Probably the best academic treatment of why modern foods play a role in diseases of civilization.
Newest Reads
Melissa McEwen
This blog is about the intersection between evolutionary biology and food. But also about practical applications, sustainable agriculture, and general tasty things. I originally started eating this way to heal from chronic health problems and...it worked!
Connect
Comments
Traditional Grains
A reader left an interesting comment:
I'm a Polyface intern and CrossFit enthusiast. Polyface has a pretty amicable relationship with the Weston A. Price Foundation, which has a lot in common with Paleo. The difference, however, is that WAPF espouses traditional diets that often include grains. The crisis in nutrition didn't start with the introduction of grains 10,000 years ago, right? It started with the maturation and confluence of the food and marketing industries and the flight from agrarian areas to cities. This was mere decades ago. Traditional diets are the answer.
A Paleo diet seems to me to be ultimately fundamentalist and impossible to follow. There is no way we can know what hunter/gatherers 10,000 years ago actually consumed. It makes much more sense to follow human culture and eat traditional diets like we have been for millennia, including sprouted grains!
http://www.westonaprice.org/faq/785-faq-grains-seeds-nuts-beans.html
I tend to be very sympathetic with the idea that agrarian diets are good. But there is simply no escaping the fact that
1. Grains are not necessary to be healthy
2. Despite that fact that many agrarian populations are health compared to us, archaeological evidence shows that they are shorter, have smaller crania, and sometimes have worse teeth. Of course agrarian populations vary quite a lot. I find it quite odd to see people like Matt Stone and other starch-pushers extol traditional potato-based diets. Yes, those people were not obese, but they were very short and when immigrants from these populations move to the US the height gains in their children are quite dramatic. Traditional grains and starches might not be "bad," but are they the best foods to pick when you have access to plenty of easily-digested nutritious meat and fish?
As for the Paleo diet being fundamentalist and impossible to follow, I actually don't think it is. I eat at normal restaurants and shop at normal stores. I am a fan of the WAPF and eat some agrarian foods. Ironically it's THOSE foods that require me to engage in illegal activity, order stuff online, spend hours grinding grains, planning ahead to ferment them. I LOVE idlis and buckwheat pancakes, but I almost never make them because they are too much of a pain. I run my own consulting business and it's much easier for me to just throw a bunch of meat and vegetables into a pan and eat it. I think WAPF is a good diet, but I'm not sure it's the best diet and I'm positive it's not the easiest.
You are right, I don't know exactly what hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago ate. They didn't leave any recipe books. But paleo isn't reenactment, it's about nutritional principles: fat is good, animals are the perfect food, and grains should be limited are the main principles I live by.
* as for shortness being a bad thing, it's only an indicator of a less than optimal diet if people aren't acheiving the max height possible for their genes. There is plenty of evidence from immigration that a lot of people in agrarian cultures don't reach that max height. Caries in agrarian populations are well documented, with some having very high rates (mostly corn based) and others low (milk and rice based).
- Melissa's blog
- Login to post comments
Post to Twitter
Comments
"it's about nutritional
"it's about nutritional principles: fat is good, animals are the perfect food, and grains should be limited"
I've seen compelling evidence for the first and last of these statements. However, what evidence is there that animal foods are superior to plant foods? Also, what evidence is there that our paleo ancestors relied primarily on meat for calories? With the exception of Arctic peoples, most hunter-gatherers in the twentieth century ate more plant than animal foods. For example, Richard Lee observed !Kung San bands getting 71% of their calories from plant foods and then 67% from plants again in another study. In a comparative study of hunter-gatherers from around the world (circa 1967), he observed, "For modern hunters, at any rate, it seems legitimate to predict a hunting emphasis only in the arctic, a fishing emphasis in the mid-high latitudes, and a gathering emphasis in the rest of the world." That rest of the world is the tropics and sub-tropics where our ancestors lived until recently. So if 20th century hunter-gathers got 30-35% of the food from animals, do you think that their ancient counterparts were remarkably different?
Modern hunter-gatherers are
Modern hunter-gatherers are not our ancestors. They live on marginal lands and all evidence points to the fact that meat is the most prized food and they would eat more if it were more abundant. But it isn'tâ thanks to poaching and the fact that they are often confined to suboptimal hunting grounds. For example, many foragers live in the forest, which is generally agreed by anthropologists not to be an optimal environment (1991. The Tropical Rain Forest: Is It a Productive Environment for Human Foragers? Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal19:261-285. (Co-author with Robert C. Bailey.) Neither is the arid desert the !Kung live in.
Even for modern HG "Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (>=56â65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods". Perhaps you are mistaking horticulturalists for foragers?
Find me a plant food that approaches animals in nutrition and then we'll talk.
I consider WAPF to be a good
I consider WAPF to be a good stepping stone away from SAD, but I think it has too much focus on suboptimal agrarian foods. Which is not to say that I'm fundamentalist paleo. After trying out various starches and gums for thickening gravy, I went back to using that little bit of wheat flour because that's the only way it comes out like my Mom's gravy. And, once in a while I indulge in dried beans or bean-based pasta (which is, IMO, far superior to any of the gluten-free grain-based pastas).
There are studies that show
There are studies that show that modern wheat is much more toxic than traditional wheat. Also grains, even according to WPF have to be soaked etc.
I like to say that I follow
I like to say that I follow both... And what I mean is: when I eat grains (because sometimes I do), I try to eat only grains that have been soaked, sprouted for fermented. At least it *lessens* the impact of gluten and phytic acid on my body...
*beats head against desk*
*beats head against desk* This is the type of mentality I have to face every day when I tell people, "My kids don't eat wheat." They act like I'm starving my kids or they will forever be stunted because I don't let them eat bread or crackers or cookies.
Some people have a hard time looking past their white bread and donuts to realize that we, as a people, didn't always have the processes or tools to eat wheat. Our anscestorslived off the land, enjoying whatever they could hunt or gather....and our species prospered! Heck, we took over the GLOBE!
I discovered WAPF before
I discovered WAPF before paleo, it was my gateway. I remember how overwhelmed I was to be changing my diet dramatically and suddenly engaged in very time consuming food preparation. When I started learning about grains and why I didn't need them I was honestly so relieved. No more soaking, grinding, pounding, etc! Paleo is much easier and probably more sustainable than eating grains. There is no doubt in my mind that paleo can be the simplest way of eating, and of course the most delicious! I still love the WAPF and I think they do great things.
Melissa, "I find it quite odd
Melissa,
"I find it quite odd to see people like Matt Stone and other starch-pushers extol traditional potato-based diets. Yes, those people were not obese, but they were very short and when immigrants from these populations move to the US the height gains in their children are quite dramatic."
Is being tall better?
Since I'm about five feet
Since I'm about five feet tall and going great, I wouldn't say it's a tragedy. But if I have kids I'll be curious to see how tall they end up because I feel the nutrition I had as a child didn't allow me to reach my genetic maximum.
Height is generally a fitness indicator, not a goal in itself. Though tall people have many many advantages, particularly tall men, who make more money and are more attractive to women.
I agree with Melissa, here.
I agree with Melissa, here. (excuse my 2-cents' worth, please). The Polyface Farms (hoorah!), Crossfiting, and WAPFing person is certainly going to be healthier than most SAD and non-food eaters out there. However, although we cannot be sure *exactly* what our prehistoric ancestors ate, we can be pretty darned sure of what they did *not* eat -- and grains is among those things that were not eaten. Besides, as regards Weston Price himself, I recall that only about 3 or so of the 14 healthy cultures he studied ate grains of any kind. The peoples that were the most robustly healthy, ate none. Everybody ate meat, of course. I don't really know why WAPF are so crazy about their grains as they were not even a part of most traditional diets.
Anyway, Paleo is super easy, not WAPF -- except eating out can be trying, I suppose. There's no need to sprout, ferment, or to wait for anything. That doesn't mean those are not worthy things to do from time to time in order to enjoy good food. It's part of the fun, at least to some degree, but it's definitely not "easy".
fwiw
Juan