Paleo diet

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==Description==
 
==Description==
In practice it is a combination of two popular fad diets at the same time, the [[low-carb diet]] and the gluten-free diet, but the rule of thumb for some goes further than this: if it can theoretically be hunted or gathered it is okay to eat, but anything that has to be farmed is off-limits.  The degree to which this can be taken can range from a simple cutting out of grains, dairy, and starches, to those who take it to purist extremes.  For some purists, tomatoes are off-limits despite being something that can be "gathered", because they were not known to be consumed by paleolithic man.  For some purists, meats are restricted to wild game and/or grass-fed, free range animals.  Eggs are considered okay since they are theoretically something that can be gathered in the wild.  Alcoholic beverages are also limited in this way: beer and most liquor are off limits since they are produced from grain, but wine is okay since grapes can theoretically be picked in the wild.  Honey and maple syrup are okay, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners are not.  This diet could be taken to one of two extremes, either a mostly meat-intensive diet, or a [[raw foodism|raw foodist]] vegetable-intensive diet with meat limited to wild game.
+
In practice it is a combination of two popular fad diets at the same time, the [[low-carb diet]] and the gluten-free diet, but the rule of thumb for some goes further than this: if it can theoretically be hunted or gathered it is okay to eat, but anything that has to be farmed is off-limits.  The degree to which this can be taken can range from a simple cutting out of grains, dairy, and starches, to those who take it to purist extremes.  For some purists, tomatoes are off-limits despite being something that can be "gathered", because they were not known to be consumed by paleolithic man.  For some purists, meats are restricted to wild game and/or grass-fed, free range animals.  Eggs are considered okay since they are theoretically something that can be gathered in the wild.  Alcoholic beverages are also limited in this way: beer and most liquor are off limits since they are produced from grain, but wine is okay since grapes can theoretically be picked in the wild.  Honey and maple syrup are okay, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners are not.  This diet could be taken to one of two extremes, either a mostly meat-intensive diet, or a [[raw foodism|raw foodist]] vegetable-intensive diet with meat limited to wild game.<ref>http://paleodiet.com/definition.htm Paleo diet compilation site</ref>
  
 
==Evaluation of claims==
 
==Evaluation of claims==
Proponents claim that the human digestive system is adapted to the diet of the paleolithic era and has not evolved since, and that the widespread incidence of diabetes and other diseases can be traced to the shift to a grain-based diet due to the advent of agriculture.  This claim is not widely accepted, if at all, within mainstream [[science]]. Indeed, evidence suggests that humans ''have'' evolved over the last five thousand years specifically to eat an agricultural diet, including changing from a straight-on cutting bite to a shearing overbiteIts proponents believe the "caveman diet" is the way humans were intended to eat - ignoring the fact that cavemen used much more energy than a modern human to gather food, and thus evolved a taste for foods with the most calories and fat, essentially making the caveman "diet" do the opposite of what it was intended for. In fact, for much of human existence, the wealthy became fat and their obesity was respected as a sign that they could afford to eat well and did not have to perform hard laborOther claims, mostly lacking in empirical evidence, are that this diet can reverse arthritis, autism, chronic fatigue, heart disease, and other diseases which diet proponents claim are the result of a grain and dairy-based diet.
+
Losing weight is hard.  In the modern world, we sit most of our work day, drive or bus home, have elevators to go up, and sometimes, if we can, find time to 'go to the gym - usually on January 2, and stop sometime around January 5thWe have little time or desire to cook, so we eat crap, drink liquid sugar, and give into cravings cause the store is just around the corner. For these reasons, Dieting is one of the biggest scam and woo attracting  worldsBuyer need always beware.  Does this woo work, and is it based on sound science?
  
Following this diet can invert the food pyramid, leading to a high fat diet because of high consumption of meatProponents counter that it is not a high-fat diet because meats from agriculture are high in fat while meats from wild game are lower in fat, and that it is also a high fiber diet because of the emphasis on raw fruits and vegetables - which is true in theory.  Sadly, those attempting to follow this diet wind up finding it so difficult to follow in practice that they end up buying all of their "caveman food" from the supermarket and getting a high fat diet anyway.
+
===Nutritional Claims===
 +
Lorin Cordain (PhD in Nutrition, Colorado State University), author of the most popular version of this diet claims that the diet is as healthy in nutrition as you can get. Due to the restrictions of his diet, it is "naturally" limited in fats, sugars and carbs.
 +
 
 +
Research shows that a diet limited in sugar and processed foods (which the Paleo-diet necessarily is, since processing is a neolithic thing) will generally help you lose weight.  Grain are, other than sugar, the single biggest source of energy for the bodySo cutting them out is going to help you lose weight as well.  However, none of this is unique to eating "paleolithic" foods, and nothing suggests that the body cannot handle foods we've sourced in the last 100,000 years.
 +
 
 +
Nutritionists have claimed that a true "Paleodiet" is generally lacking in nutritional content including but not limited to mono and poly unsaturated fats (the Paleo diet limits you to fruit and nut fats, but not ones that are processed), micro and macro nutrition from dairy products, as well as active biotics from things like cheese and yoguart that help the digestive system.   
 +
 
 +
Sadly, those attempting to follow this diet wind up finding it so difficult to follow in practice that they end up buying all of their "caveman food" from the supermarket and getting a high fat diet anyway.
 +
 
 +
Further, experts the world over say all diets boil down to how much energy you take in vs., how much you spend, and you simply cannot escape that.  To that end, it is possible to lose weight eating only Twinkies, and gain weight eating only carrots. 
 +
 
 +
===Medical Claims===
 +
Dr. Cordain also suggests, "Clinical trials have shown that the Paleo Diet is the optimum diet that can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, markers of inflammation, help with weight loss, reduce acne, promote optimum health and athletic performance" and, because it is generally low in fat (hunted wild game is generally quite low in fat, though I'm guessing few following this diet are hunting wild game), and that wild foods have a generally low glycimic index - also a popular diet buzz word. <ref>http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diet-review-the-caveman-paleo-diet</ref>  The stated assumptions at sites that suggest following this diet is that "cavemen were healthier" (really?) and did not suffer the kinds of ailments that Modern Man suffers from.
 +
 
 +
Despite Dr. Cordain's assertions, nothing at all exists in the scientific journals <ref>In writing this article, I searched  [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=paleolithic%20diet |Pubmed for "paleolithic diet".]</ref> to suggest that a Paleolithic diet helps acne, "inflammation" (another new woo word in Woo Medicine), athletic performance, or other author's claims <ref>http://paleodiet.com/</ref> about autism <ref>Why is it every single Woo seems to feed into the fear of Autism?</ref>, multiple sclerosis, or arthritis.
 +
 
 +
It is as effective for heart disease, diabetes and weight loss as any other reasonable low-fat, lower carb diet. <ref>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20144375</ref>
 +
 
 +
===Genetic and Evolutionary ===
 +
Proponents claim that the human digestive system is adapted to the diet of the paleolithic era and has not evolved since, and that the widespread incidence of diabetes and other diseases can be traced to the shift to a grain-based diet due to the advent of agriculture.  This claim is not widely accepted, if at all, within mainstream [[science]]. Indeed, evidence suggests that humans ''have'' evolved over the last five thousand years specifically to eat an agricultural diet, including changing from a straight-on cutting bite to a shearing overbite. Further, the basis of the idea that we have not changed genetically does not take into account modern genetic studies nor modern theories of Evolution. <ref>Ströhle A, Wolters M, Hahn A (January 2007). "Carbohydrates and the diet-atherosclerosis connection—More between earth and heaven. Comment on the article "The atherogenic potential of dietary carbohydrate"". Preventive Medicine 44 (1): 82–4. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2006.08.014. PMID 16997359.</ref>
 +
 
 +
Its proponents believe the "caveman diet" is the way humans were intended to eat - ignoring the fact that cavemen used much more energy than a modern human to gather food, and thus evolved a taste for foods with the most calories and fat, essentially making the caveman "diet" do the opposite of what it was intended for. In fact, for much of human existence, the wealthy became fat and their obesity was respected as a sign that they could afford to eat well and did not have to perform hard labor. 
  
 
An interesting question of resource logistics comes up when discussing this diet.  According to many scientists familiar with issues of world food supply, it is only because of a grain-based diet that the earth can sustain 6.8 billion people.
 
An interesting question of resource logistics comes up when discussing this diet.  According to many scientists familiar with issues of world food supply, it is only because of a grain-based diet that the earth can sustain 6.8 billion people.
  
 +
==Woo debunked==
 +
The majority opinion of anthropologists seems to be that any information we have about what our ancestors were eating is insufficient to determine what a diet "based on their lives" would be like. Further, the same research questions how "healthy" humans could have been 100,000 years ago, when they were dying at a much younger age, generally malnourished (as seen by bone samples and hair samples), and often starving, simply due to the difficulty of acquiring foods.
 +
 +
Basing your diet on a people who were usually starving, had to spend days tracking and hunting for the foods they ate, who would eat almost anything during the harshest of times, and had short lifespans, high infant mortality, and generally harsh lives seems a bit extreme for simply losing weight, and very likely fully unhealthy.  But hey, why not go back to the time we were apes and consume 36 lbs of raw fruits and vegies a day?
 +
<ref>http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1467-3010.2000.00019.x/abstract;jsessionid=4C98D86001E7A23EA1A290C16A7E437F.d01t04</ref>
 
== See also ==
 
== See also ==
  

Revision as of 01:37, 16 June 2011

Deliciously edible!

Food and Diet

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Dubious diets
Food woo
Warning icon orange.svg This page contains too many unsourced statements, and needs to be improved.

Paleo diet could use some help. Please research the article's assertions. Whatever is credible should be sourced, and what is not should be removed.

This is what known as Paleo diet (does look like s***)

The paleo diet, also known as the caveman diet, paleolithic diet, primal diet and other names, is a fad diet. It is based on eating only those foods which a hunter-gatherer society would have eaten, such as meat, nuts, berries, fish, and raw vegetables and fruit. Excluded are foods that are the products of large-scale agriculture such as grains, bread, milk, cheese, legumes (beans), corn, potatoes, and processed sugar and salt. Paleo diet fans call the foods they avoid "neolithic" foods as they did not come into widespread human consumption until the agricultural revolution.

Contents

Description

In practice it is a combination of two popular fad diets at the same time, the low-carb diet and the gluten-free diet, but the rule of thumb for some goes further than this: if it can theoretically be hunted or gathered it is okay to eat, but anything that has to be farmed is off-limits. The degree to which this can be taken can range from a simple cutting out of grains, dairy, and starches, to those who take it to purist extremes. For some purists, tomatoes are off-limits despite being something that can be "gathered", because they were not known to be consumed by paleolithic man. For some purists, meats are restricted to wild game and/or grass-fed, free range animals. Eggs are considered okay since they are theoretically something that can be gathered in the wild. Alcoholic beverages are also limited in this way: beer and most liquor are off limits since they are produced from grain, but wine is okay since grapes can theoretically be picked in the wild. Honey and maple syrup are okay, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners are not. This diet could be taken to one of two extremes, either a mostly meat-intensive diet, or a raw foodist vegetable-intensive diet with meat limited to wild game.[1]

Evaluation of claims

Losing weight is hard. In the modern world, we sit most of our work day, drive or bus home, have elevators to go up, and sometimes, if we can, find time to 'go to the gym - usually on January 2, and stop sometime around January 5th. We have little time or desire to cook, so we eat crap, drink liquid sugar, and give into cravings cause the store is just around the corner. For these reasons, Dieting is one of the biggest scam and woo attracting worlds. Buyer need always beware. Does this woo work, and is it based on sound science?

Nutritional Claims

Lorin Cordain (PhD in Nutrition, Colorado State University), author of the most popular version of this diet claims that the diet is as healthy in nutrition as you can get. Due to the restrictions of his diet, it is "naturally" limited in fats, sugars and carbs.

Research shows that a diet limited in sugar and processed foods (which the Paleo-diet necessarily is, since processing is a neolithic thing) will generally help you lose weight. Grain are, other than sugar, the single biggest source of energy for the body. So cutting them out is going to help you lose weight as well. However, none of this is unique to eating "paleolithic" foods, and nothing suggests that the body cannot handle foods we've sourced in the last 100,000 years.

Nutritionists have claimed that a true "Paleodiet" is generally lacking in nutritional content including but not limited to mono and poly unsaturated fats (the Paleo diet limits you to fruit and nut fats, but not ones that are processed), micro and macro nutrition from dairy products, as well as active biotics from things like cheese and yoguart that help the digestive system.

Sadly, those attempting to follow this diet wind up finding it so difficult to follow in practice that they end up buying all of their "caveman food" from the supermarket and getting a high fat diet anyway.

Further, experts the world over say all diets boil down to how much energy you take in vs., how much you spend, and you simply cannot escape that. To that end, it is possible to lose weight eating only Twinkies, and gain weight eating only carrots.

Medical Claims

Dr. Cordain also suggests, "Clinical trials have shown that the Paleo Diet is the optimum diet that can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, markers of inflammation, help with weight loss, reduce acne, promote optimum health and athletic performance" and, because it is generally low in fat (hunted wild game is generally quite low in fat, though I'm guessing few following this diet are hunting wild game), and that wild foods have a generally low glycimic index - also a popular diet buzz word. [2] The stated assumptions at sites that suggest following this diet is that "cavemen were healthier" (really?) and did not suffer the kinds of ailments that Modern Man suffers from.

Despite Dr. Cordain's assertions, nothing at all exists in the scientific journals [3] to suggest that a Paleolithic diet helps acne, "inflammation" (another new woo word in Woo Medicine), athletic performance, or other author's claims [4] about autism [5], multiple sclerosis, or arthritis.

It is as effective for heart disease, diabetes and weight loss as any other reasonable low-fat, lower carb diet. [6]

Genetic and Evolutionary

Proponents claim that the human digestive system is adapted to the diet of the paleolithic era and has not evolved since, and that the widespread incidence of diabetes and other diseases can be traced to the shift to a grain-based diet due to the advent of agriculture. This claim is not widely accepted, if at all, within mainstream science. Indeed, evidence suggests that humans have evolved over the last five thousand years specifically to eat an agricultural diet, including changing from a straight-on cutting bite to a shearing overbite. Further, the basis of the idea that we have not changed genetically does not take into account modern genetic studies nor modern theories of Evolution. [7]

Its proponents believe the "caveman diet" is the way humans were intended to eat - ignoring the fact that cavemen used much more energy than a modern human to gather food, and thus evolved a taste for foods with the most calories and fat, essentially making the caveman "diet" do the opposite of what it was intended for. In fact, for much of human existence, the wealthy became fat and their obesity was respected as a sign that they could afford to eat well and did not have to perform hard labor.

An interesting question of resource logistics comes up when discussing this diet. According to many scientists familiar with issues of world food supply, it is only because of a grain-based diet that the earth can sustain 6.8 billion people.

Woo debunked

The majority opinion of anthropologists seems to be that any information we have about what our ancestors were eating is insufficient to determine what a diet "based on their lives" would be like. Further, the same research questions how "healthy" humans could have been 100,000 years ago, when they were dying at a much younger age, generally malnourished (as seen by bone samples and hair samples), and often starving, simply due to the difficulty of acquiring foods.

Basing your diet on a people who were usually starving, had to spend days tracking and hunting for the foods they ate, who would eat almost anything during the harshest of times, and had short lifespans, high infant mortality, and generally harsh lives seems a bit extreme for simply losing weight, and very likely fully unhealthy. But hey, why not go back to the time we were apes and consume 36 lbs of raw fruits and vegies a day? [8]

See also

Alternative medicine articles on RationalWiki
Acupuncture - Aromatherapy - Apitherapy - Autism and pseudoscience - Bloodletting/Leeching - Chelation therapy - Chiropractic - Cleanse - Colloidal silver - Colonic - Color therapy - DMSO - Dynamiclear - Ear candling - Faith healing - Fasting - Folk remedy - Geier family - Hair analysis - Health freedom - Heel (company) - Herbal supplement - Heroic medicine (Humorism) - Homeopathy - Kombucha - Laetrile - Lupron therapy - Macrobiotics - Magnetic therapy - Medical marijuana - National Health Federation - Narconon - Oil pulling - Oxygen therapy - Q-Ray - Reflexology - Reiki - Rolfing - Shark cartilage - Shiitake mushroom - Tetrasil - Therapeutic touch - Trepanation - Unani

Promoters: Hulda Clark - Mehmet Oz - Kevin Trudeau
Alternative diets: Alkaline diet - Blood type diet - Ephedrine - Fad diet - Food woo - Human chorionic gonadotrophin - Inedia - Jesus Diet - Lemonade diet- Low-carb diet - Organic food - Paleo diet - Raw foodism - Self help - Weigh down diet


Cite error: <ref> tags exist, but no <references/> tag was found
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