The Paleo Diet Debunked?

[Phlox]

Why doesn't the Paleo diet work for me? On a different level than mentioned above....

- I'm a picky eater and don't like 90% of the vegetables commonly used in Paleo recipes

How am I suppose to eat mostly vegetables, if I consistently don't like them?

 

My boyfriend was the same 4 years ago. Before we started to live together, his diet mainly consisted of frozen Pizza and some ready meals with noodles. He had a lot of allergies when he was a child and his mother either doesn't care or doesn't know how to prepare healthy meals. (I actually felt sorry for the veggies when it was her turn to cook on Christmas.) He was pretty thin, but unhealthy. Heartburn, a tendency for abscesses, headaches, and he got a flu at least 5times a year. He was like the polar opposite of me: I come from a family of foodies with sensitive taste buds. Like, we love to eat, but it absolutely has to taste great. I learned that any food can be prepared in way that improves it taste from "meh" too "awesome". Especially when there is fresh garlic in the house.

 

At first it was like: "Do you like olives in your salad, no olives in your salad or is salad stupid, anyway?"

 

So I started to smuggle vegetables in our diet without any exceptions for my boyfriend. For example, I added cubes of zucchini and eggplant to Sauce Bolognaise, packed additional carrots in his lunch for work (by now it's carrots, cucumber, kohlrabi (cabbage turnip?), and all kinds of fruits), and introduced him to the world of "simple fare" (I wonder why it's called "simple"... most people I know wouldn't know how to make a roast and stuff), which included lots of  broccoli, kale, carrots etc.

 

By now he even likes a nice vegetable stir-fry (with lost of garlic and chili, of course).  At least, he doesn't complain anymore, because we both gained a lot of weight. (It was like: anything is tasty when there is cheese on it.)

 

You might want to give it another try. Start with every day veggies like carrots and tomatoes, add some veggies in small quantities to your usual fare and don't forget the garlic.

[Loren Wade]

My boyfriend was the same 4 years ago. Before we started to live together, his diet mainly consisted of frozen Pizza and some ready meals with noodles. He had a lot of allergies when he was a child and his mother either doesn't care or doesn't know how to prepare healthy meals. (I actually felt sorry for the veggies when it was her turn to cook on Christmas.) He was pretty thin, but unhealthy. Heartburn, a tendency for abscesses, headaches, and he got a flu at least 5times a year. He was like the polar opposite of me: I come from a family of foodies with sensitive taste buds. Like, we love to eat, but it absolutely has to taste great. I learned that any food can be prepared in way that improves it taste from "meh" too "awesome". Especially when there is fresh garlic in the house.

 

At first it was like: "Do you like olives in your salad, no olives in your salad or is salad stupid, anyway?"

 

So I started to smuggle vegetables in our diet without any exceptions for my boyfriend. For example, I added cubes of zucchini and eggplant to Sauce Bolognaise, packed additional carrots in his lunch for work (by now it's carrots, cucumber, kohlrabi (cabbage turnip?), and all kinds of fruits), and introduced him to the world of "simple fare" (I wonder why it's called "simple"... most people I know wouldn't know how to make a roast and stuff), which included lots of  broccoli, kale, carrots etc.

 

By now he even likes a nice vegetable stir-fry (with lost of garlic and chili, of course).  At least, he doesn't complain anymore, because we both gained a lot of weight. (It was like: anything is tasty when there is cheese on it.)

 

You might want to give it another try. Start with every day veggies like carrots and tomatoes, add some veggies in small quantities to your usual fare and don't forget the garlic.

I totally love this post. Great stuff. Thank you for sharing.

[pirateradio]

like anything else, the problem is when people feel they have to justify something that works for them. More importantly, because the 'paleo' diet flies in the face of what the medical profession has thrown out there for years, that meat is *gasp* BAD for you because it has fat, specifically Cholesterol, and you should give the sign of the cross when eating any of it, (meanwhile, gee whiz, the overpriced mechanics are now saying dietary cholesterol has nothing to do with serum levels, it is all the liver, so of course now they can push Statin drugs..meanwhile, the Framingham study 35+ years ago came to the same conclusion)...then we have the FDA, with their plate or pyramid or whatever, that says grains are the basic of our diet, then fruits and vegetables, then (SPARINGLY) meat and protein .....which primarily is done to please the farm lobby, the farmers and the agribusinesses, rather than being based on solid nutrition.

 

So people in effect justify the "Paleo" approach with the evolution argument to dispell the conventional wisdom. From what I know of human beings and evolution, the idea that the human body was meant to eat a certain way, that Paleo man didn't have settled farms and such, so therefore didn't eat complex carbs and such, flies in the face of a number of things. First of all, though human beings have been evolving for around 6 million years, human evolution can happen much faster than that, people who live in the himalayas and such have diets that depend on meat and dairy, with almost no veggies, which according to doctors should kill them, but it doesn't, and part of it is evolution in a time period measured in the thousands of years. So it is likely that human beings since paleolithic times have evolved, not to mention that even paleolithic man prob ate what complex carbs he could find, there are wild variations of wheat and such that they could have had..I think it is a neat label, but it also is suspect because I think it is the wrong argument, as much as the people promoting it mean well.

 

It should be promoted, instead, on what it does nutritionally. Eating a lot of vegetables, that tend to be low carb, high fiber and relatively low calorie, keeps you from overeating. Lean protein (eating the meat they sell commercially is not lean protein, and the fish they sell is also bogus, as is even the chicken and turkey and such), is eaten, which has less fat and more healthy fat, instead of the mess that is commercial, corn fed beef.BTW, if you really want to eat healthy, eat meat raw; by cooking meat, you kill off the B vitamins, especially folic acid, which allows homocysteine to attack artery walls and cause cholesterol to stick to it......our ancestors likely didn't suffer from the heart disease we do (though, in all fairness, disease and hungry animals and accidents meant they didn't live long enough to have heart disease).  And eat starchy carbs sparingly, if at all, because they cause a glycemic reaction.....

 

If calling it Paleo and arguing it is how man was meant to eat gets people to eat healthily, I am all for it. On the other hand, the reality of Paleolithic man is they pretty much ate anything they could, some of which we would consider disgusting, like carrion (dead animals, who died of who knows what), bugs, anything they thought would nourish themselves. It is kind of ironic that in modern times, when our probably is an abundance of often (not so great) food choices, that we harken back to Paelo man, who had an existence that often teetered on the edge of death, where for every year of feast, relative abundance, they might face 3 or 4 years of famine........I don't think we should eat like Paleo man did, but rather user our brains and find what works:)

[Juni0r83]

My dad, who despite being overly guided by the opinions of writers he reads is a fairly intelligent man, likes to point out that if you want to eat paleo, you have to eat insects, and gizzards.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not really a fan of that.

More importantly, the idea that grains are making us fat bothers me. Humans have been eating grains (or at least certain human populations) for the last 10000 at least. But with the exception of the last 50 years, obesity wasn't really a problem. That's only been a problem for about the last 50 years. So if you take 50ish years off of our current time, then take off the second Great Depression, then the Second World War, the the first great depression, then the First World War, leaves you approximately at the dawn of the industrialised world. Being that during world wars and depressions food was scare and rationed, you could therefore understand my theory which states industrialisation has made us fat. Specifically, our ability to mass produce easily consumable processed carbohydrates like flour. Could you imagine the amount of work that would have gone into a single loaf of bread if you had to grind your own flour? It would have been immense. And probably negated the amount of calories you would then consume.

But, the paleo diet is, as everyone had already stated, about focusing on whole foods, which would be the description of a healthy diet, regardless of to name. So, in summation, I beleive Michael Pollan said it best with just 7 words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

[Machete]

Paleo: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

[MariahSnow]

Paleo: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

 

That's awesome. Great message.

[Juni0r83]

Paleo: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

  

That's awesome. Great message.

Absolutely agree

[Waldo]

Paleo: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

 

 

That's awesome. Great message.

 

 

Absolutely agree

Good premise, though that article goes too far on the supp bandwagon and still has the orthorexic good/bad, garbage/clean viewpoint of food. The it does do a good job illustrating the need for simple non-fructose carbs for physique/performance, even though lots of solid carb sources are discarded as the author still uses the junk/clean lens to view things. Lower fat ice cream and low fat cookies/crackers (animal crackers for example) are very good carb sources for physique and performance.

[Loren Wade]

Eh, I hardly think that viewpoint is orthorexic at all. Many NFers view nutrition this way. I think it's important to eat high quality foods. Not everything is about physique and performance. Many people choose paleo because it's healthy. Even Steve recognizes the importance of the type of foods we eat.
 

Here's a few more sources.

Speaking on just the harmful effects of sugar alone in the "lower fact ice cream and cookies" you mentioned:

• Stanhope KL, et al. Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2009.
• Stanhope KL, et al. Adverse metabolic effects of dietary fructose: results from the recent epidemiological, clinical, and mechanistic studies. Current Opinion in Lipidology, 2013.
• Ludwig DS, et al. Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis. The Lancet, 2001.
• Schulze MB, et al. Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Weight Gain, and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Young and Middle-Aged Women. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2004.
• Bostick RM, et al. Sweetened beverage consumption and risk of coronary heart disease in women. Cancer Causes & Control, 1994.
• Fung TT, et al. Sugar, meat, and fat intake, and non-dietary risk factors for colon cancer incidence in Iowa women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2009.

Regarding the junk/clean lens. I know we've had this debate before, but calories aren't just calories. There is a point to the type and quality of food you eat.

• Feinman RD, et al.“A calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics. Nutrition Journal, 2004.
• Johnston CS, et al. Postprandial thermogenesis is increased 100% on a high-protein, low-fat diet versus a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet in healthy, young women. The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2002.
• Veldhorst MA, et al. Presence or absence of carbohydrates and the proportion of fat in a high-protein diet affect appetite suppression but not energy expenditure in normal-weight human subjects fed in energy balance. British Journal of Nutrition, 2010.

I don't judge other people for their dietary choices and their goals. If your goals are physique and performance, that's great. If that means ice cream and cookies and whatnot, then I'm glad that works for you. But simply stating that viewing those foods as junk foods (or not) is orthorexic doesn't make it true, nor is it fair to the people who view diet this way. Which, in my opinion, is not unhealthy to view diet as clean/junk. Sure, it can be too dichotomized at times... maybe too black and white. But there's a scale and every food falls somewhere along that line and that line is different for every person. Some people literally can't eat certain foods without getting sick or relapsing their food addiction. 

 

That's my two cents.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm not a huge fan of the article.

[Jacksson]

Whether it be

 

Eh, I hardly think that viewpoint is orthorexic at all. Many NFers view nutrition this way. I think it's important to eat high quality foods. Not everything is about physique and performance. Many people choose paleo because it's healthy. Even Steve recognizes the importance of the type of foods we eat.
 

Here's a few more sources.

Speaking on just the harmful effects of sugar alone in the "lower fact ice cream and cookies" you mentioned:

• Stanhope KL, et al. Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2009.
• Stanhope KL, et al. Adverse metabolic effects of dietary fructose: results from the recent epidemiological, clinical, and mechanistic studies. Current Opinion in Lipidology, 2013.
• Ludwig DS, et al. Relation between consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: a prospective, observational analysis. The Lancet, 2001.
• Schulze MB, et al. Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Weight Gain, and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Young and Middle-Aged Women. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2004.
• Bostick RM, et al. Sweetened beverage consumption and risk of coronary heart disease in women. Cancer Causes & Control, 1994.
• Fung TT, et al. Sugar, meat, and fat intake, and non-dietary risk factors for colon cancer incidence in Iowa women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2009.

Regarding the junk/clean lens. I know we've had this debate before, but calories aren't just calories. There is a point to the type and quality of food you eat.

• Feinman RD, et al.“A calorie is a calorie†violates the second law of thermodynamics. Nutrition Journal, 2004.
• Johnston CS, et al. Postprandial thermogenesis is increased 100% on a high-protein, low-fat diet versus a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet in healthy, young women. The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2002.
• Veldhorst MA, et al. Presence or absence of carbohydrates and the proportion of fat in a high-protein diet affect appetite suppression but not energy expenditure in normal-weight human subjects fed in energy balance. British Journal of Nutrition, 2010.

I don't judge other people for their dietary choices and their goals. If your goals are physique and performance, that's great. If that means ice cream and cookies and whatnot, then I'm glad that works for you. But simply stating that viewing those foods as junk foods (or not) is orthorexic doesn't make it true, nor is it fair to the people who view diet this way. Which, in my opinion, is not unhealthy to view diet as clean/junk. Sure, it can be too dichotomized at times... maybe too black and white. But there's a scale and every food falls somewhere along that line and that line is different for every person. Some people literally can't eat certain foods without getting sick or relapsing their food addiction. 

 

That's my two cents.

 

 

 

Great post and I look forward to reading some of the articles.  I especially agree with the last paragraph.  I think the internet has spawned a phenominon (more that one) whereas people just really like to argue their point, or more accurately attack someone else's position.  I also think people like to associate with a "movement" or a group so they latch on to the many variations of paleo for example.  As with most things, some are extreme in their perception. 

 

So we end up with paleo becoming a "thing" that must be debated endlessly.  Those speaking against will typically use the most extreme version of the concept to argue against its validity across the board.  The idea of whether sweet potatoes are paleo or not for example.  Or people will write articles and they will be taken as research, as in the above posted article.  (The whole time I was reading it I got the feeling the author had ties to the suppliment industry). 

 

Bottom line is, if we all look at it we would probably agree that eating less processed food, less sugar, more veggies etc. are probably good choices.  Not because cavemen at that way (I dont see where any of the "paleo authorities" are saying cavemen at that way) but because it makes sense.  We can disagree on how much meat is too much or if we should eat rice or not but we would all agree that this way of thinking makes for a solid nutritional base.  Ok, so we dont like that people get all wound up about paleo.  It's ok.  Paleo, primal or whatever other word is used is a marketing word.  That's it. 

 

The only way to really know if paleo or any other way of eating works for you is to do your own experiment anyway.  I find that eating meat, fish eggs, veggies, fruits etc. and including sweet and white potatoes makes me feel better overall.  I suppose I could probably tolerate a low fat cookie here and there also but I dont think making them a part of my diet makes me any healthier.  In my personal experience, I found that eliminating most grains had a positive affect.  I found that rice in moderation doesnt affect me much but I do feel a difference with some wheat based products.  That's not based on an article or study, it is based on my own experiment.  That said, I am not going to tell someone their way of eating is wrong because it is different than what works for me.  There is a song that talks about the difference between what we believe and what we know.  If you really think about it, we really dont KNOW all that much.  We have to base our beliefs on the best information we can (or sometimes any article on the internet) and go with it. 

[Waldo]

Regarding the junk/clean lens. I know we've had this debate before, but calories aren't just calories. There is a point to the type and quality of food you eat.

• Feinman RD, et al.“A calorie is a calorie†violates the second law of thermodynamics. Nutrition Journal, 2004.
• Johnston CS, et al. Postprandial thermogenesis is increased 100% on a high-protein, low-fat diet versus a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet in healthy, young women. The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2002.
• Veldhorst MA, et al. Presence or absence of carbohydrates and the proportion of fat in a high-protein diet affect appetite suppression but not energy expenditure in normal-weight human subjects fed in energy balance. British Journal of Nutrition, 2010.

I don't judge other people for their dietary choices and their goals. If your goals are physique and performance, that's great. If that means ice cream and cookies and whatnot, then I'm glad that works for you. But simply stating that viewing those foods as junk foods (or not) is orthorexic doesn't make it true, nor is it fair to the people who view diet this way. Which, in my opinion, is not unhealthy to view diet as clean/junk. Sure, it can be too dichotomized at times... maybe too black and white. But there's a scale and every food falls somewhere along that line and that line is different for every person. Some people literally can't eat certain foods without getting sick or relapsing their food addiction. 

 

That's my two cents.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm not a huge fan of the article.

Did you read the studies you posted? They don't say what you seem to think they say.

The first just states what is pretty widely accepted, the analog of another strawman. That is, all the arguments against paleo that target the superficial fact that is is not historically accurate in the least bit. The common application of the laws of thermodynamics to nutrition is just as misguided; people who didn't even complete HS Physics throw out the laws of thermodynamics for effect, cause it sounds sciency and stuff. The metabolic advantage nonsense that he is arguing doesn't violate the law of physics is a no duh type thing. Give a little kid a candy bar and watch him go bonkers for a bit, the type of food ingested definitely had an effect on "resting" calorie burn rate. That different diets may have a different effect on heat, mechanical energy, and mass is not a grand revelation and does not in any way prove that there are better or worse calories.

You have to remember though, effects have effects, heat and mechanical energy levels are definitely perceptible and GASP can in fact be consciously controlled to a degree. If you're hiding under a blanket in a 68 degree room, you're not doing a very good job of it; perception of temperature and hence calorie burn to maintain can definitely be consciously controlled.

The second basically states that different foods have a different TEF, and that when that is taken into account that the effective calorie content isn't exactly as calculated is widely accepted. Going beyond this, it is not constrained to protein and simple carbs either. Not all fat is 9 cal/gm, fiber really is 0 cal/gm in primary digestion, but ferments into a fatty acid eventually that adds a couple cals/gm. But TEF is on the other side of the equation, as a part of non-exercise TDEE along with NEAT and BMR. TDEE formulas estimate this, and once you've established your average TDEE for your average diet the error introduced by TEF drops to zero. Trying to eat a diet to game the system a little to maximize TEF is kinda dumb if you think about it (are you really THAT lazy), plus you will be farting A LOT if you take it to the extreme. TEF quite simply does not matter in the least bit because it is on the other side of the equation with other expenditures.

In the 3rd, a 2 day trial (lol) to measure the effects of diet on appetite and energy expenditure is done. I'm sure a lot of gullible people fall for the fact that the no carb diet increased fat oxidation, but since energy expenditure remained constant, that just means the fat oxidation increased the same exact amount as the increased fat intake. Woo hoo. Appetite is tricky, because it is based moreso on expectations than anything else, deviating strongly from your current state will cause strong effects. Stay in that strongly deviated state and it becomes the new normal; if eating higher carb/lower fat makes you more hungry than your current diet, that effect will fade if the new normal is kept constant, eventually it will be perceived no differently than the pre-change intake. The same is true in the opposite direction. None of that has any meaning when encountering your hormonal starvation defense system and real hunger.

[Waldo]

If you really think about it, we really dont KNOW all that much.  We have to base our beliefs on the best information we can (or sometimes any article on the internet) and go with it.

We actually know quite a bit. The problem is that nutrition science is about like the science of climate change in the US, taken to the extreme. So few believers in what we actually know, with pretty much everybody making money off of it doing so as science deniers.

Nobody wants to believe the cold hard truth.

Follow the results and you will find the truth. Some mega obese dude becoming merely overweight, while dramatic, is not actually an impressive display of nutritional results. Nutrition in sports science and the modern athlete, physique or performance, is an impressive display of results.

I mean... Crossfit and Paleo go hand in hand, yet has someone following Paleo actually ever won the games, male or female?

[bigm141414]

We actually know quite a bit. The problem is that nutrition science is about like the science of climate change in the US, taken to the extreme. So few believers in what we actually know, with pretty much everybody making money off of it doing so as science deniers.

 

 

Meh, I think we know a lot about nutrition at the macro level of proteins, carbs, fats, but we are just now starting to delve into the micro level about how such structures affect us. 

 

For example: snake venom is 90-95% protein. Doesn't mean it is healthy for you to consume as a source of protein. 3 dimensional structures of different carbs, fats, and proteins can have different effects in the body that are not fully understood and I think that it is a more interesting discussion to have than the basic macro-level arguments about nutrition. 

[chairohkey]

For example: snake venom is 90-95% protein. 

 

Wut. I think I found a name for my new supplement line.

[Jacksson]

We actually know quite a bit. The problem is that nutrition science is about like the science of climate change in the US, taken to the extreme. So few believers in what we actually know, with pretty much everybody making money off of it doing so as science deniers.

Nobody wants to believe the cold hard truth.

Follow the results and you will find the truth. Some mega obese dude becoming merely overweight, while dramatic, is not actually an impressive display of nutritional results. Nutrition in sports science and the modern athlete, physique or performance, is an impressive display of results.

 

 

I stand by the idea that we THINK we know more than we do.  Many scientific facts have been revised at some point in time because we learned those facts weren't as accurate as were first knew.  But I also agree that the truth is typically held from the general public due to money/politics. 

 

And as fascinated as I am with sports performance, I dont think nutrition science, or at least engineered suppliments are the major factor in performance gains throughout time.  I think training methods and the increased earning potential of sports have played a far bigger role.  Well, PED's have probably played the biggest role but that is a different conversation. 

 

But like I said, I think we have enough common ground to know there are better choices than that candy bar.  Even if you have imperical proof that it is ok, it's not going to hurt us to avoid it.  But, like you said, people tend to take things to the extreme.

[Loren Wade]

Did you read the studies you posted? They don't say what you seem to think they say.

The first just states what is pretty widely accepted, the analog of another strawman. That is, all the arguments against paleo that target the superficial fact that is is not historically accurate in the least bit. The common application of the laws of thermodynamics to nutrition is just as misguided; people who didn't even complete HS Physics throw out the laws of thermodynamics for effect, cause it sounds sciency and stuff. The metabolic advantage nonsense that he is arguing doesn't violate the law of physics is a no duh type thing. Give a little kid a candy bar and watch him go bonkers for a bit, the type of food ingested definitely had an effect on "resting" calorie burn rate. That different diets may have a different effect on heat, mechanical energy, and mass is not a grand revelation and does not in any way prove that there are better or worse calories.

You have to remember though, effects have effects, heat and mechanical energy levels are definitely perceptible and GASP can in fact be consciously controlled to a degree. If you're hiding under a blanket in a 68 degree room, you're not doing a very good job of it; perception of temperature and hence calorie burn to maintain can definitely be consciously controlled.

The second basically states that different foods have a different TEF, and that when that is taken into account that the effective calorie content isn't exactly as calculated is widely accepted. Going beyond this, it is not constrained to protein and simple carbs either. Not all fat is 9 cal/gm, fiber really is 0 cal/gm in primary digestion, but ferments into a fatty acid eventually that adds a couple cals/gm. But TEF is on the other side of the equation, as a part of non-exercise TDEE along with NEAT and BMR. TDEE formulas estimate this, and once you've established your average TDEE for your average diet the error introduced by TEF drops to zero. Trying to eat a diet to game the system a little to maximize TEF is kinda dumb if you think about it (are you really THAT lazy), plus you will be farting A LOT if you take it to the extreme. TEF quite simply does not matter in the least bit because it is on the other side of the equation with other expenditures.

In the 3rd, a 2 day trial (lol) to measure the effects of diet on appetite and energy expenditure is done. I'm sure a lot of gullible people fall for the fact that the no carb diet increased fat oxidation, but since energy expenditure remained constant, that just means the fat oxidation increased the same exact amount as the increased fat intake. Woo hoo. Appetite is tricky, because it is based moreso on expectations than anything else, deviating strongly from your current state will cause strong effects. Stay in that strongly deviated state and it becomes the new normal; if eating higher carb/lower fat makes you more hungry than your current diet, that effect will fade if the new normal is kept constant, eventually it will be perceived no differently than the pre-change intake. The same is true in the opposite direction. None of that has any meaning when encountering your hormonal starvation defense system and real hunger.

 

Yes, I did read the studies I posted. I know exactly what they say. The problem is you're trying to explain away each study/source in a small paragraph. Honestly I'm trying to add to the conversation, something compelling enough, that you might finally consider some of the warrants of the paleo view point. Food quality has made a monumental difference in my own health, as well as tons of other people. There actually is a difference in food quality and what is junk and what isn't.

I mean... Crossfit and Paleo go hand in hand, yet has someone following Paleo actually ever won the games, male or female?

You're assuming the only point of nutrition is physical performance. That said, I know for sure the first place in the female events eats paleo.

[Quickdraw]

I'm so tired of all the effort put into "debunking" the paleo diet.

 

I'm a US Marine.  I spent the first three years of my career attempting to outrun my diet with exercise, and Marine Corps levels of exercise at that.  I bounced back from a post-boot-camp weight of 178 to 192, and spent those first three years fighting my way down to 182 at the time I deployed.  Spurred by NF, I decided to try the paleo diet on a lark on deployment.  I dropped 25 lbs in the first 6 weeks, without serious exercise other than walking around the ship.  I've stayed within 4 lbs of that weight for two years now.

 

Results matter.  Everyone should do what works for them.  But I refuse to take seriously any argument against the paleo diet that isn't rooted in seriously trying it out for yourself.  Anything else is just axe-grinding.

[Jacksson]

Well said Marine.  And thank you for your service.

[pirateradio]

I think the 'debunking' of the Paleo diet comes from a couple of things:

 

1)It comes about, quite honestly, because some proponents of Paleo tend to treat it like Christian Fundamentalism, in that they sell this whole idea of paleo being 'the original diet' and get into this whole crap about 'that isn't true paleo..'.....the point about Paleo is if it works, and also that there is no bible for it, no literal works.....and if having some grains works for people, that is fine, and to say "paleo man didn't eat dairy products, so you can't' is downright, well, stupid to me (among other things, there are ancient cultures in places like Tibet that eat nothing but meat and dairy, and have for many thousands of years..).  When people get all that righteous about it, it tends to provoke the same reaction as people claiming the earth is 6000 years old and was made in 6 days as truth.....

 

2)Then we have the medical profession, that has made a habit out of really bad nutrition advice, and what have they preached for the past 50 years? Meat is BAAAD, you should eat some desiccated chicken, fat is evil, you name it...it is doctors who push the whole grain stuff, that if you eat meat your cholesterol goes up (which is a crock, it is why the MD's are now planning putting millions more on statins, cause cholesterol is the liver and genetics..).....they, like the religious types who can't admit defeat when their shibboleths are proven wrong, fight tooth and nail that they are 'right'

 

3)then we have the food industry and their lackeys, the FDA with their idiotic food guidelines designed to please the farmers and the agribusinesses, we have those who proclaim high fructose corn syrup is no worse than any other sugar, and then with a straight face say "including fruit'....there are 10's of billions that go into promoting the farm interests.....

 

4)It also flies in the face that for example, Asians eat a diet high in simple carbs (rice), yet it is a healthy diet, if grains are poison, why is their diet so healthy? The mediterranean and traditional southern Italian diets rely on carbs, too..and are supposedly very healthy.

 

I think people lose perspective on Paleo, that it is more about portion control and proportions. If doing it right, you are eating a lot of vegetables , a small portion of meat, some healthy oils and fats, some fruit, and grains in limited proportion if at all, and those levels can vary. Yes, it works, because it is simple and because it is eating in balance, but other food lifestyles can work, too.

 

I also think it is foolish when people call this 'the Paleo Diet", diet as in atkins diet, grapefruit diet, etc....I think it is better to call it the Paleo way of eating, works much better:) 

[Quickdraw]

I always follow "paleo diet" with "diet as the way one eats, not as a temporary regimen adopted for weight loss."  Drives me nuts that "diet" has been suborned in the language as "temporary thing" when it means the exact opposite.

 

I'm a fan of Mark Sisson and the Primal Blueprint.  I'm a fan of the 80/20 rule.  Reasonable people can disagree about dairy.  And sushi is a major "cheat" food for me (rice, FWIW, is probably the last evil of all grains).

 

But portion control ain't the key here.  When I adopted paleo on ship, I ate MORE to support LESS activity and lost all that weight.  I'd stand there in the chow line at breakfast and demand a third helping of bacon.  The weight loss, at its core, came down to serious reduction of carbohydrates.  Not just HFCS-laced beverages and snacks, but grains as well.  If you can find a diet (workable for the long-term) that takes in less than 200g of carbs WITHOUT cutting out grain, you'd probably get a lot of the same results...  But there's so much literature out there about how grain is working against us and even poisoning us.  It messes with your blood sugar, sets you up to be inclined to eat more.  Why base weight loss/maintenance/health on fighting your biochemistry, when you can work WITH it instead?

[Juni0r83]

I actually think most people's issue with it is the argument that it is the way palaeolithic human's ate, which isn't true. As an actual healthy nutrition plan it is clearly effective. So all the remains is the name.

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[Quickdraw]

I actually think most people's issue with it is the argument that it is the way palaeolithic human's ate, which isn't true. As an actual healthy nutrition plan it is clearly effective. So all the remains is the name.

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I think there's plenty to be said for WHY it works as well as it does (there's clearly some evolutionary basis for it, IMO), but yes, mostly "cavemen ate this way" is a total red herring to the topic of "modern humans SHOULD eat this way".

[Juni0r83]

I think there's plenty to be said for WHY it works as well as it does (there's clearly some evolutionary basis for it, IMO), but yes, mostly "cavemen ate this way" is a total red herring to the topic of "modern humans SHOULD eat this way".

I agree, but the basis of the argument that it is an evolutionary basis for the diet is flawed. People descended from tropical environs perform better on a high fruit diet, people descended from cold environs (think Siberia, Tibet, far northern Americas) tend to do best of animal proteins and fat. The biggest problem still remains that there is no one size fits all. But the paleo diet is certainly a healthy balanced diet of whole foods that makes a good starting point for anyone no hasn't yet figured out the right diet for them.

That being said, I don't eat a paleo diet, just a regular balanced diet consisting of whole, unprocessed foods (mostly).

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[pirateradio]

I always follow "paleo diet" with "diet as the way one eats, not as a temporary regimen adopted for weight loss."  Drives me nuts that "diet" has been suborned in the language as "temporary thing" when it means the exact opposite.

 

I'm a fan of Mark Sisson and the Primal Blueprint.  I'm a fan of the 80/20 rule.  Reasonable people can disagree about dairy.  And sushi is a major "cheat" food for me (rice, FWIW, is probably the last evil of all grains).

 

But portion control ain't the key here.  When I adopted paleo on ship, I ate MORE to support LESS activity and lost all that weight.  I'd stand there in the chow line at breakfast and demand a third helping of bacon.  The weight loss, at its core, came down to serious reduction of carbohydrates.  Not just HFCS-laced beverages and snacks, but grains as well.  If you can find a diet (workable for the long-term) that takes in less than 200g of carbs WITHOUT cutting out grain, you'd probably get a lot of the same results...  But there's so much literature out there about how grain is working against us and even poisoning us.  It messes with your blood sugar, sets you up to be inclined to eat more.  Why base weight loss/maintenance/health on fighting your biochemistry, when you can work WITH it instead?

Yeah, this isn't a diet in the sense of the various ones for short term weight loss. I have problems with labeling grains as evil, it is one thing to say that grains can cause issues and need to be eaten in moderation, it is another to say they are poison. There are a lot of diets, in Asia and the Mediterranean region, that lived on grains, and those people were pretty healthy. It doesn't mean I think people should be living on grains, I don't eat grains right now and eventually I will limit it, but grains are not evil, either, unlike HFC which truly is. If someone has a lot of lean muscle mass, they can eat more grains than those who have less...it all depends.

 

I think portion control may be a bad description, I kind of thing proportion control is better. The guys at the site I follow describe it as "fistfuls of this, palmfuls of this, thumb of that' with vegetables, meat and healthy fats....but they also stress it isn't calorie counting, either, and they tell you to eat and not be hungry. It also depends on what you are doing, if you are weight training you might eat 3500 calories a day, if you are working a desk that would probably cause you to put on fat weight, even if working out...it all depends. 

 

I think the eating style itself is solid, but I hate it being sold on something it isn't, or the idea that somehow paleo man represented an ideal....the idea of eating unprocessed foods is dynamite, and getting away from the hormones and insecticides and fortified crap is important, but I also think that it is taking it to an idiotic extreme to think that Paleo man had much in common with us. They would eat what they could get, and if there was a field of wild wheat and they knew what to do with it, they would eat it, we have choices they didn't have. Paleo man wouldn't eat olives (believe me, if you ever tried eating an unbrined olive, you would never go back!), but they are good for you, and cheese and dairy have been around a long, long time...

 

I think Paleo as a focus on the way to eat is a good focus, but I also don't think it is the only one. There are people eating diets high in whole grains who are as healthy as anything, it all depends on the person and their circumstances. Paleo-style eating has done incredible things for me, and may just keep me alive through a very stressful period of my life, but I also realize everyone has to seek their own level.

[pirateradio]

I agree, but the basis of the argument that it is an evolutionary basis for the diet is flawed. People descended from tropical environs perform better on a high fruit diet, people descended from cold environs (think Siberia, Tibet, far northern Americas) tend to do best of animal proteins and fat. The biggest problem still remains that there is no one size fits all. But the paleo diet is certainly a healthy balanced diet of whole foods that makes a good starting point for anyone no hasn't yet figured out the right diet for them.

That being said, I don't eat a paleo diet, just a regular balanced diet consisting of whole, unprocessed foods (mostly).

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Well said:)