Newest Version of Pail-E-Ohhhhhh

This is the newest Paleo article written by Ryan Bolles.  Previous post was previous article, not like we didn’t need to read it again! Here is another excellent article written by Ryan that WE NEED TO ALL READ!!!

Pail-E-Ohhhhhh…MAY 2010

By Ryan Bolles

Before Nike gave us the running shoe and Wonder gave us the sandwich, humans wondered this Earth aimlessly without an iPhone or Google maps.  It was a rough time for man, he had few Facebook friends, a meager DVD collection, and he had to walk places.  With so much time devoted to hunting and gathering food, creating and sustaining fire, and finding suitable shelter, he didn’t have time to play beer pong.  Bummer.  Luckily, he devised a system to domesticate wild plants and animals to provide a consistent source of food.  Now he has time to build cities, make music and surf the Internet.  We know this process as the agricultural revolution, and it was just that: revolutionary.  It transformed humans from cavemen in the Paleolithic Era into gentlemen in the Neolithic Era.  Unfortunately, it had some negative health consequences connected with our new choices of food.  Enter, Dr. Cordain, a professor at Colorado State University, and his book, “The Paleo Diet.” To eat Paleo you must eliminate all grains, dairy and legumes from your diet.  Pause for affect…  Before you decide Paleo isn’t for you, give it a try. Give your body 3 weeks to convert your ATP from burning glucose (sugar) for fuel to ketone bodies (fat) and see how you feel.  These first weeks can be tough depending on how metabolically deranged you are.  Fight through the lethargy and sugar craving.  Stay strong.  There is plenty of solid research to support the claim to eliminate these foods as well as debunk some of the common myths, complaints and concerns associated with Paleo.

“Healthy grains” is an oxymoron.  There is nothing healthy about eating a plant that has to be enriched because the carbohydrate content is so high that your body would go into vitamin B deficiency.  Additionally, grains, rice and corn (wheat, rye and barley are the worst) contain a protein called gluten.  Gluten irritates the gut lining and leads to a myriad of health issue.  Imagine eating glass.  The shards would irritate your gut, slicing holes in your intestinal walls and destroy the villi in your small intestine.  These villi are the small fingerlike projections that allow you to absorb nutrients. Gluten acts on your body much like eating glass would.  Instead of keeping all your food in the digestive tract, particles are leaked into the body through the holes created by gluten.  Your immune system, instead of creating antibodies against diseases, now has to attack protein carbohydrate and fat.  (http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/23/the-argument-against-cereal-grains.html

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/)

Additionally, because grains are high in carbohydrate load they cause a rapid and massive rise in blood sugar with a corresponding spike in insulin.  Hyperinsulinemia, over exposure to insulin, causes type 2 diabetes, obesity, hyperglycemia (high triglycerides) and hypertension (high blood pressure). All things I personally would like to avoid.  More details about the ‘deadly quartet’ on another date.

“Milk, it does a body good.”  The slogan should say, “it does a baby good.” Milk is great for growing.  However, if you have breast, colon or epithelial tissue, (you do), and would like to evade cancer, the massive growth promotion of dairy is something to avoid.  Since milk is a liquid and contains no fiber, there is nothing limiting its absorption in the stomach and small intestines.  Glucose quickly enters the bloodstream thus creating a huge insulin spike.  This spike leads us back to the problems associated with hyperinsulinemia, something we are trying to avoid.   The third foul for dairy concerns acid load. On the pH scale of 0-14, 7 is neutral, less than 7 is acidic and greater than 7 is basic.  Our body ph is slightly basic, about 7.4.  Any food we ingest registers at the kidney level as either an acid or a base.  All dairy products produce a heavy acid load, which is not terrible.  Fruits and vegetables are alkalinizing and can balance the acid load in our bodies.  However, if our diet doesn’t balance our pH level, our body will and we will leach bone minerals such as calcium into the bloodstream.  Since the acidic load of dairy is so high it is difficult to balance with diet.  Therefore, the ‘calcium’ in dairy can paradoxically cause osteoporosis through bone demineralization.   (http://thepaleodiet.blogspot.com/2010/03/paleo-diet-q-calcium-from-where.html )

I guess choosy moms choose Jif but if you want to be healthy and lean I would choose to ditch the peanuts and peanut butter.  Peanuts belong to the legume family that includes beans, peas, soy and alfalfa.  These foods cause some of the same problems listed above.  They irritate the gut, have a high carbohydrate load, cause insulin levels to rise quickly and produce a net acid load.  Just like grains, legumes contain high quantities of anti-nutrients such as lectins, saponins and protease inhibitors.  These anti-nutrients foster intestinal permeability and negatively impact the body’s leptin sensitivity.  Leptin is a hormone that essentially tells the body when to stop eating.  Anti-nutrients, specifically lectin, can bind to the leptin receptor sites and prevent appetite suppression.  Therefore, consuming legumes causes an increase in lectin consumption, which can negatively affect your bodies ability to tell you when you are full. (http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Arthritis%20PDF.pdf)

The typical argument is that we have no idea what cavemen actually ate.  However, Dr. Cordain and Dr. Eaton (one of the authors of, “The Protein Power Life Plan”) have done research including radio isotopic analysis of bones, studying tribes that hunt and gather today, and thermodynamic analysis of energy expenditure to determine what our ancestors ate.  This research shows that cavemen consumed high quantities of animal protein and fat.  Grains, dairy and legumes were not consumed until after the agricultural revolution.  It would be very time and energy consuming to make flour, cheese or milk a cow.  Only after plants and animals were domesticated and humans created a food surplus could these efforts be explored.  Most notably, at the same time Neolithic foods were introduced to the diet there was a rise in diseases of affluence.  Diseases of affluence are those associated with an increase in a society’s wealth and standard of living.  Coronary heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease, irritable bowl syndrome and countless others have been put into remission through a Paleo diet.  Don’t take my word for it:

http://www.maxmuscle.com/fitness-magazine/article/health-matters/280/

http://robbwolf.com/2009/10/19/type-1-diabetes-update-and-progress/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhkmDHLCUEs&watch_response

The common argument is that hunter-gatherers didn’t live long enough to suffer these diseases due to a brutish life.  While the typical life expectancy is roughly 50 years among the Kitavans of Papua New Guinea, the Maasai of Africa, the Inuit in Alaska and the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico they have remarkably lower rates of these diseases.  Among humans consuming the western diet, (high carb, low fat, low protein) containing grains, dairy and legumes, we see diseases of affluence at alarming rates and at increasingly younger ages (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3341561).  We can live to blow out 70 birthday candles but can’t eat the cake because we are overweight, diabetic and worried about our blood pressure and a possible heart attack.  Unfortunately we see the number of adolescents and young adults with these same concerns increasing.  Hunter gatherers don’t/didn’t eat the foods we eat, live without modern medical treatment or the amenities we enjoy, yet still make it to 50 without suffering from the diseases that run rampant in our society.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a recommendation to protect us from things like diabetes and heart disease.  Follow the pyramid and you’ll be healthy:

The only problem is, as a population, we haven’t seen a decease in diseases of affluence.  Conversely, refined carbohydrates, dairy, legumes and grains are a staple of our diet and we are sicker than ever.  We know what not to eat and why, but what should we eat?

Brian MacKenzie, creator of CrossFit Endurance and owner of Anerobic Inc, created a food pyramid that you should follow:

Animal protein, vegetables, some fruit and fat.  Quality sources of protein come from dead animals or the offspring of animals.  Choose low glycemic load fruits and vegetables.  In regards to fruit: melon, berries and grapes are preferential, bananas and juices are not.  Good fat choices include: avocado, coconut, coconut oil, coconut milk, olives, olive oil, macadamia nuts, walnuts and almonds.  Keep the nut intake under control though.  Devouring a one pound bag of nuts every two days is excessive. Some specific recipes to choose from follow:

http://www.cathletics.com/recipes/index.php

http://robbwolf.com/category/recipes/

http://paleobrands.com/index.php?s=recipe

http://everydaypaleo.com/

The idea that grains are terrible for everyone is typically a difficult topic for people to grasp.  You feel fine while still consuming gluten containing foods and think my assertions are ludicrous.  Have you ever woken up sick or hung-over?  That feeling was probably pretty terrible.  You swore next time you won’t order shots of Jaeger at last call.  Imagine waking up everyday hung-over.  After awhile the sick feeling would become the norm.  You have been “waking up hung-over” (via gluten) for as long as you can remember.  Once you heal your gut and wakeup “sober” the efficacy of Paleo will be apparent.  The initial change can be painful but if you are committed, you will see results.

This is the most important point about this “diet,” it works.  Additionally,  I’m not selling you a pill or drink that is going to get you lean or surgery that your insurance doesn’t cover.  All I’m offering is that you change your route in the grocery store from the aisles to the outskirts.  Stop eating things that are unhealthy for a month.  See how you feel.  What do you have to lose? One month without O.J., oatmeal, whole wheat toast and jelly?  One month without gluten, sugar, sky high insulin levels, crashing blood sugar, hunger two hours after breakfast and lethargy in the afternoon.  The difference will be remarkably noticeable.  If you think the current western diet of high carbohydrate, low protein and low fat; grains, milk, cheese, peanut butter, black beans and rice is healthy; look around.  American’s are fat, out of shape and sick.  Sure fast food and sedentary jobs haven’t helped the situation, but losing weight and getting fit is not simply calories in, calories out. Lastly, who recommends we eat this western diet?  Who subsidizes American grain, corn and dairy farmers?

Yes, vegans will cite things like T. Colin Campbell’s China Study, and tell you I’m wrong.  Yes, I have rebuttals for their arguments but, not enough time or space.  Yes, Paleo works. Yes, I eat Paleo. Yes, CrossFit fire breathers across the world eat Paleo.  Yes, you can eat this way for the rest of your life.  Decide what your goals are.  If you want to lean out, add muscle, get stronger, improve at CrossFit, look better naked or simply have better blood work; Paleo can get you there.  This model can be modified and specialized for individuals and specific goals.  We can look at food choices post workout, higher and lower carbohydrate intake, food quantity and a plethora of other topics.  Come talk to me or email me: ryan.bolles@gmail.com.