PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

[Andreuccio]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Roger,

Thanks for posting this. I'm at least curious about the diet, and started reading some of the links to authors you mentioned. Interesting stuff.

One question occurs to me. The doomer in me just can't help thinking: we've been setting aside food for emergency supplies. You know the drill, just something to hold us over in case of earthquake, economic collapse, nuclear war, etc. () A large portion of the food we've set aside is rice, beans, and cereals, big no-nos, apparently, on your diet. We do, of course, have some canned meats and fish. Do you have emergency food, and, if yes, what's the make-up? If not, what would you include?

[cindykimlisa]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Luke
you need to take an anger management course

and then learn some manners

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Cindykimlisa -

For decorum and manners, buy ladies home journal or reader's digest. For regularly challenged theses in a free public forum, read iTulip. Surely you don't find mine the only stiffly challenging comments contributed in this community over the past year? Roger is writing what IMO is a "boutique" book. 95% of what I've posted has been to suggest, that there is large conceit in the assumption that a fundamentally healthy diet does not exist unless and until we (is that Americans, or is that the entire world?) adopt the Paleo Nutrition approach.

My impression is that Roger is impatient with suggestions that there may be lots of people in the world who already know culturally, how to achieve the revolutionary diet he proposes for Americans.

People can eat less, and judiciously, both within the US and in the many other countries, and enjoy a quite remarkably good health from those diets. In short, my suggestion to people like you Cindykimlisa who see only some personal affront here - is Roger's book would not have a market in many parts of the world. It would have a market in some, but in many others, entirely not. This is the definition of "boutique" - it is addressed to the beleaguered overweight starch-and sugar stuffed American, and waves a patronizing hand towards other societies also, lumping them in with this malady with a wave of the hand.

If you had happened to have lived half your life (in my case, 25 years, all over Italy) in one of the countries which Roger waves a casual hand at, you'd instantly find his offered comments on the balance within that society's diet were culturally stereotypical and suspiciously referent only to his own Paleo-diet's arguments. Despite all the starch which Roger attributes to the Italians, they have far lower incidence of obesity than Americans, who meanwhile are obsessed with diet books. Not only relative to Americans. They are some of the least obese people in Europe too, and some of the longest lived in the world. What is Roger not picking up on, from their 2000 year old culinary traditions?

Evidently the Italians know something about a sensible diet, which Roger has not fully acknowledged in his comments here. That herds people like you, who seem unreservedly appreciative, towards his cherished conclusions.

Also, Roger's recommendations glide over the question of appropriateness of such diet in the very young and anyone past the age of 50 who contemplates following such a diet into their 60's and 70's. If you are willing to recommend a diet of 60% fats to your father who is 80 years old, I personally would not regard you as prudent towards maintaining his good health. And if you would not recommend such a diet to him, it calls into question the universality of it's wisdom for all people to pursue.

Do you not wish anyone to point this out? I did not notice anyone else pointing any of this out. The range of comments looked to me more like an overawed readiness to accept all the precepts to kick start yet one more diet wellness book in America. No thought of how quintessentially typical this new thesis on diet and health is, of the history of many such theses sprouting a veritable cottage "wellness industry" which is singularly peculiar of the United States of America. Of course, many of those other authors were brilliant too - but do you notice just how many of them we've had, in this country in the past 30 years?

It seems my remarks are more likely to strike a responsive chord among (a few of) those readers here who are not North American, and hence don't have this peculiar American myopia and anxiety about sensible diet. We Americans are in a state of permanent perplexity, due to this generalized cultural deficit where as a 250 year old country we don't seem to have any depth to our culinary history. We are confused and adrift, unsure how to simply let the subject rest and fall back to using sensible, instinctive food balance guidelines.

I have Roger telling me I need to read up on his thesis to understand how to feed myself healthily, but I already do feed myself healthily, and it was not from reading any book on nutrition - it was from growing up in a country with a very deep gastronomic tradition. When I encounter people (doctors) waving peremptory arms at such tradition and claiming to have a higher degree of nutritional wisdom, I baulk at such assertions as being parochial to this country.

More tellingly than that, Americans are confused and don't grasp the notion that they need only have the cultural humility when our dietary system creates health havoc, to simply adopt the long standing dietary wisdom to be found in the cuisine of many OTHER countries around the world who have the sensible cultural underpinnings for food which we seem to lack. That means discovering their real cuisine, not invoking the stereotypical travelogue version.

So far, I have not seen Roger invoking much of any other nation's cuisine. He departs from the dysfunctional American diet and then purports to fashion health guidelines for every other country as well. That to me contains a certain cultural hubris which I find irksome, having lived half my life abroad, including several years as a small boy in West Africa.

The radical departures of Roger's Paleo-Diet in my view look a bit parochial when compared to the many extremely healthy cuisines to be found in the world. Am I allowed to state this, or is such an observation impermissible?In such an umoored cultual deficit as we have in America on the topic of sensible food and sensible eating, any and every "breakthrough" book on diet is assured of resounding (temporary - until the next diet book) success.

As to anger, it's not spontaneous Cindykimlisa. I am merely allergic to patronizing responses, which is primarily what I have encountered from Roger in increasing increments throughout the discussion. The rhetorical arguments creep in too - such as reiterating how starchy Italian diet is after I point out that Italians despite this paradox to Roger's carbs thesis, remain some of the more slender people in the EU. I agree, this is a weakness on my part. I should learn to suffer the heavy patronizing more amicably.

Luke - you need to take an anger management course and then learn some manners

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Even this question is myopic. Just reduce the quantity of what you eat and get physically active, and you become instantly healthier. Even regular portions of grains, if they are in very modest quantity, are not detrimental to human health - I know farmers in Tuscany who go out and work ten hour days in the field and are strong and healthy as an ox, simply because they balance all the ingredients in a more culturally anchored and proved way than Americans approach their food traditions.

Less food overall, and lots of vegetables in the mix for bulk, create an automatic diet plan, and you need no further guidance on good food health. It is so utterly simple, while Americans wish to get it all dressed up and trot it around as nutritional science - that's really what grabs their attention, the gleaming scientifically analysed attributes. Meanwhile they are doing a crappier job of achieving it than many other countries in the world that greet the notion of nutritional science with a blank stare because their cooking traditions are 1000 years old already.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

You may have traveled, but your Paleo Nutrition thesis has not. Your thesis, and planned book, are a response to an American epidemic, and skate blithely over the incongruity of advocating a diet rich in protein to a world where for two thirds of the globe's population that is not quite as discretionary as your recommendations assume. This is at the core what irks me about the plethora of diet books being written in America today. All these people really have to do, is eat and live as though they were the rural poor, and most of their health issues would disappear - but that crude and rudimentary notion hardly constitutes enough to fill out a book. Meanwhile we will get another learned doctor parsing America's dietary woes as though they were the woes of the entire world.

Maybe you could consent to put a chapter at the end listing the many delicious foreign dishes which perfectly satisfy your Paleo guidelines, and have been around three or four hundred years?

As western diets including refined sugars and flours have replaced indigenous diets over the past centuries, the same diseases of civilization have spread to the developing world. Taubes and other authors cover this thoroughly.

For the umpteenth time, reducing your sugars and grains and substituting fats need not change your protein fraction. If you choose to eat less protein no one is stopping you. My audience is not you or the WHO, it is individual persons wishing to optimize their health.

If you go down the list, you will find specific mention of what to avoid. There is no discussion of meal preparation, garnishments, flavorings, local preferences in terms of flavor, restaurant seating arrangements, what wine goes best with fish, etc. That is because it is emphatically not about cuisine, but rather about macronutrient ratios and their sources. Like anatomy and biochemistry, these are pretty invariant, with minor differences, throughout the world.

The optimal diet for an individual has zero to do with whatever scheme you imagine to feed the world optimally or whether that is even possible. What the macronutrient composition is can be satisfied by an almost infinite variety of possible combinations. My speculations on optimal hormonal balance for the individual are absolutely unconcerned with regional cuisine, or specific dishes or recipes. Read "O" or "Fine Cooking" for that.

Start a separate thread on cooking if you prefer.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Luke
you need to take an anger management course

and then learn some manners

Thank you cindy and welcome. Perhaps we should call this site, "itulip plus pointless harassment, invective and name calliing from Lukester?"

Ah, I see he has flamed you already. Get used to it.

[rogermexico]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Even this question is myopic.

Luke, quit insulting me and others on the thread.

Discuss civilly or go away.

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Roger - If you consider the term "myopic" to be a grievous insult on thes e pages you have an altogether more cosseted view of the environment here than many others have actually practiced for the past two years. I remark upon how, you have expansively expressed an ownership of these pages which you do not possess. On your own account try using a few less of the imperative declarations and you will be more palatable to this reader. I detect a personality impatient to any questioning of the core precepts of it's thesis, in you. What do we call such a person, using blunter language?

Who draws the line here, as to what we may intimate about each other's views? Is it you who draws the line? You advocate peremptory dismissals and prevarications to my questions, while I should maintain an attitude of respectful deference to yours? Do you feel you are not being accorded your due respect? Who sets the benchmark, of the respect that is due to you, as opposed to the objections served up to you by posters such as me? Everyone has a different benchmark for the respect they feel they are entitled to. Some are terribly sensitive, others impervious.

If we all have the prerogative to declare the limits to our sensibilities, this place would have been reduced to silence a long time ago in deference to the most sensitive personalities. It is the undertone of high handed peremptoriness which undelines your dismissals of points I raise - alerts me that you are accustomed to an environment where your viewpoints are less questioned. Welcome to the iTulip public forum pages Rogermexico. Suck up a little harsh critique, as do so many others here on a regular basis. The great majority of my comment is harshly questioning, but it descends far less into direct insults to your person than your tender skin percieves. It questions your assumptions rather - what I like to call "conceits".

[swgprop]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Even this question is myopic. Just reduce the quantity of what you eat and get physically active, and you become instantly healthier. Even regular portions of grains, if they are in very modest quantity, are not detrimental to human health - I know farmers in Tuscany who go out and work ten hour days in the field and are strong and healthy as an ox, simply because they balance all the ingredients in a more culturally anchored and proved way than Americans approach their food traditions.

Luke you are unique in many ways, intellectually obviously, but more relevant to this thread you've had the advantage of world travel and cultural observation. You've adopted a dietary regimen based on that.

Sadly J6P and the missus haven't been outside of Kansas in since, umm, forever, thus they've not been presented with the gift of evolved learning from other lands. Instead, they are presented with the USDA food pyramid, school lunch programs, an ever changing (and almost always wrong) doctrine from the medical community (lipid hypothesis as an example).

Given that as a foundation it's no wonder that America is FAT and looking for a solution. Sadly we look for the simplest path: a diet pill, a fad, something that turns fat into runny anal leakage. In that cycle we have a market for diet/nutrition books. Some good, some bad.

As I stated earlier in this thread I found The Great Cholesterol Con to be enlightening. And Roger mentioned Taubes whose Good Calories, Bad Calories is on my "to read" list. And frankly if I can figure out who Rogermexico is I might read his as well.

Because I might just learn something as I've not had the privilege of travelling the world and learning first hand as you have.

Cheers.

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Roger old sport - address the critiques, or lose credibility. Look at it as good theoretical limbering up for the eventual publication of your book. Time to climb out of the ivory tower old boy.

Thank you cindy and welcome. Perhaps we should call this site, "itulip plus pointless harassment, invective and name calliing from Lukester?"

Ah, I see he has flamed you already. Get used to it.

[Sharky]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Thanks for posting this.

I discovered this same way of eating more than a decade ago. I've been an on-and-off practitioner of it for years.

My experience in talking with others about this way of eating is that they assume "no grains" only leaves meat and other high-protein foods. In fact, I ate that way myself for a while. It was a mistake. They key is to combine eating the right fats with eating low glycemic index foods -- which includes nutrient-rich vegetables. For example, most people are surprised to learn that there's more calcium in a cup of green veggies than there is in a cup of milk.

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Roger - multiple foreign cuisines satisfy the basic ratios which you promote as optimal. Proof is there - Their citizenry shows little of the aliments which preoccupy you.

Must I repeat it - obesity and malfunctioning pancreas are much less an issue in the Mediterranean countries than in the US. Much, much less.

In many other regions of the world, your concerns are simply nonexistent, due to their having diets quite a bit more sensible than the muddle Americans struggle with.

Where is this respect for foreign culture's dietary existing sophistication, reflected in your comments? Not much in evidence anywhere.

We will have gone from McDonalds cultural imperialism to Roger's American re-engineered Paleo-Diet imperialism without even pausing for breath unless and until you reel in your vigorous enthusiasm for putting the world on a Paleo Diet without first glancing at the reasonbably satisfactory arrangments they already have.

As western diets including refined sugars and flours have replaced indigenous diets over the past centuries, the same diseases of civilization have spread to the developing world. Taubes and other authors cover this thoroughly.

For the umpteenth time, reducing your sugars and grains and substituting fats need not change your protein fraction. If you choose to eat less protein no one is stopping you. My audience is not you or the WHO, it is individual persons wishing to optimize their health.

If you go down the list, you will find specific mention of what to avoid. There is no discussion of meal preparation, garnishments, flavorings, local preferences in terms of flavor, restaurant seating arrangements, what wine goes best with fish, etc. That is because it is emphatically not about cuisine, but rather about macronutrient ratios and their sources. Like anatomy and biochemistry, these are pretty invariant, with minor differences, throughout the world.

The optimal diet for an individual has zero to do with whatever scheme you imagine to feed the world optimally or whether that is even possible. What the macronutrient composition is can be satisfied by an almost infinite variety of possible combinations. My speculations on optimal hormonal balance for the individual are absolutely unconcerned with regional cuisine, or specific dishes or recipes. Read "O" or "Fine Cooking" for that.

Start a separate thread on cooking if you prefer.

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Grandma's homespun "eat your veggies" advice is running a close second to Roger's exhortations to get on a sophisticated and faddish Paleo-Diet. Eating lots of vegetables, especially the cruciferous ones, is a huge bullet against all kinds of illnessl, especially the most severe illnesses. It is BULKY, so you can stuff yourself with it to relieve hunger, yet it contributeds many less calories to your bodyweight. It is a simple, in fact, exceedingly simple way to gain robust good health and lose weight at the same time. Of course, this would be exceedingly boring as a topic to write a whole book about.

Thanks for posting this.

I discovered this same way of eating more than a decade ago. I've been an on-and-off practitioner of it for years.

My experience in talking with others about this way of eating is that they assume "no grains" only leaves meat and other high-protein foods. In fact, I ate that way myself for a while. It was a mistake. They key is to combine eating the right fats with eating low glycemic index foods -- which includes nutrient-rich vegetables. For example, most people are surprised to learn that there's more calcium in a cup of green veggies than there is in a cup of milk.

[Rajiv]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

70's study -- in South Asians

Incidence of diabetes

Rural South Asians 4%
Urban South Asians 12%
South Asians in the US and UK 35%

Diet very similar except more meat and dairy for South Asians in the US and UK

So what is the difference between the three cohorts?

Degree of cooking and processing of the carbohydrates and legumes!!

Think amylase and sucrase inhibitors that get denatured by cooking and processing!

[Guest]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Dude - forget all that complicated sounding stuff. Eat starches very sparingly, but don't turn into an absolute Calvinist about this self denial. Eat the meats you like also sparingly. Two or max three times per week (three days a week is already high). Eat tons of fresh vegetables (cruciferous are the most potent for warding the nasty illnesses) and eat modest but frequent amounts of nuts and berries and modest amounts of fruit. Drink the wine you like and drink that glass or two with a feeling of gusto for life. Get lots of exercise. Whenever you feel weakening will power to go eat something sinful, chomp down some more vegetables, steamed or raw. Find dressings for raw vegetables that tease your palate just enough so you train yourself to keep eating them. Lightly steamed is perfect too. You can have a tiny piece of meat with every meal also, so that it's gravy lacing all the vegetables tricks your palate into believing you are eating a hearty meat meal every day. I like meat, and this trick really work to tease your appetite for more vegetables. Your immune system will become a fortress, you'll lose weight, your wife or girlfriend will regard you as sexy, and you will have put the entire topic of wise nutrition to bed. End of story. IMO all these incredibly sophisticated dietary analyes are produced by doctors yearning to make their mark in publishing and establish a brand name for themselves.

Luke you are unique in many ways, intellectually obviously, but more relevant to this thread you've had the advantage of world travel and cultural observation. You've adopted a dietary regimen based on that.

Sadly J6P and the missus haven't been outside of Kansas in since, umm, forever, thus they've not been presented with the gift of evolved learning from other lands. Instead, they are presented with the USDA food pyramid, school lunch programs, an ever changing (and almost always wrong) doctrine from the medical community (lipid hypothesis as an example).

Given that as a foundation it's no wonder that America is FAT and looking for a solution. Sadly we look for the simplest path: a diet pill, a fad, something that turns fat into runny anal leakage. In that cycle we have a market for diet/nutrition books. Some good, some bad.

As I stated earlier in this thread I found The Great Cholesterol Con to be enlightening. And Roger mentioned Taubes whose Good Calories, Bad Calories is on my "to read" list. And frankly if I can figure out who Rogermexico is I might read his as well.

Because I might just learn something as I've not had the privilege of travelling the world and learning first hand as you have.

Cheers.