Circumstances could be better. The bit of possible food poisoning incident I blogged about the other day appears to have morphed into a full blown head cold, with all the usual symptoms. But that's just the way things roll, sometimes.

Seeya.

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It seems there's a good amount of epidemiology for vitamin D levels in people with various illness and disease; as well, there's epidemiology for disease incidence by latitude (as surrogate for vitamin D levels), but not really anything measuring the vitamin D levels of a a group of normal people one might expect to have reasonably high levels.

Previously, there was only a 1971 study of 8 sunbathing, white lifeguards who maintained levels in the range of 50-80 ng/ml.

So here's the abstract of the new study:

Traditionally living populations in East Africa have a mean serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration of 115 nmol/l. Luxwolda MF, Kuipers RS, Kema IP, Janneke Dijck-Brouwer DA, Muskiet FA.

Dr. John Cannell explains the study thusly:

The Maasai are no longer hunter-gatherers but live, along with their cattle, either a settled or a semi-nomadic lifestyle. They wear sparse clothes, which mainly cover their upper legs and upper body, and attempt to avoid the sun during the hottest part of the day. They eat mainly milk and meat from their cattle, although recently they began to add corn porridge to their diet. Their mean 25(OH) vitamin D level was 48 ng/ml (119 nmol/L) and ranged from 23 to 67 ng/ml.

The Hadzabe are traditional hunter-gatherers. Their diet consists of meat, occasional fish, honey, fruits, and tubers. They have no personal possessions. They wear fewer clothes than the Maasai in that the men often wear nothing above the waist. Like the Maasai, they avoid the sun during the hottest part of the day. Their mean 25(OH)D was 44 ng/ml and ranged from 28 to 68 ng/ml.

It was also reported in the study that all subjects had black skin types that require the most sun to produce robust vitamin D.

So I guess if you unpack all of that, a 25(OH)-vitamin D level of 50 ng/ml that the Vitamin D Council has recommended is right about in the sweet spot.

But there's a few other things this suggests to me:

1. Since these subjects have the most difficult kind of skin to stimulate D production, that levels higher than 50 and perhaps even way higher might be less of a concern than others have suggested. Perhaps it's less of an "experiment" now in the longer term.
2. You really need to pay attention to what I called in my book, being a "fish out of water." These subjects were on the equator where the sun is most effective, combined with skin that's least effective. Things get dicey with modern migration and relocation where you have very efficient D generating white skin near the equator (too much D) and the less efficient dark skin at advanced latitudes (too little D).

But it seems to me that the latter situation is the far riskier one: a darker skin person at higher latitudes, such as northern Europe, Northern areas of the US, and Canada. The white skin person can always avoid over-exposure, use some sunscreen, etc., but the dark skin person suffers a double whammy of having less efficient skin for synthesis, combined with a sun that's only effective in stimulating vitamin D for part of the year (the higher the latitude, the less effective).

How about the health of the Masai, in general? Do I really need to answer that question? I recommend Dr. Stephan Guyenet's series:

1. Diet and Body Composition of the Masai
2. Masai and Atherosclerosis
3. More Masai
4. Nutrition and Infectious Disease

That 4th link wasn't actually in the series but deals with the Masai, as well as vitamins A & D, which we now know work in synergy (along with K2). Here's an excerpt:

...However, their colleagues had previously noted marked differences in the infection rate of largely vegetarian African tribes versus their carnivorous counterparts. The following quote from Nutrition and Disease refers to two tribes which, by coincidence, Dr. Weston Price also described in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

"The high incidence of bronchitis, pneumonia, tropical ulcers and phthisis among the Kikuyu tribe who live on a diet mainly of cereals as compared with the low incidence of these diseases among their neighbours the Masai who live on meat, milk and raw blood (Orr and Gilks), probably has a similar or related nutritional explanation. The differences in distribution of infective disease found by these workers in the two tribes are most impressive. Thus in the cereal-eating tribe, bronchitis and pneumonia accounted for 31 per cent of all cases of sickness, tropical ulcers for 33 per cent, and phthisis for 6 per cent. The corresponding figures for the meat, milk and raw blood tribe were 4 per cent, 3 per cent and 1 per cent."

So they set out to test the theory under controlled conditions. Their first target: puerperal sepsis. This is an infection of the uterus that occurs after childbirth. They divided 550 women into two groups: one received vitamins A and D during the last month of pregnancy, and the other received nothing. Neither group was given instructions to change diet, and neither group was given vitamins during their hospital stay. The result, quoted from Nutrition and Disease:

"The morbidity rate in the puerperium using the [British Medical Association] standard was 1.1 per cent in the vitamin group and 4.7 in the control group, a difference of 3.6 per cent which is twice the standard error (1.4), and therefore statistically significant."

This experiment didn't differentiate between the effects of vitamin A and D, but it did establish that fat-soluble vitamins are important for resistance to bacterial infection.

So, there appears to be a dietary factor as well, which should make perfect sense, since we evolved over millions of years outdoors, at latitudes appropriate to our skin's ability to produce vitamin D, and we ate real foods—not nutritionally bankrupt serial grains and all the processed crap they make from them now.

Just one more thing. How about cancer? While I looked but could find no references for cancer rates in the Masai, I do have some epidemiology for various cancers by vitamin D levels as well as latitude.

It's from this very long and complex presentation: Dose-Response of Vitamin D and a Mechanism for Prevention of Cancer (PDF). Cedric F. Garland, Dr.P.H., F.A.C.E., Edward D. Gorham, M.P.H., Ph.D., Sharif B. Mohr, M.P.H., and Frank C. Garland, Ph.D., Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
UCSD School of Medicine and Moores UCSD Cancer Center, December 2, 2008.

This first slide is a plot of renal cancer rates in males (left) and females (right).

What do you make of that? Can anyone think of anything that might explain it better, with less assumptions (Occam's Razor style) than vitamin D?

Dose-response relationships from cohort studies were used to estimate the number and percent of cancer cases that could be prevented worldwide by vitamin D3 supplementation:

Basically, what this estimates is that keeping your level of 25(OH) above 50 ng/ml dramatically reduces your risk of cancer.

And so now, given the above, I see no reason anyone should not be setting about to ensure it. And eat real food while you're at it and better your chances even more.

Here's the list of cohort studies that were used in that last graph:

• Gorham ED, et al. Am J Prev Med. 2007;32:210-6.
• Garland CF, et al. Am Assoc Ca Res Mtg San Diego April 14, 2008
• Li H, et al. PLoS Med. 2007;4:103.
• Tworoger SS, et al. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2007;16:783-8.
• Mohr SB, et al. Prev Med. 2007;45:323-4.
• Mohr SB, et al. Int J Cancer. 2006;119:2705-9.
• Purdue MP, et al. Cancer Causes Control. 2007;18:989-99.
• Lappe JM, et al. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;85:1586-91.

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And then, that asshole Patrick ordered a dozen oysters on the half shell and being the hog I am, I downed four of them. And within an hour or less, already having ordered and received my grassfed filet, I had them box it for me. I excused myself from the table, went out, found a secluded flower pot, and did exactly what my dogs do when they don't feel quite right.

The difference is, I didn't return to it.

I have no idea what the human reluctance to vomit is all about. When you feel like you need to blow chunks, fucking blow chunks! And guess what? You'll feel immeasurably better almost instantly. Why do you insist on putting your will to not be embarrassed, beyond your physiological nature?

And guess what else? Why not trust your inner animal? It's telling you that something is very fucking wrong. Why try to overcome that physical urge with a potentially lifesaving natural physical response. You can actually die from a bad enough dose of bad shit. Really. It's happened. And for the sake of saving face, you're going to feel like crap for hours, suck it up, and take the risk? Not me.

Flower pot. Yea, there were oyster chunks in that shit.

I got this email earlier that motivated me to this post, and I'd intended on taking a post break for today.

I’m really enjoying your blog and looking forward to your forum starting up. In the meantime, I have a question regarding a recent experience of mine. I was the unfortunate victim of food poisoning earlier this week, and was wondering what I could have done to recover from it. I’m familiar with the BRAT diet, and realize that half of that formula isn’t Paleo friendly. So what kind of diet is recommended for a stomach that’s recovering from some kind of insult? I ended up eating bananas and applesauce, but wondered what else I could have eaten to help me recover.

Here's how I replied:

I do just like a typical animal does, even my dogs. At the slightest hint of a problem, I stop eating until I feel better. You don't eat anything; you rather, divert all resources to healing. Your body already has all it needs. Yes, you may deplete certain nutrients somewhat, but if you eat nutritionally dense you'll quickly fill them again when you are hungry and feel good, at which point you eat.

Once again, it's always about "what do I eat": to cleanse, to lose weight, to recover from illness.

How about: Try Nothing.

I hadn't eaten much yesterday and after that experience, had no desire of food until about 11AM. Anticipating this, I had set my filet out all morning to get up to room temp. I fired and basted two sunny eggs in butter, set them aside and re-seared my $32 untouched filet in the same butter. It was all awesome.

...The coolest place I ever emptied a stomach was on the island of Diego Garcia in the dead middle of the Indian Ocean—about 2 deg south of the equator, if I recall correctly. We'd been 60 days at sea, we arranged for an officer's kinda dinner ball with gold cummerbunds & all—or crumb catchers, as you prefer—and we went to town.

I think I lost it the most when Erik, a fellow officer friend of mine, got up and toasted to true manly character, defined as whether or not you get out of the shower to pee.

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There's really two, maybe three ways to approach this whole deal. As in my post of yesterday regarding the health & longevity spectrum, one approach is to simply eat a good amount of real food, even if unaware of what the bad stuff is. The other, most notably my friend Dr. Kurt Harris' approach, is to be primarily proscriptive; i.e., cut out the neolithic agents of disease (NAD: flour, sugar, vegetable oils). The second approach is obviously superior because it gets you to the first approach anyway, and with more knowledge.

A third approach, however, might be to go with the second, above, but combined with really zeroing in on high nutritional density—focussing on it. This is what I'm gravitating toward. In that endeavor, both Dr. Stephan Guyenet and Ad. (almost doctor) Chris Masterjohn have always been my go-to guys. Over years of reading their stuff, one thing always seems to ring important: nutritional density.

...And it was via both of them that I first became enamored of the nutrient which is the subject of this post. It was June of 2008, when Stephan did his first post on the subject. That led me to Chris Masterjohn's very extensive article on it from February of the same year.

I'm an integrator, a synthesizer...rather than doing anything really original. I hate jigsaw puzzles, but seem to like connecting dots...and all these dots just seemed to fall into place.

At this point, I'm just going to point you to the number of posts I've done on Vitamin K2 that seem to signal that it's somewhat of a "miracle" nutrient. But not really. I don't buy into any of the "superfood" crap, really—unless maybe you're talking beef liver, oysters, mussels, fish roe, etc...and who does that? In point of fact, it's not a miracle at all but rather, something that was relatively plentiful in ancestral diets and is almost absent now—with the possible exception of those of the low-fat paradigm who "cheat" on good cheese.

So rather, let me tell a story.

To preface it, I must mention a dentist of the early 20th century, Weston A. Price, who had a clever idea. Rather than try to find out directly why he had teenager patients with rotted teeth to the tune of 1 in 3, and whom he was fitting for dentures—not to mention the corrective orthodontic work that often needed doing—he set out to find out if there were populations without either of those problems (rotten teeth and crowded teeth).

He found it in spades. You can read all about it for free with lots of photos, courtesy of Project Gutenberg: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, published in 1939, I believe. Over about 10 years in the 1920s and 30s, he and his wife travelled the world to seek out primitive populations that were out of normal contact and trade with the modern world. That is, they lived by their own means. He found what I consider to be three very important things: almost no dental cavities (about 1 tooth in 1,000 vs. 1 in 3 in the modern world), wide dental bridges (no need for "braces"), and near effortless childbirth (wide birth canals in females). To round things out, he came home and used what he found to correct tooth decay in his patients. That is, he got cavities to remineralize.

Now we're talkin' minerals, the unifying, connect-the-dots theme!

It was in the mid and late 90's when I began to have regular appointments with the dentist and his hygienist. They referred me to a periodontist, a surgeon who specializes in gum issues. Seems I had some "deep pockets," as they call them, towards the back of my molars where cleanings could not get to. (I had both corrective orthodontics—"braces"—as a kid, and had my "wisdom" teeth pulled in college—and loved the "percs".)

...Never did I stop to wonder how animals in the wild can possibly manage...without regular brushing, flossing, cleanings and...dental surgery.

Because I was still struggling along in business, several years away from hitting a stride, I just opted for the cleanings every three months over the surgery that would set me back a few thousand. I had no insurance, and wasn't interested in having any of you—or anyone else—pay my way. ...I'm so fucking weird about that shit...

In 2001, with things looking up, I went for the dental surgery—two of them...one side top & bottom, then the other. It helped. While I still had to use the numbing mouthwash before each cleaning, it was more effective in those deep pocket areas that used to catapult me to the ceiling in pain when the hygienist would probe them with her sharp poker. This went on for years. The surgery was like a reset button. OK, now 3 cleanings per year, and while things are back to reasonable, it's still only a progression until such time that surgery is required again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And then in 2008 everything changed. I attribute it to both the better Paleo diet, but also the micronutrient; again, the subject of the post.

I initially went with Green Pastures Butter Oil capsules, and that was remarkable. After a couple of rounds, I went on the cheap and got the synthetic drops from Thorne. Didn't notice much difference either way and so later, I began with the K2 Complex from Life Extension Foundation—that I remained on up until a few months ago. The small gel caps were convenient. But the thing is, some of the luster went out of the whole experience. I seemed to still get calculus buildup on my teeth and they felt "rough" in a number of places. It's especially severe on the inside of the lower front teeth. I would at times stick a wooden toothpick through there and important chunks of mineralized deposits would break off.

I still had cleanings; and while things were actually improving rather than getting worse, there was really nothing to write home about. But still, I haven't had a cleaning in at least over a year. It may be approaching 2 years...and the dentist office has stopped calling to schedule.

I was kind of getting to the point of forgetting about the whole problem, comfortable in the knowledge that things weren't optimal, but at least not totally out of hand, as they were before.

But a few months ago, I ordered the original butter oil from Green Pastures—Price's original formulation. I noticed some improvement over the first several days, much like I recall from the beginning. It's in the smoothness of your teeth, particularly upon waking in the morning. And I thought...huh...why not go the distance? So, when my first two bottles ran out and I re-ordered again, this time I also got the fermented cod liver oil caps. Two caps per day of each and the measurable results have been nothing short of phenomenal.

Gobsmacking phenomenal!

But shit-hell all over the place...it goes to all that bullshit on the Internet, does't it? Yea, some berry from the rain forrest that 99% of the evolved people on Planet Earth never ate is some "superfood" you just can't do without. Well, guess what? The nutrient I've been talking about is relatively prevalent in all natural diets—so long as you eat the whole thing. At the equator. At the arctic. At sea level. At 16,000 feet. And everyplace in between. Just eat the whole animal.

...Or, as a modern person like me, find ways to supplement when you aren't regularly chowing down on bone marrow, organs, fish eggs and the like.

So to conclude the story, here I sit, about 10 years after having gum surgery with before and after experiences of several major teeth cleanings per year and I really don't even find a need to brush my teeth. I can literally go days and my teeth remain as though they were pearls in an oyster shell and my tongue is the flesh that explores them. And my gums have not the slightest hint of inflammation, swelling, or anything of the sort. It is remarkable.

Whatever.

Aside from the weight loss via Paleo that got me started on this track in the first place: this, of all things, has been the most remarkably significant and easy to verify aspect of the whole deal. ...And while supplementing vitamin D has also seemed to have a big impact, I don't really have concrete results I can point too. Yea, Beatrice and I rarely, if ever, get sick anymore, and I seem to be able to kill a cold in a day or two by upping the D sups, but it's simply not so much of a concrete and profound result confounded by variables and randomness as has been the K2, given my history of teeth and gum issues.

Update: 2 things. First, someone mentioned in comments about bleeding gums, especially during brushing. Yes, that too. I always used to bleed when brushing and haven't done so a single time in years, now.

Second, someone wanted the product links to what I use. I didn't put them in there originally because I didn't want people to assume I had any affiliate relationship. I don't. I use the capsule form of these: butter oil, and fermented cod liver oil.

Update 2: This just in, a pretty good TEEVEE video on K2, though it doesn't make any distinction between subforms. But listen for the theme, about K2 being the thing that causes calcium to go where it should (bones & teeth) and not where it shouldn't (soft tissues like coronary arteries). Been saying it since 2008.

I blogged about this book back here.

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...Have you considered looking at or writing about why you pursue what you do in regards to diet, exercise, and health?

For me I consider it a triple point optimization: I want to feel great, I want to perform well, and I want to live a long time. If I have any bias amongst the three, it’s for performance. I enjoy competing physically.

So, would you trade performance (let’s lump sports and sex together) for longevity or vice versa? Healthy, active sex life until 78 at which point you drop dead, or sex until 70, and then just kinda hanging around till 85?

There are many points at which all three points benefit from the same choice. Take hydrogenated oil as an example. Eliminating it will result in longer life, better performance, and better health. But what happens when you’ve taken all the low hanging fruit and what’s left is to either just take what you’re getting, or specifically choose options that will favor one value over another.

Obviously you see where my head is these days. I’m your junior by many years at 44, but I do wonder how a triple point optimization like this resonates with you. And if it does, what are your biases?

It's an interesting set of interconnected questions. I don't have any sure answers and even if I did, who's to say my priorities—and hence answers to the questions—don't change over time? I turn 51 on Sunday. My dad turned 74 this last Saturday. ...He's spent the last 10 days doing the painting cost estimate for the new San Francisco 49ers Stadium in Santa Clara, and tells me he probably has another 9 or 10 days to go. He keeps active and working, and he has to meticulously go over complex, large project blueprints and specifications (he can bid painting on any project, no matter size & scope, and has been for 40 years). ...Don't get him started an architects who use boilerplate specs. Especially after a couple of drinks around a campfire...

Considering these questions requires in some sense, at least to me, taking a look back at my ancestry. I had the rare privilege of growing up not only with 4 grandparents alive until well into my 30s, but having all of them living in the same city: Reno, NV. And I even had a great grandmother who didn't die until I was 28! Yea...Depression era...she left home with a guy, and got knocked up young with my grandmother (14 yrs old, if I recall). Of course, in these days today, my great grandfather—whom I never knew—would have been a "molester" felon serving a prison sentence. ...And how might that have effected lives & legacies downstream?

But we're so "progressive."

At any rate, they were all lovers of life...good food, parties—and most were smokers and drinkers. My maternal grandfather and grandmother were avid fishermen, and deer & bird hunters. My childhood focussed substantially on hunting and fishing trips and often, just day trips...like to Pyramid Lake. And we lived right alongside the Truckee River where my grandfather taught me to tie my own flies and then use them to catch fish. I saw him many times catch dozens of trout on a summer afternoon after a long day in his on-site workshop where, as a lifelong artist—but needing to make a living—did most of the hand painted sign work for Reno's most prominent casinos. This was back when all the sign work was done by hand.

With the exception of my paternal grandfather—who used to tell me stories of how they, as German soldiers, would make fun of all the Hail Hitler saluting and genuflecting bullshit they had to do—all the other grandparents and the great grandmother were overweight. Not obese, just standard plump for old people in the 60s, 70s and then 80s.

And all five of them lived into their 80s. And for most, they lived pretty active lives until reasonably near the end. (Side note: one of my dad's grandmothers whom I never met, lived to 96, in Germany). The great grandmother had dementia of a sort not diagnosed, but this happened after she was 80, and she made it to 85.

Not a single one of them darkened the door of a gym their whole lives. Three of them smoked until they died, my paternal grandmother quit early on and my maternal grandfather quit in his mid-60s, but was the first of all of them to die, of leukemia.

And so, what am I to make of all of this?

I'll tell you what, and it's the very most important thing: they all loved good real food. They all knew how to source and prepare their own food, did so daily, and some of them hunted & fished it. I don't have a single recollected image of any of them eating a fast food meal, though I'm sure it happened. Yea, and in particular, my maternal grandmother, she had typical crap in a box around...but they were of a different culture in that, you simply didn't sit down and go through a bag of chips  or crackers.

I think that the eating of real quality food is absolutely the most important thing you can do—especially if you eat crap sometimes.

No matter what else you do in terms of indulgences, addictions, or anything else, make sure to get plenty of high quality, nutrient dense food regularly. Then, feel free to up your game, as many of us do around here.

None of this answers Bill's questions, of course, but it does give you something to consider when figuring out that's going to work for you.

For example, what if you just hate everything about the gym? There's nothing you try that you like. Let's say that going to the gym and doing the prescribed intense exercises gives you five extra years of life. But if you hate it, are those estimated extra years worth 40, 50, 60 years in the gym 2-3 times per week...doing something you hate?

That's an analogy for the essence of the tradeoff. It means you have to really think about what your values are and determine a sensible way to pursue them.

In some sense, I just wonder if optimality is rather a fools chase, ending up in diminished returns because you did a lot of stuff you didn't really enjoy, ending up diminishing you're life with not much, little or less to show for it.

But eating a lot of good real food? If you don't want that, then you're dysfunctional and so who cares? But if you do, then the other things might not be so important as you might believe.

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It's exactly what I thought first, when I saw Charles Barkley doing the "Lose Like a Man" campaign for Weight Watchers and then today, I see Terry Bradsaw in there for Nutrisystem.

C'mon Man!

Let's review, men: Meat. Fish. Fowl. Vegetables. Fruits. Cook. Hunt it if you like. Eat like a man, man. C'mon!

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But first, thanks so much to the hundreds of you who've popped for it, with zero refunds (just confirmed by the publisher). I'm in this for the long haul, which means: I want there to be something out there that's inexpensive, quick, easy to read and gets that random person motivated and excited to begin right now...Today: you can be on your way to a better life inside of 3 hours or so!

I got an email from the totally awesome Denise Minger yesterday.

...Opened your book with the intention of "taking a peek"... and a few later I'm at the last page barely aware that any time had passed.

THAT is the mark of a good book.

Comprehensive, engaging, and fabulously written. When I get emails from people asking for the best health resources, this puppy is now on the list.

Truly awesome job, Richard. You should be really proud of this. Let me know if I can do anything to help spread the word.

It was almost embarrassing to read, given the exhaustive nature of what that cute little smarty pants does. Red-faced & happy, I guess you could say. Relieved, too.

Of course, there was a risk in disappointing the long time readers with what might be perceived as a review of lots of info they already know. Thankfully, that's not what I'm hearing. in addition to the many positive tweets and Facebook comments—and comments on the blog—the Amazon reviews at the time of this writing are still batting 1,000.

Raf Laurent just posted a question/comment on the FTA Facebook page:

Rich I'm a huge fan and I'm curious what makes your book different???

That'll be answered in the Amazon reviews I'm going to copy into this post right now. So here they are, 10 so far, all 5-star.

Betsy in Portland, Or:

Richard Nikoley came to Paleo as an already-established entrepreneur, whipsmart independent thinker, and no-holds-barred individualist.

And he brings all of those characteristics (regularly visible on the Free the Animal blog he created to talk about his paleolithic journey) to this book, distilled from both popular posts on his site and augmented by pointers to other sources, resources and leading ancestral thinkers.

It's the book I wish I would have had last April, when I came to Paleo as an obese 40-something woman flirting with type 2 diabetes and recently diagnosed with high blood pressure & metabolic syndrome. (And after dragging myself, kicking & screaming to the paleo side of the fence - what, no baking bread any more? AIIIEEE? - I've rid myself of all of the labels, significantly lowered my blood pressure & lost 42 lbs in 8 months.)

Richard's no-nonsense style and ability to reference compelling facts (without bombarding you with statistical analyses & charts up the yin-yang to make his point) just makes sense. And since an average reader can blast through it in an evening & the book costs less than an overpriced fancy-schmancy coffee drink? There's no real excuse to avoid buying this book.

If you, too, like to think of yourself as a smart, independent thinker and *your* health and well-being matter to you, that is.

Maria from Planet Earth (I'm assuming):

I love the way Richard tells a story, in a matter of fact way, to the point you feel like you're talking to the guy at a pub or coffee house. Very intimate and friendly read about his journey from an unhealthy lifestyle to the Paleo lifestyle. (There are plenty of links for the research enthusiasts.)

When you finish the book, you long for a second... so that you can revisit that pub with Richard and have another fascinating discussion about living life to its fullest.

Read it and enjoy!

Primal Pig, also, from Planet Earth—and that needs no assuming:

I've been paleo-ish for about two years now, and wish I had this easy to read, no flub e-book from the beginning. Not that I don't appreciate the longer round about journey I took to get to where I am now, but Richard's Free the Animal hits it right on the head. He digests a lot of the very compelling data out there from Paleo/Primal resources all over and makes it so straightforward that it's hard to fail.

Just eat REAL food - meat, veggies, fats, eggs, nuts and occasional fruit; no processed grains (and even whole grains are just that - processed), seed/grain oils or sugar. But Richard also puts special emphasis on humans as ANIMALS, instinctively eating when and what their bodies need in order to stay vibrant, lean and alert.

You'll possibly want to flesh out your knowledge afterwards with a few books from Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson or Loren Cordain if you feel the need to intellectualize it to your peers, but this book gives you all you need to get back on to the healthy path we've been carving out for hundreds of millions of years.

And lastly, I love that Richard went the e-book route as it makes it so accessible as well as empowers most readers to instantly validate his resources... a steal @ $3.99!

Darren Reed:

Simple, practical, no holds barred paleo for those who like to eat big, lift heavy, be lean and live well. Richard knows his stuff and his easy to understand, no holds barred writing style is a joy to read. Like a fine single malt whisky, this is paleo eating and living distilled perfectly down to its essence. Must have.

J. Jones "Bones" from Arizona:

For those that aren't interested in delving into the medical mumbo jumbo of some of the other Paleo books, Richard does a great job of getting to the meat of issues and ignoring the fluff. If you are a fan of his blog, this book is a must read. If you're just starting to research and read about the Paleo diet, add this to your list and think about reading it first so you can get all the basics (and nothing that isn't needed).

John Cole:

Using the ideas and advice found in Richard's book, I have lost seventy pounds and no longer have to take blood pressure or cholesterol medications.

I have never felt better physically or psychologically. Physically I can eat "real foods" until I'm full- I NEVER go hungry. Psychologically, I feel confident in the idea that my weight troubles now make sense: eating "processed" foods, developing insulin resistance from a diet high in refined sugars, and believing the myth that all fats are created equal and, therefore, inherently evil.

Richard's book focuses a great deal on listening to your body and experimenting with real foods and how you respond to them. For example, I can tolerate dairy with little trouble while others struggle with digesting them. In the end, Richard stresses listening to your body and following the basic principles of eating real food.

No diet is for everyone, but I recommend taking a look at the ideas found in this book. It has changed my life for the better and for that I am eternally grateful.

Will:

I've recently read Wolf's Paleo Solution and Nikoley's Free the Animal. I think they are exact compliments. Wolf - TONS of info to justify nearly every assertion in the work. Important and helpful for a certain crowd. Nikoley - well, concision is the word. Short, sweet, to the point. Exactly what a bunch of people need, who aren't looking to know all the medical ins and outs, but simply want the goods on "how to." I'd recommend this book in a heart-beat as a first-rate intro to a Primal/Paleo way of eating. Not quite the "colorful" language you get on his blog, but if you read him much you can sort of fill in the expected... Read it - you'll be glad you did!

Robert Rio from Florida:

For me the chief benefit of Paleo has come from preparing my own meals instead of just heating processed food in the microwave. That by itself has made a tremendous difference in my life.

Cooking was a totally alien, incomprehensible practice to me until fairly recently. I learned a lot of what I know about cooking from Richard, he de-mystifies it and explains it in terms that the cooking-challenged can understand and replicate in the real world. He doesn't present recipes written by professional chefs and leave it at that, he presents his dinner and explains how you can make it yourself.

twoidhd from Oklahoma:

I've been following Richard for a couple of years and this is a great starter book if you are interested in the Paleo way of life. He covers it all in a short, direct, and thorough way. It's all here....all you need to do is follow the ideas laid out in this book.

Good luck with your journey.

It's worked for me. I've lost 100lbs since going Paleo and have never been in better shape in my adult life.

And finally, Jimmy Moore who was the very first up with a review, which is cross-posted to both his blog and Amazon. It's longish, so go to his blog to read it. Here's the first paragraph.

I have been a BIG FAN of the writings and work of Paleo health blogger Richard Nikoley from the insanely-popular “Free The Animal” blog for several years and consider him a great friend and champion of what healthy living is really all about. His no-holds-barred style is in-your-face and unapologetic as he seeks to help others find the health and weight changes that have eluded them for years. Sure, he can be a bit rough around the edges for some people with his colorful, expressive language. But it’s indicative of a sincere passion that runs deep and wide at the root of everything Nikoley shares with the Paleo community through his thought-provoking posts. With the highly-interactive e-book Free The Animal: Lose Weight & Fat With The Paleo Diet, he is taking the best of everything he has personally learned through this journey and wrapping it up in a convenient package designed to arm virtually anyone who desires weight loss and vastly improved health to make it happen for themselves. There are so many clickable links to a treasure trove of information included in this e-book that you’ll spend months trying to go through them all!

And dear Chris Highcock from Scotland, who has been an Internet friend from day one, also blogged about it.

And Erwan Le Corre of MovNat lent me a hand as well.

I thank you all, am humbled by the support, and in particular, the clever, individual ways you have found to send the message of what this is about.

I didn't write it for you, stalwart readers. I wrote it for the people you love the most.

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5. A Free the Animal 1st Book Update (IT’S DONE!)

Are you getting tired of me? I would certainly hope so if you've been at this Paleo thing for a while. C'mon. Get a life!

...The most interesting thing that happened today was that I had to get my ass out of bed earlier, go through the emails, walk the dogs & hit the road for the hour & a half drive to SF and Union Square to meet up with young Julian Smith at the Daily Gill for breakfast: already an NYT best-selling author in his 20s...part way through his second book and beginning work on his third.

I seek out intelligence. I seek out perceptiveness. I seek out people who take almost nothing for granted and realize they have one tiny little life shot...to make of it the best they can. And Julien typifies this attitude. And he's young. And I don't think he's alone.

He's not alone by any means. And do you know what? Fuck history. Yea. Fuck History! The future is immeasurably more important, and the future is so easy to find. You can have good coffee, eggs, & bacon with the future. Just sit down and talk about very serious shit with an intelligent, informed, perceptive 20-something, sometime. Whether you like it or not, you're talking to the future.

OK, go grab a history book if you like, get out the Ouija Board, and make your profecies of how we're doomed to repeat it. Or, or, and or again...just go talk to the future. Persuade the future. Educate the future. See what the future really has in mind. Cram an insight or two down its throat if you can. Or, learn new insights and perspectives. Or do both. Focus on the future and its running around, all around you. Do young people in general irritate and annoy you? Then so does the future. What are you doing about that? Citing history?

One thing's for sure: that rocket sled is leaving the station. Boarding is free. Its path and destination are unsure. History, by contrast, is sure: set in the concrete and stone of interpretation. But, it's...history. Get it?

Alright, let me give a passing, glancing nod to history: most of these bright 20-somethings will eventually be corrupted. They'll be corrupted, largely, by the very same or similar things that corrupted us...motivating us to live for "ideals" that were not our own. We didn't became news junkies and voting booth whores because that's the life we wanted. All that worthless bullshit just became the next lottery ticket sold to typical fools in a life largely abandoned.

The lottery comes out weekly for a reason.

...I returned a few calls on the drive up, and one was to a longtime business mentor of mine. In 1992, with about $250 to my name, two failed entrepreneurial endeavors in the category of "history"—as well as $50,000 of savings in the same category—and rent due soon, I risked $89 on his book on how to renegotiate and settle trade debt for troubled companies. I got the book on a Thursday or Friday, and on Monday afternoon, got my first client. I proceeded to make about $250,000 in my bedroom that first year...with the help of my mom, who was looking for a way out of doing day care. I subsequently built it into a company with 30 employees, a few office locations and over $3 million annual revenues.

In the early initial run up to that, "Bud" offered private consultations beyond the book. I availed myself of them from time-to-time, at a discount from his $250/hr consultation rate. Bud also put together a few conferences and I went to those, featured among a few others as success stories—and who, like them, could not so much as take a piss in the men's room without questions from those clamoring for some measure of success.

Bud & I eventually became good friends; but when we talked, it was almost never about the "business," but about other ideas and most of all, about great wine, food, and living life. Bud's originally a Louisiana Cajun who loves life and all the good things that go with it.

So, I didn't need Bud anymore for this business. But it never meant we were not going to be lifelong friends and confidants.

...Many years later, I learned something along the way, which is that you can learn something from any animal, even animal animals. Thinking back, in early 2007, I began to get hints of this whole Paleo thing from putting my dogs on a more evolutionarily appropriate diet and observing their changing body compositions and hunger/satiation. ...But now that my dear sweet Rotor-man just turned 13, his age is beginning to show and now, he has nothing more to teach me. It's now to me to apply the principles I learned to nurture him for his last few years.

...There's a bit of a tendency for people who've been at this a while to think that Paleo has "jumped the shark," when in all probability, it hasn't even begun. In the words of Robb Wolf:

It's like this shit really works!

And this is why that most will—and even should—get fucking bored and tired with me and move on.

What, have I ever even implied that you need me for the "next big thing?" ...Yea and Right, I've been keeping it under wraps, doing self experiments...and any day now, am going to release the 4-Hour Paleo? And then the 4-Hour Paleo Kitchen, followed by the 4-Hour Paleo Bedroom, then the 4-Hour Paleo X? Etc? ...All the while, growing my enormous cadre of sycophants?

Look. I'd love to have Tim's money, influence, independence and so on. But the very last thing in the world I want is dependents.

Two dogs are plenty and a wife is enough.

It comes and it goes. My only objective is to keep the coming rate slightly above the going rate.

But when it's time to go, go! Pop in from time to time and let me know how it's going.

In the meantime, I plan to be here to help and assist the next wave of fat asses you see around you.

My market is in minds and fat asses. I simply want the smart fat asses for the two or three years it takes to fix the fat ass and make the mind even better. And those who can't seem to get to the point where they can begin to figure this out on their own, well...

There's blogs for that.

But this insn't really one of them.

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5. My Free the Animal Book, Repartee

The developers are now working to install and configure. I'll be using the bbPress platform for its clean and streamlined pizzaz. One of the big reasons I hardly use forums is for all the clutter bullshit.

I also have designers coming up with a cool banner & logo. I'll keep the concept for that under wraps until it's done.

Now this is going to disappoint some, perhaps a lot...and some will accuse me of scandalous behavior for having the audacity to actually charge money for anything I spend hours upon hours on...but this is going to be a premium service. It's not going to hurt the blog, which will always be completely free and open; but in fact, will actually improve the blog—as that will be the chief means of attracting new paid subscribers to the forum in measured doses.

First of all, feedback for the idea was almost unanimously positive. At the time I popped off the post with the idea, it was off the cuff and I hadn't even considered making it a premium service. When feedback seemed positive, I went out checking around, getting advice. And then I kept running into the same realization: the true quality forums are paid subscriptions. It's a place where the truly serious can go to commune and communicate free of spam, marketing innuendo, trolls, aggressive harassment and the list goes on.

What'll it cost? $50.01 per year. Not $49.95, $49.99, or any silly bullshit like that. $50.01. And yes, though I haven't worked out details, there will be opportunities for free trials, a refund policy, et cetera, et cetera. And I'll be giving away memberships for the price of jumping through a hoop or two.

Rather than thinking of it as a forum, I prefer to think of it as a club, a pub, or what have you. Serious on the one hand, fun and lively on the other. I plan to choose the top level forum topics wisely and I welcome all suggestions as such. Needless to say, there will be zero moderation.

...So now to drop the other shoe.

For some time I have wanted to host a weekly live video broadcast using VOKLE. The problem is, frankly, it's too much work to do for free, at least for me. The other problem is that it's a bit like the blog comments in that they are primarily directed at me, author of 99.9% of the posts. I wasn't convinced enough people would pay for it. But forums are different as I've come to realize. You create the topics, and then replies are directed primarily at you. You get to be a "blogger" on my blog.

But as part of The Animal Club, having a live video show with only club members fielding questions, having co-hosts and special guests...perhaps it becomes workable and viable. We'll see.

While this is geared toward the role of the host or producer, it's a good short demo of how this works to take both live video questions and live text questions from the viewing audience. It's 34 seconds so everyone has to watch it. That's the rule: under a minute and everyone has to watch.

Here's a description of the various features.

So, yea, I plan to have co-hosts from the membership—maybe even members as exclusive hosts, sometimes. And I plan to bring in special guests, perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the shows. It'll have some sort of format, like a monologue in the beginning, otherwise known as BULLSHIT!.

To gear up for this aspect of the Club, I'm going to do a minimum of two shows open to all. The first one will stream live next week, and another the week after. I'll try to have a co-host for one, and a special guest for the other. You all know how forums work, but do you know live video shows?

So there you have it. More info as it develops and I'll try to do some real blogging as well.

And BTW, book sales are going very well. Thank you all so much. Feedback has been almost uniformly positive. Amazon Reviews are solid 5-star, so far, and I would love to have more reviews—even if that's not the rating you would give it. For the many of yooz still waiting for it to show up on the non-US Amazon sites, all the settings have been verified as correct, so it's only a matter of time. I apologize for the delay.

Onward. To Bigger and Better.

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It was an epic day, much like we've been having regularly, with temps into the low 70s even—in mid January. I've sunbathed in the backyard a couple of times.

The Wife Unit

There were lots of people out. Don't think it was nearly 70 on this day, and there was a breeze and bit of chill factor. Father down the beach, kids were surfing. All but two had wet suits on. But two of them had but only board shorts and bare skin.

I thought of my many experiments in the gym I used to go to with the cold plunge and sitting neck deep in 40 degree water for up to 15 minutes. I doubt these two kids were as focussed on the cold as I was. They were actively engaged.

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