Re: a few carb questions

June 14, 2005

>And another question - if the diet has proven to be ok for a very

>long period of time, can we generalize that it would be ok for

>everybody? Or ok just for some people, and not so good for others?

I can only answer from the folk I know, which are in 2 camps:

Atkins folks and celiac folks.

The Atkins folks start out with NO carbs, including fruit. The ones

that stick with it start adding back fruits and vegies, and then maybe

some potatoes. At that point they can usually " stick with it " just

fine. What they have is basically a paleo diet.

The celiac folks start out with LOTS of carbs, just no wheat/barley/rye

carbs. They gorge on carbs and sugar, esp. at first. Then a lot of them

start whittling down their diet and lose the processed food,

the gluten-free snack foods ... and end up with fruits, vegies,

and some potatoes. Again, a basically paleo diet. Which is where

our family has been gravitating.

We aren't adamant, and we DO make great desserts now and

then, esp. for birthdays, and even get GF pretzels now and then.

But more and more, the paleo-style eating just seems more

" natural " and tastes better. I might add that our style of

eating is ALSO a lot more like the cooking in, say, Provence

or rural Italy ... like the gourmet cooking shows, minus the

pasta and bread (which were not the main part of the meal

in the countryside anyway: fruits and vegies were cheaper

for farmers).

Anyway, that style of eating is also becoming more popular

among the richer folks around here. Juice bars are " in " ,

as are lettuce wraps. Bread sales are down. Steak tartar

is back in the restaurants, and beef sales are up. No one

tries to talk me out of getting very rare steak when

I go out either!

I suppose I could not " stick with it " if I considered it

a hardship. I don't. It's more like sheer decadence.

I CAN eat a slice of bread, but marinated ginger fish

or a good steak tastes a heck of a lot better.

As for is it good for everyone ... probably everyone

is different. But it DOES seem that many diet books

and many parts of the culture are all gravitating

to a more paleo style diet, all for different reasons

and with different theories. It makes sense that

the diet of 200-2000 years ago (depending on

your ethnicity) would be better for you than one

invented 50 years ago. For some ethnicities (like

the Pima indians) the modern carb diet is downright deadly.

BTW one diet I was on had a " free day " where you

can eat anything you want one day a week. The

writer said that most folks, when they do that,

realize they don't *like* the " bad food " as much

as they thought they did, and if you only eat it

one day a week you soon learn how bad it makes

you feel. And pretty soon you don't want that food

anymore. That's been pretty much my experience.

The foods I don't eat, I don't WANT to eat. I don't

crave them any more than I crave, say, eating dried

cat food or wallpaper paste.

>I have belonged to some paleo groups but never had the courage to

>post these questions because they would call me a heretic and might

>ask me out. Well, I am exaggerating, but I know there are people who

>wouldn`t even consider such questions. Fortunately, this one is a

>much more democratic forum, so I hope my questions will not shock let

>alone offend anyone. On the one hand, I am playing the Devil`s

>Advocate, but on the other hand I am really interested in having an

>answer, though I am afraid (I may be wrong) there is none yet.

If you look through the history of this list, ANY question

is up for discussion, as long as the discussion is polite.

THIS question isn't even CLOSE to being shocking,

trust me!

Heidi Jean

June 14, 2005

Thank you, Heidi. You gave me a very comprehensive (is my English

correct?) answer.

I have always wondered if potatoes are paleo or not. Personally I

think and sense that tubers are much less problematic than grains,

but some people can`t even tolerate them, especially the white

potato. I don`t know why.

I find it perfectly possible to follow a non-grain diet, although it

can be some a little more challenging in some environments. But

unless I am totally wrong, a non-carb diet, by which I mean not even

tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, manioc), is for the few brave

who are able to make long-standing sacrifices and maybe not for good.

Moreover, I don`t think that someone whose diet includes 15% to 25%

tubers will necessarily be less healthy for that. But of course we

should strive to get the organic sort.

>

> >And another question - if the diet has proven to be ok for a very

> >long period of time, can we generalize that it would be ok for

> >everybody? Or ok just for some people, and not so good for others?

>

> I can only answer from the folk I know, which are in 2 camps:

> Atkins folks and celiac folks.

>

> The Atkins folks start out with NO carbs, including fruit. The ones

> that stick with it start adding back fruits and vegies, and then

maybe

> some potatoes. At that point they can usually " stick with it " just

> fine. What they have is basically a paleo diet.

>

> The celiac folks start out with LOTS of carbs, just no

wheat/barley/rye

> carbs. They gorge on carbs and sugar, esp. at first. Then a lot of

them

> start whittling down their diet and lose the processed food,

> the gluten-free snack foods ... and end up with fruits, vegies,

> and some potatoes. Again, a basically paleo diet. Which is where

> our family has been gravitating.

>

> We aren't adamant, and we DO make great desserts now and

> then, esp. for birthdays, and even get GF pretzels now and then.

> But more and more, the paleo-style eating just seems more

> " natural " and tastes better. I might add that our style of

> eating is ALSO a lot more like the cooking in, say, Provence

> or rural Italy ... like the gourmet cooking shows, minus the

> pasta and bread (which were not the main part of the meal

> in the countryside anyway: fruits and vegies were cheaper

> for farmers).

>

> Anyway, that style of eating is also becoming more popular

> among the richer folks around here. Juice bars are " in " ,

> as are lettuce wraps. Bread sales are down. Steak tartar

> is back in the restaurants, and beef sales are up. No one

> tries to talk me out of getting very rare steak when

> I go out either!

>

> I suppose I could not " stick with it " if I considered it

> a hardship. I don't. It's more like sheer decadence.

> I CAN eat a slice of bread, but marinated ginger fish

> or a good steak tastes a heck of a lot better.

>

> As for is it good for everyone ... probably everyone

> is different. But it DOES seem that many diet books

> and many parts of the culture are all gravitating

> to a more paleo style diet, all for different reasons

> and with different theories. It makes sense that

> the diet of 200-2000 years ago (depending on

> your ethnicity) would be better for you than one

> invented 50 years ago. For some ethnicities (like

> the Pima indians) the modern carb diet is downright deadly.

>

> BTW one diet I was on had a " free day " where you

> can eat anything you want one day a week. The

> writer said that most folks, when they do that,

> realize they don't *like* the " bad food " as much

> as they thought they did, and if you only eat it

> one day a week you soon learn how bad it makes

> you feel. And pretty soon you don't want that food

> anymore. That's been pretty much my experience.

> The foods I don't eat, I don't WANT to eat. I don't

> crave them any more than I crave, say, eating dried

> cat food or wallpaper paste.

>

> >I have belonged to some paleo groups but never had the courage to

> >post these questions because they would call me a heretic and

might

> >ask me out. Well, I am exaggerating, but I know there are people

who

> >wouldn`t even consider such questions. Fortunately, this one is a

> >much more democratic forum, so I hope my questions will not shock

let

> >alone offend anyone. On the one hand, I am playing the Devil`s

> >Advocate, but on the other hand I am really interested in having

an

> >answer, though I am afraid (I may be wrong) there is none yet.

>

> If you look through the history of this list, ANY question

> is up for discussion, as long as the discussion is polite.

> THIS question isn't even CLOSE to being shocking,

> trust me!

>

> Heidi Jean

June 14, 2005

> Good morning,

>

> Let`s assume that carbs are only grains, beans and tubers. I know

> that fruit and veggies may contain sugar and starch, that is, fruit

> and veggies are also sources of carbs, but they usually contain a low

> amount of carbs. Besides, fruit and most veggies can be eaten raw,

> while grains (except sprouted) and tubers can`t. So that makes a big

> difference. Anyway, for the purpose of my questions, let`s exclude

> fruit and veggies from the carb category.

>

> Now let`s think of someone on a non-carb diet or a very-low-carb-diet

> (no more than 5% of carbs). It doesn`t matter if he or she eats

> cooked or raw, but he or she is a modern person, who lives with a

> family and has a job, like most of us, in other words, he or she is

> not a hunter or a collector of food (no Eskimo, no Maasai), though he

> or she may even produce some of his or her own food.

>

> The first question is - how long can that person stay on his or her

> diet without cravings, deficiencies, problems of socializing or the

> like? I mean, how many years? Five? Ten? Fifteen? For ever, until

> death? Has this diet been put to the test for very long stretches of

> time? If so, what was the conclusion? Does the non-carb diet imply no

> problems in the long run? I don`t mean just a few months, or a couple

> of years, when all can look like paradise. I mean a period longer

> than 10 years. Has anyone, under those conditions (being a modern

> citizen and leading a " normal " life) gone as far as that? I don`t

> mean simply skipping grains or wheat, I mean no carbs at all or very

> little (5%). How feasible is that?

>

> And another question - if the diet has proven to be ok for a very

> long period of time, can we generalize that it would be ok for

> everybody? Or ok just for some people, and not so good for others?

>

> I have belonged to some paleo groups but never had the courage to

> post these questions because they would call me a heretic and might

> ask me out. Well, I am exaggerating, but I know there are people who

> wouldn`t even consider such questions. Fortunately, this one is a

> much more democratic forum, so I hope my questions will not shock let

> alone offend anyone. On the one hand, I am playing the Devil`s

> Advocate, but on the other hand I am really interested in having an

> answer, though I am afraid (I may be wrong) there is none yet.

,

Steffanson after living with the Inuit did a very controlled replication of

the Inuit diet for himself over a few years in the U.S. while he worked. His

diet and health were clinically recorded with no adversity, iirc. Similar

diet would be ok for a small % of population same as the high carb opposite

extreme diets.

Biochemical individuality, metabolic typing and now genetic nutrition shows

that everyone is not the food pyramid balanced omnivore and that all people

do not process the same balance of protein, fat and carbs the same way to

get the same amount of energy and good health.

Am not real familiar with paleo diet. My diet is near paleo. No gluten,

dairy except for butter, occassional sour cream, cream cheese, no soy, beans

except pinto for purines, little fruit. Root vegetables are my carb. Nuts

have countable carbs. Root eating is older than agriculture. I don't

necessarily agree with the paleo all wild game means eat lean meat. Where

did the fat come from for the Native American staple food, pemmican?

Majority of hunting and processing for winter done in fall for storage when

game naturally gorges to get fat for winter. May just be the comparison of

fat on domesticated human fed livestock to wild's leanness most of year.

Lot of this comes from my interest in my part Native American ancestry and

ties into your post on parents. Until about 2nd grade I grew up on hunted,

fished, grown, raised food. We had a Guernsey, earlier memory of churning

butter on front porch, little bread, oatmeal for breakfast most I remember.

Dad ran slaughterhouse next door, closed due to unaffordable requirements

just as first chain grocer moved into area. Bread, pastry and pasteurized

milk got me after that. Noticed some others born around my '56 got this

sooner. Must have been our distance from large cities.

What might be helpful too is that statistically with metabolic typing

research more women than men are the protein type. The autonomic nervous

system can be either sympathetic or parasympathetic dominant which somewhat

has a relation to hemisphere warm-cold origin, sympathetic-south,

parasympathetic-north. Deb on this list has a page with more

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/rwgully/theories/diets.htm

Wanita

June 14, 2005

>I have always wondered if potatoes are paleo or not. Personally I

>think and sense that tubers are much less problematic than grains,

>but some people can`t even tolerate them, especially the white

>potato. I don`t know why.

People argue about that. From what I've read though, tubers

in general are a common food even for animals: they are

easy to get year round in most places, and are eaten

by many tribal peoples, so why would one assume our

ancestors didn't eat them?

Our usual " potato " however is a nightshade, and nightshades

are basically toxic. It's less toxic now because of breeding,

but the skin, if green, can be a problem. And a lot of people

are allergic to nightshades. Sweet potatoes though, are not

nightshades: whole different kind of plant.

I also disagree with what people say about fruits.

If you buy that humans originated in the tropics,

and you look at the native tropical fruit species,

you will see that tropical fruit is often VERY sweet

and very plentiful (there is enough of it that some

species in the tropics live off nothing BUT fruit).

It is true that some fruits we have, like apples,

are bigger than they used to be. But supermarket

fruit is generally LESS sweet than 20 years ago,

because very sweet fruit spoils easily, and the fruit

is picked too green. There was an article on that

in a magazine ... this one type of wonderful apricot

is no longer sold, because it spoiled to fast. The less

sweet variety is now sold.

A similar argument holds for legumes. Tribal peoples

do eat legumes, and there are wild ones that are

quite edible. Our ancestors ate all kinds of fruits,

nuts, seeds.

The foods they didn't have much would be

processed sugar (they might have chewed some

sweet cane grass though) and grains in large

quantities (takes a lot of technology to harvest,

grind, and store grain: you can chew the seed heads

if you are really hungry but they aren't very appetizing).

>I find it perfectly possible to follow a non-grain diet, although it

>can be some a little more challenging in some environments. But

>unless I am totally wrong, a non-carb diet, by which I mean not even

>tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, manioc), is for the few brave

>who are able to make long-standing sacrifices and maybe not for good.

Stefansson did it for a long time, and it didn't hurt him.

His team that lived like Inuit did quite well, better than

they did on the typical English diet.

The issues are largely social and psychological.

The body doesn't *need* starches at all ... when

starch is eaten it basically turns into fat, and the

body burns fat most of the time, with a bit of

glucose. The body can get glucose from fruits etc.

without the starch, or from protein if there is

no carb at all in the diet.

Fruits and vegies do have a lot of vitamins, though

you can get the same vitamins from organ meats.

But some people do better with more carbs, others

do better with more fats. Some of this I think depends

on your ethnic background: some probably depends on

your digestion (some people lack HCL, for instance, and

can't digest meat well).

>

Heidi Jean

June 14, 2005

>Now let`s think of someone on a non-carb diet or a very-low-carb-diet

>(no more than 5% of carbs). It doesn`t matter if he or she eats

>cooked or raw, but he or she is a modern person, who lives with a

>family and has a job, like most of us, in other words, he or she is

>not a hunter or a collector of food (no Eskimo, no Maasai), though he

>or she may even produce some of his or her own food.

>

,

Thank you so much for the dancing piece. <blush>

I think you bring up some pertinent questions, which I cannot answer

personally, as I haven't ever eaten Paleo exclusively for any length of

time (remember I try to keep rules to a minimum and go for pragmatism).

But having eaten Atkins style in the past and eating

lower-carb-than-most-modern folks presently, I would have to agree with

Heidi that nutrient dense low carb fare (which, let's face it means

animal foods mainly) is tastier than grains, beans and tubers. And

these foods often taste better than the carbs do when both are sans

spices and seasonings. Bread without salt in it is nasty - I know

because I've accidentally forgotten to add salt in home baked bread -

but egg yolk is quite flavorful raw or cooked without anything else. So

I feel that the low carb foods taste better all by themselves and

generally fulfill human dietary requirements much more readily than,

say, a high carb vegetarian diet. If I had to choose between liver and

potatoes, liver would keep me healthier longer. In fact, it seems to me

that many nutrients are found in rich Paleo fare that cannot be found in

grains, beans and tubers; but I don't think the converse is true. And I

think it is just a matter of evolving on a diet for thousands of years.

The high carb foods (besides the excluded fruits and veg) are all recent

additions - on a major scale - to the human diet. Perhaps you meant to

exclude nuts too along with veg and fruit?

>The first question is - how long can that person stay on his or her

>diet without cravings, deficiencies, problems of socializing or the

>like? I mean, how many years? Five? Ten? Fifteen? For ever, until

>death? Has this diet been put to the test for very long stretches of

>time? If so, what was the conclusion? Does the non-carb diet imply no

>problems in the long run? I don`t mean just a few months, or a couple

>of years, when all can look like paradise. I mean a period longer

>than 10 years. Has anyone, under those conditions (being a modern

>citizen and leading a " normal " life) gone as far as that? I don`t

>mean simply skipping grains or wheat, I mean no carbs at all or very

>little (5%). How feasible is that?

>

Well, if you want to equate " modern times " with the industrial age, then

I think the " modern diet " is just not sustainable without cheap,

nonrenewable resources to produce it. The modern age of food is only

150 years old basically, and has NOT produced better eating for people

than preindustrial eating of Neolithic times on back to Paleolithic

times. The health of industrial wo/man has declined even with the

medical science & technology to try and patch that health back

together. The modern diet hasn't been around long enough to really

study its effects on humanity for any real length of time (nor will it

be). I think the work of Dr. Price in _Nutrition and Physical

Degeneration_ tells a story at a point in time of major

industrialization across the globe of many peoples thriving on low carb

diets and high carb diets and mixed diets. What he didn't find was

success on a vegetarian or vegan diet in his studies of traditional

peoples world wide. Furthermore, it was specifically these modern,

highly processed *HIGH CARB FOODS* that did in the natives that adopted

this fare. It wasn't canned sardines that adversely affected health, it

was sugar and white flour, jams, cakes and candies. And Wanita mentions

the reverse case of Stefansson adopting a native diet and doing quite

well for years with very little plant foods at all. Check out some

articles on this sort of thing, and do consider acquiring Price's book

(mentioned above) if you don't have it. This first link is from an

article published by Stefansson himself in 1935:

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm

" During the first few months of my first year in the Arctic, I acquired,

though I did not at the time fully realize it, the munitions of fact and

experience which have within my own mind defeated those views of

dietetics reviewed at the beginning of this article. I could be healthy

on a diet of fish and water. The longer I followed it the better I liked

it, which meant, at least inferentially and provisionally, that you

never become tired of your food if you have only one thing to eat. I did

not get scurvy on the fish diet nor learn that any of my fish-eating

friends ever had it. Nor was the freedom from scurvy due to the fish

being eaten raw - we proved that later. (What it was due to we shall

deal with in the second article of this series.) There were certainly no

signs of hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure, of breakdown

of the kidneys or of rheumatism. "

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html

" A case control study of over 5000 Italian women was conducted between

1991 and 1994 to assess the influence of high intakes of fat and other

macronutrients on breast cancer risk. Dr Franceschi's team found that

" The risk of breast cancer decreased with increasing total fat intake .

.. . whereas the risk increased with increasing intake of available

carbohydrates. " ^(45)

<http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#N_45_> Foods of

vegetable origin tend to have high levels of carbohydrates. That this

should be so finds support from Professor Wolfgang Lutz he showed that

epidemiological studies failed to support the current belief that fat

intake was at the root of coronary disease and cancer and did his own

explorations of epidemiological data. His findings show a clear, inverse

relationship between diseases of civilisation and the length of time the

people of a given region of Europe have had to adapt to the high

carbohydrate diet associated with the cultivation of cereal grains that

was begun in the Near East, and spread very slowly through Europe. ^(46)

<http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#N_46_>

" This is turn confirmed the work of the eminent explorer and

anthropologist, Vilhjalmur Stefansson. ^(47)

<http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#N_47_> In it

Stefansson points out that Stanislaw Tanchou " ....gave the first formula

for predicting cancer risk. It was based on grain consumption and was

found to accurately calculate cancer rates in major European cities. The

more grain consumed, the greater the rate of cancer " . Tanchou's paper,

delivered to the Paris Medical Society in 1843, postulated that cancer

would likewise never be found in hunter-gatherer populations. This began

a search among the populations of hunter-gatherers known to missionary

doctors and explorers, a search which continued until WWII when the last

wild humans in the Arctic and Australia were 'civilized'. No cases of

cancer were ever found within these populations - although after they

adopted the diet of civilization, it became common. "

Socialization keeps coming up in these discussions. Are high carb foods

required for one to be social? I don't get it. Furthermore, social

aspects of food, while they can be sensual and pleasurable, are not the

primary purpose of eating - survival through nutrient acquisition is the

motivating force to eat, or it should be. Now sex is fun, but I won't

die if I don't get it. Not so with food. And I might also add with

foods, eating the bad - even while it might be at a social function -

might eventually kill me. José , you mean to tell me if I met you

for lunch, we could not socialize if I didn't eat the tortillas and

beans, but instead opted for a chile relleno or roast chicken?

>And another question - if the diet has proven to be ok for a very

>long period of time, can we generalize that it would be ok for

>everybody? Or ok just for some people, and not so good for others?

>

Yes, I think diet is individual.