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>Date:    Tues, 3 Aug 1999
>From:    Rachel Matesz <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Brenda Lea Martin and Rod & Vegetarianism:

Re:  your postings "I am still looking for info on how to do Paleo, and be a
veggie sorta person at the same time."

You can't do it. You can't follow a vegetarian or vegan diet and have it be
Paleolithic.  It's one or the other.  A vegetarian diet cannot support
optimal human health--physical, mental, emotional, moral, or spiritual.  It
lacks nutrients a body and mind needs to function properly.  Vegetarianism
is not natural for humans--for cow's yes.  For humans, no.

There are no vegetable sources of complete protein.  Sure, you can eat eggs
(not really a vegetarian food, meaning there not vegetable products), but
who's going to eat eggs three or four times a day? Even if you did, you
wouldn't get the essential nutrients found in flesh foods.  You can't use
tofu as a protein food--it's a bean food, requires extensive processing,
lacks heme iron, B-12, certain amino acids, zinc, etc.  Soy beans are also
very toxic.  Don't even think about trying to eat them raw.  Even when
soaked, cooked for hours, they are mainly a source of methane (loud, smelly
methane, I might add!).  Soy protein isolate, while it contains fewer
phytates than the whole bean is also notorious for causing the same
excrutiating gas, bloating, and embarrassment.  The phytates in soy beans
can bind with calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc preventing their
absorption.  Your body is made out of protein, minerals, and essential fatty
acids.  Vegetable foods alone can't build, maintain, or sustain a fully
functioning human body.

Please see my husband Don's recent post with regard to Paleo diet. with
regard to Amadeus Schmidt's post (August 2nd).  Should be arriving soon.
You'll find it interesting, I think.

I tried to make it (vegetarianism, veganism, even macrobiotics) work for
almost 12 years--did the vegan thing for 9 (thank god it wasn't 9 all in a
row or I would be in really sad shape)--my husband did too.  We practiced
such diets, published articles, cookbooks, ran a macrobiotic educational
center, read all the popular books on the topic; I taught vegan cooking
classes where I lived and a annual conferences; I even ran a restaurant in
my early 20's ; we counseled others who were wanting to follow the same kind
of diet.   We were very enmeshed.  It took a while to deprogram ourselves
and eachother..... but we had too!

We experienced a long list of problems (dental, hormonal, metabolic,
emotional,....) despite avoiding the typical vegetarian processed/junk food,
despite eating loads of leafy green and orange vegetables; soaking and
thoroughly cooking beans and whole grains; making our own naturally leaved
breads, pickles, etc; eating home cooked foods; chewing till the cow's came
home; being very creative with the way we prepared the food; trying to
balance this and compliment that.  It doesn't work.... at a certain point
your body breaks down....  We loved the tastes and so did our students,
dinner guests, etc. but it didn't produce great health; quite the contrary.
For that matter, you can get used to a meat and vegetable diet and lose your
"taste" for grains, beans, dairy foods, etc.... Now, the idea of eating
beans, bread, etc. has zero appeal.  You really can change...and LOVE IT!

A Paleo diet is, by nature, a non-vegetarian diet.  A Paleo diet provides
man with the foods he needs to fully function.  A diet of fresh, non-starchy
vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds is called a "raw foods" vegetarian diet,
basically a fast.  There's nothing Paleo about it if you leave out the most
nutrient dense foods--flesh foods and eggs.  You have to get over the
conceptual hump that "vegetarianism" is inherently health or ecological, or
morally correct or politically correct.  It's not.  It's a line we've been
force fed. You just have to let it go if you want to really live and follow
Mother Nature's Design! --Or, die and come back as a cow.

Although some people think you have to ease into eating meat if you haven't
eaten it in a long time, I don't buy it. You can decide "enough already" and
just say "no more grains, beans, potatoes, etc."  You can just start eating
fish, poultry, red meat or eggs at every meal, supplemented with some leafy
green or mixed veggies (salad, steamed, stir fried, parboiled, or whatever)
and some friendly fat (x-virg. olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, nut butters,
coconut, coconut milk, coconut oil, or the fat in a fatty cut of meat).
Some may favor doing eggs and fish the first week; adding poultry the next
week; adding red meat (beef, lamb, etc.) the week after that.  You could
reduce that to a matter of days... Our experience (mine, my husband's and
that of many of our students over the years) has been that when eggs are
first eaten, after a long absence in the diet, one typically feels as if one
hasn't eaten.... and begins to crave more eggs and looks forward to the next
meal with eggs.  The same is true for flesh food.  It is amazing how fast
the body can wake up and begin to call for meat.  We found it so satisfying
to eat meat foods after many years of abstaining.  We didn't have to go as
slowly as I suggested above; you can make the switch from flesh-free to
flesh foods two or three times a day, within a week.

In our experience, the benefits are noticeable almost immediately.  The
first thing you might notice--or not notice until after a week or two-- is
the amazing lack of gas, provided you don't go overboard on vegetables (esp.
raw cruciferous veggies) or nuts.  We still find that too many nuts give us
very unpleasant gas.  Good humor is often the next sign of recovery---our
sense of humor increased drammatically.  After two weeks on a meat, egg, and
vegetable diet....my husband said "You were never this funny as a
vegetarian!"  He's right.  We are both a hell of a lot more fun to be
around, much happier, much healthier, much more even tempered, patient, etc.
 Meat can do wonders for your brain chemistry, ability to focus, be
productive, creative, level headed, get work done,.. If you're married, you
may find that all of the sudden, you are getting along famously and not
irritible, quarelsome, etc. If you're female, your PMS symptoms may all but
vanish on a truly Paleo diet.....If you lost your libido (a common
experience for vegetarians and esp. vegans), don't be surprised if your
thoughts are no longer focused on who's going to wash, drain, and soak the
beans and the rice before bed...... Just enjoy it!  It's natural.

BTW...some find it helpful to take hydrochloric acid supplment for the first
two or three months in recovery (from vegetarianism) because in the absence
of zinc and other meat-based nutrients, you may not be accustomed to
producing much HCL, which you need to digest protein foods.  You can get an
HCL and Pepsin supplement in a health food store and take two with each
meal.....in time, if you center your diet around meat foods and non-starchy
vegetables, your body will start producing all of the enzymes it needs to
assimilate the foods you are designed to eat.

Maybe someone should start a "Vegetarians Anonymous" group for recovering
vegetarians.  Lord knows, it would have been quite a struggle to make the
switch if I didn't have my husband.  I'd tried to break away form the
vegetarian/vegan diet and lifestyle years  before but was so entrenched in
it.....so many of my friends were into it..... You can do it....but support
from books, articles, pen pals, etc. certainly helps.

That's all for now.

Rachel Matesz