Well, human's have only been around for a "blink of an eye" too. I think the reasoning behind the Paleo diet is lame.

If you look at Mercola closer you'll find he advocates eating for your type: carb, protien, or mixed. But if you look closer you'll see that the determination of that type is based on the old-fasioned notion of 'know thyself'. If you have a gluten alergy, stay away from grain. Eat a fatty meal: how do you feel aftewards? Eat a high-carb meal: how do you feel afterwards? Can you run better, worse? Do you crash?

If you pay attention to your own reactions to food you will never need anyone else to tell you what you should/shouldn't eat.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by zoomharp:
A million+ years of evolving without any grains and sugar vs. 6,000 years of agriculture is a big difference!<HR>

Just a query - what was average life expectancy over the c.994,000 years? What was the incidence of rickets? What was the incidence of blindness? In a population with limited life expectancy, things like heart disease and cancer would have a reduced incidence, but not because of the diet, because of the high risk of dying of something else first. Or so it seems to me.

I just had a quick look at www.mercola.com,[/URL" target="_blank"> and I have to say I have my doubts. Any site which features "Most Popular Products" that prominently isn't entirely altruistic. And in that list of supplements, one can find "Fresh Shores Extra Virgin Coconut Oil: Virgin coconut oil is the healthiest oil you can use, and the only oil you should be cooking with. Not only does it help you lose weight and fight infection, but it also helps reduce your risk of heart disease and other chronic illnesses, keeps your thyroid gland running smoothly, and maintains healthy skin".

Well, not according to the American Heart Association, a bunch of spoilsports who take an unaccountably dim view of products that contain 90% saturated fat[/URL" target="_blank">. I'll take their view of its cardiological benefits over that of someone who's trying to sell me the stuff. On the up side, you can make biodiesel out of it, so there's that.

If you're reading this, Grizzly - yes, I am aware of the irony, thankyouverymuch!

quote:<HR>Originally posted by JeremyLikness:
This is a decent program for some ... you really have to find what works for you. Some of the top runners in the world are vegan, others rely on high protein.

For general health, this can be an effective program. I used to coach peope to lose weight for a living and had a client who was struggling with traditional approaches. His doctor recommended this program and he worked with me to develop a menu and it ultimately was best for him ... not only did he enjoy the foods and stick with it, but he lost nearly 80 pounds in the long run.

My only concern is that the program short-changes the portions of fruit and vegetables I think everyone should focus on. Performance-wise, it's not the best program if you do a lot of running, but if your main goal is to lose weight or simply to find a routine that fits, you enjoy, and know you can stick with, it's definitely worth a shot.

Jeremy<HR>

Well put IMO.

My main problem with the rationale behind this diet is that paleolithic man only lived to be a teenager to early twenties. Early man didn't have to worry about cancer and heart disease and obesity - he died from injuries and infections far far more often. Early man ate whatever the h3ll he could to survive and didn't have to worry that all that animal fat would give him a heart attack when he was 55 because he'd be dead long before that!

I'm all for eating less refined sugar and more whole foods, but anyone who says lentils and whole grains are "bad" loses credibility with me. And no peanut butter, egad!!!

quote:<HR>Originally posted by zoomharp:

I'm not lining up to throw away my peanut butter either, just interested in a little devil's-advocacy for the sake of open discussion. How many of us have run to raise money for cures (diabetes, lymphoma, arthritis). What if those cures are not possible as long as society keeps chugging down species-inappropriate food?
<HR>

Here's the problem with that statement: there is absolutely no way any human being alive today could go back to a "species-appropriate" diet according to these people. The meat we eat today bears very little resemblence to the meat of 10,000 years ago, or even 500 years ago. We feed the meat species-inappropriate food! Which means, unless you somehow manage to go hunting for animals who have not been exposed to environmental toxins (good luck with that), you are not getting meat that has anywhere near as beneficial a fat profile nor meat that is free of a bunch of other junk that'll mess you up one way or another. Second, we simply can't go around all day foraging - we don't live in the right climate, and we couldn't live there, because there are too many of us. If we did all live there, we'd die out from over-competition. Paleolithic man (or woman) foraged all day long and ate mostly non-meat things. We simply can't live like that anymore. And even if we ate the same fruits, veggies, and nuts, we're still getting them by way of modern agriculture, which brings us food grown thousands of miles away and therefore of much lower quality than what we could ever forage for.

In any case, there's no reason to believe that things like grains are species-inappropriate simply because they were developed later. Species-inappropriate foods would be foods we can't digest and that we gain poorer sustenance from (like the way cows have constant infections from trying to digest corn). On the contrary, grains, legumes, and the explosion of the variety of fruits and veggies we have at our fingertips provides us with more sustenance than we have ever had in our entire history as humans. We're omnivores because we're programmed to eat what's available - we're survivalists. It just so happens, I think we've developed a much better strategy for survival than hunter-gatherers could ever think up! Eating all meat ain't gonna cure your cancer, it's just going to make your breath smell - and given today's meat, it'll put you in an early grave from heart disease.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by standophish:
an apostrope<HR>

A what?

From my studies awhile ago in prehistoric archaeology in the nordic countries the paleolithic diet offers SOME alternatives to modern man, but should hardly be considered an ideal diet.

With the introduction of agriculture, the initial human response, if you compare skeletons from these periods, was that people didn't grow as tall or live as long as they did prior to agriculture. There was also more disease as people had to live in larger groups to work together to provide food.

That, however, changed sometime around the mid 1800's ?? (again this was awhile ago that I took the class, so dates are fuzzy) and people have since then lived double so long and grew much taller than prehistoric preagricultural man.

I would therefore suggest that a 1950's diet would be the ideal diet if you were looking only at skeletons, traces of illness, height, and quality of life, or maybe even as late as the 70's, or even in the last decade before obesity so swept the western world, but for that you need an anthropologist...

Also, as said above, the hunters and gatherers ate a lot more gathered food and a lot less meat then often represented in books and on TV.

http://This message has been edited by freestylehappyday (edited Oct-23-2006).

quote:<HR>Originally posted by standophish:
It wasn't a grammar lesson, seriously. I have always wondered what the thought process is when people do this.I was at a fruit stand recently and tried to understand their apostrophe use. They sold "tomato's" "cherrie's" and "lemon's". But also carrots, onions and cucumbers. What is the logic there?<HR>

It's an interesting question, but one that has no place in this thread - it came across as a slam on the poster.

Maybe you'd think about posting it in the ClubHouse?

And tell me - what was your thought process when you typed "apostrope"? And before you think that this is pure snark, I assure you it's not: writing and typing errors reveal far more about the organisation of language in the brain that you'd ever imagine. If you like, I can give you some references on the subject.