Here’s an interesting story discussing how most cereals marketed to children have more sugar than a twinkie. Of course twinkies aren’t fortified with all those vitamins! Yeah well… As Dr. Phill says; How’s that working out for ya? http://www.care2.com/causes/forget-cereal-feed-your-kids-twinkies.html
Dr. Arthur Agatston, the creater of the South Beach diet, was on CBS News the other day on a real gluten free promotion. No mention of Paleo in the piece but he’s sounding like he’d be very comfortable with a paleo diet. That’s a big high profile proponent for raising gluten sensitivity awareness!
Bloomberg published a story titled Fatty Foods Addictive Like Cocaine in Growing Body of Scientific Research in which they discuss the numerous studies linking sugary foods and drinks to addictive behavior in animals. OK, we’ve been saying this for awhile now but they consistently refer to these foods as “Fatty” foods. This is very misleading to people who are getting mixed messages about foods high in fat being unhealthy. I think a much better headline would have been mine above. Sugary processed foods are what are addictive. Wouldn’t this have been much more informative and dare I say, controversial? Grab attention and wake people up! Hearing “fatty” foods are bad is nothing new and most people won’t even bother reading the article. We’re trying to correct decades of bad science on what causes heart disease and careless articles aren’t helping matters. I guess I’m just a little bit sensitive on the topic.
U.S. News & World Report posted a story today titled “What makes a Healthy Diet?” and once again tows the government line on requirements for grains and dairy. It’s certainly a well meaning article pointing out the desperate attempts to lose weight can often come at the expense of the dieter’s health. But in blindly following the governmental guidelines, the author is contributing to the confusion and cover up of the key health issues we face today. They list the diets in order of nutritional completeness with Paleo near the bottom. Then, when you look at the details, they point out that the paleo diet significantly exceeds the recommended level of; Fiber Vitamin B-12 Potassium And it’s beneficially lower in SALT! So what’s the knock? They assume you will likely fall short of the amount of calcium recommended by 30-50%. Sounds like an advertisement for fortified cereal will be popping up any moment… Then they point out low vitamin D. Yes most Americans are deficient in vitamin D but if you’ll just go outside once in awhile… Okay seriously, ever hear of fish? eggs? liver? mushrooms? And don’t forget cheese. So really what it comes down to is the ratio…
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Do you remember the 1970’s? If you’re like me, you’ll remember the Low Fat campaign waged on America and the concern shown towards reducing cardiovascular disease by eating less fat and more carbohydrates. Everyone I knew became concerned about the greasy burgers we ate and all the butter our moms always drenched everything in. Margerine became all the rage and “Chemists Gone Wild” invented all sorts of hydrogenated, hydrolized, concoctions and fat substitutes. Fast forward 40 years and oh yeah, transfats are poison. Obesity rates have trippled until now, some 75% of Americans are considered over weight. Diabetes rates have increased from 1% to 8%. Obesity rates have even doubled globally. Heart disease is still the most likely reason you’ll die. Oh yes, mortaility rates from heart disease have declined ( thanks to medical advancements ) but nearly a million people die annually. “We’re delaying the disease, but we’re not preventing it,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, president of the American College of Cardiology and chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, in a 2006 CNN Health article. What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie? – That’s the title of a New York Times article written…
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I’m a huge mobile, Windows Phone addict and I’ve been using this great app called “LiveScape” to track my nutrition and activity. It dawned on me today that I can post updates from this activity that would show up in my twitter feed down on the right. Probably not a bit of help for anybody but I geek out about this stuff so bear with me. If you’re a Windows Phone user, this application is incredible and I highly recommend checking it out.
Before I start on the stuff that really isn’t much fun, I want to point out that I’m not pioneering anything here. Everything that I mention comes from the hard work of others in the research and medical sciences fields. It will help me lay the groundwork for why I decided to do what I am doing and provide everyone else ways to investigate these topics further. In addition, genetics and gene expression play a critical role in most of the problem foods today that simply didn’t exist for our ancestors. People indiginous to particular locations may slowly developed tolerances for and adaptations to certain foods. However, there’s rarely a complete pass for anyone on all of these foods. So, Paleo considers grains, legumes, and dairy to be problematic for many people. While sugar just plain isn’t good for anyone. Let’s break this down and examine what is going on here and why we want to limit foods from these groups. Wheat This includes grains in general but the big offenders are wheat, rye, and barley. Have you noticed the “Gluten Free” labels showing up on so many things in your market? Gluten is the protein that comes from the…
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{EAV_BLOG_VER:dacf50bedd548425} There’s a whole movement centered around ancestral health and the Paleolithic diet which has its roots in evolutionary biology. What keeps this from being just a fad diet? Most notably the fact that it’s what humans ate for at least 100’s of thousands of years prior to the agricultural revolution. It’s a diet in the “this is what we eat” sense and not in the “I want to lose weight” sense. Although you’ll find that pretty easy to do as well. Wikipedia states “Centered on commonly available modern foods, the “contemporary” Paleolithic diet consists mainly of grass-fed pasture raised meats, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.” Unfortunately, that is about the only helpful piece of information in the first 3 paragraphs of the page. The rest is repeated fear mongering of other news stories based on biased and misinformed people. Those who make it passed the initial cries of alarm will find a decent reference of the history and science of the last 40 years of research that has led to this. Let’s take a look again at that list of foods again… Beef Fish Vegetables Fruit…
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I started this journey a year ago pretty much like so many others. Both as in other people and in other personal attempts to lose weight. I had previously seen a lot of success on what was Larry North’s Great American Diet. I credit him with getting me started in actually thinking about nutrition and the fuel that makes our bodies work. If you aren’t familiar with this diet, it is basically a zone diet. I also had some friends doing the Atkins diet with a lot of success. So I started out like before trying to eat 5-6 smaller portioned, well balanced meals each day. I saw the most success when I reduced my carbs so I was really customizing my plan based on what my body was telling me. A couple months into this, I was listening to some of my favorite programming podcasts and the term paleo kept getting mentioned, particularly by Dan Benjamin and his 5by5 network.
I started listening to Latest in Paleo and the Paleo Solution podcasts and this guy Robb Wolf was sounding pretty damn knowledgable as a biochemist. I had already eliminated sugar but was still trying to watch my fat intake while eating lots of good lean meats.