Review: Beyond Bacon

As Joel Salatin eloquently stated in the foreword to Beyond Bacon by Matthew McCarry and Stacy Toth, “a pig is more than bacon.” While bacon is typically considered to be the gateway meat that is able to convert even the staunchest vegetarian into an omnivore, there is so much more nutrition and culinary delight to be gained from the rest of the animal.

I believe pork is underrated in the Paleo world, with most consuming bacon as a garnish or side dish without a second thought to the rest of the animal. This is why I was excited to receive my copy of Beyond Bacon – I love cooking with pastured pork, lard, ribs, jowls, and even the trotters.

Beyond Bacon: A delicious ode to pork that respects the whole hog.

Beyond Bacon is not only a beautifully designed cookbook with loads of delicious recipes such as Asian Short Ribs, Apple and Bacon Stuffed Pork Chops, and even desserts like Yellow Lard Cake and Apple Fritters, but it also contains an incredibly informative foreword explaining how to find affordable pastured pork, the history of pig cultivation, the nutritional science of pork, and the best tools to use in the kitchen when cooking with the whole hog. You’ll even learn how to create your own pork stock and render your own lard.

McCarry and Toth also share their family’s story, which was first described on their website, Paleo Parents. They explain how eating a Paleo lifestyle has helped their family lose weight, gain energy, and eliminate countless health problems that were significantly reducing their overall quality of life for many years. Further, they share the overall goal of Beyond Bacon: to remove readers’ fear of organ meats, bone broth, and healthy fats, and to provide delicious ways of incorporating nourishing pastured pork products into the diet. They even explain how followers of the Paleo, Primal, and Weston A. Price-approved diets can rest assured that eating pork will not negatively affect their health, and can even improve it.

The photography is stunning, and showcases the local farms that McCarry and Toth source their pastured pork products from. They explain the importance of finding a reputable source of pastured pork, describing the environmental,  health, and even flavor benefits of choosing properly-raised hogs over their CAFO counterparts. Not to mention, it’s easy to see how happy these pigs are when flipping through this book – there are even photos where you’d swear the pig was smiling! While some may take this as an excuse not to eat pork, I see these images as confirming my dedication to finding properly-raised animals for moral, environmental, and personal health reasons.

For more information and even some recipe samples from Beyond Bacon, you can check out Stacy and Matt’s blog here, where they reveal a few of their recipes and special features, and share other reviews of the cookbook. If you’re ready to buy the book, you can click here to order it from Amazon. You won’t be disappointed in this remarkable addition to your Paleo bookshelf, and you just might discover a newfound love for headcheese, chitterlings, and organ-rich scrapple! This truly is a cookbook that respects the whole hog.

Tagged as: bacon, beyond bacon, cookbook, cooking, cuisine, health, lard, nutrition, paleo, pork, primal, weston price

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RSS Subscribers: Don’t Miss Out!

Google Reader (the most popular RSS service) is going out of service tomorrow (July 1st). If you use Google Reader and RSS to follow this blog, you’ll need to find an alternate way of staying tuned in. You have a few options:

Subscribe via email. I typically send out 1–3 emails a week with summaries and links to the most recent articles on the blog. Just below this article you’ll see a picture of me next to a box with the headline “Like what you see?”. Enter your email address in that box to subscribe.Choose an alternate RSS reader. See this post for suggestions. I prefer Feedly myself, and they provide detailed migration instructions for Google Reader users here.

See you on the other side!

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The Acid-Alkaline Myth: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about why the basic premise of the acid-alkaline theory is flawed, and I showed that the evidence doesn’t support the idea that a net acid-forming diet is harmful to bone health. Now I want to look at the effect of dietary acid load on other health conditions.

Can the acidity or alkalinity of your diet affect your risk for muscle loss, cancer, and more? 

There is some research claiming that acid-forming diets cause muscle wasting, and the proposed mechanism is similar to that of the acid-ash hypothesis of osteoporosis. Some researchers hypothesize that in order to eliminate excess acid and maintain homeostasis, the kidneys must steal amino acids from muscle tissue. (1, 2) Just as a higher acid load increases calcium in the urine, it also increases nitrogen in the urine, leading some to believe that an acid-forming diet causes net nitrogen loss. However, some of these studies neglect to measure nitrogen balance, so this is not necessarily true. (3, 4) In fact, one study showed that a higher acid diet improved nitrogen balance! (5) This theory also does not acknowledge that protein, although it’s acid forming, actually increases the body’s ability to excrete acid. (6) Finally, the one observational study concluding that alkaline diets improve lean muscle mass didn’t even measure the overall acid load of the diet. (7) Instead, they used potassium intake as an approximate measure, and just assumed that the observed improvement in muscle mass was due to the diet being more alkaline. This, in addition to the limitations that always accompany observational data, makes the evidence less than convincing, especially since the clinical trials have conflicting results.

One of the more popular claims of the alkaline diet is that it can cure cancer. Proponents say that because cancer can only grow in an acidic environment, a net-alkaline diet can prevent cancer cells from growing, and can eliminate existing cancer cells. This theory is incorrect for a few reasons. First of all, the hypothesis depends on the ability of food to substantially change the pH of the blood and extracellular fluid, which I’ve already shown is not the case. (8, 9, 10) Second, cancer is perfectly capable of growing in an alkaline environment. The pH of normal body tissue is 7.4, which is slightly alkaline, and in almost every experiment done with cancer cells, they are grown in an environment at that pH. (11)

Now, cancer cells do tend to grow better in an acidic environment, but the causality is reversed. Once a tumor develops, it creates its own acidic environment through up-regulated glycolysis and reduced circulation, so the pH of the patient’s blood no longer determines the pH of the cancer. (12) It’s not the acidic environment that causes the cancer; it’s the cancer that causes the acidic environment. To top it all off, the only comprehensive review on ‘diet-induced’ acidosis and cancer did not even acknowledge this as a valid mechanism by which an acid-forming diet could increase cancer risk. They discuss a few biological pathways that could potentially link dietary acid load and cancer, but they admit that it’s mostly speculation and there’s no direct link. (13)

There are a few observational studies attempting to link acid-forming diets with hypertension, but the results are mixed. (14, 15) There’s also limited observational data associating higher acid loads with things like high cholesterol, obesity, and insulin resistance, but there are no proposed mechanisms or clinical studies to validate the hypotheses. (16, 17)

There are a few review papers examining the effect of acid-forming diets and health, but as you’ve seen above, the evidence they have to review is sparse. (18, 19, 20, 21, 22) If you read these papers, you’ll notice that whenever they cite trials showing the deleterious effects of acidosis, those trials were done on patients with chronic kidney disease or diabetes-induced acidosis. In the studies done on healthy people, they’re given ammonium chloride to induce acidosis. What you won’t see are clinical trials showing health consequences from purely ‘diet-induced’ acidosis. (Perhaps because ‘diet-induced’ acidosis doesn’t exist!) You’ll also notice that the strongest two hypotheses deal with osteoporosis and muscle wasting, and that links with other diseases are speculative or based on observational data. And although conflicts of interest don’t necessarily mean their conclusion can’t be trusted, it’s interesting to note that one of these reviews was funded by “pH Sciences®,” which “develops and manufactures patent-protected ingredients that safely and effectively manage biological pH levels.” (23)

In sum, I am not convinced that an acid-forming diet has negative effects on healthy people, based on the science. But just to be sure, it’s always a good idea to observe healthy cultures to see if there’s any anthropological evidence to support or refute the hypothesis.

There are a few studies where researchers attempted to approximate the net acid load of Paleolithic diets. One estimated that 87% of pre-agricultural people ate net-alkaline diets, and proposed this discrepancy with our modern diets as a possible reason for our declining health. (24) However, a more recent study estimated that only half of the world’s hunter-gatherer societies eat net-alkaline diets, while the other half are net acid-forming. (25) They reason that the other estimate is likely accurate for our earlier ancestors, because their tropical habitat would’ve provided ample fruits and vegetables. This idea is confirmed by another analysis that showed increasing acid load with increasing latitude. (26) Even without the study, it stands to reason that as humans moved into less hospitable environments, the animal content (and acid load) of their diet increased.

Given the subpar clinical science on this topic, I think the evolutionary argument is far more convincing. If half of the world’s hunter-gatherer populations avoid the ‘diseases of civilization’ on an acid-forming diet, it would seem that acid load has little to no bearing on overall health. For some case studies, we can always look to Weston Price’s work to see quite clearly that acid-forming diets are not detrimental to health. Based on Price’s descriptions, many of the traditional diets he studied would have been primarily acid-forming, including the Swiss, the Masai, and the Inuit. Yet despite their high intake of animal foods or grains and their comparatively low intake of fruits and vegetables, they maintained excellent health.

I don’t deny that many people have seen significant health improvements when switching to an alkaline diet, but there are many possible reasons for this not having to do with pH balance. Eating more fresh produce is rarely a bad idea, especially when it displaces nutrient poor processed foods. A person switching to an alkaline diet would significantly reduce their consumption of grains, which could cause dramatic health improvements for somebody with a leaky gut or gluten sensitivity. Dairy would also be minimized, which would help those with dairy sensitivities. And although pure sugar isn’t an acid-forming nutrient, many laypeople claim that it is, so alkaline diets tend to contain far less sugar than a standard Western diet.

Between the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) and the anthropological research, I think we can be confident that the acid load of our diets doesn’t negatively impact healthy people. For those with renal failure or similar conditions that affect kidney function, it’s a different story—there’s certainly room for manipulation of urine pH in the treatment of those conditions. But for someone with functioning kidneys, there should be no concern that an acid-forming diet will harm health.

Now I’d like to hear from you: what are your opinions on the acid-alkaline diet theory? Have you ever tried eating an alkaline diet, and if so, did you experience health benefits? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Tagged as: acid, alkaline, ammonia, Cancer, health, loss, muscle, paleo, pH, urine, wasting

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Soaking nuts and seeds before eating?

Q Hey. I have recently converted to raw food diet. Nuts and seeds are an important part of my diet, especially now. In regard to soaking to release inhibitors. I have heard different things. Whats your view or can you point me to a good source of info. Thanks. Have an awesome day = )

A Here's a link that explains soaking nuts and dried fruit. should I soak nuts

Here's more detailed information on nuts including nutritional traits of different varieties.

Like nuts, which are actually large seeds, edible seeds are best if soaked before eating, except hemp which does not have enzyme inhibitors.

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On The Chopping Block: Honey

by Dr. Josh Axe on June 27, 2013

Honey is a sweetener that has been used for thousands of years. It has some health benefits as well as some negatives. In the end I will answer whether honey is something you should have in your diet or not?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Tropical Smoothie

by Shirley Willie
(Port Vila, Vanuatu)

Break the young coconut and pour the juice into your blender. Scrape off the soft flesh and put in with the juice. Peel and cut pineapple into little cubes. Peel and cut ripe banana into small pieces. Put everything together and blend. Very refreshing and filling.

1/4 pineapple

1 whole young coconut fruit

1 whole ripe banana

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The Roundup

Here is The Roundup, Edition 8, bringing you the best from around the web from the past two weeks!

A press release at the Wall Street Journal recently reported that three new studies have shown raw milk to be a low-risk food. These papers, along with dozens of others, were presented at the Canadian Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. The presentation demonstrated how inappropriate evidence has been mistakenly used to support the “myth” that unpasteurized milk is a high-risk food. The scientific papers used quantitative microbial risk assessment (the gold-standard in food safety evidence) and demonstrated a low risk of illness from raw milk consumption for each of the following pathogens: Campylobacter, Shiga-toxin inducing E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. This low risk profile applied to healthy adults as well as members of more susceptible groups such as pregnant women, children and the elderly.

This report adds to the bulk of evidence suggesting that raw milk is a safe food, as I explained in my series, Raw Milk Reality. While many people believe that raw dairy is a healing superfood, others feel it is a dangerous and unnecessary risk to take. Normally, the government and the media dramatically overstate these risks, calling unpasteurized milk dangerous and unsafe for human consumption. However, as this report clearly shows, the fear over raw milk is largely unfounded. I strongly recommend checking out my series on raw milk if you’re still unconvinced about its relative safety.

The American Medical Association adopted a policy that officially labels obesity as a disease “requiring a range of medical interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.”Another study using more advanced diagnostic methods finds that among vegetarians, up to 62% of pregnant women, 86% of children and 90% of elderly are B12 deficient. Not surprisingly, the highest rates of deficiency were observed among vegans and lifelong vegetarians.New research demonstrates that pregnant mothers with diesel and/or mercury air pollution exposure are more likely to have autistic children.Trends in cholesterol-lowering medication use show that the percentage of adults using cholesterol-lowering medication increased from 5% to 23% from the late 1980s through 2010, while the number of adults eating diets low in saturated fat increased from 25% to 41%. This is unfortunate given that statin drugs don’t extend lifespan in women, the elderly (>80 years of age), or men without pre-existing heart disease. See my recent “Diet-Heart Myth” series for more about cholesterol and heart disease.Researchers found that short, moderately strenuous walks in the morning and after meals can improve 24-hour glycemic control in older and otherwise inactive adults.Robb Wolf takes on “Paleo Fantasy” – science says the Paleo diet is bunk, right? Think again.Dr. Briffa discusses a study that found dessicated thyroid to be a viable alternative to synthetic thyroid meds. (Something patients/clinicians have known for years…)Dr. Peter Attia presents his TED talk: “What if we’re wrong about diabetes?”The FDA decides to regulate fecal transplants, then changes its mind. (Mostly good news, I think.)Men’s Journal discusses how endurance athletes are finding success with paleo nutrition.Tagged as: b12, cholesterol, deficiency, diabetes, obesity, raw milk, recipes, the Roundup, thyroid

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