Man, I wish you had a forum. Your site is really active, full of likeminded people, I feel like it would be a perfect place to ask questions like "What the fuck do you guys do with yourselves?" and such. It's really easy, and free. Get a forum! Please!
I do have a forum -- or more precisely, there is a forum focused on this site. It's under the "communities" link on the left. Hardly anyone goes there because I don't go there myself, and apparently more of you are interested in talking to me than talking to each other, which troubles me. I also have a subreddit, equally neglected. If anyone out there wants to start a forum about what I write, and moderate it, that would be great! Moderating is the great unsolved problem of the internet, because nobody who understands it will do it for free.
]]>I think the reference [in the table] to 'theobromine' means cocoa (Theobroma). Theobromine is not a food but cocoa is. Theobromine is by definition 100% a purine, but the tables that list theobromine as a food to avoid say it has 2300 mg/100 g (ie, it is 2.3% purine) - which is obviously wrong for pure theobromine but could be right for cocoa.
This fits with Brendan's email: "According to Wikipedia, cocoa has 20.3 mg/g of theobromine, or roughly 2%." So chocolate really is a big contributor to gout. Now it's my turn to do math. A typical Endangered Species chocolate bar is 72% cocoa, and 85 grams. If that cocoa is 2% purine, that comes out to more than 1200mg, and going back to the purine chart on this page, that's as much purine as five 100g doses of chicken liver. So, in English units, a good chocolate bar causes more gout than a pound of chicken liver!
Then again, the table doesn't actually list purine content, but uric acid production. So it's possible that "theobromine" does mean theobromine, that the 2% figure is a coincidence, and that you have to eat 50 chocolate bars to equal a pound of chicken liver. I consider the issue unresolved, and will not post on it again, or archive it, unless I see some really good science.
I also want to move on from the sugar subject, but for anyone who wants to continue, there are a lot of paleo and high-fat diet blogs out there. Whole Health Source is one that has links to some others, and another good one is Archevore (thanks Judy). Personally I would love to try full paleo but it's just too difficult and expensive in my present circumstances, which is why I appreciate the Weston Price perspective that grains and legumes are good if you prepare them right.
There's a public health joke that goes like this: "Q: Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose bound into a disaccharide. HFCS is 45% glucose and 55% fructose as free monosaccharides. Which is worse and why?" "A: HFCS - because its cheaper."
Brendan has done some research on other concentrated sweeteners:
Agave nectar: 92% fructose / 8% glucose or 74% fructose / 26% glucose
Honey: 47% fructose / 38% glucose / 9% maltose / 2% sucrose
Maple: Almost entirely sucrose
Brown Rice: 94% maltose / 6% glucose
Cane Molasses: 74% sucrose / 12% fructose / 5% glucose
So it looks like agave is worst of all. I didn't watch Lustig's whole 90 minute video, but I get the idea that glucose is harmless (other than being empty calories) and the damage comes when the liver has to break down excessive fructose into glucose, without being moderated by fiber.
Sucrose is glucose-fructose, maltose is double glucose, and "dextrose", which appears on long ingredients lists, is another word for glucose. I don't know if Lustig ignores maltose because it's harmless, or because it's uncommon, but while trying to find out, I stumbled on this great site, The Healthy Skeptic. Via Google, here's a single page with links to his 9 Steps to Perfect Health.
Also, I can't blame chocolate for gout: Brendan points out that cocoa is only 2% theobromine, while ox liver is 100% ox liver, so even raw cocoa would not make the chart. Probably I'm getting gout symptoms because my sugar-damaged body can't metabolize purines. Now I'm wondering about recovery. They say that even heavy smokers can fully recover if they quit, but I haven't seen evidence one way or the other about full recovery from fructose poisoning.
When the body metabolizes purines -- an aromatic organic compound whose derivatives are naturally occurring in foods as DNA/RNA constituents -- inefficient enzyme action can result in the build up of their end metabolite, uric acid. It then crystallizes in joints, causing gout. Foods highest in purines are meats, and particularly organ meats.
But then there's a chart, and at the top, far above the levels of ox liver and pig's heart, are brewer's yeast and theobromine, the alkaloid in chocolate! Sometimes I get a sharp pain in the middle joint of my big toe, a typical symptom of gout, which I treat by eating tart cherries. So now I have to give up nutritional yeast and raw cocoa nibs. I suppose in a few years the issue will be moot, because there won't be anything to eat except thistles and ants.
]]>]]>People, of course, have become world-class after practicing 10,000 hours, in golf and tennis and violin or anything else. But never, not in anything, according to Ericsson, has anyone done it like this: to start at this age, with no experience, and to keep statistics from the beginning, and to be so self-reflective about it, and to last even this long. Dan, Ericsson says, is "like Columbus here, sailing out in new territory."
]]>We believe that we dare not let corporations die. Corporations feed us. They entertain us. Corporations occupy one full half of our waking hours of our lives, through employment, either directly or indirectly. They heal us when we are sick. So it's easy to see why the corporations feel like a friendly benevolent entity in the larger American consciousness. Corporations are, of course, deathless and faceless machines, and have no soul or human emotions.
]]>When the levees break, and the water rushes through the town, you don't run for the hills; you get in your ark. Where did Noah build the ark? On the future floodplain. How did Noah build the ark? With materials and resources from that place. And when did Noah build the ark? Before the flood.