Strong Medicine by Dr. Blake Donaldson

This is a classic low carb book which has been out-of-print for a long time. The PDF is already available on High Steaks – Meat is Life and Just Meat, but I decided to make it available through my website as well. Dr. Donaldson went to medical school in the late 1800s and practiced medicine in New York until the mid-1900s. His book was published in 1961. He had very good success treating his obese patients with an all-meat diet. His general prescription was 6 oz of lean and 2 oz of visible fat three times per day from either lamb or beef. He never recommended pork, chicken, fish, or eggs, but only meat from ruminants. He says that if his patients did not eat enough food, enough times a day, they would invariably stop losing body fat. If you struggle with obesity and cannot seem to lose weight no matter what you do, his approach is definitely worth exploring. I really enjoyed it.

Strong Medicine by Dr. Blake Donaldson

 

The Type A-Type B Weight Loss Book by H. L. Newbold

Dr. H. L. Newbold is one of the original low carb thinkers, although that is not how he would have described himself. He was a man before his time who was able to think outside the box. As a physician in New York, he catered to a very wealthy clientele that primarily wanted to lose weight. However, the value of his book lies not in its focus on weight loss, but rather on the insight it offers to people with food and environmental sensitivities and intolerances. He observed initially in himself, and then in his patients, that certain foods and chemicals caused uncontrollable cravings for carbohydrates and subsequent disordered “addictive” or “binge” eating. Through trial and error, he came to the conclusion that some people simply cannot tolerate what he termed “new foods,” i.e grains, vegetables, fruits, and even dairy and eggs; in other words, any food that became a major part of our diet after the Agricultural Revolution was capable of triggering cravings for these sensitive people. Interestingly, he also discovered that many man-made chemicals commonly in use around us today are also capable of triggering these irresistable cravings. He includes a long list of all the different chemicals he identified that might be a potential issue. His solution to this problem for himself and his clients was to: first, remove all the “new foods” from the diet and return to the foods of our pre-agricultural ancestors, namely meat, but more specifically beef; and second, to reduce our exposure to the many chemical poisons that surround us in our modern environment. Like many in the Zero Carb Carnivore community today, he found that fish, chicken, and pork were all far from being able to satisfy his patients appetites, and many of his patients also experienced negative reactions, like fatigue, after eating them.

Unfortunately, his unique and insightful book is out of print and there seems to be no interest in republishing it, and used copies are prohibitively expensive. Therefore, I have taken the liberty to create a high quality PDF version and make it available for free here on my website. I originally read it when it first came out in 1991 and I have revisited it many times throughout the past 25+ years. I encourage everyone who struggles with weight management or food and chemical intolerances to make the time to read this largely forgotten classic on the value of a diet based predominantly on red meat. A word of caution: He is very sexist and some of his comments may offend female readers. Additionally, keep in mind that he was a pioneer forging a new path and did not have any one else to fall back on for experience in eating an all-meat diet. Consequently, he tends to err on the side of caution by including an array of vitamin and mineral supplements, as well as a very small amount of vegetables and/or fruits simply because he did not know is meat alone would provide himself and his patients all the nutrients needed for good health. However, there are many others since the time his book was published who have decided to adopt an all-meat diet for health reasons, without the addition of any plant foods or supplements, and have remained perfectly healthy for many years and even decades. Nevertheless, please pay attention and listen to your own body which may have special needs and follow whatever path feels best to you. If you wish to meet and converse with other carnivores, please join us in our Facebook group Principia Carnivora. May your journey be blessed!

The Type A-Type B Weight Loss Book by H. L. Newbold 

 

What Must I Do to Get Well? by Elma Stuart

What Must I Do to Get Well by Elma Stuart

This is a book about Dr. James Henry Salisbury’s Beef and Hot Water Diet Therapy for healing. It was observed to help everything from diabetes to epilepsy to rheumatism to gout to migraines to insomnia to asthma to cancer. This is the 25th edition of the book and was published in 1898. The first edition was published in the mid-1880s and each edition was larger and more comprehensive than the last. This is the most complete edition that I have found. It may have been the final edition.

The author was bedridden for 9 years with what today would be labeled Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She went to 43 doctors in an effort to regain her health. None of their recommendations worked. She learned about Dr. Salisbury’s diet through an ad in her local newspaper and ordered his book The Relation of Alimentation and Disease.

A good neighbor helped her to do the diet by purchasing, grinding, and cooking all of her meals every day for 7 months until she was strong enough to do it for herself. All of the meat was purchased daily (from animals slaughtered that morning) and ground fresh just prior to cooking. Interestingly, this would have prevented any significant formation of histamines in the meat. Elma says it took her about a year on Dr. Salisbury’s diet to regain her health. At the time of publication, Elma had eaten beef and hot water exclusively for 11 years.

The main difference between Dr. Salisbury’s diet and what the Zero Carb community recommends is that it prescribes lean beef, rather than fatty beef.  Elma says that she has witnessed hundreds, if not thousands, of people recover from very serious illnesses using Dr. Salisbury’s diet. The book is fascinating and has many funny passages.

To read the free PDF version of her book, please click on the link below:

What Must I Do to Get Well? And How Can I Keep So? by Elma Stuart

 

On a side note, those of you who like nineteenth century English literature will enjoy discovering that Elma Stuart was very good friends with the well-known feminist and philosophical novelist George Eliot (a.k.a. Maryann Evans). They wrote many letters back and forth over an 8 year period, from 1872 to 1880.

To read the free PDF version of the exant letters, please click on the link below:

Letters from George Eliot to Elma Stuart

 

Defending Beef by Nicolette Hahn Niman

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This is book is a must read for anyone who eats an all-meat diet and is concerned about the long term health of the environment. Nicolette Hahn Niman is a long-time vegetarian and environmental lawyer who worked closely with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. on the issue of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). She got to witness first hand just how damaging these types of meat production facilities can be. But she also visited many non-CAFO cattle ranches that raised their animals in environmentally-sustainable ways.

Lots of statistics are being thrown around – most recently in the film Cowspiracy – implicating beef production as a major cause of environmental destruction. Niman does an superb job of sorting through the data and revealing many of the inaccuracies and misconceptions. She explains that cattle production is not only innocent of most of the accusations levied at it, but why – when done properly – it is an essential component of maintaining a balanced ecosystem.

You can order a copy through Amazon by clicking the link below:

Defending Beef by Nicolette Hahn Niman

 

Book Reviews:

The Case For Sustainable Meat Takes on Many Sacred Cows – L. A. Times

Defending Beef: Nicolette Hahn Niman’s Call for a Third Way – Huffington Post

Defending Beef by Nicolette Hahn Niman – Weston A. Price Foundation

 

Interview:

Jimmy Moore did an excellent podcast with her on his Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show which you can listen to by clicking the link below:

Defending Beef with Nicolette Hahn Niman – Episode #955

The Beef Research and Teaching Center. Five miles south of the MU campus, South Farm Research Center supports the research, outreach and teaching missions of animal science, plant science, veterinary science, biology, botany and other disciplines. The Center is the location of several research facilities including the Swine Research Center, the Beef Research and Teaching Center, the Turfgrass Research Center and the Equine Teaching Facility. The Center also supports research and demonstration projects in entomology, poultry and maize genetics. The Missouri Foundation Seed program uses South Farm to increase the sales of newly developed seed varieties to dealers. Easy access from campus allows South Farm to be used for hands-on teaching to more than 1,500 students annually and is the location for numerous graduate student research projects. The Center hosts a Showcase each fall to share its projects with the general public; it has become a popular family event, with attendance in the thousands. Photo by Kyle Spradley | © 2014 - Curators of the University of Missouri

Articles by Nicolette Hahn Niman:

Actually, Raising Beef is Good For the Planet – Wall Street Journal

The Carnivore’s Dilemma – New York Times

Support Your Local Slaughterhouse – New York Times

Defending Grass-Fed Beef, A Rancher Weighs In – The Atlantic

Eating Animals – The Atlantic

A Way to Save America’s Bees: Buy Free-Range Beef – The Atlantic

Dogs Aren’t Dinner: The Flaws in an Argument for Veganism – The Atlantic

Can Meat Eaters Also Be Environmentalists? – The Atlantic

For Animals, Grass Each Day Keeps Doctors Away – The Atlantic

How Good Meat Makes a Difference – The Atlantic

nicolette hahn niman

 

Letter on Corpulence by William Banting

Letter on Corpulence by William Banting3

 

This is a classic piece of low carbohydrate diet literature. To read the free PDF, please click the link below:

Letter on Corpulence by William Banting

 

Imagining Head-Smashed-In by Jack Brink

Imagining Head Smashed In by Jack Brink

Description provided by the publisher:

“At the place known as Head-Smashed-In in southwestern Alberta, Aboriginal people practiced a form of group hunting for nearly 6,000 years before European contact. The large communal bison traps of the Plains were the single greatest food-getting method ever developed in human history. Hunters, working with their knowledge of the land and of buffalo behaviour, drove their quarry over a cliff and into wooden corrals. The rest of the group butchered the kill in the camp below. Author Jack Brink, who devoted 25 years of his career to “The Jump,” has chronicled the cunning, danger, and triumph in the mass buffalo hunts and the culture they supported. He also recounts the excavation of the site and the development of the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre, which has hosted 2 million visitors since it opened in 1987. Brink’s masterful blend of scholarship and public appeal is rare in any discipline, but especially in North American pre-contact archaeology.”

To read the free PDF version of this book, please click the link below:

Imagining Head-Smashed-In by Jack Brink

 

 

Man, The Fat Hunter by Miki Ben-Dor

hunting

This is an interesting study which argues that our need for dietary fat is what drove our evolutionary development towards becoming the humans we are today.

From the Introduction:

It is our contention that two distinct elements combined in the Levant to propel the evolutionary process of replacing H. erectus by a new hominin lineage…One was the disappearance of the elephant (Elephas antiquus) – an ideal food-package in terms of fat and protein content throughout the year – which was until then a main calorie contributor to the diet of the H. erectus in the Levant.

The second was the continuous necessity of H. erectus to consume animal fat as part of their diet, especially when taking into account their large brains. The need to consume animal fat is the result of the physiological ceiling on the consumption of protein and plant foods. The obligatory nature of animal fat consumption turned the alleged large prey preference of H. erectus into a large prey dependence.

Daily energy expenditure (DEE) of the hominins would have increased when very large animals such as the elephant had diminished and a larger number of smaller, faster animals had to be captured to provide the same amount of calories and required fat. This fitness pressure would have been considerably more acute during the dry seasons that prevail in the Levant.

Such an eventuality, we suggest, led to the evolution of a better equipped species, in comparison with H. erectus, that also had a lighter body, a greater lower limb to weight ratio, and improved levels of knowledge, skill, and coordination allowing it to better handle the hunting of an increased number of smaller animals and most probably also develop a new supporting social organization.

 

To read the full 12-page paper, please click the link below:

Man, The Fat Hunter by Miki Ben-Dor

 

Miki Ben-Dor presenting at the 2012 Ancestral Health Symposium:

 

 

The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth

vegmyth cover third reviewThis book is by far one of the most powerful and important books I have every read in my entire life. It is my opinion that it should be required reading for everyone before they are allowed to graduate from high school. Everyone who eats food needs to read this book.

 

Here is the link to the free PDF version.

The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith

 

If you need more convincing, please read:

Dr. Michael Eades Book Review

 

 

Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword by Loren Cordain

wheat 2

 

This one of the very best papers detailing why cereal grains are neither a necessary nor a desirable part of the human diet. Click on the link below to read Dr. Cordain’s article:

Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword

 

The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Fat_of_the_Land_Stefansson

 

This classic work by Vilhjalmur Stefansson is considered to be essential reading for anyone who wishes to eat an All-Meat diet.

To read the free PDF photocopied version, please click the highlighted link below:

The Fat of the Land