4 ms·

What strikes me as odd about this is that grains are a perfectly natural food source and a staple of plenty of really healthy people, from all around the world,

What strikes me as odd about this is that grains are a perfectly natural food source and a staple of plenty of really healthy people, from all around the world, and for as far back in history as you care to delve. Why not eat grains? And also, since this appears to be about gluten: it cracks me up that one health food movement (the macrobiotic movement) get away with promoting seitan (which is just fried/steamed/baked wheat gluten) as a health food, while another movement says that gluten kills you.

pronoiac 16y ago
Gluten allergies aren't that uncommon.
- simonsarris 16y ago
  Rice and oats are grains and they contain no gluten. Edit: and corn.
- hvs 16y ago
  But a specific allergy to gluten is well-known, tested, and verified phenomenon (it's called celiac disease). What this guy is attempting to pass off as "science" is just a bunch of conjecture about "this isn't what primates eat." Thousands of years of evidence contradict his rather flimsy conjectures.
  - cageface 16y ago
    Not only that but he's not even defining his terms well. What does it mean to say that you'll "feel better"? This just isn't science.
    - pronoiac 16y ago
      Dude. It's a blog, not a rigorous scientific study.
      - cageface 16y ago
        He's making specific, testable, claims with no references and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets. That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos.
        tremendo 16y ago
        > He's making specific, testable, claims And that is good, you can specifically test the claims > with no references The blog is a guest post by Rob Wolff with an excerpt from his book, where the references are. > and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets. Woah, avoiding lectins for 30 days potentially damaging? Everything is possible I guess, but that seems not only highly unlikely, but a stark contrast to the point of the recommendation: a potentially beneficial change to their diets. > That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos. I don't see why, because I don't see any possible danger whatsoever in avoiding grains for a month. If I'm wrong, please illuminate me. I am admittedly, another anecdote case of positive outcome from avoiding grains.
cageface 16y ago
Exactly. These claims fly in the face of overwhelming counter-evidence. I can believe that something in the quantity of quality or grains we consume now may have changed over time but the idea that grains are generally, inherently toxic requires some very, very strong proof. I have a feeling all these diet hackers would get a lot more mileage out of regular exercise and smaller portions.
- kilian 16y ago
  The "gluttony-sloth" hypothesis (fat people don't move enough and eat too much) has been thoroughly disproved. Regular exercise is an exceptionally bad way to lose weight (though there numerous other benefits!), so are smaller portions (smaller portions means you are hungry, and that makes you hold on to your fat deposits) If you're interested, read "good calories, bad calories". It goes into about a century of dietary research and makes the arguments much more eloquently. Here are some notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-bad-calories http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba...
  - cageface 16y ago
    His emphasis isn't on weight loss, it's overall health. The American obsession with waistsize vastly oversimplifies a complex equation. All the people I've known personally that obsessed over their diets this way would have been better off spending that time on a long walk. The paleolithic diet is hardly generally accepted among nutritionists either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet
ryandvm 16y ago
I'm pretty skeptical, but the reason I'm willing to give the notion a little traction is because no other primate eats grains - and even humans didn't until the dawn of agriculture. Of course a lot of things humans do are completely unnatural: alcohol, dairy, fish, tobacco, complete lack of physical activity, etc. I'm far from convinced, but that's the point of the experiment. I'll see how this thing shakes out in 30 days...
- hugh3 16y ago
  How is fish unnatural? Fish are a huge part of the diet of many pre-agricultural cultures... pretty much any that live where there are fish, in fact.
  - ryandvm 16y ago
    Good point. I was attempting to point out activities humans partake in that are more recent than evolutionary mechanisms would have had time to filter out. Though I suppose we've been clubbing and trapping fish for a good while longer than we've had agriculture.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Club 'em, trap 'em, spear 'em (spears are at least 300,000 years old) or even grab 'em with your hands (easier if you live a million years ago before human fishing has depleted fish stocks). I tried to find out whether chimps eat fish... apparently they've never been observed to do so, but baboons do.
hugh3 16y ago
I guess that's why it's an experiment. Having cut grains from my own diet I haven't seen any positive effects other than weight loss, and this guy doesn't need to lose weight, but other people may respond in different ways. There's no especially good reason to suppose that grains are bad for you, but there's no especially good reason to suppose that they're not. Grains are a perfectly serviceable food source and helped to provide greater food stability for our neolithic ancestors (at least for those of us who had neolithic ancestors) but it's plausible that a diet excessively rich in them might contribute to minor ailments. Anyway, better to experiment with it for 30 days than to sit around and prognosticate about whether it will work or not. The only downside is that you can't necessarily trust your introspective observations about your condition.
js2 16y ago
Grains are a relatively recent introduction to homo sapiens diet[1]. And the way the western diet consumes them is even more at odds with how they are traditionally consumed [2,3,4]. 1. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-human-evolution.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-hum... 2. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/03/grains-as-food-update.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/03/grains-as-food... 3. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/traditional-preparation-methods-improve.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/traditional-pr... 4. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grain-recipes-from-around.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grai...
pronoiac 16y ago
Read the Tim Ferriss blog entry [1] for a potential explanation. For your silently-added second paragraph: I thought differing descriptions of feng shui were hilarious, but you're not really surprised that different people digest food differently, are you? The blog is testing that hypothesis, so don't be so eager to shoot down the possibility. [1] http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-solution/ http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-s...

pronoiac 16y ago

Gluten allergies aren't that uncommon.

simonsarris 16y ago
Rice and oats are grains and they contain no gluten. Edit: and corn.
hvs 16y ago
But a specific allergy to gluten is well-known, tested, and verified phenomenon (it's called celiac disease). What this guy is attempting to pass off as "science" is just a bunch of conjecture about "this isn't what primates eat." Thousands of years of evidence contradict his rather flimsy conjectures.
- cageface 16y ago
  Not only that but he's not even defining his terms well. What does it mean to say that you'll "feel better"? This just isn't science.
  - pronoiac 16y ago
    Dude. It's a blog, not a rigorous scientific study.
    - cageface 16y ago
      He's making specific, testable, claims with no references and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets. That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos.
      - tremendo 16y ago
        > He's making specific, testable, claims And that is good, you can specifically test the claims > with no references The blog is a guest post by Rob Wolff with an excerpt from his book, where the references are. > and encouraging people to make potentially damaging changes to their diets. Woah, avoiding lectins for 30 days potentially damaging? Everything is possible I guess, but that seems not only highly unlikely, but a stark contrast to the point of the recommendation: a potentially beneficial change to their diets. > That demands a slightly higher standard of evidence than somebody's cute code samples or kid photos. I don't see why, because I don't see any possible danger whatsoever in avoiding grains for a month. If I'm wrong, please illuminate me. I am admittedly, another anecdote case of positive outcome from avoiding grains.

cageface 16y ago

Exactly. These claims fly in the face of overwhelming counter-evidence. I can believe that something in the quantity of quality or grains we consume now may have changed over time but the idea that grains are generally, inherently toxic requires some very, very strong proof. I have a feeling all these diet hackers would get a lot more mileage out of regular exercise and smaller portions.

kilian 16y ago
The "gluttony-sloth" hypothesis (fat people don't move enough and eat too much) has been thoroughly disproved. Regular exercise is an exceptionally bad way to lose weight (though there numerous other benefits!), so are smaller portions (smaller portions means you are hungry, and that makes you hold on to your fat deposits) If you're interested, read "good calories, bad calories". It goes into about a century of dietary research and makes the arguments much more eloquently. Here are some notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-bad-calories http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba...
- cageface 16y ago
  His emphasis isn't on weight loss, it's overall health. The American obsession with waistsize vastly oversimplifies a complex equation. All the people I've known personally that obsessed over their diets this way would have been better off spending that time on a long walk. The paleolithic diet is hardly generally accepted among nutritionists either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

ryandvm 16y ago

I'm pretty skeptical, but the reason I'm willing to give the notion a little traction is because no other primate eats grains - and even humans didn't until the dawn of agriculture. Of course a lot of things humans do are completely unnatural: alcohol, dairy, fish, tobacco, complete lack of physical activity, etc. I'm far from convinced, but that's the point of the experiment. I'll see how this thing shakes out in 30 days...

hugh3 16y ago
How is fish unnatural? Fish are a huge part of the diet of many pre-agricultural cultures... pretty much any that live where there are fish, in fact.
- ryandvm 16y ago
  Good point. I was attempting to point out activities humans partake in that are more recent than evolutionary mechanisms would have had time to filter out. Though I suppose we've been clubbing and trapping fish for a good while longer than we've had agriculture.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Club 'em, trap 'em, spear 'em (spears are at least 300,000 years old) or even grab 'em with your hands (easier if you live a million years ago before human fishing has depleted fish stocks). I tried to find out whether chimps eat fish... apparently they've never been observed to do so, but baboons do.

hugh3 16y ago

I guess that's why it's an experiment. Having cut grains from my own diet I haven't seen any positive effects other than weight loss, and this guy doesn't need to lose weight, but other people may respond in different ways. There's no especially good reason to suppose that grains are bad for you, but there's no especially good reason to suppose that they're not. Grains are a perfectly serviceable food source and helped to provide greater food stability for our neolithic ancestors (at least for those of us who had neolithic ancestors) but it's plausible that a diet excessively rich in them might contribute to minor ailments. Anyway, better to experiment with it for 30 days than to sit around and prognosticate about whether it will work or not. The only downside is that you can't necessarily trust your introspective observations about your condition.

js2 16y ago

Grains are a relatively recent introduction to homo sapiens diet[1]. And the way the western diet consumes them is even more at odds with how they are traditionally consumed [2,3,4]. 1. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-human-evolution.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-hum... 2. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/03/grains-as-food-update.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/03/grains-as-food... 3. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/traditional-preparation-methods-improve.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/traditional-pr... 4. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grain-recipes-from-around.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grai...

pronoiac 16y ago

Read the Tim Ferriss blog entry [1] for a potential explanation. For your silently-added second paragraph: I thought differing descriptions of feng shui were hilarious, but you're not really surprised that different people digest food differently, are you? The blog is testing that hypothesis, so don't be so eager to shoot down the possibility. [1] http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-solution/ http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-s...