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Dr. Peter Ballerstedt - Forage-based livestock production

Main web page for: Dr. Peter Ballerstedt, Grass Based Health

Main web page: http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com
Facebook Page for Grass Based Health

Dr. Peter Ballerstedt earned his bachelors degree at the University of Kentucky and his graduate degree at Oregon State University.

He has an extensive background in forage production, utilisation and forage-based livestock production systems and was the forage extension specialist at Oregon State University from 1986 until 1992.

The key to true social, economic and ecological sustainability - ruminant animal production systems - the source of butter, red meat, and cheese!

Peter's personal experience has led him to re-examine human diet and health. What he has learned doesn’t agree with the advice given for the past several decades.

Towards the end of 2007 I was spooked by several folks close to me being diagnosed with prediabetes and the fact that I had several symptoms myself. Since then I’ve gone from 220+ lbs (27+ % body fat) to 170 lbs (15+ body fat).

Nancy had begun her own journey of dietary research and diet modification a few years before I was ready. So when I became ready to make a change in my life, Nancy was ready to help. She directed me to a number of books and web sites. Since then, I’ve been accumulating the information presented on this page.

Eleven Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:

The following is copied from the Random House web site:

1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.

2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.

3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.

4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.

5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.

6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller. [Simply stated, absent insulin, we can not make fat (for example, Type 1 diabetics) regardless of how much we eat, and absent human growth hormone, we can not grow.]

7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.

8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.

9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.

10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.

11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.

I found these points so counter to what I'd been taught that it's taken me a while to fully appreciate them. For example - I now understand that obesity isn't the result of overeating and sedentary behavior. This change in my thinking has produced a change in my perceptions. I now realize that prior to this new understanding, whenever I saw a heavy person I was judging them to be lazy gluttons. I don't think I'm unique in this respect. And I realize how harshly we judge ourselves …

"Dr. Peter Ballerstedt discusses sustainable keto"

Keto Evangelist: Episode 135

Keto Evangelist Podcast
(82 minutes)

What do we eat? Here’s a summary:

Fresh fatty cuts of meat (grass-fed, even better!)
Whole free-range, local farm-raised eggs
Clarified, full-fat butter (cream, and natural cheeses are fine, but Nancy’s discovered that she has a dairy sensitivity, so she avoids them, too)
Olive oil, coconut oil, rendered pork fat, bacon drippings, avocado oil
Green leafy veggies (i.e. spinach, kale, collard greens, arugula)
Non-starchy veggies (i.e. green beans, spaghetti squash, spinach, cauliflower)
Nuts and seeds (i.e. macadamia, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds)
Low-sugar fruits (i.e. berries and melons)

That's probably MORE than enough for now! Rest assured that I'm happy to talk about this subject anytime you're interested! I'll keep my soapbox handy ...

Dr. Peter Ballerstedt

'Ruminant Reality: Diet, Human Health and the Environment'

Low Carb Down Under: Published on 30 Jun 2017

If the video won't play this link should work.

Diet Information

There’s a lot of information on diet / health / human nutrition available to us these days. The purpose of this page is to present some of the facts and information that I've found helpful. It isn't meant to be an comprehensive, exhaustive, or definitive presentation. I will add to it from time to time.

I’m not a physician. I encourage everyone to educate themselves on the subject of diet, nutrition, and health. I'm convinced that the great healthcare challenge we face in the coming years can only be met if we get our thoughts on diet/nutrition/health truly grounded in scientific reality, instead of the currently accepted dogma.

Despite everything you’ve heard about saturated fat being linked to cancer, that link is statistically weak. However, there is a strong link between sugar and cancer. In Europe, doctors tell patients, “Sugar feeds cancer.”

The statistics are scary.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

24 million people in the United States now have diabetes—an increase of 3 million over the past two years.
There are also 57 million more people who have prediabetes.
One third of Americans are morbidly obese
Two thirds of all adult Americans are now overweight or obese
The number of overweight children has increased, along with diseases associated with being overweight.
One third of children born in the US today will develop Type II diabetes.
For the first time, life expectancy of US children is less than their parents.

Ancestral Health Society, 2017 - What if It's ALL Been a Big Fat Lie?

If the video won't play this link should work.

Nutrition

The only source of complete proteins (ones that contain these essential amino acids) are animal proteins (fish, poultry, and meat). There are also such things as essential fatty acids. These fatty acids are required for optimal health, and the best source for them is animal fat.

There is NO such thing as an essential carbohydrate. Thus, the officially-recommended low fat diet (which must be a high carbohydrate diet, by definition) does not provide sufficient essential amino acids and fatty acids, while it provides an excessive amount of carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate consumption raises insulin. Chronically elevated insulin levels are now understood to be a cause of metabolic syndrome (approximately 47 million Americans now have this condition). And metabolic syndrome signals an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, gout, hypertension, and a host of other chronic “modern” diseases.

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. This book will give you the information that you'll need to resist the messages that come from government, the food industry, the drug industry, the medical establishment (and even, at times, our own friends & families). This isn't an easy read, but I recommend it strongly for anyone who's truly interested in the subject of diet, nutrition and health. Taubes is an award-winning science journalist who was a scientist BEFORE he became a journalist. His coverage of this subject is unlike anything that's been done to date.

"Beef: The REAL Health Food"

KYForages: Published on 27 Jan 2015

(72 minutes)

If the video won't play this link should work.

"My Big Fat Diet" is a documentary about a study involving a First-Nations community in British Columbia. 100-some residents went on a restricted carbohydrate diet (aboriginal people in North America have a 2.5x greater risk of diabetes than the population as a whole).

A link to Dr. Jay Wortman's blog.(the doctor who conducted this study) Laying out his personal experience and information regarding the study.

You Tube links:
My Big Fat Diet intro.
My Big Fat Diet challenge from the chief.

Mark Sisson was a successful distance runner, who competed at a very high level. But as a result of following “Conventional Wisdom” (CW), he suffered a number of injuries and health impacts. After several years of his own journey, he has written a great deal about what he calls “Primal Living”. In short, he espouses ways of eating, exercising, and living that allow our inherent human-ness to be expressed in optimal health. His book is called The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy. He writes almost daily for his blog, Mark’s Daily Apple; Primal Living in the Modern World.

There’s some very interesting information emerging regarding Vitamin D’s role in our health. A great place to start is Dr. Holick’s “The UV Advantage” website. His presentation to the 34th European Symposium on Calcified Tissues May 5-9, 2007 “The Vitamin D Pandemic and its Health Consequences” presents some remarkable data:

Researchers at the Moores Cancer Center and Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, UC San Diego used a complex computer prediction model to determine that intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the US and Canada. The researchers model also predicted that 75% of deaths from these cancers could be prevented with adequate intake of vitamin D3 and calcium. Dr. Cedric Garland, UCSD School of Medicine, lead researcher on the study discusses the implications of this finding and the proposed actions. Here’s another video on vitamin D by Dr. John Cannell.