Going Paleo
by Jason GodeskyYou are what you eat, right? It’s more than a simple cliché; it’s a biological truth. The foods you eat are broken down chemically into the building blocks of your body. You are literally made of food. Civilization makes us sick, largely because it feeds us foods we have no adaptation to. Our civilized bodies are made of alien food–bird food, milk for baby calves, but precious little human food. Foragers enjoy a far better life than we do, on many levels, but the transition from civilized to forager is not an easy one. How much of a benefit could we expect, even if all the stress and iniquity of our civilized lives remains constant, just from eating like a forager?
According to the Paleolithic Diet, a lot. Fad diets come and go, and they’re always based on “the latest medical research.” That’s part of the problem. Science does not produce unvarnished truth; science is constantly perfecting itself. Meaning, at any given time, the “latest research” of any kind is precisely the knowledge most likely to be overturned, with the least evidence to support it. Just look at how drastically our ideas about fats, cholesterol, carbohydrates and alcohol have changed over the past decades. Debates that should be worked out in journals are instead hashed out between pop diet books that sell thousands or even millions of copies, with the general public caught in the crossfire. The result is one fad diet after another, and most people deeply, deeply confused about what they’re supposed to eat.
The Paleo diet takes an entirely different starting point. Instead of chasing after whatever last month’s study in JAMA happened to be, the Paleo diet starts with one of the most sound, thoroughly proven tenets of biology: the theory of evolution. No animal evolves in a vacuum, and neither did humans. We have adapted to certain foods, as evidenced by our teeth, the chemicals and enzymes in our digestive tract, and the form of that tract itself. We are omnivores. We eat almost anything on the planet–but not quite everything. As we discussed in thesis #21, humans have no adaptation to eating grains or dairy, the fundamental basis of the civilized diet. Over 90% of all civilized food involves either wheat, rice or corn–none of which the human body is adapted to digest. We discussed some of the consequences of such a diet in thesis #21: from the obvious consequences like obesity, to the less obvious ailments, like cancer.
A 2000 study by Loren Cordain 1 (full text available in PDF in the Vault) corrected previous, skewed results with a more multi-cultural view of the forager spectrum. Previous studies had focused on the !Kung, who have an abnormal attachment to mongongo nuts. This led to the conclusion that hunter-gatherers lived primarily off of gathered plants, some even going so far as to begin talking about, “gatherer-hunters” to correct the misconception that foragers relied primarily on meat. Cordain’s study showed that it was the correction that was a misconception, skewed by the over-emphasis placed on the !Kung. When we look at the full spectrum of foraging diet, as Cordain does, we see a spectrum that varies by latitude. In the arctic, the only green vegetables the Inuit ever see are the ones they scrape from inside a slaughtered caribou stomach. But even at the equator, where foragers have the most choices available, you find that their diet is still predominantly meat. Proteins are always the primary building blocks for cells and tissues, but even for energy, foragers rely on animal fat, rather than carbohydrates the way we do.
It might seem counter-intuitive, but the reason Americans are so unhealthy isn’t because of all that red meat, but because of all that bread. In fact, the civilized diet is predominantly plant matter, where the diet humans evolved with is predominantly meat.2
Yes, foragers had some pretty extreme cholesterol, but it’s increasingly clear that we don’t entirely understand the effects of cholesterol.3 The Paleolithic diet turns a lot of recieved wisdom on its ear,4 but ultimately, our recieved wisdom are points in a debate–our ideas about fat, good fats, bad fats, cholesterol, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, et cetera ad nauseum change with an alarming frequency–while we need only to look at the health of hunter-gatherers to prove the effectiveness of the Paleolithic diet.5, 6, 7
The Guinea Pig
My friend and Anthropik co-blogger Benjamin Shender went on paleo some time ago. He lost a lot of weight and now enjoys the best health of his life. Myself, I’m in the position of a lot of Americans. I have photos from high school, and I looked pretty good. Like a lot of people, I gained weight in college, and since then, it’s been hard to lose. One of the most striking points in favor of the Paleo diet, for me, was when Ben told me, “Also, your feet won’t hurt anymore.” I hadn’t told him how my feet always hurt–how did he know? It was so obvious once he said it: all the weight they’re constantly under!
To the right, you see a photograph of me taken at 6:50 PM on Tuesday, 28 February 2006. I’m Russian peasant stock, so I carry my weight fairly well–that’s why I only look “overweight” and not “morbidly obese,” even though I’m over 300 pounds. I suffer from an elevated blood function from fatty liver. I was struck after watching Supersize Me at the psychological toll. Many of the physical and psychological problems that Morgan Spurlock suffers in the film have plagued me for years. Besides simple vanity and a desire to look good for my wedding in the fall, my weight is becoming an issue of health, both physical and mental. Civilization is killing me.
I’m going to go paleo.
I have my health to consider, but I also have my future to consider. The Paleolithic diet will accustom my body to the diet of a forager now, rather than later. It’s something we can do immediately to prepare ourselves for the forager life, and reap some of its benefits even as we remain bound to civilization. It’s something I’ve tried to do in the past, only to be frustrated by conflicting needs or a limited budget.
This time, I’m going to make an experiment of it. I’ll be keeping close records, and publishing them here in weekly updates for all to see. With luck, the public pressure and the desire to substantiate my claims that a forager diet improves health will keep me from lapsing this time.
The Hypothesis
The Paleo diet claims to provide a number of advantages. Here’s what I’m expecting to get out of it:
- The Paleo diet makes people move very quickly to their ideal weight. For Giuli, I’d expect weight gain; for me, I’m expecting significant, rapid weight loss. My ideal weight is something around 200 lbs. (I am Russian peasant stock; besides being enormous, I’m also genuinely big-boned), so I’ve got about 100 lbs. to burn off.
- More energy, both from less weight to move around, and from using higher-quality energy sources than carbohydrates.
- The Paleo diet should help alleviate my bouts of depression, allow me to think more clearly, and generally improve both my emotional state and my cognitive abilities.
- I’ve even heard that my complexion will improve.
The Experiment
I’m going with Dr. Burlay’s version of the paleo diet, The Foundation Diet. Burlay is a psychiatrist, and his version emphasizes our cultural construction of food and attitudes about eating, which is probably one of my biggest challenges. Burlay also provides a diet that is more sensible than some others.
The weight-loss portion of the Foundation Diet resembles Atkins; it’s a low-carb diet that induces a state of ketosis. I’ll be monitoring my ketones to make sure I don’t slip into ketoacidosis; I’ll also be monitoring my carbohydrate intake and total calories.
Where the Foundation Diet and Atkin’s Diet differ is that Atkin’s is terribly unsustainable–as many have since discovered. It’s a good way to lose weight, but a terrible way to live. The Foundation Diet allows more fruits as one moves into the maintenance phase.
The first three days are pivotal. They flush the glycogens from the liver and induce ketosis, so I’ll be making another report on that in three days’ time. Then, I’ll be in the weight loss phase proper. Once I’ve approached 200 lbs, I’ll begin the maintenance phase–also known as, the rest of my life.
Until maintence is reached, I’ll be making weekly updates, complete with an updated Excel workbook. Sheet #1 will have daily statistics: ketones, net carbs, net calories, and weight. Sheet #2 will record what I eat: a description, net carbs, and calories. Sheet #3 will record my exercise habits: a description, duration, and calories burned (that’s where daily “net calories” come from).
Official start date: 1 March 2006. Pay day, and that means grocery shopping–and the first day of Lent, to appeal to what Catholic devotion I have left and use it to my advantage.
Dude you are built like me. If this works for you I might even consider it. Would I have to give up the pot of coffee and 3 diet sodas I drink every day?
Comment by TimofSuburbia — 28 February 2006 @ 9:11 PM
Best of skill and determination! Quite inspiring, for all, regardless of our own situations.
(I hope you keep the hair, though!)
Comment by JCamasto — 28 February 2006 @ 9:20 PM
Sheesh, I started this experiment as soon as I read about this in your thesis. Dude, I have been losing weight and have been feeling better and believe once my diet consists of more wild greens (it’s winter here and haven’t made an attempt to find dandelions and such), my energy level will skyrocket.
‘Bout time you joined the club….
Comment by Rick Larson — 28 February 2006 @ 10:34 PM
Yes.
The problem, as I intimated above, is that everything that is cheap and easy is made of grains (noodles, pop-tarts, toast, etc.), so when time or money are constraining factors (in my case, both), paleo may be … difficult, at best.
But Giuli’s learning to cook now, and is willing to compromise on having everything organic (just meat now), so if I can cook up most of the week’s food on the weekend and she can help me out, this thing just became doable.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 10:39 PM
Buying end of date meat (discounted) and picking dandelions does not cost more than pop tarts and noodles!
One time I fasted for 5 days, it was great, maybe this will jump-start your change of diet!
Comment by Rick Larson — 28 February 2006 @ 10:44 PM
alright Jason!
Paleo time!!!
=)
Yep, Im thinking it’s time for me to be more strict myself…
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 28 February 2006 @ 11:30 PM
Three cheers! If you’re looking for cooking help and/or recipes, just ask and I’ll do what I can. Hell, maybe I’ll be inspired to get back to it… after uh, I finish the non-paleo baked goods I made today. Otherwise I’ve been doing pretty well.
-Mike
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 28 February 2006 @ 11:49 PM
I wrote this on another article…but I’ll post this comment here as well.
Those who are interested in the paleo diet might want to look on the website
“http://www.westonaprice.org/index.html.”
It is a website that talks about the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist who traveled the whole world to see the health of “primitive” tribes. His studies confirm studies mentioned in this essay.
A summary of his research can be found on this following page: http://www.mercola.com/2001/jan/21/weston_price.htm
He saw all sorts of “primitives”–hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, even simpler agrarian societies. In his book, “Nutritional and Physical Degeneration,” which he wrote in the 1930s. In the book, you see pictures of primitives with perfect teeth, old primitives without bald hair, and then, those same primitive groups of people with bad teeth and baldness as they became civilized.
Comment by aksum — 28 February 2006 @ 11:50 PM
As St. Augustine put it, “Lord, make me chaste–but not yet!”
Yeah, it was my motto, too….
Thanks, Aksum. I’m quite familiar with Weston Price, and I imagine most of our audience is, too. It’s one of the pillars.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 11:55 PM
Fasting is usually a bad idea. The only times I recommend it would be if you are trying to facilitate an altered state of mind, or if you’re telling the British to get out.
The first few days are bad. I hope you’ll tell us about that too…just keep the details mellow, we don’t need to be scaring people over cravings when we have the end of the world.
There are a bunch of tricks to the diet that can help you make it cheaper. Including cheaper meat (I prefer the more expensive steaks personally), but stew meat is rather cheap. And stews are easy to make, and are quite paleo…if you make it yourself. The two acceptable paleo methods of thickening a stew are sassafras and putting so much food in that the water barely has room. I like number 2 myself.
No soda, no coffee. You can have as much tea as you want though, and some teas have more caffeine than some coffees.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 28 February 2006 @ 11:57 PM
Wow! That’s pretty coincidental… We just talked about Mr. Price last Thursday in my Small-Scale Agriculture class. Very interesting stuff. He visited isolated people, who had perfect teeth, and came back to see their children, after roads and civilized foods came in, to find some of the worst teeth he’d ever seen.
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 28 February 2006 @ 11:58 PM
The fasting wasn’t bad at all Benjamin. Me thinks that hunter/gathers had to fast many times a year, and they had the easiest/best life of all.
Much worse is to stuff your face with buttered bread in order to fatten you up so your kin needs to buy a larger casket and make the funeral directors more money!
Comment by Rick Larson — 1 March 2006 @ 12:21 AM
Fasting is generally not good. Eating civilized is even worse. Just because a flesh wound is better than an amputation doesn’t mean a flesh wound is good.
Foragers pretty much never go hungry. If foragers are going hungry, then there’s probably no multicellular life left on the planet. Going hungry is something farmers do, not foragers.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 March 2006 @ 12:27 AM
For fun, I juice-fasted for 10 days (using that lemon juice/cayenne/water/maple syrup stuff). This was all after dropping the wheat & dairy. I found very little problems with energy or my body, which led me to the same conclusion — fasting is sometimes just fine.
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 1 March 2006 @ 12:32 AM
Ok, we have very different definions of fasting then. For me a fast is what the word means in the dictionary. Nothing, no food or drink at all, period. If you were drinking a nutrient-rich shake I wouldn’t consider it fasting. Try nothing at all for a couple days, that’s what I’m talking about.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 1 March 2006 @ 1:06 AM
Way to go, I’m on Paelo most of the time for about 1 year. I do have best energy levels for all my time.
Strange is that I used to eat porridge and vegetable all my life (32). But I tried and I never look back. I feel much much better now.
Comment by Petr R. — 1 March 2006 @ 3:47 AM
What about squash? Is it paleo? because I use it to thicken stews. re: “The two acceptable paleo methods of thickening a stew are sassafras and putting so much food in that the water barely has room.”
Comment by ChandraShakti — 1 March 2006 @ 5:07 AM
I’m on Paleo after vegan diet. Now I feel great about myself. I was all slim , but after Paleo I lost some weight too. But then, some weight added to my muscle weigh. I am gaining some body built. And I feel much energic than before. And also more relax. I got anxiety, and after Paleo I observed that I feel great about myself (both physical and emotional), decrease in depression. So, yet, there is no anxiety attacks.
And, it affected even my dreams.
Also, I observed some changes about my cronic sinusitis. It ’s going well. Especially grains, and patato (carbonhidrats) affect mucus bad. When you stop eating them, and add onion,garlic etc. in diet, it is good for mucus.
> Foragers pretty much never go hungry. If foragers are going
> hungry, then there’s probably no multicellular life left on the
> planet. Going hungry is something farmers do, not foragers.
And, yes. Jason right. I feel nearlly no hungry in Paleo. But before, I was hungry much. It is beacuse of blood insulin value. When we taking high Glukos (carbonhidrats), the blood insulin value increasing much. but in time cuz of Glukos we took, insulin value decrease much and we feel hunger much. There is a big waving and differences in those values. But in Paleo , there is little waving. So you can’t feel hungry as bread eaters. (sorry for my english, i hope i could explain.)
Comment by Elfun — 1 March 2006 @ 5:12 AM
I’m really interested in seeing how this turns out.
I’m vegan, but I’m also studying evolution, so I do have an interest in the paleo diet.
When we say that no grains are in the paleo diet, is that basically gluten?
I might look into giving up bread because I am overdependant on it.
Comment by Floyd Soul — 1 March 2006 @ 6:17 AM
Are we allowed parsnip? Seriously, I think I could kick the potato habit right now if parsnips were allowed. They’re the greatest veg on the planet. You can mash ‘em, boil ‘em, roast ‘em, slice ‘em thin and fry ‘em in oil - and yet they’re basically big white carrots with attitude.
Cabbage, also, is your friend. Don’t just boil it - stir fry it or shred it into American slaw. (Or maybe that’s just my own Eastern European peasant origins coming out ;-D) And bacon with your cabbage makes a meal fit for a king.
Spinach is a funny one. Repellent on its own, it has an uncanny ability to complement anything with meat or eggs in it.
I did reduced carb for a while. The hardest thing to give up - seriously, the absolute hardest - was toast. It’s like a drug. When I feel weak I still binge on the stuff. What is that all about?
Comment by speedbird — 1 March 2006 @ 7:14 AM
What about all the lactose tolerant people in Northern and Western Europe. Obviously we haven’t had as long to adapt to modern foods, but I still think you are underestimating the capacity for adaptation. Not to say that eating like our ancestors won’t have some obvious benefits, but I’m just not fond of absolutism. Overall, I think that our attitude towards food is far more important that what we actually eat. To illustrate, I remember reading about a survey of centenarians that concluded that attitude was far more important than lifestyle in determining longevity. In other words, I think the paleo-attitude is the most important factor here (not to say that a paleo diet isn’t far healthier than the alternatives, but if it is stressing you out than the costs are probably outweighing the gains)
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 7:59 AM
Just to add a little, I think the paleo-lifestyle is probably nearly essential to the paleo-attitude I was speaking of, and at least as important to health. I don’t think it would do much good to switch to the diet of our foraging ancestors and then sit at a desk all day.
Also, about the stew, okra makes a great thickener (all that delicious slime).
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 8:04 AM
Sorry for the spamming here, but I would also like to add/elaborate that I think instinctive eating (once the body is freed of addiction to processed foods and the like) is probably the only diet that could be universally applied to great benefit. After all, once one develops the sensitivity to hear what it is saying (as opposed to what the mind desires) than who is really better suited to give dietary advice than one’s own body?
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 8:11 AM
“Fasting is generally not good. Eating civilized is even worse. Just because a flesh wound is better than an amputation doesn’t mean a flesh wound is good.”
You can find fasting throughout nature. It is one of the oldest and most natural healing mechanisms. Nearly every animal participates in some kind of fast when they become sick, apart from modern man. It is a perfectly natural way to take the strain off of your digestive system, to allow your body to go to work on whatever nasties are running around in your body. Participating in fasting when you are generally healthy has equally positive effects, because it cleanses us of the industrial poisons in the food we eat, air we breathe, and water we drink. You need to keep that colon healthy!
Fasting should never be done without water, that’s one of the first rules of fasting. It might be helpful to provide a definition of fasting from a book I have on it (so we’re not all barking up different trees) - “Fasting is the intentional abstinence from food for a productive purpose.”
Anyway, back to the topic at hand! I’m currently a vegan and have never felt healthier and more full of energy. After giving up dairy and meat, I fell straight into my ideal weight, my skin cleared up, and my body became unblocked from all that nasty dairy mucus. At the same time I also gave up all Western medicine, and I haven’t touched a pill in over a year. I’ve never felt better.
I’ve always been interested (and slightly skeptical - “where the diet humans evolved with is predominantly meat.2″ - this disagrees with nearly everything I’ve read about the human digestive tract being perfectly suited for digesting vegetation, not meat. I’ll read into your source) of the Paleo diet because my health is near optimum at the moment. But I’ve always wanted to give it a try. Good luck Jason, and keep us updated!
Comment by Dan — 1 March 2006 @ 9:20 AM
“I would also like to add/elaborate that I think instinctive eating (once the body is freed of addiction to processed foods and the like) is probably the only diet that could be universally applied to great benefit. After all, once one develops the sensitivity to hear what it is saying (as opposed to what the mind desires) than who is really better suited to give dietary advice than one’s own body?”
Couldn’t agree more. It’s also ingrained in Eastern wisdom that if you are enjoying what you are eating, your body will “accept” it easier. A well enjoyed candy bar will sometimes go down better than a raw salad that you really didn’t want.
Comment by Dan — 1 March 2006 @ 9:36 AM
“I did reduced carb for a while. The hardest thing to give up - seriously, the absolute hardest - was toast. It’s like a drug. When I feel weak I still binge on the stuff. What is that all about?”
Wanna have a go at this one, Bill? You know far more on the subject than I.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 1 March 2006 @ 9:41 AM
Hey –
Very cool, Jason. Good luck with it.
I have been doing a modified paleo since the first week in January — very little grains and beans, lots of vegies, meat eggs and fruit.
I also started doing a food sensitivity test a couple weeks ago… so far I have ‘tested’ corn masa (tortillas) and brown rice, but I have another ten weeks (at least) before I get through the entire cycle. As I get results on that I’ll be posting…
Also, remember my suggestion on buying whole organic chickens. Roast it and then make broth with the bones and scraps… or just boil the whole damn thing with vegies and you will end up with at least three meals out of it (assuming you both are eating it). One of the most cost effective paleo choices you can find
I’m gonna be interested to compare your food specific food choices with the plan I’m on. So often when I look at ‘paleo eating plans’ I am totally turned off by the derth of fresh vegies, so it will be interesting to see where you go with it… are you working with a doctor on this, or is it all you?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 1 March 2006 @ 9:48 AM
Wow! I find it so funny that my visits here always seem to coincide with topics and thoughts occuring in my own life.
Coincidentally, I’m of 100% Polish peasant stock and have pretty much the same build. Alas, much of my weigh gain was because of 1) my slacker nature resulting in little physical activity, 2) my choice of career putting me in your standard desk chair in front of a computer most of the day, 3) repeating the sitting in front of a computer at home in the evening, and 4) consuming far more calories than a sedentary lifestyle allows for.
While I’ve more or less been “big” since my teen years, and have had to deal with the psychological issues of that, nothing seemed to work in terms of diet change because I wasn’t also changing my lifestyle (3 out of 4 of the things I mentioned above.)
I knew I had finally gone to total hell and by May 9, 2005 I peaked and hit 315lbs. Much like you mention, my weight distribution made people think I was really no more than 250lbs or so based on my body shape. (I think people typically create illusions about what others weigh in some form of internalized “political correctness” because we don’t want to tell our friends how fat they really are.)
I decided to change everything about my life.
I’m now down to 230 with 200 as my ultimate goal. I plateaued at 240 for several months as my body tried to adjust to a rather calorie-restricted diet but I’m finally moving down the scale again. Quite frankly, after being plateaued for so long I’d be totally happy being stuck at 220 if I get there.
Now while I know my current diet (mostly extremely low fat and heavily vegetable-based) isn’t sustainable for the long term, I had to do something drastic to get the weight off and get my body onto a totally different metabolic state. I also go to the gym daily at 5am and try to get at a minimum 50 minutes of cardio in.
The biggest thing I’ve tried to do eliminate the easiest of the processed food items from my typical eating. I threw out everything made with high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup in general, and any form of trans fat. I also try to restrict this when eating out as much as possible.
I’m glad you wrote about the Paleo Diet/Foundation Diets. As I approach the weight loss goal I need to find something to become a general guideline to my maintenance from here on out. These are definitely things I need to explore further and I’m happy I have some starting points to go from now.
However, from my personal experience, while I don’t recommend fasting as a daily thing, I definitely have benefitted from fasting for twice a year 7-14 day fasts.
I’ll admit, I’ve done the Master Cleanse fast now several times (the one Bill Maxwell mentions above) and after modifying it for personal taste, it has given me wonderful starting off points after my body and metabolism have stablized. In fact, it is my modified version of this cleansing fast that finally has gotten me below the 240 plateau. I was leary about anything that I could find no empirical data or studies on but I came across enough examples that lead me to believe there was no danger in this fast. Since I typically consume a lot of water and fiber (in a given day) I’ve never experienced a lot of the complaints people regarding this fast too.
Really though, I think the best benefit is from the calorie restriction and that your body does shunt out and eliminate a lot of “crap” that is stored in the tissues. The benefits of fasting probably wouldn’t be much if a person already maintained a consistent overall better diet.
I eagerly await further updates on your progress as I investigate how well this will work for me.
Oh… Speedbird… cabbage is indeed our friend. But I have to admit that I think it is probably our collective Eastern European cultural baggage that is at work here. I currently can’t imagine removing cabbage from my typical diet as I’ve always identified it with my “Polish-ness”. And my ethnicity has become very important in my adult life.
Comment by Naladahc — 1 March 2006 @ 9:52 AM
Hey –
Sorry, forgot something
Just last night I read an old Discover article on ‘Far Northern Diets’ specifically Inuit and related groups. Once again, there was a lot of info on Omega 3 vs Omega 6 in the diet and the importance of increasing the Omega 3 ratio (wild game and cold water fish/mammals as compared with ‘modern’ vegetable fats that are high in Omega 6)
Also, something I hadn’t seen before — or at least not in such a way as to make sense: colloquially known as ‘rabbit starvation’, they talked about the natural ‘protien ceiling’ of roughly 35 - 40% of your calories coming from protien. In effect, the explanation was that there is a limit to how much protien our livers can handle, so when eating an Atkin’s or paleo type diet, fats become increasingly important as a calorie source. The suggestion was that when eating a high meat diet, something like 2/3 of your calories should come from fat, not protien…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 1 March 2006 @ 11:07 AM
Jason–
I’ve been lurking on this site for awhile. Wanted to give a shout out of encouragement and a piece of info to share with you.
I went from 297 pounds in January of 2003 to a “crackish” 177 in August of that same year. I date my abstinence from sugar and flour to March 9, 2003 and have been abstient therefrom since. I did not do this alone.
I am a firm believer that compulsive eating a la Supersize Me is a physical, mental and spiritual affliction. When I started using a detox food plan, it didn’t take at first, and I was filled with spite. (You might want to warn your loved ones about this. It does pass, but there’s a bit of a hump.) I needed to use a 12-Step Program to get me through this (not Overeaters Anonymous, but one that’s a bit less permissive and a lot more structured).
I don’t know what tribespeople here think of 12-Step Groups, but they help me to erode the civilization-building blocks of isolation and despair. I have flirted with the notion that civilization and addiction might be the same thing, though today I think really the domesticated herd might feel the need to have individual addictions as their crutches to get through the soul-crushing nature of the species-wide disease that is Empire. They seem to reinforce each other, at the very least, in their perceived need for their various definitions of “fixes” be they food, booze, drugs, toxic belief, what have you.
That isn’t to say I don’t hear people stuck in civilization groping in the Dickian dark. It’s not up to me to drag them into awareness of these things, but much of my understanding of how addiction and civilization work together informs a lot of my perceptions of what others share in the safety of “the rooms.” I’ve even referred to my various fellowships as “my tribe” even though a lot of the people are into the tchotchkes of this dying culture.
Interestingly, in the time I started to “get my brains back” I started to really get into meditation and a lot of this interest in Quinn, Zerzan, Jensen, etc. started concurrently with this turn toward the spiritual. I consider all that a side benefit to having gotten abstinent.
I could go on. But think I’ll stop. In any case, good luck with it.
Comment by cinnumeg — 1 March 2006 @ 11:52 AM
I’ve been 100% Paleo for almost 5 months now and see no reason to return to the Standard American Diet. A few recommendations I would make to Jason are,
1) Have lots of fruit around at all times, particularly any types that you like alot regardless of the cost.
2) If you are going out always take a snack. I have grown to love walnuts and they are approved, easy to carry and relatively cheap if bought in bulk.
3) Make your own mayonnaise using flax seed oil and
Canola. Flax seed oil is expensive but I feel it is worth it and making mayo is easy. Being of Eastern European blood myself, I am sure you will enjoy a good coleslaw that is easy to make and very satisfying.
4) Never buy any processed foods as you lose control of imputs. Like above, try to start making your own condiments, sauces, and dressings from scratch.
5) Try bison. This meat is generally grass fed and not too expensive. It might take a bit of searching but I am sure it is available in your area (Pits, PA?)
as I have no trouble getting it here in Toronto. Grass
fed beef is also very good and I found a big difference when switching to it but this is also expensive and surprisingly, more difficult to find than bison.
6) Don’t get too hung up on organic vedgies. I believe these increase cost too much for the return. Better to put that money into more or better meat.
7) Be prepared to spend money. Being Paleo is definately more expensive. This should be expected as the agricultural revolution promised only cheaper more abundant food and not better or even food of equal quality. In fact it is clear that throughout history aristocrats maintained a Paleo diet rich in wild meats, which they often hunted themselves on private reserves, while everyone else ate the foods of slavery. This is one of the aspects of modern society I don’t understand as it appears to me that the rich now largely eat the same crap as everyone else.
Stay with it, this is real.
Mark
Comment by Mark — 1 March 2006 @ 12:11 PM
Squash is paleo, I just didn’t know it would thicken a stew.
Okra? Yuck. Not a huge fan of cabbage either. I’m Russian with some Hungarian and Turkish thrown in.
Lactose tolerance doesn’t mean that milk is good. It simply means you can drink it. With processing we can eat grains, that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t. Ingesting the breast milk from another species is generally not a good idea, besides being really kinky.
The human digestive system is that of a omnivore. Not that of herbivore. Our intestines are too short. We eat infrequently. Our teeth are designed to shred meat and crush plant matter. Etc. I have, as of yet, found no study that claims otherwise that I haven’t been forced to consider specious.
The paleodiet will help your general over-all level of health even without exercise. Which is not to say that exercise won’t help. Indeed, probably the best thing to do would be to simulate the workout of a paleolithic person. Lost of aerobic exercise followed by a relatively short, but intense, application of force. Like that done while hunting. You track, you follow, you stalk, you kill, you drag back.
Grains have addictive properties. And by leaving some in you maintain your body’s dependance. And so you crave. If you don’t, any craving is really your body asking for more calories. Have an orange.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 1 March 2006 @ 12:44 PM
canola oil is paleo?
I don’t think so. For one thing, unmodified rapeseed is toxic and the modified form (canola) is simply less so. It strips the body of vitamin E and the superlong chain fatty acids are indigestible and horrible for your gi system. It was originally only used as an industrial lubricant, until the canadian government decided to mount a massive PR campaign and paint it as a “health food”.
Also, with the omega3/6 fatty acids, remember, its all about balance. You can easily go too far in the other direction too.
Here is a great page on the health properties of various fats
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html
And okra has a long, well-loved history as a stew thickener. Perhaps it would make more sense if I called it by its creole name, gumbo.
“Lost of aerobic exercise followed by a relatively short, but intense, application of force. Like that done while hunting. You track, you follow, you stalk, you kill, you drag back”
I think your leaving out the women.
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 1:03 PM
Also, unless you are descended from the Inuit, I seriously doubt that a all or mostly meat diet is really all that great for you. For one thing, some of the longest lived people on the planet are Sardinians, whose diet is based on grain and includes large quantities of dairy products (notably sheep cheese, pecorino). I doubt you’ll find many people who live longer (I know there are many ancient peoples who claim to have elders 150+ years old, but from the evidence you yourself cited 50 seems more normal for foragers studied (at dickson mounds more like 27-28).
Consider this quote too:
“Beyond the usual association with heart attack, stroke, osteoporosis, colon cancers and other degenerative diseases, animal-based diets foster the growth of pathogenic organisms in the intestine, which can injure the intestinal wall and lead to the “leaky gut syndrome” - a condition of increased intestinal permeability which allows injurious fragments of antigenic food proteins and bacterial breakdown products to leak into the bloodstream (1). These foreign, inflammation-inciting substances can, in turn, exacerbate rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases in tissues throughout the body (2). The bacteria in the colons of people who consume vegan diets are far less likely to cause these kinds of diseases (3).
Repeatedly packing the colon full of meat residue from a high protein diet has been shown to be highly correlated with cancer of the colon - among the leading killers of industrial nations (4). In fact, animal protein seems to be “high octane fuel” for the growth of many kinds of cancers (5). I fear that the apparent improvement experienced by many people who use the “zone” rationale to become big-time carnivores will ultimately be at the cost of damaged vital organs and more lethal and degenerative diseases.”
Here are the studies cited:
(1) a) Galland, L. Intestinal Dysbiosis and the Causes of Disease. Journal of Advancement in Medicine - Vol.6, No.2, Summer, 1993.
b) Inman, R. Antigens, the Gastrointestinal Tract, and Arthritis. Rheumatic Disease Clinics of North America - Vol. 17, No. 2, May 1991.
c) Katz, K. Intestinal mucosal permeability and rheumatological diseases. Bailliere’s Clinical Rheumatology - Vol. 3, No. 2, August, 1989.
(2) a) Kjeldsen-Kragh, J. Controlled trial of fasting and one-year vegetarian diet in rheumatoid arthritis. Lancet, 1991; 338:899-902.
b) Mielants, et al. Intestinal Mucosal Permeability in Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases. II. Role of Disease. (J. Rheumatol. 1991; 18:394-100)
(3) a) Peltonen, R., et al. Changes of Faecal Flora in Rheumatoid Arthritis During Fasting and One-Year Vegetarian Diet. British Journal of Rheumatology 1994; 33:638-643.
b) Ling, W. Shifting from a Conventional Diet to an Uncooked Vegan Diet Reversibly Alters Fecal Hydrolytic Activities in Humans. Journal of Nutrition, 122: 924- 930,1992.
(4) a) Bidoli, E. et al (1992), Food consumption and cancer of the colon and rectum in North-Eastern Italy, International Jnl of Cancer v.50 p.223-229.
b) Rao, A V. & Janezic, S A. (1992), The role of dietary phyosterols in colon carcinogenesis, Nutrition & Cancer v.18 (1) p.43-52.
c) Willett, W C. et al (1990), Relation of meat, fat and fibre intake to the risk of colon cancer in a prospective study among women, New England Jnl of Medicine v.323 (24) p.1664-1672.
(5) a) Mills, P. K. (1988), Animal product consumption and subsequent fatal breast cancer risk among Seventh-Day Adventists, American Jnl of Epidemiology v.127 (3) p.440-453.
b) Fraser, G. E. et al (1991), Diet and lung cancer in California Seventh-Day Adventists, American Jnl of Epidemiology v.133 (7) p.683-693.
I still maintain that you guys aren’t giving evolution its due credit. 10,000 years is quite a long time to evolve if there are significant pressures, such as a new food source. Of course this will be imperfect, but I don’t see any reason to stop eating cheese (especially non-cow cheese) since my european heritage gives me lactose tolerance.
“Ingesting the breast milk from another species is generally not a good idea, besides being really kinky.”
That sounds like a moralistic argument to me, rather than one based on observation or sound science. Even the WAP foundation seems pretty stoked on butter.
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 1:40 PM
Would you drink the breast milk of a pig, no seriously! They are a domesticated animal in the same sense that a cow or a goat is a domesticated animal.
It would seem to me that milk genetically designed to be good for a baby cow will probably be better for a baby cow. Same with pigs, though drinking their breast milk makes more sense, after all, we are more closely related to them than we are with cows.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 1 March 2006 @ 2:06 PM
Hey –
Yeah, on the mayonaisse tip, I’d suggest olive or sunflower oil…
On the anti-meat studies… I would suggest, when looking at those sorts of studies (or ANY diet studies) that great attention be paid to the TOTAL dietary framework they are looking at. Huge quantities of lean, farm raised meat, sans large volumes of raw greenery will certainly clog up your colon. But that is NOT what paleo suggests.
Even the Inuit DID eat high fiber greens — both the pre-digested grasses in the guts of thier prey AND short season fresh fruits and vegetables in the summer. They also favored fish as a staple and fish has a very different structure when it comes to digestion. (Check me on this, Jason, but is itn’t it true that ALL Far North (Far South) cultures relied heavily on seafood?)
Aslo, over on IshCon Rory just asked about coffee and paleo… seeing as how it came up here as well, does anyone know WHY coffee is nixed on the paleo diet?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 1 March 2006 @ 2:11 PM
Hey, Jason, the caption on your photo is broken. Check out what it says.
Comment by _Gi — 1 March 2006 @ 2:56 PM
I’m not surprised to see how many responses Jason’s post has generated quickly. Food issues really seem to get us all going! I’m just back from 3 weeks of teaching permaculture in Belize, at a remote site in the south among Maya agroforesters: superb horticulturalists. Their cash crop is cacao (organic, sold to Green and Black’s) with a little coffee. The beauty there is that these plants require shade, so they’ve got some of the most complex agroforestry systems going I’ve ever seen. An overstory of nitrogen-fixing and timber trees among coconuts and other useful palms, an understory of bananas, cinnamon, allspice, dye trees like annatto, and citrus, with cacao and coffee throughout. Chickens and ducks, and a small field for corn and amaranth greens. Their diet was, I believe, once fairly paleo, except that tortillas and beans have become too much of a staple. These are beautiful horticultural systems, supplemented with a little hunting and fishing.
I’ve been doing essentially the paleo diet for several years, since I found that grains sap my energy and dairy makes my nose run. The inspiration for me was D’Adamo’s Eat Right 4 Your Type, which, although the science isn’t as firm as I’d like it to be, seems very plausible in its thesis that the most common blood group, O, evolved long before grains became part of our diet. Some people do better on grains, and they are usually the A and B blood groups, which seem to have arisen post-agriculture. I’m O, and meat and veggies works best for me.
A Paleo diet starts out being expensive, but greens are really easy to grow. Mustards, arugula, kale, cabbage, some lettuces, and a bunch of perennial greens are very hardy and can make it through winters above 10 degrees F, or even colder with plastic covering. I grow a ton of them year round in a small urban lot. I don’t know what Anthropik’s living situation is, but if you’ve got a yard, grow greens (I think the only health food is food that you harvest yourself, anyway). Besides, it’s a very useful survival skill (seed saving is another I’d add to the list).
Also check out “Lost Crops of the Incas,� which offers many tubers and greens that fit a paleo diet and can be grown in the US. Tubers like oca, mashua, and yacon I’ve grown for years, and they contain carbohydrates that are not converted directly to sugar, so they avoid some of the problems of grains.
I generally stay clear of carno vs. veggie discussions, but I’ll toss in that there are no indigenous vegetarian cultures. The closest would be religious groups like the Jains, but they are all very post-agriculture. And yes, our guts are far too short to process fiber effectively. We’re omnivores. I also wonder how much of the harm from meat comes from its being raised so poisonously and our sedentary lives. But I’ll bow to anyone’s dietary preferences as long as they are choosing food consciously.
One of the big issues in the post-collapse transition will be getting protein. Until the human population drops drastically, everyone with a gun is going to be out there shooting any mammal bigger than a mouse, so I’d expect a shortage of meat at first (all my country neighbors were decent hunters). I’m thinking the interim solution is home-raised chickens, ducks, and rabbits. The first two, particularly, I’ve seen live well off of table scraps and rinds, with a little supplementary food specifically for them. (That’s the hard part, sacrificing food-growing area for meat animals, but they can also eat pods from nitrogen-fixing shrubs that are necessary for soil fertility.) Poultry and rabbits need little space, don’t need stout fences, and are easily trainable. And birds give eggs, feathers, and manure. So they integrate well into human systems, eating a lot of the by-products of our diet. A lot of cities allow up to 3 hens (no roosters), which is enough for eggs but not for meat, but if you’re nice to your neighbors (give them eggs) they won’t turn you in when you raise more than 3. My neighbors have 12.
For exercise, I’d recommend http://goanimal.com which uses animal behavior as a model for human health, exercise, and nutrition. It seems right up Anthropik’s alley, related to what Benjamin wrote about getting exercise modeled after a Paleolithic person’s.
And thanks for the photo, Jason—always good to have a face (and soon-to-slim body!) to attach to the intelligent wordage. Good luck on the paleo feeding.
Toby
Comment by Toby Hemenway — 1 March 2006 @ 2:59 PM
On a quick meat note, guinea pigs. They’re eaten as a source of meat in the Andes and while most U.S. Civ people might wonder at you buying ducks and rabbits, few are even going to twitch when you buy some ‘furry pets.’
Just another tricky way to beat those people trying to clear out the stores come collapse.
Best
Bill Maxwell
(oh… and more on grains later.)
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 1 March 2006 @ 4:05 PM
What about store owners? Don’t they know that the guinea pigs can be a source of guinea bacon?
Comment by _Gi — 1 March 2006 @ 4:12 PM
Does anyone know if Quinn has a position on diet? I think of adopting a Paleo diet as a first concrete step to a new Great Remembering which might reverse what he posits to be the Great Forgetting. Also adherence to this diet calls into question the stance of many great leaders on food. One that comes to mind is Jesus Christ who spent alot of political capital challenging Jewish dietary law. Why did he not point out that grain might not be the best food for us and that it was at the root of our opression? As the Son of God you would imagine that this would not be a stretch. From a Paleo position I am lead to question his position particularly the association of His body with bread. This stuff is poison. How can I take seriously someone who is offering me a substance little better than spun sugar and claiming that this will lead to eternal life?
Mark
Comment by Mark — 1 March 2006 @ 4:58 PM
I never said there was anything wrong with the paleo diet, I was just pointing out that like anything, it does no good to go too far in either direction (excessive meat consumption). Obviously the roughage is very a very important part of the equation.
As far as Inuit go, I believe there is significant regional variation with their diet too. The Inuit of Northern Greenland, for instance, traditionally rely primarily on sea-mammmal meat (narwhal in the summer, walrus in the winter, seal oil for energy). Seafood, for sure, but I imagine digestion is more like redmeat (at least from my limited sampling of seal meat). Doesn’t seem to be much roughage there, since they are consuming mostly predators, the guts would just have more meat. I would wager that, like my ancestors, they have developed some genetic predisposition to their particular food choices.
“Would you drink the breast milk of a pig, no seriously! They are a domesticated animal in the same sense that a cow or a goat is a domesticated animal.
It would seem to me that milk genetically designed to be good for a baby cow will probably be better for a baby cow. Same with pigs, though drinking their breast milk makes more sense, after all, we are more closely related to them than we are with cows.”
My point exactly, this is a quasi-religious argument, and does not rely on observation. Ever heard of symbiosis or evolution? I would wager that if a gene for lactose tolerance has developed, that is a good sign that other factors allowing for the healthy consumption of milk products has developed. Some people are really disgusted by the thought of drinking another animals milk. Great, don’t. It doesn’t make it unhealthy though. Fermented dairy products are great for you, and I have no problem with butter, and it has been used far longer by many more cultures than sunflower or flax-seed oil. Granted, unfermented milk probably isn’t the healthiest.
If milk is so unhealthy you are going to have to explain why the one of the longest lived people in the world eat plenty of cheese (sardinians). Since my S. Italian stock is similar, I doubt my body will have any lasting ill effects. Of course, once again balance and moderation is the key.
Personally, I plan on raising mostly donkeys for milk since they aren’t yet covered by the NAIA and their milk is very similar to human breast milk.
Also, if we are to follow the blood type diet Mr. Hemenway mentioned (which I have strong doubts about for many reasons) my type B blood is supposedly the only one that can tolerate dairy. Hurray for me.
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 5:09 PM
There really is life eternal - you know, after the bread eventually kills you. Meantime, while you’re still “alive” waiting for you turn at eternity, we’ll have you build some pyramids for us…
Comment by JCamasto — 1 March 2006 @ 5:19 PM
Thanks, everybody! So far, so good on day #1. I’ll post an update early Saturday morning, along with the first iteration of the Excel spreadsheet. It’s good to hear that my exploits will offer some inspiration–that was my hope. And with luck, you’ll be able to learn from my mistakes, too. Open source diet plan!
Well, I was really referring to food availability, but you’re right.
Adaptation is a powerful thing, but you’re underestimating just how much of a radical change is being asked of our bodies. Lactose tolerance is when you can drink milk without immediately getting sick. Instead, you’re able to pass through most of it. The rest poisons you, such that continuing to drink milk will make you more and more sickly over time. In the end, it can probably kill you. Don’t mistake the term “lactose tolerance” to mean that these are people who are well adapted to drinking cow’s milk. The only animals who can drink cow’s milk regularly and not suffer serious health concerns from it are baby cows.
I don’t know if it’s more important, but I agree that it’s absolutely crucial. That’s one of the reasons I went with The Foundation Diet versus the other alternatives: the emphasis on psychology and attitude.
Well, that;s the hypothesis. For now, sitting at a desk all day can’t be helped, in my own case, but I can eat like a forager. I’m told that this alone will give me many benefits, so … we’ll see.
Veganism is always a pretty delicate balance. Always have to be sure to get enough proteins and such. While there are purely meat-eating societies, only segments of modern civilization will eat only plant matter. And while I have heard people sing the praises of Veganism before, I’ve heard from just as many penitent ex-vegans.
The accounts I’ve heard from the paleo crowd have been much more consistent, and it’s a diet that is possible and sustainable without engaging in an unsustainable civilization (unlike veganism), so, I’m going with them.
I have no doubt you’ve read just that. There’s a lot of propaganda out there, but it’s just that: propaganda. Every scientific source agrees, our digestive tract is perfectly that of an omnivore, and if there’s any preference at all, it’s probably for meat.
Example: elastin. The only thing this enzyme does is break down animal tissues. Canines like ours are found almost exclusively in meat-eaters. The aforementioned Weston Price Foundations has a page on “Myths and Truths About Vegetarianism.”
The Gardocki homeland was right on the border–whether they were Russian or Polish waxed and waned with political fortune, but Adam Gardocki identified himself as a Russian. His kids insisted they were Polish, though, to the extent that my family thought we were Polish until my parents did our genealogy and discovered that Adam had always insisted he was Russian.
w3rd
w3rd
w3rd
w3rd
Like Ben said, fasting is a great way to meet the spirits. (One way or another…)
While all animals have a capacity to handle it, I’m not sure it’s a good thing, health-wise. I’ve fasted before, too, and it’s a good exercise from time to time, but not for any health reasons.
I was reading a good bit on “rabbit starvation” several months ago, and it gets more complicated than just that (doesn’t it always?), but in general, that’s pretty much it. That’s why the Inuit go after such fatty animals, like whales and seals.
This is what’s made my renewed paleo possible. Now that Giuli’s willing to eat inorganic veggies, we can afford to do this.
Many agree with you; Cordain does not. I disagree with Cordain a lot, too, and this is one of them. I go with olive oil (I figure, if I could make it myself as a hunter-gatherer, it’s probably OK), but this is a point of contention among the various implementations of the paleo diet–some say canola oil is OK, others say no way.
I’ve heard this argument made before against any evolutionary argument that is based on hunting pressures, but I never followed it. Among lions, it’s the female who hunts, but hunting pressure has sculpted the whole species. There’s a very simple reason: every female has a father, and every male has a mother. The differences between the genders are simply the result of a single shot of testosterone at just the right moment during gestation, so it’s much harder to specifically select for one gender or the other, than to just select on the whole population.
Does a female suffer from having a body perfectly adapted for hunting? No. It’s still perfectly suited to everything it needs to do. But for men, it’s the difference between life and death. So, unless you can find a woman who has two mommies in the biological sense, gender distinctions don’t mean much, and we should expect hunting to be the main pressure in human evolution.
Check my references again. It’s now been established that even the most vegetarian forager cultures eat far more meat than we do.
Longevity, as discussed in thesis #25, is influenced by a lot of factors, only one of which is food. That Sardinians live a long time doesn’t necessarily say anything about whether or not their food is healthy.
The 27-28yo at Dickson’s Mounds were the agriculturalists. The data I cited came from foragers in the Kalahari Desert, in the same region where agriculturalists typically die in their early 30’s. Over 10% of !Kung population is over 60.
Etc., etc. I’ve read such claims before, and invariably, they confuse a number of different factors with poor methodology. They’re looking at civilized subjects, who get most of their food from grains.
The very fact that we can survive it shows how powerful adaptation is. You’re underestimating how radical a shift this was. It’s like asking birds to live only off of T-bone steaks.
Your European heritage gives you the ability to swallow it without immediately puking. It doesn’t give you the ability to digest it, or to protect you from the damage it causes to your body because you have no idea what to do with it. The reason to stop would be that it’s killing you. Slowly, granted, but killing you, all the same.
Morals have nothing to do with it. Breast milk is suited for the young of that species–not to apes with some bizarre fetish.
Far as I know, though by “seafood” we often mean “seals” and “whales.”
It’s a bean, isn’t it?
You see where I’m going with this, do you? The Paleo diet is one of those things that we can pick up quickly and easily, a little bit of forager life we can adopt now, rather than later. It’s an angle on primitivism that’s largely left unexplored. I want to be able to basically tell the average American that primitivism will give him more energy, make him lose weight, make him more attractive, and give him a better sex life–y’know, the tagline that always works on Americans.
Awesome! Indeed they are!
According to the blood type diet, I should be great with grains. Instead, they’re killing me. In terms of evolution, I don’t see how it could possibly be, because blood types are something common to the great apes:
So, how could that have happened? We developed these blood types at the latest common ancestor … then humans lost all blood types … then we go them back when we started farming, and they were just like the blood types of our primate cousins?
If you’re following the deviation of “house rules” for some game among a group of friends, and you run into one of them who plays it the same way his other friends do, you’d guess that they all got it from each other, right? If he says, “Oh, no, I made this up on my own; I don’t know where they got theirs from,” even though it’s the exast same variation … you wouldn’t really believe him, would you?
Likewise, I don’t believe any claim that blood types are a new thing.
I totally would–if I had the space. Gardening’s rough when you live in an apartment.
We’ve discussed the reasons for this many times before, but in all the previous instances of collapse, this didn’t happen. People hunted less, rather than more. Populations contracted further into denser cities which finally imploded. It made the whole process disturbingly neat and clean, frankly.
Indeed it is! Thanks!
I agree, but I don’t think Quinn’s ever made a comment on it one way or the other.
I’m impressed as all hell that he had such a good grip on the social system. I’ll forgive him not also being millennia ahead of his time in gastronomic chemistry.
Oh, that’s right, that’s because I’m a gnostic and believe Jesus became the Son of G-d, rather than being born that way.
So much more impressive that way. I mean, if he’s born G-d, then who cares? Oh, you died on the cross? You’re also OMNIPOTENT. Yawn. But if he became human … well now, that’s hella impressive.
I don’t follow. Miranda wasn’t advocating drinking pig’s breast milk, but the basic notion that the breast milk of any mammal is suited for the young of that species–and not to the young of other species, nor to the adults of ANY species.
How is this any more a “religious” argument than saying, “Drinking a little bit of mercury every day is not a good idea”?
Absolutely. Evolution’s working on it. In a few hundred thousand more years, we might even be able to safely drink milk, if we keep at it long enough. In a few hundred thousand more years. For now, the adaptation is far from complete. It’s far from even half-complete. For now, our adaptation is pitiful, almost nothing. Not quite nothing, but almost.
No, the long list of diseases and maladies it causes do that, as previously discussed.
I can only agree with that statement if we redefine “great for you” to “won’t kill you immediately.”
1.) Cheese breaks milk down into a less harmful form. Still not good, but less harmful.
2.) Longevity has to do with many different factors, of which diet is only one, and perhaps not even the most important.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 March 2006 @ 5:51 PM
“From a Paleo position I am lead to question his position particularly the association of His body with bread. This stuff is poison. How can I take seriously someone who is offering me a substance little better than spun sugar and claiming that this will lead to eternal life?”
The historical Yeshua ben Yosef was an anarchist, anti-state leader and philosopher, not a dietician.
Anything religious or spiritual may or may not have been said by him. Either way, he advocated drinking wine, which in my book more than makes up for his dietary predilections. Party! Party! Oi! Oi! Oi!
BTW, how does alcohol fit into the Paleo diet? No way in hell primitives didn’t imbibe from time to time in the other fruit of the yeast.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 1 March 2006 @ 5:57 PM
Hey –
ummm…NO.
Coffee comes for a tree in the Rubiaceae family.
Beans are legumes.
(Other non-legume, beans: vanilla & cocoa)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 1 March 2006 @ 6:19 PM
Amen, Chuck!
The official word is that alcohol is A-OK on Paleo.
Eventually, MacHall will come back up, and I’ll link to the appropriate comic I had in mind.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 March 2006 @ 6:24 PM
The way I understand it is that wine is okay because it’s made from fruit and fruit is Paleo, but beer isn’t because it’s made from grains. I think that’s the logic. So you may partake of the fruit of the vine… just avoid the sake.
I’m going to kind of go half-Paleo… I’m not going to cut out all grains entirely (I’m Italian. Period.) and like hell I’m giving up cheese, but I’m going to follow Jason’s lead in cutting out, at the very least, desserts and other stuff that everyone can agree is junk food.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 1 March 2006 @ 6:34 PM
Oh hell yes.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 1 March 2006 @ 6:37 PM
Wife wants to go Paleo now, because she said she’s done it before and really enjoyed it, but wasn’t able to keep it up because of the social pressure from her house-mates. Which of course gave me just the motivation I needed to make the leap.
I swear to god, Jason, I’m not copying you. Swear to god.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 1 March 2006 @ 7:56 PM
“Longevity has to do with many different factors, of which diet is only one, and perhaps not even the most important”
Then why do you keep making such a huge deal about how “civilization is killing me” with all these grains and dairy products. Obviously there are a lot more important aspects to health. I still haven’t seen anything that convinces me a healthy body can’t tolerate dairy, especially fermented. Once again though, moderation is key. The fact is I like cheese enough that the lack of it would damage my health more than the modest ill effects on my health (and if people have no problems living into their 100s eating cheese, there is no way it is as insanely toxic as you are claiming. The fact is the Sardinians not only live long, but frequently are healthy and full of energy (and working) into their late 80’s. I doubt that would happen to someone who ate a “little bit of mercury everyday.” Speaking of which, hope you aren’t planning on foraging from the ocean.
What makes it a qausi-religious argument is that people who are against milk seem more hung up on the fact that “milk is MEANT for baby ___s” rather than the health effects, which, as you yourself implied are rather modest, especially for those equipped with lactase. If they are so severe, why don’t they play a significant role in longevity?
(That and trying to make it seem disgusting by comparing it to pig milk. The fact is I would try the milk of a pasture fed pig, or pretty much any animal that feeds mostly on grass. The only reason I wouldn’t drink slopfed pig milk is that it seems gross, not any logical reason.)
Comment by limukala — 1 March 2006 @ 7:58 PM
go on then, put your mouth on the pasture fed pig’s breast.
that’s essentially what you would be doing.
Nothing religious about it.
Ben’s right, it is kinky.
Reminds me of a radio program that we tuned into simply because there was big sign advertising this station, “conservatives hate it!”
the topic of the day?
Women selling their breast milk for other babies and individuals to drink.
Now, you see, that actually makes more sense, yet their angle was that of “ew gross!!! breast milk from another human!!!”
There’s a blind spot in our minds, that we are drinking breast milk designed for another species, because we’ve been told all our lives that it is so good for us.
Breast Milk mustaches and all.
Now just because you seem to have a rare ability to tolerate milk doesn’t mean that is the norm. Far from it. Just because you happened to tolerate it doesn’t make it good for people.
So you don’t feel ill?
So what?
I didn’t start feeling ill from grains until I stopped eating them and then cheated by eating them!
Now I do everytime I eat them.
guess what?
The same was with milk and cheese (especially cheese….) suddenly I can no longer tolerate it.
I love the food pyramid. It tells the people exactly what they want to hear.
mmm…
yummy grains.
eat eat eat eat.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 1 March 2006 @ 8:20 PM
The root of diet means way of living in a very whole sense, not just the food you take in, but how you get that food - be it through hunting, foraging, horticulture, or 21st century consumerism. A shift in nutrition does not mean a shift in way of life atall does it? Meaning that all our different ‘diets’ are nothing more than creative patterns of consumerism, so long as we are slaves to the shopping cart.
Comment by miles — 1 March 2006 @ 9:02 PM
Alcohol is acceptable on Paleo in the form of wine and also mead which is fermented honey. Mead mostlikely predates wine as the process is simpler with no crushing or juicing required. Mead fermentation will begin almost spontaneously once honey is diluted in water below a ratio 1:4.
For some insight into our prehistorical involvement with the ingesting of foods not necessarily for their nutritional value take a look at Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods which is available at
http://www.cyjack.com/Cognition/FoodoftheGods.pdf .
Mark
Comment by Mark — 1 March 2006 @ 9:09 PM
Perhaps that would explain why I don’t seem to have any problem with chocolate… hmmmm…. (munch munch munch)
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 1 March 2006 @ 10:11 PM
It’s not the chocolate as much as the sugar and milk that they add to it. It makes sense that people can handle a poisonous chemical that so commonly develops from fruits.
I still say no coffee. It tastes revolting when it’s at least 20% sugar and milke by volume. It’s worse plain.
It’s not any more moral statement to say “cow’s milk is meant for baby cows” then it is to say “lungs are meant to respirate” or “feet are meant to be walked on.” Milk is designed to provide nutrients for that species’ young. If you have passed the infant stage or are not of that species it is not meant for you to drink. I’m sure Freud would have loved to talk about this.
Oh, Miranda asked me to say it was “liberals hate it,” not “conservatives hate it.” I saw it too, it was “liberals hate it.”
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 2 March 2006 @ 1:07 AM
How about “nuts are meant to grow into trees”
But the fact is that nuts are also great food for squirrels, which in turn plant trees. Maybe originally the nuts were not “meant” for squirrel consumption, but it worked out to the benefit of both the squirrel and the tree when they decided that nuts can feed squirrels as well as grow into trees.
There are plenty of other examples of this, which brings me right back to symbiosis and evolution.
Whether or not you like it or think it is proper, I seriously doubt any climate change will be severe enough to wipe out all the cows on the planet, and if cows survive, so will the pastoralists (and don’t try to tell me “pastoralists can’t survive without agriculturalists”, because that is baloney. The Masai do just fine on a diet of almost entirely cow blood, milk and occasional meat, and the Lapps certainly didn’t have access to agricultural products in the old days. Plenty of other examples too)
Who knows, one of these days maybe the evolution will be complete enough to satisfy even the most diehard cultural conservatives. Until then I will revel in my innappropriate, unhealthy, delicious, rotten titty juice.
As far a chocolate goes, the original concoction was a drink made with chocolate, vanilla, chili pepper and cornmeal, and not a bit of sugar. MMMM
Aztec kings loved it.
Comment by limukala — 2 March 2006 @ 1:47 AM
“Ben’s right, it is kinky.”
Really? So does that mean you find the act of feeding young sexually stimulating? I’ll keep that in mind next time I see a bird puking into its baby’s mouth. I think maybe you have some bizaare breast fetish if you can’t mentally separate the natural, nurturing function from sexual intercourse. Or am I totally wrong about this. Maybe the bull loves to suck on a cow’s nipple before he mounts up eh?
I wouldn’t actually suck a large animal’s nipple because I wouldn’t feel safe, not because of squeamishness.
“ew gross!!! breast milk from another human”
Tried it. My wife didn’t really produce enough to spare more than a taste though, or I might have given a hand at some gourmet yogurt.
“I didn’t start feeling ill from grains until I stopped eating them and then cheated by eating them!
Now I do everytime I eat them.
guess what?
The same was with milk and cheese (especially cheese….) suddenly I can no longer tolerate it.”
Two possibilities here, either we’re made very differently, or the mental aspects are playing a crucial role in you “illness.” I suspect the latter. I went for over three months without a trace of dairy or grains, and ate beans once, but never had the slightest problem going back. I really enjoyed that first beany/cheesy/floury burrito and felt great.
This is really weird, normally I am the first to point out the ill effects of lectins and overconsumption of grain and dairy, but you guys are so black and white and absolute about this that I feel compelled to play devil’s advocate.
Remember, “that which can be deviated from is not the true Tao.”
Comment by limukala — 2 March 2006 @ 3:40 AM
Ummm, I’m put together the same way you are. Cheese causes me serious problems. I used to eat cheese constantly.
As for the example of nuts. It’s apples and oranges. Acorns are the tree’s way of procreating. The squrills help the tree with that. It’s a deal they have worked out. There is no evolutionary advantage to a cow designing it’s milk for human consumption, and any change to their setup would make any real adaptation we had worthless. I see a meat argument coming, so to save time let me say that for the past few billion years the composition of meat has not changed. If you can eat any meat you can eat all meat. It’s a different setup than eating fruit and different than eating something produced as food, like milk. Cows don’t get anything from us drinking the milk they were producing for there children.
The Masai are interesting. And, oddly enough, a counter-example to your point. You see, they’re lactose intolerant. So if lactose-tolerance is demonstrative of our adaptation they should be having a lot of problems with their setup. I think Jason has more data on this, so I’ll leave it at that.
You aren’t a baby cow. That’s the point. If you were, there would be no problem. But an adult human drinking another species’ breast milk? Sounds more like someone trying to recapture the safety of their mother’s arms than someone trying to eat.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 2 March 2006 @ 4:30 AM
- wo, Mark - the symbolism of the bread and wine -
now that’s a BIG ol’ thought to wrestle with. So on paleo the grain is ‘out’ and the vine is ‘in’?
Comment by speedbird — 2 March 2006 @ 4:49 AM
I’m curious, and thought I’d ask this here - why is tea allowed on the paleodiet, if caffeine isn’t allowed? Or does “tea” mean herbal teas?
Comment by Vashti — 2 March 2006 @ 5:26 AM
I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything here. Hi all.
Now that such is out of the way, best of luck to you Jason.
I myself have been wanting to go on the diet Paleo style for a while. Thought of purchasing a number of books (primarily The Paleo Diet and Life Without Bread), but for some reason stuck with Dangerous Grains, which argues primarily against foods containing gluten. I’ll see how it goes.
I’ve used books.google.com to look up The Foundation Diet, but despite all the anti-cheese (but moreso anti-dairy all in all) views at this site, I noticed that a recipe or two in the book calls for cheese (for example, Bar-B-Que Pork with Cheese). Seeing such is the case, what does the book say of having meals containing cheese and/or other dairy? and how do you reconcile this (or does it not require reconciliation)? I just placed my order for the book, so I’ll find out soon enough either way.
—
limukala, I applaud your defense of cheese and whatnot, bringing the example of Sardinians in. I’d have to say I agree with your arguments on such thus far. Sure milk from other animals and cheese may be unnatural things for humans to consume, so is domesticated meat for sure (half as fatty is it?). Maybe not the best way to put it. How about, it’s as natural for one to eat cheese as it is to breath in fumes from the coal plant down the street.
Maybe it’s just that I’m from Wisconsin and I’ll die trying to justify the eating of cheese (not likely, but I do love it), but the weight of the arguments against it (yes, I know it’s not paleo) are not entirely convincing.
—
Concerning alcohol, I took a look in my Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (just arrived in the mail, and it is beautiful), and found a little snippet. Hopefully I blockquote this correctly… The selection is from ‘Hunter-gatherers and human health’ and authored by S. Boyd Eaton.
And also
Comment by chiggles — 2 March 2006 @ 7:36 AM
Some weird breast fetish?
Oh wow, mature.
And no, wouldn’t have been a mental thing simply for the fact that I didn’t know about “the illness” these foods would cause me after not having them for a while and then suddenly having them.
Sorry, that argument wouldn’t hold up with me.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 2 March 2006 @ 7:49 AM
And why don’t you just argue what you believe rather than argue for the sake of arguing?
It doesn’t accomplish anything worthwhile.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 2 March 2006 @ 8:00 AM
Hey –
Wow.
Although I already know the answer — we’ve discussed the importance of food in self-identity before — it still amazes me that we can turn so utterly vitrolic when the topic of food comes up.
Ben — did you honestly just say that ‘no one should drink coffee becuse YOU don’t like the taste????
It is quite clear that on the subject of food the BEST answer is to listen to your body. If you can ‘give up’ a food group and purge your system of whatever built up chemical toxins your body contains, and then add that food group back into your diet, in moderation, without ill effect — I say go for it. Point is that MANY of the foods humans eat have various toxins, not just those ‘outlawed’ by paleo… so the key should be settling into a diet with enough variety that your body can handle the toxins you injest.
That’s sort of where I am tending at this point — after being totally off of grains for the past month, I have ‘tested’ both corn masa and brown rice with no ill effects. Next week it is wheat and I am suspecting that the results will not be so positive, but we’ll see. In the long run I am tentatively anticipating a diet with NO staples beyond ’some kind of meat and greens.’ I have a long way to go, but that just seems to be the trend right now.
Ah well, whatcha gonna do…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 2 March 2006 @ 9:58 AM
Perhaps coffee is not allowed because it can’t be eaten raw? Don’t coffee beans have to be roasted before they’re consumed? I guess that tea, being an infusion of fresh or dried leaves, would be okay in that case. I don’t think caffeine content is the deciding factor.
I think I read somewhere that coffee “beans” are actually the pit of the coffee fruit…not sure if that’s true.
Comment by Anonymous — 2 March 2006 @ 10:38 AM
“It is quite clear that on the subject of food the BEST answer is to listen to your body”
Yep. Also, just to point out, I’m not planning on being vegan for eternity. I wouldn’t touch most meat in the supermarkets because I know how it’s produced, and while I understand (and agree) with most peoples point about the pro’s of meat etc, I will only eat meat when me or a friend is rearing it. There’s a big difference between a gatherer-hunter tribe killing it’s own wild meat, and me pretending to be paleo and buying my mass produced toxic meat from Tesco.
And as someone else said, food is one part of good health. Sure, it demands some research, especially considering the amount of shit that most people eat 24/7, but there are spiritual aspects, as well as the aspects of maintaining your bodily energies through minimal stress, exercise, breathing… Remember your minds people ;0) Feel good about what you eat.
People are usually just looking for a full-proof food plan that will work for everyone, which isn’t going to work. Good discussions here though, lots of interesting information and sources for me to glance over.
Comment by Dan — 2 March 2006 @ 10:39 AM
“Tea” refers to any infusion of plant matter really. Typically dried leaves though. Caffeine isn’t allowed the same way anything that occurs naturally isn’t allowed. You also aren’t supposed to use salt, the reason being that we tend to add way too much. You can have caffeine, but only in natural quantities.
Janene: No, I’m saying that I’m saying that it’s a vile beverage that I can’t imagine anyone actually liking, but only being addicted to.
I thought it was off as a bean, I’ll look it up and see if there is another reason. I object to the idea of eating anything you crave as the best method of deciding what to eat. Because I could really go for a chocolate cake right now. Mmmm mmm.
Dan, the point of the paleo diet is that it’s the diet we evolved to eat. As long as you have 46 chromosones it’ll work for you. Unless, of course, we’re talking about non-human people?
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 2 March 2006 @ 12:01 PM
It would be fair to say that drinking a little bit of dioxin every day is killing you.
It would not be fair to say that you’ll live to be 100 because you don’t drink dioxin.
Likewise, it’s fair to say that eating grain is killing you, because it’s slowly poisoning you. The inverse is not necessarily true.
Indeed, the body can tolerate a lot of things. It can tolerate bullet and knife wounds; it can tolerate some levels of mercury; it can tolerate exposure to all manner of toxins in sufficiently small quantities. You could begin cutting off your fingers, and survive it.
That does not make them good ideas.
Especially when talking about a group of people as closely related as Sardinians, that’s much more likely to involve genetics than diet. Note also, as I’ve said several times now, turning milk into cheese breaks down a lot of the most harmful elements in milk.
They do. See the arguments in thesis #21, particularly the list I made of the problems milk-drinking leads to. To review:
More general pages on the scientific evidence that humans are completely maladapted to consuming the milk of any other species:
Your argument about this being “religious” doesn’t make any sense. The phrase “meant for” does not indicate ethics, but evolutionary adaptation. Cow milk is adapted to serve the needs of baby cows, because that increases cow survival. It doesn’t care one way or the other about humans.
Since people usually have less emotion attached to their cars, consider your fuel. The diesel engine was made to run on peanut oil. Instead, we give it diesel fuel. The result is that the engine gets clogged, you get those terrible diesel fumes, etc. We’ve done it so much we accept it as “normal,” and are impressed by how much more effective diesel engines are when they run on the fuel they were designed to burn: biodiesel. Likewise, we normalize illness all the time. See schistosomiasis in Africa. Likewise, we’ve normalized many of the afflictions of dairy, and consider them “normal” now.
Good analogy. Ultimately, yes, “nuts are meant to grow into trees.” Evolution found that nuts could grow into trees more effectively by being good squirrel food. In this case, some nuts adapted specifically to become better squirrel food, while at the same time, squirrels adapted to eat the nuts. Co-evolution. The two are well-adapted to one another, and that co-evolution serves both.
Compared to human adults drinking cow’s milk. We haven’t had sufficient time to adapt to such an enormous change. We’ve gotten to the stage where we don’t immediately throw up, but we’ve still got to develop new enzymes and antibodies to counteract the harmful effects of milk, as outlined above and elsewhere. At the same time, there is absolutely no evolutionary reason for cows to start adapting their milk for our consumption, rather than their own young. This isn’t co-evolution; it’s not even old enough to be any significant amount of evolution. That’s why there are such serious health consequences to drinking milk. Consequences we’ve normalized and accepted as just a normal part of living, yes, but consequences, nonetheless.
Indeed, and the Masai have been in contact with agricultural societies for thousands of years–as have the Lapps.
OK, that’s fine. I’m not going to try to convert you. But if you’re going to say it’s somehow a good idea, then I just feel compelled to point out that that’s B.S. It’s not a good idea, and won’t be for at least a few hundred thousand years–and then only if you keep plugging at it.
Indeed, neither sugar nor milk are required for a delicious bit of chocolate. That’s why it’s paleo!
1.) We’re not the fetishists, people drinking cow’s milk are.
2.) Drinking the milk of your own species as an infant is perfectly normal mammalian behavior. Drinking milk after infancy, or drinking the milk of another species, is where it becomes kinky. Not in a stimulating way, but in a “wow, that’s a fucked up little monkey right there” kind of way.
I agree entirely … but we’re not talking about natural, nurtuing function, we’re talking about adult mammals drinking the milk of another species. Like Ben said, I’d love to hear Freud’s commentary on that.
I’ll readily admit that in moderation, especially with fermented dairy, some people with lactose tolerance can tolerate it with only a little bit of damage. If it tastes that good, it might even be worth it. But I don’t see how you can make an argument for it based on health effects. It’s always a bad thing for your health. It can be just a little bit bad, but most of the time it’s pretty awful. There are worse things, like dioxin, but arguing that it’s good on health grounds … no, I can’t follow that.
I don’t think caffeine is verboten so much as sugar–and usually, caffeinated drinks have a lot of sugar.
The Foundation Diet allows cheese, and bless it for that. I do loves me my cheese. I know it’s bad for me, but it’s so delicious! I won’t make any excuses on health grounds, but there you are. The Foundation Diet is more focused on changing your metabolism through a low-carb diet; kind of starting with Atkins and moving into Paleo for maintenance. I’m using cheese for now, because it is a less destructive kind of dairy than milk. Eventually, I’ll phase that out, too, but one step at a time.
Unlike drinking the milk of another species, at least meat-eating is something we’re adapted to do. Granted, wild game meat is better than domesticated meat, but at the end of the day, meat is meat, and the difference is between good meat and bad meat, not edible and inedible.
Now that I’ll agree with.
That’s Giuli’s attitude, and it’s definitely one I respect. Giuli will only eat organic meat, and even then only after she’s checked up on the company first. By consequence, I mostly eat organic meat, too. You can really taste the difference–I had no idea what suffering tasted like before I had something to compare it to.
Word.
Not “difference between ‘food’ and ‘cow’s milk’” big, but big.
Word.
There it is.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 March 2006 @ 12:13 PM
Hey —
I love it. Everytime we get into the food discussion, I end up donig a bunch of research:-)
Turns out, coffee, like so many other foods, is better for you in the raw state. The health food industry has apparently recently discovered this and started producing ‘green coffe extract’ in pill form. While I would not recommend that, there may be a future for coffee berries as a food, as the basis for an alcoholic beverage, or simple as an un-roasted infusion.
Roasted beans are also mostly good for you, although roasting creates cafistol which has been shown to contribute to certain health problems when abused, and caffiene itself can be damaging in large quatities… but overall, it looks like it is a relatively ‘good’ food.
Doesn’t change the fact that it is a tropical plant, and the current production systems are horrific… but interesting none-the-less.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 2 March 2006 @ 3:30 PM
If you don’t have one, I would recommend a food dehydrator. We dry out meat and fruit (we buy apples by the 40lb bushel at the market - $8). You can dry out meat/fruit for at least a week over the weekend (we have a cheap round $50 dehydrator that gets the job done well). The dehydrator will make easy for of going backpacking (food will weight nothing and be very compressable, screw expensive freeze dried meals).
Our food costs have actually dropped dramatically but that’s due to doing all vegetable/fruit shopping at a local farmer’s market (granted it’s not the right season for it, but they have wholesale products this time of year, mostly from California).
I’ve also been trying out the diet since you mentioned it in the previous Thesis.
Comment by Jason Turpin — 2 March 2006 @ 3:52 PM
Bah, I hate it when my computer freezes up when a post is near completion.
In regards to coffee, wikipedia states that drinking excessive amounts of coffee (4-7 cups is so so, 8 and beyond a no no) can increase a pregnant woman’s chance of having a stillbirth.
Coffee is a drupe, the same category in which almonds, blackberries, nectarines, raspberries and other similar foods reside in. Almonds are paleo, are they not? The roasting of coffee beans is said to make it pop, increasing its size, meaning it is likely to be noticeably smaller than an almond, this is not to say because it is smaller it is therefore edible (just closer in size than to nectarine, peach, and similar seeds).
Additionally,
Comment by chiggles — 2 March 2006 @ 4:55 PM
I believe so–even though wild almonds are poisonous, in the “you will die immediately” sense.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 March 2006 @ 5:07 PM
>I didn’t start feeling ill from grains until I stopped >eating them and then cheated by eating them!
People who stop eating meat and then go back to it report the same thing.
And people who are starving shouldn’t have any food at all except soup or they will die (remeber stories of concentration camp inmates killed by chocolate bars they got from American troops?)
So it’s not a very good argument.
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 2 March 2006 @ 5:42 PM
LIke I said, food issues really get people going; lotta comment here. I’m still trying to figure out why coffee isn’t paleo. It’s not that it’s roasted, right, since other paleo foods are cooked. Is it that it’s processed a bit–ground, steeped in hot water? Or is it that it’s essentially a drug food and not really nutritive?
Having just returned from coffee-growing country (southern Belize), I can say that the raw berries have a fairly sweet, faintly alkaloidal-tasting flesh. Coffee on the bush looks like an oblong cherry, red-skinned when ripe, green when not, with less of the fruity flesh than a cherry, and a pit that is the “bean” we know and love. The pit swells a few percent when roasted but really the roasted beans are about the same size as unroasted. (A drupe it is, meaning one-seeded and not opening when ripe, with a flesh and skin; raspberries are actually clusters of drupelets.) Although new coffee varieties have been bred to grow in sun, the best and traditional varieties are shade-grown, allowing for those complex, polyculturual agroforestry systems I mentioned earlier. So, as with most other crops (animals too) it’s not inherently (very) damaging to ecosystems, but we’ve made it so in pursuit of profit.
One combo I loved down there was a cacao tree with a vanilla bean (an orchid!) twining up it. Too much sensual goodness in one place. I think, after the collapse, aside from the deaths of billions and end of stable society, I will miss those tropical treats the most.
On the milk argument: I know a lot of naturopaths, and not a few MDs, who say that when their patients cut out dairy foods, a lot of complaints go away: allergies, aches and pains, frequent illnesses, chronic infections. It seems to be a drain on the immune system. Milk is “designed” to quickly grow the young of a species and transfer immunities, so I’d imagine that by drinking cow’s milk a human is getting an enormous dose of immunologically activating material (not in a good way). I suspect that if it were important for long-term health, females would lactate continuously to provide it to adults too. It’s attractive to agricultural societies because fat and protein are constantly in short supply or take large energy investments to obtain. But I think when we continue to drink it long after natural weaning, it does the same kind of damage that continuing most practices beyond their time will do. If I apply the forager vs agricultural lens, a desire for milk probably represents a deficiency in the agricultural diet.
Toby
Comment by Toby Hemenway — 2 March 2006 @ 5:50 PM
Before paleo I essentially I had no meat. Seafood maybe once every two month, but that was typically it.
After paloe I introduced a great deal of meat into my system, got rid of grains, and ate an abundance of fruit and veggies, and suddenly I feel healthier than I ever have.
I have issues with colds, yet after I finally cut out dairy, most of those issues have gone away.
Living in a place where it’s cold season every season, sniffles all around, my nose and throat are clear, despite the fact that all my roommates are currently sick.
Why am I saying this?
Well, one, in my personal experience, only reintroducing grains and dairy into my diet made me ill, not meat, and two, mucus issues.
Milk gives you serious mucus, not to mention bad breath.
I had cheese the other day (forgive me) and I’m still paying for it, not to mention the insanely bad breath that I could taste in my mouth all through-out the day.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 2 March 2006 @ 6:51 PM
I don’t really have anything to contribute here other than a thank you… this is all very inspiring. Now that I sit here and think, it would be incredibly difficulty to drop grains… I like to think I can give things up easily given a good reason, but grains… wow. That is rough.
I’m about ready to drop the milk now, though, just after skimming those articles.
Thanks.
Comment by bml — 2 March 2006 @ 10:11 PM
I know one of my pitfalls regarding making a change in diet was finding something appealing to eat, not necessarily difficult, unless one (myself) is not used to making a dish every now and then, and can easily revert to the frozen burrito option. Cravings for these things is surely another part, but if something tasty could be concocted or rendered, I’m sure it’d be taken care of.
My question is for those of you eating paleo, what do you eat? Not just “chicken now and then, the occasional fish, nuts, you know, that kind of stuff” but moreso, what do your meals look like, what do you combine with what? Are there specific books that have a fair amount of acceptable recipes in them? And if not, what are some internet resources for decent meals? I’d kill to find a book with nothing but appealing paleo recipes.
As lame as it may sound, this (thus far) has been my stumbling block.
Comment by chiggles — 2 March 2006 @ 11:09 PM
I know most of us on paleo keep a steady supply of fruits around, such a raisins. If you are trying to lose a lot of weight, dried fruit is not really the way to go, though you will anyway if you replace chips with raisins.
Meal do generally have a central theme of meat involved.
Stews are great. Slice up some meat, put in some broth of some kind…or make your own, or use spaghetti sauce. without the noodles, it’s paleo!
Add spices…and boom, a delicious paleo meal.
For the need to snack, as I said, dried fruits are incredibly handy to have around.
So are fresh-fruits. I tend to have myself an apple or an orange for breakfast in the morning and I am fine till will into the afternoon.
the diet makes you feel good, keeps you alert, gets rid of the sluggishness, and in genuinely good for you!
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 2 March 2006 @ 11:20 PM
OK, this will be my last post in this thread, as I don’t think this is really going anywhere. Also, I don’t think our POV’s are all that different if Jason is planning on still eating cheese. I don’t think I tried ever tried to argue that milk is a health-food (and if I did, I didn’t mean too). All I was saying is that I think a lot of the anti-milk sentiment is over-exaggerated, especially for some people who tolerate it much better than others. I’d rather let my body tell me what to eat than my intellectual mind, and like I said, a three month sans dairy/grain/beans (except one pot of black beans) gave me enough perspective and freed me from my addictions enough to give a valid test. Verdict: my body likes cheese, yogurt and butter (and the occasional cream sauce). At least in moderation. I think this is the real key here. I have I am not alone in this either. Since the benefits to me at least seem to outweigh the moderate negatives (and no, a one-size fits all approach isn’t the best with diet, since there is even significant variation in foraging diets, how do we know whether our pre-ag ancestors were from solid, inuit-like carnivores or more tropical omnivores), I don’t see any reason to let fear influence my enjoyment.
Also, like janene said, many fruits and such are slightly toxic, but nobody tried to claim that moderate consumption of said fruits (and vegetables) will kill you. Also, as far as rate of evolution, I can’t remember the specifics, but I remember something about some tasty plant in Australia that happens to be poisonous, but tastes so good that Aborigines have developed immunity in the 50,000 years they’ve been there. Since I have no problem with change, I’ll happily volunteer to be on the cutting edge of evolution here.
“As for the example of nuts. It’s apples and oranges. Acorns are the tree’s way of procreating. The squrills help the tree with that. It’s a deal they have worked out. There is no evolutionary advantage to a cow designing it’s milk for human consumption”
No evolutionary advantage? How about having somebody constantly keeping predators away and ensuring access to good food? Sort of like plants that exude nectar to feed the ants that kill the aphids (not the best example, but I just had surgery, so I’m a little woozy still, cut me some slack).
“Sounds more like someone trying to recapture the safety of their mother’s arms than someone trying to eat”
“Some weird breast fetish?
Oh wow, mature.”
“We’re not the fetishists, people drinking cow’s milk are.”
No, I just recognize a tasty food source. I bet most meat-eating animals on the planet would too, but I doubt if they even have the capacity for “fetish.”
“Well, one, in my personal experience, only reintroducing grains and dairy into my diet made me ill, not meat, and two, mucus issues.
Milk gives you serious mucus, not to mention bad breath.”
That’s great that you figured your body out. Like I said, we need to all understand what is best for our individual bodies, not what is best for our ethical or political principles (here goes the big circle again, wee. I can see it now, “its not ethical, its really bad for you”).
“On the milk argument: I know a lot of naturopaths, and not a few MDs, who say that when their patients cut out dairy foods, a lot of complaints go away: allergies, aches and pains, frequent illnesses, chronic infections.”
Goes back to what I’ve been saying all along, everyone needs to be keen observer’s of their own bodies to discover what works for them and what doesn’t. Just because most people react a certain way doesn’t mean you will.
Like I also said, I never had the same problems (and I definitely broke my addiction). Of course there are times when I avoid milk, largely because of the mucus production issues, but there are ways of balancing this too.
I also doubt most hunter-gatherers would be as concerned with lectins and the health dangers of delicious food as it seems some of you are. While they may not have had access to dairy, there are plenty of examples of foragers eating grain and legumes (wild rice, ground nuts [ariocarpus, not peanuts], etc)
“Indeed, and the Masai have been in contact with agricultural societies for thousands of years–as have the Lapps.”
But do they rely on them? Or can/did they exist independently? That is the real issue. (if they can and have in the past produced everything they need to survive, I would say yes).
Also, I can see the rational for avoiding dairy, grain and legumes. I may not agree entirely, but I definitely limit intake and wouldn’t use them as a “staple.” I wonder at the logic behind the “if you can’t eat it raw, it you shouldn’t eat it. For one thing, regardless of rate of evolutionary change, we have been using fire for long enough now to adapt. Not only that, but does that mean that all food that must be processed it out, or just cooked food? Case in point, acorns. Californian natives used White Oak as a staple, but the acorn meal requires soaking in running water for several hours to remove tannins.
Also, if you want to personal reaction test, I challenge anyone to eat poi (taro) for a while and see if you feel anything other than amazingly great. Taro is quite inedible raw though, due to large concentrations of itchy raphides. I don’t think rhubarb is anti-paleo is it?
From direct, personal experience I can say that coffey is not as friendy to my body as chocolate, vanilla or tea. Can’t say categorically that “coffey isn’t paleo” though.
I can also say from direct experience that the diet that I feel best with is largely fruits and vegetables (especially avocados and leafy greens) supplemented with large amounts of meat and eggs at every meal (especially fish, to bad about the merc…what was I talking about?) and small amounts of dairy and starchy root crops (taro at least once a day). I never grew any field corn, but I like tortillas enough that I plan on adding that in too, in moderation.
Note, just because I reduce intake and don’t think its great to gorge on dairy is not at all the same as saying I need to completely eliminate it. For one thing, it is so labor intensive and difficult to produce that it is necessarily a treat, not a staple. Sorry though, my corn tortillas are gonna have some cheese and beens in there with the meat and vegetables.
I think I had a point here, but I’m pretty foggy now (opiates do that), so I might as well shut up now. If I came off vitriolic, I apologize. I still have a sarcastic asshole streak a mile wide, and have always loved to play devil’s advocate, mostly because I have a disconcerting ability to see more than one aspect to any given issue. If I had come here to find everyone dogmatically encouraging excessive dairy/grain/legume consumption for all (or arguing for total vegetarianism/veganism for all), I’m sure I would have had a hayday arguing the opposite.
a me ke aloha pumehana
Comment by limukala — 3 March 2006 @ 4:51 AM
OK I lied, I am going to post again here, but only clarify something for those of you thinking my surgery is somehow proof of my unhealthy diet. As far as I know there is absolutely no reason (not even the slightest shred of one) to believe that hernias have anything at all to do with diet. I am probably more averse to Western medicine than almost anyone, but after research, I found no practices offering any sort of alternative to surgery other than wearing a truss the rest of my life.
Anyone with differing information is welcome to share it, even if it is a little late for me (I could at least help others then). It was a pretty funny experience to answer no right down the line to every medical history question the doctor asked though (on or ever take any medications, had any surgeries, etc etc). The doctor seemed amazed that I had lived my entire life with almost no contact from the medical profession and been extremely healthy ((except for junior high through high school, when I developed a keen ability to convince even doctors that I was genuinely ill and not just sick of school. I had a 63% attendance rate at one point in Junior High, but every absence was excused
The funniest was when I became ill in art class after doing something at lunch that I shouldn’t have. I puked 13 times by the time I made it to the doctor, and he told me I had the stomach flu and needed to stay home for a few days, where I promptly resumed said innapropriate activities
Comment by limukala — 3 March 2006 @ 6:17 AM
Sorry, I can’t resist. One last thing to add. I also would strongly disagree when you say there is no evolutionary directive for dairy animals to produce more nutritious milk. In fact, it might be even stronger than the selection for good squirrel-food nuts. Humans are powerful agents of evolution. Consider how much we’ve altered most domestic crops in such a short time (i.e. broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale, brussell’s sprouts, and cabbage all share the same wild mustard ancestor). I don’t think it is too far fetched to imagine that over the course of a few more (or a few hundred more) millenia humans might select for progressively healthier milk, while also selecting for progressively higher capacity for assimilation of dairy products in the human population. It wouldn’t even have to be conscious, just the intuitive knowledge that this goat’s milk seems to feel better than that one, so it gets bred more, etc.
Comment by limukala — 3 March 2006 @ 7:09 AM
I have been eating only meat, veggies, berries (some other fruit too) for three months now.
I feel great. I also feel a more stable mood process, clearer thinking/feeling etc. I have lost weight. I exercise too. I spend time walking in wild areas, attuning and learning.
I do not eat dairy (and when I had some pizza with my partner the other day, for a celebration, I noticed the mucus -of course!-, a numbing sensation in my mouth -weird!- and general lethargy).
I do not eat grains. ( I could barely think of a few days in my life where I had not eaten bread. Having been a vegtarian for ten years with two of those being vegan, I relied HEAVILY on breads and other starches…in fact I eat more veggies now that ever before!)
I do not eat beans.
I do not eat potatoes.
I generally follow the principle mentioned by Ray Audette, author of “Neanderthin”, of eating only what I could get with a sharp stick. Obviously, eating meat from the local supermarket is different than feeling/seeing the lifebreath leave something you have just killed or ripped from the ground etc. I am working towards integration.
I became interested in this way of eating because:
eating is our primary relationship
we can all sit here, if front of these machines, and argue bullshit all day (and believe me i do my fair share), but what we put in our mouths is real change.
“How you get what you need is how you are controlled. It is also how you control others. Unless this fact is faced and owned, everything else is self-deception.” - RedWolfReturns
Comment by Charly — 3 March 2006 @ 10:37 AM
And before I forget I wanted to add.
Good for you Jason! I feel you will be amazed by the profound changes the energy of your new choice will make in your whole self. I certainly have. I am grateful.
Comment by Charly — 3 March 2006 @ 10:42 AM
Thanks, Charly!
That’s my problem, too. I’m still adjusting my understanding of what constitutes a “meal.” My spreadsheet will include a complete list of all my meals, so perhaps you can learn from my mistakes.
In general, I’d agree that that’s a good principle, except that we so often normalize some really awful states. Our body tells us everything is normal, because it’s used to such a dreadful state. We often don’t even realize what bad shape we’re really in–lke schistosomiasis in Africa.
That is very true, and I agree with the general sentiment. My only point would be that so many Neolithic foods are so far beyond the pale, they lie far outside the forager spectrum. No foragers ever used grains as anything more than a tiny supplement, and none ever drank the milk of another species. These are massive, fundamental changes, and while evolution will eventually catch up, that’s a lot of catching up to do!
Which is counterbalanced by the fact that any cow that did develop a mutation for milk better suited to humans than baby cows, would be less able to nurse her young … so the advantage is self-defeating, unless the cows begin to essentially become human themselves.
Most things are tolerable in sufficiently small quantities. Yeah, foragers sometimes got their hands on some legumes, but it was rare. Not because of any genetic aversion (obviously; we have the same genes, but we certainly have no aversion), but simply because they were difficult to gather. So, we never developed much of an adaptation to handle them. Now, if you go and make them into a staple, like we do in the Western world, you wind up … well, looking like me.
First you need to break your addiction. If I can become a normal, healthy human being, it might be OK to indulge from time to time, just like my forager ancestors sometimes happened upon some grains and legumes. But there’s a world of difference between occasionally finding some stuff that you don’t usually eat, and consuming a “staple” that itself defines the difference between a “meal” and a “snack.”
This, too, deserves its own article. It’s involved, and the answer to that question is fairly ambiguous. I tend to think they do, though not in the direct ways you might suspect.
We’re really not that far apart, after all.
It’s a rule of thumb, and like all rules of thumb, it doesn’t always hold. It’s a heuristic, and heuristics are always imperfect–otherwise, they’d just be rules, rather than heuristics!
Me too; I’m glad we’re all happy and reconciled now.
I have one of those. It came about from too much straining in defecation, which has everything to do with fiber intake and diet.
That is true, but in the case of cows producing more human-adapted milk, like I said above, it’s a contradiction. Any adaptation that would make cow’s milk better for humans would reduce the survival rate of that cow’s young. Even human agency can’t overcome a pressure that direct.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 March 2006 @ 11:08 AM
Twenty humans running around all day couldn’t plant as many acrons as a squrill. Also, there isn’t just one gene that controls tanin production in acrons, but many. So even if you get one of the few trees that don’t produce tanin, most of their offspring will. Oak is not domesticatable.
As for the cows. It might be a lack of imagination on my part, but I don’t see how giving us nutricious milk is more of an evolutionary advantage than nurishing their own children. For an evolution change to happen it must offer substantial enough pressure to change the birth rate, and that advantage cannot be canceled out by a disadvantage or another, greater advantage. In this case the cow makes people happy. It also leaves their young malnurished. Somehow I don’t think evolution would select for this.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 3 March 2006 @ 11:31 AM
Hi Jason!
I just wanted to say good luck on your diet and offer some unsolicited advice (do with it what you will): If you don’t already have a crock pot, get one! The crock pot has made my life a lot easier. You just throw in some food in the morning and by the end of the day you have a meal. You can freeze your leftovers and also make a couple of big meals on the weekend to freeze. Having ready-to-eat food in the freezer can really lessen your dependence on processed foods.
Comment by Vicky — 3 March 2006 @ 11:50 AM
I think I’ve finally boiled down all this debate on grains and dairy products into a solid metaphor that almost anyone can access. And I’m posting it here because I’m seeing a minor flare-up of the debate (again).
There once was a time when cigarette smoking was considered to be healthy. It was said to aid in digestion and help to strengthen the soft tissues of the throat. A couple of scientists questioned that. These scientists examined major trends based on the health differences between people who smoked and who didn’t. They found out that people who smoked cigarettes were more likely to have serious health problems. But those who smoked resisted the idea. They didn’t want to admit that they were addicted.
Smokers first vigorously denied nicotine’s addictive nature, and when they lost that battle, they fought against the idea of cigarettes as unhealthy (a big one being that some genetics allowed people to cheat cancer, proving that cigarettes couldn’t be the cause). Eventually, it became almost undeniable that cigarettes were unhealthy and addictive. But still, people smoked.
I don’t personally have a problem with people who smoke - I have two cigarettes a week, on Friday mornings and afternoons to help me relax from the degrading workweek. If a friend of mine smokes, it doesn’t bother me, as long as he understands and accepts the health risks. What I can’t abide is people who are in absolute denial that cigarettes are bad for you (or even worse, think that they’re GOOD for you). No matter if you smoke light cigarettes, or smoke only cigarettes with super filters, or inhale only slightly, any precautions can’t change the fact that cigarettes are inherently bad for you.
Likewise, milk and grains are addictive and dangerous. In smaller quantities, and prepared in more conscientious ways (such as with sprouted grains, yogurts and certain cheeses), they are less harmful than normal - but are still harmful.
I don’t plan to completely cut grains and dairy products out of my diet, but I will reduce my consumption of them drastically, and consume them with a greater consciousness of their presence, their addictive nature, and their unhealthy qualities.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 3 March 2006 @ 12:01 PM
The evolutionary arguments pro/against dairy animals are silly. Evolution assumes natural selection. In the case of dairy animals the selection is “unnatural”. Humans select cows that give the most milk and make sure their offspring survive. They kill and eat the cows that don’t make as much milk. Unless of course the purpose is to breed a cow that gives a lot of meat instead of a lot of milk.
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 3 March 2006 @ 2:01 PM
I wanted to add a forum style resource. Every once in a while there are some “crazy” anthropological type discussions on there. Of course, I have found no one who is willing to or desiring to leave civilization behind.
http://forum.lowcarber.org/forumdisplay.php?f=107
Also I wanted to emphasize that, like Benjamin, I am now enjoying the best health of my life and the best relationship with life ever.
Comment by Charly — 3 March 2006 @ 5:17 PM
How are you monitoring ketones? Blood or urine testing?
Comment by JCamasto — 3 March 2006 @ 7:01 PM
Urine. Nobody cuts me and gets away with it.
But I still haven’t found any ketone strips.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 March 2006 @ 7:07 PM
Plenty of stuff available on-line/mail order - but if you need something ASAP, any decent pharmacy should cover you.
For example, a CVS near you…
Comment by JCamasto — 3 March 2006 @ 7:54 PM
Sorry, one last thing.
“I have one of those. It came about from too much straining in defecation, which has everything to do with fiber intake and diet.”
Mine appeared after a day of building a stone wall with large blocks of limestone. That and a genetic predisposition (both my grandfathers and my cousin had hernias in the same place).
Comment by limukala — 3 March 2006 @ 8:02 PM
I’m on my own limited version of this diet, but I’m just eating meat that is akin to what paleo man would have eaten. Namely, wild. Because I truly believe the meat you tend to find in the stores is not healthy. It has tons of chemicals, hormones, maybe be diseased, or rotting, and, most important, came from an animal that did not eat it’s natural diet, which means it has tons of Omega 6 fatty acids instead of Omega 3s. Eat wild meat.
See this:
http://www.mercola.com/index.htm
I’m personally not completely sold on the evils of grains, in moderation. One point that all these paleo diets ignore is that human civilzation has prospered and grown since grains and agriculture were introduced. If grains were utterly evil and horrible for us, why have life spans increased, society become much more advanced, and science progressed from staring at the stars and wondering to where it is now? Clearly grains are capable of supporting human beings at very high levels of accomplishment. I suspect a lot of the problems are that we’ve come to depend on them too much, and we don’t get anywhere near the amount of exercise our grain-eating ancestors did when they had to grow the food without oil.
Comment by Dan C — 10 March 2006 @ 11:18 PM
The introduction of grains led to what is referred to in archaeology as, “the Neolithic mortality crisis.” Everyone started dying. Life expectancy was immediately halved. This is nowhere more dramatic than at Dickson’s Mounds, in North America (See Armelagos, “Disease and Death at Dickson’s Mounds”), where you literally had one generation of hunter-gatherers standing six foot something and living into their sixties with no problem, and their immediate children eating corn, showing signs of massive malnutrition, barely breaking four feet, and dying in their twenties and thirties.
Over time, civilizations adapted medicines and other adaptations to try to counteract this effect. The major advances occurred only in the last 50 years. Today, the wealthiest elite of civilization can live as long as the average hunter-gather (once he’s been hounded into one of the world’s most desolate environments, where civilized folk still live half as long as they do).
Because whereas hunting and gathering allowed for a few people living happily, grains allow for huge numbers of people to live lives of misery and despair. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” after all, and who could be more needy than civilized granivores? Hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, exemplify a different cliche: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I suspect you’re new to the site, so this kind of stance might come as a shock to you. I suggest starting with the Thirty Theses. It’s a fairly large work, but it’s what we’re best known for here. Basically, it’s my attempt at a systematic proof that Jared Diamond was quite right when he called agriculture–and civilization–”the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 March 2006 @ 11:31 PM
Jason,
I just noticed that is has been a year since this post. I’m curious as to whether you are still eating paleo and what the results are now (and/or what they were when/if you stopped the diet).
I appreciate your empirical approach, btw.
Comment by Rix — 1 March 2007 @ 1:12 AM
Hey Rix –
I’m sure Jason will answer as well… but I think he has not been maintaining the diet.
I, on the other hand, have been about 95% paleo since last January and my husband joined in last summer. I have trimmed off almost twenty pounds and have only been sick once in that time, and I continue to slowly lose weight and muscle up… I feel *really* good, energetic, clear headed. My husband lost about twenty pounds almost immediately and is looking better than he did in high school.
Full disclosure: we do, also, work out regularily, including weight training….
Janene
*** 90%: I cook almost totally paleo, but we occasionally will have a little corn or rice, some cheese, beans and potatoes — but none of these are anything like staples as they once were. And virtually no wheat, no white sugar and no corn syrup at all…
Comment by janene — 1 March 2007 @ 11:32 AM
Hey, guys.
My wife Beks and I have also been about 90% Paleo, going on 6 months now. We allow ourselves to eat whatever we want when we go out. (We call foods like corn and beans and peanut butter ‘bastard Paleo’, and consider it better to eat foods like these than to eat wheat or milk, etc.)
So far, the results have been pretty shocking for both of us, but especially me. On top of my skin clearing up pretty much instantaneously, my color vision has improved. I have an intermediate green/brown color deficiency; sometimes I can’t see very close shades of brown or green apart, and often, I’ll confuse brown or green completely. Or, I should say that I DID have an intermediate green/brown color deficiency.
I have these pale green corduroys that I swore for years were light brown. A few weeks ago, I looked at them and blinked a few times, trying to figure out what was wrong with my eyes. Then I realized that I was looking at pale green corduroys, and not light brown ones. It was quite a shock for me.
Beks, the medical junkie that she is, assured me that while rods and cones take a long time to regrow, they could under the proper circumstances. Looks like I found the circumstances.
The same day, I took the “number in the colored dots” test for green/brown deficiency that I had failed miserably 5 years before. One or two took a little squinting, but I could see every single one.
I can’t prove it was paleo, but my mind is running the logic of, “It happened after, therefore it happened because.”
I also lost about 5 pounds of fat and gained about 15 pounds of muscle. Of course, paleo has done nothing for my Ugly - Beks says that Paleo doesn’t cure Ugly, or that Ugly is untreatable, or something like that. But I’ll settle for being one among the very small percentage of men who have perfect color vision.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 1 March 2007 @ 11:54 AM
I’ve often wondered what kind of effect a paleo diet would have on the eyes. I used to wonder as my myopia intesified each year how an aboriginal would survive with my condition. Would he specialize into storytelling or would he simply become a burden on his tribe. And looking around at how many people have vision problems, I thought “Why weren’t there more blind natives in the history books?” After reading about the paleo diet, I realized that myopia has followed grain across the globe.
I never thought about the possibility of colorblindness being related to diet. I appreciate your story, Chuck, and wonder if there are other stories like this out there.
Thank you too, Janene, for the info on your past paleo year. It’s interesting that both of you are able to maintain on a modified diet with some civilized foods. It’s really good news, actually, because my wife is considering joining me on the paleo band wagon, and there’s no way in hell she’d give up cheese.
Comment by Rix — 1 March 2007 @ 12:17 PM
Great to see another paleo dieter blogging on the subject! I started the Paleo Diet November 2nd of 2007 and, as of last Saturday (December 22nd), I’ve lost 27 lbs, so far. My weight when I began was 233 lbs and, as of last weekend, it’s down to 206. On average, I’m losing about 2 to 5 pounds a week. My pants size has gone from 40 down to 36 and is still dropping.
When I began, I went “cold turkey,” throwing out all my old food and replacing it with lean meats, veggies and fruit, and also walnuts and almonds. I drink only purified bottled water. I walk daily, for about thirty minutes (an hour a day on weekends).
What got me started was being diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic. My doctor prescribed Metformin, a highly dangerous drug that can cause lactic acidosis, a sometimes fatal conditon. I never filled the prescription, since I was already reading Loren Cordain’s book, The Paleo Diet and knew I could whip my diabetes with just a change of diet. As of yesterday, my blood sugar is now just about normal again. I also had high triglycerides, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and all of these are also reversing naturally, in response to the diet.
Those of you who haven’t yet tried the Paleo Diet should definitely do so. This is not some “fad” diet - it is the diet we evolved on, the diet mankind ate for 2.5 million years, until agriculture introduced the “foods” (grains and dairy) that are slowly killing most people today. Whatever diet-related diseases you’re suffering from, from allergies to heart disease and diabetes, will be cured for good by the Paleo Diet. Depending on how far gone you are, it can take as little as six months to a year. But, I stress that this is a diet for life (as any diet should be) and it is so easy to do and so easy to stick with. You may find it overwhelming to give up your favorite foods, but, when you realize what those foods have been doing to you, it’s easy to leave them behind. Everyone should be eating this way(indeed, 500 generations ago, everyone WAS!).
Comment by Gary — 28 December 2007 @ 7:08 PM
“If grains were utterly evil and horrible for us, why have life spans increased, society become much more advanced, and science progressed from staring at the stars and wondering to where it is now?”
Life spans have increased, not due to diet, but in spite of diet. The increase has been made possible by the eradication and control of infectious diseases, plus improvements in diagnostic capabilities. Bear in mind that the science of medicine didn’t exist at all in the paleolithic era. As for progress, while we’ve come a long way in many respects, the basis of the societal shift we call agriculture was actually a dietary wrong turn; i.e., a mistake. I like to think we would have organized societies around other things, eventually, though the hunter-gatherer lifestyle didn’t lend itself well to this arrangement.
Had it not been for that dietary misstep, we might be living more primitively and might be less advanced, but we’d be healthier for it. “Civilization” has it’s trade-offs.
Comment by Gary — 29 December 2007 @ 6:16 PM
I appreciate the great advice. I\’ll be back every week for more.
Comment by ErMoo — 14 August 2008 @ 4:34 PM