I find the paleo argument pretty compelling by virtue of the logic of the argument—i.e. homo sapiens evolved in an environment which did not have agriculture and grains.
The thing is, though, we have things like milk and alcohol that are not significantly older than grain consumption but we’ve seen evolutionary effects from them.
It is a point of scholarly contention whether people who retain their lactose tolerance with age were able to displace other people through their superior protein income, or taught milk cultivation to other people, who then had increased prevalence of the lactose toleration gene from that selection pressure. I have no more knowledge than the scholars, but consider the existence of a scholarly controversy evidence for the belief I am disposed against.
There’s also significant selection pressure against alcoholism genes among people that have access to alcohol (or just for ‘alcohol tolerance,’ but the first seems a more robust way to put things) and unsanitary drinking water: the result is that European Americans have dramatically lower rates of alcoholism than Native Americans. (The numbers I’ve seen compare alcoholism rates, not genes linked to alcoholism; so I suspect this is relevant but am not sure.)
So, it seems likely to me that people with European ancestry, at least, are likely to have spent the last hundred generations or so with a high percentage of grain in their diet, and we’ve seen that can make adjustments to patterns adopted for the previous thousand generations.
As for paleo? My friends that have tried it have all reported positive effects. My guess is that the main effects are better food and better food discipline. Whenever you make a serious attempt to plan your diet, some things disappear which you did not consider before- and my guess is that makes a huge difference. Extensive research shows that a lot of staples of industrial food- like sucrose, or massive levels of corn- are pretty bad for you. Simply preparing things yourself over having them prepared commercially has shown to dramatically reduce calorie intake; it’s easy to go to a restaurant and eat the food that tastes great when you didn’t see the two sticks of butter go into the pan. Beyond that, sticking to any sort of plan with food will decrease bad snacking and increase general good habits.
So, my advice is, “don’t pick a clearly deficient diet, and don’t not pick (i.e. default diet)”- beyond that, it doesn’t seem like you can do much besides match to your individual tastes. I think it would take a health benefit of 10 extra years for me to give up bread, since I really like bread. (And I’m expecting to live ~100 more years anyway, and so the duration effect has to be pretty massive to counterbalance the quality of life effect.)
That said, I suspect at some point in the next few years I’ll buy a blood glucose monitor and see what sort of effects my diet is having, and if I need to make any changes to prevent diabetes.
So, my advice is, “don’t pick a clearly deficient diet, and don’t not pick (i.e. default diet)”- beyond that, it doesn’t seem like you can do much besides match to your individual tastes. I think it would take a health benefit of 10 extra years for me to give up bread, since I really like bread.
I hear you. Paleo = NO bread. I am not choosing to go that far. Seven months ago I had grains at the base of the food pyramid at ~ 40% of my daily calorie intake. Now it is less than 5% and the idea of eating a foot long subway is not appetizing to me at all right now. I am genetically European and I eat dairy and I consume alcohol; it is interesting and disturbing to observe at first hand people who dairy and alcohol make physically ill because they have some different G-A-T-C sequences deep in the works of the organism.
It is a mystery at this point. I have the latest American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. They have the food pyramid with grains at the base just like they showed us all in elementary school. My recent experience is that for my bio makeup that pyramid is not the best guide.
The thing is, though, we have things like milk and alcohol that are not significantly older than grain consumption but we’ve seen evolutionary effects from them.
It is a point of scholarly contention whether people who retain their lactose tolerance with age were able to displace other people through their superior protein income, or taught milk cultivation to other people, who then had increased prevalence of the lactose toleration gene from that selection pressure. I have no more knowledge than the scholars, but consider the existence of a scholarly controversy evidence for the belief I am disposed against.
There’s also significant selection pressure against alcoholism genes among people that have access to alcohol (or just for ‘alcohol tolerance,’ but the first seems a more robust way to put things) and unsanitary drinking water: the result is that European Americans have dramatically lower rates of alcoholism than Native Americans. (The numbers I’ve seen compare alcoholism rates, not genes linked to alcoholism; so I suspect this is relevant but am not sure.)
So, it seems likely to me that people with European ancestry, at least, are likely to have spent the last hundred generations or so with a high percentage of grain in their diet, and we’ve seen that can make adjustments to patterns adopted for the previous thousand generations.
As for paleo? My friends that have tried it have all reported positive effects. My guess is that the main effects are better food and better food discipline. Whenever you make a serious attempt to plan your diet, some things disappear which you did not consider before- and my guess is that makes a huge difference. Extensive research shows that a lot of staples of industrial food- like sucrose, or massive levels of corn- are pretty bad for you. Simply preparing things yourself over having them prepared commercially has shown to dramatically reduce calorie intake; it’s easy to go to a restaurant and eat the food that tastes great when you didn’t see the two sticks of butter go into the pan. Beyond that, sticking to any sort of plan with food will decrease bad snacking and increase general good habits.
So, my advice is, “don’t pick a clearly deficient diet, and don’t not pick (i.e. default diet)”- beyond that, it doesn’t seem like you can do much besides match to your individual tastes. I think it would take a health benefit of 10 extra years for me to give up bread, since I really like bread. (And I’m expecting to live ~100 more years anyway, and so the duration effect has to be pretty massive to counterbalance the quality of life effect.)
That said, I suspect at some point in the next few years I’ll buy a blood glucose monitor and see what sort of effects my diet is having, and if I need to make any changes to prevent diabetes.
I hear you. Paleo = NO bread. I am not choosing to go that far. Seven months ago I had grains at the base of the food pyramid at ~ 40% of my daily calorie intake. Now it is less than 5% and the idea of eating a foot long subway is not appetizing to me at all right now. I am genetically European and I eat dairy and I consume alcohol; it is interesting and disturbing to observe at first hand people who dairy and alcohol make physically ill because they have some different G-A-T-C sequences deep in the works of the organism.
It is a mystery at this point. I have the latest American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. They have the food pyramid with grains at the base just like they showed us all in elementary school. My recent experience is that for my bio makeup that pyramid is not the best guide.
At least some people who are into paleo think that 80% or 90% will give you almost all the benefits.