FIDUCIA, VIRTUS, AMPLITUDO

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thespartanwarrior:

Opening Comments

In keeping with the theme of evolution and nutrition, today’s article is going to be the first installment of a two-part series on the Paleo diet (also called hunter-gatherer, Stone-Age, or ancestral dieting). Even if you are not familiar with Paleolithic nutrition per se, you most likely are familiar with Atkins, The Zone, or South Beach, which are essentially less-strict versions of ancestral eating. However, given their differences, we won’t concern ourselves with them and will therefore just stick to looking at Paleo.  Part 1 will solely place emphasis on the Paleo diet and some of the inherent biases/contradictions it contains. Part 2 will strictly be reserved for a research review on the literature supporting the Paleo diet, wherein I will make some final comments and sum things up. My goal for today is to show you all why Paleo is a flawed and inflexible diet system comprised of ideologues who cement themselves in assumptions while blindly disregarding scientific literature that opposes their own views about nutrition. So, without further ado, let’s begin by taking a look at what Paleolithic nutrition actually is. 

Enter Paleo: Society’s Stone-Age Solution

In essence, the Paleolithic period – some 2-million years ago – marked the start of humanity, most notably, with the advent of stone tools in order to facilitate food consumption. During this time period, it is assumed that grain and sugar consumption (other than fruit) was virtually nonexistent, maybe except for occasional honey here and there. Taking this into account, Paleo dieters believe that the Paleolithic “style” of eating – i.e. a diet devoid of grains, starches, sugar and dairy – is best suited to our current genetics because we have changed little – if at all – since the emergence of agriculture and its products some 5,000-10,000 years ago. To quote Dr. Loren Cordain – “the world’s leading expert on Paleolithic diets” – directly from his book, The Paleo Diet: 

Literally, we are Stone Agers living in the Space Age; our dietary needs are the same as theirs.”

It is from this rationale that Paleo fanatics believe that obesity, diabetes and the other“diseases of civilization” are caused from the consumption of grains – or as they like to call them, “the double-edge sword of humanity” – because these diseases were not a problem back then when grains were unavailable. However, today, both an overabundance of grains and diseases are available. Therefore, no post-agricultural foods are to be consumed because they somehow contradict our genetic disposition. As extremist as this is, many people are taken in by this philosophy because it does offer a very logical explanation for the current health crisis we are now witnessing. What most Paleo nuts choose toforget is that we also did not evolve with television, computer, cars, etc. that lowers our energy expenditure and potentially leads to weight gain and certain diseases when combined with poor dietary habits. Yet, most of them continue to use these things on a daily basis; hypocrisy? I’ll let you decide. That’s another article for another time; today’s focus is strictly nutrition. 

Now, I have to say that I am in agreement with the idea that a diet which is full of McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and other processed foods is not the healthiest diet to consume; no argument there. However, if you’re trying to debate that oatmeal, milk and a little bit of sugar here and there are bad for me, then Ihave a problem. But, before I get ahead of myself, let’s see if we can actually quantify what a “caveman” actually ate all those years back.

What did a Caveman Actually Eat?

In a few words: we can’t be sure and probably never will. However, even crazier than the people themselves are their claims that they, the Paleo proponents, actually know what a caveman ate. In one of the first papers talking explicitly about Paleolithic nutrition, authors Eaton and Konner provided some general ranges for the types of food sources a person might have eaten back then based off of some more recent hunter-gatherer societies which lasted into the late 20^th Century [1]. Although this serves as a rough estimate for Paleolithic nutrition, one must keep in mind that a hunter-gatherer culture living in the 1960’s is extremely different from that of a Paleolithic society living hundreds of thousands of years ago. Any suppositions made from these observations are purely speculative and far from conclusive. Nevertheless, using these contemporary hunter-gatherer societies (living mainly inland and in semi-tropical climates), Eaton and Konner saw that anywhere from 20-50% of their diet was obtained from meat and anywhere from 50-80% of their diet came from vegetation. However, populations in artic regions – like that of the Eskimos – derive as little as 10% of their diet from plant-based sources. Therefore, if my calculations serve me right, the ranges of nutrients potentially run anywhere from 20-90% meat-based and anywhere from 10-80% plant-based. To me it seems as though there was not one single hunter-gatherer-type diet. In fact, a well-written review by evolutionary archaeologist, John Gowlett [2], argues that in no way there could have been only one “Stone-Age diet.” This is due to various geographical limitations, such as food variety and climactic changes, which would require various nutritional adaptations to be undertaken in order to survive in a given region. Therefore it can be determined that humans did not evolve eating any one type of diet, but rather an all-encompassing and extremely varied diet that would allow for adaptive survival given their geographic location/conditions. This is exactly what was seen in our more recent hunter-gatherer proxies. But does that stop the Paleo zealots from prescribing strict nutritional guidelines?   

Read the entire article at Dylan Klein’s Blog: A Science-based Approach to Nutrition.