Mark's Daily Apple

Caveman Breath

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When I first tell people I’m on a Primal diet emulating our ancient ancestors, the witty ones are usually quick with a clever comment or two, usually referencing the Flintstones, heavy brow ridges, monosyllabic grunts, or some combination of the three. A hearty laugh is shared (mine being exceedingly polite), and they’ll go on to ask if I’ve experienced increased hair growth, whether or not I met my wife by clubbing her over the head, and if I’ve got caveman breath (always accompanied by a theatrical, exaggerated step backward). What would I do without such comedians?

I gotta admit, though, they might have a point about the caveman breath. Although I don’t have a problem with it personally (unless my wife has kept quiet all these years), bad breath is a common complaint I hear about low-carb dieters. Strangely enough, I rarely hear it from actual low-carbers, but rather from overly critical skeptics. Still, bad breath does happen to everyone, and I for one would be wary of engaging Grok in a close heart to heart talk over some fermented mammoth milk. Even on our own comment boards, reader madMUHHH complained about having constant bad breath. Of course, he was also eating loads of garlic and onions, which are notorious causes of bad breath (regardless of the overall diet), but it does go to show that just because we’re eating healthy Primal foods, it doesn’t mean we’re immune to the ravages of bad breath.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Red Scare

It’s a headline you’ve probably seen by now splashed all over the news sites and channels – “Eating More Red Meat Ups Mortality Risk.” (Red meat once again wears the black hat: surprise, surprise.) Actually, millions of readers/viewers have likely stumbled across the caption and unfortunately taken it at face value. But you know us by now. It’s just too much fun being the merry skeptics when it comes to these sound bites of misinformation.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Importance of Cooking in the Evolution of the Human Brain

Even the most ardent vegetarians will begrudgingly admit that meat eating played a large role in the evolution of early man (although now we’re somehow expected to totally revert back several million years). Including calorie-dense meat in our diets allowed us to ditch the larger guts used for digesting inefficient plant matter, and we developed big brains. We were able to consume more nutrients and more calories without sacrificing mobility, and eating meat allowed man to spread to harsher climes, where vegetation was sparse or only seasonal. The human brain requires an incredible amount of energy to run, and meat was the most readily available source of sufficient fuel.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Why Skipping Meals and Workouts is Healthy

Conventional wisdom tells us that “grazing” is the optimal way to eat. Constant snacking; more frequent, smaller meals rather than the classic breakfast, lunch, dinner set-up; and an ever-present fear of hunger as the enemy: these are said to line the path to healthy weight loss. If we ever feel hungry, it says, we leave ourselves vulnerable to temptation and metabolic imbalances. There is certainly some validity to this idea. I can imagine Grok roaming the grasslands for nuts, bugs, roots, shoots, and small game. And at times these foods may have been plentiful. More likely though Grok’s eating pattern was much more sporadic. There would have been periods of grazing coupled with stretches of famine and punctuated by instances of all-out feasting. As is so often the case, CW has cherry picked one part of this scenario and turned it into an ironclad, dogmatic proclamation that excludes any alternatives, whatever their potential benefits.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Interviewed by Rivendell Reader

Grant Peterson and I are cut from the same cloth.

By that I mean Grant, owner and operator of Rivendell Bicycle Works, is a card carrying challenger of Conventional Wisdom. While my beef is with flawed and outdated health and fitness paradigms, Grant questions modern bicycle design.

In a time when bicycle sales are driven by the latest high tech materials (and by which brands pro cyclists are riding) his bikes are decidedly uncomplicated, approachable, sensible, useful and comfortably low tech. His handmade lugged steel bespoke bikes are truly a work of art. Check ‘em out here.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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