The third episode of TRP is Bauer interviewing Nora Gedgaudas, a Portland nutritionist and neurofeedback expert, about paleo ways of eating. It’s helping me connect up all the keto stuff I’ve been into with my abstract political notions about green anarchy, and that synthesis feels important to me this morning.

She has an analogy that compares fueling the body to fueling a woodstove.

In making a proper fire, you need three things. You start with with scraps of paper or other tinder to get the flame to take quickly. Then you have small dry twigs and other kindling to get it going in a more substantial way. The third thing is the main fuel source, like a big chunk of log. So …

Tinder: white flour, bagels, pasta (high carbs)

Kindling: beans, whole grains, sweet potato, brown rice (moderate carbs)

Chunks: Eggs, dairy, poultry, fish, red meat (fats)

(Also, alcohol and white sugar are like throwing gas on the fire. She doesn’t talk much about fruits and vegetables, but the same principles apply. Blackberries and broccoli are relatively low in sugar/carbs. A dehydrated apricot or a potato, quite the opposite.)

She says that a typical modern Westerner is addicted to the carbohydrates and eats them compulsively and often. I think that’s right. Even though I’ve been conscious about what I eat for a long time, I still want to binge. A bag of organic popcorn. A couple of handfuls of raisins with my cashews. A half pint or a whole one, of coffee Haagen-Dasz. Sugars and carbs.

The fix for this, whether you call it Atkins or Keto or Paleo (or “The Primalgenic Plan” in Nora’s specific case) is to dramatically lower carbs in any form and teach your body to burn fat instead. In other words, feed the fire on big logs once or twice a day, and use the tinder and kindling very sparingly.

The thing I like best about her approach is that it isn’t dogmatic, but open to learning. She says that she started out with eggs cooked in butter for breakfast, but found out that neither one was good for her (food allergies or something). So now she has a duck egg cooked in ghee.

The thing I like least is that she’s very much bound up in the marketing, the looking good, and the traditional idea of what success is. (Puts me in mind of a certain friend of ours down in the Paradise Valley.)

I am embracing being an old and poor and ugly and honest and vulnerable kind of sage; just eating better and being more organized and trying to figure out a way to live without paper towels. So I’m headed back to the prosaic places like Bauer’s podcast, to feed my mind.

But if you want more Nora, I would start here.