What is the Bottom Line on paleo and primal diets? Glad you asked! Mastering them has been one of my biggest quests for the last few years.
To summarize, your selection of food sources should be natural over artificial. (that means give up all the inside aisles at the grocery store and shop the perimeter).
Further, the diets of paleolithic humans did not contain grains. The cultivation of corn, wheat, rice, oats, and barley is relatively new to the human diet. Depending who you talk to, man started cultivating these grains somewhere between five and ten thousand years ago. All of these grains take their origins from grasses.
The contention is that the human body, specifically the digestive system, is not designed to assimulate this recently contrived food source. Ten thousand years may not seem like a long time at first glance, but man has been evolving for millions of years. Unlike Detroit, a new human model does not come out every year. Our model, Homo Sapien, was not eating grasses like the herbivores. He was trying to kill for food.
Secondly, grasses don’t like giving up their lives so easily. They have a multitude of defenses utilized to discourage creatures like ourselves from eating them.
One of those defenses is gluten , a large water soluble protein which causes a marked inflammatory response in one third of people, causing various issues with most people. This is the root of the well-known problem- gluten intolerance. Also, check out phytates and lectins, other important chemical defenses designed by plants to keep us from eating them.
Humans did evolve the ability to eat and digest a plethora of great things including:
- vegetables
- fruits & berries
- some tubors (potatoes, yams, etc…)
- seeds
- nuts.
Evolving from hunter gatherers to cultivators of crops allowed for socialization. Eventually, civilizations developed, giving man time to create art, music, big buildings, freeways and traffic congestion. You get my point.
In my next blog we will discuss how these grasses, which became corn, wheat and rice, end up having the same effect on our bodies as if we were eating cookies, cakes, or candies. This is the larger argument for removing grains from our diet.
In my practice of industrial medicine, when I have a few minutes to talk to my overweight patients, I bring up the subject of grains very quickly. It is important for people to understand that grains are inflammatory and they act like a refined sugar when they are digested.
Bottom line: if you want six-pack caveman abs, eat like a caveman!
Great blog keep up the good work I have about 6 friend who are followers now.
Mike
Doc J, thanks for the insight into the Primal Diet! Regarding item #1 on the list (vegetables), what are your thoughts or experience with super green drinks (ie. vegetables in powder form that can be added to water or juice)?
Thank you Mike! Keep watching we will try and find some good info. for you and your friends
Dear Matt,
I actually am a fan of the super green products. It is a modern answer to satisfy a paleo problem. If you could consume organic vegetables, fruits and berries without pesticides you would still be short about 3,000 ORAC units a day. ORAC stands for oxygen radical absorbance capacity and ideally we should get 5,000 ORACS daily for adequate antioxidant protection. No drug can give you better protection against aging or cancer than what nature provides. Super greens come in easy to use containers but be sure to keep it in the fridge. They mix well in a protein shake, another modern way to get needed protein. It is important to find high quality products. We will investigate this and list companies that produce the highest quality vitamins and nutrients in future blog posts. Also, look for greens that don’t use grasses (save that for the cows) and check that they don’t add sugar. Good luck, I’m sure your friends will be green with envy.