PALEO NUTRITION 101
This material paraphrased from researching many Paleo-oriented authors including Robb Wolf, James Braly, Ron Hoggan, Melissa Diane Smith, Jack Kruse,
Mark Sisson and Loren Cordain:
THE VERY BEST DIET MAXIMIZES MICRONUTRIENT INTAKE WHILE AVOIDING ALL ANTI-NUTRIENTS
Everyone is aware of the three macronutrients in their diet but if you have been eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), I'll wager you are
consuming too many empty calories from so-called "healthy" complex carbohydrates and grains, not getting enough high-quality protein and too much of
the wrong kinds of fats.
Most people are unaware that many of the foods they consume on the SAD contain several varieties of anti-nutrients, i.e. substances that rob us of real
nutrients or that are even slightly poisonous to human beings, the most toxic of which are the anti-nutrients in gluten-containing grains.
Firstly, grains and other polysaccharides (literally "many sugars") can spike your Insulin levels causing lowered blood sugar within hours of eating too
much bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. Of course, overeating cookies, cakes and pastries sweetened with mono or disaccharides can
create huge blood sugar crashes, leaving you ravenous, confused or irritable soon afterwards.
You can easily become trapped on this blood-sugar-roller-coaster, requiring repeated hits of grains, sugar and extra caffeine throughout the day just to be able
to make it until the evening. If this sounds a little too familiar, then maybe our typical American high-grain, high-starch and high-sugar diet is an
especially bad choice for you.
Of course, context matters greatly so for any particular individual, it depends on their metabolic and hormonal state, BUT even if you're not on that particular
roller coaster yet, there are plenty of other reasons to avoid grains and sugar, especially fructose since this sugar increases our production of advanced
glycation end-products (AGEs) by 7 times!
Don't be fooled by the corn sweetener lobbyists either because it doesn't matter whether this sugar comes from high-fructose corn syrup or fresh fruits, like their
advertisements say, "Sugar is sugar and your body can't tell the difference."
"Wait a sec - I thought what you were going to say is that all I have to do is control my portions. So, what? It isn't all about eating
anything and everything I want as long as I do it in moderation?"
Well, yes and no, but when it comes to ingesting toxins that increase oxidative stress, systemic inflammation and are linked to hundreds of modern diseases,
in my opinion it is definitely
not about balance, moderation or portion control of any kind.
That old adage 'everything in moderation' ONLY applies to substances that exhibit a threshold effect in our bodies. Honestly, how can anyone really believe
that eating a little dose of poisons everyday could possibly be good for us? However, sugar is one of those threshold items where a little
may be OK for you but too much is WAY too much for anybody! It doesn't matter what kind of sugar either: HFCS, maple syrup, raw organic
honey, table sugar, brown sugar, palm sugar, dates, raisins, dried apricots, fresh mangoes, bananas or pineapples; so, please remember, you can overdose
on any of those sugars!
Therefore, when starting out on a Paleo/Primal diet I always advocate to seriously limit any fructose and all refined sugar consumption. Eat a
variety of quality proteins, plenty of good fat like schmaltz, tallow or lard and lots and lots of fresh vegetables. So, my best advice is to
focus your diet on those nutrient-dense and nourishing foods while completely avoiding the foods that are really quite unsuitable and unnecessary
for humans, such as all grains, all dairy products and all legumes.
If I haven't caused you to shout "You LIE! Grains, beans'n dairy ARE healthy, the government, my doctor and dietician ALL say so!" then
please read on...
Our grain gluttony can be further amplified by the opioid-like peptides called
exorphins contained within the gluten molecule which give you
mild euphoria with each dose of gluten. Like a stimulant-type drug, you crash after each fix and then you need to score to feel good again!
All dairy products contain oddly similar-acting exorphins within their protein casein, so it's no wonder food advertisers love to expose children to
powerful grain-dairy combinations so as adults everyone remains totally hooked on mac & cheese, bread & butter, cake & ice cream or pizza which
our congress just decreed to be a vegetable in school lunches, can you?
Finally, the insulinogenic effects of milk and starchy, sugary foods when combined with a diet very high in omega-6 fatty-acids (like our SAD), leads to
systemic inflammation and chronic loss of hormone sensitivity to the hypothalamus area of the brain, meaning that we increasingly become "deaf" to the
signals that we are full and to stop eating.
Our main satiety hormone is
Leptin and this abnormal state is Leptin resistance which dysregulates many other hormones leading to hypercortisolism,
effectively shutting down your thyroid function. Next comes Insulin resistance which is most assuredly a pre-cursor to type 2 diabetes in this hormonal
house-of-cards.
By the way, simply observe the people around you; the surest sign that someone is Leptin or Insulin resistant is thirty pounds or more of stubborn
belly-fat, in other words, the silhouette of these persons is shaped like a pear or an apple.
Leptin resistance also plays a leading role in the rise of obesity. Since Leptin wasn't discovered until 1994, it is very new research which suggests that morbidly
overweight patients have gotten their metabolisms "latched" into sugar-burning mode making it difficult for them to lose body fat no matter how much they
exercise
until they restore normal Leptin signaling to their brain and peripheral tissues (liver and muscles).
Meanwhile, grains attack all predators foolish enough to eat their children (the seeds) using three types of anti-nutrients: (1) with protease inhibitors
which arrest protein digestion preventing the breakdown of the grain's lectins as well as any other ingested proteins; (2) with phytic acid which chelates
minerals preventing their absorption, leading to deficiencies of iron, magnesium, zinc or calcium; and (3) with lectins like gluten, prolamines or
saponins which can damage the microvilli and break through the small intestine leading to continued gut permeability and finally
autoimmunity.
The most classic example of which is celiac disease caused by the lectins (gliadins and glutenins) in wheat, rye and barley or related grains, but
autoimmunity can also manifest as anything from Alzheimer's or arthritis to Parkinson's or schizophrenia.
Since full-blown celiac disease is more rare, much larger percentages of the population are likely to exhibit nonspecific gluten intolerance
without the classic abdominal symptoms, weight loss or malabsorption.
Thus, the evidence against wheat and other gluten-grains has been slow to gain widespread acceptance or even recognition; however, the latest research
is now linking gluten to well over 200 conditions including neurodegenerative diseases and cancers.
More importantly, it is becoming very apparent that gut damage due to gluten can be quite benign for years and years and yet still lead to
autoimmunity later in life.
Let me say that again: increased intestinal permeability due to gluten can be asymptomatic for decades
and still cause autoimmune diseases in your forties, fifties or sixties!
Doctors or dieticians may dismiss this information particularly when the patient is negative on the WGA blood test or standard intestinal biopsy for
celiac and so, patients with "silent" celiac still go undiagnosed, putting them at risk for more serious, life-threatening conditions later on.
For all these reasons, many researchers advocate changing "celiac disease" to the broader and less restrictive term, "gluten sensitivity".
While it is true that all foods contain lectins, over the past 2.5 million years we have adapted to safely digesting the lectins in meats, fruits &
vegetables but clearly, the lectins in gluten-grains are the most difficult ones for us to break down and detoxify.
Most non-allergist docs can easily mistake their patients' symptoms of fatigue, lethargy, general malaise or mild to moderate brain disorders as
signs of "normal" aging. Often these common complaints can be cured by simply eliminating all traces of gluten from the diet.
Without question, nearly everyone embraces wheat and all grains as a neccessary part of our diet, in fact, as essential to good health largely because
we are persuaded by the relentless advertising, government misinformation and tremendous peer-pressure to at least occasionally indulge in these
oh-so-yummy comfort foods.
Of course the processed food manufacturers' ad campaigns are motivated by profit but when dieticians, the FDA, USDA and AMA scare people they will become
deficient in essential nutrients if they don't consume enough "healthy" whole-grains, it's very difficult for even healthcare professionals not
to be fooled by this
caca del toro.
A serious "grain-a-holic" could easily consume a dozen servings per day without even realizing it because grains are not only everywhere you
look, they're damned convenient and cheap and they are added indiscriminately to just about every kind of processed food you can imagine!
It's terribly disconcerting when you realize how pervasive grains have become in our food supply; they're in our beverages from soft drinks, sports and
energy drinks to beer and liquor and even in some protein sources because we erroneously feed grains to our cattle and sheep, making these animals fat and
sick (just like us).
It is difficult to think of any packaged or canned food product not made from grain, from grain derivatives or made with other hidden grain
subfractions. Sadly, grains are firmly entrenched into our food manufacturing industry and our society as well, appearing daily on nearly every
table across America not to mention at every cultural celebration in the form of beer, liquors, traditional holiday breads, pies or birthday cakes.
Yes I know, I know, it's simply un-American to reject the consumption of any and all grain products, but the USDA Food Pyramid and new plate icon have
nothing to do with the health of the American people and everything to do with supporting US agriculture and the mega-profits to be made from cheap
grain-based snacks, cereals and convenience foods.
Madison Avenue's myth that "95% of all Americans don't get enough whole grains" would be quite comical except for the fact that these kinds of ads have
led people down the path of pain and suffering caused by totally preventable diseases that waste billions of dollars in our already failing healthcare system.
One only need listen to friends, family or co-workers to hear stories of persons living with sub-optimal health every day. Most anyone I talk to
eventually gets around to complaining about their chronic aches and pains, lack of energy, poor digestion, trouble sleeping, mild depression or
brain "fog" but these are just minor complaints that everyone has to live with, or so they think.
Dig a little deeper and it's truly shocking how many persons are on multiple meds for hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, RA, fibromyalgia,
asthma, depression and schizophrenia; I mean, holy crap America, wake yourself up! What is happening to the health of our population and why isn't
anybody seriously pissed off over these huge jumps in not only CVD but obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer and infertility?
While we're at it, what's up with all these autoimmune diseases that seem to be coming out of the woodwork? Our medical community has begun to admit that
autoimmune diseases, many of which were unheard of even 50 years ago, are definitely being caused by some sort of systemic inflammation.
Yet no one except the Paleo community is talking about the underlying reasons for this inflammation and nearly every other healthcare professional
considers any form of autoimmunity to be an idiopathic disease with no known cure! So, doctors continue to "manage" these symptoms with powerful
immuno-suppressants and anti-inflammatory drugs which is just bad science in my book, almost as if we still believed in evil spirits or blood-letting.
The obvious solution is to teach people, beginning in kindergarten really, how to eat and live in accordance with their genetic heritage so they don't
need
any costly prescriptions, immuno-suppressants or anti-inflammatories. Common surgeries like angioplasties or hip replacements and the
long-term care so typical of today's aging population should be the rarest exception, not the norm.
Indeed, modern medicine likes to boast that people are now living longer lives than ever before, but to me, this is not a benefit but a curse when quality
of life is reduced to little more than that of a vegetable during your last 15 to 20 years. I don't know about you but this is not what
I signed up for!
I suspect that no improvements will be coming anytime soon from either the government or the medical community; so be it, you are completely on your
own when it comes to the pursuit of optimal health, longevity and freedom from the litany of Western diseases. However I do believe that
if you are committed to these pursuits that such changes are possible even if only at an individual level.
Therefore my greatest hope is that as individuals and perhaps their families take control of their own health and succeed in reversing or preventing
disease via an ancestral diet and lifestyle, more and more others will be inspired to do likewise. This is how we can realistically repair
healthcare in this country and this is how we can absolutely restore the vibrant good health and vitality of the American people for generations to come.
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