Paleo diet

[Man of Tanith]

Morning all,
Curious as to if anyone has tried the above diet/eating regime?
I don't to spark arguements about diets/fads/eating less and moving more etc etc. I've done a bit of reading about it and i am just after some recommendations and suggestions possibly someone to pick brains of.
Thanks in advance

 

[Toddy]

My only caveats are that we are omniverous, but we are the cooking ape….literally. Our teeth and guts aren't those of a carnivore, nor are they those of a dedicated herbage muncher. The seasonality of the past is much forgotten I reckon.

Have fun with it

M

 

[Man of Tanith]

From my reading paleo diet has meat and veg in so both type of teeth should still be in use

 

[Toddy]

Sam, if you can digest milk, as an adult, then your genetics are changed from those of the so called paleolithic. Similarly for the advent of farming, we can digest grain regularly, daily, not just in season, then your genetics have changed from those of the past. It shows in the teeth, it shows in the gut, it shows in the enzymes.

Basically, we aren't 'cavemen', even if some folks are finding it fun to play.

At the end of the day we are individuals and we make choices that suit us

atb,
Mary

 

[KenThis]

I don't know much about 'paleo' except you avoid eating stuff that cavemen didn't have, including dairy and grains.

My opinion is similar to Toddy. If you are lucky enough to be able to digest dairy and grains, then in moderation they are good for you so eat them.

I would however agree that processed food, though convenient and cheap is not good for you.
So maybe avoid overly processed modern convenience foods.
Prepare things from scratch so they are a little harder to digest but give more nutrients. make your own bread and try making simple yoghurt/cheese...

But then again if you want to go paleo do it, at this point you're far more likely to know what's best for you, who are we to tell you different.

Also if you do go full paleo I'd enjoy reading about your experience, especially with regards to mood and energy levels.

 

[Toddy]

There were grains though, and we know they were exploited in the past. Not the highly cultivated ones that intensive farming produces now, but the original seed stock. The fertile crescent was so named for a blooming (hah! pun ) reason. The fayum was a natural grain basket that kick started Egyptian civilisation.
Here, just now, there are edible wild grains that folks just ignore, the wood millet, the pendulous rush, the wild oat, etc., all gathered and eaten, but in season.

We just eat too much these days. I think the diet advice of the future will be portion control, and mind that your stomach's only the size of a grapefruit.

Sorry Sam; this isn't the conversation you wanted I'll be quiet

M

 

[Man of Tanith]

Not at all Mary.
Fascinating stuff

If i do go for it ill do a mini monitoring process of it all

 

[forestwalker]

I once gave Rob Wolf (prolific author of Paleo books) my email adress, and every now and then I get a slightly messianic email. As Toddy stated we are omnivorous, and have been cooking out food at (least partly) the last 2 million years. That said we could all do with a bit less refined carbs & sugars, more roughage and less saturated fats in our diet, which I do gather that most interpretations of the paleo diet provides.

My food archaeologist friend does of course have some chuckles over the idea that paleolithic man ate one type of food: there was a huge variation, depending on culture, season and location[1].

[1] I saw one paper that showed that three paleolithical groups from the Baltic countries -- all of them pretty close geographically -- had significantly different diets (mostly by tooth isotope analysis, so pretty solid evidence).

 

[boatman]

I don't understand the paleo diet. If mainly meat does one eat all the offal including gut and stomach and brains? Crack the larger bones and suck out the marrow? If not then how is it paleo?

 

[KenThis]

I have Rob Wolf my email adress, and every now and then I get a slightly messianic email. As Toddy stated we are omnivorous, and have been cooking out food at (least partly) the last 2 million years. That said we could all do with a bit less refined carbs & sugars, more roughage and less saturated fats in our diet, which I do gather that most interpretations of the paleo diet provides.

+1 what I was trying to say but much clearer.

My food archaeologist friend does of course have some chuckles over the idea that paleolithic man ate one type of food: there was a huge variation, depending on culture, season and location[1].

Seems obvious but I'd also like to add that any paleolithic diet would not have been 'chosen' but rather born of necessity. It was far more about what was available and survival than a 'healthy' choice.

 

[Countryman]

Good friend has lost a load of weight on the Caveman Diet. I'm 6 months and 3.5 Stone into Slimming World. There are key similarities.

Bread and Butter.

Just stop it!

Eat fruit and veg, lean meat.

Bread and butter are just such "cheap" easy hits. Carbs turn readily into fat, protein not so much.




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[Drain Bamaged]

I'll stick with my whisky diet....so far I've lost three days.

D.B.

 

[Man of Tanith]

I'll stick with my whisky diet....so far I've lost three days.

D.B.

Try the pernod diet
Lost a whole week once.



Just to add im also discussin diet and exercise with a qualified Personal Trainer (im not payin its a friends wife ) so i am being sensible in my investigations

 

[Robson Valley]

In addition to the outstanding nutritional values of grains, any and all grains, they have one single supreme advantage
over all other foods = all you have to do is keep them dry. Bat Cave in New Mexico has a stash of 30,000 cobs of corn/maize.
I reject the notion that grains could only be eaten in season.

Breads are what? 7,000 - 10,000 yrs old? That's how you eat hard grains all year. I do.

On the down side, grains must be harvested. You cannot leave it all in the fields. This may have instigated
a lot of social interaction and co-operation for harvest, as simple as it may have been.

You plant one, maybe get a dozen back. Eat eleven of those grains = plant the last one.

 

[boatman]

Four
One for the Rook, one for the crow, one to whither, one to grow.

 

[Janne]

The Ancient grains are virtually identical to the modern ones, considering nutrition. Yes, tiny difference, but negligible. Quite a big difference in taste. The Ancients taste more.
The main difference is in the yield and the variety of climactic condition they can be successfully planted. China can feed far more people with approximately the same area, India too. Thanks to the modern strains. Check out the "Green Revolution" on the net.

Having said that, I personally am against GM stuff where foreign, non species specific genes have been spliced in.
Potato with the DNA of Arctic Cod? Salmon with a growth DNA from Gods know where?
We have created new types of Proteins, Proteins that our bodies do not know. We do not know the long term result. Independent European research has shown some frightening results of long term GM diet.

G. modification where the wanted traits are selected within the species is perfectly OK, and has been done for Millennia.

Paleo Diet is just another fad.
They come and go.
as I have quite a few problems with my digestive system, I have investigated the PD quite deeply.
I do not see any health benefits compared to a sensible diet.
If it was so beneficial maybe the osteo remains of our ancestors should show much more healthy individuals than they do.

 

[Toddy]

Here, in a soggy wet UK there are real issues keeping grain mould free, and only barley and oats grew well in the really soggy bits.
By seasonality Robson Valley, I meant that if you can eat them all year round with no issues, then you've changed. I can't eat gluten for long these days before I am truly miserable, and I'm by far from being alone in that.

I think our paleolithic ancestors would just have been so relieved to have a reliable food source that they'd have actively exploited it asap. Thing is though, they were one crop failure from starvation unless they could still forage /hunt/fish/ gather too.

Variety's the spice of life

M

 

[peaks]

You may find this of interest - not advocating it, but offering it for interest. Dr Myhill is well known for her successes in overcoming ME/Chronic Fatigue symptoms in patients.

 

[Robson Valley]

Any site with less than grassland biome ecology will have poor wheat storage conditions.
I do not know if that implies that milled as flour, wheat is easier to store (smaller quantities?)

The wheats really do taste different. Consequence of different genetics from hybridization, some 10,000 yrs ago or so.
We are dealing with a group of 14 different species. That can be subdivided on the basis of chromosome number, 2n, 4n and 6n.

The hexaploid (6n) "bread wheats" have qualities you never see in the kitchen, eg. better stem strength = less lodging in the wind.
Much easier milling to remove the awns & husks. Less gluten than the 4n/tetraploid wheats.

The most recognizable tetraploid wheat is Durum (a lesser term is Semolina), of course the mainstay of pasta.

 

[KenThis]

Having said that, I personally am against GM stuff where foreign, non species specific genes have been spliced in.
Potato with the DNA of Arctic Cod? Salmon with a growth DNA from Gods know where?
We have created new types of Proteins, Proteins that our bodies do not know. We do not know the long term result. Independent European research has shown some frightening results of long term GM diet.

I'd be really interested in the Independent European research you mentioned, if you can remember anything about it.

In a previous life I was a geneticist for 10 years in the 2000s and never came across any convincing scientific evidence of long term GM diet having detrimental health effects.
There was a widely reported paper that showed rats ONLY fed GM soya had higher mortality/health problems but I seem to remember there was very little control (that is if the rats were fed ONLY on regular soya they would have faced the same nutritional deficit) and was subsequently widely discredited (however that wasn't so widely reported).
It has been a few years since I've actively looked at the research.

Selective breeding where beneficial traits are selected for by breeding with and between particular strains has been done for millennia and is the basis for all farming. However it is not without problems, unfortunately there have been strains produced in this way (in the last 50 years) that have had a detrimental impact on human health (I was taught a number of examples but can only remember a particular potato that was toxic even when cooked), however there are very few checks on breeds produced in the 'traditional' way.

Most GM crops are GM because they have had particular pesticide resistance genes inserted allowing farmers to use far more pesticide, far more indiscriminately for my liking. They also sometimes have their viability messed with forcing farmers to buy new seed every year (rather than being able to grow from the seed they produce). totally immoral in my eyes.
As with a lot of science GM was developed with the best of intentions to be able to improve drought resistance, yield and pest resistance. However when the multinationals came in all they saw was a way to make money by forcing farmers to buy the pesticide resistant strains and then the pesiticides themselves (farmers pay twice) and don't give a toss about the effects of the pesticides on the surrounding environment...

No scientist goes into science with the sole aim of making money, though every businessman does, sadly.