings and cousins -- that is feeding, burping and changing baby diapers since I was 10 years old. In addition, several of my friends have also had children within the last couple of years as well. The contrasts between Paleo Baby and all of the new born baby's my peer group's experiences are rather stark and obvious. We are regularly told by our friends that they wish their own children were as easy going and well tempered as Paleo Baby.

Most think I'm crazy for insisting on the diet and other things I do with Paleo Baby.

Than they always tell us how lucky we are.

I don't think luck has anything to do with it.

Now I'm not going to claim Paleo Baby is perfect. But it's quite obvious to me that Paleo Baby is well fed, and adequately nourished from the nutrient dense, high-fat diet, and the differences in behavior, demeanor and development are obvious. I know why...even if others don't or won't believe it.

On the other hand, if someone wants to discount this testimony and just attribute it the luck of baby having superior genes, I won't argue with that either. :)

The Paleo Diet is Not a Panacea

I had no idea my last post would get so much attention. I was caught off guard by a linkage from Mark Sisson on Friday and it brought a batch of folks here who have never seen my little outpost on teh interwebz before. As anyone who's been a regular reader here would expect, the reactions have been mixed.

Of course I'm not surprised at the folks who've come here and checked out the archives and got upset with my "manosphere" topics. Some commenters at MDA called me a jerk, a misogynist, controlling and domineering and (my personal favorite) "SCARY."

Muahahahahaha! Wait til they get a load of Roissy or Ferdinand...

All that aside, I'd like to clarify a few things...based on some of the criticisms folks made both here and over at MDAs.

My last post was not intended to be a "My kid is better than yours" screed to stroke my own ego.

At all.

I've merely noticed what I see as quite common differences between most babies I know of who are fed formula from birth, and are fed commercially bought baby food once they start eating solids. I've changed plenty of diapers in my lifetime, long before I had my child's diapers to change.

I've also seen the difference in my own bowel function after I gave up the SAD diet and adopted paleo diet principles. It is not "luck" or "genetics" that my child has never had real problems with digestion or diaper rash. As I wrote, when we went traveling, we fed baby the highest quality, organic vegetable and meat baby food you can buy from the store. 4 days of such fare changed babies diaper results dramatically.

Which brings me to a recent comment made today over at MDA's by a Daniel Merk:

The paleo baby article makes me chuckle. Our son is now 1 year old. He’s never had grains, legumes or dairy. He has horrible GERD/Reflux and on meds. He was colicky and still never sleeps through the night. His poop is solid, but not perfect. He loves meat more than fruit and loves all veggies. He begins almond/coconut milk because our PED asked us to give him milk and we are against it so she ok’d coconut milk as long as he was not allergic.

Look folks, this is not black or white. It's not "PALEO WILL GUARANTEE YOUR BABY WILL BE PERFECTLY HEALTHY." Some people can eat the healthiest diet possible, and still experience health problems. That's life.

As I wrote earlier, my baby did get sick with a rather nasty head cold. During that episode last month, baby was congested and constantly miserable. It took almost 2 weeks for baby to get well. During those 2 weeks, we did experience what it's like for newborn parents who are awoken by a crying baby multiple times throughout the night. Not fun.

But once baby recovered, it was back to full nights of sleep and awakening cheerfully most mornings.

I never claimed that this idea that Paleo dieting will make people have "perfect babies" that are the envy of all SAD parents. There are so many factors that can contribute to how a baby develops, diet is just one variable.

But it is, IN MY OWN OPINION, a very significant variable in the overall equation.

I have empathy for parents with colicky babies. I've read up on colic and I understand that Doctor's still don't know precisely how and why some babies experience it and some don't. I personally believe that colic can be caused by a variety of different factors, with diet being one factor. But I still believe, as with adults, that it is an important one. If avoiding SAD staples lessens the chances of your baby developing colic, why would you be critical of someone advocating it?

Everyone knows of the anecdote of the person who lived to 100 years of age chain smoking cigarettes and chugging hard liquor until they died peacefully in their sleep. Doesn't mean you should take up chain smoking and hardcore alcoholism in an attempt to replicate that feat.

But some of the commenters here and at MDA act like the diet and other things I've done with my child have no significance...nor relevance. It's just luck. As if we could have adopted a vegan diet at conception, fed the kid soy formula from birth, and still have the exact same baby I described.

That is just ludicrous.

The nutrient dense foods advocated by the Paleo diet can have profound effects on adults who stop eating the USDA Food Pyramid designed SAD...what makes you think similar effects wouldn't be experienced by infant nutrition as well?

I've seen plenty of newborns in my own extended family, in which babies didn't support their own heads with their necks until they were well over 1 month old. I've seen babies who's eyes didn't even fully open until 2 weeks. And I've certainly changed my fair share of diapers from babies on formula/commercial baby food. In fact, in my own experience, these are the norm amongst most people's infants.

Personally, I'd rather that all of the experiences I related in my last post were common, unexceptional occurrences in today's world. It's a travesty that so many kids are raised on formula and other garbage...or that expectant mothers are encouraged to eat "heart healthy whole grains" and to limit their saturated fat consumption.

Paleo Progeny Reprisal

I'm amazed at the continuing popularity of my Paleo Baby post. I guess I shouldn't be though, since it is linked over at Mark's Daily Apple, and people go through his extensive archives all the time. If anything, I certainly understand the intense interest and fascination one experiences when they discover a new paradigm that fosters a host of positive and dramatic changes in health and well being.

I also think there are a lot of folks who upon finding out they are going to have children, suddenly take the idea of eating a careful diet seriously, and start to look for answers on teh Interwebz...and find linkage to my post.

I eventually posted a follow up post, Paleo Toddler, because I kept getting requests from people to keep writing on the topic. But it was seeing repeated hits coming from this old Paleo Hacks forum post about Ketosis During Pregnancy that finally prodded me to do another "Paleo Kid" post here.

I've been paleo for about four months and have seen great success in weight loss, energy levels, lipid profiles, skin, I could go on and on. I have been in ketosis more often than not in the last two months or so.

Today I found out I am pregnant. It's very early in the pregnancy but I am already mindful of the affects that my previous non-paleo had on my body (namely much of the weight I just lost). I do not want to go backward in my progress. As a matter of fact, if I can safely continue to lose weight while maintaing a healthy pregnancy that would be my goal.

So, to my question...does anyone know of any research that indicates the safety of being in ketosis during pregnancy? If I have to up my carbs I will but in my experience thus far when I am not in ketosis, even if I keep my carb intake at less than 100 grams per day, my weight loss stalls out.

In the replies to this initial post, somebody links to my Paleo Baby post. And it's been regularly sending traffic here for the past three years now. So for those of you still coming to this blog via Paleo Hacks, I'd like to address a few points with regards to this topic.

First things first: My wife was never in ketosis throughout her entire pregnancy.  As I initially wrote back then:

I made sure to feed my pregnant wife ample supplies of proteins and fats, while eliminating all sugars, processed snack foods, and Omega-6-rich vegetable oils. I highly restricted all grains, bread, pasta and other such high-carb fare...

While I had by that point in time gotten off the "low-carb forever" bandwagon, my thinking was still biased towards the simplified "low-carb > high-carb" paradigm of that time. My thinking on that has changed a lot, based on personal experience. My primary concern now is not concerned with quantity (low carb vs. high carb), but rather quality.

The reason why "low-carb" and ketogenic diet protocols have been embraced in the early days of Paleo diet popularity, are because people who go low-carb or ketogenic, by default, end up cutting out all of the inflammatory, omega fatty acid-imbalanced oils ubiquitous in processed carbohydrate foods - chips, cookies, cakes, crackers, bread, buns, tortillas, etc. They also cut out a lot of other bad things found in grain-based processed foods that contribute to cellular inflammation - arguably one of the primary underlying conditions for being overweight or obese.

But taken to the extreme, I've seen people write about avoiding even miniscule amounts of fruit and vegetables because of the carb content. I view this as problematic and bordering on obsessive. 

I view ketosis and ketogenic diets to be a short-term, therapeutic protocol to address specific health issues - aka an Extreme Dietary Intervention, not a proscription for a diet to be followed for the rest of your life.

If you are overweight, borderline or full blown diabetic, or have some other serious health issues regarding your blood sugar regulation or overall metabolism and energy levels, a Very Low Carb or Ketogenic diet may be exactly what you need to fix your issues.

But I just don't believe it's a good idea for most people to adhere to a purely carnivorous diet. The best argument I can put forth for that is the simple statement of biological fact: in comparison to all other mammalian species on the planet, it's plainly obvious that the human body is an Omnivorous species.

While I myself was on a low-carb diet for several years (no grains or starchy plant foods like potatoes, corn, etc.), by the time my wife and I conceived "Paleo Baby," I had begun regularly eating "bad" carbs like rice, potatoes and other starchy tubers back into my diet. I had come to the conclusion that carbs are not the devil.

But enough about me, all apologies if I digress in excess, this is supposed to be a "Paleo Baby" reprisal...

But before I proceed any further, I'd like to once again restate the following:

I'm no expert. I only pretend to be one as an anonymous blogger on teh interwebz!

This is an anonymous blog and I am not trying to sell you or anyone else a damn thing.

I write on this topic, because I'm passionate about diet and nutrition. I was not a healthy baby. I have lifelong health problems for which I now believe are attributed to my poor nutrition as an infant...

...in revisiting many of the points from my original post, let's just say most of those points have not changed much in the past year. To avoid overusing the term "Paleo Baby" or "Paleo Toddler" and turning this into a caricature of gimmickry, I'm going to refer to the kid from here on out as "Keiki," which is Hawaiian for child.  

Keiki is almost four years old now. At this point in time, I do believe my application of nutritional principles have paid dividends with regards to my progeny's health and overall development.

Many of the observations from two years ago, still hold true.

Keiki has never had an ear infection, a chest cold, or a fever...other than the mild, low grade fever that typically accompanies teething. Keiki has had a runny nose a couple of times, but that usually cleared up within a day or two.

This is still largely true.


Keiki recently experienced the first "major" illness. A bad chest cold/cough that lasted close to two weeks. I attribute it to Keiki visiting indulgent relatives without me on the mainland for a week and feasting on a cornucopia of all the things I don't allow in my household. Breakfast cereal with commercially processed, homogenized and pasteurized milk; chips, crackers, ice cream etc. After a week of eating such feed, keiki's immune system was undoubtedly compromised, and an extended ride in the re-circulated air of the jet when returning back to Hawaii exposed the child to a host of germs. Keiki came down with a runny nose, fever and cough within 48 hours of returning.

Other than that, colds, runny noses, upset stomachs, diarrhea, and other common ailments (the things for which I notice are common occurrences for all the kids of my social and familial circle) have basically been something other kids get to regularly experience, not mine. I'm still regularly told how lucky I am by friends and family.

I still believe luck has got nothing to do with it. The recent sickness following a week of free-for-all junk food indulgences while visiting relatives is confirmation enough for me. The more I observe and practice mindful, deliberate and careful eating, and applying the same deliberate care in feeding keiki, the more I am convinced of the connection between gut health and the immune system.

That being said, other than the few deviations due to circumstances, our diet and lifestyle largely remains unchanged in the past two years.

In summary, the guiding principles I try to follow with raising a "Paleo Toddler" are this: Focus on real food, eaten until satiated. Get adequate, regular, mid-day sun exposure to ensure optimal vitamin D levels. Avoid consuming modern day, mass produced, industrialized toxins like vegetable and grain oils, high fructose corn syrup, cereal grains and flour, MSG, and other mass produced, processed food garbage.

These are the basic principles I try to follow in feeding my child. Nothings changed on that front since I  wrote that.

The real struggle though, is keeping with these principles while living a life interacting with family, friends and acquaintences.

The only way anyone can achieve dietary purity is to avoid social eating situations and watch every single moment of my child's actions when visiting other people's homes.

Life's too short to take it to that level.

There's careful, mindful eating of nutrient dense and nourishing foods while abstaining from the worst poisons our Brave New World Order's Feedlot system has to offer....and then there's obsessive-compulsive, diet-Nazi pathological behavior that alienates people.

That's not me. As I like to say, if you're at your sister's wedding, eat a fucking piece of the wedding cake.


I can't keep keiki from ever eating junk food without becoming a micro-managing tyrant, aka the "helicopter parent." There are times where keiki is given something I would normally object to. I don't lose sleep over it. If I take the kid to a playmates birthday party, I don't sweat keiki having a piece of birthday cake and ice cream with all the other kids...but I do try to make it less likely, by filling keiki up with a belly full of real food before the junk food is doled out. At that point, only a few bites and the overly full feeling from all the real food is enough to make keiki only eat a few bites of the dessert before running off to play instead of gorging on the junk.

The tactic is not just a short term plan to deal with specific occasions either. My overarching goal is to regularly feed the kid with so much good food, that the junk food will never gain a strong place in the child's mind when the hunger pangs start to kick in.

I've introduced my keiki to a wide and varied diet of good, nutrient-dense foods. I've instilled the taste for many foods that most other keiki don't eat. Bone broth soups and stews, spicy chilis, fermented vegetables like kim chee, poi, sauerkraut and pickles, sour yogurt, artisanal cheeses, a wide array of vegetables and fruits, eggs from my chickens, raw fish, wild boar, an assortment of seafood, and all sorts of meats. This is 95% of what my kid eats on a daily basis. 
 
In contrast, I see most parents handing their kids the latest snack crackers or bowls of cereal when they get hungry and start whining.

"Your so lucky your child likes and eats all those fruits and vegetables! I can't get mine to eat any at all!"

That's the common refrain I hear. I silently note that said parents usually always have bags and plastic containers of grain-based snack foods on hand in case their child "gets hungry." In my observation, when kids are full of crackers, chips and cookies; vegetables and fruits have zero appeal to them.

I also believe the saturated fat-phobia and the fear of salt promoted by the conventional wisdom of our corporate-produced and mass-media marketed industrial feed system plays right into most children's aversion to vegetables.

In my opinion, if you start your kids out on buttered and salted vegetables, they'll eventually take to eating them raw and unprepared once they have a strong association formed with vegetables and food already made in their mind.

I once attended house party in which everyone was eating. My kid walked across the room and approached the food table, bypassed all the breads, rolls, pastries, cakes, and other dishes, and grabbed a fistful of raw broccoli and proceeded to eat it with gusto. Everyone in attendance was amazed, myself included. I always gave keiki broccoli steamed or sauteed and liberally buttered and salted. Several parents asked me how I got my kid to eat veggies like that.

When I said "lots of butter and lots of salt." I don't think they believed me.

Most people don't believe me, when they express incredulity when I tell them "no thanks" when they offer keiki some snacks, soda or candy. It seems like everywhere one goes in society, people want to offer cute kids sugary candies and desserts and grain-based snacks like chips and crackers.

They mean well, but then so do I.

I've gotten so tired of politely refusing such offers, I simply tell people keiki's allergic to wheat, soy and corn. That usually covers all the bases for processed junk feed. and most people don't question the existence of food allergies...it's a lot easier than trying to explain why whole wheat crackers or "multi-grain chips" are still junk food.

Other than social events and well meaning generosity from strangers and acquaintances, it is really not that hard keeping the kid away from most junk food.

My primary tactic is to just make sure the belly is already full of real, nourishing and nutrient dense food before leaving the house. Taking snacks or candy from a hungry kid is much more of a challenge then it is to watch in amused satisfaction as your kid declines the junk food by his or her own volition, because they're just not hungry from already having recently eaten a full meal of real food.

Kids who are nutritionally loaded up with real food all the time from regular meals, seem to me to be much more concerned with playtime rather than snack time.

Paleo Toddler

It's been a year and a day since I posted the most read, linked-to and commented-on thread on this blog, Paleo Baby.

Getting linked by Primal lifestyle guru Mark Sisson was the equivalent to getting an Instalanche here on the fringes of the politically incorrect blogosphere. (Mahalo, Mark!)

Initially, I was amazed by the sheer number of folks that left comments...but I was even more amazed by the number of folks who were hostile, angry or felt personally insulted by that post.

A lot of folks seemed to think that somehow I was coming across as a condescending, know-it-all blowhard who implied that because they fed their kids formula or that their kids were colicky, I was judging them as parental failures.

At first, it made me angry and I responded in kind. The passage of time, interactions with many young and new to-parenthood peers and much personal reflection, has given me new insights into the psychology of Parenting. I get it. I really do!

Like everything else in our Brave New World Order of Mass Media Indoctrination, everybody has ideas about what is best for raising children. My new parental discussion code is this:

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, and I'll politely listen to your beliefs. I'll explain why I may disagree, but only if  you ask...but mostly I'll just nod and give you an affirmative smile, rather than tell you why I don't think feeding kids grains, cereal, or not much meat is such a great idea.

I've learned since having my own kid, that everyone who's had kids is an expert when it comes to parenting.

"THEY say 'X' is best for 'Y'!"

I'm no expert. I only pretend to be one as an anonymous blogger on teh interwebz!

This is simply sharing my experiences from loosely adopting the Primal/Paleo lifestyle. "Going primal" nearly 5 years ago now, has been a dramatically life altering experience in terms of my own health and well being. So when my first child came along, it was only natural that I applied the same principles in feeding and caring for my offspring.

So here we are one year later, and "Paleo Baby" is now "Paleo Toddler."

My how time seems to fly quicker once you have someone other than yourself to care for and observe as they grow and mature..

Over this past year, I've periodically received emails and comments requesting I give updates, recipes, tips and pointers from people desirous of raising "Paleo babies" of their own, as well as the curious, wanting to know how my kid's health and growth are going. I've basically had to resist the urge to turn my blog into a "new-parent" navel gazing blog (not that there is anything wrong with those sorts of blogs).

Nevertheless, consider this my obligatory "update" post.

In revisiting many of the points from my original post, let's just say most of those points have not changed much in the past year. To avoid overusing the term "Paleo Baby" or "Paleo Toddler" and turning this into a caricature of gimmickry, I'm going to refer to the kid from here on out as "Keiki," which is Hawaiian for child.

- Approaching two years of age, my keiki has never had an ear infection, a chest cold, or a fever...other than the mild, low grade fever that typically accompanies teething. Keiki has had a runny nose a couple of times, but that usually cleared up within a day or two.

- Speaking of teething, Keiki has an entire mouth full of choppers, all nicely formed, straight and evenly spaced. This seems to fit with the observations of Dr. Weston Price regarding dental health and development that correlate with the nutrient dense diets of traditional peoples. I myself have a narrower jaw and crooked teeth. Then again, I was raised on Soy formula from birth. I had poor dentistry, bad allergies, asthma. So far, keiki has seemed to avoid all that.

- Keiki's immune system is strong. Mommy has gotten sick several times in the past year, as her job puts her into contact with a lot of travelers from around the world, on a daily basis (she works at the airport). Keiki has never contracted anything she's brought home...including the flu and a pretty bad chest cold for which she ended up having to get an anti-biotic prescription for.

- In keeping with the Primal diet ethos, keiki has eaten almost zero grains/cereals or legumes. About 6 months ago, I dropped keiki off with a short term babysitter. I assumed that dropping keiki off with a cooler full of foods my wife had prepared, that the sitter would feed keiki that food, so I need not worry. She ended up feeding keiki a bunch of "heart-healthy, whole grain!" dry cereal. Keiki had diarrhea for the next 12 hours. Fascinating to see a child who's gut had never encountered grains for the first year and half of life, and had almost zero diarrhea episodes prior, would react to cereal like that. That was also the last time keiki had diarrhea (or grain based cereal).

- Recently, while at a party with a large group of kids and adults, in a moment where I wasn't paying attention, another parent who I was not well acquainted with (all who know us well, know how strict we are with keiki's diet, lol), gave keiki a cracker. Keiki threw up a half an hour later. Coincidence? I don't know. All I know is that Keiki has only thrown up 3 times ever. Vomiting is not normal behavior for my keiki, unlike some other cereal munching, soy formula kids I know.

- So what does keiki eat now? Basically everything my wife and I eat...i.e. freshly prepared, "slow food" meals. No fast food, convenience foods, processed, packaged foods. We try to vary up our diet a lot, but the one constant is the usual daily breakfast with eggs from our pasture raised, free range chickens.

- Keiki eats a wide variety of animal protein: free range/additive free bacon and sausages. Most of it though is Paleo...Hawaiian style. Lot's of smoked, dried, raw and fresh fish, tako (octupus), shrimp, crab, hawaiian slipper lobster, 'opihi (limpets) and lots of grass fed beef (including some occasional liver), and wild boar if I manage to have a successful hunt. Keiki also gets a lot of bone-broth based soups and stew that we've begun to eat on a regular basis.

- Keiki also loves dairy; organic, unsweetened yogurt, and a wide variety of high quality cheeses...and the very occasional mouthful of ice cream (are favored 80/20 very occasional "cheat".)

- Contrary to some of the Paleo/Primal purists and adamant low-carbers, we do eat moderate portions of carbohydrates at almost every meal - white rice, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, poi, and tortilla made from corn flour (treated with lime) and once in a while, some gluten free pasta.

- Keiki loves vegetables. I have a hard time believing it. I've watched keiki push meat and other dishes aside to pick out only the broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, carrots, green beans, peas or peppers out of the meal, and forsake all the other food on the plate. The only thing keiki likes more than vegetables, is fruit. Sometimes we have to force keiki to eat the other foods.

- Since fruit is basically the only source of sugar in keiki's diet, keiki gets excited and squeals in delight at the mere sight of a banana, apple, papaya, nectarines, peaches, mango, pear, grape, strawberry or blueberry.

- Of course, everything we eat is cooked with either butter from grass fed cows, saved bacon grease and/or extra-virgin cocounut oil. All our food is and liberally salted with fresh ground Hawaiian sea salt. Other parents frequently comment on what a good eater keiki is.

- Same goes for keiki's Pediatrician. She cannot believe how we feed keiki when she asks about it. The only thing she says is that "I guess we can't argue with your results." That being said, I've had to continuously resist her recommendations to give keiki all sorts of vaccines (they want to give keiki 3 or 4 vaccines in a single sitting at almost every checkup! WTF? No, my child does not need the flu shot, the whooping cough shot, the chickenpox shot and the distemper shot right now...we'll take our chances, thanks!). Same goes for supplementing with fluoride. Why would I want to put that crap into my child?

- Oh yeah, I still sunbathe regularly, and most times keiki sunbathes with me in just a diaper. Keiki has never had a single drop of sunscreen applied. Keiki can frolick in our yard for 2 to 3 hours at mid-day with just a diaper on and has yet to get a sunburn. Ever. Same goes for taking keiki to the beach. Keiki has a perpetual, healthy looking tan (just like daddy! lol). Needless to say, I'm not worried about keiki's vitamin D levels.

- Some paleo purists might ask about whether or not we include intermittent fasting in our lifestyle? For a young child? LOL. I don't know many kids that can go for 6 hours without noticing they might be hungry, but keiki sometimes does. I don't try to force keiki to eat. I just wait until keiki gets hungry. But sometimes, keiki just isn't hungry and occupied with toys and playing around and doesn't think about food for hours on end. Lest anyone think I'm starving the kid, trust me when I tell you, keiki lets me know when it's time to feed the beast! But I  never feed the kid until keiki lets me know it's time. Sometimes I have to feed as soon as keiki wakes up. Other times, we don't have breakfast until keiki has been up for 3-4 hours.

In summary, the guiding principles I try to follow with raising a "Paleo Toddler" are this: Focus on real food, eaten until satiated. Get adequate, regular, mid-day sun exposure to ensure optimal vitamin D levels. Avoid consuming modern day, mass produced, industrialized toxins like vegetable and grain oils, high fructose corn syrup, cereal grains and flour, MSG, and other mass produced, processed food garbage.

It is my personal experience and testimonial that it works for small children as well as it works for adults!

Finally, for all the naysayers, disbelievers, skeptics and cynics who criticized or got offended last year, I will state the following: What works for me and my child may not work for you.

YMMV. N=1 and all that.

You may very well feed your kid soy formula, cereal grains and a vegetarian diet, and you kid may be the picture perfect representation of health. Awesome. I say that in all sincerity!

Perhaps you're lucky or just blessed with great genes.

Or maybe I am just mistaken, deluded and full of shit. Have a look around my archives, you'll see I've been called that a lot. I'm a conspiracy theorist whack-job that hates teh womynz! Why should you care what I have to say?

Move along folks...nothing to see here.

I'll keep on doing what I'm doing, and you can feel free to do what you do.

This is an anonymous blog and I am not trying to sell you or anyone else a damn thing.

I write on this topic, because I'm passionate about diet and nutrition. I was not a healthy baby. I have lifelong health problems for which I now believe are attributed to my poor nutrition as an infant. My keiki is now in the 95%-tile for height. Neither my wife and I were, when we were babies. I anticipate our child is going to grow up much taller and healthier than either of us did.

So far, I've put my hard-gained knowledge and personal experimentation with the Paleo/Primal/Archevore/Weston Price paradigm to the ultimate test - by raising my child on these loose proscriptions based on years of research and self-experimentation. Seems to be working as my child has avoided all of the problems I had when I was a kid.

Keiki is not perfect.

I'm figuring out that the "terrible 2's" applies to "paleo babies" just as much as it does to SAD fed kids. I also think I need to figure out this whole aggravating potty training thing. One other thing...a well fed, healthy kid can still throw wild, dramatic temper tantrums, destroy things and get into quarrels with other children.

I am not a perfect parent.

My kid is not better than yours. (Well...I might actually think so, but that's not the point.)

If you read this and that's what you take away from it, than please, go work on your reading comprehension and quit jumping to conclusions.

Offended? Good.

I believe I've gained some important experiences and knowledge, and share them with teh interwebz to help those who are interested and see the value in discussing the whole "Primal/Paleo" lifestyle. This is just my $.02

None of this should EVER be taken seriously. Feed your kids what the Doctors, Pediatricians and American Medical Establishment tells you to! It's your fault if you try any of what this blogger relates here and your kid turns out mysteriously well nourished and healthy!

(I think our Pediatrician thinks I'm lying when I tell her what we feed the kid).

For those interested in reading up on the sorts of things I've used as guidelines, here are some of the readings I found helpful for me:

Dr. Art Ayers Cooling Inflammation blog. Great blog overall, but this particular post discussing gut flora and the role it plays in digestion and nutrient absorption...and how infant formula fucks it all up, is a very important one - Why Discuss Mother's Milk?

The Weston Price Foundation has a wealth of knowledge on Infant Nutrition as well.

Peggy's the Primal Parent blog is also a great n=1 account regarding infant pre and post natal nutrition topics.

And I just discovered another good blog from Dr. Chris Kresser. You can check out his "paleo baby" advice here: http://healthybabycode.com/

And of course, the place were I send anyone and everyone that always asks me about "my special diet," Mark's Daily Apple is the starting point I refer all to.

For those about to have babies or seek to improve the diet of your kids, good luck!

Now I'm off to take "Paleo Toddler" outside to get some mid-day sunshine...

"Sun is Shining..the weather is sweet!"

Carbs Are Not the Devil

My personal thoughts on diet have been constantly evolving, and I've found that ideas of just what is a healthy diet is probably one of the most contentious issue there is amongst all people and all cultures.

There are so many variables to each person's individual situation and health...and so many differences in personal experiences, but they all lead to this idea that many people adopt, that there is ONE WAY to eat for optimal health.

To the vegans and vegetarians, it's avoiding animal products.

To the fruitarians, it's all about overdosing on fructose and exercising at insane levels of chronic cardio.

Than we have the Low Carb/Very Low Carb/Zero Carb (LC/VLC/ZC) community, the Weston Price Foundation traditional eaters, and finally, we have the Paleo camp.

From my own point of view, when discussing dietary issues, I use "Paleo" as a kind of short-hand reference. It has the benefit of being easily memorable and someone who's interested in the topic after my discussion with them, can easily use google and find the paleo blogosphere... which can be a life changing discovery for those who grasp the basic concepts and apply them. (I've had a colleague lose over 100 lbs. and reverse diabetes simply by referring her to Mark's Daily Apple.)

But anyone who's a regular reader of the Paleo blogosphere is going to eventually discover that while there is a basic, overarching framework that most agree on, there's plenty of disagreements in particular topics and food items and macro-nutrient ratios, especially when it comes to carbohydrates.

Which in my own ruminations, have brought me full circle back to the original Atkins diet proscription.

In other words, I've come to the personal opinion that there is a purpose for a LC/VLC/ZC diet, but it should not be a permanent state except for in the worst cases.

I think the genesis of so much debate and disagreement comes from this: when people first start to explore different dietary lifestyles, they usually do so because they are experiencing the negative effects from a lifetime of eating the standard fare of our Subsidized Corporate Agricultural and Industrial Feed society. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, IBS, Crohn's etc.

For most of these cases, the discovery of LC/VLC/ZC diets seems like a miracle, when they discover how easy it is to lose the weight and lower their blood pressure etc. while gorging themselves on bacon cheeseburgers without the bun and pizza toppings without the crust.

This leads many, many people to become carbo-phobes and protein fanatics. They embrace the legend of Two Brave Men Who Ate Nothing But Meat for an Entire Year, and look at ALL carbohydrates as the equivalent of cyanide or arsenic and people should never eat any carbs...ever.

I think the original Atkins diet plan had the basic concept right - reduce and eliminate carb consumption if your overweight or suffering from health problems caused by the Standard American Diet, and once you reached your goals and healed yourself, to slowly add starchy carbs like potatoes and rice back into your diet.

The problem here is that everyone is different.

For myself, I've never had digestion problems in terms of IBS, celiac, crohn's etc. I was simply getting overweight.

I've gone through a VLC period, and have remained LC for years.

But based on the works of people like Dr. Kurt Harris and Melissa McEwen, I've been adding more carbs back into my diet for the past 3 months or so. No weight gain, and a bit better energy levels and performance in endeavors that require endurance.

Now, I just try to minimize or avoid wheat flour and whole grains as much as possible. I'll eat a moderate portion of white rice, or use traditionally prepared (nixtamalización) corn tortillas, and I eat a lot of variety's of tubers as well - potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, etc. and once in a great while, I buy a loaf of rye sourdough bread and make sandwiches and burgers with it.

Compared to a year ago, the amount of carbs I eat is nearly tripled...but my weight and health have remained the same since I first began VLC/LC dieting and lost 35 lbs of excess fat from my frame.

This was a little surprising to me at first, especially now that I've had a complete change to my lifestyle thanks to Paleo Baby, I've never exercised LESS than in the last year of my adult life.

Yet I've had no change in my weight or health, despite eating more carbs than ever before since losing all that weight. I think this is the point both Harris and McEwen have come to - carbs by themselves are not bad. But to recover your health from a lifetime of SAD, a LC/VLC would be beneficial for a short period of time - not because carbs by itself makes one fat and sickly, but because a person who is in bad shape needs to change their metabolism and reverse insulin resistance.

As Dr. Harris wrote:

1) Reject the alternative hypothesis of saturated fat or cholesterol as a Neolithic agent – the so-called diet/heart hypothesis

2) Believe that obtaining a substantial fraction of nutrition from animal sources is necessary for health

3) Discount the absolute importance of macronutrient ratios in the nutritional transition.

4) Believe that a whole foods diet that includes adequate micronutrients is the best way to eat healthy.

5) Believe that tubers, root vegetables and other sources of starch can be healthy for normal people, but that most grains are a suboptimal source of nutrition in other than small amounts.

#3 was the one I had the hardest time accepting...but no more.

My additional thoughts to Dr. Harris though would be this:

Other than the issues with cereal grains - the glutens, WGA, phytates, lectins, and other issues found in the grain protein and bran, people who are not overweight or suffering any diet related degenerative conditions should not really focus on carbs...but most importantly to focus on the FAT in their diet.

Understanding the importance of a balanced Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acid ratio in your overall diet. One really important point people should understand is that Omega 6 fatty acids are not "bad." They are, afterall, ESSENTIAL fatty acids. The real problem is the skewed ratios in the SAD, because most Westerners get their O6 from the rancid poly-unsaturated vegetable and grain oils, and not enough O3 because most food animals are no longer raised in natural conditions eating their natural foods (grass!). You DO require some Omega 6 fatty acids in your diet...just make sure you get them from natural, non-rancid and non-oxidized sources, like roasted nuts like Walnuts and almonds.

Understanding that the fat is vital in how you handle the protein (google "Rabbit Starvation" to understand that high-protein/low-fat diets are a potential disaster).

Same goes for the carbs. What makes french fries and potato chips particularly toxic? The rancid, oxidized, poly-unsaturated canola or soybean oils that are now ubiquitous in the restaurant and snack food industry...and that's without even mentioning the hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils used in most baked goods. These industrial oils contribute to inflammation on a cellular level, and combined with a blood sugar spike from eating a bag of chips, can lead to all sorts of problems. It's not the carbs per say...it's the amount of carbs and the FAT you're consuming with those carbs.

Yukon gold potatoes deep-fried in extra virgin coconut oil tastes divine, and I get a kick out of knowing that such fare actually good for you.

Oh, and one final caveat: as much as I try to avoid wheat and other "whole grain" foods, I have never fully given up on grains...I just drink them after they've been malted, roasted, fermented and in certain cases, distilled.

Pau Hana

Been earning my living and fulfilling the provider obligations to my family by the sweat of my brow, 6 days a week. Hard work makes for thirsty work. Here in Hawaii, when a hard day's work is done, we say "Pau Hana!" -- the work is done.

Pau hana means it's almost time for the ritual imbibing of libations enjoyed by most blue collar workers everywhere. You know, that time of day one looks forward too while laboring for hours under the sun's radiant heat: BEER:30 PM

Those of you in colder, wintry climes reading this, it may same like I'm complaining...e kala mai {excuse me} but I'm not. I love the heat of the sun, but it is tiring to work long hours in 80 degree tropical sunshine with my shirt off at mid-day, working on my tan in the middle of January.

Hard my life, yeah? lozlolzlol

By the time I get home after a day of labor in the tropical sun, I've already had a couple of micro-brewed, high alcohol content (typically 6-9%) pale ales. The fasted exertion of working 8 hours without consuming anything but morning coffee, water and a cigar at lunch break, leaves me with a vague sense of hunger...but it quickly dissipates after the first gulp of a cold brew. The buzz starts to kick before the first ale is finished.

Imagine that. All those liquid carbs made from fermented grain mash on an empty stomach. I imagine it causes my blood sugar to spike pretty high. Shhhh...don't tell anyone! Wouldn't want to get kicked out of the paleo conspiracy cult by the more zealous paleo diet adherents!

By the third ale, I'm at home and freshly showered and playing with paleo baby - who is now more like paleo toddler. Then the wife serves dinner and suddenly the sight and smell of a hot plate of home cooked, real food, reawakens the ravenous beast in my belly. I devour my food, than finish with a dram or two of either Scottish single malt or some of Kentucky's finest straight whiskey, and then it's time to log on and check the email and read up on the blogroll with a nightcap.

Ideas for blog posts come to mind, but lately I've just been too tired and buzzing pleasantly from the ale and whiskey to feel the mental energy required to go through with signing in here and start composing a new post.

I'm no longer a cubicle desk jockey in which I'm logged on to teh interwebz 8 hours a day of alternating between my old virtual work and blog reading, commenting and writing. I've also had ideas for some more Spearhead and IMF entries. The old cliche about the older you get, the less time you have seems to take on new meaning. I'll get around to those ideas eventually.

As much as I enjoy the extemporaneous composition of writing posts, I enjoy reading more. Sometimes I read blogs and comment threads til I'm nodding off. Blogging ideas oft come to mind when I first log on, but they remain unfulfilled and filed away for future effort when I lose the time in reading other people's posts and comment threads.

The only reason I'm writing right now is because I decided to do a quick check today on the level of substance dependence I may or may not have developed as of late. I abstained from my now customary stop at the grocery store on the way home for some micro-brew. Nor did I indulge in a dram of my modest collection of cask-aged firewater.

No problem.

No feel of "need" or that I'm missing something.

Good. I may drink a bit too frequently, but I know it's still not hit the point of being a mental or physical crutch that I HAVE to have. But I do begin to suspect my lack of inspiration for blogging about the same old - same old has something to do with my now customary post-work libations. It's either have some drinks, relax, and go to bed and get ready for another day of hard work to support the family...or sobriety and the increase in inspiration and motivation necessary for blogging.

Given such a choice, I don't expect to resume regular posting anytime soon.

Cheers!

Genetically Modified Childhood

Yet again I was asked recently by someone I had not seen in a long time what my "secret" was for losing all that extra weight I used to carry around.

Used to be, anyone asked, I'd just say I did the "Paleo Diet" and if they were interested, I'd tell 'em to just check out marksdailyapple.com. But before I could even do that, the question was followed up with "You're not one of those caveman-paleo diet fanatics, are you?"

Okay. Hearing that from this particular person convinced me once and for all: the PALEO DIET has jumped the shark.

So I answered: "I'm not on a diet, I just don't eat GMO."

"That's all you had to do?"

"Yup. Thing is, once you start looking into just how much of the food we eat is sourced from GMO crops, you find yourself eating like a caveman."

Heh.

While it does appear that the Paleo diet  has indeed been co-opted, subverted and marginalized in popular consciousness, I like to think that it went through a reformation once the most influential bloggers and writers of the Paleo blogosphere eventually rejected the idea that "low carb" and "zero carb" dieting is a key component to the praxeology.

It took years to get rid of the commonly accepted idea that carbohydrate consumption itself was the reason for the rising rates of obesity and sickness of the citizenry all across the bloated plains. Same goes for various versions that involve measuring the ratios of fats to protein in your primal meals. This is because when many of us who first discovered the "paleo diet" blogosphere found successful weight loss and improved health and vitality after adopting the proscriptions, it was only too easy to credit the "low carb-high fat" theory as to why this "diet" seemed to work miraculously.

But now that many of the luminaries of the Paleo blogposphere have moved on to studying the importance of gut bacteria, gut health and the role resistant starch and fermented pre and pro biotics plays in the immune system and over all health, a new angle on just how malevolent GMO crop feed is to human health emerges.

At this point in time, when one gains a true understanding of how our modern, industrialized corporate food production system works, I can now confidently attribute it to the consumption of all three categories, for the entire feed industry is based off of manufacturing products from carbohydrates, proteins and fats...all derived from GMO plant crops. It's the GMO itself and how it affects the gut bacteria of not just we the sheeple, but any living organism that ingests it on a regular basis.

Most folks who discover the "Paleo diet" after years of ill health and weight management issues.  For the early adopters, while the low-carb paradigm has since been proven fallacious, nevertheless it does prove effective, because limiting carbohydrate intake means largely limiting your intake of GMO sourced feed.

But for most people today, it takes a health condition or weight management problems to get them to look more closely at exactly what they are eating. But I see an even bigger problem that is going to manifest in an even worse outcome in the next decade or so with regards to kids being raised from birth on GMO feed products.

Sadly today, I note that many parents in society today are feeding their children a steady diet of GMO processed feed products like cereal, chips, crackers, cookies, cakes, pastries, and all sorts of snack foods designed to make the kids stop whining and crying about their hunger for a few minutes.

Most folks never make the connection between their children's behavior and the snacks and breakfast cereals they are feeding them, and if they do, they invariably blame the sugar content. Sugar most certainly does have an effect...but that is only part of the story.

For instance, while the following article focuses on the possible link between autism and GMO feed, I found an interesting angle on the topic with regards to behavior of test animals regularly eating GMO feed:

When Dr. Huber visited an ongoing research project utilizing rats, he said those animals fed non-GMO feed were “as passive as can be. You can take them out. You can put them on your lap. Treat them almost like a pet cat.” Not so with the rats eating genetically engineered food: “You can hardly catch the rats that have received the GMO feed for a month and a half to two months,” he said. “They go off by themselves. They’re irritated. Crawl up the cage. . . . [They] don’t get along with each other.”

Farmers are reporting the same thing with pigs raised on GMO corn. According to Dr. Huber, a farmer told him that “his pigs just seem to be always irritated. They can’t get along with the other pigs.” Veterinarian Don Skow described similar odd behavior in the pigs of his client. “They would get cannibalistic. They would consume each other—ear biting and tail biting.” And when put in nurseries after weaning, he says, some “would get a condition like Alzheimer’s. They would lose the ability to know where the feed was. A lot of them would die.” Although many of these odd behaviors had been dismissed as normal stress responses for confined animals, when farmers switched to non-GMO feed and the problems went away, the real cause became obvious.

Similar antisocial patterns that Huber described were observed by a Dutch college student more than a decade ago when comparing mice fed GMO or non-GMO soy and corn. He wrote, “The mice fed on GM food seemed less active while in their cages. The differences in activity between the two cages grew as the experiment progressed.” The differences were most striking when he moved the mice to weigh them: “The mice from the GM cage were noticeably more distressed by the occurrence than the other mice. Many were running round and round the basket, scrabbling desperately in the sawdust, and even frantically jumping up the sides, something I’d never seen before. They were clearly more nervous. . . . For me this was the most disconcerting evidence that GM food is not quite normal.”^[2]

Dr. Irina Ermakova, PhD, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, reported to the European Congress of Psychiatry in March 2006 that male rats fed GM soy exhibited anxiety and aggression, while those fed non-GMO soy did not ^[3]. Ermakova reported the same behavior in GM soy-fed female rats and their offspring in her study published in Ecosinform. The animals “attacked and bit each other and the worker."^[4]

I know parents who are at wits end with their children's behavior. From my point of view, they love their children, but don't really like to spend time with them because of their incorrigible behavior. And they often remark at the stark contrast with my own progeny who is calm, well behaved and easy to babysit. Mind you, my kid is not "perfect." But the differences are readily apparent enough for many folks to comment. And they always tell me that I'm "lucky." At this point, I say it with full confidence that luck has nothing to do with it. 

Family who knew me as a kid are especially amazed at my offspring's demeanor, attitude and behavior, given how much of a little ADD/ADHD/ODD hell raiser troublemaker I was. My wife likes to take credit for her genes being the primary factor there, and there may be something to that. But I've seen it one too many times now, how little kids attitudes and behavior changes for the worse, sometimes in mere minutes after eating or drinking GMO-based junk feed.

When I try to suggest that maybe parents should feed their kids nutritious, home-cooked food instead of eating processed feed, they all say the same thing - there's no time for that. Everyone has got to fight traffic jams to get to school and work, so it's coffee for the adults, and breakfast cereal and snack foods while riding in the car. Then the kids get their GMO-based feed from their school vending machines, nearby convenience stores and the cafeterias. By the time working parents and school kids are home in the evening, everyone is too tired to cook, so they eat fast food or restaurant take out. It's no exaggeration to say that for many folks in our Brave New World Order, when it comes to their diet, it's all GMO, all the time.

Having read the product labels and researched the brands of much of the "kid snacks" many parents are feeding their kids (not to mention the regularity of eating fast food meals,) everything they eat is inevitably sourced from one of these 6 major corporate feed brands, who are also the primary backers for funding the opposition to several mandatory GMO-labeling initiatives that got voted on earlier this month in the mid-term elections of several States. They spent millions to fund propaganda to prevent them from having to label their GMO feed accordingly. 

Here are 6 huge conglomerates aiming to ruin your right to know what is in your food. 

1. Pepsi-Co (Including Frito-Lay and Doritos)

This behemoth has hardly been touched by consumer frustration with GMOs, even it is just as guilty as many other companies when it comes to food secrets. This is also the company who had to settle a $9 million class-action lawsuit over Naked Juice false advertising – claiming the products were ‘all natural’ and ‘100% juice’ when they are actually full of GMOs. Pepsi-Co was also revealed as one of the big spenders behind the anti-labeling campaigns illegally filtered through the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association. The company topped the list with a $1,620,899 donation to keep you in the dark about GMOs.

2. Kellogg’s
This company is downright shady. Kellogg’s company recently paid $5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for falsely labeling Kashi products as “All Natural” or “Nothing Artificial.” They have also contributed a total of $1.6 million to defeat GMO labeling initiatives. In a consumer lab test, it was also found that Kellogg’s uses 100% GMO corn in several of their breakfast cereals and other products. Kashi products even made it onto the Non-GMO project’s list of safe foods, but they aren’t safe at all. 

3. General Mills

GM says: “We don’t use genetically modified ingredients in original Cheerios. Our principal ingredient has always been whole grain oats – and there are no GMO oats. We use a small amount of corn starch in cooking, and just one gram of sugar per serving for taste. But our corn starch comes from non-GMO corn, and we use only non-GMO pure cane sugar.”

This is only in one type of cereal they sell, though. Only two percent of the company’s shareholders favor a complete GMO ban. GM’s CEO says, he “sees no reason within the United States to bar ingredients grown from biotech crops.”

4. Nestle/Gerber Co

This company puts GMOs in baby food. Need I say more? The company removed GMOs from baby formulas in South Africa after public pressure forced them to, but it continues to put them in American-sold versions. Formulas like Good Start and others contain GM soybean oil, GM soy lecithin, and GM maltodextrin, as well as corn syrup derived from GM crops. Along with Pepsi-Co and Coca-Cola, the company spent over $1 million to defeat GMO labeling in Washington, and more to defeat labeling in Oregon.

5. Hershey’s

Just how much will you like that chocolate bar after finding out that Hershey’s donated $800,000 to defeat California’s Prop 37 and Washington’s I-522, and another $500,000 to defeat this year’s initiatives in Oregon and Colorado? The company has only one organic brand—Dagoba. Time for a boycott? After all, there are hundreds of non-GMO fair-trade chocolate makers out there. Try some of these non-GMO sweets instead.

6. Coca-Cola

This soda empire has contributed more than $1.5 million to keep your teeth rotting from consuming their GMO-filled sodas. They also utilize high fructose corn syrup that is almost entirely GMO-corn derived. Here are other sodas that contain GMOs, too.

I know of kids for whom it seems their entire diet is based on the products of these corporate GMO feed conglomerates. While the article I posted urges a boycott of the products of these corporations, I urge parents to boycott these products for your kids health, your peace of mind, and your sanity in trying to simply raise them.

Heart Check

Me: "Mmmmm, those look tasty...."

Her: "The burgers or the waitresses?"

Me: "Yes!"

This past summer, I did quite a bit of traveling, visiting friends and family and couch surfing in several States on the West Coast of USA Inc. What I observed in various places troubled me. But it wasn't all visions of apocalypse.

On one of those trips, I finally paid a visit to an establishment I saw featured on the Tell-A-Vision a couple of years ago - The Heart Attack Grill. Love that place. It is the only burger joint for which I've eaten at in the past 4 years or so. It was quite the entertaining dining experience, and one for which I enjoyed completely.

As I'm the guy well known for doling out the dietary advice (when asked), and for being strict in abstaining from so many foods (FEED), the group I was with was shocked at my enthusiasm for the whole experience.

"Wait, isn't this the guy telling all of us we should quit eating at McDonalds, Burger King and Jack in the Box?"

Yup, that would be me. But this place? I love the entire theme. It essentially sticks the middle finger at the conventional wisdom of the modern health and medial fields entire set of dietary guidelines THEY would have us all follow.

PRAISE THE LARD!

Freedom fries, deep fried in lard, like they typically used to be before the federally subsidized, Big Ag's round up ready vegetable and grain oils became ubiquitous? YESSSS!

A quadruple bypass burger stacked with 4 1/4 lbs. patties of beef, tomatoes, onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese? Oh yeeeeaaaah baby!!

Heart Attack? Not from the food...

I broke the whole mound apart and ate everything except for the bun, Atkins-diet style (not because I wanted to eat low carb, but rather because I know that most commercially baked hamburger bun products are made with white flour and hydrogenated vegetable oils -- aka margarine).

Unless the lard used to make the french fries was hydrogenated, I am almost certain that the hamburger bun was probably the only truly unhealthy component of the whole meal.

I even finished it all off with a WHOLE FAT chocolate milkshake with a chunk of butter thrown on top for good measure. Hey, if I'm going to "cheat" on my normally strict diet standards, I'm going all in!

It was the most memorable restaurant meal of my summer, that's for sure.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "So what is the point of this blog post?"

A dining review for The Heart Attack Grill?

Or is it simply an opportunity to gratuitously post pictures of the hawt H.A.G. waitresses (Look! An antonym-acronym!)  serving up the goods?

Yes.

Of course, those are not the only reasons.

Ever since that meal in that fine, MAndrosphere-appropriate themed restaurant several months ago, the idea for this blog post has been resting in the back of my mind, waiting for the right inspiration to bring it forth.

Sadly, the impetus for that one was the recent news I received of an acquaintance who passed away of a heart attack at the age of 31. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?

This person I met several times (a friend of a friend) was a victim. A victim of lies, propaganda and misinformation, that resulted in literally eating to death. As Author Michael Crichton once lamented, "We believe what were told. My father suffered a life filled with margarine, before he died of a heart attack anyway."

Go ask Googliath about the Heart Attack Grill. Big Brother G will show you a list of links reporting on instances where obese, malnourished Wal-Martians died of heart attacks while eating there. Which is it? Correlation? Causation? Take your pick.

Fact is, a very sick, obese person with clogged arteries and struggling with hypertension and diabetes is susceptible to suffering a heart attack within an hour or two of overeating a heavy meal.

Of course, the mainstream media reporting on the Heart Attack Grill stories, all take the slant that the meal itself killed 'em right on the spot! It really IS a HEART ATTACK causing restaurant!

Correlation or Causation?

Yes.

Ok, the joke is getting old. All apologies. When I first said it while we were waiting to be seated at the H.A.G., it made my entire group laugh uproariously. Such moments of social triumph are too good to let go so easily....


What I tried to explain to them all after we were seated was that I believed if the H.A.G. made some slight modifications to their menu, such as gluten-free hamburger buns made with butter or some other healthy source of fat, used 100% grass-fed/free range beef for their burgers, and got the lard for their fries from free range pigs, it would actually be a Paleo-styled Health food restaurant!

Of course, this didn't really register with them. They had a hard time comprehending my previous announcement that lard fries are actually good for you. At that point, I think I triggered the cognitive dissonance effect in their minds, interrupting their regularly scheduled programming, causing a processor shut down. Ah well. The meal was still enjoyed by all. They just all thought they were eating really unhealthy, while I was relishing every last gloriously greasy, healthy bite!

Anyways, back to the oh so serious topic at hand.

The entire raison d'etre of the H.A.G. is to flaunt the dietary health and nutrition recommendations of the establishment. It's the literal manifestation of some of the more intense Western allopathic medicine detractors: Go to the Doctor's, listen to their recommendations, than go home and do the exact opposite.

That's not to far off from the truth.



So what's supposedly so bad about the Heart Attack Grill? All the cholesterol and saturated fats can lead to heart disease, right? Lets see what the establishment's foremost authority on heart health, the American Heart Association has to say about fats and how they relate to your heart health:

The "bad” fats are saturated and trans fats.

Saturated:  Saturated fats occur naturally in many foods.  The majority we eat come mainly from animal sources, meat and dairy (milk fat) such as fatty beef, lamb, pork, poultry with skin, beef fat (tallow), lard and cream, butter, cheese, and other dairy products made from whole or reduced-fat (2%) milk.  These foods also contain cholesterol.  Many baked goods and fried foods can also contain high levels of saturated fats. Some plant foods, such as palm oil, palm kernel oil, and coconut oil, also contain primarily saturated fats, but do not contain cholesterol.

Trans:  Trans fats are found in many foods.  About 20–25 percent come from animal fat and 75–80 percent come from partially hydrogenated fat – especially in commercial baked goods (pastries, biscuits, muffins, cakes, pie crusts, doughnuts and cookies) and fried foods (French fries, fried chicken, breaded chicken nuggets and breaded fish), snack foods (popcorn, crackers), and other foods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, traditional vegetable shortening or stick margarine.  (Soft margarines typically contain very low levels of trans fats.)

Saturated Fats and Trans Fats...the BAD fats. So should we eliminate both from our diets to ensure heart health?

Very small amounts of trans fats occur naturally in some meat and dairy products, so eliminating trans fats to zero is impractical.

Yes, impractical....and unprofitable for Big Ag Feed Products! See, the Big Ag Sheeple Feed Industry (aka Processed Food Industry), needs to have trans fats because they extend shelf life of their products, allowing them to be made in a central processing facility, packaged, shipped and stored all across the globe, with minimal spoilage and loss of unit sales.

So what's to be done? Oh, here we go, since a very small amount of Trans Fats occurs naturally, than we'll allow small amounts of it in the feed supply - whether it's natural or not. After all, Trans fats are trans fats, right? Not so fast.

Most of the trans fats we eat -- by far -- come from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, produced from liquid oils by industrial processing to create a firmer fat. Others occur naturally in milk products, formed in the rumen (or first stomach) of ruminant animals such as cows, goats, sheep and yaks when they're fed a grass-rich diet.

Several studies of large populations have looked at the link between trans fatty acid intake and risk of developing atherosclerosis, and all have shown that the risk goes up only with the intake of "industrial" trans fatty acids, not the natural ones.

Aha! But since natural trans fats occur in some meat and dairy products, the AHA considers it "impractical" to eliminate Trans fats entirely. Why not just ban artificial trans fats completely? That would lead to too much good health.

Follow the money.

The following 0 grams trans fat products are listed by percentage of saturated fat, from lowest to highest.  Choose the product with lowest saturated fat that works for your menu item.  The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat to less than 7 percent and trans fat to less than 1 percent of total daily calories.

Note the names of the producers of the approved products that are considered "Heart Healthy."

Unilever Food Solutions, ConAgra, Mid-Atlantic Vegetable Company, Ventura Foods, ADM. All produce variations of butter substitutes, recommended by the AHA as "heart healthy, because they're low in saturated fat.

Thanks AHA. Glad you're looking out for the health of all those people who's bottom line depends on selling these poisons to we the sheeple. GFY, I'll stick to my highly saturated fat-rich butter and coconut oil.

Oh, but wait....those are the recommendations for restaurants. What about the average consumer? Why, the AHA gives us a recommended shopping list! Go read it! Look at all those heart healthy whole grains, lean meat products and butter and dairy substitute products! Why, this list contains all the right foods to make sure you adhere to the USDA food pyramid recommendations!

The answer is quite clear. The AHA is nothing more than the snake Big Ag oil and Processed Food Industry marketing department, and steady supplier of heart disease case work for the cardiology industry. Those AHA web pages show the connection between Big Ag food corporations and the establishment health care industry. They are just two arms of the same beast.

The medical and nutritional establishments, agribusinesses and industrial food processors, mainstream media and the Government - all have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in the current nutritional disaster and state of obesity and ill health. They are all part and parcel to the system of Concentrated Sheeple Feedlot Management. And the last thing THEY want, is for any of us to escape the feedlot.


As J. Stanton over at Gnolls.org concluded a while ago:

Simply by eating a paleo diet, we have made ourselves enemies of the establishment, and will be treated henceforth as dangerous radicals.

This is not a conspiracy theory. By eschewing commodity crops and advocating the consumption of grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, and local produce, we are making several very, very powerful enemies.

The medical and nutritional establishments hate paleo, because we’re exposing the fact that they’ve been wrong for decades and have killed millions of people with their bad advice.

The agribusinesses and industrial food processors hate paleo, because we’re hurting their business by not buying their highly profitable grain- and soy-based products.

The mainstream media hates paleo, because they profit handsomely from advertising those grain- and soy-based products.

The government hates paleo, because they’re the enforcement arm of big agribusinesses, industrial food processors, and mainstream media—and because their subsidy programs create mountains of surplus grain that must be consumed somehow.

Is anyone surprised that a government which spends billions of dollars subsidizing the production of corn, soy, and wheat, would issue nutritional recommendations emphasizing the consumption of corn, soy, and wheat?

So remember sheeple, when you go shopping for your feed, look for the Heart Check Marker on your processed feed packaging! The processed food manufacturers pay donate good money to the AHA for their stamp of approval on their feed products!

And for Heaven's sake, don't eat at a place like the Heart Attack Grill, they use LARD... stick to an establishment that uses a Big Ag produced, AHA approved soybean or canola oil for frying, since those oils have 0 grams trans fat per serving! 

Seriously. Your choice of fats is the most important decision you can make when it comes to your food choices. Your heart health depends on it.