- Paleo diet essentially means either:
- Nothing you couldn't hunt/forage 100,000 years ago. That means no to:
- Processed food (A friend says "No Plastic" -- twinkies, corn syrup)
- Sugar
- Grains (bread, rice, pasta).
- An alternate formulation says: get 90+% of your calories from
- meat
- fruit
- veggies.
- There's a dispute over how hard-core to be
- some folks find perfect adherence best.
- Others find 1-2 meals a week to indulge better
- The rest of the diet varies substantially
- Pro- or Con- on Milk (I've got a thing for fermented milk, especially), but weak allergy to non-fermented milk.
- Potatoes (& Yams) -- Seems like some folks do great with, but many folks avoid.
- High Glycemic Index Fruits -- Bananas, etc. have differing opinions.
- Frequency of eggs, honey.
- Everyone I've read who's gone hard paleo- dropped weight at a 1 lb a week rate until they were back to youthful thin. Also, once started [1st month], I've heard that it's a tremendously easy diet to stay with.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Health Invitation
So...I've done a semi-intense observation of the paleo- health literature over the last few days. Summary:
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11 comments:
I'd be game. But after the weekend - my wife is making peachberry pie. And I'm not skipping homemade peachberry pie for anything.
We also have a variety of patriotic activities scheduled, all of which involve things our paleolithic forebears would have been unfamiliar with. Beer. Hot Dogs. Ice Cream.
But starting Monday would work for me. What knocked me off the diet last time was the onset of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the cookies and pie and potatoes. There's nothing that is going to force me off the diet for months if I start now.
When I was on the diet, I went as much toward meat, cheese and dairy as possible, and filled in the gaps with the veggies and fruit. I suppose that's not strictly a paleo diet, but it is a pastoral indo-european diet, and I figgered that was close enough. I strictly avoided all processed flour, sugar, rice. On the weekends, I'd relax slightly - allow myself a small bowl of ice cream, or the like.
I was pleased with the weight loss - more than a pound a week (I'm 6'4" - I had room to lose) but was amazed at the improvement in how I felt - less tired, more alert, just better all around.
Anyone who wants in, email me at the address on the top right of the blog. GoogleGroup is starting up soon.
Perfidy,
I'm a great fan of fermented foods, as per Seth Roberts. I'm not thoroughly convinced that Beer/Wine is a bad thing (though hot dogs are barely food, and buns aren't.)
I'm inclined to flat out allow anything fermented on top of the normal list, with sauerkraut/ kimchi being the food of the gods. See this as a start (Heck, read the series), and Seth also reports large benefits for eating butter.
I meant to link this one as well, but couldn't find it quickly.
I'd be more than willing to add high quality beer and wine back into the diet - no willpower cost there.
I think, based on what I read in Good Calories, that I'd keep the consumption of that low, regardless of other health benefits of fermented foods. The basic idea is that carbohydrate consumption messes up the fat metabolism, which results in fat being deposited rather than used. Hence, you feel like you have more energy when you cut carbs, because the fat is seeping out of storage, and being made available for use in the body.
The relatively high carb content of beer would limit that effect - and if the goal is to lose weight, that would slow the process. Once I've dropped the weight I want to drop, then I think that adding beer or wine back in would make a lot of sense - I don't hold with the idea that its inherently bad for you at all.
And butter. Never planned to cut butter.
Perfidy,
Sounds like you're mostly Zone-like. And while it may be true...there's minor differences between the low-carb diets (Atkins, South Beach), the diabetic/Glycemic Index diets and the Paleo-diets in focus, though with a heckuva lot of overlap. For instance, Free The Animal eats potatoes still as a paleo, and most hardcore paleos don't do dairy, while the atkins/South Beach folks think that's nuts.
Diabetics/GI Obsessers on the other hand, push against fruit, while the paleos say: all you can eat.
I'd bet wine is more paleo-positive than beer, though I personally can't handle the bitter tastes in alcohol (even super-sweet Rieslings are hard for me to swallow, from the horrid, overwhelming taste of alcohol that stays in my throat for hours). At the same time, I'm pretty hardcore at this point about the whole fermentation thing, so salt the opinion lightly or more.
Overall, though, the positions are all close. 80+% of calories from Meat, Fruit, Veggies. Fewer than 3 meals a week that include grains, sugar, plastic...and hopefully even then, lightly.
I dig the paleo thing. We haven't evolved the biological mechanisms to deal with mass consumption of carbohydrates, let alone refined ones and high fructose corn syrup. However, my ancestors did evolve lactose tolerance. So I'm okay with dairy.
Maybe I should publish an Indo-European pastoral herder diet book.
You're right about the overlap - I think the key is the reduction or elimination of refined carbohydrates. Carbs that are part of meat, fruit, veggies are going to be in balance. So, what you favor out of what's left is really a matter of preference.
I find that being able to eat eggs and cheese and butter makes dealing with the lack of bread (which I dearly love) much easier.
Me, I can't stand sweet wines. Liqueurs, mixed drinks, Boone's Hill, wine coolers - can't abide them. I *like* bitter, hoppy ales, whiskey, bourbon, red wines. Once I get down to dating weight, I think I'll be happy to add moderate amounts back in.
Fermentation is a bit of a problem for me - I never liked sauerkraut. My wife is interested in doing more fermented foods, and maybe learning to do bread from sprouted grains.
I'm getting psyched again.
I'm in. It's awesome to find like intellectual minds who are also into paleo.
I'm doing all meat. I was impressed by the Stefansson 1932 article.
I've been trying to do all meat for some time, unfortunately there was a small problem - the pressure cooker I used to cook everything bled out all the fat. Protein poisoning is not fun.
Just started eating extra fatty meats to compensate a couple of days ago. Things are going great.
You know, I run across discussion about shooting with Black Powder rifles, too. My opinion there is the same as here: the brass cartridge case is one of Civilization's great advances, just like frozen food and global shipping to bring me apples in February.
Now if y'all will excuse me, I have to go get a twinky to eat while I clean my guns ...
Borepatch: lOL
Aret: Huge huge differences abound among paleo recommendation sets & theories (of which elements are essential). I bet I've done a far more intense lit survey than you so far, and I choose Kurt Harris, "MD," (like we batshit crazies care!) of PaNu as my #1 expert. At least look at his 12 one-sentence principles or whatever. If you follow basically any other school of paleo, Kurt would say you're doing too much fruit and not enough animal fat, coconut, eggs, heavy cream. His two biggest differences from the rest of paleo are: SCRUPULOUSLY avoid bad fats (which are mostly what the mainstream calls best fats, i.e. vegetable oils) and carbs (he's VLC, very low carb, and even ZC-friendly).
Andrew,
Ok. Found your guy. I was expecting him to be more Zoney/South-Beach like you always have been. I was pleasantly surprised by his list.
His stuff is (AFAIK) basically where I was anyway, sans #10 (low fruit) ... and it'll take me a long time to get over that one. Indeed, his order is awfully close to what I'd do as well (in order of importance), and I almost wrote down vegetable oil as something to avoid as a plastic.
We prefer avocado to coconut for our vegetable fat chez Aretae, and our whole family has a mild-to-unmild milk-allergy, so his dairy thing is right out for us (except yogurt). I'm already over-consuming eggs, which my wife has a mild allergy towards (straight). We shifted substantially towards butter and away from veggie oils a bit back...and we're not as convinced by the anti-seed-oils bit (Flaxseed). I think he underemphasizes the value of fish.
I also claim that the next revolution in the Paleo community is the Seth Roberts fermented food add. 2-5 years, it'll be gospel.
JB,
Sorry to not directly respond to your post. Bad manners for a host. You may have noticed an email from googlegroups and my pointing my peeps at your blogs as well.
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