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

Let's try this another way...do you The Master believe that eating whole grains are detrimental to good health? You're implying that not eating grains would reduce the risk of those things even more. SO you must think that there is something in Whole grains causing things like Diabetes, cancer, etc.. That's what I'm not getting I guess..I'm really not trying to be dense here. The article list all the things a whole grain is made of and how it's good for the body/health and why. To not eat it would mean you're doing without or getting those nutrients from some place else. Which again implies it's better to not eat them for some reason.

Convo_sl said:

Let's try this another way...do you The Master believe that eating whole grains are detrimental to good health? You're implying that not eating grains would reduce the risk of those things even more. SO you must think that there is something in Whole grains causing things like Diabetes, cancer, etc.. That's what I'm not getting I guess..I'm really not trying to be dense here. The article list all the things a whole grain is made of and how it's good for the body/health and why. To not eat it would mean you're doing without or getting those nutrients from some place else. Which again implies it's better to not eat them for some reason.

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It isn't a matter of what Ibelieve. Serious scientists hold the opinion it may be the case and it is their specialty, there is evidence to support it, but not definitive evidence either way because of a lack of controlled studies, which is why it is one of a handful of primary theories about why humanity suddenly stopped living to be 70+ and 40+ started being an accomplishment, the moment grains become a staple part of our diet, so for something like the last 10,000 years, barring cultures which didn't eat grain (Asian cultures), except the last 2-3 generations due to enormous medical advances. But ignoring that evidence because it disagrees with what you believe is simply ignorant. That is my point in its entirety. It is flatly true that all the issues eating whole grains reduce vs eating refined flour are literally non-existent in HG cultures who eat effectively zero grains. If a reduction reduces the issues and eliminating them eliminates the issues, it might be time to put our thinking caps on and make the connection that the twomight berelated, there is a correlation. Causation hasn't been clearly indicatedeither wayby the science yet (though preliminary results from five clinical studies indicate that is, in fact, the case, but those studies were justifiably dismissed as being too short to truly answer the question by the panel of experts who did the USA News diet rankings). Clearly HG cultures aren't getting pellagra (which the entire American south got when we started using better rollers to refine flour, didn't stop till we started re-adding niacin) or other malnutrition diseases from a lack of vitamins and other trace elements that grains can provide, so they are getting them from some place else. Grains aren't the only source.

Deathwing_sl said:

Or you could be misinterpreting data, which I think you are.

Got any data on life expectancy AFTER grains were introduced, including periods before modern medicine?

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Yeah... in the study I linked. The one that says we started dying younger. Or you could google it. Or you could go ask any handy anthropologist, as it is common knowledge in their field, and one of their greatest debates is precisely why that is true. I even outlined several of the prominent potential reasons.

If anyone is misinterpreting data, it is every anthropologist on the planet. Seems unlikely.

LOOK WHAT OUR DIET HAS WROUGHT. From Master's own link.

It doesn't say that those who make it to 45 are elite survivors. If it did, you wouldn't see the death rate continue to slope upward after 45, you'd see a more drastic slope later on like the one we have for modern man.

Deathwing_sl said:

I'll admit I don't fully follow your point. Why can't a higher death rate after 45 mean those are the survivors? What should that part of the graph look like to infer survivors?

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I don't know what you are asking there, of course they are survivors otherwise there would be no data plots past that age. The statement that they've made it this far so will probably live longer would produce a line that straightens out for a little bit after 45 not one continues to increase.

Bottom line is, the difference between the HG and the Gatherer curve is pretty small, and there are plenty of lifestyle differences between the two societies that possibly make a much larger impact than diet. This is something I'm sure we both agree on.

Deathwing_sl said:

Is that directed towards me? Because I didn't say that, I'm just agreeing with it. The data says HGs that live past 45 have a ~26 year life expectancy after that. Makes sense to me.

There's a few more connect the dots for that to actually make sense. But I'm hoping Master actually engages in debate instead of constantly falling back on "I'm just the messenger!".

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But I am the messenger, none of this research is mine and I don't have an opinion, because it is merely a correlation, no causation has been proven and if that is where the scientific community is at (and it is) then why would I claim to know more than them? This all started because someone said they didn't want to live a short life like paleolithic man and, in reality, paleolithic man lived longer. Bottom line. Now, one of thetheoriesas to why, in the anthropological communities that deal with these questions (again, not my theory, not my field), is because of the switch from grains being 5% of humanities diet to a staple. It is one of about four strong theories, all of which are possible, none of them have been definitively eliminated. To dismiss the largest body of data we have on humans eating a paleolithic diet, namely HG societies both ancient and modern, is just silly in a discussionaboutwhether those diets are good for you. I'd say living longer is a pretty strong indication they are good for you. Now you go look at what causes early deaths in those societies. Childbirth. Well, modern medicine has that one pretty much locked up. Hunting accidents, accidents in general. We're pretty good on that front to, by comparison. Disease. Yeah, not a lot of diseases (no heart disease, for starters). Cancer. No, they didn't (and don't, there are modern HG societies that are being studied) get cancer. Those are all just facts. Now, taken together, they point in a rather obvious direction. But, again, there are mitigating factors and no study has conclusively proven anything. Since nothing has been conclusively proven, it seems very silly to bash the paleo diet on scientific grounds. That is where I stand.