For Those Considering the Paleo Diet

I'm unclear about this - isn't the paleo diet a hunter-gatherer type diet, meaning things people ate before agriculture? Meat, fish, nuts and fruit? So no vegetables, beans, or grains, right? Or is it something different?

People need to take the whole 'diet plan" less literally and use it as a principle.

I'm unclear about this - isn't the paleo diet a hunter-gatherer type diet, meaning things people ate before agriculture? Meat, fish, nuts and fruit? So no vegetables, beans, or grains, right? Or is it something different?

The other point is that Paleos disagree on what's bad. Some drink milk, some don't. Some eat beans, some don't. Could be the MakeItUpAsYouGoAlong Diet.

Dear Health Conscious Reader,




“Whole grains are your best bet,” declares the Harvard School of Public Health website. Don’t be afraid of carbs from whole grains. They’re good for you, the site says.

The modern health industry and big business do a lot of advertising, advising and talking about how good for you whole grains are. And now everyone seems to have fallen for the whole-grain lie. Even the smart people at Harvard.

What they should be warning you about are the whole grains.

The whole idea behind eating a grain “whole” is this: Your body breaks down dietary starch – carbohydrates – into glucose, spiking your blood sugar. If a grain is left whole, you won’t break it down as fast, and it won’t raise your blood sugar.

It sounds like a nice theory, but it doesn’t work in the real world.

Let me show you what I mean.

Pure glucose has a glycemic index rating of 100.

The glycemic index measures how quickly food breaks down into glucose in your bloodstream. And the higher a food’s rating is on the glycemic index, the more it raises your blood-sugar level.

Here are the glycemic index ratings for one serving of some common whole-grain breads:

Whole grain bread (generic) – 51
Whole barley kernel bread – 55
Cracked wheat kernel bread – 58
Whole rye kernel bread – 66
Oat bran bread – 68

Here are the glycemic index ratings for a serving of some common snacks:

Potato chips – 54
Snickers candy bar – 55
Coca Cola – 55
Ice cream – 61
Corn chips – 63

I’m not showing you this to advise you to replace your whole grains with junk food.

I’m saying whole grains ARE junk food … at least when it comes to the glycemic index.

Even table sugar is only 61 on the glycemic index.

The bottom line here is that big business wants you to keep eating grains. They’re cheap to produce and companies make a fortune selling grain for all those rolls, boxes of cereal and loaves of bread.

None of them are natural in that you could not have eaten these processed foods in your native environment. And none of them are “healthy.”

Real health foods are the ones you were designed to eat in your native environment: muscle and organ meat from animals and fish, and every kind of fruit, vegetable and nut.

If it comes packaged in a cardboard box, plastic bag, foil wrapper or Styrofoam container, be careful of what’s in there.

Here are five tips for shopping at the grocery store, so you can stay away from fake “health” food like whole grains:

1. It’s a good idea to stick to the outermost aisles of the grocery store, and don’t eat the processed stuff they sell in the middle aisles. These are loaded with carbs, artificial sweeteners and preservatives.

2. Choose good quality protein – it’s “guilt-free” food. It won’t raise your blood sugar. Grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, cage-free eggs, and wild salmon are all good choices. And except for cashews, which have a 22 on the glycemic index, all nuts have a glycemic index of zero.

3. Choose vegetables low on the glycemic index. Those that grow above ground are good choices – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms, green beans, leafy green vegetables and tomatoes. Potatoes, which grow below ground, are 104 on the glycemic index.

4. Eat fruits such as berries and those you can eat with the skin on. Cherries, plums, peaches, strawberries and grapes, for example. Also, skip dried fruit and fruit juices (they have added sugar).

To Your Good Health,



Al Sears, MD

This study is a little misleading... like most studies involving whole grain. It shouldn't be that whole grain will help you live longer but rather that whole grain is better than refined grain. If you eat white bread and fruit loops every day and switch to Kashi and whole grain bread then yes you will live longer as a result. If you eat NO grains and start eating whole grain will the same thing happen? We don't know because all studies involving whole grain are based on replacing refined grain.

I'm still a skeptic on the paleo diet but I wouldn't point to this study to dismiss it.

I know pointing to a pro-paleo website to counter this article is probably the wrong way to go but the research seems solid.. plus the original source is behind a pay wall:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-whole-grain-fiber-help-you-live-longer/#more-19756

"Eating more whole grains (and grain fiber) inevitably goes hand-in-hand with eating fewer refined grains. And this is precisely what makes grain studies so squirmy and misleading: Measuring the effects of whole grains indirectly captures the effects of refined grains, too, and they’re hard to untangle."

I agree with this, to an extent. To be fair though, I think the reason that quality research comparing the 2 has not been done is because it would never be approved by an ethics committee. By which I mean that the reliable evidence we have (which is certainly not complete, as with any nutrition research since it is such a difficult area to control) suggests that such a high protein approach is potentially dangerous. It is a shame though, it would be interesting to have some of these things nutted out in a more systematic way but I guess research subjects don't like to read 'we take no responsibility if you happen to die following our plan' in the fine print.