So I sent out an email to Will, my mother, and 2 friends (names withheld) in response to frequent and good-humored suggestions that my "Paleo" diet is a fad and/or stupid. I titled the email "The Scientific explanation that I've never been able to express at the dinner table while you laugh at my "caveman diet" " and it's contained in its entirety below.
* * * * * * * * * *
Why am I receiving this email? One, because I am bored and I just read the NYT article yesterday and because this discussion arose last night over sushi (and by God . . . I had support at the table from a Cordon Bleu graduate). And, because:
Will, you're on this email for moral support. Like me, I know you are easily duped into fads and like to jump on any passing bandwagon without researching the matter with a healthy degree of cynicism. You and I are gullible clones, and your recent 5k times (1 minute faster than any previous time despite years of endurance & weight training and a "healthy diet") have no correlation to a change in diet & exercise.
FRIEND 1, you're on this email because you call it a fad diet, while abiding by one of its incarnations and simultaneously losing tons of weight without exercise. Evidence in itself that there's something to the idea that our bodies aren't exactly programmed to metabolize grains, and further, that in the absence of grains, our bodies function more efficiently.
FRIEND 2, since you insist on calling it my "caveman" lifestyle and since your boss thinks it's all genetics, I offer the following. "Cavemen didn't have soy sauce!" Please disregard the nutty Californian on Nightline who exercises by pulling his Range Rover which supposedly simulates "pulling a bison out of a cave" . . . always be suspicious of people from the West Coast. Everyone knows that cavemen didn't have Range Rovers. They would have driven 4-door Jeeps, obviously. With big tires.
Mom, to explain why I refuse to take home with me the remainder of the delicious cocunut pie, the brownies, the cookies, and why I eat my roast without the rice. And because you and dad probably think I'm OCD and crazy.
So . . .
If any of you care to read a 9-page article in the NYT, a 3-page article in Details, and/or listen to (2) one-hour-long science-intensive lectures (one of which put me to sleep but seemed interesting for about 30 minutes), these links explain the science behind my (attempted & often failing) avoidance of potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, soy and dessert. There is also this: http://whole9life.com/2009/07/dairy-manifesto/ but I have more compelling reasons to avoid dairy.
i.e., there is plenty of boring science to back up this "fad" diet, most of which i cannot regurgitate even on my best day (and much less during a Thursday night supper club or Friday night over a bottle of wine and broth-soaked bread at Wine Country).
No one wants to hear this stuff while they're having fun, least of all me.
Short term: Eating grains & sugar will not kill you, just as smoking will not kill you. Smoking hinders efficient bodily function and athletic performance, as does eating grains & sugar. Who really cares except compulsive people like me?
Long term: Inhalation of carcinogenic smoke over a long period of time will kill you. Eating sugar (and grains which your body converts to sugar) over a long period of time creates an insulin resistance in your body, and that can kill you.
50 years ago, if one would have postulated that cigarette companies would be held liable for millions in tort damages, the person would have been laughed out of the room. There is now compelling evidence that soft-drink manufacturers (who will become the scapegoat for an entire diet consisting of too much carbohydrate & sugar) know full well that their product is addictive and (by virtue of its effects on the body) carcinogenic. I see a class-action in the works by 2021. Call me crazy. People still smoke, and people will always drink Coke, but in times ahead there will be warning labels on the cans. Watch. There is money to be made . . .
And as April 18th approaches, think of the taxes you will pay with the money that you make, and think of all the unhealthy insulin-resistant people with metabolic syndrome on government healthcare (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Disability, SSI, Obamacare) that your tax dollars will support in years to come . . . after your tax dollars were used to provide them with government assistance to buy sugar-and-carb-laden food and receive free lunches of the same makeup. Just notice the "food stamp eligible" stickers at the grocery store . . . but that is a topic for another day . . .
Please do not "reply to all" with derogatory comments . . . my mother is on this email.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/paleo-diet-meet-caveman-dieters/story?id=13030483 - ABC nightline story about the diet. Kind of funny. That reporter needs to lift more weight and eat more meat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp - great article about sugar's link to "diabesity" and metabolic syndrome caused by insulin resistance, sugar's link to cancer, and the idea that a high sugar diet (not a high fat diet) is the leading contributor to heart disease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM - long lecture
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149 - long lecture
http://www.details.com/style-advice/the-body/201103/carbs-caffeine-food-cocaine-addiction?currentPage=1 - easy reading.
http://whole9life.com/2010/03/the-grain-manifesto/ - why grains are bad
With that said, I'm off to shirtlessly galavant in the carcinogenic sunshine on this beautiful Saturday morning . . .
Will, you're on this email for moral support. Like me, I know you are easily duped into fads and like to jump on any passing bandwagon without researching the matter with a healthy degree of cynicism. You and I are gullible clones, and your recent 5k times (1 minute faster than any previous time despite years of endurance & weight training and a "healthy diet") have no correlation to a change in diet & exercise.
FRIEND 1, you're on this email because you call it a fad diet, while abiding by one of its incarnations and simultaneously losing tons of weight without exercise. Evidence in itself that there's something to the idea that our bodies aren't exactly programmed to metabolize grains, and further, that in the absence of grains, our bodies function more efficiently.
FRIEND 2, since you insist on calling it my "caveman" lifestyle and since your boss thinks it's all genetics, I offer the following. "Cavemen didn't have soy sauce!" Please disregard the nutty Californian on Nightline who exercises by pulling his Range Rover which supposedly simulates "pulling a bison out of a cave" . . . always be suspicious of people from the West Coast. Everyone knows that cavemen didn't have Range Rovers. They would have driven 4-door Jeeps, obviously. With big tires.
Mom, to explain why I refuse to take home with me the remainder of the delicious cocunut pie, the brownies, the cookies, and why I eat my roast without the rice. And because you and dad probably think I'm OCD and crazy.
So . . .
If any of you care to read a 9-page article in the NYT, a 3-page article in Details, and/or listen to (2) one-hour-long science-intensive lectures (one of which put me to sleep but seemed interesting for about 30 minutes), these links explain the science behind my (attempted & often failing) avoidance of potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, soy and dessert. There is also this: http://whole9life.com/2009/07/dairy-manifesto/ but I have more compelling reasons to avoid dairy.
i.e., there is plenty of boring science to back up this "fad" diet, most of which i cannot regurgitate even on my best day (and much less during a Thursday night supper club or Friday night over a bottle of wine and broth-soaked bread at Wine Country).
No one wants to hear this stuff while they're having fun, least of all me.
Short term: Eating grains & sugar will not kill you, just as smoking will not kill you. Smoking hinders efficient bodily function and athletic performance, as does eating grains & sugar. Who really cares except compulsive people like me?
Long term: Inhalation of carcinogenic smoke over a long period of time will kill you. Eating sugar (and grains which your body converts to sugar) over a long period of time creates an insulin resistance in your body, and that can kill you.
50 years ago, if one would have postulated that cigarette companies would be held liable for millions in tort damages, the person would have been laughed out of the room. There is now compelling evidence that soft-drink manufacturers (who will become the scapegoat for an entire diet consisting of too much carbohydrate & sugar) know full well that their product is addictive and (by virtue of its effects on the body) carcinogenic. I see a class-action in the works by 2021. Call me crazy. People still smoke, and people will always drink Coke, but in times ahead there will be warning labels on the cans. Watch. There is money to be made . . .
And as April 18th approaches, think of the taxes you will pay with the money that you make, and think of all the unhealthy insulin-resistant people with metabolic syndrome on government healthcare (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Disability, SSI, Obamacare) that your tax dollars will support in years to come . . . after your tax dollars were used to provide them with government assistance to buy sugar-and-carb-laden food and receive free lunches of the same makeup. Just notice the "food stamp eligible" stickers at the grocery store . . . but that is a topic for another day . . .
Please do not "reply to all" with derogatory comments . . . my mother is on this email.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/paleo-diet-meet-caveman-dieters/story?id=13030483 - ABC nightline story about the diet. Kind of funny. That reporter needs to lift more weight and eat more meat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp - great article about sugar's link to "diabesity" and metabolic syndrome caused by insulin resistance, sugar's link to cancer, and the idea that a high sugar diet (not a high fat diet) is the leading contributor to heart disease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM - long lecture
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149 - long lecture
http://www.details.com/style-advice/the-body/201103/carbs-caffeine-food-cocaine-addiction?currentPage=1 - easy reading.
http://whole9life.com/2010/03/the-grain-manifesto/ - why grains are bad
With that said, I'm off to shirtlessly galavant in the carcinogenic sunshine on this beautiful Saturday morning . . .
Check out www.thehealthyskeptic.com - find the series titled, "9 Steps to Perfect Health". This guy does used dairy - but definately not Foremost.
ReplyDeleteI really like your take on the economic impact of a poor diet on our healthcare system and further on our economy. It is a corrupt system for sure but food stamps don't even touch the surface. How about government subsidies for soy and corn farmers (soy and high fructose corn syrup are in almost all processed foods, and corn is used to fatten up all of our animals - it also makes them sick which is why factory farmers give them antibiotics) and the American Diabetes and American Heart Association? The list could go on forever.