Kindke, are there ethnic grocery shops near you? I buy coconut cream at a Chinese grocery. I can make rich coconut curry dishes that fit the bill. You may be able to find fattier proteins like duck.

Can you get the ingredients to render your own fats? This is how I usually end up bumping my fat intake: with added animal fats. At least here in Ontario, chicken backs come with the neck fat attached and they're very cheap. It makes wonderful broth plus a good amount of fat. It's not time-consuming or complicated at all. Rendered chicken fat is delicious.

I can also buy pork fat from a butcher. Try butcher shops and ask for fattier cuts, chicken skin, or pork fat. You'd think that if everyone else wants low-fat, there must be an awful lot of fat in the shop being wasted.

Maybe someone in the UK can chime in?

We are lucky here (Canberra Australia). My local butcher sells 2-3 kg (5-7 lb) packs of off-cuts as dog bones. About 80-90% is fat, sinews and flesh, not bones.

My guess is that over half the meat sold here is NOT sold in supermarkets. I have my butcher put aside pig, lamb and beef suet and I collect it after it's built up over a week. Cheaper than meat.

No need to render fat. For flavour and texture, I just dice it finely, letting it melt slowly on low heat before I add meat, eggs + whatever.

Found this study recently,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20423743

Is this more support for Dr Kwasneiwski's ratio's, low carb AND low protein and high fat.

How interesting. Thanks, Kindke.

One interesting note - I thought that their conclusion showed they think circulating free fatty acids is a bad thing. So this shows support for JK only if you do want FFAs to be high and glucose and insulin to be low...

Have you seen the recent critique of the Optimal Diet posted on the Perfect Health Diet site?

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1077

The author points to what he sees as an inability of the body to make sufficient mucus (which is made up of sugars) without adequate carbohydrates, and points to the role of mucus in lubricating the colon and gastro-intestinal cancers in people eating OD.

See also the comment by "Jane" who has read some of Kwasniewski's articles in Polish and says that there he advocates ratios of 0.6-0.8P : 2F : 0.8-1.5C for the long term and that the ratios 1P : 2.5-3.5F : 0.5C should be used only over the introductory phase of the OD and not maintained beyond that.

Further down there is a comment by the website owner, Paul Jaminet:
"... As the first really popular low-carb high-fat diet, the ODers acted as guinea pigs for the rest of us. We should learn what we can from them and fix their mistakes. I still believe in high-fat diets."

Another contributor, Lacie, reminds readers that the Polish eat a lot of "highly processed meat" (AGEs, nitrates and other preservatives) and that this is a likely source of GI cancers.

The discussion is on-going at the Perfect Health Diet website. The big deficiency in the entire discussion is the absence of any reference to the Evolutionary Health Principle. Nothing in biology (and human health is part of biology) makes sense except in the light of evolution and so the Principle is the essential theoretical paradigm for determining the best behaviours for human health. The Perfect Health Diet lacks a theoretical basis and is based on no more than a collection of anecdotes and theory-free research cobbled together in a way that suits the prejudices, knowledge and ignorance of the cobbler.

Myrmecia, I'm glad to read your post. I have been wondering about a comment which Dr. Emily Deans made after a blog post :

...there is some suggestion that we need a certain amount of glucose for making mucous, etc, and perhaps a cancer risk without enough mucous, but I've just read the secondary sources on that, not the primary sources.

Thank you very much for posting such a delightful and accurate description of the poor cobbling at the Perfect Health Site. It does seem to be based on personal preferences and oddities.

If someone finds good information at Pubmed or elsewhere on the subject of the need for carbs for mucous, I'd appreciate being able to read something that is sound, clean, science, rather than hearsay or anecdote.

Myrmecia, thanks again for your post. For me, most timely.

This may fall into the category of "way too much information", but I can tell you from my personal experience that I have plenty of mucous and for the past 7 months my diet has had fewer carbs (5-10% of the total) than Kwasniewski recommends.

Myrmecia, there are thousands who stay on ketogenic diets due to illnesses. If you find any well designed, clinical trial reports on ketogenic diets, carbohydrate requirements for mucous production, and cancer, could you please post whatever references you find?

Many must eat fewer than 20 or fewer than 10 grams per day.

Clinical trial studies will show the biochemistry involved.

Anecdotal reports do not explain the chemistry, and mucous production could be determined by things other than carbohydrates. That is why knowing the chemistry is vital.

Here's hoping a well designed, trial report with full text, will turn up on Pubmed soon.

All the best to you.

I've sort of looked for some sort of quantification of just how much glucose goes into mucous production. Now there's a fun evening. At one point I was trying to find a calorie count for boogers, thinking that might help, but I couldn't seem to find any serious information on the subject, for some reason. It doesn't have to be much. How much metamucil does it take to make a cup of goop? Anybody who's ever mixed some and been distracted too long before drinking knows the answer--not much.

I have a cold right now. I don't eat nearly the amount of carbohydrate that the perfect health diet suggests is needed, and I'm having no problem producing mucus.

I followed this thread last year, but there have been no posts to it for a few months. Is there a new Kwasniewski thread that's arisen in the meantime?

Have you heard that "Bear" died last week? Bear lived for over 50 years as a pure carnivore, backing up his practice with research. He was active on the web in 2006 and you can find about 20 pages of his work here (no mention of Kwasniewski, so I hope this is not "off topic"):
http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/about22.html

Keith

I was sorry to hear about Bear (ironically, bears are omnivores in the wild.) I know some people are going to use his death from cancer as an indictment of the low carb way of life; strange how the obesity epidemic never gets connected to the low fat/high carb obsession, hmmm?

The fact that he lived for over 50 years as a pure carnivore is its own statement; he was simply the man to do it in our time.

Geez, Dr. Atkins was walking to work at the age of 72, and slipped on the ice and hit his head; resulting in his death. Apparently, lifelong low carbing leads to head injuries, because other 72 year olds are sitting in wheelchairs missing limbs from diabetes.

I was sorry to hear about Bear (ironically, bears are omnivores in the wild.) I know some people are going to use his death from cancer as an indictment of the low carb way of life; strange how the obesity epidemic never gets connected to the low fat/high carb obsession, hmmm?


I read a news report on another thread that the Bear died from an auto accident, not cancer.

Thanks for the correction; I'm sure I was a victim of deliberate misinformation, then.

Nice Post Lisa.
Thanks for that.
Viva Mr K's Ratio