2. SECRET TIPS YOU NEVER KNEW!!
GET YOUR RECIPES HERE
2012 PALEO DIET TIPS
3. HOW TO FIND THE BEST PALEO DIET FOR YOUR SELF
There are misconceptions and unproven facts about what's healthy or not that
circulate in the paleo diet community and that lead people to mistakes,
confusion or frustration when it comes to eating the healthiest diet possible.
The quasi-omnipresence of some of those myths and misconceptions has
become so strong that some bloggers now feel bad about being associated with
the paleo diet community and prefer being on the side of organizations such as
the Weston A. Price foundation, who gets things right at places where some
early paleo authors are wrong.
Other authors, like Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet from the Perfect Health Diet,
have decided to take the best science and facts about healthy eating and created
their own spin of a diet adapted to our species, good health and longevity.
As a movement gets bigger and starts getting popular in the mainstream,
mistakes and misconceptions are bound to be spread and the phenomenon is
unavoidable. When that happens, the community should unite in teaching the
right information and poking open some unfunded facts that prevent the
movement from being fully credible.
Some have decided to talk openly about common misconceptions in order to
expose the truth and change the way people think about a healthy paleo diet.
One such authors, Dr. Kurt Harriss from the popular PaNu (recently renamed to
Archevore) blog, proposed the term Paleo 2.0 to differentiate old and unproven
paleo diet sticking points from the real science and anthropology about food
and its relation to our health.
4. This website is fully on board with the ideas brought forward by the Paleo 2.0
concept. In other words, we could say that this website is Paleo 2.0 compliant.
Something to always keep in mind is that trying to imitate our past is futile and
impossible so we should always consider things through multiple lens. Science,
anthropology and common sense are three such lens. The idea of eating like
caveman shouldn’t be viewed negatively because it’s what instantly made
sense for many people. Other recent and fad diets like the standard American
diet aren’t rooted in any history, ancient tradition, thorough science and
haven’t endured the test of time.
GET YOUR RECIPES HERE
Some of the wrong things that are taken as fact by many people about the paleo
diet have already been discussed in previous articles. For example, the place or
dairy on a paleo diet and the many virtues of butter try to dismantle some of the
myths around dairy. Other articles, like my article on the health benefits of
saturated fat try to break the myth about our ancestors eating only lean meat.
I think that it’s in good order though to discuss those sticking points all at
once in order to explain why some early paleo authors are wrong in their
assumptions and why some of the diet recommendations on this website differ
from the earlier writings about the subject.
The most important concept and one thing that should be kept in mind through
any endeavor into the paleo diet is this one:
The goal is and has always been optimal health and well-being, not sticking to
dogmas just for the sake of being righteous.
5. The three main ideas that need to be tackled are the idea that healthy meat is
lean meat, the idea that all dairy is bad and the idea that potatoes and other
starchy vegetables are bad or suboptimal.
Paleo and lean meat
Lean meat There are a lot of people in the paleo community who think that
healthy meat is lean meat. Most of those people base their assumption around
the fact that grain-fed muscle meat tends to contain much more fat than grass-
fed muscle meat. Those who can’t afford or can’t find a reliable source of
grass-fed meat often also think that the fat of grain-fed meat shouldn’t be
consumed and that only lean grain-fed meat should be bought. Some earlier
Paleo authors have pushed the notion that healthy meat is lean meat so much
that a large part of the community now associates Paleo with eating lean meat.
This assumption is completely false and shows that the lipid-hypothesis is still
alive and kicking even in the Paleo community and that trying to imitate our
ancestors can lead to fundamental mistakes.
GET YOUR RECIPES HERE
It should be noted though that lean meat is not unhealthy per se, only that
excess protein from eating only lean meat is.
The thing is, the body isn’t able to metabolize more than about 30% of our
calories as proteins and the absolute need for proteins is much lower. Proteins
are a bad source of energy. Carbohydrates and fats are the real fuels for our
cells. Instead, proteins are used for growth, repair and many enzymatic
functions, not direct energy production.
To metabolize proteins, the body creates toxic by-products like ammonia and
urea. In excess, this can be detrimental. Protein poisoning, also called rabbit
6. starvation, is possible in the most extreme cases of protein over consumption.
Saturated and monounsaturated fat, for their part, are an excellent and reliable
source of energy, so good that our own bodies stores extra energy as those
kinds of fats in roughly equal parts. In addition to being a great source of
energy, saturated and monounsaturated fats have many important functions in
the body. Contrary to metabolizing proteins and carbohydrates, no toxic by-
products are created with those fats and they stay neutral in high amount
instead of becoming toxic and detrimental.
The fallacy of cavemen eating mostly lean meat
First of all, our ancestors probably didn’t eat much lean meat. The muscle
tissues of wild ruminants might be lean for many species for a good part of the
year, but most studies that look at the fatty tissue composition of wild animals
tend to overlook the fat outside muscle tissues like subcutaneous fat, marrow
fat, brain fat and fat around organs like the kidneys.
Traditional cultures were well aware of the importance of fat as a great source
of energy and went out of their way to seek out the fattest animals and utilize
every bit of fat found in them. They knew which animals to hunt and in which
season they were at their fattest state. For example, Eskimos are good at
spotting fat caribous in herds just by looking at the horns.
In addition to that, some wild ruminants are especially fatty and those were
often the most hunted and prized animals. Many hunters will tell you that wild
game is often far from being lean.
So, if today we eat steaks with much more marbling than the steaks of animals
living in the wild, it only compensates for the fact that we don’t eat the other
7. sources of fat that were available in those animals.
Fatty grain-fed meat
Another subset of people accept the fact that saturated and monounsaturated
fat are healthy in high amount, but still tend to think that the fat of grain-fed
animals is highly problematic and too high in polyunsaturated fat.
While it’s true that sourcing grass-fed meat is beneficial and desirable because
it’s more nutritious, it’s not a reason to shun and believe false facts about
grain-fed meat. The elitist attitude that only grass-fed meat should be eaten
scares away a lot of people who first become interested in the paleo diet.
The fat composition of grain-fed animals isn’t higher in omega-6 fat, rather
it’s lower in omega-3 fat. That simply means that those who regularly eat
grain-fed meat might need to make sure that they regularly eat fatty fish like
salmon or sardines to bring their omega-3 fat intake in balance with their
omega-6 intake.
A lot of people are also scared by the amount of some hormones found in the
fat or grain-fed animals. While it’s true that the fat of grain-fed animals usually
contains more hormones like testosterone, it’s nothing compared to the
amount of those hormones found in ruminant bulls, which our ancestors used to
eat much more.
To summarize, grass-fed meat is always the gold standard, but you shouldn’t
shy away from fatty cuts of meat even if you’re budget or geographic situation
only allows for grain-fed options.
Paleo and dairy
8. Even though this point has been discussed before on this website, many people
are dead stuck in believing that any dairy from any source is inherently bad and
that it should be avoided at all cost.
Here again, we’ve focused our attention into imitating our ancestors instead
of looking at what’s really going on and what’s really important. The main
focus should always be on elimination the biggest sources of malnutrition and
toxicity in our diets: grains (especially wheat), legumes (especially soy), sugar
and vegetable seed oils.
Dairy cow
The main undesirable element in milk and the sugar lactose, but many dairy
sources contain very little to no lactose at all. Aged cheeses, properly fermented
yogurt, butter, clarified butter and heavy cream are good examples. In addition
to that, although lactose is not properly digested by most people, raw milk still
contain the lactase enzymes that help break it down and should be well
tolerated.
The second undesirable element in dairy is the protein casein. Some people
seem to have issues with that protein present in milk. Here again, butter and
heavy cream are two choices that contain extremely low amount of the protein
casein. Also, many people who can’t tolerate cow’s milk end up doing just
fine with dairy from other sources like sheep or goats, mainly because their milk
contains a different form of the casein protein. Finally, some react to casein as a
cross-reaction linked to wheat consumption. This means that they no longer
have a problem with casein once their body is healed from the damages of
wheat and other gluten-containing grains.
9. Not many traditional cultures have been noted for consuming milk, but many
have been noted for consuming high amounts of dairy fat or fermented dairy of
some kind. Those cultures were most often really healthy and thriving.
Additionally, by shunning all dairy for ideological reasons about imitating our
past, we miss on a great source of healthy fat, butter fat. Of course, dairy is not
necessary at all on a healthy diet and its products should still be avoided by
people with digestive issues or an autoimmune disease.
Paleo, starchy vegetables and potatoes
Potatoes Another misconception running around in the Paleo community is that
starchy vegetables are unhealthy and that regular white potatoes are especially
bad. The bias against starchy vegetables probably comes from the low-carb
ideas about a healthy paleo diet.
It’s important to understand that our ancestors probably enjoyed caloric-dense
starchy vegetables as much as they could once they knew how to cook them
properly, which dates back a very long time ago. The amount of amylase, an
enzyme that digests starch, in our saliva is much higher than in most other
mammals, showing that we became adapted to eat and digest starchy
vegetables.
We now know than an optimal diet is not a long-term zero or very low carb diet
and that some amount of carbohydrates is healthy and desirable. In fact, in a
discussion about the perfect macro nutrient ratio, it has been established that
20% of our calories as carbs is probably optimal. Obtaining that amount of
carbohydrates by eating only non-starchy vegetables is very difficult if not
impossible and is not necessary at all. Many people understand the need for at
least some carbohydrates, but choose fruits instead of starchy vegetables to
10. fulfill that need. This is fine as long as fruits are eaten in very moderate amount,
but the fructose content of most fruits makes them problematic in too high
amount.
Contrary to the simple sugars like glucose and fructose found in fruits, starchy
vegetables are often mostly starch, a polymer of glucose molecules. Starch is
broken to simple glucose molecules in our digestive systems and our bodies
ends up only dealing with glucose, which is a sugar that can be used by all our
cells for energy, contrary to the toxic fructose.
Therefore, as a source of carbohydrate, starchy vegetables, provided that they
don’t contain toxic proteins, are often healthier than most fruits. They are also
often very nutritive and contain high amounts of some key minerals and
vitamins.
Of course, the story is almost never all black or white and two main subgroups
of people might want to take it slow on the starchy vegetables:
Metabolically deranged people: Those with a broken metabolism that isn’t
insulin sensitive anymore might find it hard not to overeat starchy vegetables
and might struggle to lose weight if they eat just a little too much of them.
Those people often do better if they go on a lower carbohydrate diet for a while
in order to heal and help their body learn to use fat as a source of energy. Some
people might never be able to go on a higher carb diet, but most people end up
being able to include healthy amounts of carbohydrates without problems after
a while.
People with digestive issues such as bacterial overgrowth: Some people with
digestive issues and IBS-like symptoms, especially those suffering from bacterial
overgrowth in the small intestine, have a hard time breaking down starch and
11. should limit their overall starch consumption.
White potatoes
Regular white potatoes are a vegetable that has received its load of hatred from
the Paleo diet community in general, often without reason. It’s already
established that, like eggplants, tomatoes and bell peppers, potatoes are in the
nightshade family of vegetables and can create problems for those already
sensitive to other nightshades. Unlike other nightshades though, most of the
toxins are found in the skin of potatoes and not in their flesh. We now have
access to simple tools to detoxify vegetables such as potatoes: potato peelers.
Potatoes, especially green potatoes and those with green spots (try not to pick
those), also contain saponins, mainly solanine and chaconine, which are also
toxic in high dose. Once again, the major part of those compounds is found in
the skin and is easily removable. Many studies have failed to demonstrate that
the amount of those compounds found in commercially available potatoes could
be detrimental to our health.
It’s very important to keep in mind that virtually all vegetables contain some
amounts of toxins. Potatoes are no exception, but are often not any worse than
other commonly eaten vegetables. This is why it’s a good idea to eat a diet
that’s diverse when it comes to plants.
I myself have been dealing with digestive issues and many otherwise healthy
food choices are still off limits for me. In spite of that, I tolerate potatoes pretty
well and include them as a source of healthy carbohydrates in my diet. Many
people are in similar situations where they struggle to properly digest many
sources of carbohydrates while peeled and cooked potatoes are just fine.
12. Potatoes are a great source of vitamin C, potassium, vitamin B6 and
magnesium. Potatoes are also a source of complete protein and can be eaten
exclusively in periods of scarcity without the risk being protein deficient. Many
cultures have thrived on diets very high in potatoes.
I’ve abstained from including recipes with regular potatoes in the past in order
not to confuse people, but I can not stay on the safe side anymore and have to
speak the truth in what’s really healthy and what’s not. I’ve already done
so in showing that most nuts and seeds are often suboptimal, even if many
people swear by them. The association against potatoes is strong and will take a
long time for some people to break.
Some people with digestive issues might still want to abstain from potatoes, like
they should already do for other nightshade vegetables like tomatoes or
peppers, but most healthy people can eat potatoes, without the skin, and benefit
from them. Starting now, some of the recipes on this site will feature potatoes. If
you’re still not sure about eating potatoes from everything you’ve heard
around the Paleo diet circles, now is the time to practice your skeptic muscle,
try them for yourself and see how it goes.
GET YOUR RECIPES HERE
