Paleo 101: How and why you should eat like a Caveman

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splorge

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chaos_sl said:
The whole "humans weren't adapted to X in paleo times" is bullshit. There is an argument to be made against eating processed foods and eating less carbs/grains, that is where the focus should be if people want others to take this thing seriously. Nothing that cavemen actually ate is probably all that appetizing. They certainly weren't eating lean meats on a daily basis, or oils and fats, or whatever. Sure they had berries and nuts when they could find them. And nasty raw ass veggies, probably a lot of generally bad tasting food.
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I refer you to this link on genetic variance and nutritional adaptations:http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_5.htm

Relevant passage:

The common ability of people in Europe and some other areas of the world to continue producing lactase as adults is very likely a relatively recent evolutionary development. Prior to the domestication of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses, which occurred after about 9000 years ago, milk was most likely only consumed by babies and very young children. That milk was human milk. Dairy products such as cow's milk, yoghurt, and cheese did not exist. When nutrient rich nonhuman milk became widely available in pastoralist societies, the rare genetic variations that allowed some adults to easily digest lactose were selected for and this trait became more common.
 
chaos

chaos

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splorge_sl said:
I refer you to this link on genetic variance and nutritional adaptations:http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_5.htm

Relevant passage:

The common ability of people in Europe and some other areas of the world to continue producing lactase as adults is very likely a relatively recent evolutionary development. Prior to the domestication of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses, which occurred after about 9000 years ago, milk was most likely only consumed by babies and very young children. That milk was human milk. Dairy products such as cow's milk, yoghurt, and cheese did not exist. When nutrient rich nonhuman milk became widely available in pastoralist societies, the rare genetic variations that allowed some adults to easily digest lactose were selected for and this trait became more common.
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So prior to the rise of agriculture people didn't drink milk. News at 11. That really isn't the point. The point is that you don't really know what "cavemen" were eating. You can guess, you can cherry pick some research, but you can't really be certain. I'm sure the answer is "anything and everything they could get their hands on" but who knows. But there is a valid and pretty basic argument for this diet to be made and it is stifled by the LOL CAVEMEN talk.
 
Adebisi

Adebisi

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Zefah_sl said:
Nice straw man.

I went from eating a "healthy" low-fat diet with whole grains at the base. Lots of fat free milk and no-sugar cereal breakfasts, chicken (no skin) with sides of steamed broccoli and whole-grain bread (no butter, of course) dinners. Not only was I not enjoying my meals much, I was getting fatter!
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Big Phoenix

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chaos_sl said:
So prior to the rise of agriculture people didn't drink milk. News at 11. That really isn't the point. The point is that you don't really know what "cavemen" were eating. You can guess, you can cherry pick some research, but you can't really be certain. I'm sure the answer is "anything and everything they could get their hands on" but who knows. But there is a valid and pretty basic argument for this diet to be made and it is stifled by the LOL CAVEMEN talk.
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We should all just understand that logic and rational thought fly out the brain when it comes to discussing something we like the idea of.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

shitlord
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Tuco_sl said:
I was thinking about that the other day. We're obviously in the most modern state of man ever, but diets for our demographic are 'regressing' back to utilize as much natural sources as possible. It's the only example of this I can think of. Virtually every other component of my life is focused on higher tech solutions than previous generations.
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Define our demographic and define what you mean. I'm pretty sure someone seeking to eat naturally is consuming less natural resources than someone who eats fast food all the time.

chaos_sl said:
The whole "humans weren't adapted to X in paleo times" is bullshit. There is an argument to be made against eating processed foods and eating less carbs/grains, that is where the focus should be if people want others to take this thing seriously. Nothing that cavemen actually ate is probably all that appetizing. They certainly weren't eating lean meats on a daily basis, or oils and fats, or whatever. Sure they had berries and nuts when they could find them. And nasty raw ass veggies, probably a lot of generally bad tasting food.
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I think it's safe to base the caveman diet on nethack, where they can eat pretty much anything without penalty including poisonous food, their former pets and members of the same race.
 
Tuco

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The Ancient_sl said:
Define our demographic and define what you mean. I'm pretty sure someone seeking to eat naturally is consuming less natural resources than someone who eats fast food all the time.
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mid 20-40s tech-savvy professionals.

I know tons of people who constantly consume processed and fast food, but anyone I know who is trying with their diet is going very natural. Including me.
 
Dashel

Dashel

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Big Phoenix_sl said:
I have a diet for all the gullible fools in the world, EAT LESS THAN YOU BURN.
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Eat less what? Any food at all or are there restrictions? What are you suggesting the results will be from that.

You're using diet in the sense of someone looking to lose fat, and that's not even a good suggestion for those people. If you keep eating food that raises your blood sugar significantly, good luck losing fat in significant amounts and good luck keeping it up.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

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Tuco_sl said:
mid 20-40s tech-savvy professionals.

I know tons of people who constantly consume processed and fast food, but anyone I know who is trying with their diet is going very natural. Including me.
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That's what I thought you meant. Why do you consider this regression in regards to natural resources? I'm pretty sure as far as our energy input necessary to create processed foods is higher than something you make yourself. Do you mean regressed in the sense that the middle of last century technology was allowing us to turn food consumption into a more industrial process?
 
Dashel

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Araysar_sl said:
wouldnt you have to get milk first before making it into butter? how does that make butter a paleo food but not milk?

olive oil production began in the mediterranean in agricultural civilizations around 3-4k BC, thats about as far from paleo as it gets.
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Both of these are true. Olives are a good example of a relatively recent food that requires some processing. The difference as I understand it is as simple as olives are good fit for us and wheat is not. Again that's if you buy the whole wheat > gluten/lectin > high carb small package insulin spike thing.

As for milk and butter short answer yeah, it's a contradiction. Yes all of this reads as hipster crunchy granola BS .. but, I find the general ideas have merit.

Longer answer:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/place-...on-paleo-diet/

Article_sl said:
Even if you?re not lactose or casein intolerant and are not worried by the weight gain or higher insulin levels, regular grocery bought milk is still a very poor choice. The cows probably ate a diet of corn and soy while confined in a very tight environment. As if it wasn?t enough, we skim the milk to reduce the healthy saturated fat and we pasteurize-it, rendering some enzymes and beneficial bacteria infective.

Grain-fed cows will produce a milk much higher in omega-6 fatty acids and lower in omega-3 fatty acids, which, in the long-term, will trigger inflammation which is the one thing you want to limit for good health.
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Article_sl said:
A lot of people following the Paleo diet won?t consume regular milk, cheese or yogurt, but will enjoy generous amounts of butter. I think it?s a sensible choice because it?s almost only fat and especially saturated fat with usually too little lactose to cause a problem. In my opinion though, we can easily go one step further in our healthy habits without complicating things much more with clarified butter (also known as Ghee). Clarified butter is butter that has been slowly melted so milk solids separate and traces of water evaporate from it. What you get in essentially pure butter fat, which is absolutely delicious and healthy. It?s heat resistant so you can cook with it at high temperature (regular butter can burn) and it will stay good for a long time, even at room temperature.

Unless you?re dealing with severe autoimmune diseases, I only see advantages to consuming generous amounts of clarified butter. It goes well with just about everything. Again, choose grass-fed and pasture-raised when choosing butter.
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A

arkktheseaotter_sl

shitlord
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Linking a Paleo article is kind of counterproductive because there's 547 diff versions of Paleo so that's not even "the answer" to someone's question. There's potentially 547 diff answers.

Note: numbers of Paleo diets have been over exaggerated.

If someone makes a decision to eat healthy and exercise then you are splitting hairs over grains basically. Fresh fruit, veggies, lean meat, healthy fats. Almost anywhere you look to for advice on dieting will list those things. Except Paleo doesn't allow grains.

Dashel - do you honestly believe that there's any noticeable advantage for the average person to cut out oatmeal and brown rice and so on? Are you really fighting the good fight to abolish rice?

Do you ever look at what you are doing and go:

"If you really break it down, I am essentially eating what any person choosing to eat healthy would, except I don't eat grains. I can't say milk is another thing I don't eat because some Faileo people allow yogurt. So I am the anti grain crusader, marching into the mouth of hell against other clean eating individuals who eat the exact same things as me...except rice."

Main Entry: nit?pick?ing
Pronunciation: \'nit-?pi-ki?\
Function: noun
Etymology: 1nit
Date: 1956
: minute and usually unjustified criticism
 
Tuco

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The Ancient_sl said:
That's what I thought you meant. Why do you consider this regression in regards to natural resources? I'm pretty sure as far as our energy input necessary to create processed foods is higher than something you make yourself. Do you mean regressed in the sense that the middle of last century technology was allowing us to turn food consumption into a more industrial process?
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I consider it a regression only because it requires less technology.

I'm not using the word regression as a negative, only saying that going to a farmer's market and getting some locally grown/grass fed/free range beef and grilling up some burgers with vegetables you grew in your garden is less 'advanced' than getting a big mac at McDonalds.

Whether eating free-range cows consumes more resources than eating a cow grown in a set for a PETA ad is another argument and not one I really care about.
 
Dashel

Dashel

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arkktheseaotter_sl said:
Dashel - do you honestly believe that there's any noticeable advantage for the average person to cut out oatmeal and brown rice and so on? Are you really fighting the good fight to abolish rice?
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Oatmeal and rice no. I will say that I ate oatmeal with berries and grapes every morning for years and now I switched to eggs and vegetables. Eggs and veggies i think are an improvement. Less hunger, more nutrition.

Is a bowl of oatmeal now and then bad, not in my opinion. If you're an athlete and you eat some rice, I have no problem with that at all and I'd say low carb is a bad idea for you. In fact rice in general (white , brown or wild) seems pretty innocuous.


arkktheseaotter_sl said:
Do you ever look at what you are doing and go:

"If you really break it down, I am essentially eating what any person choosing to eat healthy would, except I don't eat grains. I can't say milk is another thing I don't eat because some Faileo people allow yogurt. So I am the anti grain crusader, marching into the mouth of hell against other clean eating individuals who eat the exact same things as me...except rice."
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See this is the big question: "eating what any person choosing to eat healthy would"

Again I know people who think Special K and some orange juice is quite healthy. Or low fat yogurt. Heavily processed Whole wheat bread with no HFCS you'd think is the best food ever listening to some people and i think it's essentially a slice of sugar. some people think veganism is super healthy, I happen to disagree.

We are told to eat more carbs and less fat and I think that is distinctly unhealthy and the current rate of fat asses and type 2 diabetes is an indication of that bullshit. People now think meat and butter will kill you and I think that's wrong.

If you're saying everyone knows to eat good protein and veggies then sure, in that case this is just a more defined framework for you and also constantly reminds you of the importance of fat which was heavily demonized and still scares people.
 
Adebisi

Adebisi

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Dashel_sl said:
If you keep eating food that raises your blood sugar significantly, good luck losing fat in significant amounts and good luck keeping it up.
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Fact: If I eat 1500 calories of Five Guys every day, I will lose fat.

Your broscience doesn't phase me!
 
Dashel

Dashel

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Adebisi_sl said:
Fact: If I eat 1500 calories of Five Guys every day, I will lose fat.

Your broscience doesn't phase me!
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You'll lose weight yes. Fat I dont know but weight yeah. Actually that would probably be pretty low carb if you pass on the fries. You'd probably be sick of it pretty fast too. I think the guy in Fathead did something similar. I'll look.

Yeah here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Head

During the film, Naughton goes on an all-fast-food diet, mainly eating food from McDonald's. For his daily dietary intake, he aims to keep his calories to around 2,000 and his carbohydrates to around 100 grams per day, but he does not restrict fat at all. He ends up eating about 100 grams of fat per day, of which about 50 grams are saturated. He also decides to walk six nights a week, instead of his usual three. After a month eating that way, he loses 12 pounds and his total cholesterol goes down. His HDL does go down, often thought to be undesirable.
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Tuco

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Go to five guys, order a small burger with no bun, cheese or mayo/ketchup with 20 sides of vegetables. Claim five guys is healthy.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

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Their calorie count on fries has to be bullshit. Sure maybe if they only gave you the cup of regular fries, but if I eat a full order of the cup full of fries plus the extra 3 helpings of fries they always dump into the bag, you know that shit has to be like 1000 calories.
 
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