The Fat of the Land
This book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to eat an all-meat diet or wants to learn more about the health benefits of a low-carbohydrate diet of meat and fish. Arctic explorer and anthropologist Vilhjálmur Stefánsson spent years living with indigenous Inuit and Eskimo people. He noted their general healthiness (and good teeth), and an absence of many of the diseases that plagued western cultures, such as scurvy, heart disease, and diabetes. Observing their dietary habits, he determined that their primary food was meat, both lean and fatty, and that their diets were very low in sugary or starchy carbohydrates. Was this meaty diet the key to their good health? The book chronicles a 1928 scientific experiment, conducted by the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, in which Stefansson and his colleague Dr. Karsten Andersen ate a meat-only diet for one year. The two men stayed healthy and fared very well, leading him to claim that we should reexamine our notion of what foods constitute a healthy diet.
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- Have you considered a zerocarb diet? It may help with the allergies, though if you follow zerocarb then it wouldn't matter as it excludes wheat and soy. I essentially eat nothing but meat, cheese, and eggs. If this sounds outrageous and impossible, come join us on /r/zerocarb and read the science and testimonials.
I did not make this choice lightly. For several weeks and months I got hung up on the "but you need vegetables and fiber" argument. I read and thoroughly did my research over a period of many months. My parents and I have tried many of the popular fad diets out there, including raw vegan where we would make "healthy" smoothies out of kale/spinach and some fruits (never mind that raw spinach is rather toxic with oxalates and other anti-nutrients, and the sugar content (especially fructose) from the fruits will lead us towards diabetes).
My parents are now so pre-diabetic that they cannot eat fruit anymore. A simple serving of pineapple will push my father's blood pressure over 200. Two servings and he will black out. Waking glucose level is about a 100 for both of my parents.
Then, we switched to paleo, and a few months later to zerocarb. It has now been several months eating nothing but meat, eggs, and cheese, and the results were night-and-day different to the raw vegan diet high in carbs and sugar. Now, we are keto adapted. Insulin sensitivity is slowly returning to normal. Waking glucose is improving for them (mine is normal). Lipid panels are improving. We all lost excess weight as well.
By following zerocarb, you automatically eat a FODMAP diet. You don't damage your intestines anymore from all that bulky high-fiber diets. You really don't need fiber--I have not eaten any fiber in months.
In the end, I experimented, my parents experimented, and we settled on zerocarb. There's an excellent book on this called the Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Read it with a bag of salt, but perhaps try a 60 day experiment.
- I'm always very fascinated by people's rationale and I enjoy reading these threads. Thank you for posting. My own journey took me in the opposite direction: I eat nothing but meat and other animal-derived products such as cheese and eggs (but not milk). I have made this decision after reading The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson [1] and Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes [2]. I consciously decided the most important dietary principle, for me, is to never trigger a strong insulin response. I have been zero carb (and therefore zero fiber) for about a year now.
I have since then thrown in intermittent fasting as well. I fast 22 hours a day, work out at the end of the day, and then go home and eat 1kg of steak/lamb. I think intermittent fasting is worth adding to any diet, vegan or otherwise.
[1] Book was printed in 1956, so copyright may have expired. There's PDFs online. Here's a link to Stefansson's Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson
[2] Non-affiliate: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259
- The book The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson) describes how the Eskimos he lived with ate rotten fish all the time. It was a delicacy for them.
Kind of like we eat "rotten/spoiled" blue cheese and dry-aged beef.
- More info.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson's book, "THE FAT OF THE LAND": https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks...
Vilhjalmur Stefansson's coverage of the same topics from Harper's Monthly Magazine, November 1935:
- Part 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblel...
- Part 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblel...
- Part 3: https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblel...
The Harper's Magazine articles cover the same ground as the book but are better written in my opinion.
Also note: I am not associated with any web site.
