Living Low Carb (42 page)
Authors: Jonny Bowden
Of the forbidden fruits—grains, beans, potatoes, dairy, and sugar—probably the least taboo are dairy products (not milk, though—just butter, yogurt, and cheese). Notice that all of these forbidden fruits are foods that require technological intervention to make them edible. When you find them in the wild in their original state, none of them can be eaten. (One could argue about the inclusion of milk here, as some hunter–gatherers—notably the Masai in Africa—do drink the unprocessed milk of animals.) To critics who say that our physiology is perfectly able to handle “modern” foods, Audette answers that just because our physiology can handle a small dose of something doesn’t mean it can deal with a large dose of the same thing without problems developing. For example, we have the enzymes needed to process alcohol in small amounts, but look what happens when we drink a lot. Maybe the same is true of foods like wheat, dairy, sugar, and other processed foods that nutritionist Robert Crayhon calls “ubiquifoods.” At one time, these foods weren’t in the human diet at all; now they have become so ubiquitous that they are the very basis of the modern diet. That’s way too big an adjustment for our stone-age genes. And our bodies respond with the diseases of modern civilization, including obesity.
Audette comes down firmly on the side of the calorie debate that holds that weight gain is not simply a matter of quantity of calories, but instead a matter of
quality
: “It cannot be overemphasized that it is not the calories or fat content that produces the weight gain, as has been traditionally proposed; instead, it is the alien proteins present in the forbidden fruits that cause an overweight condition.”
A vegetarian diet, says Audette, is about as natural to humans as a diet of Cheerios is to a lion.
Neanderthin as a Lifestyle: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
This is a simple, take-no-prisoners approach. It will work well if you don’t want a lot of rules or complicated calculations and don’t want to have to weigh or measure or figure out how much of anything you’re eating. People who want a really simple, black-and-white, “eat this but don’t eat this” plan and are willing to put up with a fairly restrictive diet will like this program. What you give up in order to gain that simplicity is flexibility. There’s almost no wiggle room on this diet, and if you’re not comfortable with that, this program is not for you. Also, remember that the focus of the book isn’t primarily on weight loss: it’s on health. Eating unlimited quantities of anything, even the best food on the planet, can stall or prevent weight loss. There’s no discussion of what to do if that happens, or how to modify the plan to account for calorie intake.
If you have a tremendous amount of weight to lose, you may find that a more structured plan works better, at least at the beginning stages.
JONNY’S LOWDOWN
The book is a little weak in making the connection between obesity and autoimmune diseases. While it’s true that many immune system diseases (or “diseases of civilization”) don’t happen in hunter–gatherer societies when people eat a “native” diet devoid of processed foods, and while it’s also true that you don’t see much obesity in these same societies, it doesn’t necessarily follow that obesity is an autoimmune disease (and, as mentioned earlier, diabetes certainly isn’t). Audette points out that both obesity and autoimmune diseases respond well to Paleolithic nutrition, but this doesn’t mean that they are the same thing—just that they have the same enemy.
That said, this book is a real delight. It has a terrific history of dieting, a very accessible history of Paleolithic nutrition, a great discussion of the anthropology of nutrition, a very good bibliography, and a great FAQ section. While it’s a pretty strict diet, it’s also very easy to follow—it doesn’t require any complicated formulas or have phases, calculations, calorie-counting, or even portion control. There’s just one simple rule: if you could eat this food with a stick or a rock naked on the savanna, it’s allowed. If you couldn’t, it’s forbidden. While some people may find that a pretty extreme position to take, it’s also a pretty easy one to understand. And the health benefits are likely to be considerable.
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
All the lean meat, poultry, fish, and seafood you want, plus unlimited fruits and nonstarchy vegetables. No dairy, cereals, legumes, or processed foods.
About the Paleo Diet
The Paleo Diet is perhaps the most sophisticated example of the “stoneage” or “caveman” type of diet book (
Neanderthin
, page 201, is another example), and Dr. Loren Cordain is one of the best-known researchers in the field of what might be called “nutritional anthropology” or “Paleolithic nutrition.” The general theory behind the Paleo Diet—and others like it—is this:
• Being fat comes primarily from eating a diet that is
completely unsuited
to our ancient genes and digestive system.
• The human genus spent a couple of million years adapting to and functioning on a diet
entirely
different than the one we eat today.
• Our digestive systems—identical to those of our caveman ancestors—are simply unsuited for the staples of today’s diet: dairy, refined sugar, fatty meat, and processed food.
• By returning to the diet that humans lived on for the vast majority of their time on earth, we can correct a great many of the problems in human health, including but not limited to obesity.
The argument for this position is pretty strong. DNA evidence shows that genetically, humans have hardly changed in the 2.5 million years the genus has been on the planet. The human genome has changed less than 0.02 percent (one fiftieth of 1 percent) in forty thousand years. Most of the diseases of modern civilization—cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease—have happened at the same time that we’ve experienced a sea change in our diet, and the modern diet is completely different from the one humans have lived on for the overwhelming bulk of our time on the planet.
Through fossil records and research on contemporary hunter–gatherer societies, we have a pretty good idea of what Paleolithic peoples ate—and it didn’t look like anything you’d find at Burger King.
Consider the diet of our Paleo ancestors, before the invention of modern foods: they ate no dairy (how easy would it be to milk a wild animal?) and no cereal grains; they didn’t salt their food; the only sweetener they used was honey, which they ate rarely (when they could find it); wild-animal foods dominated their diet (so protein intake was high and carb intake was low); and since all carbs came from wild fruits and nonstarchy vegetables, fiber was very high.
Beginning to get the picture?
On the other hand, the average American diet contains:
• 31% calories from cereals
• 14% calories from dairy
• 8% calories from beverages, especially sodas and fruit juices
• 4% calories from oils and dressings, especially processed oils and omega-6’s
• 4% calories from sweets like candy, cookies, and cake
That means 61% of calories in the modern diet come from foods that were largely unknown before the adoption of agriculture (a drop in the time bucket, as far as evolution is concerned), and
most
of them weren’t even available until a couple of hundred years ago, when food processing became the norm.
The remaining 39% of our calories come from animal foods, but ones that are very different from those of our caveman ancestors. The animal foods the average American is likely to consume are mostly hot dogs, fatty ground beef, bacon, and highly processed deli meats. (When looked at in this way, is it any wonder there are studies linking “meat” consumption in industrial societies to a number of health issues? Maybe meat as a category has gotten a bum rap, and it’s the
kind
of meats we eat that’s the problem!)
Cordain claims that a return to the diet of our ancestors—what has been described elsewhere as eating what you could hunt, fish, gather, grow, or pluck—is the answer not only to obesity and overweight, but to a multitude of other health problems. Though it seems like he stresses protein as the most important component in the diet, in actuality he makes it clear that protein
alone
—without fat or the alkalizing influence of tons of vegetables and fruits—is a big problem. Add those and the problem disappears: “There is no such thing as too much protein as long as you are eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables,” Cordain says. And he is pretty flexible about the possible balance among them, pointing out that some hunter–gatherer societies that survived into the twentieth century lived healthy lives free of chronic disease while getting 97% of their calories from animal foods (the Inuit of Alaska), while others got the majority of their calories (65%) from plant foods (the !Kung of Africa). Most Paleo societies fall somewhere between these two extremes. No Paleo peoples, however, ate refined sugar.
On the Paleo Diet, fully 50% to 55% of your calories come from lean meats, organ meats, poultry, fish, and seafood. The rest come from vegetables (except for starchy ones like potatoes and yams) and “healthy” fats (more about these in Jonny’s Lowdown). It’s simple and easy. There is no caloriecounting, no protein-gram counting, no fat-gram counting, and no carb-gram counting. By staying within these guidelines, Cordain claims you will:
• have built-in protection against overeating, because protein (and fiber) naturally feels more satiating
• enjoy the increased metabolic activity (and increased calorieburning) that protein provides (see
chapter 2
for studies that show this)
• control insulin and reduce insulin resistance, making weight loss a breeze
The Paleo Diet itself allows “cheating.” There are three levels of commitment, with level one allowing you three “open” (read: cheat) meals a week, level two permitting two such meals, and level three only one.
Many people not previously familiar with the material in
chapter 2
of
Living Low Carb
will find Cordain’s passionate argument against grains surprising, as we have been so conditioned to think of grains, especially whole grains, as wonderful foods. Cordain is particularly expert on this subject, having written the seminal paper “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword,”
6
and what he has to say on the subject is worth considering even if you don’t adopt this particular dietary program.
The Problem with Grains
Here’s the synopsis: the agricultural revolution began about ten thousand years ago in the Middle East. Dwindling food resources—especially wild game—and rising populations gave birth to the need for smarter, more efficient ways for people to support themselves and their families. Some enterprising people figured out how to sow and harvest wild wheat seeds. Then they tried barley. Then legumes. Livestock—sheep, goats, and pigs—wasn’t far behind. Later, cattle. Domesticated farm animals were milkable. Over time, there was a complete change in the diet of most of humanity.
Without the agricultural revolution, we would not have civilization as we know it. Our ability to farm—to domesticate animals for dairy products, to raise cattle, and especially to grow and cultivate grains—was responsible for allowing us to live in denser conditions and encouraged towns and cities to develop. It allowed us to become independent from our original food source—hunted game.
