What is this Paleo Diet????

Options
PittShkr
PittShkr Posts: 1,000 Member
In a few days, the world's population will reach 7 billion. Only a tiny fraction of this number still makes a living by hunting and gathering, the way all our ancestors did before about 12,000 years ago.

According to a set of claims relentlessly pushed in some books and blogs, as many modern humans as possible should adopt a hunter-gatherer diet. That is, we should eat lean meat and vegetables because our Paleolithic hunting-and-gathering ancestors did. At the same time, we should refuse dairy, grains and sugars because our hunting-and-gathering ancestors didn't eat these items.

You might think that, as an anthropologist, I'd greet this embrace of the human prehistoric past with unalloyed delight, especially in a country where a high percentage of our population is evolution-averse. Like most anthropologists, though, I don't think there's good science behind these claims

It's best to clarify right off that leaders of the paleo-diet movement don't think monolithically. Lean meat and veggies take center stage, but the emphasis may vary in details such as how much seafood to eat. A look at the current issue of Paleo — a magazine devoted to "modern primal living" — indicates that, in addition to food, paleo-faddists think hard about exercise and lifestyle choices.


Some of them, in fact, take a paleo-lifestyle to startling lengths. In profiling this "modern-day Stone Age subculture" and its leaders, Arthur de Vany and Loren Cordain, the German magazine Der Spiegel interviews disciples who run through the undergrowth and eat wild boar in explicit emulation of their Paleolithic forebears.

When I've interacted online with paleo-diet fans, though, I've found the great majority to be measured and thoughtful. With them, I worried aloud about the consequences of urging even more carnivory than we've already got. Largely, but not 100 percent, a vegetarian, I don't tell others what to eat. But the paleo-movement seems to doom (even if unintentionally) more animals to life and death in factory farms. A greater percentage of grain crops would also be diverted to rich countries' animals and away from poor countries' people.

What I learned is that some paleo-dieters reject the eating of animals from factory farms. Some don't eat much meat at all, focusing instead on avoiding grains and sugary foods. So no one should dismiss these people as blind fanatics. But do their core beliefs accord with good science?

Many nutrition scientists give the paleo-diet a thumbs-down. They worry about its dearth of carbohydrates, its cost, its impracticality, and the fact that its boasts for good health are medically unproven. For my part, I'll focus on the paleo-anthropology.

Our ancestors began to eat meat in large quantities around 2 million years ago, when the first Homo forms began regular use of stone tool technology. Before that, the diet of australopithecines and their relatives was overwhelmingly plant-based, judging from clues in teeth and bones. I could argue that the more genuine "paleo" diet was vegetarian.

More worrisome are persistent attempts to match a modern diet to an "average" Paleolithic one, or Loren Cordain's insistence that "we were genetically designed to eat lean meat and fish and other foods that made up the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors."

Here's where science most forcefully speaks back. First, ancient hunter-gatherer groups adapted to local environments that were regionally and seasonally variable — for instance, coastal or inland, game-saturated or grain-abundant (eating grains was not necessarily incompatible with hunter-gatherer living). Second, genes were not in control. People learned what worked in local context for survival and reproduction, and surely, just as in other primates, cultural traditions began to play a role in who ate what.

In short, there was no single hunter-gatherer foraging strategy, and genes no more "designed" our eating behavior than they designed our language or our ways of relating between the genders.

I'm left wondering what's the payoff to be had for pushing a popular diet as rooted in a mythically homogeneous, predictable human past. The lure of a good story may play a role. It's a mighty powerful image: our ancestors roaming over the landscape, perfectly in tune with their bodies and the environment. Some of my anthropologist colleagues refer to this pining for a pristine past as a paleo-fantasy.

It's not paleo-fantasy that's going to help us negotiate a healthy future, the 7 billion of us together, on this environmentally-endangered planet.

-NPR
«13

Replies

  • escloflowneCHANGED
    escloflowneCHANGED Posts: 3,038 Member
    Options
    How I imagine the Paleo supporters after reading this...

    0EbST.gif
  • PittShkr
    PittShkr Posts: 1,000 Member
    Options
    How I imagine the Paleo supporters after reading this...

    0EbST.gif

    Or
    OFFICE.gif
  • _Elemenopee_
    _Elemenopee_ Posts: 2,665 Member
    Options
    "Modern primal living"
    :laugh:
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
    Options
    tldr.jpg
  • PittShkr
    PittShkr Posts: 1,000 Member
    Options
    tldr.jpg

    Is that due to illiteracy or just being a douche?
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
    Options
    <pic snipped>

    Is that due to illiteracy or just being a douche?
    Due to cute kitty. And I'm still half asleep.

    Read it now. To clarify, as it's signed NPR, is this written by you?

    I've tried Paleo eating in the past and although I didn't find it particularly difficult, it didn't really do anything for me without counting calories as is sometimes claimed. The principles behind it, to me, are logical (except for eating raw meat) as it's a very difficult process to determine when evolution has progressed to such an extent as to define a new species. As far as I can tell, in terms of food processing, the main difference between us and our closest ancestors is the function of the appendix. I'm not an anthropologist by any means though, so I'm probably unaware of more modern adaptations.
  • aclark6818
    aclark6818 Posts: 209 Member
    Options
    I read in a the book,Eat Right for Your Blood Type, a similar idea--O blood type, the oldest type, is supposed to eat a diet similar to the "Paleo Diet" . I can't imagine living basically on lean meat alone or just vegetarian--I'm still trying to maintain a balance and doing well--feel better and have lost significant weight. I guess each person needs to find what works for their body. :flowerforyou:
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
    Options
    Ive said it many times. The paleo diet is a giant misnomer, and people love to be part of an exclusive group to make themselves feel better.
  • TheVimFuego
    TheVimFuego Posts: 2,412 Member
    Options
    I read in a the book,Eat Right for Your Blood Type, a similar idea--O blood type, the oldest type, is supposed to eat a diet similar to the "Paleo Diet" . I can't imagine living basically on lean meat alone or just vegetarian--I'm still trying to maintain a balance and doing well--feel better and have lost significant weight. I guess each person needs to find what works for their body. :flowerforyou:

    Amen, we are all different, our metabolic state is individual, a 'one size fits all' diet is not appropriate.

    Some people can handle the "healthy whole grains", some can't.

    Some can do dairy, some not.

    For some a 'Paleo Style' diet will help immensely, for others the difference will be marginal.

    We are all an experiment of one, there is no universal solution...
  • Neisah
    Neisah Posts: 9 Member
    Options
    Well, here is my take on the topic. I don't think as humans via evolution have the "chompers" for eating only plant food. We have teeth to tear flesh as well. I would rather eat meat that is without hormones to fatten it (than fatten me). I no longer have cravings for sugar or dairy. I find that I have tried more and varied fruits and veggies than I did eating processed and fast food. I was a big proponent of everything in moderation but this weekend I had some lemonade (made with refined sugar). For the next two hours I was totally bloated. Maybe this is just about clean eating. It is not as if you do not get carbs by eating a paleo diet.
  • VegesaurusRex
    VegesaurusRex Posts: 1,018
    Options
    In a few days, the world's population will reach 7 billion. Only a tiny fraction of this number still makes a living by hunting and gathering, the way all our ancestors did before about 12,000 years ago.

    According to a set of claims relentlessly pushed in some books and blogs, as many modern humans as possible should adopt a hunter-gatherer diet. That is, we should eat lean meat and vegetables because our Paleolithic hunting-and-gathering ancestors did. At the same time, we should refuse dairy, grains and sugars because our hunting-and-gathering ancestors didn't eat these items.

    You might think that, as an anthropologist, I'd greet this embrace of the human prehistoric past with unalloyed delight, especially in a country where a high percentage of our population is evolution-averse. Like most anthropologists, though, I don't think there's good science behind these claims

    It's best to clarify right off that leaders of the paleo-diet movement don't think monolithically. Lean meat and veggies take center stage, but the emphasis may vary in details such as how much seafood to eat. A look at the current issue of Paleo — a magazine devoted to "modern primal living" — indicates that, in addition to food, paleo-faddists think hard about exercise and lifestyle choices.


    Some of them, in fact, take a paleo-lifestyle to startling lengths. In profiling this "modern-day Stone Age subculture" and its leaders, Arthur de Vany and Loren Cordain, the German magazine Der Spiegel interviews disciples who run through the undergrowth and eat wild boar in explicit emulation of their Paleolithic forebears.

    When I've interacted online with paleo-diet fans, though, I've found the great majority to be measured and thoughtful. With them, I worried aloud about the consequences of urging even more carnivory than we've already got. Largely, but not 100 percent, a vegetarian, I don't tell others what to eat. But the paleo-movement seems to doom (even if unintentionally) more animals to life and death in factory farms. A greater percentage of grain crops would also be diverted to rich countries' animals and away from poor countries' people.

    What I learned is that some paleo-dieters reject the eating of animals from factory farms. Some don't eat much meat at all, focusing instead on avoiding grains and sugary foods. So no one should dismiss these people as blind fanatics. But do their core beliefs accord with good science?

    Many nutrition scientists give the paleo-diet a thumbs-down. They worry about its dearth of carbohydrates, its cost, its impracticality, and the fact that its boasts for good health are medically unproven. For my part, I'll focus on the paleo-anthropology.

    Our ancestors began to eat meat in large quantities around 2 million years ago, when the first Homo forms began regular use of stone tool technology. Before that, the diet of australopithecines and their relatives was overwhelmingly plant-based, judging from clues in teeth and bones. I could argue that the more genuine "paleo" diet was vegetarian.

    More worrisome are persistent attempts to match a modern diet to an "average" Paleolithic one, or Loren Cordain's insistence that "we were genetically designed to eat lean meat and fish and other foods that made up the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors."

    Here's where science most forcefully speaks back. First, ancient hunter-gatherer groups adapted to local environments that were regionally and seasonally variable — for instance, coastal or inland, game-saturated or grain-abundant (eating grains was not necessarily incompatible with hunter-gatherer living). Second, genes were not in control. People learned what worked in local context for survival and reproduction, and surely, just as in other primates, cultural traditions began to play a role in who ate what.

    In short, there was no single hunter-gatherer foraging strategy, and genes no more "designed" our eating behavior than they designed our language or our ways of relating between the genders.

    I'm left wondering what's the payoff to be had for pushing a popular diet as rooted in a mythically homogeneous, predictable human past. The lure of a good story may play a role. It's a mighty powerful image: our ancestors roaming over the landscape, perfectly in tune with their bodies and the environment. Some of my anthropologist colleagues refer to this pining for a pristine past as a paleo-fantasy.

    It's not paleo-fantasy that's going to help us negotiate a healthy future, the 7 billion of us together, on this environmentally-endangered planet.

    -NPR

    PittShkr, very interesting post. I agree with just about everything you said. I recently posted on the Paleo diet (on which I am by no means an expert) on another board. I was posting to a person I know who is all gung ho on Paleo. I posted my problems with that diet from my point of view, which like yours is at least partly anthropological. I would love to hear comments, yours certainly included.


    The Paleolithic diet itself, as I understand it, has several major problems:

    1. Nobody knows what it was. Various sites have provided spotty information on what people ate in certain locations. We know about far, far less than 1% of Paleolithic culture and diet. And then only at a few locations. The period that the Paleolitich culture dominated was the better part of a million years. We have small snapshot here and there of what the culture was.

    2. The Paleolithic world was a totally different world to the world of today. I believe that more change has taken place in technology, science and diet, during the last 100 years than has taken place in all previous history combined. In the 18th and 19th century, I believe, European Civilization was generally quite healthy, and their diet was generally quite good. Yes, they ate meat, but not like today. They ate far less, with the majority of people having meat only a few times per year. The meat was a different quality, not shot full of hormones, not marbled fat, not full of antibiotics. Yes the life span of that time was probably under 50 years, but that is not due to diet and lack of exercise, but rather to the lack of advances in modern medical science. Medical science is Janis faced. It has given us longer life, while giving us greater morbiity during the years we have. The diseases of old age were not a problem then, since only a few lived to old age.

    3. The modern world has provided us with unprecidented opportunity to eat meat, and the meat is poisoned. Fractory farming and government subsidies have made meat cheaper than bread in some places. People eat lots of meat three times per day or even more. Thus we have a population where many young people look like puffed up caricatures of what a human being is supposed to look like. Obesity and diabetes are plagues. Healthwise, modern diet is unsustainable. Fish are full of mercury and heavy metals. Chicken are full of hormones and antibiotics. What totally amazes me is that meat eaters buy this poison and eat it. Even if I ate meat, I wouldn't touch that crap. Not to mention how cruel factory farming is. Concentration camps for innocent animals. What pigs human beings are. (Sorry, I don't mean to insult pigs.) Anyway, I digress, and I think that here I may be preaching to the choir.

    4. Even if we knew exactly what the Paleo Diet was, trying to reproduce it today would probably be counter productive. Our world is not a Paleolithic place. Any diet for survival and the good life today should take into account what is available today, not during a period that ended 10,000 years ago. Nowadays we have vitamins, food supplements, health clubs, and many things that Paleolithic man never dreamed of. An intelligent person today can pick out the good stuff and leave the crap, and can have the perfect diet for the modern world. I of course maintain that is vegan vegetarian, but I actually do believe other possibilities are good. Also, I believe that there are vegetarians that have extremely unhealthy diets - junk food vegetarians. These people are doing themselves no favors.

    Shortly thereafter, I posted the following:

    1. The average life span for Paleos was probably less than 50 years. Admittedly, that is much more due to modern medicine and technology than to a bad lifestyle on behalf of Paleolithic man, but even so, if you are going to go the route and be a purist, are you going to accept medicine? Any technology that helps you survive, e.g., cars, bikes or planes. Remember Paleo man walked everywhere. That is a huge part of his lifestyle and likely a reason for some of his good health.

    2. If you are going to take some of modern technology (e.g. medicine and cars), and if you are going to do thinks like study in a university or do your work on a computer) then why not also accept that Paleo man would also have modified his lifestyle and likely his food choices if he were able to. I am not suggesting eat meat whenever you can, but make intelligent compromises. For example, at various times in human pre history, man needed a boost, if you will. Anthropologists generally believe that at the advent of Homo erectus (1.8 MYA) vegetable food became scarce or less available so man had to substitute meat. Anthropologists also generally believe that switching to a diet of more concentrated nutrients caused man's brain to increase in sice over the eons from the size of Austrolopithicus (about 300cc) to about 1000 cc. Modern man has a brain size of about 1,350 cc. Anyway back to my point. Since we have the technology to get concentrated nutrients WITHOUT resorting to meat (e.g., nuts, protein bars, various vegetarian sauces and foods) why not utilize those aspects of technology along with cars and computers? In other words, rather than revert to a diet which is little known and probably not even possible today, why not recreate that diet or better it with what we have available today?

    (Note on above: I do not believe current anthropological thought concerning the need for concentrated nutrients to increase brain size. My reasons are:

    1. The timing is off. Homo erectus emerged about 1.8 MYA, yet the earliest hunting tools we have found date from about 2.5 MYA. The first REALLY GOOD hunting tools date from about 200,000 YA.

    2. Starting with H.erectus, brain sized started increasing until some unknown time in the relatively recent past, and has been DECREASING for at least the past 30,000 years. If anything, hunting and the availability of meat has been increasing for the past 30,000 years. And in any event, brain size isn't per se a benefit. Neandrathal Man had a much bigger brain than Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and yet he is extinct.

    3. Man is anatomically a herbivore. It may have been an advantage at one or more points in our evolution to have nutrient dense meat, but constant availablity of meat can only hurt us, as in fact, it is proving. I believe that because we are herbivores, in the future, assuming we would ever need constantly dense protein and nutrients such as are found in meat, it would be more to our nature to substitute nutrient dense vegetarian products.
  • TheVimFuego
    TheVimFuego Posts: 2,412 Member
    Options
    Well, here is my take on the topic. I don't think as humans via evolution have the "chompers" for eating only plant food. We have teeth to tear flesh as well. I would rather eat meat that is without hormones to fatten it (than fatten me). I no longer have cravings for sugar or dairy. I find that I have tried more and varied fruits and veggies than I did eating processed and fast food. I was a big proponent of everything in moderation but this weekend I had some lemonade (made with refined sugar). For the next two hours I was totally bloated. Maybe this is just about clean eating. It is not as if you do not get carbs by eating a paleo diet.

    I hear that.

    Nowt wrong with carbs, I get plenty of them from veggies, not many from a packet though :)

    To steal a quote ... "You are what you eat eats" ....
  • VegesaurusRex
    VegesaurusRex Posts: 1,018
    Options
    Well, here is my take on the topic. I don't think as humans via evolution have the "chompers" for eating only plant food. We have teeth to tear flesh as well. I would rather eat meat that is without hormones to fatten it (than fatten me). I no longer have cravings for sugar or dairy. I find that I have tried more and varied fruits and veggies than I did eating processed and fast food. I was a big proponent of everything in moderation but this weekend I had some lemonade (made with refined sugar). For the next two hours I was totally bloated. Maybe this is just about clean eating. It is not as if you do not get carbs by eating a paleo diet.

    I disagree. Human dentition is herbivore. This is what carnivore dentition looks like:

    http://free-extras.com/images/tiger_teeth-210.htm
  • VegesaurusRex
    VegesaurusRex Posts: 1,018
    Options
    Anatomically and physiologically, people are herbivores. Therefore the Paleo diet, as I understand it (and I admit I could be wrong) necessarily goes against our nature.

    Facial Muscles
    Carnivore: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
    Herbivore: Well-developed
    Human: Well-developed

    Jaw Type
    Carnivore: Angle not expanded
    Herbivore: Expanded angle
    Human: Expanded angle

    Jaw Joint Location
    Carnivore: On same plane as molar teeth
    Herbivore: Above the plane of the molars
    Human: Above the plane of the molars

    Jaw Motion
    Carnivore: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
    Herbivore: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
    Human: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

    Major Jaw Muscles
    Carnivore: Temporalis
    Herbivore: Masseter and pterygoids
    Human: Masseter and pterygoids

    Mouth Opening vs. Head Size
    Carnivore: Large
    Herbivore: Small
    Human: Small

    Teeth (Incisors)
    Carnivore: Short and pointed
    Herbivore: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
    Human: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

    Teeth (Canines)
    Carnivore: Long, sharp and curved
    Herbivore: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
    Human: Short and blunted

    Teeth (Molars)
    Carnivore: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
    Herbivore: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
    Human: Flattened with nodular cusps

    Chewing
    Carnivore: None; swallows food whole
    Herbivore: Extensive chewing necessary
    Human: Extensive chewing necessary

    Saliva
    Carnivore: No digestive enzymes
    Herbivore: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
    Human: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

    Stomach
    Carnivore: Simple
    Herbivore: Simple or multiple chambers
    Human: Simple

    Stomach Acidity
    Carnivore: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
    Herbivore: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
    Human: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

    Stomach Capacity
    Carnivore: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
    Herbivore: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
    Human: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

    Length of Small Intestine
    Carnivore: 3 to 6 times body length
    Herbivore: 10 to more than 12 times body length
    Human: 10 to 11 times body length

    Colon
    Carnivore: Simple, short and smooth
    Herbivore: Long, complex; may be sacculated
    Human: Long, sacculated

    Liver
    Carnivore: Can detoxify vitamin A
    Herbivore: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
    Human: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

    Kidneys
    Carnivore: Extremely concentrated urine
    Herbivore: Moderately concentrated urine
    Human: Moderately concentrated urine

    Nails
    Carnivore: Sharp claws
    Herbivore: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
    Human: Flattened nails


    Anatomically and physiologically, people are herbivores.


    When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings." --William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
    Options
    That is interesting vegesaurus, but the human digestive system cant break down cellulose at an effective rate to get the required nuitrition from a herbivore diet.
  • VegesaurusRex
    VegesaurusRex Posts: 1,018
    Options
    That is interesting vegesaurus, but the human digestive system cant break down cellulose at an effective rate to get the required nuitrition from a herbivore diet.

    Are you saying vegetarians cannot survive? I am not really sure I understand what you are saying. True we cannot eat grass like cattle, but there are other vegetarian food sources.
  • PittShkr
    PittShkr Posts: 1,000 Member
    Options
    stayontopic.jpg
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
    Options
    deleted to stay on topic.
  • VegesaurusRex
    VegesaurusRex Posts: 1,018
    Options
    stayontopic.jpg

    Okay, the topic is Paleo Diet, right?

    If we are a vegetarian species, as I and the Editor of the American Journal of Cardiology believe, among many many others, isn't the Paleo diet necessarily wrong for our species, since it seems to be meat centered? I admit I don't understand the Paleo diet, or Paleo thinking. Not meaning to insult anyone but it seems like another fad, and it certainly doesn't appear to be based on either hard phsiological science or anthropology. This is how it appears to me to be. I am open to correction if I am wrong.
  • PittShkr
    PittShkr Posts: 1,000 Member
    Options
    Ah, the well-trod ground of the "Are humans omnivores, herbivores, or carnivores?" debate. Older than hippies and more soundly blogged than nearly any other topic in the veganosphere (I just love that word and I think it sounds like something out of Flash Gordon, i.e. badass.), this question is like The Thunderdome of Vegan arguments. Serious business. Now, let's make one thing perfectly clear. "Omnivore" does NOT mean "creature that can eat an utterly carnivorous OR an utterly herbivorous diet naturally and be perfectly healthy." An omnivore is simply an opportunistic feeder, an organism that is well-suited for eating a bit of this and a bit of that, catch as catch can. Therefore, the argument that "Well, if humans were truly omnivores we would be able to eat a totally carnivorous diet but we can't so WE MUST BE HERBIVORES" is absurd. Besides, some people out there honestly seem to be doing just fine on a Paleo, Keto, or Zero Carb diet. Please look at this for what it is–for every ten people dying of clogged arteries from too many cheeseburgers, there are one or two subsisting on little more than lean meats and apparently doing just fine…and, for every healthy, happy Robert Cheeke out there, there are two or three very ill-seeming vegans.

    Fellow vegans. I adore you. I do. But arguing that humans are "natural herbivores" really, really makes us all look foolish. Every time I hear the "Look at these grinding teeth and that long digestive tract and blah blah blah we are clearly herbivores," argument coming from a vegan, I wince in despair.