MasterSelf Year One Read online

  Any part of our experience of the universe that, if changed, would lead to a universe or an experience of being that is “Asat” or irrelevant is thus unchangeable. Anything that we experience in the universe that could be changed without causing the overall nature of reality to become invalidated can be changed- a tree may fall in the forest without anyone hearing it, and the world keeps spinning.

  The real question that we are left with is-

  “What rules can we break?”

  The Carnivore Challenge, I: 30 Days of Meat

  For many years, Man has searched for the ideal diet. Some have tried only eating fruit. Others believed that vegetables were the way to go. However, there exist a select few who choose to stand alone, going against the grain(s)- we call these loose cannons who live on the edge of society: carnivore.

  TRIGGER WARNING: Vegans, enter at your own risk.

  On a more serious note, I learned about the Carnivore (also called Zero Carb) diet a few weeks ago whilst watching the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (ft. Jordan Peterson). Now, if you have even a passing knowledge of this site (or have met me), you’ll know that I’m always down to try something extreme, like living in a tent or going 40 (or 35) days without any food. With that in mind, it’s not too much of a stretch to see where the idea of this diet would appeal to me. Thus, I humbly present to you, the Carnivore Challenge: 30 Days of Meat.

  Rules of The Carnivore Challenge:

  All food consumed must be exclusively animal products – meat, cheese, eggs, and butter.

  This challenge will last for 30 days, beginning on Sunday, July 22, 2018.

  No beverages besides water (and black coffee) will be allowed. (This means you, beer.)

  The challenger can eat as much of the foods listed in rule 1 as he desires.

  No seasoning (salt, pepper, or otherwise) is allowed.

  If the first 30 days go well, the challenge will be extended to 90 days with modified rules.

  All meals will be consecrated in the name of Ron Swanson.

  Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get to the elephant in the room. (Unfortunately that’s just an idiom, because I don’t know where to buy elephant nor do I know if it tastes good, but if the opportunity presents itself, I will eat one and let you know.)

  You’re probably thinking that this whole thing sounds insane, and I get that. Our culture has done a good job of ingraining the concept of “balanced meals” and “eating healthy,” right? Spinach makes you strong like Popeye, red meat is bad for your heart, something something cholesterol- we’ve heard it all ad infinitum.

  That’s right- there’s a decent amount of evidence to suggest that humans are not, in fact, evolved to eat a balanced diet. Instead, it seems that we are designed to run primarily on red meat- big, buttery, fatty ribeyes, baby.

  The carnivore theory goes something like this:

  Our primate relatives are mostly omnivores, preferring fruit above other sources of food. Insects and meat make up just 2% of their diet. Interestingly enough, chimpanzees (who are very closely related to us) are the only non-humans to invent weapons (in this case, spears) to hunt (they stab at bush babies that hide in brush.) The theory suggests that, at some point in (or even before) the evolution of the Homo genus, our ancestors became tool-using hunters. Because of this, they had access to calorie- and fat-dense meat, which furthered the development of our large brains (composed primarily of fat).

  There is a great deal of evidence to support this, from the compositional differences between the human gut (primarily small intestine, which breaks down protein) and the ape (primarily colon, which breaks down vegetation). Additionally, humans lack thick tooth enamel (protects against damage from eating plant matter), which indicates that we maintained diet heavy in meat.

  I’ll leave the rest of the science to the scientists, so if you want a more compelling and well-researched argument, look up the brilliant presentation Amber O’Hearn gave on the subject at KetoCon 2017.

  The best argument I have heard in support of the carnivory hypothesis, however, is this:

  “What other apex predator, in the wild, eats anything besides meat?”

  Humans are the top of the food chain- apex predators. You would never see a lion eating a salad or a tiger going vegan, so why would it make sense for people to do the same?

  I’ll leave you with that thought for this week- it’s time for me to visit the butcher.

  The Carnivore Challenge, II: A Week of Zero Carb

  It has now been a week of the zero carb Carnivore Challenge for me- and I’m loving it. So far, I’ve been getting up early every day (to cook steaks or bacon and eggs), I’ve had more energy throughout the day, and my mood has improved significantly. Somehow, a perfectly uneventful week at work ended up being one of the best weeks I’ve had in a long time- and I’m certain that zero carb carnivory is the reason why.

  One of the most notable things I have seen so far is the change in my appetite. I’ve always been the garbage disposal at the dinner table- I had no problem with eating leftovers because I was always hungry. Now, I have no hunger between meals, and I’m completely satisfied after eating. The only snacking I’ve done has been on a small block of sharp cheddar that I’ll eat either before cooking or just after a meal. When I learned about the zero carb diet, I knew that satiety was supposed to be one of the big benefits, but there is such a huge difference between the word and the experience here.

  I would also like to note one (quite pleasant) development: it turns out that vodka and (more importantly) whiskey do not have any carbs and are acceptable on a zero carb carnivore diet.

  The Science

  That’s where I’m at so far, now let’s get further into the diet itself. I read a book called The Fat of the Land (originally published as Not By Bread Alone) by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a very accomplished Arctic explorer (and ethnologist). In the book, Stefansson talks about the time he spent living with the Alaskan Inuit (referred to as Eskimos in the book) and his observations drawn from their diet. This diet, interestingly enough, is exclusively comprised of animal products- meat and fat from seals, caribou, whales, polar bears, and fish. Stefansson noted that the natives had a much higher tolerance to cold, no excessive weight or metabolic diseases, and no evidence of tooth decay (even based on paleontological evidence of excavated skeletons).

  Over the course of his time with the Inuit, he adopted their diet, which he would maintain for the rest of his life. After returning to society, he and a fellow explorer, Dr. Karsten Anderson, participated in a significant study run by an incredibly qualified staff out of Bellevue Hospital.

  They monitored the two men for a year of a diet of exclusively meat, and their study concluded that “the clinical observations and laboratory studies gave no evidence that any ill effects had occurred from the prolonged use of the exclusive meat diet.” Additionally, “in the prolonged test, the blood pressure of one man remained constant; the systolic pressure of the other decreased 20 mm. and the diastolic pressure remained uniform,” “vitamin deficiencies did not appear,” and “urine examinations, determinations of the nitrogenous constituents of the blood, and kidney function tests revealed no evidence of kidney damage.”

  Very impressive- what other diet is so simple and so effective?

  Later in the book, he discusses a fascinating food called “pemmican,” which I was unfamiliar with before learning about the diet. Pemmican is a preparation of dried meat and rendered fat. First, meat is cut completely lean and made into very thin strips. The strips are hung and dried, then pounded into very small pieces. While this is happening, the fat of the meat is melted, then mixed with the lean in a ratio of 1:1. This comes out to roughly 80% of the calories from fat and 20% from protein.

  The most interesting part of this food is that, according to Stefansson, this is the perfect food, in that one could eat solely pemmican for any length of time without losing a taste for it or suffering from any ill effects. On top of that, if prepa
red correctly, it essentially lasts forever due to the preservative effect of the fat. In the time of the western expeditions, pemmican was a very valuable commodity as a high-energy food source. Another Arctic explorer, Robert Peary, wrote, “Too much cannot be said of the importance of pemmican to a polar expedition. It is an absolute sine qua non.”

  The rest of the book covers the Pemmican War (1812-1821), as well as Stefansson’s examination of the military’s resistance to using pemmican as a ration during the first World War (which he calls the Second Pemmican War). While historically interesting, this section is not as fascinating as his discussion of the diet itself.

  If you’d like, the book is available online for free, highly recommended.

  Going Forward

  One of my objectives for the coming week is going to be an attempt to continue the zero carb diet for cheaper- as much as I love eating steak a few times a day, it’s somewhat cost prohibitive. However, there is a way to do it cheaper, and it involves ground beef, bacon ends, eggs, and discount meats. We’ll see how it goes as the next week progresses.

  If you’re interested in going deeper into the subject, check out the Zero Carb Zen blog, the Zero Carb subreddit, and Google

  To wrap things up- I promise you, if you’re the type of person who likes facts and logic, it won’t take you more than a bit of reading on the subject before you’re sold on zero carb- I was in almost immediately.

  See you in a week!

  The Carnivore Challenge, III: The Carnivore Diet, Cain, Abel, and JBP

  When I was reading the book (The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson) I discussed in the most recent chapter (linked above), something really stood out to me- Stefansson brought up the story of Cain and Abel in reference to the Carnivore diet. Now, if you’re familiar with me or this site, you’ll know I’m all about exploring religion, mythology, and history for deeper meanings, so that’s what we’ll be getting into today. Anyway, I’ll abridge Stefansson’s passage (112-115) as follows:

  “A preference for meat foods, if not a prejudice against the others, can be traced through the history and literature of mankind in every age, clime and country. Except for wine which is from the kingdom of vegetables, the highest praise of Greek poetry, particularly the Homeric, is for meats. The same indication of preference runs through the Bible. What is said in Genesis, IV, 2-5, is considered more fully in a later chapter: that the Lord was not pleased with Cain when he brought an offering of garden produce but was pleased with Abel when he brought some fat mutton. This led to the tragedy in which Cain the gardener killed Abel the shepherd, foreshadowing that bitterness which the vegetarians still feel against those who persist in the eating of sirloins and chops.

  […]

  …the first reference to fat in the Bible shows both the preference of Jehovah for meat over garden truck and for fat meat over lean. It is in the fourth chapter of Genesis, from the second to the fifth verse: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. ‘And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.’”

  Aside from the (hilarious) comment about vegetarians (and more specifically, vegans- don’t act like you don’t know who we’re talking about), this is a really fascinating concept. To tie things back to the guy that got me into the carnivore diet, Dr. Jordan Peterson himself has devoted a significant amount of time to extracting the meaning out of the story of the first murder- but what if it isn’t so complicated?

  If you have the time and interest, I highly recommend Peterson’s series of biblical lectures, specifically the Cain and Abel episode.

  However, if you don’t have the time, I’ll summarize Peterson’s thoughts on the story:

  The good doctor proposes first that, in order to internalize the concept of sacrifice (his definition of sacrifice being the denial of a short-term pleasure to receive a greater long-term gain), Man first had to sacrifice in the physical realm to ensure a good outcome. Based on this premise, Abel is viewed by Peterson as someone who is an upstanding, moral, hard-working, hard-sacrificing guy, and Cain, on the other hand, is the opposite- resentful and bitter, and a maker of bad sacrifices.

  To quote the lecture (in reference to why God rejected Cain’s sacrifice):

  “You don’t know why that is. This is a built-in ambiguity, I think. I think there’s textual hints, but I’m not sure. “Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.” Ok, so what does that mean? Well, he brought a high-quality sacrifice. You don’t know that Abel’s sacrifice is low quality, because it doesn’t say that, you know, Abel brought God some wilted lettuce and then burnt it. It doesn’t say that.

  But there isn’t a sentence, there, that talks about how high quality Cain’s sacrifice is. But, in any case, the Lord has respect unto Abel and his offering. So there’s a hint that Abel’s putting a little bit more into the whole sacrificial thing than Cain. But there’s also a hint that, maybe, God is just liking you a little better than he’s liking him. That’s, I think, useful from a literary perspective, because there is that arbitrariness about life.”

  This is where things get interesting- we can reference from Jewish rabbinical law (which would have similar principles regarding sacrifices that harken back to this incident) what constitutes a good sacrifice. In the same passage by Stefansson referenced earlier (113):

  “The Hebrews distinguished between the suet or pure fat of an animal, and the fat which was intermixed with the lean (Neh. vii, 10). Some parts of the suet, viz., about the stomach, the entrails, the kidneys and the tail of a sheep, which grows to an excessive size in many eastern countries, and produces a large quantity of rich fat, were forbidden to be eaten in the case of animals offered to Jehovah in sacrifice (Lev. iii, 3, 9, 17; vii, 3, 23).

  The ground of the prohibition was that the fat was the richest part of the animal, and therefore belonged to him (iii, 16).” Most anthropologists, and other students of the relation of man to his religion, seem to agree that the foods considered best for sacrifice, or generally thought to be agreeable to gods and powerful spirits, are the same as those which the people themselves preferred when the religion was in its formative stage. Genesis, then, would represent, in what it says of the preferences of Jehovah, the preferences of the Hebrew people themselves when they were living in the region of Babylonia and Egypt 3,000 or 4,000 years ago.”

  In this context, we can see that Cain’s sacrifice wasn’t inadequate out of malice (unless he was holding out on giving up some prime lamb), but out of something more like a failure of choice of career. Imagine your brother coming home with a medical degree and you show up with a degree in- oh, I don’t know, Art History. Not sure about you, but I can’t see that going over well with Pops (who, in this case, is literally God).

  What are we supposed to take from this, then? Is the moral of the story that a pastoral lifestyle is superior to that of an agrarian one, and that we should all be on the carnivore diet? It could also be that farmers shouldn’t be involved in the act of sacrifice, but I think that’s a bit more tenuous. Maybe it’s a prophecy about some sort of upcoming vegan-led armageddon, although I prefer a Bruce Willis led Armageddon, personally. Either way, at the end of the day, I prefer Peterson’s explanation, even if it doesn’t have as much of a historical basis. His notion that we first ritualize what we later internalize is the basis of a great deal of my thought in regards to myth.

  I think it’s tremendously important to understand the link that connects religious rituals and external myth to the internal processes of the development of Self, and JBP is all about that. However, in this case, I think it may just be a story about the value of meat- more specifically fat. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a story I can get behind.

  Turns out Abel is up there with Ron Swanson
as a patron saint of the Carnivore diet.

  Until next week!

  TLDR;

  And the Lord said unto Cain,

  “There will be no fucking vegetables.”

  -Ron Swanson

  The Carnivore Challenge, IV: The Ethics of Eating Meat

  Hello again, friends- as an update on the progress of my 30 day Carnivore Challenge, I have some sad news. It turns out that Starbucks’ (delicious) sous vide egg bites (the bacon-gruyere ones) actually have 10g of potato starch (re: carbs) in them, so I actually haven’t been doing proper carnivore at all. As a result, I’m starting the counter over as of 8/12/18, so the challenge has begun anew. Anyway, this week I’m going to discuss the ethics of eating meat. There are many people who believe that killing animals and eating meat is unethical, so without further ado, let’s get into the meat (sorry, not sorry) of this contentious issue.

  One of the primary arguments presented by the meatless masses is that of the inherent cruelty of causing pain and suffering to animals. I think a large amount of this belief has its roots in the eastern religious traditions. For example, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains (and potentially adherents of other religions) have spiritual guidelines that encourage nonviolence and prohibit the causing of unnecessary suffering to sentient beings. These concepts are rooted in the metaphysical assertion of the religion you are probably familiar with as “karma.”