Kirt wrote on 9/20:

>... When eating an all-raw diet (over eight
>years) I found it hard to eat a high percent of animal foods (securing
>pastured-only meats was a priority for me) and ended up eating lots of raw
>and aged fish and fresh shellfish when they were available. But the great
>attraction of fruit would always seem to crowd out the animal foods in the
>end. I would also eat avocados freely and sometimes had several a day if
>they were in season which would make animal foods less attractive it seemed.
>
>Since experimenting myself with a seared high meat/fat diet for a few weeks
>at a time I found that I lost my attraction to fruit in a day or two and
>was quite satisfied for many days in a row with meat. (I also discovered
>the joy of a ketogenic blood sugar level--felt like superman whenever I
>needed to. ;)) My strength, endurance, etc. was also superior on the high
>meat/fat diet. Whether or not I would've done even better on an all-raw
>high-meat/fat diet is an intriguing question to me, but somewhat moot since
>I cannot maintain an attraction to raw animal foods for several days in a
>row in competition with fruit. Perhaps I should say "_could_ not maintain"
>since I haven't yet tried all-raw again now that I have broken away from so
>much fruit.
>
>(FWIW, I found that if I cooked the meat too much--excessive browning, or
>not raw inside--I would feel sweaty within an hour and hungover the next
>day.)


It's interesting that you seem to pick up differences based on the degree
of cooking. Stefansson emphasized that it was a popular misconception that
he and Anderson ate much of their meat raw at Bellevue. In his own words:
"It proved that usually he (Anderson) leaned to medium cooking and I to
well done." By well done he meant just a little pink inside. Stefansson
also pointed out that although the Eskimos ate some of their meat raw,
especially fish (frequently "aged" fish), they ate the majority cooked
(usually boiled).

As far as your not being able to develop a liking for meat in competition
with fruit, Stefansson points out that adapting to an all meat diet really
takes a substantial amount of time (and suggests that there might be some
relationship with how young and adaptable you are). In describing his
experience introducing members of his expedition to an all meat diet, he
wrote that:

 "...it all depends on how long you have been on the diet. If at the end of
the first ten days our men could have been miraculously rescued from the
seal and brought backto their varied foods, most of them would have sworn
forever after that they were about to die when rescued and they would have
vowed never to taste seal again - vows which would have been easy to keep,
for no doubt in such cases the thought of seal, even years later, would
have been accompanied by a feeling of revulsion. If a man has been on meat
exclusively for only two or three months he may or may not be reluctant to
go back to it again. But if the period has been six months or over, I
remember no one who was unwilling to go back to meat. Moreover, those who
have gone without vegetables for an aggregate of several years usually
thereafter eat a larger percentage of meat than your average citizen if
they can afford it."

The inference is also clear from this that you will effectively preclude
adaptation if you alternate between short term meat vs short term mixed
diets. I'd guess that it has mostly to do with going in and out of ketosis.
The human body probably takes considerably longer than most people realize
to get completely (optimally) adapted to a ketogenic diet. Something to
keep in mind.

>So finally my question to everyone: if there is a danger of eating too high
>of a percentage of fat, how am I to know if I'm overdoing it. What other
>symptoms might I watch out for? I mean, besides cholesterol level (which
>was always at a decent level when I was all-raw--I don't know what it is
>now) what is going to befall me if I continue to indulge in this great
>meat/fat?

As far as any "danger" -
Significant short term overconsumption of fat is essentially self limiting.
For one thing, fat very quickly induces satiety. On an all meat diet,
Stefansson is emphatic that too much fat will cause you to get nauseous,
toss your cookies, and then recover and be OK. Longer term, the effects of
eating too much fat on a mixed diet are obvious. On a keto diet - I don't
know. The Belleveue results suggest that an all meat diet is not - by
itself - an effective way to decrease total cholesterol, but then,
cholesterol per se may not be the fundamental concern it's made out to be.
(We also don't know how HDL and LDL varied at Bellevue.)

As far as what to monitor:
If you're on an all meat diet, I'd guess that what you'd want to do would
be to simply eat as low a percentage fat as you can without generating the
symptoms of lean protein excess. That's the best you can do anyway. Usually
keto diets tend to allow as much fat as you want, counting on hunger to
rein things in. My guess is that for some people, even on a keto diet,
hunger can be a bit out of wack with minimal/optimal requirement (e.g.
Anderson vs Stefansson).

Gary