I'm betting that they use polyunsaturated vegetable oil to cook their food these days rather than coconut oil. That alone will drive diabetes, obesity and other mitochondrial disorders. They probably enjoyed liberal amounts of carbohydrates historically as all tropical people have from starchy roots and fruit.
but if they ate predominately a high-carb diet traditionally, wouldn't that logically mean they would be better at processing sugar rather than worse than the global average?
Hey Ben. If you're eating a lot of PUFA, and I am not a PUFA-noia kind of guy like Mercola, then it can actually prevent you from oxidizing glucose effectively. That would cause "blood sugar problems" and apparent diabetes that is actually due to too much denatured/rancid PUFA accumulating in cells and the mitochondria. See more in my response to John below.
I actually don't have a PUFA-noia perspective, like Mercola, and I think he makes some mistakes based on his takes on Ray Peat's work. I think it has to do with quality and quantity. For example, chemist/physicist Johanna Budwig found in her experiments, and working with many thousands of cancer patients, that linoleic acid and/or alpha-linolenic acid was part of Otto Warburg's "respiratory pigment," which was a lipoprotein containing the aforementioned fatty acids, non-rancid and non-denatured, compounded with sulfurated amino acids like cysteine. The magic of small amounts of high quality, fresh, and non-rancid PUFA is in many ways the same thing that makes it so dangerous: It's ability to allow proper oxygen transfer across cell wall membranes into the mitochondria. PUFA, when non-rancid, attacks as an oxygen magnate. When rancid (which it almost inevitably is) it poisons the mitochondria, snuff out respiration, and causes free radical damage from its tendency to be easily oxidized. Revici found that what he called an "anaerobic imbalance" — too many sterols in the cell wall — created localized hypoxia and caused cells to revert back to primitive glycolysis; the cancer metabolism.
As for Olive Oil, Mercola's concern is based on his interviews with Brad Marshall at the Fire in a Bottle podcast. Brad thinks that PUFA in general and olive oil, in particular, creates a kind of artificial "hibernation" effect on metabolism, as opposed to saturated fats like stearic acid and coconut oil, because it's a PPAR-a agonist. They cite research that shows that Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards — places where olive oil is used regularly — are more obese than Americans. I am not totally convinced by this, but I tend to mainly use a lot of saturated fats (ghee, butter, coconut oil, cacao butter) anyways, in my very high carb diet. Cheers.
I first became interested in Olive Oil through The Bible, in which it seems quite essential.
Then from there I explored Olive Oil use among Royals generally. One in particular stood out, the practice of pregnant Khan wives drinking oil every day to ensure intelligent and well formed children.
Using it on my skin, I completely healed and removed two 3 inch diameter scars on my legs and when I could afford to drink a half liter a day, I had a deep gash in my wrist that healed in three days flat, just drinking the oil, along with a full, large bulb of raw garlic every day.
I never felt better or carried less blubber, my stomach, in my fifties was perfectly flat and I have never felt better. I only eased up as oil became expensive.
I don't cook with Olive Oil, I use coconut for that. I don't like butter, the taste is unpleasant to me.
I spent nearly 10 years in Tahiti in the 90's on the island of Huahine. At that time there were NO fast food outlets all, and the only available "outside" food supplies were from a very small store that received it's varied inventory once a week by boat. The only thin people on that entire outer island were French or elderly Tahitians. S.R. Carson is entirely correct about the high fat and high starch content in the native diet.
A favorite meal in French Polynesia is canned, super fatty, "corned beef" with breadfruit on a baguette, (it's actually quite delicious!). but insanely unhealthy! They also consume massive amounts of beer now too, but I would imagine that is relatively new addition to their diet.
I think that sitting on a white sandy beach on a motu, made a humble picnic lunch seem magical (it was!), and not to worry about all the fat & calories.
BTW, I give you an upvote on all your posts, but alas, for some reason I can comment on Substack posts but I am unable to vote!?????
... thanks to our Samoans, I led my high school conference, in interceptions and pick-6s! And, I only had to make two tackles, all season. My uniform was never soiled! My hometown, we had a small community of Samoan immigrants. Our freshman football team back in high school, our entire defensive and offensive front lines, our first stringers were all Samoans, spare one exception to our defensive end, who was Hawaiian, and lead our regional conference, in sacks. My position, strong side safety, I shagged 46 interceptions, from desperate quarterbacks hunking the ball randomly, downfield, save who may, to spare themselves the onslaught of our thousand pound Polynesian pass rush. Don't mistake Polynesians, Samoans and Hawaiians for being overweight. Play ball with these guys? You soon realize, it's the bear DNA! Our freshman football team were unscored upon, undeafeated. They have bear DNA! And, they are not to be trifled with - Samuel.
meh, braggy sober people can't handle intoxicants and i'm supposed to congratulate them for that shortcoming ? ? ?
how about congratulate me for the time i was driving drunk in a friend's old beater camaro, no registration, no drivers license, stopped while speeding, and i didn't even end up with a warning ! ! !
c'mon man, that was some serious karma at work ! ! !
I would like to know when did we import obesity to their islands? When did it begin? That would tell you a lot. Same as in the US, if you look at historical films from the 1920s-1930s, there isn't a fatty in sight! If same holds true for the Pacific Islanders, when did fat become new normal? I'm betting seed oils, aka engine lubricant disguised as food is the culprit.
Both alcohol and the sort of insulin resistant obesity you describe are the result of disturbance in the microbiome, the intestinal bacteria. You are correct about the invasion of the Western diet but, all fish? Every drop of water in the ocean and, hence, every fish is is poisoned with PCB and mercury. Gives you shit for brains (and a lot of other nasties)..
Nothing to do with fast food old mate , it is the taro roots that get them so fatted up , it is called Poi in Hawaii , them big boys in the islands, , them called Poi Dogs cause it will fatten dogs for eating up also.The Hawaiian kings and queens were so obese they could not walk , they were loaded onto Cooks ship on palanquins lifted by the ships cranes. They look good all porked up , they are built for it.
Spam is mostly a Hawaiian thing---I don't think it was there at all before the arrival of the military haoles in WW2, and it is not really consumed all that much elsewhere in Polynesia
Genetics is one thing , eating is another. Recently losing 15lbs by cutting everything but meat and vegetables from my diet, I can assure you will power is far more important. Recognizing how we are addicted and commoditized by the food and medical industries, I decided to choose unprocessed food made by God. Skinnied right up. We can only blame our tormentors for so long before we exercise choice. Choose what is best for you : fool me once etc.
I had never heard that Polynesian obesity was new before.
The Gallowglas Warriors of Scotland were also huge and fat.
For the Scots, it was insulation for laying down in the open for sleep in the Highland Winter and a huge advantage in overpowering the much smaller British troops.
I'm betting that they use polyunsaturated vegetable oil to cook their food these days rather than coconut oil. That alone will drive diabetes, obesity and other mitochondrial disorders. They probably enjoyed liberal amounts of carbohydrates historically as all tropical people have from starchy roots and fruit.
you're probably right about the vegetable oil.
but if they ate predominately a high-carb diet traditionally, wouldn't that logically mean they would be better at processing sugar rather than worse than the global average?
Hey Ben. If you're eating a lot of PUFA, and I am not a PUFA-noia kind of guy like Mercola, then it can actually prevent you from oxidizing glucose effectively. That would cause "blood sugar problems" and apparent diabetes that is actually due to too much denatured/rancid PUFA accumulating in cells and the mitochondria. See more in my response to John below.
Yeah, but I don't agree with Mercola on avoiding Olive Oil.
There never was any point in buying cheap Olive Oil and Organic California Olive Ranch isn't really all that pricey.
Olive Oil is light years beyond any other and is the actual healthy basis of the Mediterranean Diet so many praise.
I actually don't have a PUFA-noia perspective, like Mercola, and I think he makes some mistakes based on his takes on Ray Peat's work. I think it has to do with quality and quantity. For example, chemist/physicist Johanna Budwig found in her experiments, and working with many thousands of cancer patients, that linoleic acid and/or alpha-linolenic acid was part of Otto Warburg's "respiratory pigment," which was a lipoprotein containing the aforementioned fatty acids, non-rancid and non-denatured, compounded with sulfurated amino acids like cysteine. The magic of small amounts of high quality, fresh, and non-rancid PUFA is in many ways the same thing that makes it so dangerous: It's ability to allow proper oxygen transfer across cell wall membranes into the mitochondria. PUFA, when non-rancid, attacks as an oxygen magnate. When rancid (which it almost inevitably is) it poisons the mitochondria, snuff out respiration, and causes free radical damage from its tendency to be easily oxidized. Revici found that what he called an "anaerobic imbalance" — too many sterols in the cell wall — created localized hypoxia and caused cells to revert back to primitive glycolysis; the cancer metabolism.
As for Olive Oil, Mercola's concern is based on his interviews with Brad Marshall at the Fire in a Bottle podcast. Brad thinks that PUFA in general and olive oil, in particular, creates a kind of artificial "hibernation" effect on metabolism, as opposed to saturated fats like stearic acid and coconut oil, because it's a PPAR-a agonist. They cite research that shows that Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards — places where olive oil is used regularly — are more obese than Americans. I am not totally convinced by this, but I tend to mainly use a lot of saturated fats (ghee, butter, coconut oil, cacao butter) anyways, in my very high carb diet. Cheers.
Well, my basis is entirely different from yours.
I first became interested in Olive Oil through The Bible, in which it seems quite essential.
Then from there I explored Olive Oil use among Royals generally. One in particular stood out, the practice of pregnant Khan wives drinking oil every day to ensure intelligent and well formed children.
Using it on my skin, I completely healed and removed two 3 inch diameter scars on my legs and when I could afford to drink a half liter a day, I had a deep gash in my wrist that healed in three days flat, just drinking the oil, along with a full, large bulb of raw garlic every day.
I never felt better or carried less blubber, my stomach, in my fifties was perfectly flat and I have never felt better. I only eased up as oil became expensive.
I don't cook with Olive Oil, I use coconut for that. I don't like butter, the taste is unpleasant to me.
I spent nearly 10 years in Tahiti in the 90's on the island of Huahine. At that time there were NO fast food outlets all, and the only available "outside" food supplies were from a very small store that received it's varied inventory once a week by boat. The only thin people on that entire outer island were French or elderly Tahitians. S.R. Carson is entirely correct about the high fat and high starch content in the native diet.
A favorite meal in French Polynesia is canned, super fatty, "corned beef" with breadfruit on a baguette, (it's actually quite delicious!). but insanely unhealthy! They also consume massive amounts of beer now too, but I would imagine that is relatively new addition to their diet.
I never had canned corned beef with breadfruit. I always made it as a sandwich spread with mayo, onions and relish.
But it used to be quite cheap, now it's like $6/12 Oz.
I can get T-Bones at Sav a Lot for $8, so it just isn't worth it anymore.
But it does make a great sandwich.
I think that sitting on a white sandy beach on a motu, made a humble picnic lunch seem magical (it was!), and not to worry about all the fat & calories.
BTW, I give you an upvote on all your posts, but alas, for some reason I can comment on Substack posts but I am unable to vote!?????
*shhhhh*
substack does its own form of gaslighting-lite, don't tell anyone, we pretend it doesn't happen...
8^)
... thanks to our Samoans, I led my high school conference, in interceptions and pick-6s! And, I only had to make two tackles, all season. My uniform was never soiled! My hometown, we had a small community of Samoan immigrants. Our freshman football team back in high school, our entire defensive and offensive front lines, our first stringers were all Samoans, spare one exception to our defensive end, who was Hawaiian, and lead our regional conference, in sacks. My position, strong side safety, I shagged 46 interceptions, from desperate quarterbacks hunking the ball randomly, downfield, save who may, to spare themselves the onslaught of our thousand pound Polynesian pass rush. Don't mistake Polynesians, Samoans and Hawaiians for being overweight. Play ball with these guys? You soon realize, it's the bear DNA! Our freshman football team were unscored upon, undeafeated. They have bear DNA! And, they are not to be trifled with - Samuel.
They have vastly more free Testosterone, and that is what powers them and all human tanks.
You might be surprised at the build of some Irish and Scots. I personally have known some exceeding five feet wide.
They descend from the Warrior Class and are insanely powerful.
I congratulate you to your sobriety but I love my 🍺 vino rosso plus Rebel Yell!
meh, braggy sober people can't handle intoxicants and i'm supposed to congratulate them for that shortcoming ? ? ?
how about congratulate me for the time i was driving drunk in a friend's old beater camaro, no registration, no drivers license, stopped while speeding, and i didn't even end up with a warning ! ! !
c'mon man, that was some serious karma at work ! ! !
(based on a true story)
meh, to sober people, i say...
8^)
I would like to know when did we import obesity to their islands? When did it begin? That would tell you a lot. Same as in the US, if you look at historical films from the 1920s-1930s, there isn't a fatty in sight! If same holds true for the Pacific Islanders, when did fat become new normal? I'm betting seed oils, aka engine lubricant disguised as food is the culprit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePH--widhXk
Both alcohol and the sort of insulin resistant obesity you describe are the result of disturbance in the microbiome, the intestinal bacteria. You are correct about the invasion of the Western diet but, all fish? Every drop of water in the ocean and, hence, every fish is is poisoned with PCB and mercury. Gives you shit for brains (and a lot of other nasties)..
Huge congrats on eight years! Amazing.
thanks Kim
Nothing to do with fast food old mate , it is the taro roots that get them so fatted up , it is called Poi in Hawaii , them big boys in the islands, , them called Poi Dogs cause it will fatten dogs for eating up also.The Hawaiian kings and queens were so obese they could not walk , they were loaded onto Cooks ship on palanquins lifted by the ships cranes. They look good all porked up , they are built for it.
couple minor contributing factoids...
1. polynesian folks LOVES them some Spam (TM)... it is a staple there...
2. similarly, they LOVES them (as i do too!) some turkey butts ! ! !
where a BUNCH of our unwanted turkey butts are exported to...
i want our butts back ! ! !
8^)
Spam is mostly a Hawaiian thing---I don't think it was there at all before the arrival of the military haoles in WW2, and it is not really consumed all that much elsewhere in Polynesia
Is Miss Alabama of Samoan heritage?
(Sorry! Just being bitchy!)
Genetics is one thing , eating is another. Recently losing 15lbs by cutting everything but meat and vegetables from my diet, I can assure you will power is far more important. Recognizing how we are addicted and commoditized by the food and medical industries, I decided to choose unprocessed food made by God. Skinnied right up. We can only blame our tormentors for so long before we exercise choice. Choose what is best for you : fool me once etc.
seems odd they would not have been familiar with alcohol in the form of naturally fermented fruits so many different animals have discovered...
thanks big guy
That's the sort of thing I wondered about.
I had never heard that Polynesian obesity was new before.
The Gallowglas Warriors of Scotland were also huge and fat.
For the Scots, it was insulation for laying down in the open for sleep in the Highland Winter and a huge advantage in overpowering the much smaller British troops.