Regina is right... a plant-free diet would be a better distinction. As I pointed out earlier, I'm not pure zero-carb, getting about 10 a day.... some from eggs and cream or cheese, and I love shellfish and liver, kidneys, heart and tongue. Two weeks ago, I ate a raw goose heart and liver for the first time and was surprised how easily they went down, rather tasty, actually. I felt sorta like Hannibal Lecter... a nice Chianti would have been good.

I also drink at least one herbal tisane (a strong tea infused at least 15 minutes) of home-grown dandelion and nettle leaf with a splash of dandelion ACV (very easy to make and extracts minerals like calcium), plus yerba mate. Finally, I take a high-quality vit/min capsule, as I have for decades, plus some extra magnesium and Vitamin D with fish oil to ease winter's SAD. I might be covered pretty well, I think.

But zero-carb seems to happen every winter; I completely lose my desire for veggies, even salads. I buy the stuff out of guilt ("I really oughta eat more veggies") and then it slowly wilts or rots in the fridge until I give it to the chickens. But when spring arrives and things start growing in my garden, my diet slowly and naturally reverses, switching to a lot of salads and green veggies, a little melon and berries, and less meat and fat.

Guess you could say that I follow the seasons?

I can read about optimum balance from now till hell freezes over but it doesn't change the fact that when the fat content of my diet reaches 75% or more I am extremely ill.

all carbs are similar. RW and and Cajun are both on LOW CARB DIETS--why? cause carbs are good for them?
yeah right!!!
They have found a point where they can eat the enemy and at least not gain. Some can't lose at 20 gms-or 10 gms. YMMV
Protein and fats are essential-carbs are not. these 2 people were interviewed by j. moore and towards the end he asked questions specifically about ZC. I think he was shocked by their answers.


http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=3285
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=3243

zero carb essentially means plant free-or VVLC-Atkins advised it in his earliest book. It's the point where insulin is under control and cravings are gone. usually under 5-10 gm/daily. you have a general feeling of wellbeing and many chronic health problems improve.

An interesting article about the health benefits of bone marrow: http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com...ective-and.html

Seems like the more I've read over the past 18 months, the more obvious it becomes to me that a 100% animal-based diet can provide 100% of our nutritional needs. But, whether one WANTS to eat only 100% animal-based diet is whole n'other question. LessLiz says a 100% meat diet does not work for her, and that's okay. Nobody here has said we all MUST eat 100% meat-based diet.... only that it can be, and often is, healthy and sustainable in the long-run.

I don't think Jimmy would be surprised by the replies....I'm not either.

As Mary Vernon noted - the Inuit and other populations consuming an animal-based diet knew what they were doing and we can learn the hard way or take the lessons that are there for us.....one of those lessons is that the Inuit, which is really a large number of different populations, consume a variety of parts of the animal, they do not confine their eating to just the meat (flesh) and fat, but also include parts of the animal many in our culture will not eat or can not find in the marketplace.

Her example of drinking the broth from cooking (boiling) meats is important I think in that it illustrates that without us understanding what's in the broth, we may inadvertantly discard that information as something unimportant long-term - it was meat they ate, right? - and prepare meat how we like without regard to that "tradition" she spoke of and the reasons why, without *knowing why* they included the broth.

Taubes acknowledges too that some populations have lived on animal foods - he too doesn't say eat just meat (flesh) and fat...and recognizes that even in animal foods there are carbs....he notes the carbs present as glycogen (which is typically, from what I've read, 1-2% of total body weight of the animal....so whatever that works out to in the flesh, liver and other areas stored is glycogen) and there is measurable carbohydrate present in organs and other body parts.

This doesn't mean we *require* carbs, just that carbohydrate is present even in the diet of someone eating an exclusive animal food diet.....so while there is no requisite obligate requirement for carbohydrate, it exists in our diet whether we need it or not.

No-Carb Diets May Impair Memory

Memory Improved When Carbs Reintroduced to Diet

By Salynn Boyles

WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MDDec. 12, 2008 -

Eliminating carbohydrates from your diet may help you lose weight, but it could leave you fuzzy headed and forgetful, a new study suggests.

One week after starting a weight loss diet that severely restricted carbohydrates, participants in the Tufts University study performed significantly worse on memory tests than participants who followed a low calorie, high-carbohydrate diet.

The low-carb dieters' memory-test performances improved in the following weeks after they began eating some carbohydrates.
"The connection between the foods we eat and how we think doesn't really enter into most people's minds," study co-author and cognitive psychologist Holly A. Taylor, PhD tells WebMD. "But this study demonstrates that the foods we eat can have an immediate impact on brain function."

Carbs Are Brain Fuel
The body breaks carbohydrates into glucose, which it uses to fuel brain activity. Proteins break down into glycogen, which can also be used for fuel by the brain, but not as efficiently as glucose.

So it stands to reason that eliminating carbohydrates from the diet might reduce the brain's source of energy and affect brain function. But there has been little research examining this hypothesis in people following low-carb weight loss diets.

The study by Taylor and colleagues included 19 women between the ages of 22 to 55 who were closely followed after beginning a low-carb weight loss plan similar to the Atkins diet or the low-calorie diet recommended by the American Dietetic Association that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Before starting the diets, the women underwent testing designed to measure long- and short-term memory and attention. The tests were repeated one, two, and three weeks after the diet began.

Low-carb dieters ate virtually no carbohydrates during their first week on the diet. In testing conducted after week one, they performed worse on memory-based tasks than the women following the ADA diet.

Reaction times for those on the low-carb diet were slower and their visual-spatial memories were not as good as the low-calorie dieters.

They did perform better than the low-calorie dieters in testing that measured attention and the ability to stay on task, however.

And their performance on the memory tests improved after week one, when limited carbohydrates were reintroduced into their diets.

"Although this study only tracked dieting participants for three weeks, the data suggest that diets can affect more than just weight," Taylor notes in a news release. "The brain needs glucose for energy and diets low in carbohydrates can be detrimental to learning, memory, and thinking."

The study is published in the February 2009 issue of the journal Appetite.

More Study Needed
Australian research scientist Grant D. Brinkworth, PhD, tells WebMD that the findings, while intriguing, do not prove that low-carbohydrate weight loss diets affect memory.

In a study published in 2007, Brinkworth and colleagues performed cognitive function testing on dieters after they had been on either a low-carb or high-carb weight-loss diet for eight weeks.

Both groups lost weight and showed improvements in mood.

The low-carbohydrate dieters showed slight impairments in cognitive processing speed, but no difference was recorded between the two groups in working memory.

Brinkworth says if eliminating carbohydrates from the diet does affect memory, the effect may only be temporary.

"What (Taylor and colleagues) recorded may be an acute, transient effect that may just be the body readjusting to an unfamiliar diet," he says. "We really need studies that examine the long-term impact of these diets on cognition."

Calls to a representative from the private equity firm North Castle Partners, which owns controlling interest in Atkins Nutritional Holdings, were not immediately returned.

I don't think a study one or two weeks in means anything. A couple of months in, yes.

A week into major chemical changes in one's body one is likely to show effects having nothing at all to do with what you believe you are measuring. For example, I'm quite certain that one week after dropping nicotine my memory was much worse than it was one week before dropping nicotine. That doesn't mean that smoking improves memory, or stopping smoking injures memory. It would be a measure of simply how disrupted my system is, and therefore my concentration, while my body adjusts to the lack of nicotine.

I have no doubt the same sort of thing happens when one dramatically decreases carbs. Give the body time to adapt then test.

No idea.

But: one week after making a "massive and radical change in diet that leads to a massive and radical change in the body" -- meaning, BEFORE they've had any time to adapt (and I'm sure that study chose that moment on purpose!) -- "there were differences found" (I'd like to know the detail of that measure). If there were no physical chaos going on during the induction phase it wouldn't be the induction phase/detox.

I bet if you suddenly quit smoking or drinking or something else that really shifts your body and starts mega-venting toxins, fluid etc., there'd be similar results. So should nobody quit smoking or drinking because a week into the detox they're showing the venting signs in some way?

Anyway, it never happened that way for me. Going lowcarb significantly cleaned up my "brain fog". So studies like this always just make me confused. Maybe some people have that reaction to VVLC initially but certainly not all.

I thought of it, or thought I did, but Liz was reading my mind as I typed apparently, so...

And now... the opposing view: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/low-...rt-term-memory/

For balance.

Well, I wasn't in the study, but I have found the exact opposite effect in myself. I have better focus. I have a lot more energy. Maybe it's because I have enough Indian blood to qualify for land in TN. I couldn't give you the whys, only what I'm experiencing.

People tend to forget that two of the medical doctors with the longest experience with regards to low-carb (Lutz and Kwaznieski) both recommend against very low or no-carb diets, preferring that people have at least some modest amount of carbs.

I have no proof or details because none were offered up on that other thread. If no one has heard of anything like this being a problem then maybe there is nothing to it.

I think that is pretty useless information, frankly. Tell me *why* they make that recommendation and *that* information may well be useful.