1. Could you describe to us when you noticed that you were developing mental problems? What was your diet at the time?

DreaV: Well, I first felt depressed when I was about 6. I was being alternately yelled at/ignored at home, was bored in school, and couldn’t make friends. I remember crying myself to sleep a lot and wishing I either wouldn’t wake up or that I’d somehow sustain a head injury that would make me stupid so that I could be happy. The first hypomanic episode I specifically remember was when I was ~11 years old. It was short, only about 12 hours, but that is normal for me. I have mainly just had severe depression with short bursts of hypomania and some mixed episodes. I don’t feel that I was truly in “mentally ill” territory until I was about 14, though.

My diet as a child was mainly cereal and 2% milk for breakfast, sandwich and chips/Lunchable and milk/Sunny-D for lunch, sometimes with an ice cream, and some kind of homecooked dinner. Generally spaghetti, tacos, meat with a vegetable and a roll, burgers, shepherd’s pie, or something like that. I only had fast food a couple times a year. I did snack at home after school on junk pretty often. Stuff like cookies, Sunny-D, Capri-Sun, etc. I was always hungry. But I feel like my diet wasn’t awful. We used butter and not margarine, went out to eat very rarely, not too much sugary stuff, etc. But I was chubby and got teased for it.

When I got into middle school, I quickly piled on the weight. I think it was at this point that I started being on my own for dinner most of the time, and I was eating more processed food. Mini pizzas, microwavable chicken pot pies, fish sticks, sandwiches, lots of milk and soda, and ramen. So, a lot of processed carbs mostly. During middle school and high school, I basically didn’t drink water at all, only soda and milk.

I first went to a psychologist when I was 14, and that’s when I received a bipolar-I diagnosis and started being medicated. First I was on antidepressants (Prozac and Wellbutrin), but they made my hands shake. I was then put on lithium as well. None of this seemed to really help at all, though at one point I was taking ~8 pills a day and was dealing with side effects. At 15, I was put in the mental hospital twice for 2 weeks at a time. The staff there were terrible and treated us all with impatience. They acted like we were all faking for attention and would punish us exasperatedly if we got worse. I was put on heavy tranquilizers the first time, sent home, and then when I stopped taking them at home, I immediately launched into the worst and most terrifying manic episode of my life. So I was put back in the hospital and was treated once again with annoyance and impatience. At home during this time, I was eating the carb-heavy processed food listed above.

(I was also dealing with escalating physical abuse at home at the time, and remember begging the hospital staff not to release me back to my mother. I asked for information on emancipation, but they didn’t make much effort to help me, and I was ultimately sent back home. Later that year my mother tried to choke me to death and CPS was called. Luckily, she never touched me again after that.)

At 16, I dropped out of school and, because of money issues at home, I was unable to get medication anymore. So I entered a drug trial for depakote and subsequently gained 40lbs in 2 months. At this time I was also eating mainly Taco Bell and pizza. Then I stopped taking medication for a year or so. In that time, my ability to leave the house degraded horribly and I started hiding in my room because I was terrified of being seen. I gained a lot of weight eating a diet of basically ramen, crackers, salsa, and cheese.

Then I moved, got a new doctor, and got put on valium and trileptal. I also started going back to school again and started doing better for a while. At this point I was eating more (though still not many) whole/organic foods. I lost a bunch of weight, and my depression/anxiety lessened to manageable levels. Then I progressively started eating like shit again and took a nosedive mentally. Unsurprisingly, my mood tanked and I gained weight again. At this point I was eating mainly high-carb processed foods again like pizza rolls, chicken pot pies, chicken nuggets and tater tots, easy mac, ice cream, kielbasa and mashed potatoes and corn, and stuff of that nature.

After this, we moved again, and things got even worse. I gained even more weight and basically shut down mentally. I couldn’t leave the house at all and adopted a nocturnal schedule so I didn’t have to ever see anyone or be seen. I would alternately starve for days and then gorge on huge amounts of high-carb processed food. My ankles were always swollen. I ended up at 300 lbs and was severely depressed. I thought about suicide constantly.

Eventually, I was kicked out of my house, and I began living alone. Because I was still having trouble leaving the house, I often just didn’t eat for days, and when I did, I tightly rationed. I stopped buying soda because it was too heavy to carry from the store when I went. I ate a lot of pizza for the first few months, but I would only eat 3 slices a day and that’s it so that I could stretch it. I lost about 40 lbs in a couple months but still felt just as shitty, probably because I was still eating high-carb even though I was eating low-calorie. When I got back down to around 260, I stopped losing weight. But eating low-calorie made me feel very weak. I had constant problems with my vision going black for 5-10 seconds when standing, feeling dizzy and having tunnel vision, being unable to get out of bed for the most part, I showered maybe once every 2 weeks, had no emotional resources to deal with anything, and was pretty much constantly terrified of anything unexpected happening. I had no ability to deal with even daily tasks, so something like an apartment inspection or running out of food was an emergency situation and took every last shred of emotional resolve I had just to get through. Then I’d have to recover for days afterward.

This stage went on for several years, and I had many close-call suicide scares in that time. At times, I was taking the trileptal, but it never seemed to help at all. So, most of the time, I was unmedicated. Eventually I applied for and was accepted to SSI because even my therapist was convinced I would likely never improve and become a functional member of society.

2. What is your opinion on the mental medical establishment? Did their approach of treatment worked for you at all?

DreaV: In my opinion, the mental health industry is a complete pile of shit. Meds are completely based on trial-and-error, and the fact remains that they are treating symptoms and not causes. Granted, if they had told me at the time to eat a healthy diet and I would get better, I would have laughed in their faces. I did not see the connection at that time between eating badly and doing worse mentally. I felt that any “healthy” low-fat diet they would have prescribed would be completely unsatisfying and take away the only pleasurable thing I had in my life (stuffing my face with junk food). And I know now that a low-fat diet would have actually made my depression worse, because even normal people feel depressed on low-fat diets!

Anyway, my time in the mental hospital, and my experiences with basically every therapist I have ever seen, and my more recent experiences with healing my body on my own, has led me to the sad conclusion that those people have no fucking clue what they are doing. The medication I was on the longest *did not help me*. It didn’t do anything. I took it when I was doing better and had the mental energy to keep up with it, and stopped taking it when I was doing worse to the point that I couldn’t even keep up with feeding and cleaning myself. So, sure, it appeared to others that when I was taking it I was doing better. But it was correlational, not causational.

I am sure that talk therapy can be extremely helpful for people who are having difficulty with a certain issue that would be benefited by thinking about things a certain way. Granted. But for actual mental illnesses like chemical depression and bipolar disorder, I really don’t believe therapy and medication are helpful at all, because they do not address the underlying problem. Contrary to popular belief, the underlying problem isn’t the messed-up brain chemistry! It’s what’s going on to make the brain chemistry messed up in the first place. And I believe that high-carb, high-grain diets are the cause, pure and simple.

3. When did you decide to try the ketogenic diet? What were the typical meals you followed?

DreaV: I decided to try a low-carb diet in January of 2012. I was my “normal” 260 lbs as always, but I had found some info on the mechanics of low-carb diets for weight loss somewhere online, and it just sounded like it made a lot of sense. Also, my dad had gained some weight over the holidays and was thinking about doing Atkins for a few months to slim back down. He had done Atkins several times before, but would then go off it, start eating sugary junk food again, and slowly regain everything he had lost. He was planning on doing another round of this, and I said, “Hey, I have been reading about low-carb diets too. I think I will go low-carb primal while you do your thing, and then we can be moral support for each other since we’re doing it together.”

I’ll be honest, I believed in the science behind what I was doing, but I didn’t really expect to lose anything. (And I certainly didn’t expect it to change my mental state.) I had lost weight before in my life, but it was never intentional, and I pretty much believed that I was “just big” and could never be thin. I was just meant to be big, so why fight it? But I figured I’d try this thing anyway because it sounded like it makes sense, my dad was doing it too, and if it didn’t work, I would have more proof to throw in people’s faces that I was just meant to be big. And it didn’t seem like it would be emotionally depriving, which was absolutely necessary for me to even consider it, because I was still hideously depressed.

I started off with a kind of free-form paleo-primal low-carb diet. I didn’t track anything or count calories or even exercise at all because I considered those things a tremendous burden that would only make me not want to do it. But I switched from my normal shitty junk food meals (living off chef boyardee, shortbread cookies, and ice cream, oh yeah) to a whole food diet. I ditched grains completely. I gave up dairy. No more processed foods. I started cooking all my meals and eating a lot of meat. My meals were mostly bacon & eggs for breakfast + some kind of meat and vegetable and fat dish for dinner. Usually something like shepherd’s pie meat, chicken soup, peanut curry with tuna, beef stew, chicken stir-fry, etc. I preferred (and still prefer) greasy, saucy, piping hot, heavily-spiced, deep and flavorful meals that felt solid in my belly. I’d eat until I was full, usually one bowl of food, and then stop. If I had a dessert, it was berries or dark chocolate. But mainly I was pretty strict. And I started losing weight immediately, which was extremely surprising to me.

4. At what point did you notice that you were getting better and you connected that to the new diet?

DreaV: When I started eating low-carb, I also started reading a ton about people healing their previous health problems, both physical and mental. I found this info mostly on the Mark’s Daily Apple forums and I talked to a lot of people there with the same sorts of problems that I had (albeit less severe than mine). Pretty much all of them said their problems improved with the diet, so I was very excited and became convinced that I could actually fix my situation if I did enough research and tried hard enough in the right way.

So, after about a month of getting the new eating habits down, and after the initial carb flu and subsequent water weight whoosh, I started taking a ton of supplements. Particularly iodine, adrenal cortex, and ashwagandha/rhodiola. I knew that I had hormonal issues; I had been diagnosed with PCOS 6 years prior, and I had an enlarged thyroid with a ton of hypothyroid symptoms (dry and thin skin, inability to regulate body temperature, tired and sluggish all the time, etc). Then I found out about something called adrenal fatigue. Basically, it means you are unable to deal with any kind of stress, are exhausted all the time, find it impossible to get going in the morning, stay up way too late because you’re just not tired late at night, and just feel generally at the end of your emotional rope all the time for no real reason. When your adrenals are messed up, any tiny stressor will cause a fight-or-flight response, which was exactly how I felt all of the time.

(I should note that adrenal fatigue is a controversial condition, but honestly I don’t find it that hard to believe that if my ovaries and thyroid were messed up that my other glands probably were too. All your hormones work together in a system, after all. And I was sure that my inability to deal with anything unexpected was not just due to some personal psychological failing in me, because “trying harder” just didn’t work.)

So, yeah, I started taking a bunch of targeted supplements to try and fix my glands and heal my body. Not cover up or treat symptoms, but help my body to heal itself so that it could eventually function correctly without any sort of ongoing intervention. And within about 2-3 months of starting low-carb, I was feeling noticeably better. It wasn’t some sort of miraculous transformation where suddenly I was out being a social butterfly, but within 2-3 months I was enjoying a pretty stable sleep schedule (with the help of melatonin), had the energy to do things around the house and go to the store pretty regularly, felt actually peaceful and content (instead of freaked out and terrified) most of the time, had a lot fewer panic attacks, and was a lot more able to deal with the unexpected. And things have only gotten better since then.

I want to note here that I tried eating wheat again about 5 months into being low-carb and grain-free (I had a slice of cake) and I ended up having a serious anaphylactic reaction to it. I had one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had, crushing chest pain, my throat got tight, and my tongue started swelling. I did not call 911 out of fear of the financial repercussions of doing so, but if the episode had lasted any longer than it did, I would have. Since then, I have only had small amounts of wheat, but every time I do, I get a headache within 15 minutes. I believe now that many (if not most) of my previous mental problems were due to my wheat intake, because I don’t think carbs could have caused my mental illness all on their own. I’ve also read some compelling things about “leaky brain” syndrome, which is suspected to be caused by gluten/gliadin and other things like MSG. And the fact remains that I ate wheat my whole life, felt like crap and was chubby and depressed even as a child eating pretty well by SAD standards, and at the times I was doing the worst, and weighed the most, I was also eating the most wheat (and processed white carbs in general). Personally, I fully intend to never eat the stuff again. And after reading a lot about it, I truly believe that no one should be eating it at all.

(Also, here’s an article from Psychology Today about possible links between bipolar/schizophrenia and wheat.)

It’s now been a little over a year since I started my new diet. My meals are still more or less the same, though I have reincorporated dairy back into my diet and added in splenda without any issues (aspartame seems to mess with me though). I also track consistently now and try to hit my macros every day, but this is mostly because I’m within 35lbs of goal now and my weight loss plateaued for a while.

My mental/emotional status is still steadily improving. I look forward to leaving the house now and don’t need any down-time to recover afterward. I am optimistic, have many future plans, and the future just seems bright. I am energetic and silly almost all of the time. I sleep on a normal schedule every night now without taking melatonin (I had to for the first 6-8 months or so). It only takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, and I can reliably wake up to an alarm at 7am every day now without much of a problem. Unexpected things are generally no problem at all.

I also have a serious partner now, whom I have moved in with. Previously, I was unable to co-habitate with anyone for more than a couple weeks at a time without wanting to strangle them. I would always feel completely overwhelmed and smothered and needed a lot of time to myself to recover emotionally from the stress of just interacting with another human. Now it doesn’t seem to be a problem, and in fact I feel that my partner has enhanced the quality of my life by being in it every day. I no longer want or need to be alone all the time.

5. How is your life now compared to your old life? How are you planning on keep the new-found health?

DreaV: Overall, I am not even the same person I was before. My family is completely blown away. Before, it would have been pretty accurate to describe me as a husk of a human being. I both looked and felt like an animated corpse. Every day that I lived was, in my mind, just another day wasted until I finally succeeded in killing myself. I had, on average, 2-3 suicide scares a year for close to 10 years. I didn’t think I’d live to see 35. Life was simply pain, misery, failure, disappointment, crippling guilt, self-loathing, and endless sadness. There were a few short-lived diversions where things seemed temporarily not-awful, but I never lost the overall feeling that it would get bad again soon enough, and in the end I would still end up killing myself.

Now I intend to live til I’m 90! Life seems like a beautiful gift now that I can do anything I like with. And I have so many plans! I’m still maybe not at 100% yet, because I’m still nervous about taking on too many responsibilities and getting freaked out and regressing. But I’m really pleased with my progress so far, and I plan to eat this way for the rest of my life. I’ve read that it can take years to fully heal adrenal burnout, so I am not worried and not pushing myself too hard. It’s ok, because I’m light years from where I was, and I know it’ll only get better!

1. Παντα να διαβαζετε ετικετες! Το ξερατε οτι οι περισσοτερες σαλτσες σογιας περιεχουν σιταρι; Ακόμα και μερικά λουκάνικα;
2. Μην φοβαστε να δοκιμασετε νεα ειδη λαχανικων, μανιταριων, μπαχαρικών, οστρακοειδη κλπ.
3. Στο Ιντερνετ θα βρειτε συνταγες για το πως να “ζυμωσετε” λαχανικα. Επισεις, εκει θα βρειτε πως να μαγειρεψετε ολα αυτα τα νεα φαγωσιμα. Ιστοσελιδα συνταγων: http://chowstalker.com και Pinterest.
4. Μπορειτε να χρησιμοπιεισετε αλευρι αμυγδαλου, ινδικης καρυδας, και ταπιοκας, αλλα σπανίως μονο (πχ να αλευρωσετε κάποιο ψάρι, να κάνετε ενα γλυκο για καμια γιορτή). Ξεχαστε τα ψωμιά, μακαρόνια, πίτσες — ακόμα και αυτά με χωρίς γλουτενη.
5. Να σας βλεπει ο ηλιος χειμωνα-καλοκαιρι. Αν μπορείτε, περπατηστε καθημερινά, ή αλλιώς, κάνετε λιγες επι-τοπου ασκήσεις. Μην πολυ-αναβετε καλοριφέρ! Ετσι πιανονται οι γρίπες!
6. Να τρωτε πιο πολυ οστρακοειδη και (αγρια) θαλασσινα, απο κρέατα! Στρείδια μια φορά την εβδομαδα αν τα βρείτε στην αγορα (δεν είναι αναγκη να είναι παντα φρεσκα/ωμά).
7. Να δοκιμασετε ειδικα θαλασσινα “φυκια”, τα οποια περιεχουν ιωδιο. Μπορειτε να βρειτε αυτα τα ειδικα φυκια που τρωγονται σε μερικα Ασιατικά καταστηματα.
8. Μην κοιμαστε αργα το βραδυ. Κοιμηθητε >8 ωρες απο τις ~11 το βραδυ μεχρι τις ~7 το πρωι.
9. Προσπαθηστε το 40% με 50% των συστατικών της διαιτα σας να ειναι ωμά!
10. Πιειτε και μαγειρεψτε με σπιτισιο ζωμό από κόκκαλα σχεδον καθημερινα! Μην αμελήσετε!
11. Μπορείτε να φάτε ενα μικρο κομματι σοκολάτα την ημερα, αλλά μονο απο αυτές που έχουν πανω απο 80% κακάο (παντα διαβάστε ετικέτες). Οι σοκολάτες υγειας Παυλίδης είναι της πλάκας, έχουν μονο 43% κακάο. Το σουπερ-μαρκετ Lidl έχει μια με 81%.
12. Αν δουλευετε χειρονακτική εργασία που χρειαζετε περισσότερους υδατάνθρακες για να ανταπεξελθετε, φάτε λιγο πιο πολυ άσπρο ρύζι και λιγο ποιο πολλές πατάτες, στις αρχές μονο. Μετα απο 3-4 μηνες στην δίαιτα αυτή, όταν συνηθίσει ο οργανισμός σας, θα πέρνετε την ενέργεια σας απο το λίπος (απο καλες πηγες) και αλλά υγειεινα έλαια, όχι τους πολλους υδατάνθρακες. Μην φοβείσθε το λίπος! Και μη φοβασθε τα αυγά (προτιμηστε χωριάτικα αυγά).
13. Αν είστε ηδη άρρωστος, θα χρειαστεί να πάρετε βιταμίνες. Αν δεν σας βλέπει ο ήλιος κάθε μέρα για τουλαχιστον μισή ωρα σε όλος σας το σωμα σχεδόν, τοτε πάρτε 2000 με 3000 IU βιταμινη D3 κάθε πρωί (γράφει το κουτί πανω ποσά IU έχει το κάθε χαπι). Πάρτε Μαγνήσιο 3-4 φορες την εβδομάδα, μισή ώρα πριν κοιμηθείτε. Επισης, πάρτε 100mg coQ10 Ubiquinol (όχι Ubiquinone) καθημερινά, το μεσημερι, στην μέση του φαγητού. Αν δεν τρώτε πολλά ζυμωμένα φαγητά (πχ σαυερκραουτ, κιμτσι, κεφίρ), πάρτε Κ2-ΜΚ4 μονο 2-3 φορές την εβδομαδα (όχι απλή Κ βιταμίνη, και όχι ΜΚ7). Εαν και μονο εάν δεν τρώτε ψάρια ή οστρακοειδή για κάποιο λογο, θα πρεπει να πάρετε επισης και καλης ποιοτητας omega-3 fish oil, καθημερινά. Αν δεν τρωτε στρείδια μια φορά την εβδομαδα, πάρτε Zinc 2-3 φορές την εβδομάδα.
14. Αν πασχετε απο κάποια βαριά μορφή ασθένειας θα πρεπει να μαγειρευετε και με παρθενο λάδι ινδικής καρύδας (δυστυχως, πολύ δύσκολο να το βρείτε στην Ελλάδα).
15. Μια κούπα απο πράσινα φύλλα παντζαριού, έχει πιο πολύ κάλλιο απο οποιοδήποτε άλλο φαγητο. Μαγειρεψτε τα όπως τα βλητα, συχνως.
16. Αν είστε άρρωστος, τουλαχιστον μια φορά την ημερα θα πρεπει να τρώτε τριων ειδών λαχανικων. Παράδειγμα, ενα πιάτο θα εχει: 1/4 πράσινα φύλλα (με τα ήμερα υπαρχουν και τουλαχιστον 10 αγρια ειδη που φυτρώνουν στα χωράφια μόνα τους και τρωγωνται), 1/4 χρωματιστά λαχανικά (πχ τομάτα, πιπεριά, κολοκυθες), 1/4 λαχανο/παντζάρια/σπαραγγια/αγγιναρες κλπ, και 1/4 κρέας/εντόσθια ή αγριο ψάρι/οστρακοειδή. Δηλαδη, τουλαχιστον 3 κουπες απο 3 ειδων λαχανικα, και όσο πρωτειινη θελετε. Τα λαχανικά προτίμηστε τα πιο λίγο βραζμενα απο συνήθως, για να μην καταστραφούν οι βιταμίνες τους.
17 Αν είστε πολύ άρρωστος, αποφύγετε τον ρύζι, άσπρα φασόλια και φακές παντελώς, και πιείτε μονο σπιτικό, γιδινο κεφίρ απο τα γαλακτοκομικά. Αν τα προβλήματα υγείας συνεχιζονται με την ίδια ενταση μετα απο 3 μηνες, κοψτε και το κεφίρ για εναν μήνα, για να δείτε αν τα γαλακτομικα σας πειραζουν. Αν το πρόβλημα συνεχίζεται, κοψτε αυγά, τομάτες/πατάτες/πιπεριές, και ξηρούς καρπούς για ενα μήνα. Σαν τελευταια λύση, αν το πρόβλημα συνεχιζεται με την ίδια ενταση μετα απο όλα αυτά, κάντε τεστ για παράσιτα και ιούς.
18. Κομμενα τα αναψυκτικά και οι χυμοί, ακόμα και αυτά με ζάχαρινη light. Στειψτε τα δικά σας φρούτα, αλλά θα βαλετε επίσης και την ψίχα του φρουτου στο ποτήρι, όχι μονο τον ζαχαρουχο χυμό του.
19. Βάλτε κήπο! Πολλά απο τα λαχανικά που γράφονται εδώ, δεν υπαρχουν στα μανάβικα, πχ οι κολοκύθες σπαγκετι. Αυτές οι κολοκύθες βοηθούν πολύ να μην σας λείψουν τα μακαρόνια! Η λαχανιδα kale είναι δύσκολο να βρεθεί στην Ελλάδα επίσης, και όμως, είναι το λαχανικό με τις περισσότερες βιταμίνες απο κάθε άλλο.
20. Τελικώς, πιείτε νερό ΧΩΡΙΣ φθόριο (fluoride), ειδικα αν είστε αρρωστος. Αγοράστε μπουκάλια με νερο φυσική πηγής, χωρίς προσθετο φθοριο. Τα φίλτρα βρυσης δεν βγάζουν το φθόριο. Επισης ψαξτε για οδοντοπαστα χωρις φλουράιντ. Το φθόριο είναι σχεδόν ίδιο με το ποντικοφάρμακο.

Fried Razor Clams

Ingredients for the main recipe (for 2)
* A packet of frozen razor clams (usually 370 gr)
* 1 cup of fine almond flour
* 1/2 cup of tapioca flour (or more almond flour)
* 1 large egg
* Coconut or olive oil for frying
* 1/2 teaspoon of good, mineral salt
* 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
* 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon of Hungarian or other paprika
* 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

Method
1. In a bowl, beat the egg slightly. Add half of the spices. Beat the egg a bit more.
2. In a separate bowl, add the rest of the spices. Add the almond flour and tapioca flour. Mix well.
3. Remove the clams from their packet, and run clean, cold water through them in a colander. Strain them softly.
4. Put the clams in the bowl with the egg and mix well.
5. Add a generous amount of oil on a somewhat deep frying pan, under medium heat.
6. Take a big handful of the clams from the egg bowl, and make sure you strain excess egg liquid. Add them to the flour bowl, and mix well until they’re well-coated.
7. Fry for ~3 minutes, turning them 2-3 times. Don’t overcook them, and make sure they don’t turn very brown. Nut flour oxidizes very easily and becomes toxic when browns too much.
8. Remove the clams when done on a clean plate. Add more oil to replace the one that the clams absorbed. Follow step #6 until all the batches are done. You might need to add more flour if you have lots of clams.
9. Serve hot. Use Sriracha hot sauce, or lemon, to add additional flavor. Goes great with a raw green salad.

- It teaches you to cut the food in small portions. I used to gulp down huge pieces.
- It teaches you to chew slowly. I used to chew minimally, and have eating manners that would resemble wild animals.
- It teaches you to brush your teeth after eating. I’d only brush before going to bed.
- It teaches you to floss every night. I used to floss 2-3 times a week usually.
- It teaches you to not snack. Because if you do, you’d have to brush your teeth, again.

My new braces, new glasses, and an old friend

So, that’s how I’m going to learn good manners: by having braces for the next 2 years of my life.

Pork heart with king trumpet mushrooms a’la creme

Ingredients for the main recipe (for 2)
* 400 gr of hearts or liver (from either lamb, goat, beef, pork)
* 100 gr of Eryngii (king trumpet/oyster) mushrooms OR 1 large onion OR 1 bell pepper
* A handful of fresh spinach [optional]
* 2 tbspoons crème fraîche or European style sour cream (probiotic)
* 1 tbspoon coconut oil
* Salt & black pepper (or Hungarian paprika)

Method
1. Cut the hearts or liver in thin 0.5″ vertical slices. Wash them.
2. Wash and cut the mushrooms in vertical stripes. If you’re using the onion or peppers instead, cut them as you would onion rings, horizontally.
3. If your heart or liver is from beef or pork, consider boiling it for 30 minutes first, and then discard that water. This will make them less smelly. Young goat/sheep offal doesn’t smell bad, so that step is not required.
4. Heat the coconut oil in medium heat, and stir-fry the heart until it’s golden brown and almost cooked through.
5. Add the mushrooms (or onions, or bell peppers), and stir-fry them until they get golden brown too.
6. Add the spinach, and stir for 5-10 seconds.
7. Turn off the heat, remove from hot stove. Add salt and pepper. Add the crème fraîche, stir well. Serve hot!

Alternative way after step #4 above (Greek style):
5. Add the juice of a lemon, salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of oregano.
6. Stir well. Serve with potato, sweet potato, or vegetable fries.

Note: The Greek style version of the recipe is also applicable to pork belly! That’s how we eat it in Greece!

Alternative way after step #4, for poultry hearts/liver/gizzards:

5. Pour everything into a cooking pan.
6. Chop down a small onion. Stir-fry it for 1 minute.
7. Add 1 cup of tomato sauce (or chopped, fresh tomatoes), and 1 cup of water.
8. Add some chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.
9. Cover, and cook until most liquid has vaporized.
10. Serve with baked spaghetti squash. The picture below shows it with rice, but that’s an old picture of mine, before I stopped eating grains. The rest of the recipe is as described though.

Finally, an alternative way to do gizzards, as a stew, can be found here.

- 99 Ranch: most types of fish/shellfish (compared to 5-6 kinds in mainstream supermarkets, these guys are kings of wild fish and shellfish), frog legs, rabbit, pheasant, quail, squab, duck, (old) stewing hens, duck gizzards, pork hearts, cheap mushrooms, amaranth greens, seaweed, avocado, fresh herbs, mung bean sprouts (yes, they’re Paleo).
- Trader Joe’s: kale chips, goat milk for my kefir, organic eggs, cheese, organic chicken, berries, cheap bananas, mache salad, nuts, smoked oyster cans in olive oil, grass-fed ground beef, wild salmon cans, creme-fraiche, European style yogurt, organic sweet potatoes, organic ketchup, mustard, grass-fed butter.
- Mediterranean shop: lamb/goat meat and offal (the butcher there doesn’t know if they’re pastured, but most are), Greek Mountain Tea, feta, chestnuts, canned cod liver, spices.
- San Mateo’s Farmer’s Market: most veggies/fruits, raw local honey, pastured beef & bones (pastured offal runs out fast), duck eggs, French deli.
- Costco: wild sardines cans, seaweed/calamari salads, coconut oil, (true) olive oil, beef for jerky, bacon, water.
- Whole Foods: buffalo steak, organic Tamari, kelp noodles, and some special-interest things that we might need rarely.
- Piazza’s: calf’s liver (more nutritious than other livers), local soy-free dark chocolate, fruits/veggies on their reduced-price aisle, European-style sour cream (probiotic). Too expensive for anything else.
- Draeger’s: Fresh crab, deli meat. Too expensive for anything else.

Our pheasant feast last Sunday

The only things that I still *can’t* find in my area are: sorrel, purslane, wild greens, wild (bitter) fruits, some types of berries, pastured offal, Saint-Jacques shellfish, deer, venison, more buffalo meat, horse meat, guinea-fowl, boar, antelope, kangaroo, emu, ostrich, turtle meat, insects, larvae worms.

I did find alligator meat at 99Ranch though. Not interested…

So far, so good. Since I identify as a social-anarchist myself (in truth, I’m a centrist realistically-speaking, with social-anarchism being an ultimate goal for our species), the things mentioned in the documentary hit home with me. They spoke truth about the evils of the modern times.

But at the second part of the two documentaries the “Earth/Venus Projects” were mentioned (full documentary), which is about a technocratic, and rather utopian society (even if the creators of the project hate the word “utopia”). Nobody will have to work, machines will do our jobs, with only 3% of the population needed to maintain the machines (volunteers). It’s a society where there is no market, no State, since everything available is available to all, while more complex machines are time-shared (e.g. cars). Art is free, services are free & mechanized.

“Three Minutes to Nirvana”
My artwork about the journey humanity must take towards ascending into a higher state of being. Full explanation here.

As much as I would love such a society to exist, it can’t happen. It won’t work. Here’s only a two reasons why, out of thousand reasons:

First Point: The failures of community development

This is the biggest point: Machines don’t design themselves. Technology does not invent itself. We are not living in a Singularity, and as such, human engineers are required to design new robots to do specialized jobs. So if nobody is required to work, who the heck is going to design/redesign/fix these machines, or build new ones that are more advanced?

The obvious answer here is “community development”, similar to that found on the various Linux projects (especially since all source code and hardware designs will be free for all to dive into).

As the ex-editor in chief of OSNews.com who dealt with Linux and its surrounding projects on a daily basis for many years, I can tell you this: it’s not possible to maintain such level of complexity with community projects. The Linux ecosystem has shown that this does NOT WORK.

There is nothing as LARGE and cohesive as Android or iOS today, made by community development alone.

GNOME, KDE, Linux itself, is getting the vast majority of code fixes and updates from COMMERCIAL COMPANIES, not from volunteers (for example, GNOME had Red Hat behind it in his heyday before it fell from grace, KDE had SuSE, and Google is now the biggest contributor for the Linux kernel). The volunteers are here to just make half-assed contributions most of the time. There are VERY FEW independent developers who are super-serious in providing daily, serious work to their pet open-source project. The rest, reply to you when you report a bug like this: “look man, I do this in my free time. If you don’t like it, write the code yourself”.

And we all know the kind of quality we get from projects that don’t have a company, or strong leadership behind them: they’re buggy, they’re slow, they’re often difficult to use, incompatible, broken dependencies, don’t follow a standard UI/rules, and very often behind in technology. For example, The GIMP was supposed to have full 16bit editing in 2002, but 11 years later, it’s still in alpha/half-assed mode. Not to mention the slowness this app has compared to Photoshop…

The reason for all this is because community developers DO NOT WANT BOSSES OVER THEIR HEADS. They don’t want to listen to a product manager, and they don’t want to listen to a UI designer, and they don’t want to spend 3 weeks to debug a bug that’s difficult to track down (that’s how long it can take to trace a race condition). They want to add FEATURES. As it has been said many times in the last 10 years, when Linux was trying to make it to the desktop, that there’s no glory in fixing bugs. The glory is in new features. But the person who pays afterwards for the half-assness is the user.

So how the heck do the Zeitgeist people expect the community to work as cohesively, as driven, as focused, as a REAL COMPANY would? It can’t! Not when there are no de-facto leadership. Community-driven open source developement has shown that it can’t compete in quality and speed of development with most commercial companies! Again, don’t forget that I’m talking about 100% community development here, not open source projects where big corporations make the most contributions.

And not to mention that when people get pissed off about some code or some feature they don’t like, or because of some asshole in their team, THEY LEAVE and THEY FORK the code (which can create major incompatibilities, something that the Zeitgeist people fight against, since they advocate for full compatibility among the various technologies).

But that’s only half the story.

The other half is that the complexity of the technology advocated by the Zeitgeist guys is just TOO COMPLEX. To create something like Android, Google had to not only skyrocket the number of developers it employed, but they had to stand on the shoulders of OTHER SW and HW COMPANIES that create their own little thing that is part of the whole, and so on. It’s also of no surprise that Apple had to pull developers off Mac OS X and onto iOS. These things are complex! This is NOT 1967, where a CPU can be designed in a garage, by hand. This is an era where the complexity *requires* SPECIALIZATION (something that the documentary also thinks it’s evil).

I highly suggest you read an article by my husband, a Google Android engineer. But before you, Zeitgeist advocates, shut down my and his article just because he happens to work for Google, know this: JBQ is the “community” guy, responsible for the open sourcing of Android. He’s THE guy who has one foot inside Google, and one foot in COMMUNITY development. So he knows the story INSIDE-OUT. He knows how the WHOLE thing works.

This is his article about today’s technological complexity, please read it before continuiing reading this article.

There’s a reason why the LiMO and OpenMOKO failed, there’s a reason that the VERY FEW open source hardware efforts have failed EVEN more than software equivalents. The complexity is so high, that it requires perfect co-ordination with too many other aspects in the whole process! Something that can’t happen on the volunteer-basis, without at least SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Picking up another person’s code (if the original coder quit) is NOT EASY either! It can take MONTHS to get up to speed!

The point is, that without STRONG leadership (at multiple levels, for interoperability and building on top of other tech), complex work can not be done. Nature can teach us this same thing too. Think of ants, think of bees. These are among the few animals that create COMPLEX STRUCTURES. Oh, that’s right! These animals live under some extreme hierarchical rules, and they all have specialized JOBS. What does that tell you?

If the Zeitgeist people don’t agree with the above statements, it means that they have never worked in the SW or HW industry, and they simply talk out of their ass.

And after writing all this, we still haven’t mention medicine, and medical research, which is AS complex. Just because there won’t be patents and copyrights in such a utopia, doesn’t mean that NEW science can exist without massive amounts of work from vast amounts of people who work on schedule, and with specialization, and under a grand PLAN.

If this is not addressed, then within one generation, there won’t be people who would know how to operate, maintain or design new machines. Everything will just get old, unmaintained, and people will have fewer things than they had before. The system as described by the Venus/Earth project, will fail by natural decline, IF it worked at all.

Second Point: The jobs that no one wants to do and robots can’t do

In the documentary, we’re shown automated agriculture, veggies grown on skyscrapers and other such stuff. First of all, veggies that don’t touch the ground, just like humans and animals, become un-grounded from Earth’s EMF field, which makes them sick. But that’s just a kinda new point to the whole “health” puzzle.

So let me ask you this instead: Who the heck is going to milk and skin the cows? There’s no way to have pastured-raised cows (as they’re SUPPOSED to be, in an environmental- and animal-friendly society), and have robots chasing them all day long to milk them, or to kill them for food consumption. There are just too many variables in such a situation, that today’s robotic AI is not good-enough for it, because it’s not the same repetitive action they have to do all the time (you never know how a cow would react — these are all things that the AI must address).

Don’t forget that the documentary says that we have the required robotic technology TODAY to create such a utopia (in fact, the creator of the Venus Project was saying on TV in the 1970s that we already had the required technology back then, which is of course even more laughable). And as someone who has worked in the AI field, I’m telling you, that NO, WE DO NOT have the right technology for everything depicted. As demonstrated with the cow example above, our AI today is pretty dumb, and it would not be able to deal with wild cases. Self-driving cars (also shown in the documentary), won’t be ready for years to come either.

Or, are we’re supposed to be vegetarians in that utopian world of yours? Because you will get the meat and fish from me over my dead body. I didn’t spend 10 years being sick as a dog, just so I can eat wheat again, to kill me for good (wheat nearly killed me, EVEN if I’m NOT a celiac. The documentary proudly shows WHEAT in some of its shots!). The thing with wheat is that 95% of people are allergic to it, especially the unfermented US variety. People DO NOT know that they’re allergic to it, just because they’re not celiac. But brand new research in the last 2-3 years shows that wheat is POISON for EVERYBODY. It’s NOT a food we evolved with, it arrived with agriculture only 10,000 years ago. And yet, there we are, in a utopian society where we would have to eat wheat as a staple, and where animals are not even suggested as food (which is the food that we EVOLVED with).

The documentary talks about the psychology of today’s people, and how mentally ill they are because of how society runs. This is true. What is also true is that wheat is a huge factor on making people mentally sick. People who have gone to try the gluten-free Paleo-ketogenic diet (that includes offal, game, pastured-raised meat, greens, bone broth, animal fats, wild fish/shellfish, fewer carbs), had not only their auto-immune, inflammatory conditions reversed, but also their mental issues. So in a utopia where people are supposed to be healthy, the kind of foods we evolved with must be available. This is nowhere mentioned in the documentary, instead they take the WRONG approach of “whole grains”.

So, if the Venus/Earth Project is going to push such kinds of foods as grains, or vegetarianism, I can tell you right away: you can shove these projects in your ass. I prefer to live under today’s fascism, than eat wheat. Because even after living under fascism, I have BETTER CHANCES of living a healthy life, than in a utoprian society where I have to eat wheat and no WILD or PASTURED meat/fish (no farmed fish please). The 10 years of terrible health and pain I had before I went all-natural and hunter&gatherer-style diet are still too strong in my mind.

And not to mention that we would need hunters. The kind of meat available today in the US is laughable. It’s just cows, chicken and pork. Where’s horse? Where’s deer? Where’s antelope, wild sheep and wild goats? Where’s actual, real game and wild birds? These are foods that we EVOLVED with, so they should be part of the normal diet in a utopian world! These foods ARE utopia for me. So who the hell is going to go HUNT for everybody else (since everyone is supposed to have an equal share)? Or are you going to unleash robots for that too? Good luck with that.

So anyway, to go back to the point of robots chasing cows/hens in the field: we will need humans for these types of jobs. Until we reach singularity, there’s no way this kind of job can be done without humans. And I fail to see how someone would donate his/her time to get into dirt, and milk cows, and get farted upon by them. They won’t. Nobody would want to do such a job without some form of payment. Everyone would prefer to just “do art”, or maybe write some code, in the confy of their room.

A suggestion

In closing, I believe that maybe one day we will be close to such a system, but there will still be jobs and bosses. They have to. But instead of money, maybe the incentive should be “reputation points”. Instead of having pop-stars, in such a society, people who contribute the most become “star citizens”. Points would be equal for a cow-herder, and a doctor or scientist, as long as people who offer what it’s expected of them. So in my opinion, what is required is equality of job “payment”, not “no jobs” at all.

There is an ancient Greek saying: “Many people hated money, but no one hated glory“.

Maybe that’s the incentive required to have people do the needed work, almost daily, and under a somewhat strict management. Not money necessarily, but honor among peers.

But, first things first: Paleo is not just about what foods you remove from the Western diet (namely: grains/gluten, vegetable oils, legumes, excess sugars). Paleo is also about what you add to it: bone marrow/broth, offal of all kind, seaweed, fermented foods, shellfish (especially oysters), enough sunlight, enough sleep, enough exercise etc. Paleo without these additions is not true Paleo. In fact, most meat-eater “Paleo” dieters are not hard-core Paleo dieters! But a muscle-eater still gets enough protein (and vitamins that are only found in specific forms in meat) to get him/her by. A vegetarian needs to try extra hard with the kinds of food he/she must consume in order to come closer to true health that Paleo can offer.

So these are my personal opinions about how an almost-vegetarian diet, or more accurately a reduced-meat diet, can achieve most of Paleo’s well-known health benefits. I present the information in steps, to help you decide to include a specific food or not. But basically it boils down to this: you can’t have the full health benefits that Paleo could potentially offer if you don’t include at least some of the suggested superfoods in your diet.

Meat and fish

1. Offal
Please hear me out for a second. Even if you don’t put muscle meat in your mouth, 200 gr of liver, twice a month, is probably enough to get you most of the needed vitamins that are only found in specific chemical forms in animal meat. This is a sacrifice you might have to do for your well-being. Think about it, it’s just twice a month! I’d suggest pastured lamb liver, because it has the least strong taste (compared to beef, goat), it’s way more nutritious than birds’ livers, and when it’s pastured, you know that the animal has had a good life (so you’re not collaborating with an abusive meat industry). If you decide to not eat offal, consider supplementing with CoQ10 (specifically the Ubiquinol form) and PQQ. These enzymes are not found anywhere else in large-enough quantities (not even in muscle meat).

2. Shellfish
In addition to offal, or if you’re not willing to eat any land-animal meat at all, you should seriously consider shellfish, particularly the superfood that is oysters (and mussels as a second option). That should be at least 200 gr of oysters, once a week (you can also have other kinds of shellfish throughout the week too if you like). From the vegan point of view, oysters/mussels are the most vegetarian-friendly animals to eat, because they don’t have a nervous system, so they don’t feel pain when we harvest/eat them.

3. Fish
In addition to shellfish, or if you can’t have shellfish because of allergies, then you should go hard on fish, particularly on wild salmon. You will need to eat fish almost daily, about 100 gr/day. Wild canned sardines, whole fried smelt (with heads/guts), cod, and any other fish with low mercury levels is good to eat. Overall, it’s better to have fish than not to have any because of fear of mercury (besides, enough selenium intake can clean up mercury from our system — all you need is a single Brazil nut a day to get enough selenium). Occasionally, go for sashimi (raw fish) too! If you’re eating out, just make sure you arrive at the sushi restaurant with your own, wheat-free, “Tamari”, non-GMO, soy sauce (no shame in that, most celiacs do it this way too).

4. Bone Marrow or Fish Bone Broth
You will need either a bone marrow broth (recipe), or at least, fish bone broth (recipe). You can’t find the gelatin required to rejuvenate and heal your insides (and your outsides) in any other kind of food. In fact, bone broth is among the top-line defenses of Paleo, and one of the reasons of why the diet was adopted so quickly (people got healed fast!). If you go for fish bone broth, prefer non-oily fish for slow cooking. Add oily fish towards the end of the cooking cycle (or it could go rancid). For fish bone broth, the fish heads are required to be cooked along the fish bones for full potency.

5. Cod Liver
I put this food at the end of this list, because it’s a bit of an acquired taste. It tastes like foie-gras, and it has a lot of vitamin A. It’s definitely one of the foods you should try if you can stomach it. I’d suggest you eat it out of the can and not fry it, because it will then smell strongly throughout your house for a week…

Notice how I started suggesting liver twice a month, oysters weekly, and fish daily. This is because they’re sorted by some loose, nutrient density.

Dairy

If you’re “mostly” vegetarian, dairy becomes more needed in your diet than for other Paleo dieters.

1. Eggs
Go for pastured duck eggs if you can (4-6 a week are enough — find them at your local farmer’s market), or pastured chicken eggs as a second option. This way, you still get eggs from animals that live a good, natural life for the most part.

2. Kefir, yogurt, and cheese
The original standard Paleo diet does not allow milk products, however, with time, this rule has relaxed under some very specific conditions. If possible, the milk has to be raw, which includes enzymes to digest it properly. If that’s not possible in your area, then the next best thing is this: fermented-only dairy (home-made goat kefir, European-style yogurt, real cheese), and only from A2 casein animals (goat, sheep, buffalo, camel). I would not recommend to anyone to drink pasteurized cow milk out of the carton. If you decide to only do one type of dairy for your calcium and B-vitamin needs, go for home-made goat kefir, which is the most potent of all (10x more potent than yogurt for healing). But it has to be home-made (store-bought is not potent), it has to be from an A2 casein animal, and it has to be fermented for 24 hours (add some RAW honey, nuts, and berries afterwards if you find it too bitter). Well-fermented goat kefir has the needed enzymes to properly digest it too (start slowly though).

3. Grass-fed butter & European-style, cultured, organic sour-cream
Don’t fear it, use it in your recipes! Definitely go for grass-fed butter btw, you will need the K2 vitamin in it.

More Info

1. Fermented foods
Sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented veggies should be eaten regularly.

2. Seaweed
A must-have for good thyroid function, especially if you’re eating the suggested Brazil nut above (there must be a balance of selenium and iodine in your system). I use seaweed in unpasteurized soy-based miso soup (the year-long fermentation of soy in miso makes it benign).

3. Lentils and other beans
This would probably be my least-popular suggestion among the meat-eater Paleo readers of this article. However, there are good reasons why I would suggest lentils (and other beans), 2-3 times a month or so, specifically for vegetarians and vegans. When properly fermented for 36 hours, lentils in particular become almost benign. Given the amount of protein, iron, manganese, B vitamins, and folate they have, beans become a must-have food for those who don’t eat meat. But again, it must be traditionally-prepared, not cooked as-is, or out of a can. Legumes are still legumes, and they contain harmful lectins when cooked without fermentation. But if you don’t do meat, they kind of become a “must”. However, still avoid processed soy products (e.g. soy milk, tofu, tempeh). Ferment your non-GMO soy, and learn to eat natto (which is the best source for protein if you’re 100% off meat).

4. Raw, unfiltered and local Honey
A vegetarian has already cut out the “hunting” part of “hunting and gathering”, so there’s no reason to reduce the “gathering” part too. When the honey is raw, it has significant anti-bacterial properties, and when it’s local, it strengthens the immune system against allergies. Raw honey should be the sweetener of choice for any Paleo dieter.

6. Don’t fear the carbs (too much)
Robb Wolf’s latest series on carbs is an eye-opener. Paleo is a diet first for health, and then for weight loss. Weight loss comes naturally with it as your health improves.

Vitamins

If you’re going for 100% meat/fish-free diet (I hope this article explained why this would not work as a Paleo framework though), then you will need to supplement with vitamins. Unfortunately, there’s not a single multi-vitamin company that gets it right regarding vitamins geared for a vegan diet. I’m not a doctor, so none of these are medical advices. But in my personal research, these are the nutrients that came up short on a vegan diet.

1. D3 (3000 IU, daily, in the morning)
Test your D3 levels via a blood test (do not supplement with high doses without knowing your levels, it can become toxic). Without adequate D3 levels your immune system can not function properly to heal you. In the Western world today, most people are deficient of it.

2. Magnesium (daily, 20 mins before bed)
In the Western world today, most people are deficient of it. Our soil and water are depleted of it.

3. DHA oil (daily)

4. B-Complex (if you’re not eating offal & shellfish, take it 2-3 times a week, the specific B-complex gets it more right than others)

5. Taurine (2-3 times a week)

6. Zinc (2-3 times a week — or just eat oysters)

7. Essential Amino Acids (daily, not a vegan product, but there’s none better than it — Alternatively, definitely go for L-Lysine, and L-Acetyl-Carnitine separately. Creatine and others might be useful too)

6. Protein (eat fermented beans, and natto, but not processed soy like tofu/soy-milk, try to avoid GMO too)

9. Vitamin A (1-2 times a week, before bed — if you’re not eating offal or oysters)

10. Calcium (2-3 times a week, if you’re not eating dairy)

11. K2 Mk4 (the specific form, 2-3 times a week, when you take Calcium or dairy)

12. Iron (1-2 times a week, ask your doctor first though, iron supplementation can be dangerous)

13. CoQ10 Ubiquinol (the specific form, 2-3 times a week)

14. PQQ (1-2 times a week, or eat a heart every week)

15. Finally, if you’re not drinking bone broth, you’ll need Collagen. There are Collagen Types I and III, and Collagen II (two different products). Take them at different days, 2-3 times a week each.

First off, it’s not guns to blame. Guns are simply a tool in such cases. Making guns illegal would be useless to combat the causes, because the people who would want to use guns, they’ll find ways to acquire them. With the huge gun industry in the USA, incriminating or controlling gun ownership would be like trying to cut people off corn and corn fields. Good luck with that. Sure, regulating them will help, but it won’t treat the cause.

In my opinion, there are two driving reasons why these individuals jump the shark and start killing others en mass:

1. Artificial Societal Rules and Capitalism

The Western world (and especially the ultra-capitalistic USA) is living a lie. We are not meant to live the kind of lives we do today. As this very nice documentary put it, we’re running modern software on 50,000 year old hardware designs (our bodies). We haven’t evolved yet to be living in these conditions. So both the pressure to succeed as an individual in things that don’t truly matter (e.g. “becoming a successful professional and make money”), and the constant bullying and critique from the surrounding society for those who don’t play with the rules, is taking its toll. Most of us are burrying these feelings, others become bullies, and others just go on rampage, shooting people to get back to the society at large. It’s not random that most of the time they go and kill randomly.

2. Inhuman Nutrition and Mental Illness

This second point is the one that most people do not consider as a real point, but in my opinion it’s almost as important as the first point. Research in the ’80s shown that tribes of hunter & gatherers had very little schizophrenia or other mental illnesses (I highly suggest you check out this book too, by distinguished schizophrenia researcher E. Fuller Torrey). In contrast, half the Western world (especially in the US) is in med drugs. Kids these days are starting getting prescription drugs at the age of 6. We are NOT stable, normal people. We do NOT function properly — almost none of us in the Western civilization is! Except the societal pressure as outlined above, the second aspect is the kind of food we’re eating. The Western diet is a POISON diet, that’s why we have so many “diseases of civilization” that don’t appear in hunter & gatherer communities. The diet in the US is the most industrialized in the world, hence the various incidents mostly happening there. Poison your body, and you will poison your brain. After cutting down all grains when I went Paleo 15 months ago (and especially after going Paleo-ketogenic for a few months), I saw a huge change in my mental psyche: no anxiety anymore, situational depression was lifted, ADD lifted. I became less argumentative, less “difficult”. Even my sexual behavior changed, to the better (and this proves that this was a deep change). My creativity found new heights (I could never put my brain together before to do the kind of collage I do today). I would highly suggest you read the articles on this blog, by psychiatrist Emily Deans, and possibly do a search about various mental illnesses (and how these were lifted by cutting down the poison that is all grains, excessive sugars, vegetable oils, and legumes) at Paleohacks.com. Nutrition plays a way bigger role to mental illness than you think it is. We all think of mental illnesses as “bad luck” or “bad genes”, or “just craziness”, but it’s more closely related to Neolithic nutrition (that we haven’t evolved with) than we thought it ever was. Especially if you’re missing enough D3, and omega-3 in your diet (ratio to Omega-6 should be 1:2 or 1:3), expect mental havoc. Add on top of that environmental toxins and urbanization, and boom! With enough mental instability, some jump the shark and go shoot people.

As long as AT LEAST #2 is not fixed somehow (#1 can only be fixed via societal maturation and rapid, natural or not, evolution — which will take a few more thousand years), expect more such rampage killings in the future. So don’t sound so surprised the next time it happens and you start tweeting “Oh, my God, blah blah blah”. It’s very sad indeed, it’s a truly terrible thing. But it IS going to happen. Again, and again, and again.

I’m not a doctor, but I read and I experiment a lot, so here’s a guide:

1. Start with a doctor’s visit
A stool, allergy and blood tests (and possibly a colonoscopy) can find out if the source of your problem is mechanical, food intolerance, auto-immunity, or an infection. If it’s an infection, e.g. C-Diff, some protozoa like B. Hominis, H. Pylori, listeria etc. then you need antibiotics or a fecal transplant. As bad antibiotics are, these bad organisms can’t always be eradicated with diet, because they are capable of eating everything you eat (while most “good” gut bacteria only feed on carbs). However, new research has shown that home-made kefir can help kill C. Diff (commercial kefir has less potency).

2. Paleo/Primal
This is the least restrictive diet, the most balanced of all in terms of nutrients. It has to be 100% gluten-free to see health benefits. Go for up to 100 gr of “net” carbs per day (for net carbs, just don’t count the fiber). In addition to the Paleo diet, also add this list of superfoods (bone broth is super-important for gut health, for example). Reading online, I found that the vast majority of IBS, GERD, diverticulitis, and Celiac sufferers find relief with plain Paleo. Crohn’s and UC patients range from finding full relief, to partial, to not at all. So for some of these more difficult cases, they have to either add 24-hour fermented home-made goat kefir (while cutting down all other dairy for a while), or read next.

3. SCD
If within a month you have started seeing some results (even if they’re not perfect), stay with Paleo. But if you haven’t seen major results with Paleo/Primal, go for the SCD. The SCD is the same as Paleo, but it does not allow tubers/starches as Paleo does. Regarding its suggestion to go with yogurt, prefer home-made goat kefir instead, which is 5x-10x more potent than yogurt. Retain the list of superfoods from the previous diet, avoid vegetable oils, and supplement with vitamin D3 too if you’re not going out in the sun much. Eventually, if this works, you can revert back to the less restrictive Paleo (+ home-made goat kefir), for life (symptoms will return if you stray away from Paleo).

4. GAPS
If within three months you haven’t seen any good result with the SCD, go for GAPS. GAPS has periods of time where you can’t eat any solid food. When you can eat solid food again, it’s just the same as the allowed food list from SCD. Also, whatever I said above for Paleo/SCD still applies when on the phase where you can eat solid food (goat kefir, superfoods, D3, avoid vegetable oils). GAPS is all about bone broths and probiotic pills, trying to “reset” the gut’s flora. It’s a difficult diet, but it’s effective. Eventually, if this works, you can revert back to the less restrictive Paleo (+ home-made goat kefir), for life (symptoms will return if you stray away from at least Paleo).

5. FODMAPs
If GAPS works while in the “intro” phase, but irregularity returns repeatedly when trying to eat solid food (you’d have to try GAPS for 6 months, coming in and out of its broth phases a number of times), try to cut down FODMAPs. FODMAPs include specific food groups (e.g. onions, brassicas, apples etc) that are allowed in all the above diets, but you can’t consume in this diet. Do remain 100% gluten & grain-free, and avoid vegetable oils while on FODMAPs too though. Also, check your D3 levels.

6. Paleo Auto-Immune Protocol
This is the same as #2 above (Paleo/Primal), but without any dairy, nuts, seeds, fruits, yeasts, eggs, shellfish, pepper spices, and no nightshades (no tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, white potatoes). It’s basically just fat (olive oil, tallow/lard/duck fat), meat/fish/organs (preferably grass-fed/pastured/wild), and veggies/seaweed. This diet is best for people with strong auto-immune problems (e.g. Multiple Sclerosis), but sometimes it works for gut problems too. Don’t stay on this diet for longer than 2-3 months though. Revert back to plain Paleo (+ goat kefir), by introducing small amounts of the non-allowed foods, one by one (allow 1 week before you introduce the next one).

7. Fecal Transplant
If you’re among that 3%-5% of the IBS/IBD patients where none of the above works, then it’s possible that your problem is an infection of an unknown origin, that tests won’t identify. In that case, revert back to Paleo (plus home-made goat kefir), for life, and get a fecal transplant from a healthy donor. Until modern medicine catches up, this is your only hope.

Personally, I was lucky to be able to fix my IBS-D with a mix of Paleo and SCD. That is: Paleo + home-made goat kefir, up to 100 gr of “net” carbs per day (I also followed the Paleo-ketogenic diet for a few months, up to 50 gr “net” carbs per day), vitamin D3 3000 IU per day, and only few tubers/starches. Since almost all these IBS/IBD conditions eventually create malabsorption problems (I was very surprised to find out via a blood test that I was short on B12, since I eat a lot of meat/fish), I supplement a few times a week. I track what I eat via Cronometer, so if I seem short on a nutrient on a weekly basis, I supplement with it once. Put money aside to check your CRP (inflammation), B12, iron, calcium, folate and D3 levels via a blood test every year. It’s all about optimization, especially for us with a sensitive gut.

Good luck!