Do a search on the Internet and you'll find more arguments - from highly credentialed doctors and nutritionists along with plenty of unqualified 'diet fundamentalists' - for and against the idea that gluten is the culprit behind so many health issues. Personally, I really DO feel fine on a largely Mediterranean diet complete with plenty of bread and pasta. I'm also fit and actually underweight (according to BMI calculators). I feel great health-wise and am a positive, up-beat, happy person. So I certainly see no need to stop eating gluten. And here's what I don't get about the idea that a paleo diet is the key to a long life and overcoming the obesity crisis: why did the obesity crisis only come about in the last part of 20th century, hundreds of years after most people (in developed nations at least) had abandoned paleo diets?
>why did the obesity crisis only come about in the last part of 20th century
I can guess at two factors. Firstly, food started to get really cheap in the 1960s.
Secondly, and not entirely unrelatedly, since that time we haven't suffered a major war or plague. (Up till this point, European history had more or less consisted of wars and plagues.)
Instead people have enjoyed prosperity with more and more attendant consumption, not just of food, but of entertainment and culture.
Here's the potentially controversial bit: in my experience, cultural consumption is enhanced by 'lower level' consumption such as eating rich food and drinking coffee and alcohol. The reason these help is (paradoxically) because they distress the body, causing the brain to compensate by secreting natural sedatives.
These in turn allow the mind to race, temporarily free from the constraints of fear and worry. Gluten, being a lectin, is a stressor of animal intestines. Hence bread, cakes and pasta serve admirably in this regard.
The real choice here is whether to live with an "average diet" and thus face average risk rates, or experiment on yourself and try to improve your chances.
Paleo targets overall health, not specifically fat reduction or cardiovascular health. That means that one of its goals is to reduce or eliminate things like long-term degenerative diseases or psychological problems, things which we decided, a long, long time ago, to accept as "natural occurrences" that are manageable only with medication, and not issues of dietary intake. This is a bold goal, of course, so it's right to be skeptical. If it really works, it can be tested. Our bias against the radical ideas comes from only being able to look backwards a few generations of people, all of whom have had largely the same diet. It is only fairly recently that we've gotten this explosion of experimental diet strategies, aided by new research and more diverse food availability. I'm into trying them as a kind of hobby and form of general life-improvement, myself, and for people who suffer from diseases with no known medicinal cure, it offers a lot of hope.
If we are looking only for a culprit for late-twentieth-century obesity, gluten doesn't enter into it. Instead we should look towards the changes in average diet over that time - i.e. increased intake of carbs, refined(fiberless) carbs, and carbs from sugar, and a shift away from animal fats and pressed crude vegetable oils towards solvent-extracted and refined vegetable oils. To explain a broad effect in the population, one has to look towards broad changes, and those are the main things that have changed.
Side note: The popular tendency to emphasize vegetables and/or fruits in diet holds a lot of commercial appeal(since fresh plant foods have difficult, expensive storage logistics, making them more prestigious, and fruits can have their sugar concentrated with drying or juicing, turning them into easily-saleable vice goods) but it's a form of feel-good bikeshedding. The "80% of the problem" issues are different, broader, and harder to completely solve: ideal fats/carbs/protein balance, recognition of allergies, intolerances, and toxicity, and price/time/quality/sustainability ratios. A real solution to those things needs both top-down cooperation and bottom-up education.
I personally haven't seen a huge difference in trying gluten/caesin-free, except possibly for withdrawal symptoms that cumulate in the devouring of multiple bowls of milk and cereal. I may try it again in the future, but while I can usually avoid gluten, I find it particularly hard to get rid of dairy; it helps calm down coffee's acidity, and cheese is one of my preferred snacks when out of the house.
"The popular tendency to emphasize vegetables and/or fruits in diet holds a lot of commercial appeal...but it's a form of feel-good bikeshedding."
As I understand it, there is a good bit of science supporting the healthfulness of fresh fruits and vegetables (but not necessarily the processed fruits you referred to).
Also the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute of Cancer Research published Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a global perspective which found much evidence in favor of fruits and vegetables for the prevention of cancer.
The obesity epidemic as we know, where most people over 30 or so are overweight or obese, is new, but "diseases of civilization" such as diabetes and atherosclerosis aren't. See Good Calories, Bad Calories for details.
As for the timing of the obesity epidemic, HFCS hit the market in 1975. Coincidence? Our diets became a lot less paleo when they started putting that in everything.
Here's the problem with diet studies in general - they take ages to pan out. Because of that, there's varying degrees of belief in whether or not something is correct or incorrect, and even in cases where some breakthrough has been made, it takes ages to determine whether or not the choice was a correct one or not.
This is the same reason why certain food products sales largely come down to packaging - how can I really know the effect a protein supplement is making on my muscle growth due to the many other HUGE factors that come into play? Could I have done better without it? Same with insurance plans, investments, etc - at the end of the day many of these products end up getting bought and sold due more to the marketing savvy of their business departments more than the efficacy of the products themselves.
I'm slightly ranting but I think, food wise, the best way to judge whether or not something is good for you is quite simply, how it makes you feel immediately afterwards. If I eat too many carbs, I feel like crap. If I eat a Carl's Jr burger, I feel like crap. If I eat lean meat and fruits, I feel great. If I go overboard, I can hardly feel it. If I drink soda, I feel like crap. And so it goes.
I really think it's that simple - don't pollute your head with varying degrees of this stuff - if it makes you feel good, and that feeling STAYS even if you don't eat/drink it (see: withdrawals) it's probably damn good for you and you should keep consuming it. Similarly, reverse the points to decide what you SHOULDN'T be consuming.
Which is why the message in The Paleo Soltuion makes sense: "Eat real food". Any food that has an ingredients list likely also contains sugar, salt, and/or ingredients with names that you cannot pronounce.
I think you also have to take a bit of a longer term picture. How you feel immediately afterwards is important, but days, weeks are important too. I would advise people to read this book, and give it a try for 30 days. If, after 30 days you decided to start eating your grains again, you might find like I did that inflammation becomes quite noticeable (such as achy joints).
"I'm slightly ranting but I think, food wise, the best way to judge whether or not something is good for you is quite simply, how it makes you feel immediately afterwards...
I really think it's that simple."
Sorry, this really doesn't make sense to me. Do you think people eat fatty, sugary, salty foods because it makes them feel bad? No, it makes them feel great.
But, you may say, that is only temporary pleasure. They won't feel great a few hours later when their blood sugar crashes. One should, you could argue, look at how you feel all day.
But then why stop at one day? Why not look at your happiness over years. Maybe that diet that makes you feel good during the day slowly causes a disease, such as cancer, that REALLY makes you feel bad later. This could, for example, be the effect of eating a lot of red meat.
"Eat what makes you feel good" is simple and appealing advice. Like most complex issues, however, a simple and appealing solution is not likely to be the best.
Fatty, sugary, and salty foods do not make you feel good shortly afterwards. They make you feel bad. If there is any sort of bad sensation at any point, you shouldn't be consuming that food.
There's something to the cancer argument but like I said previously, the determinates behind that stuff are so hard to figure out - and I would say that likely, the foods that keep us feeling good day to day - ALL DAY - are not the ones causing us to have cancer - but I'm no scientist.
First, I dispute that good-tasting foods all make you feel bad shortly afterwards. Just as one example, sugary foods make you release all kinds of happy chemicals as you eat it, and that high alone lasts for a while.
Second, simply eating any food AT ALL that keeps you feeling good all day probably increases your risk of cancer. Calorie restriction looks like it does increase our longevity in part due to a decreased risk of cancer.
Sugary foods cause a crash after consuming them. So yes, there is a negative fall associated with it.
The thing with calorie restriction is if you eat all good foods that make you feel good, likely your "calorie restriction" situation occurs anyways. If you have enough of the good-feeling foods to not be in a state where calorie restriction is actually happening, you begin to feel bad (full/bloated). And thus, fulfill the scenario where "feeling bad" actually is again bad for your long-term health.
The two of you seem to be using different definitions of "shortly afterward". Two seconds after chocolate cake you feel better, two hours after chocolate cake you'll probably feel worse. Sugar affects different people in different ways, though.
I submitted this because I have no idea what to make of it and no real idea if it is credible. I am so tired of adapting to what is "good" only to have that change. So my oatmeal breakfast is bad now and I should go back to bacon and eggs? sigh. Has anyone tried this paleo business, and to what effect?
edit: and more importantly, I should have added, is there science behind it? Shame on me.
I have no idea what to make of it and no real idea if it is credible
It isn't credible.
The article claims that removing grains from your diet will prevent "Infertility, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, vitiligo, narcolepsy, schizophrenia, autism, depression, huntington's, non-hodgkin's lymphoma, hypothyrodism, and porphyria". This would be pretty astonishing if it were true... especially given that two of these conditions (type 1 diabetes and autism) often develop before children start eating grains.
Astonishing claims require astonishing evidence -- and the article provides absolutely no evidence at all.
Check out the success stories at the http://www.marksdailyapple.com forums . The site also has hundreds of articles on everything about the diet and lifestyle.
When it comes to nutrition, I'd also recommend foregoing science when studies aren't available (gasp) and, as InfinityX0 suggested, try different things and do what works best for you.
"Let's try it and see what happens" really is the core of science, all the complicated shit is just figuring out the most useful "it" to try and being extra certain that the "what happens" really was due to the "it" that you tried.
Foregoing science would mean deciding whether it works based on what your astrologer or the most recent "expert" says, rather than whether it can actually be observed (apparently) working.
I have tried paleo, lacto-paleo, low-carb, and some variants in between. Not because I put any great stock in them, but because I wanted to observe their effects on my body.
In all cases, I did lose weight (I am not anywhere near overweight, I am actually in quite good shape, exercise regularly, and have a generally healthy diet to begin with). I understand this to be normal, especially in males, to lose weight fairly quickly, and then plateau out. Women experience mixed results, but it's generally a slower process for them to begin seeing a difference.
From a health perspective, I honestly cannot put any stock into this article or any other proponents of these diets. The claims made in this article border on irresponsible, to the point where it sounds so much like any other miracle diet.
There is NO way anyone should undertake any major change to their diet without good reasoning, and consulting a physician or qualified nutritionist.
Your gym trainer is not a qualified source. Neither is a random website.
Bodies are too unique to fall into some one-size-fits-all diet scheme for anyone.
Some (<1%) people do have problems digesting gluten; it's called Coeliac (or Celiac) disease. My sister has it, along with several other members of the family. It takes some adjustment but there are many substitute foods available. It's more prevalent among people of Irish or Spanish ancestry, hardly exists in Asian people.
So maybe Mr Ferris has this problem. That doesn't mean that everyone else does, though this isn't the first time I've seen someone with a digestive condition go on a crusade about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
I am so tired of adapting to what is "good" only to have that change.
I suggest you listen to your own body instead of attention-seeking pundits. We all need some mix of protein, carbohydrates, fiber, lipids and vitamins. too much or too little of any one thing is unhealthy; moderate exercise is good, moderate alcohol consumption is OK, smoking is quite unhealthy; you should check your blood pressure every so often. Obviously if you only crave one kind of food or some food that doesn't exist in nature something is a bit out of whack, but otherwise you should eat whatever gives you sufficient energy and trouble-free digestion.
Blog posts like this are the mental equivalent of 'magic dietary supplements'; a masculinized hipster version of those vapid magazines at the checkout stand. 'Blank: the silent killer in your refrigerator'; 'The seven blanks every man/woman/parent/ needs to know'; 'what your [professional] won't tell you (so give me your money instead'; 'Blank: the new rules'....zzzzz. 90% of health and lifestyle articles are for people who can't or won't read science news. Get yourself a first-year nursing textbook on nutrition instead.
Sigh. This is the opposite of "faddish bullshit". Because it is packaged as a book, with the word "diet" in the title, people assume that it must be some fad.
People with Coeliac disease react to, and have trouble digesting gluten. However, just because you might not get diarrhoea from eating wheat does not mean that the lectins in grain aren't causing you problems. I can eat wheat fine, I grew up eating lots of bread. However, I do better on a grain free paleo diet -- as do many people.
From the Article:
Some of you, however, may think you have no issues here. You have eaten grains, legumes, and dairy your whole life and are “fine.” Well, maybe. But I suspect that is not the case. I’ll bet that if you completely remove these Neolithic foods from your diet for one month, you will notice a dramatic improvement in how you feel and perform. Why? Because if you are consuming these foods, I’ll wager you have gut irritation and other systemic inflammation issues.
Also, you say: "We all need some mix of protein, carbohydrates, fiber, lipids and vitamins". That's not true -- there is no such thing as a required carbohydrate.
Finally -- please read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" to get a full understanding of how conventional wisdom (such as what is taught in nursing, and even medicine) is completely messed up.
You should certainly eat whatever feels best for you, as I said earlier.
Now maybe the conventional wisdom is messed up, but Mr Wolf doesn't have a single published article to his credit. I have read Taube's book and find it interesting; I suggested a nursing textbook not because of any included diet suggestions, but as a readable introduction to the fundamentals of the digestive system.
I used to have some Atkin's roommates who were constantly telling me how humans don't need carbs. Sure, they enjoyed chocolate and french fries a few times a week, but that's strictly a matter of taste. Apparently ketosis is fine once you get over it.
I discovered about 20 years ago that wheat products, and independently, yeast products (and especially bread which contains both) make me feel bad. Not throw-up bad or fever bad -- just bad, tired, puffed up.
I've tried to get a diagnosis to no avail. Celiac was ruled out by lab testing, and as a result doctors started suggesting it might be a psychological problem.
Me, I listen to my body.
And re "nonsensical faddish bullshit", that describes practically all accepted nutritional science these days. The "calories in - calories out" lacks any scientific basis, and is disproved in just about every experiment -- yet it is somehow considered true.
Personally, I consider this anecdotal theory just as valid as what your average nutritionist would tell you.
(References: Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories"; Roberts "What makes food fattening"; Cabanac)
Yes, exactly. I've been doing this for years now, and it's worked well. The problem is that most/many people are pretty out of touch with their body, and getting in touch takes time and effort.
I started the paleo diet about 6 months ago. In that time I lost about 18kg of fat easier than any other diet I have ever been on. My blood lipids (I was about to start statins for cholesterol) have all improved dramatically in this time, to the point where my doctor is now incredibly interested in the topic. My psoriasis and eczema have all cleaned up dramatically. The crossfit gym I go to has seen massive improvements in lifting etc once people went paleo. And I am finally off the Prozac for anxiety. Needless to say, for the population of n=1, this experiment worked wonders. I know a lot of people won’t take this anecdotal evidence, but if you jump into any of the many paleo forums, you will hear stories like this all the time. If you want a serious easy to follow, health improvement, I highly suggest this diet.
For more resources on the topic I suggest a few books.
I think it's irresponsible to recommend a diet to people that has little to no scientific support for the kinds of effects that you promise or imply: weight loss, improved physical and mental health, and longevity. In fact, some possible instantiations of the paleo diet are, I believe, currently considered unhealthy by the medical establishment, such as a diet high in saturated fats, cholesterol, and/or red meats.
I notice that none of your references have any serious qualifications to be giving nutritional advice. The most rigorously argued of your sources - "Good Calories, Bad Calories" - is written by a science journalist. The scientific establishment has spend decades and billions of dollars trying to understand nutrition, and these people think they can figure it out by thinking hard and reading some papers?
Morover, you can find equally convincing arguments, anecdotes, and "experts" for any of: vegetarianism, raw foodism, veganism, low-carb, etc. What makes the paleo diet different?
You can experiment with your own body all you want, but giving drastic dietary advice on such flimsy evidence seems pretty reckless.
Good Calories, Bad Calories goes deep into the reasons why the medical establishment considers saturdated fat, cholesterol, red meat unhealthy. Have a quick skim of the cliffs notes.
Thanks for the effort, but seems to be a pretty rough link blast. Maybe there are some diamonds in here, but many certainly miss the point.
"Weight Loss As the Paleo diet is by nature pretty low-carbohydrate":
Paleo is not necessarily low-carb. You could eat squash, root vegetables, and fruit all day for nearly all your calories. I actually don't doubt that you can lose weight on the paleo diet, though. You can lose weight on almost any vaguely healthy diet.
"Cancer Patterns in Inuits" : Cancer has many other causes than diet, and this study in no way isolates diet as the factor in disease-patterns in Inuits.
"This William Lands paper": This solely studies omega-3/6 intake and health. Not the overall health effects of the paleo diet.
"Good Calories, Bad Calories" does have an explanation of why the medical establishment has made its recommendations. Still, it is written by one non-expert. Hardly enough to make radical lifestyle changes for.
"Dr Barry Groves" OK, this looks possibly legit.
I'm not going to try to figure out the rest, given the poor quality of the preceding.
I think it's irresponsible to recommend a diet to people that has little to no scientific support for the kinds of effects that you promise or imply: weight loss, improved physical and mental health, and longevity
Well, I'd say there's sufficient support for the "weight loss" bit since pretty much any non-crazy dietary restriction will lead to weight loss if it's maintained. As for other effects -- well, losing eighteen kilograms of fat ought to have a pretty positive impact on your longevity, and I can easily imagine it might decrease your anxiety too. I'm quite unconvinced about psoraisis and eczema, but... hey, he was quite clear on the fact that this was only anecdotal evidence with n=1.
As for why it's different to other possible dietary plans, I don't think it is, though it's potentially easier to get a balanced diet with a sensible caloric deficit from paleo than from veganism or raw food or Atkins.
In no part of the article I see a reference to eating 100% red meat.
I think that the meat has to be split 50/50 between red meat and fish, or to be more precise, the fat from meat has to be at least 50% Omega-3, as the latest studies indicate.
I follow a paleo diet strictly on weekdays, and for probably 75% of my calories on weekends. I've been doing this for a few months. I'm basically doing this as an experiment - the argument that we should eat what we evolved eating is compelling as a general principle.
I haven't lost or gained weight. My workouts haven't been much worse or much better. I don't notice a difference in energy levels, although I find it harder to ignore hunger now. My major impressions are that a paleo diet is expensive and inconvenient.
This is just my experience. The scientific arguments that I've seen made follow the general pattern of this article: neolithic foods contain chemicals (e.g. lectins, phytates, etc.) that are bad for our bodies.
These kinds of arguments are extremely unconvincing. Digestion and metabolism involves thousands of chemicals and reactions. Trying to piece together how it works is important, but a couple isolated components are not nearly enough with which to make judgements for your health.
Arguments from personal experience are even worse. If you "feel better" on the diet, are you sure it's the diet? Is it the placebo effect? Is it the fact that you are likely eating more fiber and nutrients? Is it a difference in blood sugar levels that you notice? Even worse, is the advice to cut out foods, and then test how those foods make you feel when reintroduced. Any change can easily be interpreted negatively. Also, your body has adjusted to the new foods (which quite likely caused their own painful adjustment period).
Good arguments would make actual health claims, such as
1. The chance that you develop heart disease will fall.
2. The chance that you develop cancer will fall.
3. The diet will prevent some other diseases (e.g. diabetes).
4. Some specific symptoms from some specific diseases will lessen.
Currently, this whole fad seems like a big echo chamber of people seeing exactly what they want to see.
Now there is a caveat to this. You only need to be exposed to things like gluten once every ten to fifteen days to keep the gut damaged. This can bedevil people as they “cut back on gluten” but do not notice an improvement in their overall health. I’m sorry but there is not a pink “participant” ribbon given out for doing this “almost correctly.” You need to be 100 percent compliant for thirty days, then see how you do with reintroduction.
As for:
Is it the fact that you are likely eating more fiber and nutrients? Is it a difference in blood sugar levels that you notice?
Those are both directly related to what you are eating. I feel better when my blood sugar levels don't spike -- which is why I'm eating paleo.
Also, you didn't really put for an argument as to why the advice to cut out foods then add them back in is bad. If your body has healed itself and is functioning great without grains, then you eat a big pizza -- you will almost surely see how it affects your system.
If you consume something out of the ordinary, your body is not used to digesting it. For example, the necessary enzymes and bacteria are not likely to be in large supply. Also, you may be hyper- or hypo- sensitive to neurotransmitters (like dopamine) that are released in reponse to the chemicals that are unusually present in the foreign food.
Cut out vegetables from your diet, for example, and you will experience serious intestinal distress when you reintroduce them.
> Cut out vegetables from your diet, for example, and you will experience serious intestinal distress when you reintroduce them.
I've actually done that[1], and experienced the complete opposite. I found myself dreaming about eating broccoli, and absolutely craving all kinds of vegetables. When the diet ended I ate lots of vegetables -- and certainly no intestinal distress when eating them.
[1] - "Velocity Diet": the very definition of fad diet, which basically consists of drinking a protein shake 5 times a day for 4 weeks, with 1 solid meal per week. It worked, but I'd never ever do it again, nor recommend anyone ever do it.
OK, that is a valid data point. In my own experience, when I increased the amount of vegetables (mostly green vegetables) I was eating, I felt bad for weeks until I adjusted.
I guess that could be the reason. It does strain credulity, though, that our bodily systems would be so brittle in this case. It reminds me instead of religious adherents, who, when faced with the misfortune of a fellow believer, blame the believer for not believing/praying/trying hard enough.
The paleo diet is, I think, 99% bullshit combined with 1% right-for-the-wrong-reasons. That 1% does make it worth a look, though, and I personally have lost about 15 lb in the last twelve weeks by (more or less) following it. My BMI is down from 27.4 to 25.7, and I fully expect to get back into ideal weight range within another month or so.
I went into it extremely skeptical of almost all the claims, but what I did buy was the claim that you feel a lot more full after eating a meal of meat and vegetables than you do after a meal rich in grains and potatoes. So I tried it, and lo and behold I find it quite easy to eat as much as I feel like of all the allowed foods and still consume only ~2000 calories a day.
I also find that I no longer have any craving for anything sweeter than fruit, whereas I used to be able to talk myself into milkshakes and brownies with excessive frequency. I think it's a blood sugar effect -- all the food I eat is low in GI so I'm not getting the blood sugar spikes I used to. This effect might be specific to me personally, though.
The fact that the diet supposedly replicates what our distant ancestors ate is important only in that it at least guarantees that you're eating a subset of foods that are nutritionally sufficient.
Other side effects? None that I've noticed, neither good nor bad. It's possible I've felt a little bit more tired, but I can't be sure... and in any case that's not unexpected if you're maintaining a 500-calorie-a-day deficit.
I should also mention that I'm not quite strict paleo because I eat moderate amounts of dairy -- I'll be damned if I'm giving up milk in my coffee. Speaking of which, I'll be damned if I'm gonna give up coffee, which is also non-paleo. And I'm not one to panic if a salad happens to have croutons, or my fish happens to be crumbed. But breads, potatoes, sugar and beans/legumes are out (I don't buy the logic behind exclusion of beans, but I never really liked beans anyway).
In conclusion, it's not a miracle and it's not nearly as amazing as its most far-out proponents claim, but if you need to lose some weight it's worth trying out for a couple of weeks to see what happens (maybe your body chemistry is different to mine, so it might not work for you). If you don't need to lose weight I wouldn't recommend it, because frankly it's hard to eat enough paleo food to maintain weight while physically active. When I've lost enough I think I'll reintroduce grains at breakfast and maybe lunch but keep the paleo dinners.
99% bullshit, really? It sounds like its working pretty well for you.
> If you don't need to lose weight I wouldn't recommend it, because frankly it's hard to eat enough paleo food to maintain weight while physically active.
It's really not hard to get plenty of calories -- those calories are just more likely to come from fat. Make sure you get enough protein (~1g/lb bodyweight), eat lots of veggies, then fill up on fat sources -- coconut oil, animal fats, nuts, olive oil, etc.
You might be interested in looking into the PaNu approach to paleo.[1] The author of that blog puts a lot of emphasis on focusing on metabolism rather than, as he puts it, food reenactment. e.g., dairy isn't strictly paleo, but he acknowledges that it's an easy way to up fat intake without the type of ill effects that you're more likely to see from glutens.
Worth checking out anyway. It's certainly changed the way I approach nutrition, even if I haven't bought into the paleo thing wholesale.
>I think it's a blood sugar effect -- all the food I eat is low in GI so I'm not getting the blood sugar spikes I used to.
Definitely agree here. I've noticed a definite shift in appetite since I've made a point of limiting my intake of high GI foods.
Harris' blog is entertaining to read, in my mind, because he's one of the few folks writing about this stuff that doesn't have a book and/or methodology he's trying to sell you. His "getting started" page is a refreshingly pragmatic list of ideas sorted by payoff potential for the reader, rather than for him or anything he has a vested interest in.
Would you mind expanding on which parts you find to be bullshit? I can't find any reasons in your current post.
> I don't buy the logic behind exclusion of beans
The logic behind not eating legumes (and dairy) is the same as the logic behind not eating grains: the adult human digestive tract is not capable of fully digesting these (e.g. the protein lectin in grains), causing gut irritation and ultimately causing autoimmunity and inflammation.
> When I've lost enough I think I'll reintroduce grains
Absolutely do! Only then is any nutritional experiment, Paleo or otherwise, complete. I would wager you will feel worse after reintroducing grains, but I would love to hear your results first hand.
The logic behind not eating legumes (and dairy) is the same as the logic behind not eating grains: the adult human digestive tract is not capable of fully digesting these (e.g. the protein lectin in grains), causing gut irritation and ultimately causing autoimmunity and inflammation.
which as far as I know aren't sufficiently grounded in fact... they sound suspiciously post-hoc.
Absolutely do! Only then is any nutritional experiment, Paleo or otherwise, complete. I would wager you will feel worse after reintroducing grains, but I would love to hear your results first hand.
Well actually I did go back on grains and sugars the other week because I was in Japan. I didn't really notice much change to my well-being, except that I felt hungry and constantly craved sweet stuff. If there were other effects I can't deconvolve them from jetlag.
Your comment made me smile. This year I gave up sugar and processed grains and made some interesting observations.
1. Eating wheat seems to cause floaters in my eyes - but only processed wheat. I can eat all sorts of grains from the bulk bin and feel great. Eye doctors have told me they are natural but it got bad enough to make it hard to use a computer. Now I only remember them when I eat something like pizza or bread.
2. A friend from Switzerland won't eat flour in this country. She can't stand the smell (rancid) and grinds her own. She also keeps it in the freezer. It doesn't cause me trouble either.
3. My teeth have never felt cleaner. If I have processed flour or sugar, I actually feel the acid and can't brush them "clean". I've always wondered by natives have good teeth without brushing and modern humans have cavities.
4. I read that wheat has a long history of chemical processing (to get rid of the smut fungus). It makes me wonder if there is a correlation between pesticides/processing and food allergies. (My mom used to say that peanuts have the most pesticides in the US.)
Number three is one of those odd things I noticed while "doing Atkins" (ie. significantly-reduced carbohydrate intake, increased fat and protein). It's really an astoundingly obvious change, too; after a day or two, your teeth feel like a coating has been cleaned off of them.
(Similarly, after eating anything in a bun now, I immediately notice how every tight spot in my teeth is suddenly caked with residue.)
Call me crazy but the book linked at the end of the article was published September 14th and there are already 40 five star reviews posted. Which given the idea that it's 'diet' lifestyle change would mean time would be needed to actually see if the content pans out. I start feeling iffy any time another 'this food is bad' book comes along and with those reviews, that puts it into the questionable category.
Robb Wolf has been writing about nutrition and doing nutrition seminars for many years now. Many people have recommended and advocated for the high quality articles and podcasts he has written and put out there. So, it is completely understandable that anyone who has preordered the book (myself included, should get it tomorrow) will read and review it to help boost sales of the book (and the message it contains).
Besides, this is not a "this food is bad" diet scheme at all. This book is just the first, updated, all in one place, quality description of what paleo means.
The idea that a paleo diet will make you healthier because it's what we evolved to eat is bullshit.
Firstly, it assumes that we haven't evolved since modern agriculture, which of course we have; people with ancestors from areas with grain harvesting have more copies of the amylase gene, which produce enzymes that help us to better digest calories.
Secondly, it assumes that the "priority" of evolution in paleo times was to optimize our health in our current environment. It wasn't. Our hunter and gatherer ancestors were starving; we were optimized to extract every last calorie from our food. So when simple starches like wheat came around, we evolved to have more copies of the amylase gene - something that does not help us today.
The paleo diet works precisely for the opposite of the stated reason. These are foods that our bodies are not evolved to perfectly digest. Uncooked foods are far enough in our evolutionary past that people on raw-only diets consistently lose weight, even if they eat a lot. If they were on the savannah they would die.
I'm not saying the diet itself can't be great, just that the entire article could be fodder for Penn & Teller.
> it assumes that we haven't evolved since modern agriculture
No one is arguing that we haven't evolved at all. But humanoids have been around for millions of years, and the 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture is a very small evolutionary time step. So the reasoning is more that we haven't evolved enough to fully digest grains without damage to our gut lining.
> Our hunter and gatherer ancestors were starving
You'd be surprised that a lot of hunter gatherers (HGs) were doing a lot better than that, according to anthropologists. One number cited in Robb Wolf's book is that HGs on average only worked on procuring food 10-15 hours a week, with the rest spent socializing, resting, etc.
> people on raw-only diets consistently lose weight, even if they eat a lot
Do you have any supporting evidence for this statement? Virtually all foods on the Paleo diet can be eaten raw (meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, nuts), and are cooked more for taste than digestibility.
"the 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture is a very small evolutionary time step"
True, although those 10,000 (I've actually heard 20-40K) years are the most recent ones in our evolution and therefore have more direct bearing on our current state. In addition, humans experienced a population bottleneck around 60,000 that brought us down to 10-20K individuals. Since then, there have been repeated agricultural famines. These stresses should have favored people able to eat the grains that formed the basis of our diet.
I'm curious if there are societies or cultures that eat significantly less grain than others. Surely looking at a large population's diet and finding a correlation to the diseases mentioned could shed some light into his claims...
The Kitavans are an isolated tribe that eat almost no grains (though lots of carbs - fruits & vegetables) and are virtually free of cardiovascular disease. All while smoking excessively.
I had a well meaning physician suggest a glutten free diet and I tried it for a month. There was absolutely no benefit for me.
A very small percentage of the population is affected by this problem. I don't know if there's a way to screen people first for susceptibility but I would think that would be much better advice than a blanket recommendation. But it wouldn't sell as many books would it?
