Ever tried a paleo diet...

[Infinte7]

It is hard to maintain in this day and age but, check these videos out, I feel they are very informative...

YouTube - Paleo in a Nutshell Part 1: Food

[RagsToRiches]

I really like the idea of paleo - the reason I haven't already taken it up is purely expense (Nuts, Berries, Fish... very expensive)

R

[Infinte7]

Originally Posted by RagsToRiches

I really like the idea of paleo - the reason I haven't already taken it up is purely expense (Nuts, Berries, Fish... very expensive)

R

Exactly, I hear you...

This is what I meant by it is hard to maintain, also consider in the fact, that not everyone has a nice size backyard to be able to grow all of our vegetables and fruits...

I think the questions we need to ask ourselves is how can we get to the point to where we can afford it, or find the time to go fishing for ourselves and grow our own food...

[Beuford]

Watching that video completely changed what I thought about diet. You can't really argue against this diet except that I think people who follow it will often assume meat is a large part and eat a bit much of it. My understanding is that meat wasn't consumed often 10000+ years ago unless there wasn't enough plants available. At least it was organic free range meat, which paleo diet followers should be eating. I believe the healthiest diet would be fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and insects. Insects can be replaced with B12 supplements if the social conditioning is too much . Just kind of a more vegan friendly version of the paleo diet(depending on how you feel about eating insects). I don't really mind some grains though.

Just my thoughts.

[RagsToRiches]

My understanding is that meat wasn't consumed often 10000+ years ago

Is there a reliable source for this?

The exists of maxillary canines and pre-molars in human teeth, teeth types which are not found in herbivores, would seem to contradict this.

We have evolved eating vast quantities of meat.

[Dreamline]

Humans were near-scavengers 10,000 years ago. They ate what was available, easy and kept them alive. That included copious amounts of meat. The arrowheads, spears and knives were not for hunting leaves, roots or berries, I assure you. Nor were the traps and clever techniques employed. The skins they wore and used for warmth and bedding and tents and shelters weren't shaved off the animals and then their flesh and bones discarded in favor of a handful of berries.

Nor would humanity have even survived one single winter if it weren't for meat.

Humans were meat eaters before they mutated/evolved due to the advent of agriculture, increased nomadic activity, interbreeding and climate change. Physiologically the proof is all there. Examine the physiology of the genetically oldest of us which are those who possess blood type O. Medium length colon. Between carnivore and herbivore. Perfect for someone used to eating both. A combination of rending and grinding teeth. Perfect for someone used to eating both meat and vegetable matter. Mandibular movement somewhere between a bovine and a carnivore allowing for some grinding motions. Able to thrive in feast or famine conditions. Stomach acid levels optimal for digesting meat protein. Low levels, or no levels of pytalin, the enzyme for predigesting starches in the mouth and upper stomach. The fact that pytalin evolved eons later, after agriculture was widespread, is almost all the proof one needs that man was a meat eater. But there is loads more evidence. The fact that when people with blood type O ingest meat, even in modern times, their muscle tissue gains energy from it, as opposed to all other blood types, who lose energy digesting it, is another level of proof. That people with blood type O feel better in a state of mild ketosis and lethargic after eating grains, potatoes, dairy...more proof.

The paleo diet can be ideal for those whose DNA still reflects an older age with regard to food. Blood type O certainly. It can also be beneficial to those who suffer from modern scourges such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, digestion problems and allergies, migraines, IBS, Crohn's. MS, Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, ALS....

In all of those cases your poor body is begging you to KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. Nothing is farther from simple than the modern diet. Listen to your body. Not so-called experts.

Jennifer

[Bleicke]

I agree with Jennifer.

Just try a low-carb, low-processed-food, high-animal-fat diet for three days. You'll notice you don't get cravings, you're more easily satisfied and even your teeth get whiter.

[scorpio1980]

Dreamline awesome post. As a blood type-o I feel what your saying. I didn't know true health until I increased consumption of animal foods. Carbs make me tired, and fat gives me so much energy.

[Beuford]

That's what I'm saying and I know that humans 10000+ years ago ate plenty of meat im just saying that if there were plenty of fruits, vegetables nuts and seeds around a natural human would be less likely to want to eat a lot of meat and it would probably only be 5% of their diet. I'm just suggesting that it is possible to follow the paleo diet without emphasis on meat.

[Dreamline]

Well, the original humans supposedly came from Africa and migrated east and north. Not exactly a booming supermarket of fruits and veggies in many parts of that continent.

I don't think it took them long to figure out that if they ate a bunch of berries and roots, that they would soon be hungry again very rapidly while if they ate meat they could go all day and even skip days.

Jennifer

[funchy]

The paleo diet is an imagined diet of what we think people might've eaten long ago. It totally ignores regional availability of food or reasons why people had no choice but to eat less desirable foods. It's also based on archeological evidence, not a complete knowlege of their real diet. Arrowheads survive through the ages, but plants & fruit never needed stone weapons to utilize... so we're only guessing about diet.

Originally Posted by RagsToRiches

Is there a reliable source for this?

The exists of maxillary canines and pre-molars in human teeth, teeth types which are not found in herbivores, would seem to contradict this.

We have evolved eating vast quantities of meat.

I look at human teeth and I see teeth far more like herbivore than an omnivore or carnivore. Our teeth are flat and roughly all the same length. We CANNOT tear through uncooked flesh easily and we most certainly can't kill anything with our teeth.

Look closely at an herbivore's teeth. Horses also get "canines", stubble little ones like ours. Yet horses are 100% herbivores.



Even omnivores that eat a small % of meat, such as grizzly bears, have huge canine teeth much longer than their other teeth, capable of tearing into meat.

Compare our flat teeth and small jaw to that of a primate. We also don't have the jaw muscles to tear meat:


If we were meant to eat meat naturally, why is raw meat hard to digest and likely to make us sick? Why don't we have the stomach pH and intestinal length of a carnivore, to allow us to eat raw meat? Don't believe me .... go eat a few raw pork chops. If the basis for eating meat is what we evolved to do, and we know we have to cook meat to change it enough for us to safely use, doesn't that say something about evolution and meat?

[liamona]

Originally Posted by funchy

The paleo diet is an imagined diet of what we think people might've eaten long ago. It totally ignores regional availability of food or reasons why people had no choice but to eat less desirable foods.

Regional availability was key. So those who lived in cold climates were not living on fruits and nuts. In fact, I wonder how many areas sustained fruits and nuts year-round? That is probably within a narrow geographical latitude.

As for meat being a "less desirable" food, it's probable that we developed our big brains, which are about 50% fat, because of eating fish.

I look at human teeth and I see teeth far more like herbivore than an omnivore or carnivore. Our teeth are flat and roughly all the same length. We CANNOT tear through uncooked flesh easily and we most certainly can't kill anything with our teeth.

If we were meant to eat meat naturally, why is raw meat hard to digest and likely to make us sick? Why don't we have the stomach pH and intestinal length of a carnivore, to allow us to eat raw meat?

Actually, we're meant to eat animal brains and organs, which are soft and highly nutrient-dense. It's pretty well documented that primitive groups, like some Native American cultures, would only eat this and throw the less-desirable muscle meat to the dogs.

[scorpio1980]

Originally Posted by funchy

The paleo diet is an imagined diet of what we think people might've eaten long ago. It totally ignores regional availability of food or reasons why people had no choice but to eat less desirable foods. It's also based on archeological evidence, not a complete knowlege of their real diet. Arrowheads survive through the ages, but plants & fruit never needed stone weapons to utilize... so we're only guessing about diet.



I look at human teeth and I see teeth far more like herbivore than an omnivore or carnivore. Our teeth are flat and roughly all the same length. We CANNOT tear through uncooked flesh easily and we most certainly can't kill anything with our teeth.

Look closely at an herbivore's teeth. Horses also get "canines", stubble little ones like ours. Yet horses are 100% herbivores.



Even omnivores that eat a small % of meat, such as grizzly bears, have huge canine teeth much longer than their other teeth, capable of tearing into meat.

Compare our flat teeth and small jaw to that of a primate. We also don't have the jaw muscles to tear meat:


If we were meant to eat meat naturally, why is raw meat hard to digest and likely to make us sick? Why don't we have the stomach pH and intestinal length of a carnivore, to allow us to eat raw meat? Don't believe me .... go eat a few raw pork chops. If the basis for eating meat is what we evolved to do, and we know we have to cook meat to change it enough for us to safely use, doesn't that say something about evolution and meat?

Wow so your saying the 2% of the vegan population is right, and that 98% of the worlds population is wrong? I've eaten raw meat quite a bit actually, and no problems at all. People have thrived off an omnivoire diet for thousands of years, no amount of quackery science can change that. I choose to listen to my body, and learn from healthy people around the world, not some guy in a lab.

[agnostic]

About humans not being evolved to eat meat, I would suggest looking into the works of Steffansson (Fat of the land), who lived with the Inuit (who eat only animal foods, not a lot of edible plant food in icy climate) and based on that went for an entire year of eating only meat in a controlled study.
Then there's Blake Donaldson, who treated allergies and obesity with an all-meat diet. Or Wolfgang Lutz, who treated all sorts of ailments using a low-carb (i.e. high-meat) diet. All this stuff about meat eating being bad for health is based on the notion that saturated fat should cause heart disease, which is complete bogus. Just read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" or "In Defense of Food" for this or simply think about the fact that any low-calorie vegan diet makes you burn the difference between maintenance- and eaten calories in the form of your own fat, which is -after all- animal fat that has pretty much the same composition as lard. It's high in saturated fat. Also, when you eat a lot of carbs, your liver turns the excess into saturated fat. So if the body has a system in place to store calories as fat for dire times (and in between, since fat flows in and out of fat-cells all day long) and it saves them in a manner that causes heart disease whenever it's used, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. And it is the only reason people believe meat to be unhealthy (apart from modern meatproduction practices, which are bad, but completely avoidable and missing the point). The cancer-link is simply correlation, which means nothing. On the same concept of proof one can show that global warming is caused by the demise of pirates: Less pirates, more global warming. The available data is clear on that. It's the same with red meat and cancer.

Humans evolved into the creatures that they are today on a diet that consisted for the most part of meat. Our weapons are not claws or fangs, but intelligence, speech and weapons, all of which were in a positive feedback loop with meat consumption: more meat-> bigger brain-> more intelligence-> better communication-> better weapons-> more meat.
Other changes include: walking on two feet (keeps hands free for tool use), less body hair (allows for better sweating to hunt during the day - we even developed a special type of fast-evaporating sweat) and not to forget: the human hand.

We didn't get all of this to pick some fruit, most of which is low in calories in its wild form and only available in some climates a few months a year tops.

Even chimps actively hunt other monkeys for food.Here's another one.

Here's a study showing that lack of Vitamin B12 (which is only existent in high enough quantities in animal food, no matter what vegans may tell you) even causes brain shrinkage.

Also, plants - which can't run away like animals - protect themselves from being eaten with poisons and antinutrients. Most of the plant foods we eat are only edible because of cooking to begin with and the rest still contains not-so-good substances. Here's for a study showing increased DNA damage due eating the "healthy" fruits'n'veggies.

A quote from "owsley Stanley", who lives on rare meat for over 50 years now.

Green leafy vegetables have little or no nutritive value, and are eaten as "eye food". In fact some, like celery and lettuce have less caloric value than it takes to process them through your system, like sand. Some, like spinach, contain a toxic blood poison, oxalic acid. This dangerous chemical is so high in rhubarb that the green leaves are capable of causing death. Why eat this rubbish?
...
All plants have toxins, chemical defenses against herbivores are much older than the mechanical ones like the spines of cacti. People have struggled for hundreds of years to breed out most of these defenses, which is why you cannot grow them without pesticides.

If you doubt me, eat a cupful of wild lettuce (a very common weed), and see how long you can remain awake. It contains a glucoside, letucin, called "lettuce opium", which was bred out of the cultivated plant.

It's biased, I know, but I find it hard to disagree with.

You can sustain yourself in great health for however long you want on nothing but fat meat and water. You'll even lose allergies, acne and overweight.

I eat mostly meat (over 90% of calories, have to get some other stuff due to social life every now and again) and I haven't felt better ever before. I was a vegan once, but changed my mind based on the weight of the evidence. It's been a long way, but I'm pretty certain now, rereading all my vegan books again now. Eating vegan is great for the short term, because you (should) cut out most of the crap in your diet. But especially if you add soy and lots of grains (which many do for getting enough calories), you're not really doing yourself a favor in the long run.

Much of the common anti-meat publicity is based on animal-rights-ideas or at least fueled by them. But the ends don't justify the means. One should fight about morality on moral grounds. Inventing bogus health claims doesn't really put people on the high horse of morality in my book.

[Dreamline]

Good post.

Jennifer

[liamona]

Originally Posted by agnostic

About humans not being evolved to eat meat, I would suggest looking into the works of Steffansson (Fat of the land), who lived with the Inuit (who eat only animal foods, not a lot of edible plant food in icy climate) and based on that went for an entire year of eating only meat in a controlled study.

Don't mention him around here, because he's regarded as some random guy who went camping with Eskimos.

I was surprised that Wikipedia's entry on Stefansson had an informative entry on his experiences with the low/no carb diet:

Vilhjalmur Stefansson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although I knew he and a friend were on an all-meat diet for a year at Bellevue Hospital, I didn't know that the results were published in the JAMA.

Thanks for the link to the Zerocarbage.com (great name!) site. I'd never heard of it before. I hope more people will realize that "Controlling insulin is the key to stopping the progress of premature aging and chronic disease."

All this stuff about meat eating being bad for health is based on the notion that saturated fat should cause heart disease, which is complete bogus. Just read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" or "In Defense of Food"

Good Calories, Bad Calories is a great book! I wonder if it's out in paperback yet?

or simply think about the fact that any low-calorie vegan diet makes you burn the difference between maintenance- and eaten calories in the form of your own fat, which is -after all- animal fat that has pretty much the same composition as lard. It's high in saturated fat.

Interesting point, but I want to mention that lard is only about 38 to 43% saturated fat. It's 47–50% monounsaturated fat like what's touted as "good" in olives.

We didn't get all of this to pick some fruit, most of which is low in calories in its wild form and only available in some climates a few months a year tops.

This is a concept that I've come across recently, and it makes perfect sense. Those who advocate a fruitarian diet don't think about what people were eating the rest of the time when fruits weren't available.

A quote from "owsley Stanley", who lives on rare meat for over 50 years now.

quote:
Green leafy vegetables have little or no nutritive value, and are eaten as "eye food". In fact some, like celery and lettuce have less caloric value than it takes to process them through your system, like sand. Some, like spinach, contain a toxic blood poison, oxalic acid. This dangerous chemical is so high in rhubarb that the green leaves are capable of causing death. Why eat this rubbish?

It's biased, I know, but I find it hard to disagree with.

Have you heard of the Russian writer Konstatin Monastyrsky, who wrote Fiber Menace? He had severe digestive problems, and whenever he went to the doctor about it he was advised to drink more water and eat more fiber. He even went vegetarian for a while (and shows you his before and after pictures after doing so, and the subsequent weight gain):

Konstantin Monastyrsky: Biography

After dramatically improving his health problems on a low carb diet, he is adamantly against fiber (can you tell? *g*), and he makes some compelling arguments to eliminate it from the diet. I'm still going through his site page by page, because there's so much information to be gleaned.

[Beuford]

Originally Posted by agnostic

Humans evolved into the creatures that they are today on a diet that consisted for the most part of meat. Our weapons are not claws or fangs, but intelligence, speech and weapons, all of which were in a positive feedback loop with meat consumption: more meat-> bigger brain-> more intelligence-> better communication-> better weapons-> more meat.
Other changes include: walking on two feet (keeps hands free for tool use), less body hair (allows for better sweating to hunt during the day - we even developed a special type of fast-evaporating sweat) and not to forget: the human hand.

First sentence, so you think we ate more than 50% meat in paleo times? I would have thought 5%, maybe 10%, only more when plants and their fruit weren't available. Insects obviously would have been included, as I doubt they were too picky about them being on their plants.

I don't understand your reason behind more meat leading to a bigger and smarter brain. Why aren't carnivores smarter than us then? If you think it is because the protein and calories in meat, well there are more than enough protein and calories in plants too... and fat.

And as someone else said, about fruit and plants making you hungry a few hours later and meat making you last longer and being able to skip for days even, plants are complex carbohydrate rich unlike meat and take longer to break down(which is why we have the herbivore length of a digestive system) and so the energy in plants lasts longer than the energy in meat.

If you only eat meat, you'll be deficient in some vitamins.

So having given my thoughts I just want to say that I'm not against anyone, just their opinions. I'm not here to make enemies or force my opinion on anyone, just to share it and discuss it.

[Excellent Lodestar]

Originally Posted by funchy

T
If we were meant to eat meat naturally, why is raw meat hard to digest and likely to make us sick? Why don't we have the stomach pH and intestinal length of a carnivore, to allow us to eat raw meat? Don't believe me .... go eat a few raw pork chops. If the basis for eating meat is what we evolved to do, and we know we have to cook meat to change it enough for us to safely use, doesn't that say something about evolution and meat?

Your joking, right?
Hard to digest? try eating a raw potato, then talk to me about digestion. Or maybe some raw Wheat, corn or raw Soybeans--Staples of the SAD.Maybe we can chase it down with some healthy raw Pinto beans. After your back from the dentist who treated you for cracked enamel, maybe we can discuss evolution without agendas

[Beuford]

Excellent lodestar, those aren't the only raw foods. And those foods were rarely seen over 10000 years ago. Try eating a raw orange. Then try eating raw beef. Perhaps you can adapt to tolerate raw meat, but the human body can only take so much, it's not the best option.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Beuford

First sentence, so you think we ate more than 50% meat in paleo times? I would have thought 5%, maybe 10%, only more when plants and their fruit weren't available.

Right, and in most parts of the world, plants and fruits weren't/aren't available year-round.

I don't understand your reason behind more meat leading to a bigger and smarter brain. Why aren't carnivores smarter than us then? If you think it is because the protein and calories in meat, well there are more than enough protein and calories in plants too... and fat.

A better comparison would be between us and chimps and our other ancient relatives:

"In contrast, the inland Australopithecines did not have access to omega 3 EFAs and got stuck at a brain capacity that was not much bigger than a chimpanzee for three million years."

The Human Brain - Fats

If you only eat meat, you'll be deficient in some vitamins.

But it's plants that don't contain vital nutrients like Vitamin A, D3, K2, and the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA.

[Dreamline]

We have actually become un-adapted to eating raw meat. Cooked meat is a pretty difficult thing to digest. Raw meat is easier actually.

The only reason modern humans choose cooked meat over raw is mainly aesthetic training (we have been brainwashed to think of raw meat as "gross.") and food safety issues that have nothing to do with nature and everything to do with the unnatural ways we grow, slaughter, package, transport and store meat. This is what makes meat dangerous.

Jennifer

[Dreamline]

One factor that is being virtually ignored here in this otherwise excellent thread is that not all modern humans share genetics with the paleo/cavemen among us anymore. Therefore, although this diet would be excellent for everyone because of the simplicity factor, when compared to the average modern diet, it would be too much animal protein for at least some of us.

There are basically four versions of human now. The caveman (Type O blood) is still the most prevalent, statistically. Though that seems counterintuitive. The others are agrarians, nomads and chimeras. Otherwise known by the blood types A, B and AB, respectively.

Each has a specific genetic fingerprint that demands certain dietary modifications for optimal health.

Jennifer

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

We have actually become un-adapted to eating raw meat. Cooked meat is a pretty difficult thing to digest.

That's true, and that is why it is traditional to cook meats with marrow bones or stock. The broth adds gelatin and minerals, which makes meat extremely digestible; in addition, it has a protein-sparing effect, so a little bit of meat goes a long way cooked in this manner.

Food Features: Why Broth is Beautiful "Essential" Roles for Proline, Glycine and Gelatin

Traditional Bone Broth in Modern Health and Disease

[ericabiz]

After doing a 30-day trial of going pescetarian, I am now experimenting with the paleo diet. I was having a lot of exhaustion and blood tests show that I am insulin resistant. After consulting 3 different natural health practitioners, all of whom have extensive training in this area, and keeping a food diary, they ALL said the same thing: I am eating far too many processed carbs, and I need to cut down to minimal or 0 carbs.

After mentioning this, several people sent me links to the paleo diet and suggested I try it.

This is tougher than I expected. I started only this morning. I had some cooked shrimp for breakfast, and for lunch I'm eating some pulled pork and carrots with ranch dressing. I have been having carb cravings all day and they get worse when I get hungrier. However, I am noticing I can eat far fewer calories and still stay "full".

I haven't set myself up for a full 30-day trial yet; I'll need to learn how to cook more food before I do. Still, I'm surprised at how addicted I am to carbs.

I don't buy into the "one best diet for everyone" philosophy, and I'm not interested in stoking a flame war. I'm looking for the best diet for me; one that will help me stop feeling so exhausted during the day. Supplements help, but they don't solve the issue. I can't eat high-GI fruit without getting extremely sick. So paleo, for me, is worth an experiment. (Of note, I'm keeping in small amounts of dairy for now.)

-Erica

[Andrew Brunelle]

Of course man was a meat eater. That's obvious. Grains are bad, and so are processed foods. The only problem is that today we can't go hunting or foraging for our food the way we could in the pre-history days. It's too bad that we feel we have to buy all this healthy food when in the past we would have been able to go get it for no cost whatsoever. Now the only foraging people do is in dumpsters, but at least it's still free. I'm sure that some time in the future, after civilization is down the tubes, we may go back to a forager/hunter lifestyle that will allow us to continue to evolve in a way that makes us healthier and better equipped to handle that sort of lifestyle.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by ericabiz

This is tougher than I expected. I started only this morning. I had some cooked shrimp for breakfast, and for lunch I'm eating some pulled pork and carrots with ranch dressing. I have been having carb cravings all day and they get worse when I get hungrier. However, I am noticing I can eat far fewer calories and still stay "full".

It is extremely tough in the beginning. Be sure to throw away all sugar and grains from your kitchen, and have plenty of low-carb snacks you can reach for easily, like hard boiled eggs, shredded meats and canned fish like tuna and salmon. It also helps to take about 1 gram of L-glutamine on an empty stomach.

I haven't set myself up for a full 30-day trial yet; I'll need to learn how to cook more food before I do. Still, I'm surprised at how addicted I am to carbs.

Welcome to the club! I've been fighting sugar and grain addiction for over two years. I think I finally have it under control, although it's tough-going because the rest of the family eats grains and fruit.

So paleo, for me, is worth an experiment. (Of note, I'm keeping in small amounts of dairy for now.)

Me too, mostly in the form of heavy whipping cream, double and clotted cream, and limited amounts of cheese (not consumed daily).

[ericabiz]

Originally Posted by liamona

It is extremely tough in the beginning. Be sure to throw away all sugar and grains from your kitchen, and have plenty of low-carb snacks you can reach for easily, like hard boiled eggs, shredded meats and canned fish like tuna and salmon. It also helps to take about 1 gram of L-glutamine on an empty stomach.

Thanks for the advice! One thing that's weird is I don't get "a little" hungry on this diet. I go from ok, fine to STARVING!!! in like 5 minutes. I guess that's where the snacks come in

I suspect the supplements I was taking to regulate my blood sugar will help here; I'm off them for a couple days so the docs can do more testing currently.

-Erica

[Inthon]

I'm a huge fan of paleo, but the trouble is finding cheap grass fed beef. They don't even have it at Whole Foods and I'm not sure where to get the best prices on line.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by ericabiz

Thanks for the advice! One thing that's weird is I don't get "a little" hungry on this diet. I go from ok, fine to STARVING!!! in like 5 minutes. I guess that's where the snacks come in

Totally! That happens to me too. But I'll bet when you feel that way, it's HOURS after your last meal. This diet works best for me if I eat a huge breakfast and dinner with a small snack at lunch.

However, I do have to caution you to be sure to eat enough calories, as all the fat and protein can trick you into feeling too full. The first time I attempted the diet, I wondered why I was feeling so tired. When I put in my meal data into Fitday, I found that I was eating about 1200~1500 calories a day!

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Inthon

I'm a huge fan of paleo, but the trouble is finding cheap grass fed beef. They don't even have it at Whole Foods and I'm not sure where to get the best prices on line.

Try the EatWild.com directory, or a Weston Price Foundation Chapter Leader. They ought to be able to hook you up.