diet

For some reason I get Gwynyth Paltrow's "GOOP" newsletter, maybe because of her roasted chicken video, which laughably raised the ire of vegans. Nothing weird about roasted chicken, but apostates can't be tolerated...

Anyway, today her newsletter was about the diet she ate to get ready to play Pepper Potts in Iron Man. It was kind of a low-carb diet, but mostly just bare bones- smoothies, chicken, salad, turkey, low-carb wraps, soup...

When people tell me the paleo diet is "restrictive" I sometimes wonder what they mean by that. Hmm...not eating foods that make you feel like crap? What a revolutionary idea! And oh the horror of having to eat wild salmon or delicious braised lamb shanks.

I was surprised that I got a similar reaction with the limit nuts, chicken, olive oil, pork, and avocado post. I'm not saying these foods are delicious...but there is so much more out there! There is nothing bad or evil about them, but treating them like the main attraction in your diet is not the best way to emulate paleolithic fatty acid intake. The fact that they are so attractive to beginners is more a testament to our pathetic food culture than anything. Most Americans these days have never even tasted the deliciousness that is beef tongue. Things like olive oil are safe, easy...even politically correct.

There is really no arguing that grassfed meats are closer to paleolithic game than any animal that require grain/legume rations. People kept saying how much chickens are carnivores, but so far no one has ever found me an example of a farmer who doesn't feed their chickens grains/legumes at all...

If you eat grassfed ruminants nose to tail you will get plenty of luxurious and balanced fat. The tongue, the eyes, the face, and the bone marrow are so delicious! How can almonds even compare to these things? If you don't know, you should definitely give them a try. My diet is definitely more awesome and nourishing that any conventional diet like Paltrow's, though she is moving in the right direction by adding in some meat.

When I read about sad conventional diets like that it makes me sad. People are really missing out on great food that will make them feel great, altough these days the things I enjoy, like pork headcheese, are sadly a tough sell..

Either way, I'm going away this weekend for a hunting workshop. Wish me luck!

 A while back I read an article mentioning a book called Prehistoric Cookery. It had some interesting ideas, so I bought the book.

Unfortunately the book is really a tiny little coffee table book. I was hoping for something more substantial, but it did get me thinking about ancient mesolithic and iron age diets of the Celts. 

Scotland and Ireland are disproportionately affected by alcoholism, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and celiac disease. For some time there was a theory that this was because Celts are descended from a "Celtic Fringe" of more recent hunter-gatherers similar to the Finnish and Sami fringe further north. Recently, that theory was seriously questioned by genetic research that showed that Celts are most likely descendants of Middle Eastern neolithic farmers, mixed with perhaps some local hunter-gatherer stock. 

It's really quite amazing how ignorant even scientific professionals are about the history of food, such as Colin T. Campbell or the professor in the article about Prehistoric Cookery, Brian Radcliffe, who claims

“The main lesson is that as humans we need a huge variety of food from a range of different sources and food groups, ” he says. “We can see from early man’s experience that it is not good enough to rely upon single sources and single groups of foods because they did not give them the nutrients they needed.

Ugh. First of all, he obviously hasn't read the book he is commenting on, which clearly shows the wide variety of foods consumed by the Celts ranging from fish roe to nettles to berries. Also, he doesn't seem to know about the many groups of indigenous peoples who rely on flesh and are healthy.

The author of Prehistoric Cookery makes some of the same mistakes, saying that "like studied hunter-gatherers" the diet of ancient Celts would have been 80% plants, which is NOT true. Hunter-gathers studied get most of their calories from meat. Isotope studies indicate that the Celtic diet in the Iron Age was very high in meat. 

Mesolithic Celts seem to have eaten deer and wild boar. Their remains are typically on the shoreline, where they left shell middens and probably ate seaweed, roe, and whole fish. Early grains cultivated were mainly oats. Barley and early forms of wheat swept in later, but oats remained very important. Perhaps that is why their teeth in the Medieval period were better than the more wheat-centric English.

Weston A. Price visited the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and found that the natives were remarkably healthy and had beautiful teeth despite their "limited" diet. A diet of fish and oats might seem limited to us, but they ate parts of the fish that we typically don't:

An important and highly relished article of diet has been baked cod's head stuffed with chopped cod's liver and oatmeal. 

 

I do think it's important to note that the oat eaters of the mesolithic were just not as healthy as their hunter-gatherer ancestors. Their bones were smaller and less sturdy. Traditional agrarian diets aren't bad, but I still don't believe they are optimal. 

Here are some foods that I would definitely like to eat more of from Prehistoric Cookery include:

• Laver, a type of seaweed prized by the Welsh. We might think of Seaweed as an exotic Asian food, but people from all over the world have been harvesting it for a long time.
• Fish stomachs and roe. At least roe is fairly tasty...can't say the same for fish stomachs, though they are much cheaper :)
• Marsh plants. Sea beans(Salicornia) are fairly tasty and can actually be found at some NYC Greenmarkets and Fairway when they are in season. 
• Ox tails and marrow bones. I already eat marrow bones and they are wonderful and cheap fatty treat. 
• Nettles and other wild herbs. I already gather these often and will post more about them in the Spring. 

The traditional bread was nearly flat and rather tough. It's interesting because since breads persist in Scandinavia. A local NYC bakery does the real thing. The Celts also fermented their oats. 

On the subject of Ireland, it's also good to note that of course the potato was introduced very late. It spurred population increases that ended up being disastrous when the potato famine hit. Before potatoes were introduced, the diet of the Irish probably resembled that of the Masai, as they also relied on their cattle herds for both dairy and meat. 

Cattle blood, not potatoes for Cuchulainn

Outside Magazine recently had one of their reporters try the Paleo Diet for Athletes. His cholesterol improved, but he felt hungry and irritable, which caused him to ultimately dismiss the diet. I think one of the problems with The Paleo Diet for Athletes is that is doesn't do a complete paradigm shift. Eating lots of lean protein and continuing to fear fat is actually not a paleo diet.

I don't believe that paleo diet is a magic diet that I want everyone to follow. However, I do believe thinking about diet in terms of human evolution is extremely valuable. Many of my close friends and family members aren't going to be paleo any time soon either whether it's because they oppose eating animals or because they can't imagine breakfast without oatmeal. Luckily, I think there are simple steps anyone can take to improve their diet using evolution as a lense.

• Rethink fat. So many people think saturated fat is the villian and soybean oil is going to save us from heart disease. Reading Gary Taube's Good Calories Bad Calories is a good way to allay your fears that fat is the problem. Follow up with Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient by Jennifer McLagan to learn about the health and culinary benefits of fat. Learn about how real food nourishes and fake foods kill with Nina Planck's Real Food. If you are interested in the health of your brain, skin, and other vital organs you can read about the importance of omega-3 fatty acids in The Queen of Fats by Susan Allport.This is also a good time to look at the vegetable oils on your shelves as elucidated by this post in Mark's Daily Apple and deciding which ones are industrial junk and which ones are
• Banish junk! Whether you are a committed vegetarian or interested in paleo, you can benefit from ditching doughnuts, candy, cookies, chips, and other junk. Sugar Shock by Connie Bennett is a good primer on the problems with sugar. The Whole Soy Story tells you why boca burgers and soy milk might not be such great choices. Explore the drawbacks of grains, particularly gluten, in Going Against The Grain by Melissa Smith. Learn about the consquences of industrial food in The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

• Think about food evolutionaily! Rethink your perception of paleolithic peoples and hunter-gatherers by reading Jared Diamond's essay The Worst Mistake(FREE) and Weston A. Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration(FREE). Learn about and try the paleo diet. There are many good books that you can start with like The Primal Blueprint or Neanderthin. Plus there are tons of free web resources ranging from blogs to Paleohacks. Question whether "inevitable nuisances" in life like acne, heavy periods, stomach upset, constipation, etc. are inevitable or caused by diet. Try the paleo diet if you can and see if your health improves, maybe you can ID foods that cause problems.

• Hmm....I don't think this diet is for me, since grains/dairy does't bother me enough, I don't want to eat much meat, etc.. That's OK: you can still benefit from thinking about food evolutionarily. Reducing junk is one big step, but you can go further by reudcing the potential hazards of neolithic foods and unlocking their full nutritional potential through traditional preparations like fermentation and culturing . Learn more about this in the great cookbook Nourishing Traditions or the more vegetarian-friendly Full Moon Feast and Wild Fermentation (more here). You can also simply benefit by improving food quality- eating more nutritious foods like kale, yams, bone marrow, seaweed, grass fed meat, and wild fish. Get rid of boneless skinless chicken breasts and eat pastured pork belly or oysters instead. If you chose to eat grains, then ditch the plastic packaged store-bought bread and learn about fermenting and soaking traditional grains to unlock their nutrition. Follow blogs that promote traditional nutrition like Kelly The Kitchen Kop or The Nourishing Gourmet.

I write this from personal interest. While my boyfriend is interested in health, he doesn't see the need to go paleo and he really doesn't like eating meat. But it's very easy for us to eat nourishing meals together with things like pumpkin soup, sauteed mushrooms, buttered yams, pickled carrots, and garlic kale. Admittedly, I try to steer him away from things like Boca Burgers/soy milk and towards alternatives like homemade fermented dosas, properly soaked beans and farro, and traditional sourdough bread, but those things are delicious, so it doesn't take much convincing.