PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

[Spartacus]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

the big problem with low carb diets is Atkins.

Everyone thought because of him you should be able to eat as much as you want, as long as you have low carbs you will lose weight.

It's a much, much more satisfying diet BUT lots of people have now been raised to eat large portions - habitually eating til you're gorged, NOT stopping at "no hunger"

You WILL gain weight on Atkins doing this.

The big problem with many other diets is, IMHO, wheat is a poison. Soy too, but less. Rice being the "best"

just because it doesn't kill you acutely doesn't mean it's not a poison.

There have been a bunch of very low fat diets proposed and used in the late 90s, 80s and late 70s. People don't stick to them. again IMHO, Pritikin caused a lot of heart attacks because of wheat's effects on small particle LDL.



There's still things we need to study bout low carb, though, because (last time i read about it, several years ago) very few people on the "permanent weight loss registry" are on low carb diets. I could be on the list but haven't bothered ...

what's interesting to me, at the moment, is looking for commonalities among the variety of proposed "healthy diets." fuhrman, like taubes [i gather, i've ordered his book but have yet to receive it, so i'm going on your references to him], advocates cutting out all refined grains and sugar, which is step #1 on your own recommended steps. otoh, fuhrman avoids the animal fats you recommend in step #2. he allows whole grains and fruit, which you proscribe, but if you read his actual work, what he recommends is a tremendous quantity of vegetables to be consumed before you add anything else. the idea is that you are so full of vegetables you don't have room for much else. this results in far more carb than fat, but overall not so much carb compared to a standard diet, i.e. this is a low cal diet. i saw a comparison of a fuhrman and eades [i think, i don't have the time right now to go back and find the link] diet: the fuhrman diet had a much higher proportion of carbs, but almost all from vegetables, and a total of only 1600 calories, whereas the locarb higher fat diet had 2200.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

what's interesting to me, at the moment, is looking for commonalities among the variety of proposed "healthy diets." fuhrman, like taubes [i gather, i've ordered his book but have yet to receive it, so i'm going on your references to him], advocates cutting out all refined grains and sugar, which is step #1 on your own recommended steps. otoh, fuhrman avoids the animal fats you recommend in step #2. he allows whole grains and fruit, which you proscribe, but if you read his actual work, what he recommends is a tremendous quantity of vegetables to be consumed before you add anything else. the idea is that you are so full of vegetables you don't have room for much else. this results in far more carb than fat, but overall not so much carb compared to a standard diet, i.e. this is a low cal diet. i saw a comparison of a fuhrman and eades [i think, i don't have the time right now to go back and find the link] diet: the fuhrman diet had a much higher proportion of carbs, but almost all from vegetables, and a total of only 1600 calories, whereas the locarb higher fat diet had 2200.

Thanks JK

I've bought Fuhrman's book (just delivered from amazon yesterday) and will post a review at some point. My comment above is a first impression - I promise I will give the book its due. I am pleased to see the number of references he has (unlike many others) -but the fact -checking so far is not looking so good.

ex 1 He flatly states that you must destroy muscle to make the small amount of glucose you need when you are in ketosis. I've seen this error elsewhere as well on the web. It is just false. Two glycerol molecules equals one glucose molecule. When you are in ketosis you are liberating fatty acids from the triglyceride molecules, and thereby freeing up plenty of the glycerol backbone to convert to glucose. (Also proteins turnover amino acids constantly -it is a high carb,low protein diet that would require muscle breakdown, as we can't synthesize essential amino acids - Fuhrman has his concern backwards, IMO)

ex 2 He repeats the canard about ketogenic or even near ketogenic diets being dangerous. He seems to be good about providing references, so I checked his one reference. It is from Medical Tribune - I can't find the reference or the author in pubmed - A pubmed search of ketogenic diets shows no mention of adverse side effects or danger among the 53 abstracts I get with "ketogenic diet". As you know, ketogenic diets can treat seizure disorders with some success and are often up to 80% fat by calories - they make atkins look like ornish. For a very interesting blog by a veterinarian with training in biochemistry who lives on an 80% fat diet (mine is about 60% fat) go here:

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.c...lise-your.html

Poke around his site and you will think he is my main source -in fact, I never saw his blog until yesterday.

A low-fat or semi-starvation diet (1600 vs 2200 calories) can definitely lower your insulin levels and glucose levels as long as you are in calorie deficit, but not as effectively or safely as a high fat diet, IMO.

No question you can get closer to paleo insulin and glucose levels on 1600 cal/day than with the SAD. Can you do it in a variety of ways? You bet.

1) You can practice calorie restriction by stuffing yourself with mechanically satiating veggies and fiber, meticulously avoiding only the empty calories of sugar and white flour ala Fuhrman (the way I read it so far) Healthier than SAD? - for those with terrible diets loaded with sugar, yes.

2) You can decrease the frequency of meals to spend lots of time in ketosis with low serum glucose and insulin levels even though when you do eat the carb fraction is high. Intermittent fasting is very effective, but very, very difficult to do if you eat high carb and you and your mitochondria are not conditioned to ketosis. When I fast (easily up to 24 hours), I am not hungry, period. It takes no willpower and is not some kind of shamanistic mind-altering experience if you are a fat-burner. Fat is satiating at the meal, Ketone bodies in your circulation are satiating while fasting. Can you imagine paleo people feeling lightheaded and nauseated from hypoglycemic overshoot because they dadn't had a "snack' for a few hours - they have to find a cracker now - no time to hunt that herbivore they've been tracking without food for days!

3) You can consume nearly anything if you run like Dean Karnazes (the ultramarathoner) and because you are constantly sucking glucose into your muscles and burning it, eat almost anything. My patients aren't keen on running the western states 100 -they like to watch the packers on TV. Excessive aerobic exercise is bad for your your immunity - another topic altogether.

4) You can eat with normal, socially acceptable frequency in a calorie-rich western environment (e.g., 3 meals a day -I eat 2), by simply increasing intake of healthy fats (not just animal) and eliminating all grains and simple sugars from your diet.

without:

Hunger

Extraordinary amounts of exercise

Incurring the slightest risk of overt or subclinical gluten enteropathy

The excess O-6 fatty acids that suppress your cancer fighting immune system that are found in grains (0-6 to 0-3 ratios up to 22:1 versus 2:1 -you are what you eat) is hard on bovines and harder on humans. Why eat what you shouldn't feed a cow?

Grain lectins increasing your gut permeability and allowing foreign proteins into your blood

risking autoimmune diseases like MS, Crohn's disease, and rheumatoid arthritis

The allergies, including atopy, associated with grains

having excess gut flora and often irritable bowel syndrome

having indigestible fiber levels (proven to worsen IBS) more appropriate to a gorilla or cow

Risking serious nutritional deficiencies related to the phytates in grain that bind calcium or iron or zinc and are nonexistent if you depend on animal products. 1.2 Billion worldwide have iron deficiency anemia and it's not from lack of supplementation. Animal-based diets with no grains have no such risk

Thanks for conrtibuting and I'll post more on Fuhrman.

[jk]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

It was devoted to Fuhrman's diet, which is as dangerous as Ornish's diet from what I can see.

what's interesting to me, at the moment, is looking for commonalities among the variety of proposed "healthy diets." fuhrman, like taubes [i gather, i've ordered his book but have yet to receive it, so i'm going on your references to him], advocates cutting out all refined grains and sugar, which is step #1 on your own recommended steps. otoh, fuhrman avoids the animal fats you recommend in step #2. he allows whole grains and fruit, which you proscribe, but if you read his actual work, what he recommends is a tremendous quantity of vegetables to be consumed before you add anything else. the idea is that you are so full of vegetables you don't have room for much else. this results in far more carb than fat, but overall not so much carb compared to a standard diet, i.e. this is a low cal diet. i saw a comparison of a fuhrman and eades [i think, i don't have the time right now to go back and find the link] diet: the fuhrman diet had a much higher proportion of carbs, but almost all from vegetables, and a total of only 1600 calories, whereas the locarb higher fat diet had 2200.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

You are aware that dairy consumption has altered genetics in a shorter time period, so 23,000 years has some evolutionary significance.

I include dairy elimination as later steps along the path. There has been some selection pressure with re: to dairy, but not enough to make it safe for more than a portion of humanity. The neotony of lactulose is well know, as well as the fact that many populations don't have it. This only reinforces my views of grains. Dairy is just not as problematic.

"....don't place too much faith in "scholarship"

"I doubt that you'll find any peer-reviewed articles."

"-- so peer review isn't really needed".

"You need carbohydrates in your diet, even if scientists don't know why".

These kinds of statements confirm my skepticism.

It is clear you are trying to discredit what I have to say by pointing out inconsistencies in a group that I recommend (WAP)

I am sorry, but you directed me to WAP and rather strongly endorsed them.
Feel free to give me a link there that provides the reasoning to the essentiality of grains - other than "we need them but scientists cannot say why, Weston told us so."

Do you take any precautions to protect yourself from parasites or bacteria that can be found in meat? Like cook it? Or if eating tartare (raw meat)

Actually that depends on the source, for me at least.

There is a big difference here. Meat may be eaten quite safely raw if it is not infected, this is a stochastic event. It is not inherently inedible without heat. Wheat is absolutely inedible if not cooked, and according to WAP must in addition still be meticulously prepared by soaking, etc.

Let me ask you something . . . do you ever get the desire to eat grains? If you walk by a bakery and catch that wonder fragrance of fresh-baked bread, don't you feel something inside of you saying, "I want that".
Ignore your body's messages at your own peril . . . .

Bread, pasta, muffins, even pizza, never. I used to love chocolate chip cookies but now I cannot eat more than half of one without feeling nauseated.

Very starchy foods (baked potato) and sugar laden foods like cookies are nearly the same on a per-gram basis in their insulin response, despite some differences in their so-called glycemic index. This glycemic load ("area under the curve" of insulin secretion over time required to keep blood glucose normal) is substantial and even with massive insulin secretion by the pancreas to handle the load, there are variations in glucose levels, and compensatory hormonal chages like the surge in epinephrine that account for the "sugar rush" we all know. Once you are deconditioned to this, you actually don't tolerate it as well even if you might psychologically crave this addictive property of sugar and starches, the same way you might other physically addictive substances like cocaine and alcohol. You lose your tolerance for them once you are clean.

Many folks' bodies tell them to have a cigarette pretty regularly.

You think that carbohydrates are not necessary because you cannot find any scientific evidence to that effect.

That plus the copious evidence of their harm (nutritional deficiencies and autoimmune disorders, celiac disease)

...I receive no financial gain or derive any other benefit from WAP other than learning from their publications.

You directed me there and I thought you had pretty strongly identified with them. After reading them, I actually find less advocacy of grains than you seemed to suggest. I certainly did not say you were receiving financial gain from them. One can advocate strongly and sincerely for a non-profit with no thought of personal gain. Even if you were a part of that organization, it would not change the way I evaluate your claims.

[raja]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

If you, a priori, find his reasoning on grains flawed because you believe Price, how could it not reinforce your thinking?

Some of Cordain's conclusions are illogical, and one goes against my personal experience. This has nothing to do with Price.

23,000 years ago is still not very far back in evolutionary time.

The point was to show that grain eating was predominant is some groups prior to agriculture.
You are aware that dairy consumption has altered genetics in a shorter time period, so 23,000 years has some evolutionary significance.

Here is a link to Cordain's review article Cereal Grains: humanity's double edged sword - you have probably read it, but for the benefit of others here I highly recommend it. It is 60 pages with 342 references.

Perhaps you have a similar scholarly article on the essential role of grains in human evolution and health, if not by Dr. Price, by someone else?

Sorry, can't help you there.
But don't place too much faith in "scholarship". If what I read on Cordain's website is any indicator of his capability, then his 60-page review article is probably similarly flawed.

I have tried to find peer-reviewed research by Dr. Weston A. Price, but I can't find any papers on pubmed. Maybe you could point to some of his peer reviewed original research or review articles.

Like all good contrarians, his work was greatly ignored by the PTB at the time, so I doubt that you'll find any peer-reviewed articles. And more to the point, Price wasn't doing experimental research -- he was primarily documenting the health condition and dietary habits of some non-industrialized groups around the world -- so peer review isn't really needed.

I did find this book review on the "Price Foundation" website, which seems a bit puzzling, given your stance.

The No-Grain Diet

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dutton, 2003
Review by Sally Fallon

A qualified Thumbs Up for this sensible and practical weight loss book.

As you can read, it is for weight loss -- not a diet for everyday life. Therefore, not inconsistent with my views.

It is clear you are trying to discredit what I have to say by pointing out inconsistencies in a group that I recommend (WAP), but don't you think you're reaching just a bit too much here?
Also, as you stated below, I have pointed out in a previous post that I do advocate everything that WAP says.

I have spent some time on the WAP website diligently searching for a scientific rationale for the necessary consumption of grains and can't find a single one.

I have given you my reasoning on this already.

Instead, all I can find are admonitions that it must be prepared meticulously to avoid injury and article about what to do once you are diagnosed with celiac disease which is caused by eating wheat.
I'll stick to food that I don't need to defend myself against, thank you.

Do you take any precautions to protect yourself from parasites or bacteria that can be found in meat? Like cook it? Or if eating tartare (raw meat), freezing it for 14 days, as recommended by the USDA?
Again, you reasoning is illogical, and your criticism not well thought out.

I have pointed out that there is zero dietary requirement for carbohydrates.

Let me ask you something . . . do you ever get the desire to eat grains? If you walk by a bakery and catch that wonder fragrance of fresh-baked bread, don't you feel something inside of you saying, "I want that".
Ignore your body's messages at your own peril . . . .

You think that carbohydrates are not necessary because you cannot find any scientific evidence to that effect. But just remember that paleo people spent thousands of years eating starchy foods, and it is pure arrogance in my opinion for you to think you can ignore that evolutionary heritage. You need carbohydrates in your diet, even if scientists don't know why.

"Katherine Czapp was raised on a three-generation, self-sufficient mixed family farm in rural Michigan".

The appelation echoes your self-suffient farm descriptor- are you sure you have no present or past affiliation with the WAP foundation? Was it a WAP newsletter you wrote? I understand you don't agree with everything on the foundation website, as I don't endorse all on Cordain's.

Again, you are trying desperately to discredit me by associating me with WAP. I will say it again, I receive no financial gain or derive any other benefit from WAP other than learning from their publications. I am not an employee or officer of WAP. I have never been to their offices. My opinions about WAP are not influenced by any self-interest, since I receive nothing from them. And, as you say, I clearly state that I don't agree with everything they say.
In the future, can we stick to discussing the issues and leave off with the ad hominem attempts to discredit my postings?

To me, the burden of proof remains with the grain-advocators. I do not think tradition or the interesting but purely empirical observations of modern-era primitives by a Dentist* in the 1930s is enough to establish the necessity of grains, in the face of more compelling evidence from biochemistry, archaeology and medicine.

I think it is the best evidence available.

Archeology cannot tell us much about plant foods, since they do not preserve as bones do.
Biochemistry can, and is used, to support every wacko theory of nutrition out there.
And medicine . . . well, what do they know about nutrition?

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

It's going to be another blockbuster coffee table all-American diet book, for sure. While our coffee tables are already groaning under the weight of all of our previous revolutionary ideas on nutrition in this country.

[metalman]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

What does this mean Metalman? Is there a deep answer tucked away in here? She's very cute, in a conventional sort of way. Did you want to solicit my compliments there? Very attractive young lady and altogether cute teddy bears.

But what does any of this have to do with Roger putting the world on a high protein and fat diet? Do you like me, see this new dietary guideline of his, somewhat "constrained", in terms of our rolling it out "popularizing" it worldwide in the various nations elsewhere, who we must presume are all desperately in search of a spartan trim-down?

Americans already have a reputation worldwide (in recent years) for being "a little on the porky side", and that's not just in regards to our food consumption. How do you think the world will greet our new high fat and protein diet"? Will this burnish our image as a nation of tough and lean rugged pioneers all over again? :rolleyes:

If all of America got on this bandwagon and we all started solemnly eating lots of fat to get thin - do you surmise that some other people in the world might crack a small grin perhaps at the spectacle?

lukester... roger cannot put the world in a diet. here's america's diet...



and...



and...




makes...



you guys are beating on each other about... crazy degrees of health by usa standards. :mad:

me...



(er, not really...)

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

What does this mean Metalman? Is there a deep answer tucked away in here? She's very cute, in a conventional sort of way. Did you want to solicit my compliments there? Very attractive young lady and altogether cute teddy bears.

But what does any of this have to do with Roger putting the world on a high protein and fat diet? Do you like me, see this new dietary guideline of his, somewhat "constrained", in terms of our rolling it out - sort of "popularizing" it worldwide to all these other sorely nutrition challenged countries, who we must imagine are all earnestly in search of a spartan trim-down?

Americans already have a reputation worldwide (in recent years) for being "a little on the porky side", and that's not just in regards to our food consumption. How do you think the world will greet our new high fat and protein diet"? Will this burnish our image as a nation of lean consumers and eaters all over again? :rolleyes:

If all of America got on this bandwagon and we all started solemnly eating lots of fat to get thin - do you surmise that some other people in the world might crack a small grin perhaps at the spectacle?

[metalman]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

lukester needs a hug...



wups! wrong vid... er...



Animations

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Roger I would dearly like to put you up against one of those uneducated mountain men in Tuscany that fuel up for a day's backbreaking work on a 45 degree wooded mountainsides with a plate of pasta and beans with maybe a single sausage in it. These "pathetically hyperglycemic" mountain men would leave you gasping and begging for respite after 8 hours of that kind of work. All your glossy five mile runs after a "spartan cup of decaf, on an empty stomach" is pansy stuff compared to the raw haulage power they crank out five days a week all year long on the food you suggest is poison and worthless.

There is a preciousness in your approach to viable nutrition - a hot house flower sort of patrician incuriousness, to see how people **in other countries** with food resources which you consider the crudest and least worthwhile in the world, then amply evidence that they hhave the brute energy and raw day in day out stamina to leave you stranded were you to attempt the work they do without a nice steak handy.

I saw first hand, in Italy 25 years ago, how a diet rich in grains and vegetables, the very humble chick peas and pasta which has been the staple of the Italian peasantry for several hundred years, gave this peasantry the energy to withstand centuries of the predations of their heavily taxing and highly predatory aristocracy. This is not by any means a socio political screed on my part. Actually I could give a solitary damn about politics and global emancipation most of the time. But this peasantry, on the food you dismiss with your Paleo-Patrician air, withstood all of those ravages, and they were a very healthy and energetic people.

My parents retired in a 3000 square foot stone farmhouse at the top of a steep mountain overlooking the Val di Chiana, Italy's largest valley and breadbasket - and the home they lived in had been built by an Italian peasant in the days of Napoleon, with stones the size of a small refrigerator, all hand hewn and hauled up from the valley 2500 meters below by **donkey**. These people were prone to do such feats. He put a lintel above the door explaining in his rustic Italian, how it took him five years to build that home out of stone hauled up from the valley, all by himself.

This untutored peasantry lived on "Pasta e Ceci", pasta with chick peas and some olive oil and rosemary. A few vegetables, and a cut of meat maybe once a week on market day, Yet they did work which would have left you flagging hard, more likely than not, as you'd have to survive on the same grub they ate.

That food, which their grandparents were eating when Rogermexico was not yet even a gleam in his grandpa's eye, was food which you today wave a languid hand at as "inadequate, hyperglycemic and risky". Yet these people without the copious quantities of meat proteins and fresh cream and whatnot, which you insist are so critical to human health and vigor, wound up in the mid 20th Century, all industrialised and sedentary like everyone else, and were STILL, among the healthiest and slimmest in Europe with much the same traditional diet as their great grandparents. That is, until American style food processing took over by storm.

Now we have you wishing presumably to "save the Italians from an unhealthy diet" (imported largely from this country) with your recipes for dumping all the grain traditions wholesale and stripping their country of it's remaining scarce wildlife in pursuit of your more ideally spartan Paleo prescriptions.

The peasantry today, on a diet you regard as the greatest health lie in human history, do a degree of backbreaking work which all of your vigorous five mile runs with the nutritious steak dinners, would likely still leave you underequipped for.

I regard their unassuming health and diet, with such modest yet wonderfully tasty traditions in food, and I think your exotically fuelled endurance trials and exotic wild game inspired diet are a wispy vanity compared to their cultural expression. And that healthful and effortlessly harmonious tradition in food, with it's modest footprint upon the resources around them, in the years I was growing up there - for 25-30 years in the 50's, 60's and 70's, included also all the sedentary office workers, who in a truly marvelous display of paradox to your nutrition thesis, for 40 years, stayed slim enough to leave your conclusions on the inherent evil of grains utterly flummoxed.

I dont doubt, that if we could transport you back there to observe this, we'd probably have seen you wondering in Roger-like culturally patronizing puzzlement, what sort of meat diet they must have been on to remain so wonderfully trim and healthy. Meanwhile I watch you skate right past the comparative health stats which these people demonstrated for so many decades, which made them the envy of the continent for their "secret recipe for health and longevity" - you are reminded of all this, built around a diet rich in grains, and yet even these large segments of data conflicting to your cherished theses appear as mere bothersome gnats, to be swatted aside by Roger in his pursuit of dietary objectivity elswhere. You don't have to answer me. But you do need to take your nutritional ideas for a good long travel to make your ideas a little bit more "porous" on the cultural end of things.

Meanwhile, the Inuit you like to cite, as examples of peoples whose "health is destroyed as soon as they get on more conventional carbohydrate rich diets" (away from your "pure" meat food) - are extremely homogeneous genetically and by virtue of their singularly hermetic genetic environments d history spanning hundreds of years, have been highly evolved and specialized towards eating high meat diets. You seize on such cases with gusto as evidence for the evils of converting healthy meat eaters to carb endowed diets, without the slightest allowance that you are cherry picking your case studies.

Such narrowly favored case studies are scientifically disingenuous, because you single out people who are quite clearly so evolved into a narrow ecological niche that the change of diet for them proves quite expectably disastrous. The operative term here, as you go on to blissfully ignore the instances like the Italians who for many many decades had an exemplary health which was vaunbted worldwide, is "disingenuous". There are many, many other nations like the Italians out there, who put the lie flatly to your thesis, and which all your arguments on these pages merely skirt adroitly around.

A great analogy would be, as though you held up the Icelanders' as perfect case studies to discusse global viral epidemiological trends. The Icelanders are so genetically insular and inbred, that your selection of them as the proper ethnic group to illustrate your epidemiological theories would be hopelessly slanted as they could emerge miraculously immune, or disastrously vulnerable, as the case might be at whim of the virus involved. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about your investigative method and slightly glib assurances leaves me so irritated. You certainly don't have to answer me, but that does not mean I cannot skewer what I plainly see as a few of your conceits meanwhile.

BTW I am one of iTulip's blunter posters. You will get a cupful of vinegar from me, if you merit it. No question about it. This post is not an "ad hominem attack" upon your person. It is a bit of paint stripper applied to the varnish that dresses up your thesis for a better balanced and nutured world.

Not a lot of energy in vegetables alone, that is why animal products with fat and protein should generally should be the core of your diet. Despite current nutritional dogma, and the belief in carbo-loading since the 70's, carbohydrate consumption is completely unnecessary for your energy (or any other) needs.

It is 100% possible to never eat any carbohydrate whatsoever and still do lots of physical work. Any carbs needed not provided from glycogen or food can be produced in abundance via gluconeogenesis. Glucose provided this way makes you literally burn fat, and keeps your insulin levels low.

If you are a lean runner, you have enough energy in your body fat to walk about 800 miles.

I have proved this through self-experimentation, and then found plenty of published literature that supports it. My business partner who is the marathon kayaker and the real athlete trains this way and he is spreading it to fellow athletes.

Now here is the cool part. When you race, you have new mitochondria and your newly efficient fat-preferring metabolism. Add a moderate carb load and some GU bars if its a long race, and you will be faster than you were before. Glucose is now your nitrous oxide, not your primary fuel.

Right now, I am going for a 4.5 mile run, followed by 45 minutes cross-fit workout. I had cup of decaf this morning but have eaten no food since 8 pm yesterday.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

I checked out Loren Cordain's website, as you suggested. As usually happens in a situation such as this, it only served to reinforce my own positions. His reasoning on grains is flawed -- I won't go into the reasons here -- and he also referenced an excellent Nature article that gives evidence that non-cultivated grains were a major part of the diet of at least some pre-agricultural people as far back as 23,000 years ago.

If you, a priori, find his reasoning on grains flawed because you believe Price, how could it not reinforce your thinking?

23,000 years ago is still not very far back in evolutionary time.

Here is a link to Cordain's review article Cereal Grains: humanity's double edged sword - you have probably read it, but for the benefit of others here I highly recommend it. It is 60 pages with 342 references.

Perhaps you have a similar scholarly article on the essential role of grains in human evolution and health, if not by Dr. Price, by someone else?

http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles...%20article.pdf

I have tried to find peer-reviewed research by Dr. Weston A. Price, but I can't find any papers on pubmed. Maybe you could point to some of his peer reviewed original research or review articles.

I did find this book review on the "Price Foundation" website, which seems a bit puzzling, given your stance.

All Thumbs Book Reviews (Image indicating thumbs up here)

The No-Grain Diet

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dutton, 2003
Review by Sally Fallon

A qualified Thumbs Up for this sensible and practical weight loss book. "Grains" for the purposes of Dr. Mercola's No-Grain Diet include breads, pastas, pastries, potatoes, rice--all the carbohydrate-rich white stuff. Mercola presents an Atkins-style diet with welcome emphasis on food quality, stressing butter, cream, eggs and meat from pasture-fed animals. Cod liver oil is an important part of his protocol as is unrefined salt. Mercola wisely warns against use of the microwave oven as well as modern soy foods and artificial sweeteners.

The No-Grain Diet provides many ingenious no-grain recipes to ease the pains of carbohydrate withdrawal--"roll-ups" made with lettuce and a variety of fillings, pancakes, pastry crust and muffins made with ground nuts, zucchini "lasagna," mashed cauliflower (instead of potatoes), smoothies made with coconut milk and desserts sweetened with stevia powder....


....We take issue with just a few of Dr. Mercola's suggestions. One concerns the consumption of raw eggs. We agree that it is fine to consume plenty of raw egg yolks, a custom found in many traditional diets, but consumption of raw egg whites on a regular basis can lead to digestive problems. The problem is not, as Dr. Mercola states, that raw egg whites can cause biotin deficiency, but that raw egg whites contain enzyme inhibitors that can interfere with protein digestion. Whole eggs should be cooked--and it is fine to cook them any way you like them, even scrambled. Beating or whipping eggs does not damage the proteins or cause the cholesterol to oxidize, as Mercola has suggested.

Other complaints: inclusion of tofu and protein powders in the menu plan; use of raw nuts (nuts need to be soaked in salt water and then dehydrated to neutralize enzyme inhibitors, especially if they are consumed in large amounts); the assertion that grains like amaranth, teff and quinoa are healthier than wheat (all grains contain antinutrients and need to be processed properly--Peruvians consider quinoa toxic unless it has been properly soaked before cooking); and the absence of any warning against MSG in tamari (used in several sauce recipes) that has been produced by modern processing methods.

If the reader interested in weight loss will keep these caveats in mind, he or she will find much helpful advice in The No-Grain Diet."

My comments:

No soy, rice, potatoes or bread is a heck of a lot closer to my "No Grains" than your "Grains are essential". What "grain" is left for most people after that?

Why isn't Fallon, who is president of WAP foundation, emphasizing the essential nature of grains in her review? Is she an apostate or just making a mistake?

I have spent some time on the WAP website diligently searching for a scientific rationale for the necessary consumption of grains and can't find a single one. Instead, all I can find are admonitions that it must be prepared meticulously to avoid injury and article about what to do once you are diagnosed with celiac disease which is caused by eating wheat.

I'll stick to food that I don't need to defend myself against, thank you.

Grains seem kind of like cheap and ubiquitous puffer fish.

The following from WAP is typical, from a very interesting lady who seems to be an expert on wheat botany and bread, and you might expect her to state authoritatively what grains have to offer. Instead:

"...many cultures throughout the world have long ago developed careful means of preparing all grains for human consumption. Soaking, sprouting, and souring are very common aids for grain preparation, which ensure the neutralization of enzyme-inhibitors and other anti-nutrients with which seeds are naturally endowed."

Why not just avoid the enzyme inhibitors and anti-nutrients and the bowel-inflaming and eroding glutens?

Preparation is obviously in no way ensuring anything -mitigating at best -as celiac disease is not prevented by preparation or cooking (unless to the point of oxidation where there is nothing left to digest) Why eat food that must be de-fanged lest it bite you?

The author is described at the end:

"Katherine Czapp was raised on a three-generation, self-sufficient mixed family farm in rural Michigan".

The appelation echoes your self-suffient farm descriptor- are you sure you have no present or past affiliation with the WAP foundation? Was it a WAP newsletter you wrote? I understand you don't agree with everything on the foundation website, as I don't endorse all on Cordain's.

I have to say I find the WAP website to be a little cult-like, ("as Dr Price taught us", when his book was written in the 30's, starts to sound more faith-based than scientific after a while) even though there is much there I agree with. One other websiteI found savaged Atkins, Gary Taubes and WAP with the same intensity (It was devoted to Fuhrman's diet, which is as dangerous as Ornish's diet from what I can see) over the fat issue on which we seem to agree. Mary Enig, PhD is a contributor there, and I can endorse most of her view on healthy fats, especially saturated fats. Her book is good.

To me, the burden of proof remains with the grain-advocators. I do not think tradition or the interesting but purely empirical observations of modern-era primitives by a Dentist* in the 1930s is enough to establish the necessity of grains, in the face of more compelling evidence from biochemistry, archaeology and medicine.

*Not knocking Dentists. I'm married to one

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

The whole "carbs and grains are good" myth is assumed to be some ancient wisdom, but it is a mostly american idea that carbs and grains are great and the idea is less than 50 years old at that. It got its footing in the 60s and became recieved wisdom in the late seventies, helped along by politically correct "diet for a small planet" thinking. It was originally promoted based on no science whatsoever

Huh? Well if you wish to put yourself in a cultural desert island this assertion could hold water for maybe an hour or two. "Carbs and grains are good myth" - being mostly an American idea? Where have you been living Roger? There are countries all over the world with very ancient culinary traditions who would look at your "mostly an American idea" with blank incomprehension.

I can't understand what the heck you are asserting on that point either. It's simply not true - Americans have come very late to the nutrition ideas table, and the "carbs and grains" thingy has been mainstream in dozens of countries since before Pritiken and Taubes and Betty Crocker with the kitchen sink, and all these other benighted American diet mavens were even a gleam in their various grandfather's eyes.

And what the heck is up with the "politically correct diet for a small planet" dismissal. You think we don't have some problems looming on how to maintain a minimum standard of nutrition for the world, or is that just a tedious issue here? I'm not going to thrash this around any more but you do have a little bit of cultural audacity waving an arm at the world and claiming the "notion of carbs and grains" (you imply it's a "dietary fad") was "invented in the 60's by Americans".

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Thank for your thoughtful remarks, too.

Agreed. Sugar is a drug.

I'll talk more about the addictive qualities of sugar and even starches in a later post.

I find this reasonable. I am having trouble with squaring it with the 'eat loads of meat and no carbs at all' statement -- something of a leap. Seems like moderation was lost in the journey.

Because of my huge respect for Mr Taubes, I will reinforce your impression that I am making a "leap" with the no grains argument. That said, I have read Taubes book 3 times as well as many of his primary references and I've seen nothing to suggest that we would not improve health by enlarging the venn diagram from simply "no sugar or flour" to "no grains" .

Maybe if we use the phrase "animal products" - which includes dairy if you can tolerate it and fish and seafood and cheaper meat sources like chicken, it will not sound to you like "eat more steaks". I don't think red meat is even mentioned in my first post.

Again, healthy un-processed red meats are allowed and better that grains, but there is no requirement for them other than in preference to grains and excess carbs.

"No carbs at all" -

OK to eat them when they come along for the ride or if you will starve otherwise, but no dietary requirement for them at all. The lower your carb intake, the lower your insulin levels.

In other posts I have pointed out that there is zero dietary requirement for carbohydrates. This is hard to swallow if indoctrinated by the USDA agriculture and processed cereal-lobby influenced food pyramid, which puts grains at the base of pyramid, and the cultural myths we have about how healthy pasta is, how sugary fruit is always mentioned before far superior vegetables, and the erroneous dogma that we need dietary carbohydrates that I was taught in medical school. (This comes from the non sequiter that because glucose is an internal fuel source, we must eat it. Not only is it not necessary to eat it, my argument is that the more of it we synthesize or make internally from stored fat, the healthier we will be, and this is actually getting us closer to the metabolic state we spent our time in during most of our evolutionary past.)

The whole "carbs and grains are good" myth is assumed to be some ancient wisdom, but it is a mostly american idea that carbs and grains are great and the idea is less than 50 years old at that. It got its footing in the 60s and became recieved wisdom in the late seventies, helped along by politically correct "diet for a small planet" thinking. It was originally promoted based on no science whatsoever about how carbs benefit you, just a push to substitute them for animal products, because of the alleged negative effects of of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat, which we now know to be erroneous. (See Taubes GCBC for hundreds of references).

Here is challenge to all: Find me a case report of a single subject suffering from carbohydrate deficiency, or even a population study where there is a nutritional deficiency attributable to inadequate starches and sugars in the diet. (No flames, please- I am not talking about populations who have nothing else to eat) The whole dogma comes from a substitution argument - "eat carbs to avoid animal products" and we know there is nothing wrong with healthy unprocessed animal products.

If you have a major component of your diet (grains) that is there due to cultural and technological and not biological evolution, it will sound immoderate to eliminate it if you can. I grant that, but that is what I am recommending.

Eating grains to have a "balanced" diet is part of the myth - you need to balance your diet towards animal products and vegetables only if you depend on grains - that is the food class with all the deadly nutritional deficiencies, not animal products. Shall we balance our diets with alcohol if we are teetotalers or excess trans fats if we have none, or with more sugar if we have none at all?

I am working on a separate post explaining the many deleterious effects of grains, independent of their insulin effects.

Thanks for your patience.

[c1ue]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

I've read articles describing how native American Indians killed large quantities of buffalo by heading them off cliffs. So perhaps with enough savy, primitive man could hunt large animals successfully, even without guns or compound bows.

Certainly they did, but note this is AFTER the Cro Magnon period.

Or in other words, after many tens or more likely hundreds of thousands of years of successful enough hunting of large animals to promote actual genetic modification to take advantage.

In North America - mankind didn't arrive until roughly 40K years ago (as far as in presently known) and already had developed hunting techniques.

But to jump from Olduvai Lucy to the Bering Strait crossing mammoth hunters is a big leap.

Hunting of megafauna as a food source is very well documented.

As bowhunter, I hunt with a 53 lb longbow (primitive stick and string) with broadhead arrows no more effective than flint points. It will shoot completely through a whitetail.

Elk, moose and even bison can be easily killed with the this kind of tackle which is no more effective than what native americans used.

Again, you refer to relatively modern times and very modern technology.

I doubt you use flint arrowheads, nor are you using pounded bark twine for a string.

If instead I look at Africa: Since yew, cedar, etc don't exist there, the bows they use there are far less powerful. Even with millenia of human development, hunting the really big animals there was never really practical. In Japan where yew also doesn't exist, bamboo bows can be used but that's why they are 7 feet long.

Furthermore the extinctions due to highly successful hunting of megafauna appear to be up to 50K years ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...23/1819?ck=nck

That hardly compares with the number of generations needed for genetic evolution assuming energy requirements from successful hunting of large animals.

Another point in this vein is that extinction of megafauna occurred mostly outside of Africa: the further away, the greater the extinction impact. This would seem to indicate that modern man migrated and killed off the megafauna faster than the megafauna could adapt - in turn meaning mankind's hunting evolution was likely already done.

So I'm still quite unconvinced of your thesis that mankind evolved to eat lots of meat.

Looking at the nutritional aspect - simple cooking of food whether animal or vegetable seems to have as great or greater an impact on nutrition.

Note I don't disagree with your thesis of too much sugar being bad.

I merely point out that it may simply be excess that is the issue no matter whether it is due to overmuch processing of food, too much sugar, too much grains, etc etc.

Ultimately as an engineer I view the human body as a system : too many calories going in equals bad things.

Types of calories - while there may be some differences in the order of 10%, I don't see eating one type of food vs. the other making a dramatic difference unless there are other systemic limitations.

One such limitation with eating too much meat may be that the body stops absorbing nutrition beyond a certain point simply because the processing of meat may be limited by digestive system potential - whereas refined sugars can basically go straight to the bloodstream and has thus little relative constraint.

[*T*]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Yes, sugar is crap

Agreed. Sugar is a drug.

The Asian question first. I do address this in the book and I address it again in the afterward of the paperback. There are several variables we have to consider with any diet/health interaction. Not just the fat content and carb content, but the refinement of the carbs, the fructose content (in HFCS and sucrose primarily) and how long they’ve had to adapt to the refined carbs and sugars in the diet. In the case of Japan, for instance, the bulk of the population consumed brown rice rather than white until only recently, say the last 50 years. White rice is labor intensive and if you’re poor, you’re eating the unrefined rice, at least until machine refining became widely available. The more important issue, though, is the fructose. China, Japan, Korea, until very recently consumed exceedingly little sugar (sucrose). In the 1960s, when Keys was doing the Seven Countries Study and blaming the absence of heart disease in the Japanese on low-fat diets, their sugar consumption, on average, was around 40 pounds a year, or what the Americans and British were eating a century earlier. In the China Study, which is often evoked as refutation of the carb/insulin hypothesis, the Chinese ate virtually no sugar. In fact, sugar consumption wasn’t even measured in the study because it was so low. The full report of the study runs to 800 pages and there are only a couple of mentions of sugar. If I remember correctly (I don’t have my files with me at the moment) it was a few pounds per year. The point is that when researchers look at traditional populations eating their traditional diets — whether in rural China, Japan, the Kitava study in the South Pacific, Africa, etc — and find relatively low levels of heart disease, obesity and diabetes compared to urban/westernized societies, they’re inevitably looking at populations that eat relatively little or no refined carbs and sugar compared to populations that eat a lot. Some of these traditional populations ate high-fat diets (the Inuit, plains Indians, pastoralists like the Masai, the Tokelauans); some ate relatively low-fat diets (agriculturalists like the Hunza, the Japanese, etc.), but the common denominator was the relative absence of sugar and/or refined carbs. So the simplest possible hypothesis to explain the health of these populations is that they don’t eat these particularly poor quality carbohydrates, not that they did or did not eat high fat diets."

I find this reasonable. I am having trouble with squaring it with the 'eat loads of meat and no carbs at all' statement -- something of a leap. Seems like moderation was lost in the journey.