I just wanted to share some info about the Paleo diet. The “Paleo Diet” – a fad diet based on pseudoscience? I’m gonna play devils advocate here as I know a few friends on here use the paleo diet, but when you look at all the information surrounding this diet without the emotion, it looks to not be based upon much science at all, and is only going to be detrimental to us humans and the environment in the long run… and that’s what I care about. First up, this TED talk by Dr. Christina Warinner, pretty much sums up this whole post: tedxtalks.ted/video/Debunking-the-Paleo-Diet-Christ Then physician/nutritionist Dr Garth Davies debunks it: myfoxhouston/clip/10342976/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-the-paleolithic-diet And these two articles kinda make it look a bit silly scepticalnutritionist.au/?p=873 rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paleo_diet A recent ranking by U.S. News & World Report, involving a panel of nutritionist and dieticians, evaluated based on factors including health, weight loss, and ease of following, in 2014, it tied for last place out of 32 with the Dukan Diet. Now if we look at the man who came up with the paleo diet, we see that he’s not an anthropologist, he’s not an archaeologist, he’s not a physician, not a medical doctor nor a nutritionist. He is a doctor of exercise physiology. It’s important to note one can become a doctor of yoga or rocks. So essentially, he is a doctor of gym. If we look at where he got his information on what Paleolithic man ate, we see that he got it from “ethnographers” who studied 20th century indigenous tribes; not Paleolithic man at all: ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/3/682.abstract?ijkey=c024682668eb219a31e1c5a9646358d1a903e265&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha This has since been reviewed by his peers: ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/3/665.full If we look at what the actual experts in the field of paleo-anthropology have found (aside from what is summarised by Dr Warriner in the above TED talk), we see that in one of the most famous discoveries of ‘Lucy’ – man’s hominid ancestor – by archeological paleo-anthropologist Dr. Don Johanson and paleo-anthropologist Dr. Leakey, proclaimed that “mankind’s ancestor Australopithecus Afarensis was a vegetarian.” So when the author of the paleo diet, Cordain says things such as “contrary to every shred of evolutionary evidence from the fossil and anthropological record…we see this idea is easily-absorbed by the general public who often dont know any better, and believe it. The paleo diet and Cordain use the fact that most people think this, and not only find it plausible but also a large number of people want to believe it because they enjoy hearing any justification that allows them to continue eating the way they want. It’s also important to note that what Australopithecus Afarensis ate was entirely different to what we can eat in modern day society. And essentially, the paleo diet is about moving away from farmed foods, yet everything we eat is farmed, unless you’re scavenging and foraging. In a study from Berkeley University: ...the general consensus that extant hominoids came from a strongly herbivorous ancestral lineage and Hominoids are not carnivores and have neither the gut anatomy nor the digestive physiology of Carnivera and ...Speth discussed, healthy humans are not known to derive any particular benefit from eating excessive amounts of protein... and ...animal matter presumably did not serve as a primary source of calories for evolving humans… The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, that early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. I feel that it’s important to note too that there is not a single shred of evidence that paleo man was healthy in any way. In fact, paleo man had an average lifespan of 30 years. Then there is the effect that eating meat has on the environment. Even if this diet was based on super strong scientific evidence, and it was actually really healthy for us, it is this kind of diet that is ruining the environment for future generations. So even if it were to be really healthy for us, we need to think of our grand kids and future generations. What kind of world do we want to leave them? Here’s a little infographic on what eating meat does to our environment: inhabitat/veganism-and-the-environment-infographic-shows-the-environmental-impact-of-raising-animals-for-food/ We are in a time of huge environmental degradation, pollution and mass extinction of species, and scientists all over the world, in most disciplines are saying big changes are needed to be made. Now! So when I see studies showing 51% of greenhouse gases comes from the raising and farming of animals, right there, I see a way we can make the environment ‘s health much better. Not to mention we are going through a major fresh water crisis rt/news/176828-world-water-crisis-2040/ and a meat eaters diet consumes 4000 gallons of fresh water per day, whilst a vegetarian diet only consumes 300 gallons per day. So any diet that recommends eating meat is sentencing future generations to a life of hardship. Then, there is our health. There’s no wonder this diet was ranked last, the adverse health effects of eating animals is widely documented. Here’s a list of 100 papers showing this: badassu.net/100-scientific-reasons-to-not-eat-meat/ Then there is the China Study – a book that cites over 700 papers showing that eating animal protein is “causing most, if not all, degenerative diseases we see today.” Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores. The high-fat American [Australian] diet is responsible for an epidemic of coronary artery disease. A plant-based diet with less than 10% fat will prevent coronary disease from developing, halt the progress of existing disease, and even reverse the disease in many patients. (American Journal of Cardiology, 1999 Aug 1;84(3):339-41, A8) Harvard Medical School Study says: “The best evidence comes from a pair of large 2005 studies, one from Europe, the other from the United States. The European research tracked 478,000 men and women who were free of cancer when the study began. The people who ate the most red meat (about 5 ounces a day or more) were about a third more likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate the least red meat (less than an ounce a day on average).” The paleo diet says to cut out grains and legumes, even though Harvard school of public health says this? hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/health-gains-from-whole-grains/index.html And it’s well known that legumes are great sources of micronutrients, fiber and protein, and also play a role in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So I find that any diet that recommends eating meat in the face of all this scientific evidence that says we should do otherwise, aswell as the environmental impacts of it, isn’t really based upon anything sound.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:44:32 +0000
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