Of note, you just provided zero sources while attempting to argue that a ketogenic diet is healthy. Simply looking back through this thread, I don't see "low" carbohydrate diets being discussed as much as putting your body into ketosis which is extremely controversial. Reducing caloric intake and increasing healthy foods reduces carbohydrate intake by definition without ever changing metabolic processes in your body.

The Inuit had thousands of years to adapt to a ketogenic diet or die. Likewise, the Tarahumara have been running barefoot for thousands of years. Neither of these are justifications to eat nothing but Moose liver or start running down the streets with FiveFingers. In both cases, you'll find new stresses on weak systems in your body to which you may not be well adapted. Except that with running barefoot, you're not playing with the health of your organs.

I have no beef with the paleo diet by definition—everyone should eat more raw foods. But that's not what I and others should be concerned with in this thread.

Regarding the efficacy of a "Ketogenic" Diet: I would agree that there is less science out there supporting that the body's production of ketones precipitates weight loss. However, what is clear is that eating a low carb, high fat (LCHF) diet leaves the body feeling sated with less calories. There is also stronger science that suggests carbohydrate restriction moderates insulin levels, and insulin secretion signals the storage of fat. It's very possible results do in fact come from caloric restriction—but I'd rather eat 1600 calories feeling full than 1600 wanting to eat more.

As an interesting side note, a recent survey of Swedes shows that approximately 25% of them have adopted some form of LCHF diet (http://www.kostdoktorn.se/wp-content/2011/03/demoskop_mars_2011.pdf).


Regarding safety: I have heaps of broccoli—and other fibrous vegetables—with my meat. The restriction of carbohydrates is eliminating those non-fibrous carbs found in grains, processed sugars, and the like.

A 2010 Johns Hopkins study found no long-lasting side effects from the diet (including kidney, liver function and cholesterol), when used for the treatment of Pediatric Epillepsy: (http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/high-fat-ketogenic-diet-to-control-seizures-is-safe-over-long-term.aspx). There are numerous other studies studying adult populations out there, saying similar things.

Edited by ChrisMorgan on 02/23/2012 22:29:50 MST.

Kyle, I provided plenty of links earlier in the thread. I don't see why I should go out of my way for you right now. Go do your homework a little more extensively and open-mindedly before coming here and criticizing everyone for something you seem to have made up your mind about with just two links. It is not my responsibility to educate you if you're not going to make an effort to read more than you have.

Edit: me being too hotheaded.

Edited by ChrisMorgan on 02/23/2012 22:28:37 MST.

Here's a great resource for anybody interested in high-fat diets:

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com

Peter knows his stuff, though his writing is definitely of a technical bent.

His most recent post highlights one potentially negative impact of excess PUFA in ketogenic diets, though the applicability to humans is up for debate.

That's a great link, Jonathan, thanks.

Yes, I am reading his blog almost everyday! But the Swedish version, www.kostdoktorn.se.
I'll insert the link to the video here, in case someone missed it (it's worth seeing, well spent time I would say):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSeSTq-N4U4&feature=player_embedded

About what to eat on the trail, I have found a thorough guide about making Pemmican, written by Lex Rooker. This is definitely something I will give a try, seems to me it should be the best food possible for the trail, for someone used to lchf food: low weight (think how little amount you need per day of this concentrated food), can be stored in room temperature without refrigerator a long time, contains all nutrients the body needs. As for the taste and consistency, that's to be found out :-)
http://www.traditionaltx.us/images/PEMMICAN.pdf

I wish I could make that pemmican but I seriously doubt I could grind the dried meat up well enough. That's the step that has me stuck. I purchased pemmican from US Wellness Meats and I think it tastes delicious. It's not the real thing, though. It is supposed to stay refrigerated but can last a few days in your pack okay.

Here is a good source to read about the benefits of low carb diets. It's written by some researchers and contains tons of citations from all kinds of research.
The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living

Additionally, I recommend reading as much of Protein Power as you can. The blog is jam-packed with references to research.

(For some reason my art and science link didn't work.)

Edited by sbhikes on 02/22/2012 15:07:56 MST.

US Wellness says they're working with their processor to produce a shelf-stable version. See the comments here:

http://blog.grasslandbeef.com/bid/40499/Pemmican

I sent them an email asking for an update. I'll post here if/when I get a reply.

When I want to powder things, I reach for liquid nitrogen.

I think dry ice might be the closest thing most people can get.

Dry, freeze, grind. Repeat as desired.

Piper S., don't overthink the process, making pemmican is VERY easy.

To dry the meat, cut into very thin strips, of very lean meat. I cut out all the fat I can manage from the meat to try to get only lean in the dried meat. This is important, otherwise you lose some advantages of real pemmican.

Then take those strips and stick in a basic dehydrator, ideally with a fan, I just added a computer case fan to my basic dehydrating thing, which makes it dry at around 120 degrees, give or take. Ideally keep it below that, otherwise the meat actually cooks, which I discovered on my first rounds of drying meat. You do not want cooked meat, you want it dried.

Drying takes my unit about 36 to 48 hours, and the test to see if it's done is also very simple, if the thin slice cracks, not bends, when you bend it, it's done. It's very easy to feel the difference, and if you leave the meat on for 6 hours more after you think it's done, it will definitely be done.

Rendering fat is also very easy, but you must use a thermometer, to keep the fat under about 240 degrees, more than that and it doesn't taste as good and may lose nutrient values. That's what I read, and that's what I found on my first batch, which overheated a bit, over 250, still fine, but you can taste the difference.

If you want to open the black box, or however you put it, then making your own real food using real grass fed beef ingredients is the way to go.

This stuff is good, really good. Cost for the finished product, remembering that you get about 1/3 weight of fat starting when rendering, but that fat you get for free from the butcher, is about 6 a pound, give or take. Meat comes to about 1/3 or less dried, so the cost per pound is the cost per half pound of dried meat, ie, about 1.5 pounds fresh, give or take.

Do not salt or otherwise treat the meat, that totally defeats the purpose.

There is NO WAY anyone can sell real pemmican legally, it's impossible, the meat is raw. So anything called pemmican is almost certain to be oversalted or some other thing they do to deal with the rawness of the meat. So don't bother looking for it, just learn to make it, I like the process, I usually pick up 5 or 6 pounds of fat, you want the thick chunks, not the gristly pieces, they are easier to cube into 1/2 inch or so cubes for rendering. Also don't worry about rendering the fat to get every gram out, it's not worth it, you gain almost nothing and may end up overheating it, just take it off when the temp starts approaching 240 and you can't readily lower it by lowering the burner temp.

I read most of the online stuff about making real pemmican, it's really not hard, and any how to that makes you think it is isn't accurate.

I store the rendered fat in big jars in the fridge, and thaw it out when I get the meat readied. When it's still liquid, it's really really good. Not slightly good, super good. I suspect non grass fed beef fat rendered is not going to be really good at all, it's quite different from what I gather, different color, and I'm sure different flavor. But when it's good, you want to dip bread into it and just eat it that way, at least that's what I do. But really hard to clean up, you need super hot water and good grease cutting soap.

I'll document it with pics etc and maybe a blog posting when I make my next batch, but this stuff really does last a long time.

To really kick production into gear, get a big pot, thick aluminum bottom for even heating really helps, big size, so you can do 8 to 10 pounds at a time. And you can make your own drying boxes too, it's easy, cardboard, some plastic pipes, a lightbulb etc, a fan if you want, but the regular dehydrators work fine if you use a small fan on them to keep the temps down. Just slower since they don't have a huge capacity.

Grinding up the dried meat is also easy, it just grinds, turns into fluffy stuff, pick out the hard pieces, grind them again, once done, mix the remelted rendered fat in 50/50 by weight and pop into bags or storage, you can use a muffin pan if you want the pemmican in nicely sized chunks, otherwise just put in a zip lock freezer bag let cool then seal. If you did it right it will store at room temp no problem.

I have no interest in eating junk food on the trail, it's just not a thing I think forwards anything positive, and making your own high quality energy food using recipes that were worked out over thousands of years by people who were always on the move strikes me as one of the better ways to actually get with natural systems. You are what you eat, and I don't want to be a sugar powder or junk energy bar, it's not appealing.

Edited by hhope on 02/22/2012 16:04:34 MST.

I just read this thread from the start and it has a bunch of great info. I look forward to following the progress made by folks that have made the conversion to the Paleo diet.

Piper,
You weight change on the PCT was interesting to read. I have been trying to figure out what happened on my thru and there may be some similiar factors between us.

I started the PCT at my ideal weight of 187. I was in the best shape of my life with decent upper body muscle mass, more than a runner but less than a weight lifter. By Tahoe I had lost 12 lbs down to 175 but then only lost 1 additional lb. the rest of the way to Canada. Here is what I believe happened.
1) Since I was 12 lbs lighter the second half I was burning about 7% less calories due to the reduced weight assuming that everything else was equal.
2) I believe that hikers get more efficient as their hike goes on. I suspect that feet are lifted a bit less, I know I tripped much more the second half of the trip. Also, you have probably noticed that thru hikers have a different look, almost like they are gliding down the trail. I think the increased efficiency is what we notice.
3) I bumped up my calories. The first half I was eating somewhere in the range of 5-6000/day. The second half I ate 6000+, sometimes as much as 8000 calories/day. I apparently was able to eat as much as I burned which is remarkable given my daily mileage average of about 32 miles per day for Tahoe on.

I also lost a good bit of upper body muscle mass which was not not surprising. I suspect that you may have had a net gain in muscle mass along the way. I also rapidly gained 20lbs. after the hike in spite of knowing full that there was a great possible of weight gain when I was though hiking. It happened so quickly that it caught me by surprise. It was obvisious that may calorie consumption was greater than my burn since I couldn't do a lot of exercise given the pain in my feet.

Now that I have been back to high intensity training for the R2R2R trip the weight has stablized and my upper body muscle mass has increased.

One comment about low carb hiking. There are different degrees of hiking intensity. Since a marathon runner can get 18-20 miles prior to bonking, I would expect that at a slower pace a hiker could get up to 20 miles per day at modest elevation gain eating few if any carbs. As the intensity, elevation gain or duration continues higher then the importance of carbs would increase.

I got a reply from one of the founders of US Wellness:

"We are in process of changing pemmican fabricators. When this is resolved we should have a shelf stable model in April.

"Packaging will change a bit with the pemmican being round versus rectangle. This should create a 4 fold increase in daily production and eliminate the out of stock issues we have been experiencing."

Chris, concerning potassium, I believe vegetable juice is a good source of potassium. My label info read 28% daily rec per serving, I believe.

Here's another good link to explain the safety and naturalness of ketosis. Take note of this:
"If you’re starving, glucose comes mainly from one place, and that is from the body’s protein reservoir: muscle.
...
But the breakdown of muscle creates another problem, namely, that (in Paleolithic times and before) survival was dependent upon our being able to hunt down other animals and/or forage for plant foods. It makes it tough to do this if a lot of muscle is being converted into glucose and your muscle mass is dwindling."

Before when my body was unable to convert its own fat reserves into energy, that was my way of life. Either constantly eat to keep the glucose running or consume my muscle mass, get lethargic and stop using energy. Telling people they should base their whole diet on grains and starches is the more dangerous advice. There is absolutely nothing dangerous about ketosis. It's totally natural and all of us go into it from time-to-time whether we know it or not. Without this ability we die.

I started my diet at around 160lbs. I'm now at 133. I've lost 3 belt holes so far. I eat with gusto at every meal. Breakfasts like steak and eggs, or liver and onions or just a cup of coffee with butter and coconut oil. Lunch is usually nothing or canned salmon or sardines or bone broth. Dinner is usually vegetables meat and sometimes a root or tuber. Dessert is super dark chocolate. And wine.

Better than the weight loss, I feel better. I don't have so many aches and pains. My mental health is better than it was before. I feel happy all the time. I feel alert. I have energy and strength.

Even the feeling of being slower when I hike is gone. I was last to the summit for months while I was adjusting, but now I'm first and once I get out ahead of the others far enough, I even run.

I still can eat breakfast before a hike and nothing during the hike and not feel weak, tired or hungry. The energy levels I have are constant and sustained at all times. I've even started taking a fitness class where we do silly things like burpees and mountain-climbers and squats and I can go to this class at noon after not having had anything to eat since dinner the night before and I have just as much strength and energy as on the days I have breakfast. It's wonderful. This is how life should be. Not on a steady drip of gu and clif bars. That's a silly way to live.

On my last backpack trip I brought 4 pemmican bars (tallow and beef), a small bag of macadamias and brazil nuts, coconut curry for dinner (planned to supplement with foraged greens but didn't find any) and a couple squares of dark chocolate for dessert and morning coffee. I didn't weigh this but it wasn't a whole lot. It was energy dense and I never felt hungry. I came home with one uneaten pemmican bar and half the nuts, too. We hiked about 8 miles the first day and 12 the second with some trail maintenance along the way. This is definitely the better way to go.

I just ordered a beef heart, to be picked up on Friday. Should I make jerky with it? Cook it in the slow cooker? I also ordered beef cheeks and liver (I love liver.) All grass-fed. There are so many more interesting foods when you stop eating grains. For starch I've discovered all kinds of delicious things like rutabagas and celery root. For my birthday I had lamb, green beans and chanterelles, less than one potato, mussels with bacon, 2 glasses of pino noir and one big huge chestnut chocolate mousse with apricot sauce. I lost 3 lbs.

My friend says sear the heart like steak and serve with browned butter sauce.

"There is absolutely nothing dangerous about ketosis. "

That would be great....if it were true.

Speak with a doctor lately?

That would be great....if it were true.

Speak with a doctor lately?

David, I know you mean well, but why do you do this without doing the research? First, there are now a lot of respected doctors who very much support the ketosis route. Of note is Dr. Richard Bernstein, Dr. Loren Cordain, Dr. Stephen D. Phinney, Dr. Doug McGuff, Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Robert H. Lustig, and Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt (who has transformed big time the obesity epidemic in Sweden... in the last seven years a 24% reduction in obesity throughout Sweden).

Second, there is a very big difference between a ketogenic diet and a diet causing ketoacidosis. Ketogenesis is one of the body's two natural metabolic responses to procuring energy from food. All mammals use them both. The ketogenic response developed in a world where famine was a very common, completely normal recurring fact of life and helped organisms sustain themselves over long periods without a lot of food (which happened more often than not). More and more evidence is beginning to reveal that the body is meant to be in a ketogenic state most of the time, and only use the glycogenic metabolism when more energy is needed, or when the rare event of high carb availability made it possible to stock up on fat stores (for which the glycogenic metabolism is great... that's why bears get so fat in the fall, when they gorge on berries... they go into a ketogenic state for months after that, and survive upon their fat stores).

Ketoacidosis is a state that usually only happens to Type 1 diabetics. It occurs when the body cannot produce enough insulin to battle the overproduction of ketones. Normal, healthy people do not usually have to worry about this, because their insulin production is working fine. Here is an article that explains the difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis.

Miquel, there are just as many articles suggesting the state of ketosis is very bad so I suspect that going back and forth won't do anyone any good here. But I was serious about the Doctor comment. I want to know if she has been monitored by a doctor with this diet.

With respect to what Piper did, by lowering caloric intake she lost weight. This could have been done with carbs, fats, or proteins. It really doesn't matter.

For your amusement, "bread is back on the menu!"

The Viking diet is recommended by leading obesity expert Professor Arne Astrup. He is head of the department of human nutrition at Copenhagen University, and last year launched a £12.2 million project to develop a 'new' Nordic diet.