The Paleolithic Diet

[The_Dark]

so you don't eat anything made with flour? no breads, no soups, etc? sounds interesting, if maybe a bit dull. care to elaborate on it? i'm interested to hear how you can make a healthy, well-rounded diet in this manner...  =)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Spun off from an unrelated thread....

In answer... I can't bring myself to completly give up my sugars and breads. I cut them out of my diet as much as I can. I don't eat bread more than once or twice a week as an example.... and well... I have a sweet tooth from hell.

Here's some info...

Margarine and Cooking oil is giving you cancer....

Neanderthin (Paleo) life style

Eating for your brain...

Paleolithic Nutrition for controlling MS

Dr. Joseph Mercola

and many more...

[torn asunder]

while that all makes a lot of sense, it's a hunter/gatherer diet... how effective/healthy do you think it is for a normal, sedentary, person in today's society?

[The_Dark]

Well... said Sedentary person needs to do the following...

GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING!!!

[BrassFusion]

while that all makes a lot of sense, it's a hunter/gatherer diet... how effective/healthy do you think it is for a normal, sedentary, person in today's society?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What, sedentary, as in grain-fed cattle? My diet isn't the best, but I know what I *SHOULD* be eating-

8 glasses of water daily, at least.

Gobs of vegetables and fruits.

Lean meat, nuts, very little dairy.

Mono- and poly-unsaturated oils.

Whole grains.

Thick, hard p****.

Woot!

[torn asunder]

i'm also curious about the life expectancy of these early people - aside from the obvious, like being killed by a lion or something, how much shorter was their lifespan due to malnutrition, etc? they didn't study health, and so didn't have any idea about "optimum" health & such...i mean, we're successful as a species because we're omnivores, and can adapt to eating many things, but i doubt that early man was thinking, "well, i've had [x amount] of meat today, i should go eat some berries & veggies so i can be healthy". my understanding? (uneducated as it may be) people ate plants until they found a herd/got a kill, then they ate meat, until it ran out, then lived on plants again, etc. doesn't really sound too healthy to me...

i do understand the concept, tho, and i admit it has a certain appeal/merit to some, but i don't see how, just because early man didn't know how to prepare foods to make them edible, that means they're bad for us.

am i still on topic!? my mind's gone wandering... :whistling

[The_Dark]

First off... They are not bad for us because early man didn't know how to prepare them.. they are bad for us because they are poisen.

For an example... Soy beans. A major staple to the veggies out there. If you eat a handfull of them.. you may well die. Why? The coating on them fresh out of the field... it's what we make Ricin from.. you know... nerve gas. We also can't digest them raw. At all. You may as well eat grass.

Infact... we cant digest most beans.

Early man's diet was mostly fruit, vegatables and nuts with meat when there was a kill. They didn;t eat what was poisen. We have evolved... and found ways to remove most of the poisens... Does that make them good for us?

There are studies out there... many of them that say Polyunsaturated Fats are giving you cancer... That its the beans and other parts of the modern diet that have caused things like MS, Cancer and other "new" illneses.

The AMA and the media ignore them.. call them crack pots... without ever looking at the science behind the papers. Why? $$$$$$$$

They make more money keeping us fat and lazy.. lathargic from trying to digest foods we should never have eaten... craving that next McPoisen Burger and our hearts swell with fatty deposists and a breath labors to pass through our pig noses. Our immunse systems are compromised after years of abuse from chemicals and foods it should never have been exposed to.

We are eating our selves to death. Stuffing more and more of the chemically stripped poisen into our systems until our bodys collapse into a gelatinus mass of abused fat.

Fuck that... I'm smoking myself to death.

[torn asunder]

Fuck that... I'm smoking myself to death.

:woot: :laughing :laughing

seriously, tho - we can't digest beans!? there's a lot of fibrous things we can't fully digest, but does that mean we aren't getting nutrients from them? (seriously - i don't know!?) what about things like rice, or corn, both staples in some societies!? i'm not sure what corn is classified as, but rice is a grain, and they've been eating that in asia for thousands of years... i know you mention soybeans, and i appreciate your argument there, but any others? i know that several things can kill you if not prepared properly, but a long time ago, we discovered something called fire, and that enabled us to cook things, which broadened our dietary menu, so-to-speak. and i guess, back to one of my original thoughts - how carefully do you have to watch your diet to get all of the nutrients your body has been shown to need to be healthy? in the same way vegetarians/vegans have to take great care in their choices to remain healthy, it seems this diet/plan would have the same issues. just because this is the way early man ate, it doesn't mean it's the best/healthiest way out there, nor does it necessarily even make it good.

[The_Dark]

Learn to listen to you body. I know some vegitarians and vegans. Those who do best at it.. as in.. the healthy ones, have learned to listen to thier body... If you crave something, it's because you need something it has.

Say you crave suger.. candys and such... eat some strawberries or other high suger fruits...

Say your craving meat of some type.. eat meat.. you need protien... if you don't have a steak at hand... eat some nuts. Real nuts.. not peanuts... peanuts are not nuts, they are beans.

What exactly do you get from rice?

Long Grain Brown Rice....One serving...

Manganese 88% of Daily (to much causes Parkinson's disease)

Selenium 27% of Daily (to much causes selenosis... garlic odour on the breath, gastrointestinal disorders, hair loss, sloughing of nails, fatigue, irritability and neurological damage. Extreme cases of selenosis can result in cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary edema and death)

Magnesium 20% of Daily (hey! something that is mostly safe!!!)

Tryptophan 17% of Daily (another safe one.. that you can get from fruit and meat)

and 216 Calories

Thats the good rice.. white rice hasn't even got that.. other than the calories. Rice is mostly Starch. Which is something healthy people avoid.

[The_Dark]

Oh.. and the fire bit... you can eat everything on the paleo diet raw... including the meat. Raw meat is just harder to digest.

Red meat isn;t as bad for you as people try to say... The problem is people eat too much of it. Think of it this way... you shouldn;t eat more than can fit in your stomach in one sitting. We have problems digesting it when it gets pushed out of the stomach before it gets broken down enough... forget everything else you have read... make a fist.. thats about how big your stomach is (and your heart) Dont eat more than that at a time.

[torn asunder]

mark, your last two posts are great - not much to argue with at all!!

and as for the "eating too much" bit, you're exactly right... don't remember where i got this idea, (i think it was a yoga magazine) but they said that your stomach should be right around 70% full after a meal, to allow for proper and thorough mixing and digestion, whic, you're correct - not many people at all do this anymore. i love the idea of listening to your body and eating what it tells you it needs! i'm slowly getting back to being able to do this, but the problem is that most people are so far gone that they can't. they crave sweet, they graba a pop, or a candy bar - they crave salt, they grab some chips... very unhealthy.

(as an aside, i've lived on peanuts and milk for weeks before, when i went through some serious depression - the fat content would satiate, while the protien and carbs (while a bit minimal) kept me going, so i know you can live on them! )

[The_Dark]

I can live on bread and water... but really.. what kind of life is that?

[Homicidalheathen]

My doctor wants me on a very strict diet......natural foods, whole grains...non processed...low sugar, low fat......high fiber, no alcohol.....some meat, (I am not giving up alcohol and eating animals)

It is just very hard in todays world to do this.

Your driving down the street tired from a busy day and smell fries......it is just so easy to drive through, who wants to go home and cook for a half an hour? No one can afford to shop at whole foods all the time, I try to do the best I can. Thats about it.

But really.....KFC and McD's pumping out all those yummy food smells to get to our minds.....it oughta be illegal. Damnit!