Blue Zones... looking for videos online that comprehensively refute the ridiculous claims

#62

That’s quite fine as long as it suits her :slight_smile: Of course we need different fare, we humans are different with different tastes and needs!

I have teeth, well many aren’t my very own but I have them… Humans have pretty blunt ones, I need soft meat too. When I eat raw smoked pork, I need to use my knife to cut it into small pieces… But otherwise I prefer softer meat, even softer than what I actually can chew… So we cook everything well enough to be not too chewy. I love multiple textures so some should be a bit chewy, like heart :slight_smile: But soft enough for me to eat just fine.

I am similar. I can’t afford ruminant meat anyway but I probably always would prefer pork. It’s lovely to eat some beef or mutton or deer here and then but pork is softer and more to my liking I guess… A bit hard to tell as ruminant meat is so super exotic rare luxury thing in my life that I am always very appreciative towards it. But it IS good and substantial as all red meat are for me!
Cheap chicken isn’t tasty but I love turkey. And even if I eat the former, I usually buy hen, not a young chicken as it makes good, tasty soup (but I always throw in some pork for good measure and for some more substantial meat :wink: a good soup hen is very tiny anyway. it’s often actually on the label that it’s for soup :slight_smile: a compact little tasty thing!). And we eat rabbit sometimes. Seafood is tricky, so few options, most of them are pricy, I could buy substantial red meat with that money… But I love variety so I have fish now and then. But I would eat some way more often if I lived somewhere with more options.

My body doesn’t seem to miss anything when I don’t eat any ruminant meat for months (and that is my normal) but maybe we are different in needs or what we get from our food… I heard from people that pork didn’t work so well for them but it does for me so lucky me.
I merely really like the uniqueness of ruminant meat. It is something else than other meats! Just like pork is something else and fish too… I want them all, at least now and then! And eggs and dairy. Maybe even something else occasionally…

#63

I have read and researched a lot about the Blue Zones. Dan Buettner, who coined the phase and did the research, and came up with the Power 9. Diet was only one of these. Sadly, this is what everyone focuses on. I would urge you to read them. I personally disagree with #6 (Wine at 5 p.m.) and #5 (Plant Slant).

I don’t have 40–50 years to find out if what they pontificate proves to be correct for them. Instead, I will do my own research and see what works for me. This will be based on a number of factors, including diet, exercise, personal health markers that I deem important both in the short term and in the long term and with consultation with healthcare professionals. I will self-correct when I feel it is necessary.

(Brian) #64

We pays our money and we takes our chances. We only have one go around with this thing and what we do today affects how we feel, and our overall health, in the future.

The best we can do is look at people who have gone before us and ask questions. If they’re healthy as they age, what did they eat? What was their lifestyle like? What did they advocate?

I can think of doctors who look emaciated, have little muscle mass, have a death warmed over look about them, and continue to advocate for their vegan diet. (McDougall is an example.) I can also find doctors such as Dr. Berry, Dr. Baker, Dr. Chaffee, and perhaps a few others who look alive, well, and healthy that advocate a meat heavy diet.

Who’s gonna live the longest? We can’t know that. But we see clues as we watch how things go from year to year. I’m more inclined to feel like I’m on the right track here because I’ve been on the other side and I don’t know if I’d even still be on this side of the sod if I’d kept going with trying to keep up with the “eat starches and be healthy” diet advice from the above mentioned emaciated vegan.

(Brian) #65

Same! I actually thought about that when I was typing earlier but didn’t type that out.

You’d think they’d taste more alike than they actually do.

Commercial chicken gives me a taste of “wet feathers” and I end up with a queezy feeling in my stomach. Funny, when I get some of the good chicken from friends who sell it (rare, it’s close to $10/lb, and they sell out, it’s good stuff) I never have any of that. Tastes fine, no ill feelings afterward.

Oh yeah. We eat a TON of eggs. Eggs are a nutritional powerhouse with only one thing kinda lacking, calcium, which is in the shell for sure but we don’t eat the shell. But, dairy has an abundance of calcium. Butter and cream are definitely things we have as well. Dr. Rob Cywes has mentioned eggs, butter and cream being good sources of nutrition in addition to meat numerous times. He’s an interesting character that I enjoy listening to when he has a new video on YouTube.

(KM) #66

Oh yeah, the blue zones … :slight_smile: …

I was watching Ben Bikman this afternoon and he made an interesting - if politically questionable - point, which was that in several of these “miracle zones”, there IS a set of common denominators. Namely that record keeping, especially going back before WWII, was spotty, that these tend to be economically challenged regions, that the people appear to be close neighbors who would talk with each other, and that people receive retirement benefits at a certain age. If claiming you were 10-15 years older than you actually are could give you early retirement benefits as well as fame, and no one could really prove otherwise, (and in your culture, being “old” was not seen as the worst thing imaginable), well …

I’m not saying they were lying. But BB basically implied it, and it does seem possible.

#67

80% of those over 50 who do not smoke will die of some chronic disease:
1). Atherosclertic diease (cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disease)
2). Cancer
3). Neuodegenerative disease (Alzheimer’s being the most common)
4). Foundation disease. A spectrum of everything from hyperinsulinemia to insulin resistance to a fatty liver to type 2 diabetes.

Based on a number of factors, such as family history (very important) and different physical markers, how do I reduce my risk factors for any of the above? It may involve many things, some known and others not. Some may include diet interventions; others may involve taking medicine. There is so much we do not know.

If you are able to be disease-free, then what about your healthspan? I would include cognitive abilities, physical/structural health, and emotional health in this. Muscle mass, strength, higher Vo2max, and stability are very important as we age, and all have been shown to be very good proxies for longevity and health. All four are important. It’s not an “Either/Or conundrum” (Kierkegaard). You need to have all four.

Does eating a carnivore, keto, or vegan diet guarantee any of the above? Nope.

Build a framework to address diseases that you may be predisposed to. Look at your blood markers as a scientist and dig deep. Don’t cherry-pick only those with whom you agree. The Dunning-Kruger effect comes to mind. Exercise is probably the most powerful longevity drug ever invented.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #68

It might have something to do with the amino acid profile. Beef contains all the essential amino acids in the precisely correct proportions. Chicken varies from that profile somewhat, and I think pork might, as well.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #69

Bill Schindler, the paleoanthropologist, however, is quite dismissive of this study.

(Brian) #70

That’s an interesting one, one I haven’t heard before.

Might be a little harder to pull that off in Loma Linda, CA, though. Not sure. (?) Then again, I have wondered whether a lot of those in Loma Linda are transplants that wanted to join the SDA “Mecca” and live to be 120 there. (?)

(KM) #71

I can see some different but equally unreliable motivations for Loma Linda, having to do with amassing congregants by offering dubious promises of glory. (So what else is new for religions!) Edit: meaning the powers that be in LL might encourage a little embroidery if it promoted their message. Loma Linda also has a more realistic longevity profile than the rest of the blue zones, IIR it was in the high 80’s, not the 100’s. I don’t necessarily think All the blue zone participants were lying, just that I wouldn’t put money on everyone telling the truth, either.

(Brian) #72

I would agree. There is definitely more to it than what we eat.

I do also notice that the things you list as what 80% of people die of seem to have a lot to do with the potential results of poor eating choices.

(Brian) #73

As a former SDA, I do remember of being asked several times to fill out a “food frequency questionaire”. This was before I had any real idea of how stupid those things are. I did do it, they made us feel like we were obligated to. But I also suspect there was a lot of “fudging” and “embellishing” and answering of questions with the desired outcome more so than being honest… that is even if a person could remember what they had for lunch 6 months ago.

I probably appear to have a very negative view of that particular religion. There are good and very sincere people there. But I saw a lot of the dark side of things, too. And from just the “health” side of it, things were not as rosy as they were told they would be even when they followed the instructions of their prophetess faithfully. I saw a lot of suffering, some of it rather long term. It left a bad taste.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #74

Not only is there the memory problem, but Zoë Harcombe says that, in one study, where Walter Willet was the principal investigator, all the responses where people said they ate pizza were coded into the meat category—on the grounds that “people often put meat on their pizzas”!

(Brian) #75

PaulL, yeah… have heard that said. It really just muddies the waters for anyone who is seeking actual and ligitimate data. The data tweakers can pretty much tease most anything out of their favored data sets no matter how crazy.

Unfortunately, when the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. :wink:

(Geoffrey) #76

In my opinion the Blue Zone is just as cherry picked and agenda driven as the Diet Heart Hypothesis.
As I’ve stated before I’ve lived in some of those so called Blue Zones and I saw and experienced what the populous was eating and very little of it resembled what the Blue Zone states. It’s all just hype in my book.
As far as longevity eating carnivore goes, how long a time span do you need to say it’s healthy and good for longevity? 10, 15, 20 years or longer. How about a woman rancher in Canada that is in her 80’s who has been carnivore all of her life and can still jump fences and out cowboy men in their 30’s. All of these long term carnivores appear to be doing just fine with great blood work. Pain free. Healthy as can be and with no disease or comorbidity.
Y’all can eat however you want but after seeing what carnivore has done for me both inside and out there is no doubt in my mind that this is how man was meant to eat and I will never eat any other way. It doesn’t matter if I live to be 120 or die on my next birthday at 68, I still know it’s what is the best and most nutritious way to eat for my body.

(Brian) #77

^^^^^This!^^^^^

Thank you!

Yes, Maggie is pretty amazing.

I hope I won’t be out of line in saying this… and I’ll try to choose my words… I have noticed that many of the ladies that I’ve seen in the carnivore (or at least heavy meat based keto) world are quite attractive and often look younger than their age.

#78

Maybe number 4. The rest we just do not know.

(Bob M) #79

I was thinking of cows. Let me explain. Listening to Peter Ballerstedt’s podcasts about cows, somehow cows figure out what they are missing in their diet and eat that. For instance, he discussed that they had a large block that had a bunch of minerals in it, and the cows were eating it. They put smaller blocks, with individual minerals in them, and figured out the cows only ate one of the blocks. They then knew the food was deficient in that mineral.

In another example, the cows in one field were eating the outside of some animal’s house, yet in another field, they weren’t. They figured out that the plants in that one field were missing something the cows then found by eating the outside of the animal’s house.

Particularly since I’m part MTHFR, meaning that I have trouble processing iron (I have a lot of iron floating around in my blood, but not accessible), I was thinking maybe iron is what I’m looking for, and beef supplies that.

I have no idea whether that’s true, but it’s a theory, of which I have a lot!

#80

Thank you very much for exposing me to Dr. Bill Schindler. Absolutely brilliant. Highly recommend his work. There are also a number of YouTube videos on line.

(Brian) #81

I have heard bill Shindler speak of Sardinia before but I think this was one of the more extended of his comments, at least that I’ve heard.

I’m not so inclined towards his earlier comments regarding the billions and billions of years ago stuff. But as he comes into modern life, I believe he has some very good thoughts and ideas. Nope, not all about food. But food matters, quite a lot.

I haven’t even thought of Chestertown, MD in quite a few years. I used to have friends who lived there and have been there numerous times. Sounds like if I ever get back up into that area again, I need to find his restaurant.