I won't weigh in on the Paleo Diet other than to say I was surprised when I bought the book at how many recipes required some kind of organ meat. I am an adventurous eater, but I have my limits.
CK is right about Allen Lim's book - absolutely great tasting recipes and good fresh foods.
My experience is the same as Cerv's with respect to being able to ride for hours without having eaten and not bonking. For instance, this summer I rode a solo unsupported dirt road century with out taking in a single calorie, and not having eaten for 10 hours before starting. It's possible to fuel long rides burning fat if you (a) stay aerobic, (b) stay hydrated and (c) train that way. I've always got a gel or fruit bar tucked away in case I start to bonk, but it has been years since I've tapped into them. For want of a better idea and because there's some science to support it, for the past year I've been playing with a daily 16 hour fast -- I eat pretty much what the rest of my family eats (a reasonable diet, but not as earthy as many have described here), but only do it during an 8 hour window (12 noon through 8 PM) -- the rest of the time I'm "fasting". Managed to lose an additional 10 pounds that were stubbornly hanging around and felt good and raced well (for me). Here's the link to the mouse experiment that got me interested:
https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(12)00189-1
Here's the link to the LA Time's article that puts it in lay terms:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/18/science/la-sci-fasting-diet-20120518
Regarding carb consumption. I don't eat low carb, just to be clear. I just avoid refined white carbs and refined sugar. The carbs I eat come in the form of fruit and starchy vegetables so I get the fiber in balance with the sugar. I do eat starchy vegetable regularly.
I really focus on getting a lot of good fats as a primary energy source. Omega 3 and medium chain fatty acids, as I think we've generally gone too 'carbcentric' in our diets.
The basic idea is you if you injest more good fats, you have a higher concentration of medium chain free fatty acids in your plasma which promotes your body utilizing fat as an alternate primary energy source during exercise.
http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/medium-chain-triglycerides-mcts-the-fat-that-makes-you-lose-fat
http://journals.humankinetics.com/ijsnem-back-issues/ijsnemvolume6issue2june/theroleofmediumchaintriglyceridesinexercise
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/fats/fatty-acids-metabolism---how-the-body-makes-energy.html#b
http://library.med.utah.edu/NetBiochem/FattyAcids/faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029391
http://www.lipidworld.com/content/2/1/10
Thanks for the links cerv - will check them out.
Great Thread!
My experience echos Cerv's in that I see an adjustment period if I go off bars and gels where I feel bonky after 90 min of activity, but if I stick with it and stay off the simple carbs my body seems to switch over at some point and I have energy for a longer time. Like he says though - it works when I'm not going very hard.
I eat little to no meat most of the time and consider cheese a treat. Most of my fats come from nuts and olive oil and avacados. After BN's thread about the mixers I got one and have been "eating" smoothies every morning and for my mid morning snack for a couple months. I've probably doubled my veggie consumption as a result and I was already eating a lot of them.
Every few years somebody turns up with a new twist on the "meat" diet. Atkins was one, now it's the Paleo diet. Unmitigated horsepuckey.
The whole point of the Paleo diet is that you're eating what humans supposedly evolved to eat. There are a couple of points that the Paleo proponents seem to ignore completely-
1) Cave men had some serious trouble getting enough calories in the first place. We evolved to digest anything with calories, except cellulose which requires a huge gut and microbial help. We also evolved to prefer sources with more calories than with fewer- like carbohydrates. The more easily digested the better- that's why sweet stuff is so appealing to humans.
2) Evolution didn't stop when humans figured out agriculture. Thus there are populations that can digest cow's milk. If you're lactose-tolerant, you come from one of these populations. Also, people have been eating grains since at least 30,000 years ago from archeological evidence- neolithic time frame- and there's no evidence to suggest that they wouldn't have enjoyed a bowl of cereal before then.
Yup, people have been eating grain for thousands of years. People have been eating meat for thousands of years. High rates of heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes are recent phenomenon. There's extremely healthy populations documented in history that ate almost all meat, and extremely healthy populations that ate almost no meat. That would show that eating meat is a healthy food option, but it is also not necessary for good health. Ethical arguments aside, maybe vegan vs carnivore is a red herring and is not the real health question?
What changed? People started eating high quantities of white sugar and processed carbohydrates with the fiber removed in the last 100 years.
20 lbs/year per person in 1850 to around 180 lbs/year per person today.
http://blissfulwriter.hubpages.com/hub/How-Much-Sugar-Do-We-Eat
Coincidentally, heat disease, obesity, and type ii diabetes started showing up around the same time.
In the last 30 years we vilified fat (and meat by extension), and people (and the food industry) replaced good omega3 fats they happened getting in meat with even more refined carbs and sugar so it would still taste good. It wasn't carnivore vs vegan that was the issue, it was good food with crap food. People were just as afraid of the healthiest saturated vegetable fats coconut, avacado, etc, so those weren't seen as a healthy option at the time.
In the last 30 years obesity, heart disease and type ii diabetes have skyrocketed, even though data shows we actually did cut down our overall fat intake from 40% to 30%.
Dunno if the first y-tube vid was just the usual anti-animal screed, but you, and likely every person you have ever met have benefited from the use of animals in medical research.
Dude in the other vid would have better effect if he cited his sources and toned it down a bit.
@ cerv: good points
Diets are lost on me, balance, moderation and exercize is what its about. The biggest challenge is to transfer that to the kids and make them eat healthy. Despite their parents best intensions we have one carnivore and one sugarvore in the family. They are also pizzavores. That's evolution for you.
ps. the carnivore is also an animal lover, how's that for irony for you. We told her many times where that meat comes from, been to a dairy farm where the hard realities for cows were blatently evident for them (to his credit the farmer didn't beat around the bush), but it hasn't fully sunk in yet.
Soy bean production has its own problems; it's not completely green on that side.
Glad the nurses study was brought up.
There's a good table of some of the correlations that have been found from it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurses'_Health_Study
Some interesting points
"A Mediterranean-type diet reduces risk of incident CHD and stroke. Fish intake reduces risk of stroke. Nut and wholegrain consumption reduces risk of CHD. Refined carbohydrates and trans fats increase risk"
"Higher intakes of folate, vitamin B6, calcium and vitamin D reduces risk. High intake of red and processed meats increases risk"
"Higher vegetable intake, especially green leafy vegetables, reduces risk of cognitive impairment"
"Higher intakes of folate, vitamin B6, calcium and vitamin D reduces risk (of colon cancer). High intake of red and processed meats increases risk (of colin cancer)."
Fish is good for you. Leafy greens are good for you. Fiber is good for you. Refined carbs and transfats are bad.
"Red and Processed meats" are bad. No argument here. Most of the farmed meat we eat is pretty crappy. My next question would then be, what did the cow eat that the people in the study ate? Was it organic meat, or was it full of growth hormones and antibiotics? There are significant differences shown in the ratios of good to bad fats in grass fed vs grain fed beef, as well as the amount of antioxidants. Maybe sick people are caused by eating sick cows?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/switching-to-grass-fed-beef/
http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/grass-fed-natural-beef.asp
the answer may be 'bambi burgers'
http://www.nutritionistreviews.com/2011/09/ask-nutritionist-venison-vs-beef.html
what is your point if I have benefited from animal research at some point in time in my life? Please tell me? Should I not even then try to use as little animal products/flesh as possible in my daily life or should I just say "F it" and eat a SAD (standard american diet)?
Does Earthlings bother you? If seeing animal suffering/torture makes you uncomfortable - why do you chose to contribute to that every single day? Being aware of what you participate in and fund should be a good thing.
It's against the law to show what goes on in slaughterhouses - good christ - does that tell you anything?
...... and you fully missed the ball on Dr Greger - he sites EVERYTHING he does. He has teams of people that read all health/food related literature. His whole point is that he quotes medical research findings.
Try again :) http://nutritionfacts.org/
more good info on good fats and bad fats
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/good-fats-bad-fats-separating-fact-from-fiction
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-truth-about-ancel-keys-weve-all-got-it-wrong/
Very thorough overview of the (arguably questionable) Ancel Keys studies and the link between Heart Disease and Saturated Fat.
@BN:
My apologies for being defensive. Many folks naively think bio-med research can take place without animal models. If there was an equally valid methodology, we'd use it; there just isn't.
I only watched a few mins of the Dr Greger vid, but he was IMO 'preaching to the choir' and ad libbing. There can be a 'PT Barnum' aspect of getting even te best science accepted / funded, but his demeanor was off-putting to me.
All that said, I certainly DO love my veggies, and have read and agree with M Pollan (Omnivore Dilemma). Really: eat the grain yourself or feed it to the cow and then eat the cow? I can certainly see the 'energy waste' and complications, but I will continue my omnivore ways, moderating my meat consumption but likely never giving it up entirely.
A slaughterhouse is a brutal place to say the least, but factory farming and mega-herbicide use with destructive tilling techniques is brutal in a quieter sort of way. Also consumes a lot of petrol. One of the last print editions of Newsweek I received had an article on the failing levels of durham wheat produced globally, while many still deny human influenced climate change....
IMO, the real problem is not so much <e>what is eaten, being mindful of relative amounts, but how many people need to be fed, and with America's focus on MORE as opposed to BETTER (and better for you) as the typical advertising thrust.
@Yo Mike - Thanks for posting that link. There are other aspects to venison not mentioned in that link. I just brought home about 80# of venison I harvested on Christmas eve and cost me $100 to have processed. Compare the prices of lean beef versus my costs for lean venison. Then also add in all the chemicals and steroids my kids are not ingesting... yes, thank you for allowing me to hunt.
Of course, we could also get into the argument of the benefits of hunting for managing the size of the herd. I live in Maryland and we could easily have a deer population equal to human in 4 years without hunting. Doesn't seem like a problem until you analyze the deer/car collisions, urban sprawl, etc...
To the point of the original post... I agree. My uncle was doing the paleo diet and tried selling it to me. I read about it a bit and came to many of the same conclusions echoed here.
In my opinion, and it is just that, if you are going to eat meat you ought to harvest it yourself. Of course, with deer season drawing to an end it will soon be time for turkey and spring trout and striped bass. Glad there is still space in the freezer. (For those vegetarian minded folks - yes, most of our greens come from our 3/4 acre garden, and our flock of free range chickens till the land and supply us amply with eggs - and chicken soup at the end of their journey in life - with the excess sold well below commercial prices so others can get those chemicals out of their bodies.)
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