Voice of Reason
Banned
Okay, thanks.
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Paleo Diet 101: How and why you should eat like a Caveman
- Thread starter Dash27
- Start date
But you're right about dairy, which is an area where I think the diet is needlessly eliminating foods. Most people of European descent do very well on dairy. Lots of Americans trying to be healthy typically lash out at dairy and claim it's contributing to obesity, but lots of European nations that are relatively thin and healthy eat 2-3x the amount of cheese and dairy products that the US does.
Voice of Reason
Banned
Yeah, was watching one of Eric Westman's lectures where he mentioned that. France is doing it right.
It's weird to me that people focus so much on the TYPE of food instead of going for quality.
The cheese that a guy in southern france eats, that he can get from a local farmer is different then the terrible brick of oil one can buy here in Canada.
Same for bread etc.
I think the EU is still a bit harsher in terms of genetically enhanced foods and on crazy corporate behaviors.
It is nearly impossible for me here in Canada to find Balsamic Vinegar below 20 bucks that has no caramel included.
CARAMEL!
The cheese that a guy in southern france eats, that he can get from a local farmer is different then the terrible brick of oil one can buy here in Canada.
Same for bread etc.
I think the EU is still a bit harsher in terms of genetically enhanced foods and on crazy corporate behaviors.
It is nearly impossible for me here in Canada to find Balsamic Vinegar below 20 bucks that has no caramel included.
CARAMEL!
No, there's no maco nutrient requirement. You could be high carb if you want. It's no grains, no added sugars, no vegetable oils, no beans/legumes, and no dairy. I think if you're just starting out, cutting out dairy is a good idea, than add it back in after a few weeks and see how you feel. Essentially, start with meat, eggs, veggies, healthy fats (animal fats [butter, lard, ghee, duck fat], avocado, nuts and seeds, coconut, olive oil), tubers, and fruit. Depending on your goal you can alter your macros, so if you want to lose weight you might wanna cut back on the tubers and sugary fruit.
Different parts of the word are more than likely better adapted at eating certain kinds of food. I think if you start to really think about the concept behind eating based on evolution, it kind get kind of silly because of this. I like to think of it more as a science based diet.
Animal fats are healthy?
Absolutely...did you know that french fries cooked in lard is actually healthier for you than fries cooked in vegetable oil?
When is the last time you picked up a vegetable and was able to squeeze oil out of it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJan2RZ9d8
That's the idea, yes - I tend to agree. It's been suggested as the resolution to the 'French paradox' (loads of animal fat, low levels of heart disease). A nice paper on this subject:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2166702/
Heart disease patients split into three groups. Control group (no animal fat restriction) vs animal fat restriction + olive oil supplement vs animal fat restriction + corn oil supplement. After two years, survival and free of reinfarction was 75%, 57% and 52% respectively.
Tried it. Quite a jump from 60%; definitely seems to be an acquired taste.My second favorite
There are no paradoxes in science. Just hypotheses trying to cheat death.
When you cut out the sugar and refined carbs you will become more sensitive to sweets. The 88% Endangered Species bar taste like a traditional candy bar to me, it's crazy. I remember the first time I tried 85% and really didn't like it. But I didn't wanna just throw the bar out, so I finished it off over a couple of weeks, and by the time I had finished it, it was pretty damn good. Now it's just straight up delicious.
Avocado was another food I didn't like the first time I had one, now it's become practically a daily thing. I see this a lot with avocado though, people not liking them at first.
If you are extremely over weight I would suggest looking into a Ketogenic. You will lose weight faster and your LDL's, HDL's, Triglycerides, Cholesterol will rebound faster. Once you reach your goal weight, you can transition into a Paleo way of life.
My only issues with this diet, is the fruit eaten today, is absolutely nothing like the fruit eaten long ago. It has been selectively bread to have the most fructose possible. Which could be problematic for people with Type 2 diabetes.
Outside of that. Yes both Paleo and Ketogenic work. I am surprised more people are not eating this way.
My only issues with this diet, is the fruit eaten today, is absolutely nothing like the fruit eaten long ago. It has been selectively bread to have the most fructose possible. Which could be problematic for people with Type 2 diabetes.
Outside of that. Yes both Paleo and Ketogenic work. I am surprised more people are not eating this way.
yes. Very.
The school of thought that they were not arose around 1940. Long story short, it turned out to be junk science. They thought it spiked your LDL levels, and it does. However they didn't know there were two types of LDL's. Small and Large.
Large LDL's are fluffy, and good for the human body. They do not cause plaque in your arteries. Small LDL's on the other hand are very tight, and do cause plaque, which leads to CVD.
Saturated fats spike your large LDL's, carbohydrates spike your small LDL's.
If you go to reddit, and check out /r/Ketogenic (similar way of life as this except less fruit), people post up their blood tests all the time. Many people go from borderline CVD/Heart attack candidates, to perfect blood work in under a year. Mainly eating animal fats.
Most carbs have been cut out for a while now, and it definitely didn't come off as sweet to me. 60% does, though. I wish 85% tasted that way to me, lol. For avocados, I've been eating them since I was a kid due to being in Texas. Can't imagine life without them. Only downside is the rate at which they make an apartment smell like a landfill once the skin is tossed.
Try 72% then
SquiddyCracker
Banned
So has anyone tried a vegetarian+paleo diet?
Seems like most of the food sources in a paleo diet comes from meat, which wouldn't quite work if you were a vegetarian.
Seems like most of the food sources in a paleo diet comes from meat, which wouldn't quite work if you were a vegetarian.
You can't really do vegan paleo. You need to be at least able to eat fish. At least that's what Robb Wolf says if my memory serves.
Sounds fine to me...I was pretty much going to suggest the same thing. Sautee the shrimp in butter or ghee, garlic, maybe some fresh squeezed lemon paired with some veggies.
ORRRRRRRRRRRRR....you can make some bacon wrapped shrimp.
Or get some pancetta or dice up some bacon and add that into your original dish.
Naked Snake
Member
Interesting news tidbit of the day
http://www.dietdoctor.com/is-an-all-fruit-sugar-diet-bad-for-your-health
Yeah Steve Jobs was an idiot when it came to diet. It's really weird that such a smart dude fell for so many new age bullshit. I read his bio, and he'd spend weeks eating nothing but carrots or apples. Then he wouldn't shower or use deodorant because he thought such diets suppressed body odors. It's a miracle he got that job at Atari.
infiniteloop
Member
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Huh, that doesn't look too bad.
The exclusion of dairy is kinda hard to work with though.
Why would that diet include Vegans? Even as a vegetarian diet it's a bit dubious since they include Animal Fats.
It's possible, you'll be eating lots of eggs for protein. Bigger emphasis on veggies/tubers/starches. You'll meed to "supplement" your meals with fat..avocados, nuts/seeds, olives, coconut, full-fat cheese, butter. You lose a lot of variety and it's not nutritionally optimal, but it's doable.
You know that you are posting in a "eat like a caveman"-diet thread?
Voice of Reason
Banned
So you're implying cavemen are smarter than Steve Jobs?
apparently you eat like a caveman who sucks at hunting and mooches off the animal fat of previously cooked meals
Man, I love this diet. It completely changed my family's life, and it prevented me from the path of becoming another obese teen.
Last summer my dad and I tried to lose the weight, and did the normal thing by cutting out junk foods and drinks. Being South Asian, there was still a LOT of rice in our diet, and not enough meats. Seeing no change on the scales, we decided to head to the gym- where a personal trainer recommended 2 hours of exercise every day with thirty minutes on the treadmill and the rest on isolation machines.
We thought this would work, but my dad passed out after our workout on the 2nd day.
I tried to find another alternative, and came across the paleo diet. It was quite a shift for our family, where rice is a staple, and our plates seemed so empty without rice- but I enjoyed filling it up with beef (which I can now enjoy without the worries of conventional "wisdom"), chicken, fish and my favorite vegetables.
The Primal Blueprint book helped by providing the solid evidence as well as what carbs and grains exactly do to our bodies, and served as motivation when we missed rice (thanks Mark Sisson!). We chose to snack on almonds and pistachios, and I've acquired a taste for 90% dark chocolate.
We also disregarded the "routine" of the personal trainer, and we started weight-lifting instead. Even though I'm 14, I didn't feel it stunted my growth.
In the span of two summer months, we both lost 15 pounds, and my dad's blood pressure returned to normal. Our doctors were surprised, but we didn't tell them about our new lifestyle. My mother isn't completely convinced, but I'm sure she will once we've hit our goal weights.
That was last year, I'm going to be 15 in a week. I've been trying to share this lifestyle change with others but it's been difficult, as people think of it as a fad. But I'll keep going, as I feel modern society needs to realize how amazing this is. Age doesn't matter- the effects are the same.
Last summer my dad and I tried to lose the weight, and did the normal thing by cutting out junk foods and drinks. Being South Asian, there was still a LOT of rice in our diet, and not enough meats. Seeing no change on the scales, we decided to head to the gym- where a personal trainer recommended 2 hours of exercise every day with thirty minutes on the treadmill and the rest on isolation machines.
We thought this would work, but my dad passed out after our workout on the 2nd day.
I tried to find another alternative, and came across the paleo diet. It was quite a shift for our family, where rice is a staple, and our plates seemed so empty without rice- but I enjoyed filling it up with beef (which I can now enjoy without the worries of conventional "wisdom"), chicken, fish and my favorite vegetables.
The Primal Blueprint book helped by providing the solid evidence as well as what carbs and grains exactly do to our bodies, and served as motivation when we missed rice (thanks Mark Sisson!). We chose to snack on almonds and pistachios, and I've acquired a taste for 90% dark chocolate.
We also disregarded the "routine" of the personal trainer, and we started weight-lifting instead. Even though I'm 14, I didn't feel it stunted my growth.
In the span of two summer months, we both lost 15 pounds, and my dad's blood pressure returned to normal. Our doctors were surprised, but we didn't tell them about our new lifestyle. My mother isn't completely convinced, but I'm sure she will once we've hit our goal weights.
That was last year, I'm going to be 15 in a week. I've been trying to share this lifestyle change with others but it's been difficult, as people think of it as a fad. But I'll keep going, as I feel modern society needs to realize how amazing this is. Age doesn't matter- the effects are the same.
Congratulations!
Regarding the strength training, I'm not an expert, but I think that if you don't overdo it, you should be fine, i.e. doing more reps with lighter weights.
IMHO all the "weight lifting stunts the growth of teens" propaganda can be classified as another case of 'general knowledge has it wrong'.
hockeypuck
Member
And that wouldn't be statistically significant using today's stricter study standards, as the p value for those numbers was above 0.05. Moreover, for a small trial of 80 patients, the authors neglected to factor in tobacco use as a MAJOR confounder. Of course, few at the time could blame them as this study was published in 1965. Find a better study.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I presume that "animal fats" is just butter, but who knows.
(Animal fats from the actual fat tissue of animals is not vegetarian, no).
I don't buy the "saturated fat" is good for you argument either. Most systematic reviews show the opposite.
Can Paleo still be beneficial if you're too broke to go organic? I'm beginning to look into the diet but things that I read make it sound like there's little to no benefit from the diet if you just purchase typical supermarket vegetables and meats. I'm unemployed and don't exactly have disposable income to devote toward better quality food.
Correlation does not prove causality, so much bad science lead to the belief that saturated fats are bad, if I had more time I'd go into detail, but look at the actual studies being done in those trials, look at what's being controlled and what's not, and observational studies are meaningless.
Just a couple of things to check out, again, short on time here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2824152/
http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/S0899-9007(11)00314-5/fulltext
Yes, absolutely. Buy the best you can afford. I buy most of my veggies frozen, saves me a ton of money.
Obese IR humans can't do well on tubers, sorry
Can I get some links please? When I started low carbing i wanted to be sure i wasn't going to be killing myself so I went to quite a bit of effort to find the research the 'saturated fat is bad for you' advice is based on, to the point of contacting the NHS to ask what papers their dietary advice was underpinned by. What I found/received was pretty unconvincing so I went ahead, but I'm always happy to find new info.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
When in doubt, check wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat
There's just a ton of studies suggesting that reduction in saturated fat is beneficial. With that said, dralla is right in that there are confounding factors at play such as correlation with a third variable or methodology related inaccuracies.
Thanks, I've seen a fair few of those, many have the classic problems of epidemiology that you mention. The strongest conclusion you can take from that list is that it doesn't show saturated fat to be healthy.
When people are put on high fat low carb diets in RCTs, many health parameters seem to improve. I'm much happier to accept results from studies like that.
Easy...cut off the base, cut in half, toss in olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, and roast on a cookie sheet (lined with tin foil) for about 30-35 minutes at 350
Set it and forget it while you prep your proteins.
I really hope this paleo fad doesn't become too popular. Health-wise it's probably fine although I doubt "cavemen" ate that much meat. Probably not for every meal anyway. Hunting with primitive tools is not easy.
Anyway, this diet in not sustainable in the long run for our planet. It takes a lot of resources to feed the animals (grains and water) and only a tiny fraction of that is converted to meat. Everything else is used by the metabolism of the animals and is pretty much wasted. We could use those resources to directly feed humans instead. With the growing population, this is the only viable solution.
Let's not forget that animal husbandry create a shit load of pollution, literally. Live stocks generate lots of greenhouse gases and excrement ends up in otherwise clean water. People should also think of animal rights.
Anyway, this diet in not sustainable in the long run for our planet. It takes a lot of resources to feed the animals (grains and water) and only a tiny fraction of that is converted to meat. Everything else is used by the metabolism of the animals and is pretty much wasted. We could use those resources to directly feed humans instead. With the growing population, this is the only viable solution.
Let's not forget that animal husbandry create a shit load of pollution, literally. Live stocks generate lots of greenhouse gases and excrement ends up in otherwise clean water. People should also think of animal rights.
Nice. How about some parmesan cheese?
I wouldn't add until halfway thru or 10 minutes left to prevent burning...
SquiddyCracker
Banned
If the stuff contained in the diet is healthy on their own accord, fine, but one argument in particular that annoys me is the whole "Humans ate X for this many years, and Y only for a short period of time - thus we are better evolved to eat X".
That's just a misunderstanding of how evolution works, it's not a smooth continuous change, but rather a periods of little to no change punctuated by evolutionary bursts of great change in response to a change in the environment. That we've only eaten, for an example, grains for 10,000 years in comparison to a "paleo"-diet for 100,000 years is simply irrelevant.
Just had to get that off my chest, sorry
That's just a misunderstanding of how evolution works, it's not a smooth continuous change, but rather a periods of little to no change punctuated by evolutionary bursts of great change in response to a change in the environment. That we've only eaten, for an example, grains for 10,000 years in comparison to a "paleo"-diet for 100,000 years is simply irrelevant.
Just had to get that off my chest, sorry
Pixel Pete
Member
I don't eat more meat after taking up paleo.
If the stuff contained in the diet is healthy on their own accord, fine, but one argument in particular that annoys me is the whole "Humans ate X for this many years, and Y only for a short period of time - thus we are better evolved to eat X".
That's just a misunderstanding of how evolution works, it's not a smooth continuous change, but rather a periods of little to no change punctuated by evolutionary bursts of great change in response to a change in the environment. That we've only eaten, for an example, grains for 10,000 years in comparison to a "paleo"-diet for 100,000 years is simply irrelevant.
Just had to get that off my chest, sorry
Don't apologize...part of my gripe with Paleo is the holier-than-thou regurgitation of information that people perceive as gospel.
I like this thread because it's given me some good ideas on how to better myself and my eating habits.