5 ms·

> Eating fewer grain products is not synonymous with popular diets like low-carb or gluten-free. It needn’t be borne by commitment to a food movement like paleo

> Eating fewer grain products is not synonymous with popular diets like low-carb or gluten-free. It needn’t be borne by commitment to a food movement like paleo. Sure, it doesn't need to be related to the Paleo diet, but that's still where it all stems from. It's the same as any other fad diet or pseudoscience: Come up with some reasonable-sounding claims that take advantage of poor scientific awareness (e.g. 10,000 years isn't enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead), then make millions of dollars promoting your diet and selling books to your unquestioning followers. There's a common sentiment among Paleo zealots that they finally need to distance themselves from the irrational underpinnings that started the whole fad (see here[1] for a FAQ by the 'Paleo diet' inventor). The problem arises when they go searching for scientific evidence to support their grain bashing, and then we end up with statements like this: > It can stem from the simple proposition that fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains. That’s an argument I’ll cover more deeply in later posts. Oh, how convenient. Save the crux of the argument for another time. We'll all be patiently holding our breath. [1] http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/ http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/

lenazegher 14y ago
My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat. The point you quoted was intended to illustrate that you can lower the ratio of grain in your diet not because you think grains are the devil but simply because you want to eat more of other things. For me, those other things are fruits and vegetables but they could equally be dairy or meat or nuts or legumes or any number of things. Exploring that area felt thematically different and this article was already rather long so I thought I'd save it for another post. Apologies if it seems although I was dodging the issue, possibly I didn't choose my closing words carefully enough.
- Irregardless 14y ago
  > My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat. That's all well and good as long as you give the full story, but you've forsaken the anti-grain diet fads while parroting their mantra almost verbatim. Namely, the idea that grains are a primary food source only because they're an easy source of calories. What about the fact that they're also rich in essential nutrients and have numerous documented health benefits? When you say this: > fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains. And then follow it up with this: > Around 12,000 years ago, a group of Neolithic humans conducted an experiment that forever changed the course of human development. They left behind the way they had eaten for countless generations and moved to a diet that helped them face new problems and evolve in new ways. I believe it’s possible for this generation to do the same. It's clear you're trying to persuade people to eat fewer grains. Don't get me wrong, I love to re-examine common knowledge we all take for granted as much as anyone, but there are good, scientific reasons people say "eat lots of whole grains" and it seems very odd to condemn them without taking those reasons into account.
  - VLM 14y ago
    A long worded response seems pointless. There is a saying which may or may not be true that "Reality has a well known liberal bias". Regardless if that saying is correct or not, it does seem very realistic that a similar "Reality has a paleo diet bias" is almost certainly true, regardless if anyone likes it or not. The anti-pattern of trying to present both sides as equally valid, probably to maximize advertising revenue or something, is not terribly useful. A sliced apple simply is healthier than a twinkie and a handful of pecans is healthier than a bag of Doritos. If it were theoretically possible to make a healthy grain based diet (I suspect it is inherently not possible, but I will humor the cheetos and chez whiz addicts) then it wouldn't matter anyway because the dominant American grain based diet is incredibly unhealthy. Either way you have to put down the triple quarter pounder with bacon and cheese and step away slowly, and frankly the paleo stuff tastes better than the grain stuff unless you use megatons of the unhealthy meat/dairy/grease/artificial flavors aka the standard american diet. I mean, seriously, given a choice of a lifetime of civil war style hardtack or a platter of grapes, berries, and cherries...
leoedin 14y ago
I can't speak for this blog (I'm naturally suspicious of anything with "supplement" in its name), but I think you may be overreacting slightly. The content of this blog post wasn't particularly controversial, and the conclusion wasn't either. We have quite a lot of evidence that diets high in processed carbohydrates contribute to obesity. Dismissing any suggestion that eating less processed carbohydrate might be a good thing with the "pseudoscience" label is almost as bad as mindlessly shouting about paleo without accepting any evidence against it.
michaelkeenan 14y ago
> 10,000 years isn't enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead One of the details of that argument is that grains contain phytic acid[1], which humans can't digest. Phytic acid binds with important minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, making them unavailable when digested. Cows, sheep, goats, and other non-humans produce various phytases, enzymes that digest phytic acid, but humans don't. Some people (such as Marlene Zuk, author of Paleofantasy, recently linked on HN) say that 10,000 years is enough to adapt to a new food, and cite lactose tolerance as an example. But lactose tolerance is the result of a single SNP, which can occur in at least two places. To digest phytic acid, humans would need to evolve a whole new enzyme. You need more than 10,000 years for that. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid
- vanderZwan 14y ago
  So... aren't there any bacterial cultures living in the gut that do the digesting for us? Just like how gut bacteria have been found among some Japanese island populations that help digesting seaweed?
- Irregardless 14y ago
  Yes, much like every other food on the planet, grains do contain certain compounds that can be harmful when isolated and consumed in large quantities. Did you know fruits and vegetables contain arsenic? Despite what the Paleo crowd would have you believe, phytates do have health benefits (like fighting cancer and inflammation). And even if they didn't, soaking and cooking grains reduces their final content of phytic acid. Unless you have a very poorly balanced diet that consists almost entirely of grains, phytates are of no concern at all [1]. [1] http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400758/Are-Phytates-Bad-or-Good.html http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400758/Are-Phytates-Bad-or-Go...
- saalweachter 14y ago
  Two things: 10,000 years is totally enough time for evolution to work on humans. See: lactose tolerance. Just as importantly, we've been evolving the living daylights out of every domestic plant via selective breeding for just as long. Wild potatoes are poisonous, as are almonds. Maize started out with tiny grain. Apples have been bred into a bazillion varieties, with different sizes, tastes, and textures. It's silly to say that it's more natural to eat cauliflower than corn, when neither properly existed 10,000 years ago.
potatolicious 14y ago
I don't see a paleo slant to this at all. > "(e.g. 10,000 years isn't enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead)" This is a common claim by paleo supporters, but I don't see it in the article. If anything the approach is the opposite: carbs are fine, but they are calorie-dense. In an era where we're over-consuming calories it makes sense to start cutting the most calorie-dense (and also least filling) foods first. As someone who went to Fat Class when he was a kid, this has been accepted practice for dietitians for years. If you're over-consuming, you want to optimize for a balance of the amount of calories reduced vs. the amount of hunger increased. Leaving oneself hungry is the surest way to fall of a diet-change wagon - and cheap sugars give the "worst" combination of fillingness vs. calories consumed (it would be best if we actually needed said calories). The argument doesn't stem from some pseudoscientific belief that some foods are magically worse than others for inscrutable reasons like inverting the polaron field. It makes its argument from the (typically anti-paleo) stance that all foods are (more or less equal) and calories are the primary concern.
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  That's exactly my problem with the Paleo diet though: it can be summed up by the following sentence: "So you're saying that eating a lot of vegetables, beans and quality meat is good for you? Who would've thought that!" </sarcasm>
  - scarmig 14y ago
    My understanding is that paleo opposes eating beans. Impurifies our precious bodily fluids, or something.
    - splat 14y ago
      Beans (like grains) have a lot of phytic acid in them. Phytic acid prevents the absorption of minerals. The amount of phytic acid can be reduced if the beans are soaked in water that contains lactobacilli for a day or so, but almost no one does that.
gregwebs 14y ago
The Paleo diet is specifically designed to imitate how human beings ate for tens of thousands of years. Does it seem odd to be calling it a fad diet? Of course, engaging in that form of name calling is inherently promoting the social norm as the non-fad. However, the social norm diet (particularly in the USA) today takes a majority of its calories from foods that did not exist for the most people living 200 years ago (refined vegetable oils, refined sugar, and refined or poorly processed grains).
- VLM 14y ago
  Correct although I'd revise it to quantities not just that it exists. You can have a perfectly healthy diet while consuming around one pound per year of corn syrup. Unfortunately, you simply cannot have a healthy diet while consuming 40 pounds per year per person of corn syrup (this no exaggeration BTW since roughly 30 years ago, not 200 years ago, coincidentally about when people started getting real fat) Also if you're a starving roman legionary living outdoors and marching 15 miles a day thru Gaul and doing hard core military training when not fighting pitched battles then what little wheat and corn you can get will not make you fat, but it doesn't work so well when you eat even more grains despite a lifestyle of sitting in a car for 2 hours a day and then at a desk for 10 hours and then watch TV for 6 hours at home on the couch and for a variety of lifestyle and economic reasons that isn't changing any time soon, although IS feasible you could maybe put down the six frosted filled donuts for breakfast and eat two sliced apples instead...
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > However, the social norm diet (particularly in the USA) today takes a majority of its calories from foods that did not exist for the most people living 200 years ago (refined vegetable oils, refined sugar, and refined or poorly processed grains). Don't forget: clean (refined) water, refined medicines, sterile operating rooms. Old doesn't make it better.
msluyter 14y ago
The level of hate here seems unwarranted. I've posted a lot on this subject on HN, but ultimately this isn't something that needs to be debated. Anyone can experiment for themselves. Try eliminating grain (esp. wheat) from your diet for a month or so and see how you feel. If you want to go all out, do a whole30[1]. If you see no benefits, then stop, nothing lost. If you're like me and your weight and cholesterol levels drop, then yay. Debate on this topic is less productive than empirical investigation. [1] http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/ http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/
- IsaacL 14y ago
  Yes, I too am confused by how paleo makes some people so angry. Try it for yourself, or don't, who cares? About two months I tried massively reducing the amount of sugar and carbs I consume, and saw good results. I wouldn't call my diet "paleo" since I'm not super strict about it (I eat oatmeal for breakfast every morning, I take Saturdays off as a day to eat whatever I want, I consume lots of dairy because I'm trying to bulk up and its an easy way to get protein), but even with those relaxed restrictions, I feel way better. After a week or two of cravings, I don't even want to eat high-carb staples like bread, pasta or rice before - I now see them as just a cheap way to fill yourself up.
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
I thought the article made it pretty clear that the proposed alternative is fruits and veggies, not paleo.
chez17 14y ago
>Oh, how convenient. Save the crux of the argument for another time. We'll all be patiently holding our breath. Are you suggesting vegetables aren't more nutritious than grains on the whole? Don't get so anti-paleo that you stop thinking yourself. If you were raising a child, would rather he/she eat a plate of vegetables or a plate of rice for a meal?

lenazegher 14y ago

My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat. The point you quoted was intended to illustrate that you can lower the ratio of grain in your diet not because you think grains are the devil but simply because you want to eat more of other things. For me, those other things are fruits and vegetables but they could equally be dairy or meat or nuts or legumes or any number of things. Exploring that area felt thematically different and this article was already rather long so I thought I'd save it for another post. Apologies if it seems although I was dodging the issue, possibly I didn't choose my closing words carefully enough.

Irregardless 14y ago
> My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat. That's all well and good as long as you give the full story, but you've forsaken the anti-grain diet fads while parroting their mantra almost verbatim. Namely, the idea that grains are a primary food source only because they're an easy source of calories. What about the fact that they're also rich in essential nutrients and have numerous documented health benefits? When you say this: > fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains. And then follow it up with this: > Around 12,000 years ago, a group of Neolithic humans conducted an experiment that forever changed the course of human development. They left behind the way they had eaten for countless generations and moved to a diet that helped them face new problems and evolve in new ways. I believe it’s possible for this generation to do the same. It's clear you're trying to persuade people to eat fewer grains. Don't get me wrong, I love to re-examine common knowledge we all take for granted as much as anyone, but there are good, scientific reasons people say "eat lots of whole grains" and it seems very odd to condemn them without taking those reasons into account.
- VLM 14y ago
  A long worded response seems pointless. There is a saying which may or may not be true that "Reality has a well known liberal bias". Regardless if that saying is correct or not, it does seem very realistic that a similar "Reality has a paleo diet bias" is almost certainly true, regardless if anyone likes it or not. The anti-pattern of trying to present both sides as equally valid, probably to maximize advertising revenue or something, is not terribly useful. A sliced apple simply is healthier than a twinkie and a handful of pecans is healthier than a bag of Doritos. If it were theoretically possible to make a healthy grain based diet (I suspect it is inherently not possible, but I will humor the cheetos and chez whiz addicts) then it wouldn't matter anyway because the dominant American grain based diet is incredibly unhealthy. Either way you have to put down the triple quarter pounder with bacon and cheese and step away slowly, and frankly the paleo stuff tastes better than the grain stuff unless you use megatons of the unhealthy meat/dairy/grease/artificial flavors aka the standard american diet. I mean, seriously, given a choice of a lifetime of civil war style hardtack or a platter of grapes, berries, and cherries...

leoedin 14y ago

I can't speak for this blog (I'm naturally suspicious of anything with "supplement" in its name), but I think you may be overreacting slightly. The content of this blog post wasn't particularly controversial, and the conclusion wasn't either. We have quite a lot of evidence that diets high in processed carbohydrates contribute to obesity. Dismissing any suggestion that eating less processed carbohydrate might be a good thing with the "pseudoscience" label is almost as bad as mindlessly shouting about paleo without accepting any evidence against it.

michaelkeenan 14y ago

> 10,000 years isn't enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead One of the details of that argument is that grains contain phytic acid[1], which humans can't digest. Phytic acid binds with important minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, making them unavailable when digested. Cows, sheep, goats, and other non-humans produce various phytases, enzymes that digest phytic acid, but humans don't. Some people (such as Marlene Zuk, author of Paleofantasy, recently linked on HN) say that 10,000 years is enough to adapt to a new food, and cite lactose tolerance as an example. But lactose tolerance is the result of a single SNP, which can occur in at least two places. To digest phytic acid, humans would need to evolve a whole new enzyme. You need more than 10,000 years for that. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid

vanderZwan 14y ago
So... aren't there any bacterial cultures living in the gut that do the digesting for us? Just like how gut bacteria have been found among some Japanese island populations that help digesting seaweed?
Irregardless 14y ago
Yes, much like every other food on the planet, grains do contain certain compounds that can be harmful when isolated and consumed in large quantities. Did you know fruits and vegetables contain arsenic? Despite what the Paleo crowd would have you believe, phytates do have health benefits (like fighting cancer and inflammation). And even if they didn't, soaking and cooking grains reduces their final content of phytic acid. Unless you have a very poorly balanced diet that consists almost entirely of grains, phytates are of no concern at all [1]. [1] http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400758/Are-Phytates-Bad-or-Good.html http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400758/Are-Phytates-Bad-or-Go...
saalweachter 14y ago
Two things: 10,000 years is totally enough time for evolution to work on humans. See: lactose tolerance. Just as importantly, we've been evolving the living daylights out of every domestic plant via selective breeding for just as long. Wild potatoes are poisonous, as are almonds. Maize started out with tiny grain. Apples have been bred into a bazillion varieties, with different sizes, tastes, and textures. It's silly to say that it's more natural to eat cauliflower than corn, when neither properly existed 10,000 years ago.

potatolicious 14y ago

I don't see a paleo slant to this at all. > "(e.g. 10,000 years isn't enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead)" This is a common claim by paleo supporters, but I don't see it in the article. If anything the approach is the opposite: carbs are fine, but they are calorie-dense. In an era where we're over-consuming calories it makes sense to start cutting the most calorie-dense (and also least filling) foods first. As someone who went to Fat Class when he was a kid, this has been accepted practice for dietitians for years. If you're over-consuming, you want to optimize for a balance of the amount of calories reduced vs. the amount of hunger increased. Leaving oneself hungry is the surest way to fall of a diet-change wagon - and cheap sugars give the "worst" combination of fillingness vs. calories consumed (it would be best if we actually needed said calories). The argument doesn't stem from some pseudoscientific belief that some foods are magically worse than others for inscrutable reasons like inverting the polaron field. It makes its argument from the (typically anti-paleo) stance that all foods are (more or less equal) and calories are the primary concern.

mtrimpe 14y ago
That's exactly my problem with the Paleo diet though: it can be summed up by the following sentence: "So you're saying that eating a lot of vegetables, beans and quality meat is good for you? Who would've thought that!" </sarcasm>
- scarmig 14y ago
  My understanding is that paleo opposes eating beans. Impurifies our precious bodily fluids, or something.
  - splat 14y ago
    Beans (like grains) have a lot of phytic acid in them. Phytic acid prevents the absorption of minerals. The amount of phytic acid can be reduced if the beans are soaked in water that contains lactobacilli for a day or so, but almost no one does that.

gregwebs 14y ago

The Paleo diet is specifically designed to imitate how human beings ate for tens of thousands of years. Does it seem odd to be calling it a fad diet? Of course, engaging in that form of name calling is inherently promoting the social norm as the non-fad. However, the social norm diet (particularly in the USA) today takes a majority of its calories from foods that did not exist for the most people living 200 years ago (refined vegetable oils, refined sugar, and refined or poorly processed grains).

VLM 14y ago
Correct although I'd revise it to quantities not just that it exists. You can have a perfectly healthy diet while consuming around one pound per year of corn syrup. Unfortunately, you simply cannot have a healthy diet while consuming 40 pounds per year per person of corn syrup (this no exaggeration BTW since roughly 30 years ago, not 200 years ago, coincidentally about when people started getting real fat) Also if you're a starving roman legionary living outdoors and marching 15 miles a day thru Gaul and doing hard core military training when not fighting pitched battles then what little wheat and corn you can get will not make you fat, but it doesn't work so well when you eat even more grains despite a lifestyle of sitting in a car for 2 hours a day and then at a desk for 10 hours and then watch TV for 6 hours at home on the couch and for a variety of lifestyle and economic reasons that isn't changing any time soon, although IS feasible you could maybe put down the six frosted filled donuts for breakfast and eat two sliced apples instead...
darkarmani 14y ago
> However, the social norm diet (particularly in the USA) today takes a majority of its calories from foods that did not exist for the most people living 200 years ago (refined vegetable oils, refined sugar, and refined or poorly processed grains). Don't forget: clean (refined) water, refined medicines, sterile operating rooms. Old doesn't make it better.

msluyter 14y ago

The level of hate here seems unwarranted. I've posted a lot on this subject on HN, but ultimately this isn't something that needs to be debated. Anyone can experiment for themselves. Try eliminating grain (esp. wheat) from your diet for a month or so and see how you feel. If you want to go all out, do a whole30[1]. If you see no benefits, then stop, nothing lost. If you're like me and your weight and cholesterol levels drop, then yay. Debate on this topic is less productive than empirical investigation. [1] http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/ http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/

IsaacL 14y ago
Yes, I too am confused by how paleo makes some people so angry. Try it for yourself, or don't, who cares? About two months I tried massively reducing the amount of sugar and carbs I consume, and saw good results. I wouldn't call my diet "paleo" since I'm not super strict about it (I eat oatmeal for breakfast every morning, I take Saturdays off as a day to eat whatever I want, I consume lots of dairy because I'm trying to bulk up and its an easy way to get protein), but even with those relaxed restrictions, I feel way better. After a week or two of cravings, I don't even want to eat high-carb staples like bread, pasta or rice before - I now see them as just a cheap way to fill yourself up.

Florin_Andrei 14y ago

I thought the article made it pretty clear that the proposed alternative is fruits and veggies, not paleo.

chez17 14y ago

>Oh, how convenient. Save the crux of the argument for another time. We'll all be patiently holding our breath. Are you suggesting vegetables aren't more nutritious than grains on the whole? Don't get so anti-paleo that you stop thinking yourself. If you were raising a child, would rather he/she eat a plate of vegetables or a plate of rice for a meal?