I have a chapter on food in my new book Is Everything a Scam?
When I started experimenting with my diet and changing what I eat it seemed scary and risky. I was afraid I might make myself sick or cause some horrific damage to my body. Looking back I was bombarded with endless messaging about food without being aware, and I ate horribly in high school and survived so the fear seems irrational now. In this page I talk about the food I ate throughout my life and the outcome. Also my understanding of food and why I eat what I eat. In addition my experience with food labeling, and the meat and ranching industry.
Food philosophy. The food to eat that makes sense to me is based on my observation of nature, eat locally grown/raised food that is as close to wild as possible. Part of this is local seasonal eating, berries in the summer and citrus in the winter, the idea being these foods provide nutrients that our body needs during these times. Also as free of pesticides and toxic chemicals and poisons as possible. As an example I see egrets hunting little fish in the bay, all egrets look similar and none of them are obese or look sickly and unable to fly or move. Same with dolphins, seals, hawks, coyotes, squirrels, foxes, etc. All wild animals of the same species have similar body types and habits and live a predictable consistent life span free of disease. So it makes sense to me that hunter gatherers and indigenous people do and did the same, and had similar results to wild animals. Someone pointed out that we modern humans blame disease on animals – bat virus, bird flu, swine flu, mad cow, etc. In the wild these animals live the same as they always have, we humans have changed their environment and the food they eat and toxins they are exposed to. If anything the animals should be blaming us for making them sick.
Lions and sharks eat meat, deer and squirrels eat plants and seeds. Bears and monkeys seemed to be omnivores. So are we humans omnivores, carnivores, vegetarians, or vegans? I look to what I know about traditional indigenous cultures and it seem most if not all ate meat, and they were opportunistic and most likely ate whatever food was on the land and water they inhabited. Over generations they learned which foods made them feel good and vital, and which plants and animals made them sick or feel bad. If a people live in a spot for hundreds or thousands of years seems likely they would figure out what works and what doesn’t, otherwise they would die off.
My Eating History: As a baby breast fed and the oldest child. Foods where mostly whole foods, minimal processed with no sugar no soda no Twinkies or any big brand fake food like substances. My mom stayed home and cooked me and my dad meals – milk, butter, meat, vegetables, and bread and pasta that had 3 or 4 ingredients in it. Very little if any fermented foods, my dad’s parents ate an old school European diet and I remember as a kid thinking their food was gross (now It’s mostly what I eat). I had a brother when I was 5 and a sister when I was 6 1/2, this is when my diet started to change, my parents were so busy trying to raise 3 kids and pay the bills. Society at the time was marketing towards TV dinners and quick package foods. Meat and butter and fat where getting a bad name and products like margarine and I can’t believe it’s not butter were being heavily marketed, along with non-fat milk and egg whites. Sugar was also booming and in everything, the soda wars and pizza chain delivery commercials were all the rage. My parents did a good job keeping out the sugar but got duped by the low fat nonsense and convenience started to beat out home cooked meals. In high school we had an open campus and my friends and I drove to eat big chain fast food for lunch almost every day. We were all athletes, makes me wonder how we would have done on a better diet?
I had a big growth spurt in high school and was so thin I was nick named P.O.W., at 18 I started lifting weights and put on muscle. I also discovered Body for Life and creatine and experimented. I went on a high carb diet and put on 25 pounds of bulky muscle, maybe even water weight from the creatine. When I stopped the creatine and carb load I lost about 15 pounds. After I turned 21 would drink sugary daiquiris and cheap big brand beer and delivery pizza and such, heart burn was a regular occurrence along with hangovers. We were still young enough to do this 2-4 times a week and survive. Mid 20’s I started surfing several days a week, I stopped fast food and was cooking for myself. Mostly eggs or meat and veggies and fruit and potatoes with some kind of sugary dessert, I got buffed and shredded and everyone noticed. I was super fit and would go surfing no matter how crazy the conditions were. I wasn’t happy, my life was very one dimensional, I was still trying to figure out what to do and how to live and find a wife. Valentines day 2004 I was surfing and heard a pop and felt a burning sensation in my shoulder. I was eventually diagnosed with shoulder impingement and it hurt to lift my shoulder above my head. Looking back it sure seemed like psycho somatic, and my body doing something to get me to change my life. I met my first wife soon after.
My first wife’s brother in law was a big foodie, and that relationship influenced me to think way more deeply about food and where my food comes from. This also coincided with meat coming back into popularity and Niman Ranch being big and the whole celebrity chef thing was going big also. Natural meats and organic produce were becoming household words, at least in the SF Bay Area. Soon after grass fed and pasture raised, permaculture and such. Nourishing Traditions and Paleo diet came onto my radar. Once I realized these ideas were basically explaining reality I only wanted to eat wild and pastured pesticide free foods. I started eating this way in combination with holistic life changes, so it’s difficult to say if the food led to less colds and flus or my entire approach. Heartburn or indigestion is usually a good indicator for me that I am eating crap, as when I don’t eat crap I don’t get heartburn. I was eating raw pastured dairy and then tried going cold turkey for around 3 months, I did not notice any difference between dairy or no dairy. My ancestors probably ate diary for a long time, so maybe that’s why I can tolerate it well?
I was pretty hard core and strict with eating Nourishing Traditions or Paleo diet for several years, and then after becoming a parent more of an opportunist and a meal is a meal. I still avoid sugar mostly and ultra processed foods and seed oils, occasionally I will chow down on some sugary junk if it’s around. I never drink soda or any of the “energy” drinks. I do drink lots of kombucha, it’s getting harder to find some without added sugar. When I started I made my own kombucha and yogurt and kraut. I overdid consuming fermented foods and my stomach would ache. So I have learned to gradually build up my consumption of fermented foods. Also now if I eat a carb heavy meal, like pasta or a bean and rice burrito or even a lot of rice sushi I feel heavy and bloated.
My Typical Daily Eating:
Breakfast – Room temp water water (Revers Osmosis or distilled and structured) with sea salt and lemon, 3-4 eggs sometimes with avacado and or sausage or bacon, hot water with mushroom powder grass fed butter and cream and little maple syrup and sometimes black coffee. Also sometimes yogurt granola and fruit or homemade paleo pancakes or waffles (high in butter and eggs).
Lunch – Sometimes I skip lunch, especially if I am surfing or wing foiling. When eating lunch usually meat and fermented vegetables, or salad with meat, or maybe street tacos. Water.
Dinner – Meat or wild caught Fish and salad and/or veggies. And often some homemade dessert sweetened with maple syrup or raw wild honey. Siete makes chips that I like to snack on, or popcorn with good butter or olive or coconut oil and sea salt. Kombucha or sometimes Beer or Wine and Water.
Water. Huge topic with lots of stuff out there. I started bringing canteens to the Stinson spring a few years ago and try to drink that when I can. Filtering and especially Reverse Osmosis can seem so complicated, here is the RO system I have installed on April 2024.
Labeling. My experience with labeling is that it is complicated and then only way to know for sure is either raise the food yourself, or know and trust a farmer/rancher. Easy for any food company to either get greedy and mislabel, or simply make a mistake and forget which is which and put the wrong label on. And the words used like natural and organic and cage free and such are easily coopted or diluted to the point they are meaningless. There was that olive oil scandal a while back, and I know of several meat labeling scandals. It definitely can happen. My approach is hope for the best and relax about the whole thing, we are all going to die anyway.
Regulations are a scam to keep out competition and give power to governments and big business. I read thousands of pages of USDA regulations and they do absolutely nothing for food safety or consumer protection. Worse they do the opposite and devote resources to pointless red tape and away form making good food. When they passed HACCP in the 90s it drove out the smallest mom and pop meat businesses and created endless headaches and expense for all but the huge agribusinesses who probably wrote the regulations. All the testing and inspection does absolutely nothing but destroy common sense and prevent people from really learning about food. Some inspectors were 2 bit wanna be dictators others were good folk who helped us out, either way innovation and product improvement was nearly impossible, the hoops to jump through are to stifling to allow this. Anyone who really wanted to change things and was creative couldn’t tolerate the bureaucracy, that’s what drove me out. On the ranching and slaughter side it’s the worst, the small ranchers barely stand a chance. Driving large animals around to find some state or USDA plant makes the cost astronomical. Hawaii has a invasive deer and pig problem, and yet there are zero supermarkets that sell local venison or pork, the pork is shipped in the form the Midwest, it’s insane! All because the government requirements to hunt butcher and sell meat are so onerous.