Paleo dogma bullshit

This post was inspired by the latest post of Primal Toad (link here). Now, I’m not calling out Primal toad but the whole ideology that he shares -with many paleo enthusiast- that conventional wisdom is always wrong (Interestingly enough, science is always wrong when you don’t study it) and that if something is not demonstrated (or at least badly demonstrated) to be detrimental to your health, it must be healthy. If it’s healthy, then we have to eat these foods in very large amounts. Amounts that are not necessarily natural (they require you to go out of your way to get more of these foods in). Toad posted mainly about saturated fat and cholesterol which is what I will base my short rebuttal on.

I find the data to be insufficient -or at least conflicting- to make conclusions about saturated fats and cholesterol. Yes, you need both of them. No, it’s probably not the most intelligent idea ever to focus on getting as much of it as possible.

By this, I mean that cholesterol and saturated fat should not exclusively be the reason why you consume certain foods. For instance, egg is a wonderful food because of its high vitamin content, protein content and availability as well as overall energy. It is not  a great food because of it’s cholesterol content but because of the reason I have listed. Before you go all crazy and start cursing like a pirate (or like a caveman since most of my readership are just modern cavemen/woman), let me tell you that I’m known for my ability to eat 10 eggs (cooked in butter) as a breakfast. That means I’m not afraid of the stuff nor am I preaching a low fat, low animal products diet. What I am preaching is common sense and objectivity.

I eat them for the protein and energy. Not the cholesterol.

Still the point is, you gotta be careful with the way you deal with things and the message you send to the world. Low fat (30% of your calories as fat, as is advised) is technically not a problem at all. High carb (60-70% of your calories as carbs, as is advised) is technically not a problem at all. Plenty of epidemiology studies demonstrate this. I know, this type of studies sucks…except when you pull one about eskimos or another tribe, right?

Really, as long as you pick foods that you seem to do well on (aka foods you pick in nature for the most part), you are doing fine. For some it means a high meat diet. For others, it can be a diet lower in meat. My theory is that it’s all about the quality of the food you eat instead of the composition of the diet itself (macro nutrient, etc). Obviously, if we are going to use an evolutionary perspective, this make sense. Macro nutrients were cycled. Feast and famine. And sometimes the feast would involve stuffing your skinny ass with potatoes (a strategy that has persisted till today and made humans survive quite well actually). On the other end, quality was rarely an issue. It’s not like you would find mutant foods in an environment that was NOT dominated by humans.

This brings us to paleo dogma bullshit that plague the internet world the way freaking vegetarians seem to be everywhere around here. I get to hear their rhetoric bullshit in my nutrition class as well as at the metro station where they want us to sign some peta petitions. Same shit, different smell. All opinions, no fact.

The supposed idea of a perfect diet is ridiculous for various reasons : (a) not everyone is the same (genetics, etc.) (b) not everyone do the same thing (sleep, lifestyle, job, etc.) (c) not everyone is active (no matter what the so called paleo exercise haters tell you, exercise is a must and it will greatly enhance various processes that we are actually trying to improve with diet…insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, etc.) (d) not everyone as access to the same resources (foods or money). (e) everyone has a different health record.

I’m not a scientist (yet…but nutrition is not the field I will be studying) but from my less than optimally educated perspective, the only thing that has been demonstrated -either by scientific facts or by anecdotal experience is that a diet as natural (hunter gatherer style) as possible usually make people healthier.

/rant

There goes your cholesterol theory

As I said earlier this month, I will be posting a bit more studies and science posts.

Here is a study from the Department of Nutritional Sciences of University of Connecticut about eggs, cholesterol, metabolic syndrome & restricted carbohydrate diet. Another nail in the coffin of the cholesterol myth?

Why nutrition science sucks and why there is more to curing a cancer than eating veggies

Money > Health

As time goes by, nutrition science is getting more and more popular . I remember when I first got interested by nutrition, I was amazed at how little [good] information about food was available. Most of the information available was based on myth, beliefs and pseudo theories. Unfortunately, little has changed since then. At the time, I was looking for a way to improve my performance in the gym. I was very underweight and I had a pathetic level of strength. I wasn’t pleased about my slow progress and I figured that the quality -instead of the quantity- of calories I was eating might play a bigger role. A few years later, I’m amazed at how popular (how mainstream) nutrition has become when you consider how limited  progress we  made since the golden age of nutrition (The era of vitamin discoveries).

Read more of this post

Fasting and [the modification] of human behavior (and more)

I'm back from the death (Hey, you know me, I had to poke some fun at religion)

Surprise, surprise, I’m still alive. Yes I know, it has been such a long time since I last posted anything on here. Even more surprising is the fact that my traffic has improved. I would like to thank everyone who has been reading Primal Journal. I really appreciate it. Now, I have been thinking about a great way to make a come back and I just did not know what I should write about (too many ideas!). I finally decided to write about an aspect of fasting that I still have not seen covered.

Read more of this post

Carbs for thought

Tubers : The evil kid.

Today, as I write this post in a fasting state (Skipping breakfast is now the only way to have some free time in the morning), I am looking for your input. I must repeat that this blog is both about sharing and learning. If you have been reading my blog for the past few months, you know what my stance on carbs (natural : tubers, fruits, veggies, etc.) is : they are not evil! [Link here and here]. So, today is about sharing a theory/hypothesis with you guys. If you have any insight on the subject, please don’t hesitate to share it.

Read more of this post

Ah these food junkies… Sugar is more addictive than Cocaine

Thanks mate for helping us understand our own biological problems.

I had to leave the blogsphere for a while due to my studies. Now that I am starting to have a life again (slowly but surely), I can start to read, write, and explore ideas again. After a great discussion about how natural selection and adaptation gave us a pre-existing preference for salt, sugar and fat with my neurology Professor’s colleague, I was referred to a paper that I would like to discuss today. For one, the paper has been completely ignored by the evolutionary eaters of this online world. For two, it is definitely interesting because it probably allows us to understand more precisely the obesity epidemic and food addiction. Food addiction is a problem that is too often ignored.

Read more of this post

Greediness, extremism, wars, and nutritional communities

Extremists are also present in nutritional communities.

One of the few things that differentiate us from other animals is definitely our tool-making capacity. While monkeys, chimps and other animals can create tools that are adapted to their needs, humans create tools fancier and more complicated than necessary. One example of this is money. We could all barter like we have been doing for thousands of years, but instead, we created a money system. And to make it easy to deal with other countries, some little guy decides how much the money of a given society is worth on the international scene. While every society has their own set of highly valuable tools (such as arts, books, etc.), money is almost universally valued in every society. I should say in every modern and industrialized society.

Read more of this post

Why low carbs diets work

If you are an average joe (sedentary, family man, etc.) and you tried to follow a low carb diet (hopefully based on the evolutionary eating guidelines), you’ve probably had success. As with many other people who have had success on such a diet, you probably started to believe that most – if not all – carbs are bad for you. Because you are busy, the nutritional research you have done has been limited. You still quickly found out about words like insulin, insulin resistance and blood sugar. The information you read stated that carbohydrates disrupt insulin and blood sugar and lead to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is the reason you gained weight. Here is a new perspective on the subject. Read more of this post

Carbs, Carbs, the evil carbs…

Go for it!

A while ago, I wrote a blog post about the role of carbohydrates in the paleolithic diet [link here]. The take home point was that the amount of carbohydrates you should eat depends on who you are. Since then, I have been asked about my opinion on carbs. In today’s post, I will address my reader’s question in details. [As a side note, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me by using the contact button at the top right of the website]. Until now, I haven’t really taken a stance on the subject. This is due to the fact that I think that personalization of the diet is what matters. Obviously, people read blogs to know the opinion of the author, so here is mine.

Read more of this post