More complaints and niggles incoming:
Yeah, as a starting point to use as inspiration, I guess it's good, but it seems there's just too much focus on the food in particular - much like any diet really.
If you are going to eat like a caveman, shouldn't you also exercise like a caveman?
Primitive humans didn't live no couch potato lifestyle while eating whatever it was that they ate.
They didn't go for three jogging sessions or weight training sessions a week either.
Well, the Primal guy, Sisson, certainly does argue this - I think he recommends weight training, sprint workouts and walking as a mimic for carrying loads (fuel, carcasses, infants, body weight when climbing), running to catch/avoid something, and, well, walking. But to be fair, that's going to be even harder to prove than the diet aspect! Paleo man's workout timetable certainly didn't fossilise, so any recommendations on that front would be wide open to complaints and niggles
FWIW, I think Sisson's recommendations are reasonable, but again, as with diet, you need to combine the paleo inspiration with what modern research tells us about various exercise methods. Speaking for myself, I used to run about 20 miles a week and stayed overweight. These days I hardly exercise aside from a few press-ups and walking, and remain weight-stable at BMI 22.
Also, what's the deal with "inflammatory foods"?
It sounds really pseudo-scientific, and the main origin of that idea seem to come from a lady... more specifically, from
a book she sells.
Usually when I encounter a theory that people make a major profit off, it usually gives me a great reason to distrust that source. This seems to be the case all over when it comes to the paleo-movement.
I've never heard of that woman, and haven't read too much about 'inflammatory' foods, so can't really speak to that specifically. There's probably something to it - for example here's a paper about the inflammatory nature of omega 6 fats vs omega 3
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16387724?dopt=AbstractPlus
And wheat germ agglutinin
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19332085?dopt=AbstractPlus
EDIT: a third link, a letter to the BMJ I remember reading a while ago. The author is an allergist who thinks paleo is the way forward, so this is one you might want to take with a pince of salt and follow up his references to see if they say what he says they say (as it were)
http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7190/1023?view=long&pmid=10205084
The profit-motive thing is a reasonable rule of thumb for sure, it depends how deep you want to investigate this. In theory we should assess all information dispassionately regardless of the source of their motives, but life is too short, I agree. For one, Sisson is unashamedly a book and supplement salesman, but nonetheless he's the first person I recommend when people ask about paleo. He's upfront about what he does, and the advice is reasonable.
I'm not saying there's nothing to the paleo, but it's just hard for me to determine what exactly is being done right in the diet with so much.... stuff putting me off in my research.
Absolutely. An RCT of paleo vs other diets would be nice (anyone know of one?). Even then, with a fabulous result for paleo, all we'd know is that it's doing something right that the other diets don't. There's so many changes when you go strict paleo, who knows which one is what brings the benefits? It's a reasonable dietary framework with a fair amount based on little more than biological plausibility. Anyway, personally I like it, it means I can eat lots of meat.
