Hunter-gatherers do not have to eat tons of meat. They eat only what the environment supplies, which often isn't much. Many are virtually vegetarian. Insects probably should comprise a good part of our diet, but those aren't exactly palatable for most of us (or safe for that matter).

I've found that when I eat paleo, I actually eat no more meat than I did before - because my appetite is significantly decreases. My meat consumption is about the same (probably a little less, because I make about the same amount at meals as I always have, but am more likely to have leftovers than in the past). My fruit and fat consumption increases and my non-starchy veggie intake skyrockets. The moment I add sugar (even natural ones from very sweet fruits), my appetite skyrockets instead.

Most of what I've read suggests that most paleo people ate up to 150 grams of fiber daily (some sources suggest about half this - which is stil three times or more what modern folks are eating). The Inuit (eskimo) eat mostly fat/meat with little else most of the year - and on their traditional diet and lifestyle are very healthy (lifespans were shorter, but most deaths were due to accute conditions such as injury, not chronic illness). However, unless you're living in an arctic climate, with no heat and you're chasing down your own food, it makes no sense to emulate the Inuit diet.

I think it's very important not to emulate only the diet of paleo people, but the lifestyle as well. We're not all going to gather wild plants, chase prey animals or let predatory animals chase us - but we do have to duplicate those actions to some a degree (if only on the treadmill).

Hi everyone. Nelie, I hesitate to start a new thread because of the terrific conversation in this one, but I am going to start this diet Saturday so I may start a new thread with a "paleo" title for other's reference purposes.

Bonnnie, a highly recommended book that covers your concern in bleeding edge detail is called the Vegetarian Myth. The author, Lierre Keith, was a vegetarian for two decades before having an epiphany. Agriculture devastates the natural environment. Look at the clear cutting of the rainforests as one of a dozen examples. Cattle are preferably grazed on grassland that cannot support other forms of agriculture anyway. It's convoluted, I agree, but it isn't as cut and dry as you or I have suggested in this thread.

Susan, the Daily Apple blog by the author of Primal Blueprint is one of the sources that has convinced me to give this a try.

CJZee, Guyenet's Whole Health Source has occupied me for several hours this past week. He seems a little reluctant to accept the science and I struggle to understand why, but I will continue reading.

I also suggest spending some time at The Heart Scan Blog and Protein Power dot come.

Kaplods, hmm... you give me a good example of why the caveman lifestyle angle doesn't work for me. The science behind the concepts seems logical, but emulating primitive man just seems far fetched to me. They ate a lot of bugs, grubs, slugs and worms, that's for sure. In different regions they enjoyed different diets and that seems to weigh down the discussion with unnecessary controversy and debate. I read somewhere about vegetarian cavemen. It doesn't matter. I am morbidly obese. They didn't have to deal with that.

As I understand this, encouraging your body with specific foods to function well while in ketosis will burn fat safely for long periods of time. The body really doesn't have another fat burning mechanism of this order. Carbs as typically consumed make ketosis impossible. There is a need for some carb reloading, but it is minor and simple to monitor. I was close to embracing a raw veggie diet before discovering Gary Taubes, whose youtubes and various presentations I highly recommend. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the concepts, but once I did I was sold. The diet became very easy to understand and believe in because it is so simple and the science just makes sense. Just because it is simple to understand does not make it easy to follow, but it seems worth every effort to me. I suspect I have a war on my hands in the early stages, but the knowledge that I can have bacon makes me warm and fuzzy. ;)

Hi there... I just browsed through this really fast, to see if anybody pointed out what I noticed. Based on this quote:

Originally Posted by Altari:
The diets...

Mediterranean-type
-------------------
based on whole-grain cereals, low-fat dairy products, potatoes, legumes, vegetables, fruits, fatty fish and refined fats rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and alpha-linolenic acid

Paleo-type
----------
increase their intake of lean meat, fish, fruits and vegetables and to avoid all kinds of dairy products, cereals (including rice), beans, sugar, bakery products, soft drinks and beer. The following items were accepted in limited
amounts for the Palaeolithic group: eggs (one or fewer per day), nuts (preferentially walnuts), potatoes (two or fewer medium-sized per day), rapeseed or olive oil (one or fewer tablespoons per day). The intake of other foods was not restricted and no advice was given with regard to proportions of food categories (e.g. animal vs plant foods).

I can assume the Mediterranean diet does not exclude "sugar, bakery products, soft drinks and beer"? I hope that was just an oversight, assuming everyone knows that the Med diet excludes those things, too, because if not, WELL DUH they're going to get more calories. Not only are there more calories in those things, but they make you want to eat more. AND they pretty much undo the point of sticking with whole-grains, as the whole point of whole-grains is that they are unrefined and don't spike your blood sugar.

Regardless, unless the study compared two diets that are identical except for grains, no conclusion can be made about grains from it.

I feel like an idiot wading into a discussion where there are obviously a lot of people who know way more about nutrition than me, so I apologize if I'm being ignorant.

Though I do have to add, I find it completely bonkers that dairy gets tossed around as something to exclude, considering it is the only thing a newborn is definitely meant to consume. Seems to me dairy is literally the most natural thing we could eat... Obviously, not the ones with sugar, and salt and who knows what tossed in, but that goes for anything.

Gold, that study is making up it's own definition of the Mediterranean diet, because the Mediterranean diet certainly is not about low-fat dairy.

Originally Posted by Gold32:
Though I do have to add, I find it completely bonkers that dairy gets tossed around as something to exclude, considering it is the only thing a newborn is definitely meant to consume. Seems to me dairy is literally the most natural thing we could eat... Obviously, not the ones with sugar, and salt and who knows what tossed in, but that goes for anything.

I don't eat dairy and I don't think there are any good reasons to do so. Breast milk is natural for a baby to consume but babies wean off breast milk for a good reason as they are no longer growing as fast and don't need it anymore.

Cow's milk on the other hand is something that is not natural for humans to consume and has a different profile than breast milk. Also, cow's milk goes through many processes especially if it is defatted and if it comes from cow's that are full of hormones? Then you too get those hormones through the milk. I've also read some things that link cow's milk and prostrate cancer as well as type I diabetes in children. I've heard that many pediatricians have stopped recommending dairy for kids due to that reason.

Nelie- What are your thoughts about organic milk, that supposedly doesn't have hormones (or puss, ew)? I'm sincerely interested, not trying to be a pain. I enjoy being more informed, and other than the problems that come from the hormones or other artificial processes, I haven't really heard what's wrong with milk.

Originally Posted by BibBob:

Kaplods, hmm... you give me a good example of why the caveman lifestyle angle doesn't work for me. The science behind the concepts seems logical, but emulating primitive man just seems far fetched to me...

I was close to embracing a raw veggi diet before discovering Gary Taubes, whose youtubes and various presentations I highly recommend...

Many people criticise the caveman diets because they assume they're meant literally (eat like a caveman means eating bugs and chasing down your own food).

The truth is that most of the "ancestor diets" in practice have more in common with Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories than with the actual diet and lifestyle of paleolithic people.

I read Good Calories, Bad Calories in the same weekend as Neanderthin and The Paleo Diet. There were discrepancies in all three, but most of the underlying principles are the same.

So much so, that you'll see Gary Taubes referenced frequently on Ancestor diet websites.

I'm slogging through Good Calories Bad Calories. This is not a weekend read for me. Very technical and the scientific jargon sends me to google over and over again. Great great read though. It is reinforcing my conviction to break the carb addiction and make this a lifestyle.

I'm hitting the grocery store tomorrow to stock up on the required fuel.

Gold32 -- most of the paleo bloggers I am reading would not consider that test diet pure paleo either. In fact, pure paleos love saturated fats and aren't overly keen on lean meats over fatty ones. Both are terrific. They have a low opinion of most fruit because the high sugar content is counterproductive to fat burning ketosis. So the study misrepresented both diets. That shouldn't be surprising.

There are lacto paleos, btw. There's a wide variety of "paleo" menus. I read a convincing argument on a hard core paleo blog for our neolithic butter to be an essential fat in a healthy ketogenic program. Heavy cream in coffee is also freequently suggested. The do not like processed oils, barely give olive oil credit and prefer coconut oil and animal fat, ie lard. It's extraordinarily counterintuitive at first. Heh. They don't sweat high cholesterol because the diet boosts the good HDL ratio while making the bad LDL light and fluffy. LOL I have no idea what that means yet. But all of this is supported by some seriously well researched MDs, Phds, and other geeky scientists.

The best place to start might be an 8 year old article by Taubes easily found by googling his name and "Big Fat Lie".

There are low-fat paleos too. Except for arctic marine animals in the Inuit diet, most naturally hunted meats are extremely lean (most wild critters don't carry around much fat).

I read Good Calories, Bad Calories in a weekend, because I'm an insanely fast reader. I can read three 300 page novels in a single day. The technical and science jargon was nothing new either, as I had quite a bit of coursework in research methodology and human anatomy and biology, and even embryonology as an undergraduate and in grad school (bachelor's degree in psych and master's degree in developmental psych, the bio and research coursework was required).

Also, I had read Neanderthin and the Paleo diet before - so they were rereads. Also, I was sick that weekend and in bed most of it, so I had nothing but time on my hands.

Originally Posted by Gold32:
Nelie- What are your thoughts about organic milk, that supposedly doesn't have hormones (or puss, ew)? I'm sincerely interested, not trying to be a pain. I enjoy being more informed, and other than the problems that come from the hormones or other artificial processes, I haven't really heard what's wrong with milk.

If I did do dairy, I would do organic but still I don't think it is one of the most natural things for us to drink. Also, most of the population is actually lactose intolerant so it again doesn't seem like one of the most natural things for us to eat/drink.

From what I've read in a health perspective, dairy doesn't quite mesh with our systems unless your heritage is one of those that has consumed dairy for centuries (generally Scandinavians are used as an example). Dairy is also promoted as something good for calcium but really there are other better sources. Animal proteins actually leach calcium from our bones so sure dairy has some calcium in it but the net positive is less than something else with similar amounts.

There have also been other issues pointed out with consumption of dairy (prostate cancer increase, type I diabetes in kids, etc) but then again, is that because of other factors that you wouldn't encounter with organic dairy? I'm not sure.

I also generally wouldn't tell people its bad to drink dairy because we all have our own choices but my only issue was in saying that it is one of the most natural things for us to consume, which I disagree with :)

Originally Posted by kaplods:
There are low-fat paleos too. Except for arctic marine animals in the Inuit diet, most naturally hunted meats are extremely lean (most wild critters don't carry around much fat).

Again, you're talking about historical paleolithic man, and what you say is certainly true because they ate what they could find, fat or lean. Insects are high in protein and low in fat. But I personally have no use for that part of this discussion. I find it a bit of a marketing gimmick bound to label the movement another fad regardless of how sincere some of these doctors are about evolutionary diet research; or for that matter, how correct they are about it. Someone will unearth the vegetarian caveman and start the unnecessary debate claiming to have blown a giant whole in this nonsense of imitating paleo diets. I don't care what cavepeople ate.

The modern emerging knowledge behind what went wrong with the standard American diet to create the obesity epidemic and how to reverse it is much more interesting to me than what hunter gatherers did. And in this modern discussion I am not finding any low-fat paleos. Dr. Harris at the awesome PaNu blog claims it is impossible to be paleo and low fat. If you are low carb you have to be high fat to have any chance of sustaining a lifestyle. He even breaks out a bunch of metabolic math to show that low fat "dieting" equals unhealthy high carb consumption and low carb "dieting" equals healthy high fat consumption. Of course, you can remove the "dieting" and be high carb and high fat like me. :mad:

I could create a menu for a low fat and low carb diet, but it would be bound to fail for me. I have tried it and it was miserable. A 50 pound weight loss reversed into a 60 pound gain. Anyway, since it's carbs that spike insulin and store fat, why should I worry about fats? The "research findings" about how unhealthy fat is have been debunked. It really was all a big fat lie. This is huge. I get skinny eating bacon. :carrot:

You can disagree with me all you want, but I am going to prove it between now and Christmas. 80 pounds gone eating BACON. I need to blog this.

In the two dozen or so bookmarks I have saved on these modern paleo pundits, I cannot find a single one suggesting low fat is necessary or even a good idea. Dr. Eades is drooling over Schmaltz! I am new to this and surely could have missed it. If you have a link to a low fat paleo resource, I would love to read it. I am pretty sure the leading paleos would take issue with anyone criticizing saturated fats. Embracing them (seriously) while pushing away refined oils and all grains is probably the solution to obesity. As long as we're stuck in the low fat science dogma, we're probably fighting a losing battle.

Originally Posted by BibBob:
In the two dozen or so bookmarks I have saved on these modern paleo pundits, I cannot find a single one suggesting low fat is necessary or even a good idea. Dr. Eades is drooling over Schmaltz! I am new to this and surely could have missed it. If you have a link to a low fat paleo resource, I would love to read it. I am pretty sure the leading paleos would take issue with anyone criticizing saturated fats. Embracing them (seriously) while pushing away refined oils and all grains is probably the solution to obesity. As long as we're stuck in the low fat science dogma, we're probably fighting a losing battle.

I was reading a paleo food list the other day just to see what was considered paleo and saw a lot of 'lean cuts of meat' type things.
Here is one of the links I was reading (bacon is on the do not eat list)
http://altmed.creighton.edu/Paleodiet/Foodlist.html

I don't think we have really been in the 'low fat' dogma since the 90s and actually it seems a lot of people are very wary of the low fat diet due to the fact that people in the 80s started depending on on low fat 'products'. Low fat 'products' are not the way to go. I've lost 150 lbs eating low fat but I ate real, whole foods. I think it is very doable and really it is my own 'path'. There are many ways to lose weight but it has to be something that works for you.

Originally Posted by nelie:
I also generally wouldn't tell people its bad to drink dairy because we all have our own choices but my only issue was in saying that it is one of the most natural things for us to consume, which I disagree with :)

Fair enough! What is it the moderators around here have up at the top, agree to disagree? I have missed people being able to do that. Anyway, you gave me more to think about and something to look into when I'm bored. I hope I didn't offend you- I didn't mean any personal slight, and I respect your decisions. (Why, really, is that so hard for people to do?!)

And I thank everyone else who also chimed in to help de-ignorance me. :dizzy:

Originally Posted by Gold32:
Fair enough! What is it the moderators around here have up at the top, agree to disagree? I have missed people being able to do that. Anyway, you gave me more to think about and something to look into when I'm bored. I hope I didn't offend you- I didn't mean any personal slight, and I respect your decisions. (Why, really, is that so hard for people to do?!)

And I thank everyone else who also chimed in to help de-ignorance me. :dizzy:

No offense taken!

Originally Posted by nelie:
I was reading a paleo food list the other day just to see what was considered paleo and saw a lot of 'lean cuts of meat' type things.
Here is one of the links I was reading (bacon is on the do not eat list)
http://altmed.creighton.edu/Paleodiet/Foodlist.html
.

Venison and bacon won a best breakfast contest on a paleo blog. That Creighton list is loaded with misrepresentations of the diet according to the leading authors and doctors promoting it. I'm reading these guys 10 hours a day right now. My guess is that we have been brainwashed to think lean meat is smart, so some college kid just went with it and called it paleo. Saturated fat is a key ingredient to the paleo diet. It is energy intense and creates satiety helping followers consume less calories overall. It is also very healhty and increases good cholesterol. Linking is disabled for me still or I would show a dozen posts by the 'heavy hitters' in the paleo community all endorsing high fat diets. Check out the sidebar and Primal Wisdom, then look at the current top post. He encourages his clients to eat 60% fat, and that's saturated animal fat he's approving in the sidebar. If you google paleo+bacon, you'll see Cordain does not approve but everyone else on page one of that search sure does. Dr. Michael Eades is definitely one of the leaders of the movement and in the comments to his current top post he says bacon fat would be okay for deep frying. Wow. I have to try that with halibut. Awesome flavor combo.

I am not planning on a bacon diet here. This is a calorie restricted diet due to the elimination of sweets, grains, legumes, corn and potatoes. It is also ketogenic, which really interests me, because of the low carbs.

I think we can agree a diet without a cheat or a comfort food for snacking is doomed to fail. Dr Sisson of Primal Blueprint and Mark's Daily Apple fame, a best selling book and diet author, has recipes available for properly rendering bacon fat, for scallops wrapped in bacon, Beef Burgundy and Bacon, Chicken Avo and Bacon salad, etc. He also has a post titled "going primal is not a license to live on bacon". I'm not going to be stupid but spinach salads with bacon and hard boiled eggs are a favorite of mine, and falling back on bacon and eggs when the hunger is fierce will keep me paleo. Lean chicken and beef will be my primary meats. I appreciate your concern.

Ignoring the current dogma on animal fat and looking deeper into the research suggesting it is in fact much healthier than say, Canola oil, or margarine, or any seed oil, and corn oil, is really intriguing. Stephan Guyenet wrote today that he thinks those processed oils may turn out to be the real cause of increased obesity in society. :shrug:

I'm going to give these guys 30 days. Do you think I should start a fresh thread with Paleo in the title, Nelie?