Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 87- Your water is slowly poisoning you!

pqtd 87 Your water is poisoning you Here is the thing- your water is probably poisoning you, slowly but surely! Unless you have a good source of well water on your property, that is free from farmer fields runoffs of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, you are dependent upon city water. This is water that your city or town has come up with a plan to treat, whether it comes from a municipal well or from a large, polluted lake (like in Chicago!). And when I mean “treat” your water, I mean that they dose it with chorine, fluoride, and the recently added Chloramines, which are a combination of chlorine and ammonia. Chloramines, now being added to nearly all municipal water, are so strong that they can dissolve your very pipes and fixtures, and release heavy metals into your water. Lots of problems here! Fluoride is particularly troublesome, and something I really hate being purposefully put INTO our water supply! It is supposed to prevent tooth decay, but like the flu shot, and the low fat high carb diet, there is absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC BACKING TO THESE CLAIMS! And the downside is really bad. It can effect your thyroid, cause “fluorosis”, which is an unsightly discoloration on your teeth, affect your bones as well, and make you more prone to cancers, dementia, bone fractures and arthritis. Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg here... ONLY the USA puts this poison fluoride purposely into their water, of all developed countries! It really has no positive effect on dental health, despite the hype, Now, if you are like me, this makes you physically sick to hear this stuff, and you want pure water! Understandable. The most important thing to get, though, is not a drinking water filter, it is a shower filter. I know, sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But it is true: Chlorine is a very strong disinfectant, and so can cause a lot of toxic issues for humans. Like an increased risk of kidney, rectal, and bladder cancers! Asthma, and a general weakening of the immune system are other high risks of chlorine exposure. Ironically, breathing in this chlorine, while bathing or showering, is dramatically worse than drinking it! So, for a “most bang for your buck” type of approach, get a shower filter that filters out this chlorine. Vitamin C works well for reducing chlorine, and so a Vitamin C shower filter is a great option. In addition, this type of filter also removes chloramines, which are even more damaging to your health! There are also some excellent whole house chlorine filters, but these start at around $1500 or so. Best bang for the buck is definitely a Vitamin C shower filter- you can pick one up on Amazon for around $60. You also get refills of Vitamin C in replaceable canisters, and then you will really be protecting the health of yourself and your family! Personally, I have well water, and so have a reliable source of pure, untainted water. But if you rely on city water, get yourself a filter! And to neutralize fluoride in the water that you drink, get yourself a Berkey type of carbon block filter. This type of filter is so powerful that it can purify water from any random stream, and make it pure and chemical, sediment, and bacteria free! A great health, and a great preparedness tool.

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 86

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Voltaire) It is so easy to get caught up in “perfection”- not in actually being perfect, which is actually impossible, but in the idea that you need to strive to be perfect. We all want to be as good as we can be, but perfection is impossible on this earth, and to know that is rather... freeing, really! As the ancient Greeks said “ Nothing in excess”. To tie this in with pursuing Paleo health, think about this: 80% of your results in anything result from only 20% of your effort! And so, to sum up: “Don’t sweat the small stuff!!” You want to be healthier, fitter, slimmer? Simple. Don’t fret about minutia; “Oh, I need to limit my carbs, I can’t eat one oz. of sugar, fruit is really bad, and I didn’t work out long enough today I can’t have a banana!” Wrong. “Well, I didn’t eat any bread this week. No wheat at all! And I ate a salad each day, and a green Paleo smoothie each morning- And I worked out every day in front of the television doing Perfectly Paleo Exercise, like pushups, straight legged sit ups, virtual resistance, 10 minutes or so of rebounding, and some stretching for a total of 20 minutes or so per day.” Well, I am here to tell you that this person, (Let’s call him Ron), who just eliminated wheat, drank a green smoothie for breakfast and ate a salad (hopefully with a protein source atop like chicken, beef, or tuna), has achieved at least 80% of his paleolithic health potential! If Ron continues like this, just getting into a routine, he will have amazing results! He will lose tons of body fat, and gain muscle, slowly and steadily. He will also, importantly, be building his tendon and ligament strength along with just muscle. This is the type of strength that has real world implications, allowing you to build a Bruce Lee type of strength, using the visceral strength of the fascia, the connective envelope of the body to build true, real world strength and imperviousness to injury! Later, Ron can add in meditation, forest bathing, and other “tweaks” of health and wellness... But really, this is all he needs: he is on his way, with just these simple modifications to his lifestyle! Then, let’s consider Rhonda: Rhonda is convinced that perfection is so important! She wants to be PERFECT! And so, she strives to remove every single non “paleo” diet item from her menu. NO beans; not even ONE in her grass fed beef chili- NO dairy, not even pastured dairy! And, above all, since she wants to be as lean and mean as possible- no carbs at all!! Ketogenic! All this, and Rhonda has no health problems at all, and just wants to be as lean as possible, (health is just a side issue for her). She wakes up at 4:30 AM each morning, works out on a treadmill, and then lifts weights at a nearby gym... rushes home, and then gets her kids ready for school, giving them a nutritious breakfast of greens and sardines, which they don’t touch. Her husband leaves early, and stops at Mc Donalds, which he never mentions. Then, she goes to work, where she has a desk job where she has a standing, treadmill desk! She walks on it all day, and has a perfect paleo lunch. After work, she gives her lucky paleo kids a snack at home of coconut oil spread on sardines, which they throw in the garbage when she leaves to start her cardio! They retreat to the family room where their dad has smuggled in pizza for them to eat. Dad reads the kids stories in bed, but Rhonda the mom needs to “bone up” on the paleo diet, and makes some notes about how she should probably start adding sauerkraut to the kid’s sardines in the morning... When Rhonda comes to bed, her husband is snoring away, and has been for hours- Rhonda looks at the clock on the nightstand, and realizes she only has 4 & 1/2 hours till she needs to get up. “Well, I need to get in my hour and a half workout tomorrow, so that will be perfect!” And so it goes... You know what? Ron will have much, much better results than Sarah! I know, he is only doing 20% as much as she does, he is actually quite relaxed and having a good time, but he is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The bottom line is this: only do what is most important; concentrate on that, and let everything else take care of itself! Do NOT be a micromanager! Of yourself, or of anyone else!! It really, really, NEVER WORKS!! EVER!!! As Confucius said “"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." Don’t be a pebble.

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Don't eat Industrial Seed Oils Dude!

pqtd 85  Don’t eat Industrial Vegetable oils

 

This is a key point of paleo health that is often sidelined.  I mean, we all know that avoiding grains is key, but what is so bad about some clear looking oil that is labeled “heart-healthy” by every doctor and government health agency?

 

Well, first of all, almost every doctor and government agency is not your friend- they have an agenda; the doctor is an agent of large medical establishments that want your (and your insurance companies) MONEY, first and foremost.  Besides, they have been trained by pharmaceutical company funded college programs, and all they know is drugs and surgeries- they know next to nothing about nutrition, unless they taught it to themselves.  (Most pooh pooh nutrition altogether)

 

And the Government Agencies?  They also have an agenda, and it is not to help you, the taxpayer...

 

They want to sell farm products, America’s biggest export, and your health is probably better for them if you are NOT healthy!  The less social security payouts they have to make, the better.  They don’t want a lot of old seniors around, sucking up money that they (the government) could spend so much better than you can!)  Ha Ha.

 

Back to vegetable oils.  Corn, soy, cottonseed, sunflower, and safflower oils are very high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which cause oxidative damage and inflammation, which dramatically raise the risk of heart disease!  It is very important to avoid these fake, industrial, unnatural fats!!

 

Unfortunately, almost anything that you buy in a supermarket that is packaged uses these cheap, industrial oils.  And, if you go to almost any mainstream restaurant, these vegetable oils are what they use.  

 

If you normally eat at home, and use real, natural, God made fats like butter, animal fats like lard, and coconut oil, you are building your health daily, particularly your heart health!  Despite what we’ve been lied to about for decades, natural, saturated fat is incredibly healthy! 

 

But if you eat out in restaurants, know that they almost ALL use bad, industrial seed or vegetable oils.  And so, it is important to eat out only occasionally, since these oils are really bad on a regular basis!  Even if you always order “paleo friendly” meals like meats and veggies, they will be cooked in bad oils.  

 

Salads are great, but if you get them at a restaurant: the dressings are almost certainly industrial seed oils. It’s kind of sickening, really; back in the 1950’s and 60’s, everything was cooked in natural lard or coconut oil, maybe butter.  I think that is why the WW2 generation is so long lived, they had really good food for the first half of their lives!  (My own father, Phil, is still going strong, living at home with my mother Carolyn, and he is 95!)

 

Then, after Ancel Keyes and the stupid Mc Govern commission decided that fat was the villain; well, our national health has been on a huge tailspin since then.  So, ignore them and eat real fat.

 

Try to avoid fake, industrial vegetable oils as much as possible- eat at home most of the time, and eat real food (and real fat).  If you go out to eat, and they offer sauces like hollandaise or others, pass.  They are undoubtedly soy oil based!  

 

Just remember that these oils, although they kind of go “under the radar” since they are largely invisible, are really important. Bad, vegetable seed oils are like water in the gas tank, or a nail in the tire to the paleo diet- small things that seem beneath notice, but they are truly devastating to your health!  

 

If you want a truly good oil, then just get a big bottle of cod liver oil, and put it in your daily Paleo Green Smoothie!  Now that is an oil I can swear by!!

 

 

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #84 Be a Paleo Role Model

It won’t be long until eating a paleo diet will be like not smoking cigarettes!  I know, it sounds far fetched in these benighted times, when if you order a burger without a bun gets you incredulous looks from all around you, but give it time, my friends...

 

If you heard the videos I played at the beginning of my podcast, you will realize just how much cigarette smoking was ingrained in the American culture of not that long ago (the 1960’s).  I am 63 now, and remember well the day of extensive cigarette ads on TV and radio, the vending machines on every corner that sold cigarette packs to anyone with 35 cents, and how every home had multiple ash trays set around inside... even in households that did not contain a smoker!

 

When I was a child, even though neither of my parents smoked, most of their friends did, and so it was my job to empty the ash trays after they visited!  Actually, if anything will put you off of cigarette smoking, it would be that job of emptying the leftover ashes and especially those icky lipstick smeared butts...

 

It was mainly a “cultural thing” back then, and I believe that eating wheat products like altered, modern bread and cereals will look just like cigarette smoking in the future!  The science is all there, backing up the health benefits of ditching grains and sugars- it just hasn’t filtered out into the mainstream as of yet!

 

What do you think, and how do you react when you see a pregnant woman drinking alcohol?  Or nursing her baby (well, in this case she’d probably use formula instead) while smoking a cigarette??  

 

You recoil in horror, right?  

 

Wait a few years, and when you see a mother giving her little children a happy meal of crappy fake hamburger meat on a huge bun with fries and a coke, you will recoil just the same!  It will NOT be socially acceptable any longer, and rightfully so.

 

It will still be with us, since we are a free country, thankfully...but there will be strong disapproval from all around it.  

The time will come when your fellow workers will not be proud of eating a candy bar, and guzzling a mountain dew for breakfast in the morning, since they stayed up too late and didn’t get enough sleep...

 

They will be ashamed.  Again, and rightfully so- the information will have filtered down to the masses- everyone who has a brain, at least, will get it- 

 

Sugar, and grains are BAD!  Vegetables, natural fats and meats are wonderful, and above all- OUR HEALTH IS UP TO US!

 

Conventional medicine only masks symptoms; it does not cure the cause- that is up to us, our own diet and lifestyle choices!  And, when everyone finally knows that, why then anyone who does not make the right choices might as well be wearing a dunce cap and a clown nose.

 

THEY WILL LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!!

 

So, go ahead and look like a genius, way ahead of your time.  Make a green smoothie, and drink it daily.  Eat grass fed meat and dairy, pastured eggs and dairy, tons of veggies, and become your OWN doctor- avoid pharmaceutical medicines as much as you can!  They cause more deaths by far than illegal drugs!!  

 

Sleep 8 hours each night, and exercise with natural Perfectly Paleo types of body weight exercises each day.  Develop a good tribe of family and friends!  

 

You will be healthy and happy, but even more importantly:

 

YOU WILL BE A ROLE MODEL FOR THE FUTURE!

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #83 Grill your way to health and fitness!

pqtd 83  Grill your way to health!

 

I know, my paleolithic friend: that sounds a little “simplistic” to you... but, I really think that this could be the foundation of your mastery of the paleo diet and lifestyle, and so your entry into long-term, lasting health and fitness!

 

I was mowing today, and looking back from my tractor seat, I saw that the mowing looked, well...spotty!  I stopped the tractor, lifted up the hydraulics on the 3 point hitch, but I kept the mower deck ON.  I crawled down next to the mower deck...  Peering up, I saw the blades on the deck were not turning!  Oh no!!

 

Bottom line: the belt that keeps the blades turning had frayed, and finally snapped- I was out of business!  And I had planned to work on my new, print book this afternoon- PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe- the book!.  Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say.

 

I took off the mower deck shroud, cleaned up the mess of broken belt and grass clippings, and went in to order a new belt.  Not the end of the world, was it?  Yet I was stressed out, a bit.  We all like our plans to go as we expect.  So, I went to my grill!

 

Earlier, I had bought a “flat chicken” from the local grocery, and I started up my Weber charcoal grill!  I have a propane torch, and I used it to fire up the coconut hull briquets I added- these coconut charcoal briquets are the best- the most even heat you will find, and the finest ash residue ever, even better than real wood charcoal.  (Although, for high heat, the real wood is better).  As for Kingsford and other standard charcoals- forget it!  Loaded with petroleum byproducts, you might as well burn plastic under your food...

 

Propane grills suck, in comparison to charcoal.  No arguments, no nothing- the heat is wimpy, and why not just use your kitchen stove?  It’s exactly the same!

 

OK- enough grilling philosophy!  I put on some brats, and my flat chicken, seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper- a flat chicken cooks faster than a whole chicken, by the way, since it has had the back bone removed, so it lays flat on the grill.  A recipe for crispy tastiness bar none!

 

Still, it takes a good hour and a half... 

 

All the better, I thought!  There is nothing more Paleo than sitting by a flaming, smoking grill, perhaps with a tall, cool, cheap beer brewed of corn, and meditating on life.  

 

And, after about 15 minutes or so, why not do a set of pushups?  So I did, and then another.  Why not some pullups, since that felt good?  So I did.

 

I had soft country music blaring from my garage radio, and I started feeling good; positively tribal!  I just kept alternating sets of pushups and pullups, drinking a little beer, and then checking on the chicken- I was in heaven!!

 

And that is exactly my point!  The Paleo diet- at least the real paleo diet, is not complicated, esoteric, or hard to fathom.  

 

You just need to grill some real meat.  Do some real exercise, not complex routines of Olympic barbells and machines, jogging and Crossfit and Pilates!  Give me a break- do something our grandparents would recognize as food, and also as beneficial exercise!

 

Eat meat you grill yourself!  Do exercise that is simple, and actually benefits you in real world, performance measurable terms!  And do it all at home, in the real world environment that you actually live in, not a gym or clinic or whatever!

 

If you buy real foods, prepare them yourself (on your grill is my favorite!), and also drink a Paleo Green Smoothie each and every day, and do exercise daily (again, at home), you will be as healthy as a person can be.  

 

You don’t need clinics, doctors, dentists, or gyms.  Really!  You only need your own commitment to natural health, and a willingness to ignore the charlatans intent on selling you bad food, bad medicine, and bad exercise.

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #82 Go Paleo NOW, not later!

pqtd 82 Go paleo NOW, before you’re sick!

 

I really hope you listen to me on this podcast!  Well, actually, I always hope you’ll listen to me, but this one is rather crucial.  

 

It is an all-too-common scenario:

 

Someone gets sick!  I mean really, auto-immune disease, cancer or heart disease, diabetes or another Paleo diet preventable disease sick...

 

THEN they come around, in desperation, eventually and after lots of searching and research and usually after trying out the drugs and surgeries that conventional medicine offers for their disease (or diseases).

 

While late is better than never to discover the paleo type of ancestral diet and all the health benefits and just better way of life that it offers; well, once you already are sick, it might not be enough!

 

Let me put it this way- once you have put in decade upon decade of bad eating and living habits, like not getting enough sleep, being overstressed on a regular basis, not maintaining your “tribe” of good friends and family, church fellow members, and others you are “connected” with, and neglecting to exercise naturally and getting out into nature and the sunshine....

 

That is one deep hole to dig out of!  Your body will undoubtedly be wracked with inflammation, have a really poor gut microbe set, and will in many ways be the equivalent of a car that has been run at high speeds, with low, dirty oil, and without proper maintenance.  It is prone to one or more serious, life-altering diseases to emerge at any time!

 

Let me offer a solution!  Start following the Paleo Prescription as soon as possible!  The earlier you adopt it, the less damage you will do to your precious body (and mind!). That’s another thing: the mind is every bit as susceptible to a bad SAD Standard American Diet of processed crap foods as the body.  Can you say Alzheimer’s? 

 

Look up the particulars of the Paleo Diet!  The internet is good www.paleojay.com has lots of information, but so does www.RobbWolfe.com, www.ChrisKresser.com, and Loren Cordain on 

thepaleodiet.com.  

 

There are also great books on the subject: The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf is great, and my own Perfectly Paleo Exercise ebook is very accessible- there are others.  Oh yes, Neanderthin by Ray Audette was published in 1999, making it ancient by Paleo standards, but it is spot on still!  And for the grand daddy of them all, there is always Weston A. Price’s 1939 book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which is pretty much pure genius- there is still a widely active Weston A Price foundation throughout the world, celebrating what he discovered way back then!  

 

So, there is no dearth of information, far from it.  Just get started on the basics, which pretty much all practitioners agree on:

 

Eliminate processed foods- fast foods, fake foods like vegetable oils and margarine, modern grains like wheat, baked goods and cereals, and most sugar.

 

Eat LOTS of green veggies, cruciferous veggies, some berries, spices, fermented foods- in other words, just eat real foods!

 

Start to lead the healthiest, most satisfying life there is; the life God and nature intended for us, the one we evolved to thrive in- 

 

The Ancestral, Paleo type of diet, exercise, tribal connection, and living as naturally in the world as we possibly can in this modern age.

 

Anything else is not just an invitation to disease and “physical degeneration” as Weston A. Price discovered...it is really a recipe for a sad life in general!

  

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Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #81 Do NOT be Resistant to Starch!

pqtd 81  Do not be resistant to starch

 

The Paleo, low carb diet- this is what it started out to be.  

 

But, the great thing about the paleo diet, and how it has evolved, is that it is largely completely open to new science, and will adapt!  

 

Unlike conventional diet advice, or those of vegetarians, vegans, and other hardcore “cultists”, as I see them.  And so, of course, this puts standard medical advice, like low fat, low calorie, food pyramid, USDA type of advice in the CULT camp!

 

Which it is, since they keep on keepin’ on with what they’ve been saying for 50 plus years, despite all evidence to the contrary!  

 

Not to intentionally inject politics into this, but it’s like saying that Obamacare has been a great success, over and over, in spite of all of the overwhelming evidence that proves it has NOT been a success in any way, shape, or form!  It failed, it is failing, and it will continue to fail!  Sorry, but the truth is the truth.

 

Just as conventional medical advice has failed, is failing, and will continue failing, since it is based on proven errors, that can be documented scientifically, over and over.  Sorry, old MD’s that don’t like it, but you bought into a lie- it’s time to acknowledge it at last...

 

But, onto my point- as I said, the original point of the paleo diet was that we were (and are) vastly overfed on processed carbs in the modern diet!

 

And this was, and is, very true!!

 

But then, the die-hard believers went too far (as earlier did the low-fat proselytizers) and recommended eliminating carbs as much as possible. 

 

This turned out to be a mistake.  Although the ketogenic diet can be very therapeutic for certain medical conditions, such as Epilepsy and even Parkinson’s, it can become harmful if followed exclusively long term!

 

Why?  Our microbiome, the tiny microbes or “bugs” that live within us, particularly in our guts...they actually comprise about 80% of our total volume of cells in total!  We are less “us” than we are “them”, to be honest.  And without them in synchrony, in harmony, and well-nourished and thriving:

 

WE will not be thriving!  Our gut micro-biome is that important!!

 

So- we want to be healthy, we want our guts to be healthy so we will be healthy- what should we do??

 

We need to eat carbs- NOT processed carbs like in the SAD Standard American Diet, but in green leafy vegetables, leeks and onions are particularly rich in pre-biotic starch, sweet potatoes, and some white potato is good as well!  

 

In other words, we need to feed our little “gut buddies”- our “PETS” if you will!  And then, they will feed US, by digesting these (to us) undigestible fragments, and then protecting us from bad microbial invaders!  

 

The bad microbes tend to be fed ideally (for them) by the processed, fast food type carbs that everyone should try to avoid at all costs.  Things like grains, sugars, Taco Bell- you get the idea.  Bad microbes prefer bad food. Good, beneficial, Ben Carson types of microbes prefer real food.

 

The star food you probably don’t know about, just as you didn’t probably know about Ben Carson a few weeks ago??  

 

DRUMROLL!.......           POTATO STARCH!!

 

Really!  Bob’s Red Mill has a widely available brand that you can get almost anywhere- it is a powder made from the potato, but it is in an undigestible form for us humans, unless it is heated and cooked. That’s why it is made- as a thickener for soups and gravies and such...

 

BUT DON’T HEAT IT!  

 

I really really, really want you to eat it, but raw, so your good, wonderful, gut buddies can eat it and prosper, to help you live long and prosper!

 

“But Jay, Jay- how can I do that PaleoJay!!??”  I hear you querying.

 

“A Green Paleo Smoothie!” I respond in the deep voice of Zeus.

 

Really- sorry for the hyperbole (that’s just me), but a green smoothie, whipped up in a Vitamix, is just loaded with prebiotics that according to the most recent research are the most potent form of health production you can find!  

 

So, just do it.  Get a Vitamix- click on the link at www. paleojay.com to get one without shipping charges- they are expensive enough without that!  Then, make yourself a daily, Paleo Green Smoothie (the recipe is also available at www.paleojay.com and in Perfectly Paleo Exercise the ebook and Paleo Quick Start, all available anywhere ebooks are sold); but it is also free on the website itself.

 

Soon, I will release a real honest to God real book with all of this in it, but until that halcyon day, just start making smoothies, low on fruit high on veggies and spices and fats, cut the processed crap, and eat real foods!

 

YOUR ALL IMPORTANT GUT FRIENDS WILL THANK YOU!!

 

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