Announcement Ray Peat Cultists & Cries of Authoritarianism

[honey]

Nick is right that Ray made recommendations to drink 1/2 gallon of milk and a quart of OJ daily. He said to drink low fat milk if you were having trouble with weight. He recommended cottage cheese over hard cheese. He said to avoid all PUFA and to have an oyster and some liver weekly. He didn't recommend supplements except thyroid and maybe progesterone. He recommended drinking the water vegetables were cooked in, but not the vegetables themselves. He said the water potatoes were cooked in after shredding them was high in protein and good to drink. He said to avoid starch because it might possible cross the intestinal barrier and get lodged in capillaries or the brain. He said to use gelatinous broth to add glycine to meals with muscle meat. He recommended juice over actual fruit because he wasn't in favor of the fiber that would feed gut bacteria. As for the carrot salad he said not to overly chew the carrots because the shredded carrot would sweep estrogen from the intestines. It is possible this lower fiber diet with very little to chew was good for him if in fact his teeth were poor.

There are many people on here who say there isn't a Ray Peat diet. And many of them eat something entirely different from Peat's recommendations but add in some milk and OJ but not in the quantities recommended.


I never heard him say this was a quick therapy diet. He did make personal recommendations to some people and I remember a girl he recommended eat starch and cooked vegetables.

But *who* is he recommending this to and for? For really sick people, for healthy people, for people who he's worked with, for people listening and reading his articles?

A quick search on this forum brings up dozens of posts mentioning the "quick therapy diet".

 

[honey]

How long have you been following Ray? You are pretty new to the forum. I've been here since the beginning and I don't agree with anything you just said.

Discovered Ray's website in Sept '22. Good for you, praise Lord Peat.

I really thought that this forum was a great place to discuss "alternative" health info and problem-solve, but it seems to be a circle jerk of people who like to think they are God's chosen ones because they found out that milk is good for you. Smh.

 

[InChristAlone]

Discovered Ray's website in Sept 22'. Good for you, praise Lord Peat.

I really thought that this forum was a great place to discuss "alternative" health info and problem-solve, but it seems to be a circle jerk of people who like to think they are God's chosen ones because they found out that milk is good for you. Smh.

Many of us are realizing we were led down the wrong path with the diet recommendations.

 

[Nick]

You're talking about the "quick therapy diet" he talks about. That's not a long-term diet, nor something that is recommended to everyone, and certainly not "The Ray Peat Diet". He talked about what foods, "diet" if you want to call it that, people should lean towards with their meal consumption but not some dogmatic "thou shall not eat ____" (except for larger amounts of PUFA) mentality that is so popular among people because they can't think for themselves. The word "diet" is loosely defined online and most of the time people aren't even talking about the same thing. If you want to call that gaslighting, more power to you.

I know the idea that there is no Ray Peat diet did not originate with you, so I am not accusing you personally of gaslighting. I do agree in a sense that a great many of Ray's ideas are useful ways to think about a great variety of personalized ways of eating and being. However, I feel like the "there is no Ray Peat diet" dogma that I've heard many times (I think Ray said it himself in so many words) seems like a way to weasel out of responsibility when things don't work.

Even looking beyond the OJ and milk recommendation there are a number of common features in the diets of most people that have implemented Ray's suggestions and ideas that may all tend to lead to a certain group of problems for some percent of people. The important thing to me is that the idea that there is no one Ray Peat diet shouldn't be allowed to obscure this observation. Beyond that it's maybe semantics.

 

[charlie]

Nick is right that Ray made recommendations to drink 1/2 gallon of milk and a quart of OJ daily.

You forgot the 4 ounces of liver a week.

 

[Izzybelle]

But *who* is he recommending this to and for? For really sick people, for healthy people, for people who he's worked with, for people listening and reading his articles?

A quick search on this forum brings up dozens of posts mentioning the "quick therapy diet".

Yes, I remember that he would mention it occasionally to people suffering from various ailments as a way to get things going again. I've been here from the beginning BTW. It seems to me that he would come up with recommendations as best he could **when asked**.. It's true there is no Ray Peat diet and it's not a cop out. People have consistently asked for one and called it that and he ended up making some recommendations based on what worked for him and his clients when he did nutritional consulting. Some people -- myself included -- took it too far for too long (me, it was listening to advice from a Facebook group mostly early on), gained weight but kept chugging milk and gorging on Haagen Daz, but now with some modifications I still adhere to Peat's principles having figured out what combination of things works better for me. He's mentioned high calcium from milk, cheese, or eggshell, eggs, fruit or juice, liver once a week, vitamin E once a week, shellfish once a week, etc., as a general rule to cover the basic nutritional requirements, but I've never seen anything he's formally written that even comes close to a 'Ray Peat diet'.

 

[Abmartich]

Yes, absolutely. It is pure fuel for the liver and detoxing. A lot of us are "detoxmaxing" and dextrose is a power bomb for the liver to increase throughput.

What do you think of maltodextrin?

 

[Nick]

He's mentioned high calcium from milk, cheese, or eggshell, eggs, fruit or juice, liver once a week, vitamin E once a week, shellfish once a week, etc., as a general rule to cover the basic nutritional requirements, but I've never seen anything he's formally written that even comes close to a 'Ray Peat diet'.

Whether or not there is a specific Ray Peat diet, the suggestions you listed taken together are enough to establish that almost anyone following this general dietary advice is going to end up with a diet that is pretty high in retinol. If this causes problems for people, which for many it has, I think it becomes fair to talk about this as a problem with Ray Peat's dietary advice. That doesn't invalidate all of the other advice he ever gave, it just casts some of it in a new light, for example the extreme calcium consumption was necessary to combat the damage caused by high retinoic acid being produced in the body becuase the body uses calcium to bind up free retinoids.

 

[honey]

I know the idea that there is no Ray Peat diet did not originate with you, so I am not accusing you personally of gaslighting. I do agree in a sense that a great many of Ray's ideas are useful ways to think about a great variety of personalized ways of eating and being. However, I feel like the "there is no Ray Peat diet" dogma that I've heard many times (I think Ray said it himself in so many words) seems like a way to weasel out of responsibility when things don't work.

Even looking beyond the OJ and milk recommendation there are a number of common features in the diets of most people that have implemented Ray's suggestions and ideas that may all tend to lead to a certain group of problems for some percent of people. The important thing to me is that the idea that there is no one Ray Peat diet shouldn't be allowed to obscure this observation. Beyond that it's maybe semantics.

He's not responsible for other peoples actions. Hate to say it but to blame him for people arbitrarily following his information, and not seeing results they thought they would, is really their own fault. They expect a man who studied biology and physiology, put some research online, and made some diet conclusions based on his research, to cure all of their problems, when he doesn't even know them. He was just a man, not God. Maybe their real problem is that they are following man and not following God.

And that's not to discount Ray's work, he was more brilliant than most of us. I'm all ears for someone who's put in the research and years that Ray has to come forward with this "miracle diet" everyone seems to be raving about on this forum now, since they obviously have surpassed Ray in these qualities and noticed that his guru status needs to be usurped in his passing.

 

[Izzybelle]

Whether or not there is a specific Ray Peat diet, the suggestions you listed taken together are enough to establish that almost anyone following this general dietary advice is going to end up with a diet that is pretty high in retinol. If this causes problems for people, which for many it has, I think it becomes fair to talk about this as a problem with Ray Peat's dietary advice. That doesn't invalidate all of the other advice he ever gave, it just casts some of it in a new light, for example the extreme calcium consumption was necessary to combat the damage caused by high retinoic acid being produced in the body becuase the body uses calcium to bind up free retinoids.

No doubt he believed in the importance of Vitamin A. Just curious, I see the 'toxic Vitamin A' thread has been around since 2018. Did anyone ever ask Peat to comment on it?

 

[InChristAlone]

No doubt he believed in the importance of Vitamin A. Just curious, I see the 'toxic Vitamin A' thread has been around since 2018. Did anyone ever ask Peat to comment on it?

Yeah he claims to have looked at Grant's book and he said he didn't see any evidence for his theory.

 

[Nick]

He's not responsible for other peoples actions. Hate to say it but to blame him for people arbitrarily following his information, and not seeing results they thought they would, is really their own fault. They expect a man who studied biology and physiology, put some research online, and made some diet conclusions based on his research, to cure all of their problems, when he doesn't even know them. He was just a man, not God. Maybe their real problem is that they are following man and not following God.

And that's not to discount Ray's work, he was more brilliant than most of us. I'm all ears for someone who's put in the research and years that Ray has to come forward with this "miracle diet" everyone seems to be raving about on this forum now, since they obviously have surpassed Ray in these qualities and noticed that his guru status needs to be usurped in his passing.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, although I do think he bears some responsibility for his recommendations. I really have no ill feelings towards Ray myself because I learned so many things from him that I think remain uncontested. I personally never followed many of his dietary recommendations, for example I never felt well without starch or with so much liquid food. But I implemented a variation of his general ideas and ended up with problems that I think, long term, are common consequences of many variations of Ray Peat inspired diets.

So my main point is that the idea of a Ray Peat diet has epistemological usefulness for talking about the downsides of some different ways of eating that all have certain aspects in common due to being based around Ray's dietary advice.

 

[Brian Douglas]

My goats don't eat grain, just hay and branches.

No house siding or trailer electrical wires?

 

[Izzybelle]

Well I'm older and had to recover from a lifetime of PUFA, undereating, overexercising, and too much stress, but 15 years into this style of eating and various supplements on and off and I still have all my teeth and my energy has been coming back and my muscle issues resolving after I finally figured out it was almost certainly thyroid-related. I have a Mexican street dog however that I adopted at 8 weeks who is now 7 years old who I've been feeding a Ray Peat style diet -- including liver once a week or so which she loves -- with the occasional dog food when I don't feel like cooking and she's always been very active and as healthy as a horse and showing no signs of slowing down. She gets lots of meat but the milk and liver doesn't seem to have harmed her, quite the contrary. This dog can climb trees and is extremely strong for her mid-size. A vet ran some blood tests a couple of years ago and everything looked good as well. I guess I'm just having a hard time believing that Vitamin A is not necessary at certain doses although I know like anything else hypervitaminosis can be a bad thing. I've always been skeptical about health fads and never followed any health guru and that's not what Ray was to me, and it took a long time for me to trust Ray's advice on many things, but ultimately I did and still do respect his advice. I don't really have any reason to question or change my diet at the moment but I wish you all the best with forging on your new path, but I will say the turnaround in people has been quite shocking and sudden but maybe I just haven't been reading the relevant threads where -- in my mind -- you have all been led astray.

 

[Nick]

Well I'm older and had to recover from a lifetime of PUFA, undereating, overexercising, and too much stress, but 15 years into this style of eating and various supplements on and off and I still have all my teeth and my energy has been coming back and my muscle issues resolving after I finally figured out it was almost certainly thyroid-related. I have a Mexican street dog however that I adopted at 8 weeks who is now 7 years old who I've been feeding a Ray Peat style diet -- including liver once a week or so which she loves -- with the occasional dog food when I don't feel like cooking and she's always been very active and as healthy as a horse and showing no signs of slowing down. She gets lots of meat but the milk and liver doesn't seem to have harmed her, quite the contrary. This dog can climb trees and is extremely strong for her mid-size. A vet ran some blood tests a couple of years ago and everything looked good as well. I guess I'm just having a hard time believing that Vitamin A is not necessary at certain doses although I know like anything else hypervitaminosis can be a bad thing. I've always been skeptical about health fads and never followed any health guru and that's not what Ray was to me, and it took a long time for me to trust Ray's advice on many things, but ultimately I did and still do respect his advice. I don't really have any reason to question or change my diet at the moment but I wish you all the best with forging on your new path, but I will say the turnaround in people has been quite shocking and sudden but maybe I just haven't been reading the relevant threads where -- in my mind -- you have all been led astray.

Most dog food (and cat food) is typically so high in retinol that a diet with some liver and milk and less dog food might actually be less retinol than a typical dog gets.

 

[akgrrrl]

@sunny I will get to that soon as I can. I have a tremendous workload at the moment but I have planned on doing a thread like that.

I also am interested in this. Would appreciate a tag if its in next 2 months. Trying to survive -29 degrees presently, Global Warming ya know

 

[Izzybelle]

Most dog food (and cat food) is typically so high in retinol that a diet with some liver and milk and less dog food might actually be less retinol than a typical dog gets.

I'm not aware of how much is dog food or why it would be high unless as a supplement. Basically everything I cook for my dog gets drenched in milk like a soup and she gets eggs and cheese on some days in addition. Oh, and butter and half and half sometimes. She's a bit spoiled.

 

[Nick]

I'm not aware of how much is dog food or why it would be high unless as a supplement. Basically everything I cook for my dog gets drenched in milk like a soup and she gets eggs and cheese on some days in addition.

Most dog and cat foods have so much retinol supplement and/or ground up liver added to them that the animals end up eating something in the order of magnitude of 100,000 IU/day

 

[InChristAlone]

He's not responsible for other peoples actions. Hate to say it but to blame him for people arbitrarily following his information, and not seeing results they thought they would, is really their own fault. They expect a man who studied biology and physiology, put some research online, and made some diet conclusions based on his research, to cure all of their problems, when he doesn't even know them. He was just a man, not God. Maybe their real problem is that they are following man and not following God.

And that's not to discount Ray's work, he was more brilliant than most of us. I'm all ears for someone who's put in the research and years that Ray has to come forward with this "miracle diet" everyone seems to be raving about on this forum now, since they obviously have surpassed Ray in these qualities and noticed that his guru status needs to be usurped in his passing.

It wasn't just research. He made recommendations all the time out in the open for all to read on his website I was just browsing through his article on diabetes and found a bunch:
"Even feeding enough sucrose to cause fat deposition in the liver can protect the liver from oxidative stress (Spolarics and Meyenhofer, 2000), possibly by mechanisms such as those involved in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease with saturated fats.

When we talk about increasing the metabolic rate, and the benefits it produces, we are comparing the rate of metabolism in the presence of thyroid, sugar, salt, and adequate protein to the "normal" diet, containing smaller amounts of those "stimulating" substances. It would be more accurate if we would speak of the suppressive nature of the habitual diet, in relation to the more optimal diet, which provides more energy for work and adaptation, while minimizing the toxic effects of free radicals.

Feeding animals a normal diet with the addition of Coca-Cola, or with a similar amount of sucrose, has been found to let them increase their calorie intake by 50% without increasing their weight gain (Bukowiecki, et al., 1983). Although plain sucrose can alleviate the metabolic suppression of an average diet, the effect of sugars in the diet is much more likely to be healthful in the long run when they are associated with an abundance of minerals, as in milk and fruit, which provide potassium and calcium and other protective nutrients.

Avoiding the starches such as cereals and beans, and using fruits as a major part of the diet helps to minimize the effects of the polyunsaturated fats.

Liver is another rich source of the B vitamins as well as the oily vitamins, but it can suppress thyroid function, so usually one meal a week is enough.

Drinking coffee seems to be very protective against developing diabetes. Chocolate is probably protective too..."

Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Diabetes was named for the excessive urination it causes, and for the sugar in the urine. It was called the sugar disease, and physicians were taught that sugar was the problem. Patients were ordered to avoid sweet foods, and in hospitals they were sometimes locked up to keep them from finding...

raypeat.com

I took all of this to heart very seriously for many years and was the sickest I've ever been in my life, I blamed breastfeeding two kids and lack of sleep and kept pouring in the sugary foods, coffee, chocolate, OJ, and milk thinking it was relieving my stress.

 

[charlie]

View: https://x.com/hmilowicz_/status/1752475142142210487?s=20