Getting a little far off from the OP’s question - but there were couple of interesting points in @Robellengold and @TiaG 's posts that got me thinking about the whole “Paleo diet” thing. [ @michel - maybe you could split the topic ]
I think the stereotyping of “hunter gatherer” culture seems to make people think that these cultures only ate meat and not plants. I feel that this is probably from some people getting their history from Hollywood movies where the hunter is some sort of strong important person that gets all the screen time and the folks who collect the carbohydrate rich plants are either absent from the film or show up only in those wide angle shots.
In my part of the world, the Coast Salish people ate lots of carbohydrate rich plants before the Europeans showed up. They actively cultivated plants like camas bulbs (think potatoes) and root vegetables and ate fruit, nuts, berries, rhizomes, bulbs. The European settlers ate different carbohydrate foods and may not have recognized the abundance of the plants that the locals were eating and cultivating were a rich carb source. The early Europeans ate fish and game so they would recognize and adopt the protein part of the diet. As the “stories” get passed on through our “cultural filters” we today understand what a salmon is but maybe we do not know the carb count for various rhizomes and make a generalization that the native folks only ate salmon.
A link to an article that talks about plant management:
ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/download/184112/184174
And a list of native plants, most of which I cannot buy at a supermarket.
To sum up where they are going , it basically says the key differentiator is not low carbs vs high carbs or low protein vs high protein - but processed vs unprocessed - which is essentially I think at the heart of the original Paleo diet and as part of the debate we’ve been having recently that we all agree with.
Yes there were some Paleo communities that ate high carb and there were those that ate high protein / fat. However all of them were eating unprocessed food - so the carb had attached fiber that slowed the release of insulin or prevented it and the high fat/ protein was pure and not processed and therefore the incretin effect that released insulin and the gluconeogenesis effect that also released insulin and glucose was countered by slow gut release and satiety.
Keep your total insulin consumption down and you won’t put on weight or develop type 2 or double diabetes if your type 1 - you can do that by eating low carb or by eating raw carbs - the result is the same
Honey is the exception but there aren’t that many people who have a diet primarily based on eating honey - they would have no teeth if they did !
If those that are carb fans - subscribe to the processed / unprocessed theory -then by removing the processed carbs then I would be very impressed by anyone who is still able to consume 150g of carbs a day - they would just eat less carbs through necessity and then seek the energy they need elsewhere in fat and protein. If they glutted on protein, then their body would just kick into gluconeogenesis and produce glucose and insulin starting the problem off again so need to moderate their protein intake as well.
Sticking to the unprocessed mantra, you will end up eating moderate carb from plants / moderate protein from plants and animals and dairy and a good amount of fat thrown in.
I’ve been thinking a lot about these posts, which I’ve found interesting. And other threads on the low carb or high carb ways of eating. EH and I call our way of eating “paleo-ish” - but in reality it’s just mostly unprocessed foods. And it is hard to get a ton of carbs if you’re eating real foods that are mostly appearing as what they looked like when they came off of a plant or animal.
I believe that @Eric is right about the carbs needed for replenishing glycogen after vigorous and repeated exercise, but it’s a bit tricky if you’re following a plants and animals (and no grains) based diet.
You mean sensible eating. You mean the way humans ate for eons before packaged foods and supermarkets and ready-made meals really took off after the Second World War.
I’ve been restraining myself from commenting because my stock rant about “modern” diets would probably get me banned. I read in my local paper recently that local, seasonal eating was a trend. Well, yes, I guess if you completely ignore 99.999% of human eating history, it is a trend, because it did disappear for a blink of an eye (see WWII above). But if giving various hip names to what strikes some of us as common-sensical helps one stick to good eating habits, that’s fine.
Yeah, I know, one day I’ll get around to changing my screen name to That Grumpy Guy.
Haha, that’s what I call it, too. We do eat certain processed foods almost daily (gf bread or crackers, primarily), but otherwise try to stick to mostly whole unprocessed foods.
I would say it depends on what whole foods you’re eating, and, for a diabetic, at least, the type of carb usually matters. I recently considered doing a whole30 (trying to break my sugar addiction, haha), but ended up not for several reasons, but one of those was I need a certain amount of carbs, and the biggest sources of carbs on that diet were things like sweet potatoes, white potatoes, fruit, etc. I haven’t even figured out yet how to eat most of those without a big spike. It was recommended that a breastfeeding mom to eat a potato with every meal (to keep milk supply up) - that would really pack on the carbs. I once weighed a sweet potato, and based on the carb count I found online, that one potato was almost 100 carbs! So if you’re able to stick to a diet of lower carb veggies and meat, etc, then yes, it would be hard to eat a lot of carbs, but if you’re eating potatoes and bananas and things like that, then that’s a decent carb fest.
Well, I agree our modern diets are c***, but I also take issue with the notion that humans had some kind of ancestral unprocessed diet that was straight from nature. I mean, basically humans have been cultivating, modifying and processing our foods for at least 15,000 years, and likely going back till we were Homo erectus or whenever humans first started cooking food over fire. If you look even the organic, unprocessed raw fruits and veggies in the supermarket, they bear almost no resemblance to the vast majority of foods people ate during most of human history.
I think the key issue is that the processing in modern times is just drastically more efficient at accomplishing what ancestral food “processing” attempted to do – maximizing the number of calories that are available in food for the minimal amount of metabolic/digestive work the body needs to do – and in the process, it’s also stripped other things our bodies need, like various vitamins and nutrients.
One thing worth considering re: paleo diets, is that almost none of us lead lives anything close to what our ancestors did. I’m not saying modern diets are necessarily good/represent helpful adaptations, but there’s not particularly strong logic to assume that as everything else in human life changed, diet wouldn’t also need to adapt or benefit from changes. So while aspects of paleo diets may well be healthy, I hate the “paleo” name, because it’s based on what seems to me like false logic, that what our ancestors ate ages ago would be the right choices now.
‘The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.’
Bertrand Russell
(I count this forum as the wise btw)
If the hook that convinces kids to eat better is they need to eat like Fred Flintstone works then I am all for it - eating ‘sensibly’ as guidance is obviously not working since 1 in 3 people in the US are either pre or type 2
I mentor at a school in Newark and half of the 10 yr old kids in the school are prediabetic - they have no clue what sensible eating is - but the teacher is trying out the caveman approach to some success ( moderate)
This. This is one of my issues with the paleo name (and why I don’t even like advertising that I eat “paleo-ish”). The other thing is I think it’s fine to eat some of the things the paleo diet cuts out (beans, oats, etc), but that’s a whole different issue.
It got me banned once … but you’re safe here you can rant all you want about modern diets. The more people hear about the hazards of them the better. We value diverse views and ideas and welcome the exchange of thoughts and viewpoints.
I also dislike the word “Paleo”, even though I use it. It doesn’t actually describe reality (we are not eating like the Paleolithic people who came before us), or the way that EH and I actually eat (we do eat corn, gasp, and a few other things on occasion), but it is like saying that I am “white”, people understand that. If I were instead to describe all of my lineage (German, Irish, a few other things, plus a more recent Pennsylvania Dutch addition), it would be confusing. So when people ask, I try to simplify. Hence, Paleo-ish.
I personally don’t like the term “proccesssd food” because it’s all encompassing and can absolutely mean anything in any different context… unless we’re chewing grass in a meadow somewhere we are eating nothing but “proccesssd food” so I think it’d elevate the discussion to a much higher level if we can start identifying which specific types of processing of which types of raw materials is detrimental to the health of the consumers…
1 no HFCS
2 no trans fat
3 no nitrites
If the world followed we would all be healthier
For type 1 and more controversial but mine now
1 nothing with sugar except trace amounts - maltose/ sucrose / glucose / fructose / lactose / galactose any tose
2 nothing with no real nutritional value except masses of calories and carbs so no reason to eat it - ie starch - flour / rice / wheat / potatoes
Not that the last two are that bad for non diabetics - in moderation not 70 per cent of their diet like it is currently
“Funny” tidbit - when I was first diagnosed with my muscle disorder, my doctor told me that 70% of my daily calories should come from carbs. Some of the other stuff he told me ended up being inaccurate…I do know from experience now that I do need carbs, but I’m pretty sure that number was one of the inaccurate recommendations. But all the same, it was a recommendation from a doctor. (Most) people trust their doctors.
That’s still the party line that most doctors still advise most diabetics to eat actually… and in line with the ADA recommendations… the ones that advocate low carb are in the minority
Whew, really? I know the ADA recommends a pretty high amount of carbs, but that much? Yikes. As you know, I eat plenty of carbs; I’m not against them, but since we also know that doesn’t work across the board for everyone, there shouldn’t be a blanket number that high.
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… but you’re safe here you can rant all you want about modern diets. The more people hear about the hazards of them the better. We value diverse views and ideas and welcome the exchange of thoughts and viewpoints.
Some of the other stuff he told me ended up being inaccurate…I do know from experience now that I do need carbs, but I’m pretty sure that number was one of the inaccurate recommendations. But all the same, it was a recommendation from a doctor. (Most) people trust their doctors.