The Primal Blueprint (33 page)

“Drop Your Fork and Step Away from the Plate!”

When you see the golden arches, you are probably on your way to the pearly gates
.

—
William Castelli, M.D
.
Director of the Framingham
Heart Study

Grok had no labels whatsoever and did a better job avoiding poisonous things than we do today, even with the trusty “Nutrition Facts” emblazoned on virtually everything with a wrapper or container. While I am admittedly sheltered from mainstream eating customs and have made fitness and health my life’s work, I’d like us all to reflect for a moment on our priorities and our vision of a long, happy, healthy, fit life. When the topic of food comes up in conversation with family, friends or casual acquaintances, it’s fascinating to hear the litany of rationalizations, knee-jerk defense mechanisms, self-limiting belief statements and general confusion or ignorance from otherwise intelligent folks when it comes to eating healthfully. But then again, Conventional Wisdom has often led even the best and brightest minds in nutritional science astray.

It’s truly remarkable how successful Madison Avenue has been at indoctrinating eating habits that produce huge profits for giant multinational corporations—and devastating health consequences for consumers—into generations of society. The marketing message is so pervasive in modern culture that it’s difficult, even stressful, to take control of your health and swim upstream against such cultural norms as fast food, the all-American high-carbohydrate breakfast, post-meal desserts, and the massive over-consumption of soft drinks. Even noble attempts to do the right thing miss the mark: mass-market “health foods” like frozen yogurt, bran muffins, poor-quality meal replacements, energy bars, and other heavily processed “fuel” marketed to athletes or purification/detox diets with clever ideas, such as eating nothing but brown rice for a week (talk about a long, hot insulin bath!). Finally, many of our eating habits are driven by social, emotional, or stress-related triggers other than hunger.

While savoring the occasional moderate serving of a rich treat is part of enjoying life, it’s an entirely different story to ingest junk food habitually and mindlessly just because it’s part of Americana (“baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet”). If you notice yourself treading in these waters (or worse, repurposing the classic quote from Mt. Everest legend Sir Edmund Hillary—“Because it’s there”—into an excuse), please give this topic some sincere reflection and take decisive action. Remember, your ancestors worked unimaginably hard to survive, thrive, and create the amazing opportunities we have today for a healthy, happy, active, and long life. As I say here often, your genes want you to be healthy and you deserve nothing less than the very best your genes have to offer.

“
Everything in moderation” is sage advice indeed, but Mark Twain best put this proverb in perspective when he said, “Everything in moderation
,
including moderation
.”

The most common retort I hear on this thread is, “Hey, everything in moderation.” Sage advice indeed, but Mark Twain best put this proverb in perspective when he said, “Everything in moderation,
including moderation
.” As the Korgs prove dramatically, we live in a world where extreme measures are necessary just to avoid serious disease (remember, some three-quarters of today’s American population will eventually die of heart disease or cancer), let alone enjoy optimum health, fitness, energy levels, and body composition. I strongly advocate enjoying the occasional indulgence, but why not make it from the list of approved foods of the absolute highest quality? Compare a label of a Milky Way or Snickers Bar with a high-antioxidant, organic dark chocolate bar with no additives, toxic chemicals, trans fats, or fillers. The latter, a sensible and deeply satisfying indulgence, can hardly be described as a sacrifice!

Perhaps the most harmful element of dietary Conventional Wisdom is that grains are healthy—the “staff of life”—as we’ve been led to believe our entire lives. While grains enjoy massive global popularity today, they are simply not very healthy for human consumption. From two million years ago, when the first
Homo erectus
arose and began the steady evolution to the appearance of the first modern
Homo sapiens
between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, and continuing until about 10,000 years ago, humans existed entirely as hunter-gatherers. Depending on where they roamed, early
Homo sapiens
derived their nutrition from as many as 200 different wild food sources, including animal meats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts and seeds, but grains were notably absent.

Starting about 10,000 years ago, forces conspired to create a dramatic shift in the human diet. The widespread extinction of large mammals on major continents coupled with increases in population forced humans to become more resourceful in obtaining food. Those living by water utilized rafts, canoes, nets, and better fishing tools to enjoy more bounty. On land, humans refined their toolmaking and hunting strategies to include more birds and small mammals in the food supply. Escalating competition for animal-sourced food eventually led to agricultural innovations sprouting up independently in the most advanced societies around the world (Egyptians, Mayans, etc.). As wild grains (which were a very small part of some diets but difficult to harvest for any significant yield) became domesticated, humans derived more and more calories from these readily available high-calorie sources, a trend that has continued to the present day—with dire consequences.

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., author of the 2002 best-seller
The Paleo Diet
, explains:

Cereal grains [meaning cultivated grains in general, not breakfast cereals] have fundamentally altered the foods to which our species had been originally adapted over eons of evolutionary experience. For better or for worse, we are no longer hunter-gatherers. However, our genetic makeup is still that of a paleolithic hunter-gatherer, a species whose nutritional requirements are optimally adapted to wild meats, fruits and vegetables, not to cereal grains. There is a significant body of evidence which suggests that cereal grains are less than optimal foods for humans and that the human genetic makeup and physiology may not be fully adapted to high levels of cereal grain consumption. We have wandered down a path toward absolute dependence upon cereal grains, a path for which there is no return.

Culturally, the cultivation of grains is the key variable that allowed modern civilization to develop and thrive. Families could successfully feed and raise more children. Large populations could now live permanently in proximity, and labor could specialize, leading to continued exponential advancements in knowledge and modernization. However, as Cordain elaborates, “[Grains] have allowed man’s culture to grow and evolve so that man has become earth’s dominant animal species, but this preeminence has not occurred without cost.… Agriculture is generally agreed to be responsible for many of humanity’s societal ills, including whole-scale warfare, starvation, tyranny, epidemic diseases, and class divisions.” Dr. Jared Diamond, evolutionary biologist, physiologist, and Pulitzer Prize–winning professor of geography at UCLA, and author of
Guns, Germs and Steel
, goes so far as to say that agriculture was “the worst mistake in the history of the human race” and that “we’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it’s unclear whether we can solve it.”

“
The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.
—
Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emporer (121-180)
”

Grain’s singular benefit of plentiful calories was often more than offset by harmful aspects, including “antinutrients” (compounds that interfere with the absorption of beneficial nutrients), the high carb content, and grain proteins that were foreign to the human digestive process. Populations may have expanded, but health costs to the individual were significant. The flourishing of agriculture paralleled a reduction in average human life span as well as body and brain size, increases in infant mortality and infectious diseases, and the occurrence of previously unknown conditions such as osteoporosis, bone mineral disorders, and malnutrition. Ironically, as medical advancements have eliminated
most of the rudimentary health risks faced by early humans (infant mortality, infections, etc.), we can now live long enough to develop, suffer, and die from diet-related diseases, including atherosclerosis, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes (it used to be called adult-onset diabetes until millions of kids started developing it in recent years!).

Grains offer the great majority of their calories in the form of carbohydrate, so they cause blood sugar levels to elevate quickly (foods that easily and rapidly elevate blood sugar are known as high glycemic foods). Because high glycemic foods, such as sugar and grains, have been recently and suddenly introduced to the human food supply (that’s right, even 10,000 years ago is “recent and sudden” in evolutionary terms) and yet are consumed in massive quantities, they shock our delicate hormonal systems, which are better suited to ingesting the low-glycemic foods our ancestors ate, such as meat, vegetables, nuts, and most fruits.

A grain-heavy diet stresses the all-important insulin regulation mechanism in the body. After consuming that bagel, scone, muffin, French toast, or bowl of cereal (all derived from grains) and a glass of juice for breakfast, your pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream to help regulate blood sugar levels. Even after the routine meal just described, many Americans technically become temporarily diabetic, with blood sugar levels soaring to clinically dangerous levels. You know the drill by now. After your meal, insulin is released into the bloodstream and stores glucose as muscle glycogen or directs its conversion to fat. Experience this often enough and it’s very likely you’ll gain weight and develop insulin resistance and Metabolic Syndrome.

If, instead, you were to have a
Primal Blueprint
breakfast consisting of a delicious cheese-and-vegetable omelet with some fresh berries, you would enjoy a moderated insulin response, leading to balanced energy levels for the hours after your meal instead of a sugar high and insulin crash. Furthermore, with blood sugar levels balanced, you would be able to access and burn stored body fat for energy until your next insulin-balanced meal.

There is sufficient evidence that this overreliance on grains—as well as on simple carb and sugar products in general—leads to numerous vitamin, mineral, and nutritional deficiencies. Most grains contain substances called phytates that easily bind to important minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc in the digestive tract, making them more difficult to absorb. Ironically, the unprocessed—and, therefore, supposedly healthier—“whole” grains are typically the highest in phytates. Mineral deficiencies are common in underdeveloped nations that depend almost entirely on grain for their
sustenance (bread accounts for 50 percent of the total calories consumed in at least half the countries in the world; some populations derive up to 80 percent of total calories from grain products).

Grains also play a role in interference with vitamin D metabolism and in related deficiencies of vitamins A, C, and B12. These nutrients are not present in grains (again, ironically, unless they have been processed and then “fortified” by adding back the missing vitamins—albeit at a much reduced bioavailability). Deficiencies of these basic vitamins are prevalent mainly in third-world countries (see the recurring theme?). However, even Western eaters with more balanced diets, but who still rely too heavily on grains, miss out on eating more nutritious foods, such as meats, fruits, and vegetables. In the United States, 45 percent of citizens get zero daily servings of fruit or juice and 22 percent get no daily vegetables.

Certain grain (and also some dairy) proteins mimic those found in viruses and bacteria, triggering an immune response when ingested. Gluten—the large, water-soluble protein that creates the elasticity in dough (it’s also the primary glue in wallpaper paste)—is found in most common grains, such as wheat, rye, and barley. Researchers now believe that as many as a third of us are probably gluten-intolerant or gluten-sensitive. That third of us (and I would suspect many more on a subclinical level) “react” to gluten with a perceptible inflammatory response. Over time, those who are known to be gluten-intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux and other digestive conditions, autoimmune disorders, and celiac disease. And that still doesn’t mean that the rest of us aren’t experiencing some milder negative effect that simply doesn’t manifest itself so obviously.