Hierarchy of Food

I already talked about What to Eat, What Not To.  Now let's discuss quality of foods.  Take a look at this list and let me known if there are any questions.  The list is in order of importance.

1)  First and foremost, eat like a caveman.
  

2)  Eat real foods.  Buy foods that don't have an ingredient label.  Real foods (produce, fresh meats) don't require ingredient lists because anyone can tell what it is without the assistance of a label.  Eggs are eggs, beef is beef, lettuce is lettuce, an apple is an apple.  The only way to control your health is to know what you put in your body.

3)  Eat naturally raised foods.  Foods that are naturally raised contain much less toxins than chemically raised foods.

4)  Try to buy local foods.  Local foods are typically fresher which in turn means they will be more nutrient dense.  There are plenty of other reasons to buy local if you can.  You help the local economy.  Small, local farmers tend to be proud of their craft and will show exactly how your food is produced and harvested.

I know it is not always affordable and realistic to follow all 4 of these rules.  If you make a conscious effort to live by 1 and follow 2, 3, and 4 as much as you can, you and your family will be much better off today and in the long run.

CP

Would You Jump Off a Cliff?

I try to come up with original stuff as much as possible but there are times I cannot resist posting something I saw on another site such as the N=1 posts.  Credit for this one to Power Law Fitness.





It is in the nature of people to want to be like everyone else in the crowd.  Question is, if the crowd decided to jump off a cliff, would you go with them?


CP

Heart Disease by the Numbers

Take a look at that graph.  We are now dying less from cardiovascular disease since levels in the 1950s. That is great news.  The question is why?  Is it because a change in diet is preventing cardiovascular disease and heart disease?  If it prevented heart disease from happening, then I would say yes, a change in the American diet would deserve some credit.  Let's explore this further.

Hospitalization Rates for Heart Failure, Ages 45–64 and 65 and Older, U.S., 1971–2005

This is a National Institute of Health chart that still shows an upward trend for hospitalizations associated with heart failure.  So logically one could surmise that although people are dying less from heart disease they are still getting heart disease at an increased rate.  Hmmm maybe there is more to this.

As we can also see in this graph, heart attack rates continue to climb but death from heart attack continues to drop.  What we can also see is that Angioplasty rose from 0 in 1980 to very high numbers in 1999.  Bypass surgery also became more common.  The advent of these procedures correlates pretty strongly with the dip in heart disease deaths seen on the first graph of this post.


It should be obvious that despite a shift away from saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet that we haven't prevented heart disease.  It is medical technology that has allowed us to better prevent deaths from heart disease.  


CP

Paleo Diet a Fad?

I looked up the definition of the word fad and here is what I found:

A fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time

By definition, the Paleo diet cannot by deemed a fad. It was utilized for 2.3 million years, certainly not a "brief period of time". The paleo way of eating was extremely effective at developing strong and healthy humans despite the absence of modern healthcare.

I am sure many readers can think of diet crazes that were very brief in comparison to 2.3 million years. These diets come and go because they do not work over a lifetime, they are sometimes complicated to follow, and they make the fad follower sick.

It is time for everyone to follow the diet that has the longest track record of success. One that required no arithmetic, no food scale, and no pen and paper.

Cholesterol Will Kill You....Not So Fast

Now look at the same chart on the right that he talks about in the video.  Dr. Malcolm Kendrick MD compiled  World Health Organization statistics from several European countries and results from urban Australian Aborigines.  The cholesterol scores range from that study equate to US total cholesterol standard measures of 174 (4.5) up to 243 (6.4)  As any person (no medical experience needed) with eyes can see, the Aborigines had the lowest cholesterol and the highest death rate from heart disease.  


Conventional wisdom tells us that cholesterol causes heart disease.  How can these numbers be right?  Well, because cholesterol does not cause heart disease and that hypothesis has been wrong from the beginning.  It is related to the saturated fat myth I talked about here.


Cholesterol is an extremely important component to human life.  The liver makes it in large amounts because we need it, not to kill us.  Even the most "unhealthy" diet filled with meat, eggs, and butter cannot come close to how much cholesterol our body produces on a daily basis. Cholesterol is an essential component in cell walls, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and bile.  Bile is necessary to help us absorb Vitamins E, D, A, and K.  

We cannot live without cholesterol and we put ourselves at risk if cholesterol gets too low.

"In the Framingham Heart Study, in subjects over 50 years of age they found an 11% increase overall and 14% increase in CVD mortality per 1 mg/dL per year drop in total cholesterol levels."

What this means is for every 38 points in cholesterol drop there was an 11% overall risk increase of death.  There is a sweet spot for cholesterol of about 160 to 240 that allows for the least risk of overall mortality and the optimal use of cholesterol for basic bodily functions.  If you are in the middle of that range, don't get overly concerned with managing your cholesterol.


Primitive man ate a lot of cholesterol, perhaps much more than our daily recommendations.  Heart disease was not prominent in primitive man.  So the question is, what has changed in our diet that could cause heart disease?


Here are a few more thought provoking videos on this subject:
Exposing the Cholesterol Myth

Cholesterol myth exposed! They made it up to sell more drugs!

CP

Gluten: Grain's Trojan Horse

Dr. Scott Lewey:

"Gluten ingestion is an avoidable, treatable, and reversible cause of illness in many people. It is contributing to the rising epidemic of autoimmune diseases. Many resist these concepts finding them either unbelievable, unacceptable or both. 
I believe that their rejection is neither rational nor helpful. 

 It is a common disease that is often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. It may even be the most common autoimmune disorder."

Gluten is a protein in wheat, barley, and rye.  A lot of plants do not want to be eaten and they have natural defenses against this.  Gluten is one of those defenses for grains.  This should be no surprise because gluten causes many problems for many people.  Common symptoms of people with gluten sensitivities are:



Irritable Bowel
Migraines
Low body weight due to malabsorbtion of nutrients
Stunted growth in children
Infertility
Autoimmune Disorders
Low Energy Levels


Here is a pretty strong quote from Dr. Stephen Guyenet, a respected neurobiology researcher, in regard to wheat and gluten sensitivity.

"I think this underlines what I've come to believe about wheat: it's problematic for a large proportion of the population, perhaps the majority."

An independent lab who has an intuitive test for gluten sensitivity found that patients with symptoms had gluten sensitivity 59% of the time, patients with no symptoms were positive 29% of the time, and patients with auto immune disease were positive 62% of the time.

Here is another excerpt from a recent Mayo Clinic study:

"New studies from the United States, Europe and other Countries around the world indicate that the commonness of celiac disease has dramatically increased  in the last decade, possibly as much as four-times the amount seen in the 1950's."

 If you haven't followed, celiac disease is caused by gluten sensitivity.  I think there are three reasons why more people are being diagnosed with celiac disease. The first is medical professionals are starting to realize that "healthy" grains can wreak havoc on the body and they are testing for it more often.  The second is there are more accurate, less invasive tests available today than years past.  The third is reason is that the "healthier" the grains are the worse they are for us.  "Healthy" whole grains are less processed than white flour grains thus preserving more gluten in the final food product.  Because of the perceived benefit, people are eating more whole grains and thus ingesting more gluten.


Grains have only been eaten by human populations for the last 10,000 years and in some populations only the last 3,000 years. A prevailing diagnosis is that humans just haven't evolved yet to tolerate gluten and the grain it's in.  That's Mother Nature's way of saying, find something else to eat.


CP

A Reader's Self Experiment Week 1

Well, I hope that I had something to do with this.  I am guessing I had just a little to do with it.  I have a neighbor who I have known for a very long time.  For this purpose, let's call him Leroy.  I have been talking to Leroy about the paleo way of eating off and on for about 3 years now.  He has kinda laughed me off or dismissed me as nuts (he is kinda right in that respect) until very recently. He has decided to try paleo for a while and document his progress on a weekly basis.  Here is update #1. 

"Week 1:  I have been reading/discussing the Caveman/Paleo/Primal diet for a few weeks now & among the many health benefits, here are a few other reasons why I chose to do this…

1.      I run about 10 miles per week…I would like to run further, but my joints just won’t let me.  At times, I have to ice down my knees at night b/c I just can’t get comfortable.  Last year, I ran the 5.7 mile stretch of the Akron Marathon for our relay team & I could hardly walk after the race.  I am a pretty active fellow, but it is frustrating that my legs won’t let me go further.  Is there a direct correlation between my grain consumption & inflammation in my joints?

2.      Every Saturday morning, my wife & I plan out our dinner menu for the week before I head off to the grocery store.  Each week I found myself buying French bread (3-4 loaves), pasta & rice.  These were staples on our dinner menu.  We did eat meat & veggies, but they were each accommodated by bread, pasta or rice.  We have all heard of beer belly, but have you heard of wheat belly?  I may be starting to get one.

3.      I have been suffering from allergies for about 13 years.  I’ve been to multiple doctors & have been tested for everything, but nobody can tell me what causes my allergic reactions.  It starts in the morning while showering…my nose will start running, followed by sneezing.  No kidding, I may sneeze up to 60-70 times per day & the same with blowing my nose.  The only positive is that it only lasts for 1 day.  The very next day I will wake up & all symptoms are gone.  However, I don’t know when the next attack is coming…could be in a few days or a few weeks.  I’ve been on multiple meds…both oral & nasal.  Nothing has worked & I refuse to take them…it’s a hellish nightmare. 

How have I felt?

So I just finished my 1^st week & I feel great!  I lost 4 lbs. & have a lot more energy throughout the day & I have no more 3pm crashes!  I have more energy during my runs, but I haven’t really noticed a big difference in the soreness of my joint yet…I am hoping that changes. 

How hard has it been?

Chips & Salsa:  I eat chips & salsa everyday.  I used to buy my salsa direct from the manufacturer & now I haven’t had it for 1 week…not sure how much longer I can hold out.

Beer:  Giving up beer hasn’t been that bad…we will see how hard it is when college football starts. 

Bread:  This is the big one for me.  I LOVE BREAD!  I ate bread for lunch & dinner, so it is still very tempting.

Sugar:  I never was a “desert” guy, but there are many foods/condiments that contain sugar.  With a family of 4, it is next to impossible to rid of all of these, but I have cut down on them.

G2:  I used to have one after I ran, but now I just drink water.  It really hasn’t been that difficult giving this up. 

What haven’t I cut out?

Cheese:  String cheese, fresh mozzarella, others…I will still eat cheese, but I am trying to cut down on how much.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:  I used to eat (1-2) after lunch, (1-2) after dinner & (2-3) at 2:30 am…yes at 2:30 am.  I have given up the lunch & dinner cookies, but I still have them in the middle of the night (only 1-2 now).  Once this batch runs out, I am gonna try to stop completely (doubt that will happen). 

Today starts week 2.  Our dinner menu has changed drastically – No bread, No pasta, No rice.  New additions this week:  Fish, thin-julienne sautéed zucchini & bun-less, grass-fed beef burgers."

Leroy asks if I have "heard of wheat belly".  Yes I have.  It was documented on one of my favorite sites.

I want to thank Leroy for such an honest and thorough summary of the last week.   I also want to encourage him to keep it up, the first 3-4 weeks can be tough to push through.  He left one thing out that maybe he was too embarrassed to share.  I am not embarrassed and besides, his identity is hidden very well.  He has told me in the past that he has counted his farts and they totalled 60 in a day.  He is now down to 3.  If nothing else, that has to make his wife and co-workers happy.  I too can say my flatulence has decreased dramatically.  There are people (you know who you are) who I would greatly appreciate if they also adopted this diet.


Stay tuned for future weekly updates from Leroy.


CP

N=1 version 3.0

I love these anecdotal posts regarding the personal results of people trying the caveman diet.  To me, what is special about these types of posts is that there is no financial agenda, just people trying something and having incredible results.  They didn't get funding from a pharmaceutical company and they aren't sponsored by Weight Watchers.

Thank you to Paleo Girls for posting  another self experiment with extremely positive results.  Anytime you can go from dependent on a medication just to survive to completely off that medication and symptom free, I would say even a medical doctor would call that a complete success.  Here is just a taste of the post:

"Eating Paleo or Primal helps in so many ways. I have more energy. I’ve gone from a very tight-fitting size 36 jean to loose-fitting 33’s. One aspect I didn’t realize would be affected was my allergies. No more itchy eyes, no more nose running like a faucet, and no more daily nose spray with zyrtec which I took the last 4 years. I’ve been allergy medication free for the last year and feel great. So for those of you who are on the fence about trying this way of eating please, for your noses sake, give it 30 days. "

I feel kinda like a snake oil salesman saying this change in diet can help so many things. Don't underestimate how gorging yourself with food you are not meant to eat will effect your health today, tomorrow, and 20 years from now.  If the medication route is what some choose then they continue to feed themselves food their body doesn't tolerate and then on top of that they throw in symptom masking medications that almost certainly will have long term negative effects on their body.

CP

What Makes Them Different???

Did you know that the DNA of a gorilla and a human are about 98% identical?  The 2% that is different obviously is important. Gorillas and humans evolved from the same ancestors. There are actually two major components of their bodies that allowed us to climb different branches of the evolutionary tree.

The one on the left is obviously the gorilla. Gorillas are herbivores, meaning they only eat plants. They can eat up to 60 pounds of fibrous vegetation a day. As you can see, their gut is quite large. Almost 3 times larger than a human gut. The gut isn't big because it is fat. It is big because much more internal plumbing is required to digest all that vegetation. Because they get virtually no fat in their diet, they have a unique digestive system that can convert vegetation to fatty acids. This extra processing requires a lot of room and thus adds to the overall greater mass of their gut in comparison to a human.

The picture on the right is of a San Bushmen. They are a primitive tribe that live today alongside gorillas in Africa. Obviously they are humans just like you and me. Theirs and our diet is described as omnivore, meaning we eat plants and animals. The brain of a human is about twice as big as as a gorilla's. The size of our brains give us more intelligence than a gorilla and thus allowed us to evolve to what we are instead of what they are.

Remember, we evolved from the same ancestors.  Why did our brains get bigger while theirs stayed small? It is common knowledge that meats are more nutrient dense than plants. Our brains are 60% fat and they require amino acids and fatty acids that are plentiful in various animal sources. As our brains got bigger, our guts got smaller and we required meat that could more efficiently provide nutrients to our large brains.  Plants were still eaten but in lower volume and lower variety due to our smaller guts.

"The additional protein in meat made it so our bodies could spend less energy on digestion, and more on creating gray matter."

Can we still eat plants? Yes, they still provide some important micronutrients but we became the top dog on the planet because of our intelligence and that only happened when we starting eating meat. Although no one should gorge themselves on meat at every meal, it is an important part of our diet. Meats have high amounts of protein, fats, and hundreds of essential micronutrients. Unfortunately, the low fat diet that is advocated today is also low in meat. If we continue to eat less and less meat and more and more plants ie. "healthy" grains and vegetable oils, our guts are gonna get bigger and our brains are gonna get smaller. Kinda like this:

CP

Cure Acid Reflux In a Day

The use of medications to treat acid reflux and heartburn, also known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), has become commonplace in our society.  As stated over at the Healthy Skeptic drug companies make more than $7 billion a year selling medications to treat these symptoms.  I'm going to talk about my history of GERD and the simple change I made that cured it.

When I was younger, I used to get acid reflux from time to time.  I didn't know what it was or why it was happening at the time.  I never watched or cared what I ate and I never gained an ounce so it seemed to not matter.  One instance that comes to mind was the days of the "carb-ups" the night before the big game.  I remember how I felt even more hungry a couple hours after eating a ton of pasta.  Well at that time, I was mistaking hunger for acid reflux.  This went on throughout my days in high school but it wasn't until I became an adult that I knew what it was that was causing this excess hunger.

In my 20s, whenever I'd have problems with acid, I never thought much of it.  Popping a Rolaids or a Tums would make the symptoms eventually subside.  Some days I'd eat 2-3 Tums in a sitting if the acid was particularly severe.  There were some rough nights here and there where I'd wake up with a bad burning sensation and have acid come up my throat and run to the restroom for what could have ensued.  It was extremely uncomfortable.  Never really gave it much thought though as I continued eating anything in sight and not really connecting the dots.  Looking back on it I remember pizzas, tomato sauces, pop-tarts, french fries and any variety of fast food would trigger the acid.

Around the time that I turned 30, I began to develop a persistent cough.  Days lead to weeks and weeks into months with this cough until I finally convinced my lazy self to do something about it.  So I went to the doctor and they were alarmed by the description I gave them. So a scope of my throat was scheduled with another doctor.  They said it could be anything, including cancer, but they aren't sure until they take a closer look..  Of course it isn't ever comfortable to hear the "C" word so it made me a little nervous.

So the day of my scope came.  The doctor went up my nose and down my throat.  Within seconds he said I have slight damage to my esophagus due to acid reflux.  At that same appointment he wrote a script for Nexium and told me to stay on it for a period of 6 months.  He said he sees it all the time and I'll be better in no time.  I thanked him and began the regimen.   After a couple of weeks, the coughing began to subside and my acid was neutralized.  I went on to take it for an additional 6 months after a follow visit where the doctor wrote up another script without batting an eyelash.  I also told him at the time about some sleep problems I was having and he wrote a script for Ambien without hesitation (that's a story for another day).  During these 6 months I put on an additional 20 pounds of fat.  Almost as if Nexium gave me a free pass to eat whatever I wanted to because it wouldn't effect my stomach.  Nexium was very pricey and on the advice of others I dropped down to over the counter solutions like Pepsid and Prilosec.  These seemed to work as I continued my habits of haphazard eating.

I finally told myself enough is enough and decided to consider what it was that caused what turned into an addiction to antacid medications. I came across an article stating how individuals have success with their GERD problems when on a paleo diet.  Also around this time I met Chuck P. who turned me on to this lifestyle as well for many other reasons.  It's always nice to know someone that can speak from experience on the success of things.  So I began to give it a try.  I observed an instant change in my acid reflux.  Prior to starting, I always kept a bottle of generic Tums by my bedside.  I noticed one day that it was practically full and I realized that something was happening.  Paleo diet habits were allowing me to no longer depend on these antacids.  I no longer am a slave to these medications I can proudly say.  My stomach and wallet thank me too.

Nowadays there are times I do go off the reservation.  I'll go to Dairy Queen with the family or a cookout and eat whatever.  The acid comes back almost right away.  It will extend into the following day where I go back to my Paleo habits.  By mid-day my symptoms are pretty much gone.

I now look at acid reflux as your body's way of telling you "don't eat that".  It just doesn't seem right for a person to even have acid reflux if you think about it.  Popping an antacid is just covering up something your body is telling you not to do.

DJ

Our Kids are Gonna Live Shorter Lives Than Us?

This is the first time in 200 years the next generation will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.  Sure this article is 5 years old but can anyone find evidence that things have gotten better in the last 5 years???  Don't let your kids con you into buying food because it looks fun.  You hold the money that buys the food.

MMMM Fun for All

"The report, to be published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, says the prevalence and severity of obesity is so great, especially in children, that the associated diseases and complications - Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer - are likely to strike people at younger and younger ages."

I wonder why all these kids are getting so fat?  Oh, it's because all kids I know eat copious amounts of obesity causing steak, chicken with the skin on it, hand fulls of fattening nuts, tons of veggies, they cannot get enough fruit, and water is all they drink.  If you didn't sense it, I was being VERY sarcastic in my previous sentence.

If we don't want to re evaluate the foods we eat for us, maybe we should at least do it for our kids.

CP

Who Can You Trust?

My opinion in regard to health and nutrition, it is tough to trust anyone 100% of the time.

credit Kelly the Kitchen Kop

It is hard to believe but those ads are real.  It used to be accepted that drinking pop and smoking cigarettes were perfectly fine.  Corporations paid for biased studies that supported their products and thus their financial interests.  Eventually logic overcame greed.  There are two more recent examples of this problem.  


Recently the Coca Cola company was sued over the fact that Vitamin Water was sold as a healthy alternative to pop and energy drinks.  Coca Cola's defense,  "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage."   If you didn't know, besides synthetic vitamins and real water, there are 33 grams of sugar in "Vitamin Water".  Maybe the public shouldn't look to sugared beverage companies for their vitamins.


Another interesting transgression that recently came to light was the whole swine flu scandal.  Myself and many others have said for a while it was a hoax.  There was a small minority that knew the flu was only deadly for people with compromised immune systems.  Yet the World Health Organization (WHO), at the urging of their scientific advisory board, declared H1N1 (swine flu) a pandemic.  Vaccines were quickly created and distributed around the world.  $1.6 billion of our tax dollars were spent by our government alone on the vaccines.  Who knows how much more was spent throughout the world.  


Well the pandemic never happened and most people, by choice, did not get the vaccine.  In the US, nearly half of the 162 million vaccines that were ordered expired and were dumped in the trash.  The same thing happened in other countries.  Now it has been revealed that the scientific advisory board of the WHO has many members who have direct financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies who made the H1N1 vaccines.


So next time you are just a bit uncomfortable regarding health and nutritional recommendations, trust your instinct and do a little research of your own.  You might just be shocked at what you find.


CP

Sugar and Starch

A little more info from people in white coats (Medical Doctors).  Credit to Fathead the Movie.  A must see!






CP

Carbohydrates are making us FAT

Now let's imagine you are stranded in the woods with a tent, a bow and arrow set, and a knife. You know you are so remote that it is best to try to survive till someone finds you. You now have to live off the land. Where would you get your next loaf of bread? Where would you get your next bag of chips? How about a candy bar? Would you die without these things? Cavemen survived and so would you.

Anyone know what a carbohydrate is? It is a macronutrient like fat and proteins. Unlike fats and proteins, carbohydrates are not necessary for the survival of humans. Let me say that in a different way for clarity and for effect. "Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients in humans: the body can obtain all its energy from protein and fats."

Just like the fact the saturated fat is not unhealthy , many are shocked to find out they do not need carbs to keep their energy levels up much less for survival. Foods that are heavy on carbs are breads, pastas, rice, pastries......well just about anything with grains and/or sugar. Fruits, vegetables, and milk contain carbs also but to a lesser extent.  By the way, over consumption of fruits and vegetables is not a problem here in the US. 

There are simple carbohydrates (sugars) and complex carbohydrates (starches). The difference between the two is the time it takes to get into the blood. What many do not understand is that all carbs get metabolised by the digestive tract and end up in the blood as glucose. Whole grain pasta or a tablespoon of sugar, either way they end up being glucose in the blood. Chronically high levels of blood glucose (blood sugar) have a degrading effect on the body. Stay tuned in future posts to hear about how chronically high blood sugar causes heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Lets talk about what happens when we ingest carbs. Simple and complex carbs will end up in the blood as glucose after the liver metabolizes the ingested carbohydrates.  The pancreas reacts to glucose in the blood by releasing insulin. Insulin facilitates the passage of glucose into the body's cells. Glucose goes to lean tissues first and when those are full, glucose is stored for later use in fat cells. When insulin is present in the blood, it blocks energy from being released from fat cells.  In a scenario of low and very low carbs in the diet, the body will be able to and actually will prefer to use the energy stored as fat because insulin levels will be low.

Have you ever heard of or experienced a "sugar crash"?  It is the tired feeling you get after eating a carb heavy meal.  Energy drink manufacturers and coffee houses love these because it is good for business. What happens in the body after a carb heavy meal is there is a big spike in blood glucose thus a high insulin response.  The insulin quickly gets all the glucose where it needs to be but because the insulin response was so great it remains in the blood for a while after it's job is done.  The body gets a feeling of tiredness because of the perception that the insulin is still there but it has no energy to put away.  These crashes lead to more carb cravings thus the viscous cycle of a carbohalic is continued. 

The problem with the Standard American Diet (SAD) is that there are a lot more carbs ingested than we need. We are not moving around enough to overcome the prescription of  about 1,100 calories per day of carbohydrates. The excess glucose is stored as fat. If insulin is raised in the blood, the body cannot use the energy in stored fat because the insulin blocks it from being released.

In summary, ingested carbs = raised insulin = stored fat. (Unless you are a highly competitive athlete expending a lot of energy)

Also, raised insulin = stored fat retention.


CP