METABOLIC ADVANTAGES OF PALEO
There are great numbers of books on Low Carb eating. The question we need to answer is what makes the Paleo Diet different from any other form of Low Carb diet. Supposedly, the Paleo (short for “Paleolithic”) Diet is what our ancestors ate. In other words, it is a diet based upon the theory of evolution. Notice that I said “theory“. I realize that many of you will think I am crazy, but I am not buying the whole EVOLUTION THING. I believe it is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon mankind —- particularly in view of some of the new information coming out of the field of molecular genetics. Anyway; just realize that you can get the benefits of a Paleo Diet without goosestepping along with the evolutionists.
The Paleo Diet basically consists of eating things that prehistoric man would have hunted or gathered. This includes meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, berries, and nuts. The Paleo crowd is big on totally avoiding certain foods and drinking only water or maybe green tea. You’ll see why shortly. Some of these foods on the to-avoid list include GRAINS, beans & legumes, MILK or milk products, and alcohol. Just understand that no two lists will completely agree with each other (I recently saw a Paleo list that said it was OK to drink DIET SODA — gulp!). I realize that some of you reading this are going to disagree with the whole “Low Carb” thing. That’s OK. It’s a free country.
Yeah, I know. I’ve seen Forks Over Knives just like you have. Sorry; the research I have seen for Vegan eating is not convincing. Not to mention, I know how much better I feel eating closer to Paleo than eating Vegan. I used to follow Dr. McDougall back in the day — back when I though that “Fat Free” was great. Although some of what he says is spot on (processed cow’s milk, for instance), he needs to enter the 21st century as far as the research on protein is concerned. Despite the fact that I myself do not strictly follow a Paleo Diet (I like beans, sweet potatoes, and natural cheese too much), there can be many advantages — particularly to the person who is trying to regain both their weight and their health. Let’s look at a few of these advantages.
SPECIFIC ADVANTAGES OF THE PALEO DIET
- THE FOOD EATEN IS UNPROCESSED: “Cavemen” could not go out and purchase fast food. They could not run down to the store and buy prepackaged or JUNK FOOD. There was no such thing as preservatives, additives, MSG, or other such things back then. A PALEO DIET is all about eating this way.
- IT REVOLVES AROUND EATING FRUITS AND VEGETABLES: About the only thing that experts in the field of nutrition can ultimately agree on is that eating fresh vegetables is good for you. Everything else is up for grabs. When you look at the traditional Food Pyramid prepared by the USDA nearly 30 years ago, you’ll see that its foundation was grains (8-11 servings a day). After three decades of eating this way, we should be aware that as a nation we look suspiciously familiar to grain-fed Missouri beef. And in case you had not yet seen it, the latest government offering as far as dietary recommendations go — THE DASH DIET — might just be worse.
- YOU WILL BE ABLE TO CONSUME PLENTY OF GOOD FATS: INFLAMMATION is a chemical problem that is driven by several things, including the quality and type of the fats we eat. We are easier able to overcome a not-quite-perfect diet if we are consuming plenty of high quality Omega-3 Fatty Acids in our diets. The proper ratio of Omega 3’s to Omega-6’s should be about 1:2 or at the most, 1:3. Study after study after study puts the average American at closer to 1:30. If you are eating a diet heavy in TRANS FATS and not eating enough good fats (Omega 3’s, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, etc) or supplementing with PHARMACEUTICAL GRADE FISH OIL, getting healthy will be nigh impossible.
- YOU DO NOT HAVE TO STARVE YOURSELF: Some of the latest diet fads are simply amazing. My favorite diet for absolute absurdity is the HCG diet (Human Chorionic Gonadatrophin —- a hormone of pregnancy that is used by roiding athletes to ‘restart’ their own testosterone production once they go off their cycle). All you are supposed to do is take HCG and eat 500 calories a day. Wow! 500 calories a day. Sounds more like Stone Soup to me! With Paleo, as with all true ‘Low Carb’ methods of eating, you can eat a lot of food and should never feel hungry.
- PALEO IS HIGH IN FIBER: One of the knocks against the Atkins Diet and some of the other Low Carb diets is that they do not contain enough fiber. Much of this belief is either due to not understanding what Atkins himself was promoting, or not following his regimen —- or both. I have heard Atkins’ Diet called the “Meat Diet”. This is unfair. The people saying this are the same people saying that Atkins, a cardiologist, weighed 280 when he died. They fail to mention that he fell on an icy sidewalk and hit his head, causing a total shut down of all organs, including his kidneys. They also happen to be the same group of people touting bread as a good source of fiber (HERE). When ‘Low Carb’ is done correctly, you will have no trouble getting more than enough fiber. This is particularly true of the Paleo Diet.
- PALEO IS HYPO-ALLERGENIC: I like going to chiropractic seminars. Lately, I have been attending the series of 30 seminars created by DATIS KHARRAZIAN for Apex Energetics. The people teaching Datis’s classes are some of the most brilliant physicians on the planet —- FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGISTS with advanced degrees in nutrition and expertise in Functional Endocrinology. Because they can easily prove that almost all really sick people have food sensitivities, they put almost everyone they treat on a modified Paleo Diet. Paleo is GLUTEN FREE and Cassien Free (milk protein). In order to understand why this is such a big deal, read about GLUTEN CROSS-REACTORS as well as the COMMON CAUSE OF ALL MODERN DISEASE.
- PALEO NOT ONLY WORKS, BUT WORKS QUICKLY: In a study done by Dr. Lynda Frassetto’s team at the University of California – San Francisco School of Medicine and published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, we saw just how fast a Paleo Diet began causing the physiological changes that are required for health. How about 10 days! Researchers took sedentary individuals who were “non-obese” and put them on a Paleo Diet for a week and a half. Guess what happened? There were significant changes in BLOOD PRESSURE, BLOOD GLUCOSE LEVELS, Glucose Tolerance, SENSITIVITY TO INSULIN, and BLOOD LIPID PROFILES. Ten days. If you have read THE NUMBER ONE HEALTH PROBLEM FACING AMERICANS TODAY, you will understand why. Yet we still have a medical community telling us that meat and fat consumption are the things that drive most health problems — even though this has been disproved time and time again (HERE). In an interview related to this study, Dr Frassetto stated, “In two weeks, everybody’s blood pressure went down and everybody’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels got better. The average drop was 30 points, which was pretty amazing. It’s the type of drop you get by taking statins for six months“. And in case you are not aware how dangerous Statin Drugs really are, I have another major post on this topic in the chute.
