So... How do you actually make meals out of this food?

So I'm really keen to go full Peat mode and see if it does a better job of improving me than Matt Stone's idea did. (Matt Stone recommends eating shitloads of everything to increase your body temp... it didnt work. At all.)

But um... I'm looking at Danny Roddy's advice and Ray's advice and like, the foods they recommend sound good in theory but I'm struggling with the logistics of it.

As in, how do you actually make meals out of milk, cheese, orange juice and gelatin and eggs.

Say, for lunch... do I eat a piece of cheese then guzzle some orange juice? Do I eat some boiled eggs then guzzle milk?

I'm going to have a hard time getting enough calories on this diet, since a) the foods aren't very calorie dense and b) the foods are quite unpalatable and c) the foods don't GO together. They don't MIX well. Egg and cheese are the only things that combine well together.

I would have to drink so much orange juice and eat so much cheese and eggs to get my daily requirements.

Can you guys help me figure out the logistics? Like how to actually make tasty (or at least tolerable) meals out of Ray Peat's food recommendations?

Mega thanks.

Sugar is not palatable?

This "diet" is amazing for me because of the sugar and salt alone. My breakfast is the easiest, most satisfying breakfast I've ever had (about 2 pints of warm milk/gelatin and frozen blueberries/banana turned into a super purple smoothie).

In fact, that's the bulk of my diet - Warm milk made with homemade gelatin and sugar. I also like to make a lot of root vegetable soups (leeks, turnips, onions etc) which I salt to my own taste, mixing up my egg/liver and seafood dishes throughout the week (these are the meals that "slow me down" so I eat closer to evening time). I also make my own gelatin with kale and broccoli so my protein intake also supplements my mineral absorption (in theory anyway ^_^)

I'm not suggesting it's a miracle cure for me or anything, but it is extremely satisfying if you like sweet things and can tolerate dairy well.

Orange juice/fruit/cheese are more like condiments haha.

If you're a coffee fan you can also make it into a small meal with sugar/dairy/gelatin and coconut oil (personally it turns me into a durcel bunny drone so I try to limit it to 2-3 cups a day, but maybe you're different!)

About calories - I don't really count them, but there's 500 in a quart of milk alone and over 1 hundred in a cup of orange juice...don't be put off because it's mostly liquid. It's actually a great benefit in some ways, because it doesn't make you want to sit down like an overheated hippopotamus and digest for 2hrs after eating lunch. 1 quart of milk and 4 little cups of orange juice bring you to the 1k calorie mark alone...before adding in sugar (which probably falls in around the 1k daily mark too...)

Just experiment. That's the beauty of it. There is no "diet". It's just guidelines set by an expert and interpreted by those interested to suit their needs. The only thing I limit myself with is gluten because I treat it like a drug. Total abstinence

And don't forget ice cream !

I can see this being problematic if dairy is an issue, but hopefully some others can chime in with work arounds for that. Personally I'd appreciate it too. I love milk and cheese and ice cream, but having an alternative at hand is the key to success, right?

Gelatin is a great thickener adding protein at the same time. It's like the tofu of this diet - you can slip it in unnoticed the way vegans do that to their food with tofu. Also egg n cheese is a great base to create from. Seafood is yummy all jumbled up with some milk and Parmesan kinda bisque-like. But honestly, I can just drink OJ and milk all day...I have to be careful of that though because I can retain fluids if I overdo.

There is a recipes forum with a lot of good ideas. White rice with butter is OK unless starches are problematic. Shrimp cocktail is good. Cod and haddock are good main dishes. There are lots of ways of making potatoes.

For most people eating less traditional meals in favor of things like ice cream, milk, gelatin, fruit, etc, is easier, as you don't have to spend as much time cooking. If you have a love for cooking, then start getting creative with fish, meat, & potato recipes. If I get a good recipe from someone, I usually replace the fat with coconut or butter, keep my spice drawer closed and just use extra salt if need be, and replace the meat with beef or wild game, and replace fatty fish with low fat fish. Remove any ingredients that are known to mess with thyroid or estrogen, and you're good to go.

dairy & fruit go well together. Some European countries have been making meals out of the two for forever. Cheese with grapes, ricotta with cherries, etc.
When I know I might be low in calories, I usually add coconut cream to my orange & apple juices, and/or eat my milk with extra fat,protein, & sugar gelato style

Careful with the gelatin powder. I think a lot of people got fat on this diet due to the endotoxin in the gelatin powder. Gelatin from gelatinous cuts (shank, oxtail) is fine.

johns74 said:

the endotoxin in the gelatin powder

Click to expand...

I've seen references like that but never seen any specific information. Do you have a link or the like?

TIA

BingDing said:

johns74 said:

the endotoxin in the gelatin powder

Click to expand...

I've seen references like that but never seen any specific information. Do you have a link or the like?

TIA

Click to expand...

What part are you asking?

That endotoxin slows down metabolism? Google: endotoxin thyroid.

That gelatin powders production methods don't remove endotoxin from the product at this moment? See here:

Development of low endotoxin gelatin for regenerative medicine

If you have perfect health and a non-permeable gut, I think you would absorb less endotoxin.

im wondering what is special about a meal when you no longer need one? you become more flexible

and you don't GUZZLE anything, you drink it normally

The latter, thanks for the link. Is endotoxin in gelatin preparations used as tissue engineering material relevant to Great Lakes type gelatin that we eat? The abstract says it "may trigger fever, shock and a fall in blood pressure even in very minute quantities". It seems like the two are at far extremes of a continuum of endotoxin risk, in that the gut routinely handles quantities of endotoxins without fever, shock or a fall in blood pressure.

That study is enough for me to be careful with it. A huge number of people complain about the effects. But I'm no expert, the most I can do is link to that paper, and you will make your own conclusions.

But let me ask you something. If people could just make safe tissue engineering material by buying Great Lakes gelatin, and using it, why would they bother writing that paper?

johns74 said:

That study is enough for me to be careful with it. A huge number of people complain about the effects. But I'm no expert, the most I can do is link to that paper, and you will make your own conclusions.

But let me ask you something. If people could just make safe tissue engineering material by buying Great Lakes gelatin, and using it, why would they bother writing that paper?

Click to expand...

There is a big difference between eating gelatin as food, filtered through the gut, and using it more directly on the inside of the gut barrier. Most things we eat are safer filtered through the gut. Nobody has a gut free of endotoxin, though it can be reduced. I don't know if manufactured gelatine has a high enough level to pose any more risk than everything else we eat.

That doesn't mean anyone should eat the gelatin if it messes with them.

tara said:

There is a big difference between eating gelatin as food, filtered through the gut

Click to expand...

If you have leaky gut, the gut is no great filter, obviously. Once you absorb a little, what endotoxin does is it actually makes the gut more permeable. So then you absorb more. Which makes your gut even more permeable. And then you absorb more. And so on.

And if you eat it almost every day, you never give your gut a day to recover from endotoxin.

Very healthy people with non-permeable guts are probably more protected. By contrast, hypothyroid people tend to have gut disorders.

I know all about not being an expert, LOL. I struggle to understand much of this.

I didn't realize so many people have problems with GL. Now that I think about it, cowhide that sits around for months will certainly have a high bacteria level. And as I understand it, even the cell walls of dead bacteria are endotoxins. So, good advice.

Thanks for the help!

Edit for spelling.

BingDing said:

Now that I think about it, cowhide that sits around for months will certainly have a high bacteria level. And as I understand it, even the cell walls of dead bacterial are endotoxins.

Click to expand...

Right. And that paper claims that pig skin is unusually high in bacteria. So if papers are still being written about how to reduce endotoxin from gelatin powder, my guess is that the commercial products have a higher amount of endotoxin than your average food.

So while it's very convenient, I think it's good to at least pay attention that some symptom isn't getting worse when we introduce it.

And yes, even if you kill the bacteria, you still have endotoxin. You have to remove it to get rid of it.

I switched to glycine a while back because I didn't want some of the other amino acids in gelatin. And because I really didn't know what was in it. I haven't noticed any big change, but I do feel safer now.

johns74 said:

tara said:

There is a big difference between eating gelatin as food, filtered through the gut

Click to expand...

If you have leaky gut, the gut is no great filter, obviously. Once you absorb a little, what endotoxin does is it actually makes the gut more permeable. So then you absorb more. Which makes your gut even more permeable. And then you absorb more. And so on.

Click to expand...

I agree.

johns74 said:

And if you eat it almost every day, you never give your gut a day to recover from endotoxin.

Click to expand...

I would agree that if you have endotoxin in your gut everyday, and your gut is not robust, it makes it harder to recover. What I wonder is whether eating gelatin makes much difference to how much endotoxin I have in my gut. Unless I have a sterile gut, I will have endotoxin in there. Reducing foods that feed the bacteria, and eating carrot salad can reduce it. Antibiotics (including garlic) can reduce it a lot, but it's not recommended to use them all the time. If I ate 50g of commercial gelatin, would I increase my gut endotoxin concentration by 1%? 10%? 100%?

johns74 said:

Very healthy people with non-permeable guts are probably more protected. By contrast, hypothyroid people tend to have gut disorders.

Click to expand...

Yes.

BingDing said:

I switched to glycine a while back because I didn't want some of the other amino acids in gelatin. And because I really didn't know what was in it. I haven't noticed any big change, but I do feel safer now.

Click to expand...

I'm curious, what were you trying to avoid?

Arginine (precursor to NO) and glutamic acid (excitatory). I want to limit tryptophan but it seems that all the low tryptophan foods are really high in glutamic acid, and I already have pretty high glutamine levels.

BingDing said:

The latter, thanks for the link. Is endotoxin in gelatin preparations used as tissue engineering material relevant to Great Lakes type gelatin that we eat? The abstract says it "may trigger fever, shock and a fall in blood pressure even in very minute quantities". It seems like the two are at far extremes of a continuum of endotoxin risk, in that the gut routinely handles quantities of endotoxins without fever, shock or a fall in blood pressure.

Click to expand...

Perhaps it comes down to how much your reaction system hears about its presence.