FAQ

What should I eat for optimal body composition?

Protein sources:

• Get most of your protein from grass-fed beef, bison, venison, organ meats, fish, seafood, and eggs.
• Consume poultry, pork, and other grain-fed animal products in moderation (less than 3 meals per week).
• Avoid consumption of plant-based proteins including beans, corn, grains, and soy.  These substances contain anti-nutrients that inhibit absorption of vitamins and minerals, increase your risk of developing autoimmune disorders and allergies, and promote the development of osteoporosis and osteopenia.
  
• Do not eat conventionally produced meats, as these contain recombinant bovine growth hormone, antibiotics, GMOs, and unfavorable fatty acid profiles, and they may be produced from cloned animals.

Fat Sources:

• Get most of your fats from organ meats, fatty fishes, eggs, marrow, and coconut oil, tallow, and butter.
• Consume olive oil, macadamia nut oil, and avocados in moderation.  Do not use olive oil as a cooking oil because it is very fragile and sensitive to heat.  Exposing unsaturated fats to high heat makes them rancid and unhealthy for consumption.
• Don’t go overboard in consuming a lot of nuts and seeds!  While fresh, soaked nuts and seeds have beneficial properties when consumed in moderation, their high omega-6 content can disrupt your fatty acid balance and cause chronic inflammation and disease if the majority of your fats are coming from nuts and seeds.
  
• Never consume partially hydrogenated oils (often added to breads, cookies, and pastries to extend shelf life), tub margarine, canola oil (rapeseed oil), “vegetable oil,” corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and other seed oils.

Beverages:

• Hydrate yourself with water.  Spring water is the best, if you have access to it.  Otherwise, use reverse osmosis filtered water.
• Improve your health with moderate consumption of fermented vegetable juice, fresh pressed vegetable juice, bone broth, homemade water kefir, homemade milk kefir, and kombucha.  A half liter of any of these choices is a good amount for most individuals.  More is not always better.
• Caffeinated beverages such as coffee and tea have beneficial properties, but can be troublesome for some individuals who have a reduced ability to metabolize caffeine in the liver.  Caffeine consumption may also raise fasting insulin and blood glucose to unhealthy levels; likewise, it may cause reactive hypoglycemia.  Limit caffeine consumption.
• Alcoholic beverages, particularly wine and mead, also have some beneficial properties, but should be consumed in moderation because alcohol is neurotoxic.  More than one glass of wine a day is more harmful than helpful, and if you don’t enjoy drinking alcohol there are other ways to get the same benefits.
• Never consume beverages sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or agave nectar, concentrated fruit juice beverages, sugared beverages, conventional dairy, fluoridated water, chlorinated water, or diet sodas sweetened with sucralose, Ace-K, nutra-sweet, or other neurotoxins.

Carbohydrate Sources:

• Eat as many non-starchy vegetables as you need to create bulk to your diet and feel full.  Some people are “volume eaters” and require a large amount of food to feel satiated.  Other people feel more satiated by small amounts of rich, fatty foods.  If you’re a volume eater, you may want to incorporate plenty of raw non-starchy veggies into your diet.  If you feel more satiated by fats, you may want to cook 1/2 cup of non-starchy vegetables in butter.
• If you are not a volume eater or if you require a large number of calories in order to maintain your weight, incorporate sweet potatoes, yams, heirloom potatoes, and fruits into your diet.  If you have metabolic syndrome or if you tend to put on weight easily, limiting starchy carbohydrates and fruits may help you achieve your ideal weight.  Everyone has a unique bioindividuality, and there are some people who will lose weight on a high starch, high sugar diet (though most of the weight loss may be coming from lean muscle tissue rather than fat).