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Oof. I sure got an earful from commenters on my paleo diet post from yesterday, and I’d like to address some of the criticism and counter-arguments.
A common response from paleo dieters seems to be, “But the diet worked for me!” They attest to everything from improved health and weight loss to more energy and better skin. And they rave about how eating this way provides an alternative to the Standard American Diet of processed foods, heavy reliance on pharmaceuticals for disease management, etc. Well—great! There’s a lot to love about the Paleo diet: The emphasis on fresh fruits, nuts and veggies; there’s a commitment to cutting out processed foods, refined sugars and ample carbs. These are the hallmarks of any good diet; it’s no wonder people following this advice are going to look and feel better.
But the alternative to the Paleo diet is not necessarily ‘eating like crap,’ as some commenters seem to believe. I follow a diet that’s low in heavily-processed foods, refined carbs, sugar, eggs and dairy and high in vegetables, fish, raw nuts, whole grains, plus occasional meat. It’s not paleo, vegetarian, vegan, raw or quantifiable by any other label, but it’s what makes the most sense to me, physically, ethically, and based on the nutrition research I read (which is a lot, just to respond to the allegations that I’m making up everything off the top of my head)—and it seems to do just fine at keeping me thin, healthy and energetic.
As for the grain question … if it seemed I was suggesting everyone needs to consume grains to be healthy, my bad. Some people are allergic/intolerant to gluten. Some people just feel better when they don’t eat wheat. Some people would just rather not. Fine. Of course you can be perfectly healthy on a grain-free diet. But there’s also no reason to cut out grains per se. Highly refined carbohydrates, yes, we’re all better off eating less of. But eating a diet high in whole grains is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke and obesity. Whole grains are filling. They’re packed with fiber—which keeps food moving through our bodies quickly. They’re also high in minerals and antioxidants—in fact, researchers at Cornell University found whole grains are actually higher in polyphenol antioxidants than many fruits and vegetables. If you like them, and you’re not wheat/gluten intolerant, whole grains like brown and red rice, rye, millet and barley; psuedo-grains like amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa; and grain-products like whole-wheat couscous and bulgur all very much do have a place in a healthy diet. So, yes—I object to a diet plan that says everyone should cut out all grains.
Then there’s the question of meat. Paleo foodists are quick to point out that the diet isn’t just a meat free-for-all, but instead emphasizes eating lean meat, grass-fed beef and free-range poultry. Again, great! When I eat meat, I try to follow the same guidelines. But no matter how high-quality the meat, I’m still against consuming meat with every or even the majority of meals, as most of the sample paleo meal plans I’ve seen recommend. This has nothing to do with animal welfare. But more and more research is showing how a diet high in meat consumption can have adverse health effects. Oh, but that’s only when you eat typical, fatty, hormone-laden meat, not the ‘good kind’ recommended on the paleo diet? Even if that is true (its plausible, but there’s no evidence one way or the other), copious meat consumption is neither environmentally-friendly nor budget-friendly. Even a diet of conventional meat is more expensive than one heavily based on whole grains, beans and vegetables. One of the reasons folks recommend eating less meat is that in doing so, you can afford better meat when you do eat it. But purchasing antibiotic-free, grass-fed, local, humanely-raised etc. etc. etc meat for even one meal per day is prohibitively expensive for most people (not to mention the access issue). If that’s your bag, more power to you, but it’s not an example the majority of people can plausibly follow.
But my major qualm with the paleo diet has nothing to do with meat or grains—it’s the psuedoscience the diet revolves around. Paleo diet advocates insist that not only was there one specific hunter-gatherer way, it’s the way that humans are genetically engineered to eat. Ultimately, it’s this overarching narrative associated with paleos that makes it so damn hard to take them seriously. As evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk writes in the New York Times: “Even for Darwinians, the devil is in the details. The notion that there was a time of perfect adaptation, from which we’ve now deviated, is a caricature of the way evolution works.” Humans, particularly their digestive systems, have evolved since our good old hunter gatherer days. Besides which, this standard hunter-gatherer diet paleo diet beliefs are predicated on didn’t really exist that way at all. Some hunter-gatherers ate bread. And as University of California professor Katherine Milton, writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, notes:
Although agriculture is relatively recent, most hunter-gatherer societies appear to have enthusiastically embraced it. For example, since well before the time of Columbus, tropical rain forests of South America have been inhabited not by hunter-gatherers but by hunter-gatherer-agriculturalists, small societies practicing shifting cultivation whose main crop was likely a single starchy carbohydrate. Contemporary ethnographers working in Amazonia noted that even when smoke racks are filled with game, if the carbohydrate staple becomes exhausted, the inhabitants say they have no food (23).
Futhermore, “because some hunter-gatherer societies obtained most of their dietary energy from wild animal fat and protein does not imply that this is the ideal diet for modern humans, nor does it imply that modern humans have genetic adaptations to such diets. It does, however, indicate that humans can thrive on extreme diets as long as these diets contribute the full range of essential nutrients.”
Paleo diet defenders argue for the diet based on its more sensible tenets, as if that’s the part people take issue with. No one’s saying it’s a bad idea to eat minimally processed, low-glycemic-index foods, though! No one’s trying to begrudge paleo dieters their fresh fruits and vegetables. No one’s saying individual dieters can’t make up their own minds about grains. The part of the paleo diet most people take issue with is that it’s based on ‘science’ that there is actually little evidence to back up. No s**t you lost weight/felt better when you cut out cheese or white bread or cookies. Now tell me why I also have to eat more meat and idolize cavemen to get those same results.
Photo: Lou Beech/New York Times
Wow. I’m surprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this article. The author is simply saying there’s nothing particularly wrong with this diet or lifestyle and that she isn’t surprised by the positive results people are getting. She’s simply saying that the justification for the diet just seems suspect, which few of the comments seem to address.
Is it really all that astonishing that human beings do well on a diet that excludes foods (or food-like substances) that were not available to us as a species during 99.999% of our time on the evolutionary timeline?
Surprise! It works for gorillas, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9A74LvPxU8
You should keep writing about Paleo (even though you’re doing a terrible job) it’s the only thing you write that gets any comments!
Do your homework before you write your next article and you won’t have such bad fallacies in your article such as the life expectancy, and thinking it’s an all-meat all-the-time diet.
Your diet sounds a lot like the paleo diet, except it’s not as healthy. I challenge you to come up with a single meal that includes grain which is nutritionally better then a paleo version of the same.
Not everyone will be able to able to keep to a paleo diet (nom nom ice cream nom nom), but it’s the bar that everyone should strive to as the ideal solution; you cannot find a healthier way to eat.
People seem to miss that by construction paleo is the healthiest diet as there is no doctrine, it is simply a set of guidelines to find what works best for you. Anyone who has followed the community for any length of time has seen recommendations change as new studies come to light and ideas are challenged/explored. It has nothing to do with reenacting a “paleo” lifestyle (as if this is even singularly knowable). Most advocates seem to be pushing their own brand of elimination diet with an expectation that foods (including ancestrally novel foods) will be reintroduced until a balance suited to individual requirements is found. Robb Wolf in his follow-up to Denise Minger had no problems with people eating seitan if they could get away with it and that’s about as un-paleo as it gets.
Every critism I’ve ever seen of paleo sets up some unattainable ideal of perfection and then knocks it down on this basis.
What I find interesting is that the people who criticize the paleo diet are typically the ones who have not tried it. What are they so afraid of?
I wrote an essay in college on sustainable agriculture, and the reality is that people eating in a sustainable way is absolutely feasible for everyone. What makes it not feasible is the sheer size of the factory farms that process cattle like cars, and grow GMO corn, wheat and soy laced with pesticides. What also makes it not feasible is the fact that approximately half of that food is wasted at various points in the sales cycle.
Many paleo sites have tips and tricks on how to eat cheaper cuts of pasture fed beef and free range chicken, and where to find cheap locally grown organic produce.
I have read as much psuedo-science on the need to eat carbs as you claim to have read on the paleo diet. I have also read studies claiming lots of meat is bad for you; one would want to take a look at WHO they are studying when they make this claim, not so much what.
Yes! Agreed, Ms. Brown. I actually just posted on this today at my blog http://eatwithjoy.org. My thing is that it’s absurd to reject agriculture, and, further, virtually NOTHING Paleo folks eat is truly wild–it’s all been cultivated, bred, in other words–subjected to AGRICULTURE. Yes, even raspberries.
This comment is absurd and demonstrates how badly you’re missing the point.
The purpose of the Paleo diet isn’t to avoid all cultivated foods. Agriculture is obviously unavoidable to modern man. But lumping raspberries in with nutritionally-deficient foods such as grains simply because they’re grown on a farm is ridiculous. That would be the same logic as eating grains because they happen to have grown in the wild, which a Paleo eater would not do.
But I wouldn’t expect a creationist to accept a diet largely based on evolution, so perhaps there are more fundamental(ist) issues to deal with. ;)
I still believe that most of what pale-eaters consume is of better quality than other diets that don’t recommend grass fed, pastured meat/dairy…
But I do like your hopefulness that this lively debate will transfer over to your blog. I hope It doesn’t. Because your post is just badly written.
No one is saying we are blindly overthrowing the whole “civilized” world (in quotations because, well, It’s hard to call people today civilized. I’m pretty sure people were getting along better before they started killing each other in search of more land to plant crops and feed an ever growing populace).
We are embracing our genes and from what we evolved. A hunter-gatherer.
That the paleo “menu suggestions are simply preposterous as plausible reproductions of anything late Stone-Age people ate.”
I think the appropriate response to this is “d0h!”
What kind of argument is that, really?
Paleo is a template. We’re fortunate to be able to combine healthy food groups in to as many crazy, nom nom combinations as we wish. The important part is that it’s based on foods we evolved with.
“Not to mention that this diet is elitist, as it’s quite expensive, and, if widely adopted, would wreak ecological havoc.”
Come on. Seriously?
I spend no more on my food then I did before. All of the unhealthy shit I used to buy now moves way to healthier options. Actually cheaper.
And the sustainability argument is, for most part, a bad one. Sure, you probably couldn’t feed the whole planet. And maybe that’s good. Overpopulation of the planet will soon be becoming a problem we’ll all have to face.
“Agriculture and culture are intimately connected, as their very names suggest.”
You can find HG tribes had artistic, music and art rich cultures. A lot of free time to lie around and sing, dance and play.
What happened with agriculture is what you can, in a sense, see today in India. Class devision.
Those who have and those who don’t. For someone claiming we are negating the good things about the civilized world, you certainly happily turn a blind eye to the negative aspects.
“I guess I’m not willing to give up all the delights of thousands of years of human food culture…”
Neither are we.
“… and agriculture for the sake of a quite possibly fallacious ‘health’ argument.”
Read a few scientific articles on the benefits of this diet. Do it.
“I’m not willing to give up my role as a creator in the image of the Creator when it comes to food–and the creational wonder of apple tarts (or bread and butter!) or any of the other limitless pleasures of the field, farm, and kitchen.”
And this one makes me think you don’t even believe in evolution.
Ether way, your ignorance of facts available to anyone with 30 minutes of time to actually look for them gives you no say in this matter. Do your research and then write a post actually worth someones time, with arguments that hold at least some water.
Because the one above has wasted 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
From Rachel Stone:
“Abusive, hate-filled, and profanity-laced comments do not get posted on my blog. Thank you for reading.”
So much for accepting all viewpoints :D
That’s because it’s less about eating like a paleolithic person, as it is about mimicking paleolithic metabolism. Paleo eaters understand that modern food isn’t anything like the food of our ancestors… You need to turn the page on that, because it’s literally paleo 101. The only thing absurd here is the abundant over-simplification of that argument.
Please look at the scientific literature. You’ll find that human health did indeed decline with the advent of AGRICULTURE. And the record is fairly CLEAR on what was and wasn’t included within the diet. Also, agriculture as a subsistence strategy happened at different times depending on abundance of fauna, geography, climate, etc.
I don’t really understand the Paleo backlash. I eat about the same diet as before exceot I have stopped eating for the most part grains, legumes, sugar, and dairy (with the exception of full fat, homemade yogurt and butter) and replaced it with veggies, fruit, nuts, and good fat. I eat the same amount of meat as before except more fish. I am no longer hungry all the time, I lost 25 lbs. body fat went from 20% to 14% (I havent even started working out yet), LDL = same, HDL has doubled, Trig have been reduced in half, blood sugar and blood pressure are perfect, and my anxiety issues are in control.
I don’t get the hate. Conventional healthy diet is a high inflamation, high glycemic nightmere. I dont get why when I change a third of my plate with veggies and fruit I am now extreme. Crazy.
Both of your articles are just a representation of your opinion on the paleo “diet”, which you have clearly already made your mind up on without trying, so I don’t really see what you are trying to achieve.
I’ve never come across any writings that say “this is THE paleo diet”, as it is generally agreed that there was a wide variation in diets from hunter gatherers located in different areas, so rather than being about what they did eat, it’s more about what they didn’t. This is the starting point for people to come in at, after you’ve healed your gut, it’s then up to you to find out what you can tolerate, some people do okay with dairy, others not. Some people can handle some grains like rice or corn some can’t. It’s up to you to decide what you can tolerate, or what makes you look feel and perform your best.
This is not some romantic caveman reenactment, it’s about using an evidence based approach to find out what works for YOU.
Sometimes something works but the theory behind it is not convincing and debatable. But if it works, that is what matters!!
There was a recent study published in August suggesting that a milder phenotype of glut1 deficiency syndrome is responsible for unexplained neurological issues in children, including absence seizures, gait issues, learning disabilities, ADHD, and fine motor difficulties. Neurologists are now testing a much wider range of children for this syndrome, and neurologists are beginning to believe that GLUT1-DS is far more prevalent than previously thought. The only treatment for GLUT1-DS is a ketogenic diet, a diet that is composed of 90% fat and 10% combined carbohydrates and protein. Basically the treatment works by preventing a body from feeding the brain with glucose (as the glucose transmission is impaired in these individuals), so it is forced to use the only other source of fuel for the brain, ketones. By putting these children on a ketogenic diet at an early age, it is believed that lifelong learning disabilities and other disabilities could be prevented.
My eldest son is currently being tested for GLUT1-DS. He was referred for testing two months after I began a primal diet, and at this point I am very curious to see further research specifically regarding our modern diet and the increasing prevalence of ADHD/Learning disabilities in children.
I no longer have access to the original paper, but this is the low down:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8749.2011.03949.x/abstract
I fail to see how eating meat and eggs daily that I get 90% of locally (I buy direct from farmers I know) is less sustainable than eating amerath, quinoa, or rice along side bean & legume protein, all of which are grown, processed, and shipped from who knows where. That stuff is all still processed food and processed food is unsustainable. If you’re going to argue that animals pollute more, I would say yes a factory farm is horribly polluting and those animals produce large amounts of methane & poop. But animals fed a diet that their meant to eat fart & poop less and they are healthy & happy. I
I ate grass fed before I went paleo, I ate whole grains & beans a majority of my meals. Upon going paleo my eczema that I had for years vanished. This tells me my previous “healthy diet” made me ill. I try rice now & then & each time I am sick, this tells me it’s more than gluten. Good luck with your whole grain dogma, you sound just like a wg commercial.
Talk, talk, talk. If you want pseudo-science, continue believing studies that are funded by someone with an agenda. Continue supporting conventional wisdom that makes us fatter and takes more of our money every year. Or, you can stop reasoning good things away using your old, flawed paradigm, try the Paleo diet for 30 days and then have an informed opinion.
On that note, I’ve been a vegetarian for a year of my life (no processed foods, lots of grains and legumes, and I was NOT a pudding vegetarian), lacked energy, and had bad performance in sports. I was similarly pescatarian for another year with the same results. It wasn’t until I went strict Paleo for 30 days that I achieved effortless fat loss and increased energy.
Here’s what got me started:
http://whole9life.com/2011/06/whole-30-v4/
Even gluten free whole grains are “fast carbs” … there just isn’t enough fiber to slow down the digestion of concentrated starch to sugar. (Especially the gluten-free substitute breads that are made from rice flour.) Limiting non-gluten grains to 1/2 cup serving (and that IS the official serving size) or combining with legumes is the ONLY way I can consume grains, and pretty much only quinoa (higher in protein), a rye crisp for variety, and wild rice (which is not technically a grain). I definitely feel better with NO grains, or only sprouted grains in small amounts. There is a lot of research behind this … and the focus on un-whole grains or starches as a big part of our common diet is one major reason why this nation is FAT. Including me, but now I am losing weight for the first time in 20 years.
but I did go paleo 8 months ago and I’ve never felt better in my whole life.
I wasn’t a junk eater either, I’ve been primarily vegetarian or vegan (without all the processed fake butters and all that crap), I’ve gone semi-vegetarian where I was eating whole grains and vegetables and fish and I still felt awful.
Constantly bloated, sick, allergy ridden, unable to conceive, hormonal issues, PCOS, uterine fibroids, extreme fatigue, anxiety and 30 years of depression.
Within 3 months of cutting out all grains and sugars (except some berries), soy and beans, every one of those issues is improved.
The depression/anxiety issue is the most amazing. I’ve been on countless anti-depressants over the years, never has anything worked this well.
I’ve literally not had a panic attack or depressive downswing for 8 months.
I’ve lost 15 pounds as well and my energy level is extremely high, and I DO NOT need grain carbs or sugars to keep me going during exercise.
And I get tons of fiber. Vegetables, people. I’m so sick of the whole “you need whole grains for fiber” BS. What a hoax.
I eat lots of fat, mostly of the saturated variety in its pure form. I eat straight butter. I eat 16 eggs a week. My blood levels are PERFECT. Cholesterol is PERFECT.
I’m a total convert and I don’t think it’s just “what MY body needs.”
Clearly there is something to this that is extraordinary.
Dear Ms Brown,
No matter what good new thing comes around, be it a medicine, sport, or wunder-plant, people always find something wrong with it. And that’s fine. I appreciate your concern for the lack of significant scientific background, such as there is within the cardiology field or other fields of medicine. Questioning all of these is an important part in understanding them and showing their benefit. It highlights the benefits and drawbacks. And as you point out, certain features of the paleo diet are effective for some people, and some are for others. So whatever way you choose to eat, more strenf to you. With that said, there is more to the diet that you like to criticize, and those are important things about it. Eating in the paleo style, you tend to pay more attention to what you eat, where it comes from, how your animals are caught/processed, and how far away your food comes from. These are all good things. And buying grassfed beef as it is right now, is very expensive. Turns out, whenever new and better things come around, they are expensive, but get cheaper over time once more people start adopting them. We don’t want it to be too cheap, otherwise we will force those farmers and ranchers who supply us with high quality food to lessen their standards, and that’s neither good for us, the animals, or the environment.
I could speak to make other issues you have raised, but I’ll pass that up so as to not make this too long. I do want to mention your thoughts on grains. Yes, whole grains can be good for some people. For many of us, particularly anyone with the potential for irish heritage, they are probably bad. You can only find disease if you look, so the more we look for evidence of celiac disease, the more we find it. Sometimes and in some places, particularly poor nations in this wonderful world of ours, there is nothing more they can eat besides grains. So we have to be thankful for our ability to cut them out of our diet, or restrict them at least. The more we can decrease this country’s dependance on grains, corn in particular, but even whole wheat, the healthier we shall be.
So as I said, thanks for bringing this up as a discussion topic. I will pass it along to all of my friends, and patients. Without discussion and disagreement, the best cannot get better. And even things that work for some people, will not work for others. That’s one thing that makes us so unique. Being different.
Cheers,
DanimalRx
Don’t get caught into the trap of thinking that just because you can eat grains without feeling any immediate symptoms that they are “good for you” or “don’t cause any problems for you.” They do cause all sorts of problems… you may not feel them now but when you get alzheimers, or autoimmune diseases, or digestive problems, or worse.. pass genetic predispositions to diseases to your children.. then you will regret it. At that point it is too late.
If you are evaluating this diet for an article, I think it would be best if you tackled each issue separately:
1) The health of the foods proposed. If the paleo diet recommends fish and grass fed/pasture raised meat then do not quote findings about the nutrition or possible detrimental effects of conventionally raised meat. Research the impact of consuming high quality protein sources and don’t muddle your article with findings about poor quality meat.
Also evaluate whether the OMISSION of grains is healthy or not. You seem to support most of the foods which the paleo diet recommends so if the omission of grains is not harmful, it stands that this is a healthy diet. That in itself doesn’t mean you have to concede that whole grains are unhealthy. The discussion of whether grains themselves are unhealthy is something you’d have to deal with and research separately. Example: Blueberries are healthy but if someone doesn’t eat them, I wouldn’t think that omission renders their diet nutritionally deficient and unhealthy. That seems to be the leap many people make about the omission of grains.
2) The ecomomic viability. You’ve combined your evaluation of the health of the diet with its financial viability for the low income consumer. That is a separate issue and it has nothing to do with whether a diet is healthy or not. If, for instance, we can conclude that eating premium meats/fish etc are healthy for humans, we can then tackle how we can adapt the diet for those on a budget. However, they are two separate issues.
3) The environmental impact/ethics. This, again, is not something relevant to a discussion about whether a diet is healthy or not. Again, first evaluate whether the diet is healthy or not and then tackle this issue separately.
Lastly, try the diet. It’s the best way to gain first hand experience. Good luck.
If you’re eating grains, you’re eating processed food. You cannot eat wheat unless it’s been processed.
It’s fascinating…the people who actually know anything about this paleo shtick seem to think it’s pretty good. And know better about the BS related to sustainability.
And yet again we see a populace who does nto know the basic definition of “theory and law” as it relates to science. Amazing.
Try the diet for 30 days, then rewrite this article. That is, if your pride will let you.
I’m so tired of the lame argument about the absolute paleolithic diet. Nobody is trying to live in a cave and eat bugs. It’s more about avoiding what is making us sick and obese – grains (especially wheat), industrial oils, processed soy, sugar.
What do you get from grains that you can’t get from other foods? Nothing. And there’s the added benefit of passing on the phytates, lectins and gut irritants that come with grain. The author says fiber helps food pass through your digestive system quickly. Why is that a good thing? It’s only true because we can’t digest that crap. Literally. I prefer to absorb nutrients when I eat.
If you’re a doubter, try it for 30 days. What have you got to lose?
If you’re still labouring under the presumption that a high-fat diet is a cause of heart disease, you really need to update your nutritional understanding.