Fat Head / The Seasteader Diet

[Alex Libman]

A few points regarding Fat Head [Hulu] [BT], the movie brought up on Dale's blog and indirectly mentioned on the veganphobia thread.


Things I agree with:

• Sugar is definitely evil, and starch is evil to some degree.

• McDonald's isn't evil, it is only responding to consumer demand.

• Government intervention in what people eat (or anything else) is definitely wrong.

• Low-carb diets produce very good weight loss results, especially in the first few weeks, and especially if you have a lot of weight to lose.

• Morgan Spurlock and the vegan lobby are intellectually dishonest emotionalist animal lovers who are full of shit.

However, I still believe that my Tax Resister Diet is superior, for the following reasons:

• Like I said, starch is evil, but compared to what?  You can't survive on starch-free plant foods alone, so you have to choose between either (A) moderately starchy low-glycemic foods like beans, or (B) animal products - and the latter are a whole lot more evil, especially if you value long-term health above short-term weight loss.  Just look the the Wikipedia article on "medical research related to low-carbohydrate diets" and skip over the parts not dealing with short-term weight loss...  If you have a family history of heart disease, a low-carb diet can cut your life expectancy significantly.

• Aside from genetics, by far the greatest factor in health, bodily appearance, and physical fitness is exercise.  Diet is a distant second.  If you work out several hours a day and have muscles burning calories even as you rest, you can handle a lot more food and more types of food.  And exercise requires energy which has to come from somewhere, as the energy stored in body-fat can only be utilized in very limited amounts.  Numerous studies show that the body is a lot more effective in using dietary carbs for energy than dietary fat, so no matter how much fat you stuff yourself with your strength and endurance will decline, and your desire to exercise will go with it.  The diet tested in Fat Head isn't as radical as some other low-carb diets, but that also means the weight loss results won't be as significant, and 100 grams (400 calories) would only give you the energy for about an hour of brisk walking.  Performance loss on carb-free diets decreases if you raise fat to as much as 85%, but that's either not enough protein or way, way, way too many calories and stress on the internal organs!  And if you're ever in a survival situation, a diet that drains your energy can kill you on the spot!

• Beans, veggies, and whole grains are a lot cheaper than animal products, even though animal products get huge subsidies and would be several times more costly in a free capitalist society.  This comes from the obvious biological fact - to get a pound of animal products you have to put in several pounds of feed, several gallons of added water, some chemicals, and of course several government inspections per year.  The whole point of my Tax Resister Diet is for agorists / gulchers to put freedom ahead of everything else, including no sales tax.  A fix-size "gulch" like a seceding micronation can have an order of magnitude more people if they are all vegans, so agricultural independence and efficiency can definitely make the difference between failure and success.

• Even raw plant-based products are a lot cleaner than animal-based ones, because toxins accumulate in the animal's body, both bacterial hazards as well as harmful minerals like mercury in fish, not to mention the hormones that are fed to most animals these days, greater difficulty identifying and controlling freshness, etc, etc, etc.  If you eat at McDonald's instead of cooking your own meat, then a lot more preservatives, chemical flavors, and possibly disgruntled frycook's bodily fluids are added to your meal.  It's these kinds of things that give you cancer, while some of the antioxidants that help you fight cancer come from fruits and other foods than also contain carbs.

• There is such a thing as too much protein, and getting more than ~30g of protein per meal (depending on meal frequency and body size) does nothing for your muscles while adding extra strain to the liver and kidneys.  You can easily get that much protein from a vegan meal.

• Animal products have much greater nutrient density, especially if they're high in fat.  (The only plant-based foods that come anywhere close are fatty avocados and nuts.)  This means the portions you get are significantly smaller - if you're counting your total calories that is, as you most certainly should on a low-carb diet.  You also wolf it down faster, which decreases digestion quality and leaves you still being hungry, so either you're miserable or you cheat and go over the calorie limit, which makes the diet very unhealthy.  It takes ~20 minutes for your body to figure out that it's full so you stop being hungry - if you're eating something like beans that comes naturally, but if you're having meat then you'll tend to overeat.

• Animal products are a whole lot more acidic, which causes all sorts of health issues in the long-term.  (I wish I had the time to dig up more specific studies on the long-term harm done to the human body from added animal fat, acidity, natural hormones, added hormones, mineral toxins, bacteria, artificial sweeteners, MSG, etc, etc, etc...)

The most healthy diet would mainly consist of raw low-starch vegetables (i.e. leafy greens), protein supplements (or egg whites), some high-quality raw fish, and everything else in extreme moderation.


(EDIT:  Added a few pro-TRD points, changed the thread title to mention "The Seasteader Diet" - (see below).  As always, edited changes are identified in brown.)

[The ghost of a ghost of a ghost]

TL will read later

[Cognitive Dissident]

Thank you for bringing Fat Head up!

I posted a recommendation in the movie thread.  It's one of the best and most valuable non-fiction films I've ever seen.  I strongly recommend it.  It first seems like a reactionary response to SuperSizeMe (which of course it also is) but it turns out to have important, and even life-changing information about nutrition, that's desperately needed in this country--and it's generally not the information you're getting from the health nuts!

[Pizzly]

This was a good documentary, I also liked a similar movie Food Inc.  It almost makes me cry a little (on the inside) wondering what something as simple as food would be like without government intervention from the beginning, since statism has been around since the neolithic revolution.

[Alex Libman]

I like many things about Fat Head, which is why I take the time to comment on it.  I am skeptical, but I'd like to be proven wrong.  I think I may be working on a new diet / food aesthetic I'll call...  The Seasteader Diet! 

It's one of the best and most valuable non-fiction films I've ever seen.

The guy who released it, Tom Naughton, is a programmer, so I'm hoping he'll do a "version 2" of this movie to fix some of the "bugs".  (That's another thing you can eat on a low-carb diet, BTW.) 

For example (going from memory) he claims that the biggest reason why people in the aggregate have gotten fat since the middle of the 20th century was the increased carb consumption.  C'mon, the increase in starch and sugar wasn't that significant - European upper classes have always gorged on white bread, jam, and all sorts of elaborate pastries which by then had become affordable for all!  What was really significant was the decrease in physical activity as more people got white-collar (sub)urban jobs and started driving or taking public transport.  Also fewer people serve in the military (I should use this for my anti-peace "trolling", tee hee hee).  It's all about exercise.

Another thing I'd like to see "version 2" include, now that the filmmaker is somewhat famous, is interviews with famous athletes that follow a similar diet.  For example, I've always known that Arnold Schwarzenegger followed a similar diet to Fat Head, limiting carbs to 60-100 grams per day, while obviously gulping down as much protein as a human body can possibly digest, and not entirely avoiding unsaturated fats "because they raise hormone levels".  Also: "bread is poison".  I used to lift weights quite a bit ~10 years ago, and I've always wondered if maybe Arnie lost his count, cause that's not nearly enough carb energy to be in the gym ~30 hours per week!

[dalebert]

I've heard several stories now that all sound extremely similar.  I met one guy who was on cholesterol-lowering drugs.  He went on low carbs and his cholesterol dropped to dangerously low levels.  So his doctor took him off the meds and the next time he came in, it was in the ideal range for the first time ever without drugs.  Similar for the guy in the movie.  His blood work was excellent.

I also keep seeing stories of obese people who have felt for years like they were just lazy and weak-willed until they changed to this diet.  Then they were losing weight effortlessly and it didn't feel like a constant struggle anymore.  What I had always assumed was me just craving to eat frequently as if it were a nervous habit, especially carby or sweet things, was probably the insulin roller-coaster happening inside my blood.  That shit just vanished!  It's like I'm a totally fucking different person!  When people offer me bread, rice, sugary sweets, etc. and I say I hardly touch them, they act sad for me.  Don't be.  I'm fine.

[Cognitive Dissident]

I met a bodybuilder who pretty much lived on a whole chicken a day and some broccoli, or something like that.

[anarchir]

You should create a real full diet Libman and I'll turn it into a cookbook! I am a professional cook afterall.

[Turd Ferguson]

They had a guy on a Chicago talk radio show a few years back who claimed he ate nothing but Twinkies for the last 28 years. I tried googling it to see if he's still around but I cant find anything about it. Anyone else ever heard about this guy?

[Zhwazi]

Libman, have you heard of "In Defense of Food"? It's kind of a reaction against what the author calls "Nutritionism" (in the same sense as "Scientism" for instance) and against what he calls the western diet. It looks pretty interesting and largely in accordance with what you describe. Apparently the boiled-down version of what to eat is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I haven't seen Fat Head. Will add it to my list. I've seen Food Inc, that was interesting, especially the organic farmer's experience.

[Alex Libman]

I'm pretty sure the Twinkie story is lies.

No, I haven't heard of In Defense of Food, will get to it when I have the time.

I met a bodybuilder who pretty much lived on a whole chicken a day and some broccoli, or something like that.

Wow, I've heard the exact same "whole chicken a day" story when I was lifting weights ~10 years ago!  (Though it would have to be a large chicken if he wants 200+ grams of protein, and about half the calories are from fat...)

BTW, I've also heard of all sorts of crazy bodybuilder diets, including a guy who said he drank two gallons of skim milk every day while trying to gain (muscle) weight!  He claimed that milk, nuts, oats, and some fortified cereals was all he ate, and that it was better than supplements or egg-whites.  He said he'd drink milk in 8 "meals" a day, 4 cups every 3 hours with ~36g of protein per "meal", including setting two alarms in the middle of the night so he could down 4 cups and go back to sleep - now that's just disgusting!  He'd have to be the most lactose-tolerant person in the world (yes, he was blond) or a genetic freak of some sort!

Sometimes I think bodybuilders tell bullshit stories just to screw up their competition.  Case in point...  Arnold famously said "milk is for baby cows, when you grow up you have to drink beer" - when beer is obviously the very last thing he'd ever drink!  Beef + beer is how I got fat! 

[Fred]

They had a guy on a Chicago talk radio show a few years back who claimed he ate nothing but Twinkies for the last 28 years. I tried googling it to see if he's still around but I cant find anything about it. Anyone else ever heard about this guy?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

[Alex Libman]

You should create a real full diet Libman and I'll turn it into a cookbook! I am a professional cook afterall.

I'm not medically qualified to "create a real diet", but I'm free to post my ideas online as "public domain", and you're more than welcome to make whatever use of them you see fit. 

The Seasterder Diet would be a lot like Japanese cuisine - raw fish, grilled fish, sea vegetables, lots of other seafood variety, things you'd never expect being made from seafood, emphasis on freshness, raw eggs, mushrooms, and possibly some unsweetened fermented soy products.  But (here's the part where all Japanese people everywhere faint) it would be without any rice, noodles, or any other starch of any kind!  Those things would be replaced with more greenhouse leafy greens and leafy green juices...  like Kale!

Early seasteads would probably be multistory condos packed with people and not much room for self-sufficiency, but you'll see less densely packed and eventually single-family ones after the prices come down.  An advanced seastead can have a large high-tech greenhouse growing veggies, and it would obviously have plenty of design possibilities for underwater compartments / attached underwater cages for breeding fish.  You obviously can't raise cows on a seastead, but I think chickens and pigs could do OK if you don't mind the smell.  I definitely know pigs love fish and it makes their pork a lot better, and I've just read that chickens can eat it too.  They'd probably also like sea vegetables as well.

Grains and legumes do store very well, even in the middle of the ocean, so their exclusion from human seasteader consumption is mostly about the low-carb - hey, more room for fish!  Eating lots and lots of seafood with grains can make you fat (Japanese people have genetics, very active lifestyles, and portion control habits that prevent that), while eating lots and lots of seafood with just the leafy greens won't.  Grains and legumes are also something that can only be grown efficiently on land, which brings us back to the "what if the bastards blockade us" question.  Secession strategy is all about Game Theory, making the governments, which can't justify a bloodbath, believe that we won't give in - then they'll be forced to recognize our independence.  Developing even a dietary aesthetic that is 100% sea-sustainable would be a part of that.

[Turd Ferguson]

They had a guy on a Chicago talk radio show a few years back who claimed he ate nothing but Twinkies for the last 28 years. I tried googling it to see if he's still around but I cant find anything about it. Anyone else ever heard about this guy?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

This is a different guy. The guy I'm talking about was some old dude who wasn't a doctor or nutritionist or anything like that. Just some dude who liked Twinkies alot and was a little nuts. Heard him on the Madcow show a few yrs back. 28 yrs to that point, his diet consisted of nothing but Twinkies. Damn, I wish I could find something on the guy.

[Fred]

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/04/what_you_look_l.html

this guy ate one day for 64 years.