Editor’s note: The following was compiled by Rob of Zero Carb Path from email correspondence with Owsley in 1998. It was first published to the Internet in 2006.

My name is Rob and I started a totally carnivorous diet on Feb 23rd, 2006. My first exposure to the path was from Owsley “Bear” Stanley and his essay on diet and exercise. At that time, in 1998, via email, he provided me with lots of diet support and information and I am forever grateful for that. However, I did not strictly follow his advise even though I managed to lose over 120lbs. In the end, even Bear’s support didn’t help me completely overcome my denial and acculturation.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t remain on a low carb diet and over the course of 2 years put all the weight I lost back on. I tried several times going back on a low carb diet, but failed at every attempt along the way. My experience was no different than perhaps thousands of people out there. So, out of frustration, I returned to the collection of emails I had collected in 1998 from Bear on the zero carb path. These few and simple rules are easy to follow, and can be done by anyone with a determination to lose weight and perhaps be “normal” for the first times in their lives.

I – Advice

There is no benefit whatsoever from such a low fat/high carb diet, it is nutritionally deficient, body destructive and unwise. Humans are carnivores. Mixed diets are very unhealthy. People are not omnivores like pigs and rats, and lack the equipment for such a diet. We have a wide ranging ability to tolerate a large number of edibles, but this is a survival asset, not a directive to eat that way if you have a free choice of nutrients.

There is only one true, inevitable, and defining characteristic which is connected with vegetarians, and that is: They ALL are compulsive liars. ALL opponents of this simple path will attack you and your diet ferociously, and state emphatically that it is “bad” and will “kill you” and “lead to serious deficiencies” and other half-witted utterances. All of us will one day have to deal with the damage that our early high carbohydrate diets have dealt us in our early years.

You are fighting a cultural battle, and your actions are very threatening on an unconscious level to many of your associates. Hang in there, after a while your friends will accept your diet, but it will take a while, and even when they do, they will say things like: “Everyone is different, maybe this works for you, but…” This attitude is properly termed “denial”, and you will see a lot of it around you, especially as your body slowly starts to look multi-years younger than your contemporaries.

There are strong social conditioning to what foods you eat, and you should explain how difficult it will be to change. For success you must be completely willing to do whatever it takes to change your body. In order to adopt this diet it will take a lot of will power, and you must make the change permanent.

It matters not what your food “looks like” only whether it is tasty and nourishing. The wonderful thing about the meat diet is that it tastes better and better the longer you are on it. Vegetables disgust your body-consciousness, and so are boring. Meat is the perfect human food, and the body loves it. Especially the fat.

I am sure that you will come down into the size range that I have occupied, in time. As to whether your skin will still fit you, that is another matter, and you may find you have a bit more than is necessary. Although I have some stretch marks from the ballooning at 21, I lost the weight well before my skin had had a chance to adjust, so my skin is not loose.

II – Diet Science

Won’t all the fat make me fatter? Describe how the zero-carb diet works.

Fat that you eat cannot EVER “turn to fat”, because of the extremely SIMPLE reason that no mechanism exists to get the fat into the cells, only carbs can enter the adipose cells. Adipose tissue releases fat by forcing an opening in the cell wall and actually “squirting” the fat out into the intercellular (lymph) space, which is why you get slightly uncomfortable when you are losing fat rapidly.

Only carbohydrates can create bodyfat. If a person is emaciated and eats only meat, the liver must de-aminate some of the protein to produce excess blood sugar so that the body can store it as fat. Protein is only “turned to fat” if you are seriously emaciated, bodyfat percentage below about 3-4% (percentage to drool for!).

But won’t all the fat clog my arteries?

The primary cause of arterial hardening, or occlusion, seems to be insulin, which causes the muscular layer of the arteries to develop scar tissues and fatty deposits. This process is usually well under way by 15 years old. the principal ingredient of the arterial lesions is fat, not cholesterol, which is a steroidal, waxy alcohol, and is in fact a precursor to the sex hormones as well as providing the insulating layer on the peripheral nerves. The fat in the arteries is in the muscular layer, not the lumen. Nothing “falls out” of the blood onto the walls.

You need not worry about diabetes, as you are now on the real diabetic’s diet, the natural one imposed before the extraction of insulin from pigs. Carbs cause your blood sugar to fluctuate wildly. Meat eaters have dead steady blood sugar levels.

What about all the cholesterol?

Cholesterol is something no-one understands, neither why a given person has a certain level, nor why a given diet raises or lowers it differently in each person. They don’t even have the proof that it causes any harm, since many people with very low cholesterol have heart disease, and some with high levels don’t.

Will I be in ketosis? Am I burning more fat the darker the color?

You will never have “ketosis” as a meat eater, since that is a disease condition of advanced diabetes and alcoholism. The keto-stick will only show minimal (or none) ketone levels after you have acclimated to the no carbs routine, because the ketones are burned as carbs as fast as they are produced.

Your body produces large amounts of “ketone bodies” when fat is metabolized, but the ketones in a fat/protein diet are just as rapidly burned as carbs in the brain and other carb-requiring organs. For this reason, a urine test for ketones produces only a very small positive reading, well within the normal range. Believe me, I have used this test many times, and you can do it on yourself, the testing strips are available at any pharmacy if you are not convinced.

A high reading simply means you are most likely still eating more than the critical minimum (less than 5 gms, best zero) of carbs and has not optimized her metabolism to burn the ketones efficiently. This will slow down any weight loss. The ketone reading will not tell you a whole lot, as I said it should be on the low to mod reading, as the body will burn up the ketones as fast as they are created. The level of ketones in your urine has nothing to do with how much fat is burning, only how efficiently your body is burning the ketones.

Moderate to high levels are found at the beginning of a zero-carb diet, and are seen in low carb, low-calorie diets. And, of course in disease. The Sticks are made to be used by diabetics who are on insulin, and have totally stuffed up metabolisms as a result.

But isn’t too much protein toxic?

Protein is in no way toxic in any quantity as long as there is either fat or carbs with it. Pure protein alone is not good. Protein is not “processed” by the kidneys, which are an organ of waste removal. There is no strain on the kidneys or any other part of the body with a high intake of protein nor with a high fat intake either. I have run across that old wives tale before and I am puzzled at its source. Some Eskimo were observed by Stefansson to eat up to five pounds of lean meat per day, and of course suffer neither weight gain or any other disability. They also ate huge amounts of fat. All such information is bogus. The more protein you eat the better your body likes it.

III – The Basics

My wife is on 30 to 50 grams of carbs per day, like an Atkins/South Beach/Protein Power. How about restricting the carbs but not eliminating them?

I would be absolutely amazed if she wasn’t actually gaining about a quarter to a half pound or more each week with that large a carb intake mixed with the diet. High fat content in a mixed diet seems to be just plain bad. It is a no-veggie diet, and yes, you get the best results in lots of ways if you are strict about it.

The diet is actually a high-fat diet. It usually is considered balanced at around 60-80% of calories from fat. I try to reduce the fat to around 50% (in order to force my body fat levels down below 10%), but it is still in the high-fat category. It is a ZERO-CARB diet, however, and you cannot drink milk, which is a high-carb food. Heavy cream is ok, as is butter and most cheeses. I mostly eat beef. with fresh fish when it is available. I must go to Cairns to get it, and the boats don’t go out in bad weather. I also will eat lamb, I especially like the brains. Chooks are ok, too but not all the time. I never eat pork or turkey.

A high fat diet will only support about 15% body fat MAX on a male. This means that you can gorge yourself on fat and lose weight like crazy until your fat level falls to about 15%, at which point you have to start watching the caloric level.

But shouldn’t I worry about eating all those meat calories

There is no reason to worry about the amount of meat you feel like eating. Only f you want to go below 10% bodyfat like for a bodybuilding contest do you need to restrict the calories you eat. And the term is ‘won’t go ABOVE 15% bodyfat’. Remember, the right diet is NOT “low carb”. It is only ZERO-carb. that does the job. You are right to note that there are strong social conditioning to what foods you eat, and you should explain how difficult it will be to change. For success you must be completely willing to do whatever it takes to change your body. In order to adopt this diet it will take a lot of will power, and you must make the change permanent.

Can I use salt to flavor my meat?

Salt is a chemical poison and should not be used. The sodium requirements of the body are met with less than one ounce of meat/per day. The skin and kidneys will not secrete salt unless you have an excess in the diet. The body is very good at conserving it. Salt in the sweat is one of the most aging things on the skin, and salt increases the stress on the kidneys. Salt also interferes with the proper metabolism of fats. I have not taken any salt in 40 years. Salt was one of the causes of my grandfather’s kidney problems, which was a factor in his early death at 91.

I see no use in potassium supplements, and never heard of anyone needing it. Vitamin C is not harmful, but fresh rare meat has a similar antiscorbitic action. I like C and echinacea for colds and flu. Lecithin is a pure carbohydrate and has no real nutritive value other than the carbs, it is a hype. I would not take it.

Plenty of water is an essential to good health under any dietary regime, although five liters a day could be a bit excessive. Three liters or so is a good thing, but don’t force consumption of a large amount of water unless you are ready to spend a large amount of your energy searching for places to take a pee.

IV – “Meat is Toxic” Myth

“But Bear, aren’t there toxins and antibiotics in meat? I’ve heard that the way animals are slaughtered for meat, they release “fear toxins” which contaminate the meat. And that the higher up the food chain you go, the more concentrated the toxins.”

Mate, there are NO TOXINS in meat. What you have just repeated is very typical illogical and hysterical nonsense from vegetarians, and has no merit whatsoever.

Except for a few fish, meat has no toxins. The “fear or flight” reaction causes the release of a natural animal hormone called adrenaline, which is destroyed by an enzyme in 0.01 seconds, causing a very brief flush or flash feeling, I am sure you have experienced it. Adrenaline is not toxic, and is not present in food meat, no matter how the animal died.

There are no “antibiotics” injected into meat animal prior to slaughter, and there are no “toxins” in the meat of a healthy animal. Meat is the ONLY food wholly without anything toxic in it, unlike vegetables which universally have various more or less toxic chemicals in them as defenses against being eaten.

Meat is actually living tissue as long as it is refrigerated and not cooked. Cells from a fresh steak can be cultured. The flesh of a healthy animal is sterile and has no bacteria in it. On the other hand (I will repeat this once more), ALL vegetables contain both toxins and copious amounts of bacteria.

Hormones which in some places are used to enhance growth, (mostly they are not cost-effective nowadays with the lower fat content sought-for) are withdrawn well before slaughter These are not human growth hormones anyway, and even if the animal were dosed with a human hormone, say estrogen, the amount your (male) adrenal glands produce would be 100 times the amount you would get by eating five kilos of that animal’s meat. This is science, not folklore. All the arguments the veggie-fascists use are fairy tales.

I do not dispute that there needs to be veterinarian inspection of all animals at the abattoir to ensure that only healthy specimens become food. Only a fool would think otherwise. Chickens need to be carefully and sanitarily slaughtered due to the highly perishable nature of their flesh, similarly fish also need care in handling. Never keep Chooks or fish in the same refrigerator as fresh meat, or the meat will spoil more quickly. To attack a diet because some abattoirs slaughter animals which are unfit, is like condemning automobiles because some mechanics and/or manufacturers provide shonky brakes.

There are strict regulation on the amount of antibiotic residues which can be present in meat. ONCE more: The amount of a given antibiotic in a animal’s tissues immediately after the drug is given is STILL only microgram quantities in the flesh. This concentration is adequate in the animal which was doed, but in a human you must have tens of milligrams of the material to have any actual effect on any bacteria in your body.

The misquoted reference to the use of antibiotics in animals is to the fear that a bacteria in the animal may become resistant, rather than any residue in the meat. This would require a bacteria which also affected humans to be involved, and that animals infected with this resistant bacteria be missed by the vet, and slaughtered for food. Also, the person thereafter infected have access only to the specific antibiotic used in the animal, to treat them. A long string of necessary conditions, unlikely in the extreme, but that is one of the reasons that antibiotics are much less prevalent in animal husbandry nowadays.

BSE is a disease which can affect any animal who eats the tissues of another animal which is infected with this virus. Cattle don’t normally eat much meat, the odd rat or mouse in the manger, but don’t go out and hunt them. This disease was the result of a grisly practice of feeding animal protein wastes from abattoirs back to cattle in their feed. We eat grass-fed cows here, no grain even in their feed. Meat IS the best food for ANY animal and the cattle fed on meat grow astoundingly fast. The Greenlanders fed their ponies on fish for 800 years, with no problems.

Grain fed is inferior to good grass fed, but the feed grass in the US is not usually of high quality. Our local tropical grass is very, very good, and produces quality superior to any meat I have ever had in the states.

V – The “Good” Carb Myth

Certainly there must be some “good” carbs. Isn’t salad nutritious? You can eat a lot of it to fill you up.

Green leafy vegetables have little or no nutritive value, and are eaten as “eye food”. In fact some, like celery and lettuce have less caloric value than it takes to process them through your system, like sand. Some, like spinach, contain a toxic blood poison, oxalic acid. This dangerous chemical is so high in rhubarb that the green leaves are capable of causing death. Why eat this rubbish?

I agree that there is only maybe 20 percent of the weight of “leafy greens” which is carbs, but why eat something so toxic and rough? Would you intentionally put a pinch of sand in the crankcase of your car? Older people suffer from malnutrition in spite of “excellent diets” due to the scar tissue in their intestines from a lifetime of exposure to roughage in their food. In the short term it causes the intestines to coat themselves with mucus, which also interferes with absorption of nutrients.

All plants have toxins, chemical defenses against herbivores are much older than the mechanical ones like the spines of cacti. People have struggled for hundreds of years to breed out most of these defenses, which is why you cannot grow them without pesticides.

If you doubt me, eat a cupful of wild lettuce (a very common weed), and see how long you can remain awake. It contains a glucoside, letucin, called “lettuce opium”, which was bred out of the cultivated plant.

VI – The “Fiber is Healthy” Myth

We’ve all heard this one. “Fiber is healthy”! we need more fiber in our diet. Tell us about the “fiber is healthy” myth.

Running fibrous, non nutritive material (let alone toxic) through the gut causes the body to produce copious mucus which interferes with nutrient absorption, and over years produces the scar tissues in the bowels responsible for the poor nutrition of the elderly, a serious problem in many individuals.

Fiber is a very BAD idea, as it is not nourishing, and it is very irritating to the delicate and fragile mucosa of the intestines, which must be very thin to allow the rapid absorption of the soluble substances which nourish us. You will develop mucus coating on the lining in the short term from eating such rubbish, and in the long term the mucosa will develop scar tissue. This is not a good thing and can lead to malnutrition even with plenty of food intake, a condition very widely noted among the elderly.

You have no need to ingest it for “regularity” as you will NEVER be constipated on a meat diet, it just is not possible unless you indulge in a lot of cheese. The diet is a HIGH-FAT, not high protein diet, and the fat caloric content should be kept above 50% of calories. Of course you can eat a lot of protein, but this is no problem in this diet. Most MD’s have never seen anyone on a total carnivorous diet in their entire professional life, and all of the “suggestions” and warnings such as the kidney thing are based on mixed diets and conjecture.

Rubbish passing through your intestines doesn’t “absorb” anything (except the digestive juices which cannot digest it)! That is the biggest pile of crap I have heard yet! Your intestine is an organ which absorbs nutrients in the small portion and excretes in the large portion. The only source of “toxins” would have to be in your food, so don’t eat poisonous food, and you will have NO toxins in your body! Your body produces only wastes, not toxins.

If you are sick and fighting some disease, then your body would be throwing off lot of somewhat “toxic” rubbish (bacteria do create toxins), but the intestine is designed for that, otherwise you wouldn’t shit. Fiber has no value in the diet, it only causes damage to your sensitive internal organs. The bacteria in your intestines are much less and more benign without carb residues to feed them, so the likelihood of having toxic stuff in your intestines as a meat eater is a non-event. It is a scam that was invented to allow the cereal industry to sell the indigestible potion of the grain at food prices, rather than as a byproduct to the cardboard manufacturing industry.

VII – Acculturation (Diet Social Evolution)

The problem with “one cup” is it leads to maintaining a taste and desire for such stuff. Like “diet cola” which tastes sweet and thus maintains a desire for sweet things, it is a bad idea for your attempts to retrain your dietary habits. It has NO value nutritionally.

Once you reach puberty, your diet is an integral part of your (learned) social behavior, learned as a child, like everything you do as a human. Change is extremely difficult. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with good nutrition, and in fact, is known to lead to widespread malnutrition in some societies. We have only recently in evolutionary terms gotten to the place where we don’t have to spend all of our efforts each day just to get something to eat.

Doctors don’t know, and the pseudo-science of “nutritionists” developed so recently in historical terms that it is no more than an attempt to explain why we eat what we do, in the spirit of: “Mother must know best”. No one wants to believe that the diet they were forced into accepting at mother’s knee is bad and unhealthy (especially after resisting it so strenuously in the beginning-almost all kids hate veggies and love meat), so a whole vast enterprise has sprung up to explain about the “food pyramid” or the “four food groups” or the “seven food groups” or some other nonsense. Meanwhile the human population has a diabetes and obesity rate of 40+ percent. Dangerous nonsense. And of course the Agricultural business can’t make anything like the money on meat husbandry as it can on the mechanical cultivation of cereal grains, especially now that it can trick you into buying and eating the rubbish along with the digestible part. That industry spends millions of $ convincing you that meat is bad, pasta etc. is good.

You will probably eat what you feel comfortable with, which is what you were raised eating, as I have pointed out, eating is a social thing, and most people don’t eat what their bodies like, but what they have decided to eat with their minds (ie: what their mums fed them as kids).

VIII – Anthropology

Did I tell you that one of the subjects I specialized in was Anthropology?

You should know the so called “Paleolithic diet” is bogus, as described by its various proponents, like Ray Audette. (He has a severe metabolic problem, by the way and is very underfat and undermuscled). This “paleo” diet is actually early neolithic, not Paleolithic, as there is no evidence whatsoever for any vegetable matter being brought into Paleolithic camps as food. Only animal remains have been found associated with Paleolithic camp digs. True, women most likely ate whatever berries etc., they found, on the spot, but he men and the tribe in general ate meat exclusively.

Paleo means “old”; neo, “new”. The old stone age, or Paleolithic comprises most of man’s history and evolution. It is characterized by tools made of chipped glass of volcanic origin, the best, and sharpest knives, spear and arrow heads known to science (unfortunately they are brittle). The are the tools of hunters. This period is four million years long. The Neolithic, (new stone age) is the age of the beginnings of agriculture, and it begins with the extensive gathering of plants, the breeding of strains with reduced toxins and the tools of this era were ground rather than chipped, and were very inferior.

Your wife will most likely never adopt the diet, women have huge cravings for carbs to keep their fat level high to ensure fertility, it is a side effect of estrogen. In hunter-gatherer societies the men never gather the carb foods except in emergencies, only women do, and the men do the hunting, although a woman will kill game if she finds it. All women’s bodies want to be big and fat and fertile. Women are not logical on this diet, and will eat what they learned to eat no matter what. The woman’s role inhuman society is to teach the cultural rules to the children, and so they are absolutely fixated on preserving what they think is “the right way”.

Basically, there is a lot of bad food advice in this book (Ray Audette’s “Neanderthin”), and I advise you not to follow his recommendations, especially stay away from high carb foods like nuts and fruit (fruit is the absolutely most fattening of all the carb sources. It is high in fructose, an isomer of glucose which is instantly absorbed from the stomach, and makes your blood sugar skyrocket). The Atkins diet is also very flawed. A “fad” diet of the time, it doesn’t work very well. Fat loss stops after a short period on it due to the carbs in it.

Man has NEVER (until the last 4000 years in the west) eaten a high carb diet, and I might point out that “berries”, which were always gathered in season, are in very short availability periods.

For hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years, the Eskimo have eaten no carbs in their diet, simply because there were none available. They lived to advanced ages near 100 years if they didn’t die from accident or had been exposed to too many bouts of starvation, or developed too heavy an infestation of trichinosis, (common in the meat of arctic bears, wolves and foxes). There is NOTHING wrong with this diet. No matter what anyone says, they are quite simply wrong. Only the Eskimos raised with a zero-carb diet have no damage in those arteries.

I don’t care what some idiot (friend or not) who wants to promote a vegetarian diet says, he cannot alter the facts. North American Indians were mostly exclusively meat eaters with only two or three groups cultivating some maize , and one group in Ca who were 50% veggie eaters (a weak tribe which was overrun and extinguished in the eighteenth century). The destruction of the bison herds nearly starved the plains Indians to extinction, as they had no other food.

IX – Bear Stats

Most people cannot believe that am 63, they think I am in my forties, and must be an ex-athlete (I didn’t start lifting till 55). I still have firm, resilient skin (sun damage seems to have done little to my appearance except on my face), I am a little thicker in my waist for the amount of fat I carry than I would like, but that seems to be one of the more difficult age-related factors to overcome. I am very well-muscled, and have had a friend who judges bodybuilding contests after me for several years now to enter a contest, telling me I could win easily. I would only enter if I could win over all ages, and that is not very likely, there are some seriously huge kids out there. I am 5’-6 3/4” and weigh 158, arms are 15-3/4, chest 42, thighs 23. I am not small by most standards, and have little or no wrinkles on my body. (My wife says I have “nice buns”). SO much for the “bad diet”–I have eaten this way for 40 years.

Speaking of skin, did you know that most of so-called “skin damage” is caused not by sun or age, but insulin? Especially inelasticity, wrinkles and stretch marks. No carbs, no insulin, and my skin looks like a thirty-year old’s. This must mean that it has “aged” the equivalent of only 7 years in the last 40. The only stretch marks I have are from my high-carb childhood.

When I was in high school I was 5’7” and weighed 125. Later when I was dancing my weight went to 135. In between, before I found the book on meat and fat, I went up like a balloon to 186 in about 6 months. This so dismayed me that I cut my food way down, but could not get below 150. As soon as I went onto the diet, I dropped to 130-135. I am now far more muscular than ever, and I weigh 165.

If you are still 5’7” (I have shrunk 1/4”), and are not weight training, then your weight at 15% BF should not be much more than 140. My arms are 15-1/2 and my chest 42, waist 32, thighs 23. I figure about 11% bodyfat. Without a lot of work, getting below 12-15% is difficult, but you will definitely get to that percent with no worries, so long as you are strict.

Well. lifting is good as long as you can be very consistent. I workout twice a week, and I started 8 years ago at the age of 55. I figure that there are about 35 or more pounds of muscle on my frame now from the training. I train heavy, but take a lot of rest between workouts, two or three days. The workouts are brief, half hour on the bike and then about one hour lifting. Few people would take me for 63.

When I was in my twenties my pant size was 28. The worst was at 21 after blowing up to 186, when it went to 36, the same as my chest. Totally freaked me out. My father and grandfather were obese, as was my mother and sister. I missed it in my youth due to me dislike for sweets, the only carbs I cared much for was bread. I wish I had never eaten it, either.

X – Bear’s Meat Tips

I personally can find sympathy with your desire to find bone-in meat. I usually buy bagged New York shell from a wholesaler, as I can get it with only a short time in the bag, and the cost is say, $4/lb for the exact same meat Marin Joe’s serves, and which would cost $15/lb in the market. I don’t know the exact cost now, it varies from day to day. But it is a real bargain.

You have to buy a full piece, which runs from 12 to16 or more pounds, You can specify a small one. Ask for a ‘fresh one” which has not been in the bag long (many buyers want bag age). There are several grades available and there is a fair “cover” of fat you will have to trim off. You can ask for “light cover”. Take it out of the bag first thing, or you can ask Michael to debag it, if he has the time he will do that. Wipe it well and wrap it loosely with “freezer paper”. The bag taste will dissipate in a few hours. Cut from it as you eat it, and it will last well for over a week. Don’t share the fridge with fish or chicken during the time the meat is in it.

XI – Reflections on Long Term Vegetarianism

I was alerted to an old observation of mine on diet by the death of Linda McCartney. She is a long-time vegetarian, although I must admit I don’t know how extreme her particular form of vegetarianism was. She simply was laboring under a major misunderstanding about consciousness and the essential unity of all life, including plant life. All food is something living. All living things are sensitive and conscious, and plants are amazingly aware. Whether you eat an animal or a plant it is the same level of awareness that must be extinguished in order for you t be nourished. Anthropocentric philosophical bias towards more similar animal life is a rejection of the value of consciousness of plants.

Anyway a graph of the reduction in the consumption of animal fats in the diet is the exact inverse of the rise in breast cancer in women. I believe that animal fats, like butter and suet are essential in maintaining the health of a woman’s breasts which are, after all, mostly animal fat.

Whether it is a requirement for the fat or a reaction to the substitution of vegetable oils, most of which are known to be carcinogenous (like polyunsats and hydrogenated solids–margarine), I can’t say. Certainly the death of a 56 year old active woman whose family never had any cancers is pretty curious unless you take this into account.

Vegetarianism isn’t doing very good things to dear old Paulie, either… he looks abut ten years older than I, although he is nearly that much younger.

Most people on the more extreme forms of vegism like vegans and fruitarians, don’t survive more than about 20 years or so in any sort of reasonable health. It must be hell for their bodies to be deprived of the most basic of human dietary delights, fresh rare meat.