PALEO: pros, cons and whatever else you may think?

sloth3toes

In for round 2.

Ditto

bcattoes

These are just short-term eliminations to help people determine which foods cause problems for them. The theory is that we've been eating these potentially problematic foods for essentially our whole lives, so we've come to assume the reactions we get from them are just normal (anecdotes vary as to what these symptoms are). The idea is to eliminate them for a short time, long enough to get them out of your system, and then slowly reintroduce them one at a time and see how you react? No problems? Then you know you personally don't react badly to that food. There've been tons of anecdotal evidence showing people's surprise improvement after eliminating foods they never knew they had issues with.

Yeah, this is another thing that always gets thrown out there in Paleo discussions. You have symptoms you don't even know about. You feel wonderful, you have healthy medical tests and exams, but there is some mysterious malady going on inside your body that can't be detected by tests and doesn't make you feel bad. Not really any way to argue one doesn't have the invisible disease, now there is there?

But my question would be, why should I care about some undetectable symptoms if they don't affect my heatlh or make me feel bad?

paleojoe

But my question would be, why should I care about some undetectable symptoms if they don't affect my heatlh or make me feel bad?

You shouldn't care if you don't want or feel the need to. Others see and hear enough correlation to "see what happens" when certain foods are removed. The problem arrises when someone removes a food, feels better and then goes on to assume everyone should do the same.

paleojoe

These are not my own words. This is from an interview between Chris Kresser and Mat Lalonde. I paraphrased to make it more concise. I think it is a fairy reasonable way to look at the whole paleo thing...

"There is really no such thing as a “paleo” diet because the foods are not available anymore.  The best you can do it try to mimic it.  So… a diet that’s meat, vegetables, tubers, and fruits… that’s what I call it.

Typical arguments go like this:  Our ancestors and modern hunter-gatherers, who were virtually free of diseases of civilization, consumed a diet that was mostly devoid of grains, legumes, and dairy. People then make the invalid inference that consuming a diet mostly devoid of grains, legumes, and dairy will thus allow us to be free of diseases of civilization.  Why is this invalid? Because it is observational and full of confounding factors (a variable that was not observed).

You can’t observe everything, so there’s almost always going to be, especially when it comes to human beings that are very complex and multivariate that live in a very complex and multivariate environment.  You are never going to see everything.  So observational epidemiology is great for formulating hypotheses and asking questions, but it doesn’t answer any questions.  The same is true about this statement.  You know, it’s just an observation.  It’s just a correlation.  You can’t say for sure that, yes, it is the case that if we eat like that we’re going to avoid the diseases of civilization, so you have to be very, very careful with that.

But there are some folks who are coming from different fields, and really all they’re grasping on is this evolutionary thing, and they don’t realize that all it is really at the end of the day is a great way to formulate hypotheses. We have to be careful not to assume that correlation equals causation. That said, it is reasonable to use that as a starting place, to do some further investigation and see whether or not there is any truth to it.

Another typical argument goes like this: We evolved over millions of years without consuming the foods that became readily available only after the advent of agriculture.  Hence, we’re not adapted to these foods.  But this assumes that a species isn’t adapted to a food because it’s never consumed it.  And if you look at the evolutionary record, that’s incorrect.  There are plenty of examples throughout evolution where species discover novel sources of food and thrive on them. Like humans and meat? Humans started out by eating fruits, plants and insects.  Then they scavenged marrow from bones and also brains from skulls, and eventually became some of the meanest, baddest hunters on the planet.

Thus a better statement would be… There has been insufficient time and evolutionally pressure for complete adaptation to seed consumption to arise in homo-sapiens."

jenn26point2

This is why personally, I like the Whole30 idea better than Paleo. Maybe legumes are bad for you, maybe they're healthy. Rather than making it my new full time job to read studies and see what the latest word is on every type of food out there, I can stop eating foods that might bother me for 30 days and then reintroduce them one at a time and see if I feel better or worse.

Studies are great for the big picture and the average person but I want to know what's best for my individual body. And for me this is a really effective way to determine how different foods affect me personally.

I agree with this for those that have some type of symptoms. But, if one has no problems, then there is no need to eliminate foods.

These are just short-term eliminations to help people determine which foods cause problems for them. The theory is that we've been eating these potentially problematic foods for essentially our whole lives, so we've come to assume the reactions we get from them are just normal (anecdotes vary as to what these symptoms are). The idea is to eliminate them for a short time, long enough to get them out of your system, and then slowly reintroduce them one at a time and see how you react? No problems? Then you know you personally don't react badly to that food. There've been tons of anecdotal evidence showing people's surprise improvement after eliminating foods they never knew they had issues with.

And a lot of ancestral lifestyle plans have similar elimination diets or advocate self-experimentation like this to determine how you personally react so that you can tailor your lifestyle to your own needs. This is especially true with the fringe foods like dairy, rice, etc. that there is less of a definitive stance on.

I love whole30. It's taught me a lot about what foods work well with my body and what foods don't. It is temporary.

Through Whole30, I learned I have a mild dairy allergy and a mild wheat allergy. I avoid wheat b/c I don't like the bloat it causes, but I don't avoid dairy b/c it doesn't have really bad effects on me, just some minor sinus stuff.

jenn26point2

But my question would be, why should I care about some undetectable symptoms if they don't affect my heatlh or make me feel bad?

You shouldn't care if you don't want or feel the need to. Others see and hear enough correlation to "see what happens" when certain foods are removed. The problem arrises when someone removes a food, feels better and then goes on to assume everyone should do the same.

I agree with this, but... While I won't tell anyone they SHOULD follow "paleo", I do recommend it as a trial if things are not going well, i.e. someone is constantly getting sick with respiratory stuff (dairy could be the culprit), someone has continuous IBS related issues, someone can't lose weight no matter what they do, constant tendonitis that won't go away no matter what... I suggest they try it for 30 days and see how they feel at the end. If they don't like it, they can always go back to eating like they were.

jofjltncb6

In for round 2.

Ditto

The sequel is never as good as the original.

ryry_

In for round 2.

Ditto

The sequel is never as good as the original.

Shrek 2 thinks you need to cut it out with the absolutes

aimforhealthy

I don't like dairy (except occasionally Greek yogurt or a slice of cheese on a burger), I'm not big on grains/breads/rice/beans and love eggs, meat and veggies, so the pros for me is that "paleo" cookbooks are all basically guaranteed to contain recipes I'll like. I like most "raw" recipes too, but I've found that, generally speaking, "Paleo" recipes are much, much simpler to make.I made an amazing roasted pork loin with fresh herbs and cooking wine, sweet potato fries and a beet-and-radish salad yesterday, all from a paleo cookbook, and had dinner on the table in 20 minutes. Dinner under 500 calories, and my uber-picky kid loved it. So the pros for me with paleo are that it's usually yummy, low-cal and easy. The cons are that it can get expensive and restricts a lot and also uses coconut oil a lot which I find off-putting, so I use olive oil instead.

darkangel45422

These are not my own words. This is from an interview between Chris Kresser and Mat Lalonde. I paraphrased to make it more concise. I think it is a fairy reasonable way to look at the whole paleo thing...

"There is really no such thing as a “paleo” diet because the foods are not available anymore.  The best you can do it try to mimic it.  So… a diet that’s meat, vegetables, tubers, and fruits… that’s what I call it.

Typical arguments go like this:  Our ancestors and modern hunter-gatherers, who were virtually free of diseases of civilization, consumed a diet that was mostly devoid of grains, legumes, and dairy. People then make the invalid inference that consuming a diet mostly devoid of grains, legumes, and dairy will thus allow us to be free of diseases of civilization.  Why is this invalid? Because it is observational and full of confounding factors (a variable that was not observed).

You can’t observe everything, so there’s almost always going to be, especially when it comes to human beings that are very complex and multivariate that live in a very complex and multivariate environment.  You are never going to see everything.  So observational epidemiology is great for formulating hypotheses and asking questions, but it doesn’t answer any questions.  The same is true about this statement.  You know, it’s just an observation.  It’s just a correlation.  You can’t say for sure that, yes, it is the case that if we eat like that we’re going to avoid the diseases of civilization, so you have to be very, very careful with that.

But there are some folks who are coming from different fields, and really all they’re grasping on is this evolutionary thing, and they don’t realize that all it is really at the end of the day is a great way to formulate hypotheses. We have to be careful not to assume that correlation equals causation. That said, it is reasonable to use that as a starting place, to do some further investigation and see whether or not there is any truth to it.

Another typical argument goes like this: We evolved over millions of years without consuming the foods that became readily available only after the advent of agriculture.  Hence, we’re not adapted to these foods.  But this assumes that a species isn’t adapted to a food because it’s never consumed it.  And if you look at the evolutionary record, that’s incorrect.  There are plenty of examples throughout evolution where species discover novel sources of food and thrive on them. Like humans and meat? Humans started out by eating fruits, plants and insects.  Then they scavenged marrow from bones and also brains from skulls, and eventually became some of the meanest, baddest hunters on the planet.

Thus a better statement would be… There has been insufficient time and evolutionally pressure for complete adaptation to seed consumption to arise in homo-sapiens."

I actually agree with basically everything in this. The Paleolithic era/caveman/ancestral lifestyle thing is more like some of the ideas behind the plan; it's not the whole plan in and of itself. You see these correlations, go 'huh, that's interesting...I wonder...' and then test it out, or research it, etc. etc. For a lot of people it seems to have helped them achieve a healthy happy life. Doesn't mean it's the only way, or will work for everyone, but it obviously works for some people, and nothing about the plan is, as far as I can tell, unhealthy, so what's the problem.

darkangel45422

These are just short-term eliminations to help people determine which foods cause problems for them. The theory is that we've been eating these potentially problematic foods for essentially our whole lives, so we've come to assume the reactions we get from them are just normal (anecdotes vary as to what these symptoms are). The idea is to eliminate them for a short time, long enough to get them out of your system, and then slowly reintroduce them one at a time and see how you react? No problems? Then you know you personally don't react badly to that food. There've been tons of anecdotal evidence showing people's surprise improvement after eliminating foods they never knew they had issues with.

Yeah, this is another thing that always gets thrown out there in Paleo discussions. You have symptoms you don't even know about. You feel wonderful, you have healthy medical tests and exams, but there is some mysterious malady going on inside your body that can't be detected by tests and doesn't make you feel bad. Not really any way to argue one doesn't have the invisible disease, now there is there?

But my question would be, why should I care about some undetectable symptoms if they don't affect my heatlh or make me feel bad?

You're equating you not noticing them to them not affecting your health or making you feel bad. The idea goes something like this - if when you were an infant someone stuck a tack in your foot, and then replaced that tack with a new tack every single day, you would likely grow up thinking that was totally normal, both having the tack and all of the pain etc. that comes with having a tack in your foot. But if you remove the tack and don't replace it, giving your body time to heal, you'll realize just what the tack was doing to you.

That's the idea behind elimination diets like the Whole30. Sometimes these foods cause symptoms we don't realize are symptoms because we've lived with them our whole lives - disturbed sleep, acne, dull hair, bloating, etc. etc. etc. Only when you eliminate whatever's causing these symptoms do you realize that they're not necessarily just part of life, but are in fact caused by a sensitivity/etc. to a certain food. They're not "invisible diseases" - a lot of the time they're things people have just assumed are normal parts of life, or things that normal treatments haven't fixed, etc. Plus, a lot of the time these aren't just minor irritants but actually symptoms of larger issues like inflammation, which will DEFINITELY impact your health, either now or in the future.

There are a lot of diseases that ARE actually invisible or able to go completely unnoticed unless you go looking specifically for them, so there's no need to treat that as some kind of ridiculous notion - not that it's even the notion behind the elimination diet to begin with.

If you feel great and you think that's as good as it gets, then by all means, feel there's no need to give it a try. Heck, if you feel like crap and KNOW this might be the problem, by all means don't give it a try. No one's forcing anyone, or saying you have to; we're just saying that if you're interested in seeing how/if these foods affect you, give it a whirl. Worst comes to worst you miss some foods you enjoy for a month. Best case scenario, you manage to cure a lot of your problems.

RivenV

In for round 2

mmipanda

I missed round 1

i'm in favour of it. I did it properly for a few months and felt amazing. Dropped weight really easy, full of energy, didn't miss normal foods at all. But I've been off it for a while - moving house meant I just didn't have the kitchen time needed. Still trying to make good choices and I haven't gained any weight back. But I definitely feel better eating paleo. I'm still keeping up some parts that have become a habit, like my morning coffee made on almond milk.

paleojoe

I actually agree with basically everything in this. The Paleolithic era/caveman/ancestral lifestyle thing is more like some of the ideas behind the plan; it's not the whole plan in and of itself. You see these correlations, go 'huh, that's interesting...I wonder...' and then test it out, or research it, etc. etc. For a lot of people it seems to have helped them achieve a healthy happy life. Doesn't mean it's the only way, or will work for everyone, but it obviously works for some people, and nothing about the plan is, as far as I can tell, unhealthy, so what's the problem.

The problem is when some, in the paleo community classify foods as absolutely good or bad, when in reality it should be more like… these foods may be problematic if xyz...

paleojoe

In for round 2.

Ditto

The sequel is never as good as the original.

Except for Empire Strikes Back... IMO blew away Star Wars

SnicciFit

This is why personally, I like the Whole30 idea better than Paleo. Maybe legumes are bad for you, maybe they're healthy. Rather than making it my new full time job to read studies and see what the latest word is on every type of food out there, I can stop eating foods that might bother me for 30 days and then reintroduce them one at a time and see if I feel better or worse.

Studies are great for the big picture and the average person but I want to know what's best for my individual body. And for me this is a really effective way to determine how different foods affect me personally.

I agree with this for those that have some type of symptoms. But, if one has no problems, then there is no need to eliminate foods.

These are just short-term eliminations to help people determine which foods cause problems for them. The theory is that we've been eating these potentially problematic foods for essentially our whole lives, so we've come to assume the reactions we get from them are just normal (anecdotes vary as to what these symptoms are). The idea is to eliminate them for a short time, long enough to get them out of your system, and then slowly reintroduce them one at a time and see how you react? No problems? Then you know you personally don't react badly to that food. There've been tons of anecdotal evidence showing people's surprise improvement after eliminating foods they never knew they had issues with.

And a lot of ancestral lifestyle plans have similar elimination diets or advocate self-experimentation like this to determine how you personally react so that you can tailor your lifestyle to your own needs. This is especially true with the fringe foods like dairy, rice, etc. that there is less of a definitive stance on.

I love whole30. It's taught me a lot about what foods work well with my body and what foods don't. It is temporary.

Through Whole30, I learned I have a mild dairy allergy and a mild wheat allergy. I avoid wheat b/c I don't like the bloat it causes, but I don't avoid dairy b/c it doesn't have really bad effects on me, just some minor sinus stuff.

To add to the Whole30 discussion, a typical outcome of someone doing the a whole30 for whatever reason (wanting to lose weight, wanting more energy...etc) is often a discovery that what they were eating was the cause of something like their migraines. They are 3 weeks into their 30 days and they suddenly realize that they haven't taken their "migraine medicine" in over 2 weeks. After they complete the reintroduction phase, they find out what causes their migraines in the first place. Quite liberating, if you ask me. Now they can treat the cause instead of take medicine that probably doesn't work real well or has side effects.

Or... After avoiding things like grains, legumes & added sugar, things like IBS & joint pain subside (possibly from healing a "leaky gut"?) and then some grains, legumes and sugars can be added back in without harm (personal experience).

Foosday

Following.

jofjltncb6

In for round 2.

Ditto

The sequel is never as good as the original.

Except for Empire Strikes Back... IMO blew away Star Wars

Okay, so that's one vote for ESB > SW and one (really suspect) vote for Shrek 2 > Shrek...

...but those are the *only* exceptions. Ever.

stephlahtinen

Except for Empire Strikes Back... IMO blew away Star Wars
[/quote]


truuuuuuue

Mr_Knight

I wonder if a Slimcado qualifies as "paleo"?