Friday, September 05, 2008

Jan Kwasniewski comment

Just a few quickies as time on the net has vanished again!

This came by email from Agata, who I guess is Polish speaking and reads one of the several web sites in Polish for OD eaters.


"Hello, I can't comment on your blog as it's only allowed for blog
owners, but:

- to augment some information from previous posts about JK:

He allows (in publicised answers to patients' letters) fasting one day a
week, if someone has trouble losing weight. Also, as a last resort, he
advises to eat 80% of the daily carb allowance in the evening - separately.

He says coconut oil is ok, however his son Tomasz Kwasniewski once wrote
on the website's forum that any oil (including CO) has zero 'biological
value' for humans and contains no enzymes for its digestion.

His son is an admin on the forum, from his posts I presume he's
background is in food technology. From time to time on a whim he
explains a bit more than his father, yet it's all full of biochemical
jargon and chains of chemical formulas - indigestible for myself.
Anecdotally, he dubs JK The Master of Simplification.

I started OD only recently, thanks to your blog, and loving it.
Thank you and good luck"


I love the idea of JK as the master of simplification. The biochemistry after eating is so complex, the choices so simple. The knock on effects of wrong choices so far reaching...

Thanks to Agata for the comment.

Peter

25 comments:

JohnN said...

JK as master of simplification?
I think he's more like Mary Poppins who never explains anything.

I agree with him about the usefulness of coconut oil or lack thereof. Itself and palm oil don't bring much to the table in terms of taste and flavor and are only useful in less affluent regions in the tropic where access to butter, duck fat, pork lard and beef suet is limited.

Coconut meat and coconut water are quite tasty if you have enough patience and dexterity to crack open the nut. Coconut milk is also indispensable in curry.

Mr Secret said...

thank you for that explanation. i have one question tho. 80% of the carbs at the end of the day and by itself. Does that mean, you eat dinner at 4 and then the last meal of only carbs when? what will that do to your insulin? spike right? and thats not good?

Anonymous said...

"I agree with him about the usefulness of coconut oil or lack thereof. Itself and palm oil don't bring much to the table in terms of taste and flavor and are only useful in less affluent regions in the tropic where access to butter, duck fat, pork lard and beef suet is limited."

If that's true, then cocoa butter - which many eat in dark chocolate - is equally useless, if not moreso. At least coconut oil is shown very clearly to speed up metabolism and cause weight loss, even in people eating lots of carbs. Can you name any animal fat that provides such benefits? Also, coconut oil can be more stable for cooking than most animal fats you mention, depending on how it is produced. I don't see the value of coconut meat, high in fiber like most nuts. I've seen a lot more benefits from coconut oil and macadamia oil than eating raw or dry roasted nuts high in fiber, enzyme inhibitors, and toxins. Jan Kwasniewski certainly has a lot to say against fiber and most plants.

JohnN said...

Hello Bruce,
My opinion is limited only to taste and flavor and in that case chocolate (and cocoa butter) has no equal. In the same context, brown butter or butter flavored with EVOO are also pretty yummy.
Of course, the MCT's ready-conversion to ketone bodies is nice if you need it.

Anonymous said...

Have you tried eating natural cocoa butter? It's as hard as a rock even in a hot room during summer. JK has never said anything against coconut oil, except that you should not eat lots of vegetable oils of any kind. He does stress the vital importance of staying away from high-PUFA oils in his website articles.

http://homodiet.netfirms.com/diet/fat.htm

Coconut oil tastes much better than palm oil, if you mean the unrefined virgin oils. JK's son has some very odd theories. Rendered animal fats like lard and tallow don't contain enzymes. The body makes the enzymes it needs from protein, if they are not in the food. If he is concerned about enzymes, raw meats need to be eaten, raw eggs, etc.

Unknown said...

Ok, I registered. Interesting discussion here.
Just to bring some concrete reference on, here are the actual messages that Tomasz Kwasniewski posted regarding coconut oil:
http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=2213.msg33678#msg33678
http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=2222.msg33718#msg33718
http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=2213.msg33784#msg33784
http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=1137.msg15773#msg15773
http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=1500.msg45851#msg45851
(Google Translate might not do the best job here cos the author uses irony heavily, so it may come up well distorted in translation)
Worth to note fact: he is the co-writer of one of the JK's books "Tluste zycie" and IMHO should be regarded as a trusted source when it comes to OD.

http://homodiet.netfirms.com - is not authorised Kwasniewski's website. I think it's run by someone who simply follows the WOE, for the US audience. It brings on some topics JK never discussed yet (msg, cq10) and also links to Atkins' website, whereas JK always stresses major differences between the two diets (primarily protein %).

Back to coconut oil:
- TK concludes that simply put the most valuable fat is the one with the highest cholesterol contents,
- regarding biological value again, he uses an analogy with gelatine vs collagen - same aminoacids bank, different benefits

I agree with the palatable values of cocoa butter/dark chocolate and hence personally do not feel ready to quit the consumption of thereof. I think it's all the matter of choice and conscious decision regarding possible consequences.

Just my 2c,
Agata

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

"I agree with the palatable values of cocoa butter/dark chocolate and hence personally do not feel ready to quit the consumption of thereof. I think it's all the matter of choice and conscious decision regarding possible consequences."

But you just quoted JK's son saying vegetable oils have no value to the body. So why eat them at all if you really believe that? Does JK advise eating chocolate of any kind? Based on what I've read, he's against the fiber such a food provides, as well as the lack of biological value. So I can't see him approving of a diet based on chocolate (or sour cream). His diet is based on animal tissue. Dairy and oils are limited.

Chocolate isn't palatable without a lot of sugar. Try eating 100% bars, not 85%. Also, high in fiber with 5 times more than potatoes by weight. JK emphasizes potatoes above higher fiber foods. So what would he think about chocolate? He'd probably tell people to stay away from such food. Certainly not eat it as a staple or make a meal out of it.

You can't have it both ways: saying that coconut oil should be avoided, because of some remark by JK's son, then say chocolate is OK because it tastes good. If you agree with JK's son that vegetable oils do not have biological value, that includes the vegetable oils in dark chocolate as well. It puzzles me why people keep trying to attack coconut oil, which many have benefited from. What real benefits do you get from chocolate? What diseaes does it cure?

Unknown said...

Oh my, sorry for the confusion. I didn't write clearly enough.
In short: Dairy is not limited with OD, JK does not advice eating chocolate, I do not attack coconut oil.

To clarify, according to Tomasz Kwasniewski coconut oil, cocoa oil and any vegetable oil drop under the same category and are relatively useless. However, Jan Kwasniewski said somewhere in his books that CO is ok, simply because it's 90% saturated.

Fats recommended by JK, in order of biological value: egg yolk, bone marrow, cream, butter, beef and lamb suet, goose fat, lard (pork fat). He allows coconut oil, olive oil, walnuts oil... - it's just that these shouldn't be the base...

TK mentioned he didn't have chocolate for years.
Me *personally*, far from being saint, I eat chocolate (as I do CO) on a regular basis, often 99%, love the taste, it's convenient and I notice it gives me a kick when on the run (aids lipolysis?).

My point is, I don't believe there are good and bad foods, I think there are only better and worse choices. You can't live on egg yolks, bone broth and offal 100% a time. For instance, JK understands that the WOE to be sustainable, must be liberal to some extend and that's why, I guess, allows refined flower (which I myself do not eat).

The truth to be told, his writings happen sometimes to cause some confusion. He is a very lovely easy-going person and so is his writing style, he allows lots of things, DO is fairly liberal. I found JK's one day menu somewhere, it had some 'fancy' stuff in it, rather than just meat'n'egg... On the other hand, most of the time, people want and need clear instructions, black & white approach. His son is more 'strict'.

JohnN said...

"It puzzles me why people keep trying to attack coconut oil, which many have benefited from."

Bruce: no attack of coconut is intended. I may even state that it's one of my favorite food/fruit.
I think we're discussing coconut in two different contexts - food vs nutrient.

mtflight said...

I don't have a problem with coconut oil either. But I think it elevated my triglycerides despite being on a very low carb diet they were well over 100 which baffled me. Cut it out, and they dropped. MCTs? who knows. i was fasting.

Stephan Guyenet said...

My trigs are low and I eat a fair amount of coconut oil. Just thought I'd throw that into the discussion.

mtflight said...

I was eating way more than a fair amount of coconut oil. I was adding a couple of tablespoons to scrambled eggs (perfectly emulsified into the mix), and was adding it to protein shakes, on top of that.

with it's super high saturated content and not much monounsaturated (compared with beef fat), it really helped boost my LDL :-P without much change to HDL.

Style said...

"You can't live on egg yolks, bone broth and offal 100% a time."

Why not? I think there still is a small amount of people who live that way, I mean eggs, marrow, offal and some carbs...

From your words I may presume that it would be a perfect diet? Right?

Peter said...

Hi Yuri,

It sounds pretty good, always taking as read some added fat. But I'm here for the long haul so some slack is needed. I also am part of a family and we are not eating food as fuel, we still have meals.

I get the impression flo is correct in her ideas about JK's approach. The inclusion of sucrose in Optimal ice cream is a clear example, as well as the use of flour. He even seems to accept green leaf vegetables if people as so inclined to spend their carbs there...

But yes, offal, eggs, bone broth, marrow and some added fat is probably pretty complete.

Peter

Style said...

"offal, eggs, bone broth, marrow and some added fat is probably pretty complete."

But Peter, what do you mean by 'some added fat'? Isn't marrow just enough for fat supplies? It is one of the reachest sources...

Peter said...

Hi Yuri,

I'll take that back. I'd read somewhere, without checking, that bone marrow was predominantly monounsaturated and I was after more saturates. Wrong! On checking it's more like beef dripping, with some influence from dietary PUFA. So fine, you could go that route if you were so inclined.

Peter

Peter

Style said...

“Fats recommended by JK, in order of biological value: egg yolk, bone marrow, cream, butter, beef and lamb suet, goose fat, lard (pork fat). He allows coconut oil, olive oil, walnuts oil... - it's just that these shouldn't be the base...”

Let’s look at the lipid profile of all the above.

--------SAT-------MUFA------PUFA
yolk----09.6[38%]-11.7[46%]-4.2[16]
marrow--23.0[24%]-66.0[70%]-6.0[6%]
Cream---19.3[66%]-09.1[31%]-0.9[3%]
Butter--51.4[68%]-21.0[28%]-3.0[4%]
suet----52.3[60%]-31.5[36%]-3.2[4%]
Goosfat-27.7[29%]-56.7[60%]-11[11%]
Lard----39.2[41%]-45.1[47%]-11[12%]
Coc oil-86.5[92%]-05.8[6%]--1.8[2%]

Certain fats may seem to be more healthy that others, but there will always be an issue of practicability. Let’s take dr.JK’s situation for example. I can be quite confident in my assertions since I live in Ukraine, a country which borders with Poland. The truth is that potatoes and pork are staples there, no doubt. So I can’t see why he would recommend coc oil when, as of today, it can only be purchased online from abroad… There are still quite a number of people who dislikes the dairy. Suet is just not popular. I haven’t heart anybody using marrow for food here. When I buy the bones I usually explain it is for my doggy or for the skin mask. We Ukrainians and Poles are inevitable pork eaters. Well, I stopped eating pork about two years ago but I have to admit nothing beats its taste.
However, if you look at the mentioned order of biological value of the fats, you can see that less preferred are those with higher PUFA content [with the exception of yolks, which provide much more than just fat]. I think more saturated diet would be the bonus, but even if one completely relies on marrow, there should not be any health hazards. Or are there any objections against MUFAs?

Unknown said...

I'm not sure JK meant the lipid profile only when putting those fats in this particular order.
I'm clueless when it comes to biochemistry but found something that might give you a hint: http://dr-kwasniewski.pl/media/2/bib-1/krystyna_txt_2/news_512.doc

My translation, hope slightly better than google ;) :

"Animal fats contain almost all needed for their burning enzymes, minerals and vitamins, exactly in the amounts and proportions human organism needs.
Vegetable oils don't contain these molecules what significantly decreases their 'biological value' comparing to animal fats. Fats from egg yolk and bone marrow, biologically active fats, especially those surrounding kidneys are characterised by very high biological value associated with the contents of many common for animals and human biomolecules which when consumed don't have to be produced, saving this way protein, energy, vitamins and minerals."

Pretty general, again.

Speaking of saving energy... On OD resting metabolic rate significantly decreases, there is no Atkins' metabolic advantage, especially if eating offal and yolks rather than muscle meats...

Peter said...

Hi Agata,

I remember in the early days of LC eating going through the thermic effect of foods rather than the metabolic advantage so beloved of the Eades/Colpo arguments. Protein is highly thermogenic, carbs moderately so and fat not at all so. This would fit neatly with the lack of a metabolic advantage (the existence of which I leave to Eades and Colpo to slog out). Personally a few hundred kcal either way is no big deal and being right is less important to me than learning. I'm happy not to be correct all the time!

Also re metabolic rate: I tried taking my "before getting out of bed" axillary temperature a few years ago. Always subnormal. My active metabolism is in no way impaired, but when I sleep I don't seem to waste calories. I never wake up feeling cold, I feel normal but the thermometer reads low! So this fits in with a low basal metabolic rate.

The comment you cite from JK is one of the ones I have trouble with. I can see how animal fat MUST have the molecules to MOBILISE fat. The organs which BURN the fats surely must be the one with the metabolic co factors for fat combustion. This would obviously include offal to a high degree, particularly bone marrow and obviously egg yolks. But storage fat stores energy rather than uses it...

Peter

Yuri,

I don't see any natural sources of fat being devoid of MUFA and a general mix seems fine. I have, somewhere, a relatively unimportant paper looking at saturated fats and apoptosis in cultured neuronal cells. Pure palmitic acid promoted excessive cell death. The effect was eliminated by relatively small amounts of MUFA. I'm happy with some MUFA. Although I'm not keen on olive oil as a primary source of calories I think the mix in marrow looks perfectly OK.

Style said...

So whhat is the source which states that eating offal and yolks rather than muscle meats decreases metabolic rate...? I'd like to know more about it...

Peter said...

Yuri,

Can't see where the comment was made that eating offal/egg yolks decreases metabolic rate. Where's that?

Peter

Unknown said...

Yuri wrote:
"So whhat is the source which states that eating offal and yolks rather than muscle meats decreases metabolic rate...? I'd like to know more about it..."

If it happens, it happens indirectly. It's based on the fact/assumption(?) that you need to eat less of the protein if it's high value protein (if the amino acids set is more complete?). Same as you would probably need much more of it if it was something like lentils or soya derived.

But hey, that wrote me, not Peter. And I've read about it in one of the TK's (JK's son) posts on his forum. Don't expect pubmed citations then, obviously.
That's all I can give you:

http://forum.dr-kwasniewski.pl/index.php?topic=2802.msg44041#msg44041

Agata

Edward Edmonds said...

"I don't see any natural sources of fat being devoid of MUFA and a general mix seems fine. I have, somewhere, a relatively unimportant paper looking at saturated fats and apoptosis in cultured neuronal cells. Pure palmitic acid promoted excessive cell death. The effect was eliminated by relatively small amounts of MUFA. I'm happy with some MUFA. Although I'm not keen on olive oil as a primary source of calories I think the mix in marrow looks perfectly OK."

Peter, do you have the link to this handy?

Peter said...

Hi Edward, I've been looking for it as part of the current proton series. Needless to say I can't find it! Have one on cardiac myocytes. This is possibly more sensible as most neurons don't use fatty acids under non pathological conditions...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16126172

Peter