Page 31 - Winter2009

do with the GAPS diet. We’ll also discuss what The answer is that heroin and morphine Endorphins
it has to do with cancer and civilization. are identical to chemicals we make in our bod-
Naltrexone is a drug that was developed in ies called endorphins. These are the chemicals are literally
the late 1960s to treat heroin overdose. It is an that make you feel good. If you block the body’s the fuel for
opiate receptor blocking agent. Three hundred production of natural endorphins—which is an the activity of
milligrams of intravenous naltrexone would inadvertent effect of blocking the exogenous opi-
block the receptors of someone who had over- ates, heroin and morphine—then this complete your T cells.
dosed on heroin and save him from respiratory embargo on endorphins makes you feel worse
arrest and death. than worse. The result is a lifeless life with no
Oral naltrexone in a fifty-milligram dose feelings of joy, since this is what endorphins
was next tried as a strategy to stop heroin addic- are intimately associated with. If you feel mis-
tion. Two interesting things happened. First, the erable all the time, you probably suffer from a
fifty milligrams would block the opiate receptors deficiency of endorphins.
all day and the heroin would have no effect. Ad- The feeling of well-being is connected with
dicts would stop using heroin because it wouldn’t your immune response. Endorphins are literally
make them high. But unfortunately, the people the fuel for the activity of your T cells; they
who took the fifty-milligram dose of naltrexone have to do with your natural killer cells and the
felt so lousy they said they’d rather be dead than synthesis of tumor necrosis factor. All of this is
take this stuff. The therapy completely failed as clearly delineated in the medical literature.
an addiction drug, but Bernard Bihari, a neurolo- The next step for Bihari was to test the
gist in New York City, had a lot of AIDS patients heroin addicts who had AIDS and MS and other
who were also heroin addicts. Bihari knew the immune system problems to see whether they
story of naltrexone and this led to an attempt to were actually low in endorphins. Bihari was the
discover why people taking naltrexone felt so first to hypothesize that we can trick the body
lousy. into making more endorphins by giving a very

A DIET FULL OF FAT

How does one achieve a diet that is 80 percent fat? It’s not as hard as you think, because by 80 percent, we mean 80
percent of calories, not 80 percent of weight or volume. Since there are twice as many calories in a gram of fat compared
to a gram of carbohydrate or protein, and since fat contains no water but carbohydrate and protein foods can be up to 90
percent water, that means that if your diet is about 10 percent of fat by volume or weight, you will probably be eating 80
percent of your calories as fat. (For a detailed explanation see Adventures in Macronutrient Land at westonaprice.org.)
Here are some ways to increase your fat intake:

• Take 1-2 tablespoons coconut oil in hot water before a meal.
• Add an extra yolk to scrambled eggs.
• Cook some fruit along with your bacon so you soak up some bacon fat into the fruit.
• Use plenty of butter in your oatmeal or on your bread—you should put enough butter on your bread to show
teeth marks when you bite into it.
• Put lots of melted butter on your vegetables or even on your meat and fish.
• Use cream in sauces.
• Make gravy with pan drippings.
• Always consume whole dairy products—whole milk, whole yoghurt, full-fat cheese.
• Cook in generous amounts of lard, ghee, butter, goose fat or duck fat.
• Spreads like paté are a good way to consume extra fat.

If you are not used to eating a lot of fat, you will need to build up slowly. Start with 1/4 teaspoon coconut oil in hot
water, small amounts of butter on your bread or vegetables, small servings of whole dairy products. Swedish bitters taken
morning and evening (1 teaspoon in water) will help your liver produce bile for fat digestion. If you still have trouble with
all that fat, you can take an ox bile tablet with your meal, or lipase enzymes. Eventually you will be able to tolerate and
enjoy a diet full of healthy fats. You may also find that any cravings for carbohydrates subside once your body gets the fat
it needs.

WINTER 2009 Wise Traditions 29