Paleo diet, crazy or worth it?

Peanuts can not be consumed in their natural state. You can not dig up a peanut and pop it in your mouth and eat it like you can say almonds. You can eat RAW almonds.

Also, many Paleo people eat RAW dairy. This means they consume raw cheese, raw milk, butter made from raw cream, etc. Like milk a cow raw dairy.

That is what Paleo is. Eating for health and nutrition and eating foods that can be eaten in their natural state as well as cooked.

So you can eat meat in its natural state (uncooked)?

^^^ :laugh:

I am a fan of raw dairy. But I am also a fan of roasted almonds. They taste nasty when they are raw. Honestly, I believe that *most* food tastes better when it's heated/grilled/toasted/roasted, etc. Raw food diets were big in the 90s. The owner of our local herb store is still into it.

And why is it ok to eat a food once it's cooked, but only if that food could potentially be eaten raw? That makes no sense.

I don't do Paleo, but I'm pretty sure it's not a "fad diet".

My sister in law and her husband started on this diet. She has lost a lot of weight in the month she has been on it. I personally don’t think it’s good to go on a diet. I believe diets are to short term. I believe it’s better to change your outlook on food and listen to your body. I don’t think fad diets work in the long run.

I pretty sure that the term "fad" describes it appropriately. It's the latest thing in dieting and will not stand the test of time. It's much better than some of these silly single-food diets and such, but indeed, it is a fad.

A natural diet based on animals and plants "didn't stand the test of time". Really? You win the award for the most brilliant comment ever. :noway:

You are not exactly describing "paleo" when you say a natural diet based on plants and animals. Don't peanuts come from plants? Does cheese and milk come from animals?

You are completely looking over the point.

Peanuts can not be consumed in their natural state. You can not dig up a peanut and pop it in your mouth and eat it like you can say almonds. You can eat RAW almonds.

Also, many Paleo people eat RAW dairy. This means they consume raw cheese, raw milk, butter made from raw cream, etc. Like milk a cow raw dairy.

That is what Paleo is. Eating for health and nutrition and eating foods that can be eaten in their natural state as well as cooked.

So you can eat meat in its natural state (uncooked)?

oven roasted almonds (no oils used) are awesome

Peanuts can not be consumed in their natural state. You can not dig up a peanut and pop it in your mouth and eat it like you can say almonds. You can eat RAW almonds.

Also, many Paleo people eat RAW dairy. This means they consume raw cheese, raw milk, butter made from raw cream, etc. Like milk a cow raw dairy.

That is what Paleo is. Eating for health and nutrition and eating foods that can be eaten in their natural state as well as cooked.

So you can eat meat in its natural state (uncooked)?

^^^ :laugh:

I am a fan of raw dairy. But I am also a fan of roasted almonds. They taste nasty when they are raw. Honestly, I believe that *most* food tastes better when it's heated/grilled/toasted/roasted, etc. Raw food diets were big in the 90s. The owner of our local herb store is still into it.

And why is it ok to eat a food once it's cooked, but only if that food could potentially be eaten raw? That makes no sense.

I don't think Paleo eliminates peanuts because you can't eat them raw. Here's some reasons which come from the Mark's Daily Apple blog. Any time you wonder why Paleo/Primal eliminates a food, you'll find the answer on his site. His answers always focus on the science, and if the science isn't fully definitive, he'll say that. I just picked a few items to reproduce below, but you can read the full post at: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-bad-is-peanut-butter-really/#axzz29UEuSDiJ

{snip}

{{Peanut butter}}

The only peanut form I don't like is boiled. People love those down here, but I find them icky.

I eat peanut butter pretty much every day, with my dark chocolate. Yum.

Peanuts can not be consumed in their natural state. You can not dig up a peanut and pop it in your mouth and eat it like you can say almonds. You can eat RAW almonds.

Also, many Paleo people eat RAW dairy. This means they consume raw cheese, raw milk, butter made from raw cream, etc. Like milk a cow raw dairy.

That is what Paleo is. Eating for health and nutrition and eating foods that can be eaten in their natural state as well as cooked.

So you can eat meat in its natural state (uncooked)?

^^^ :laugh:

I am a fan of raw dairy. But I am also a fan of roasted almonds. They taste nasty when they are raw. Honestly, I believe that *most* food tastes better when it's heated/grilled/toasted/roasted, etc. Raw food diets were big in the 90s. The owner of our local herb store is still into it.

And why is it ok to eat a food once it's cooked, but only if that food could potentially be eaten raw? That makes no sense.

I don't think Paleo eliminates peanuts because you can't eat them raw. Here's some reasons which come from the Mark's Daily Apple blog. Any time you wonder why Paleo/Primal eliminates a food, you'll find the answer on his site. His answers always focus on the science, and if the science isn't fully definitive, he'll say that. I just picked a few items to reproduce below, but you can read the full post at: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-bad-is-peanut-butter-really/#axzz29UEuSDiJ

"Why should we avoid it? What’s not to like about peanut butter? I’m not even going to discuss the soybean oil and sugar-laden garbage that passes for peanut butter, because my readers definitely aren’t asking about that stuff. They’re doing natural butter with peanuts (and salt) as likely the only ingredient.

It generally contains aflatoxins.

Aflatoxins are naturally occurring fungal toxins, or mycotoxins, produced by certain members of Aspergillus, a type of fungus found pretty much everywhere throughout the world. Aspergillus tends to colonize any monosaccharide and polysaccharide it comes across, as long as the conditions are right, but peanuts are particularly susceptible. Most crops are colonized after harvest and during storage, but since Aspergillus is found in the soil (among other places) and peanuts grow underground, peanut colonization often occurs well before harvest. The result is that peanuts are among the most contaminated crops, along with corn and cottonseed.

Aflatoxin, being a toxin, is metabolized by the liver. Large enough doses of aflatoxin are a liver carcinogen in high doses (it’s actually what T. Colin Campbell used to induce liver cancer in mice during his China Study crusade to indict animal protein). Early exposure and elevated bloods level of aflatoxin are associated with stunted growth in children.

Interestingly, it seems that the peanut butter-making process dramatically reduces the aflatoxin content of the initial peanuts, by around 89% (PDF). In the study, roasting at 160 degrees C reduced aflatoxin by 51%. Blanching, or skin removal, reduced it by 27%. Finally, grinding the peanuts into butter removed another 11% of the aflatoxin, probably because of the heat (not the actual grinding). So if you’re going to eat peanuts, stick with a good butter.

Peanut oil has favorable effects on standard lipid panels. LDL drops, total drops, total:HDL ratio drops. The jury is out on how much that all matters, but eating peanut oil will probably make your cardiologist happy. Awesome, right? Maybe, but peanut fat appears to be uniquely atherogenic despite the lipid effects. For decades, it’s been used by scientists to induce atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rats, rabbits, and primates. Some researchers think that peanut lectins, present in the oil, are the cause of the atherogenicity. Reduction of the lectin content of peanut oil, through “vigorous washing,” also reduces the atherosclerosis it causes (although not completely).

You know what else reduces the peanut lectin content? Not eating any peanut butter.

It’s a little too tasty.

There’s something about the combination of fat, salt, protein, and smooth scoopability of peanut butter that promotes overeating. I wasn’t able to bring up any concrete studies on the pro-bingeing effects of peanut butter in humans (though if you run a Google search for “peanut butter addiction,” you’ll get a bevy of testimonials from all sorts of people claiming to be addicted to the stuff), I believe it. And I bet obesity researchers who typically work with rodents would believe it, too, since peanut butter is often used in these studies as a high-reward, obesogenic comfort food that rats and mice will readily and consistently overeat.

Ultimately, to feverishly scoop in a ravenous frenzy or not to feverishly scoop in a ravenous frenzy is a choice you have to make. I wouldn’t recommend eating peanut butter very regularly, and I know I won’t for the reasons mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow suit. The inclusion – or exclusion – of peanut butter (or peanuts in general) will not make or break your Primal cred. There are a lot of things you want to have under control before obsessing over peanut butter, like grains, omega-6 oils, sleep, exercise, play, daily low level activity level, quality of meat, etc. You get those under control and then start thinking about some peanut butter as a treat every now and then, if ever.

As I see it, the easy answer is to just not eat it, because I don’t see anything at which it particularly excels (besides inducing people to eat the entire jar in a single sitting). You can get your polyphenols and your minerals from fruits and vegetables, your monounsaturated fat from meat, olive oil, mac nuts, and avocados, and your smooth pulverized salty nutty fix from almond butter, mac nut butter, coconut butter, or any other nut butter – without the peanut lectin, the weirdly atherogenic fat, the aflatoxin load, or the insatiable desire to eat more and more and more until it’s all gone and your forearm is sticky."

I love Mark. And his abs.