Dr. Mcdougall rips apart the paleo diet - your thoughts? page 3

[Brent*]

thanks guys. I'm just trying to play the devils advocate here because I'm curious how people interpret research. Since the research out there is lots of abstracts its hard to read it obviously. A mark sisson response to this article would be cool, just refuting his research and claims. I know the difference between primal and paleo, but reflexively lump them together because they are very similar...relative to the other crap diets out there.

[carlh]

This diet works by starving the human body of carbohydrates in order to induce a state of illness (ketosis), which can result in weight loss.

Well that's just bull straight off the bat, so I wouldn't put too much credence in the rest of the article either.

[inesenite]

First article is not worth reading cause it' s a long prologue to author's own diet that by looks of things is incompatible with Paleo. The second (if you manage to read far enough) actually recommends something close to primal - the author basically just summarised what other people within the paleo/primal movement have voiced as the critique of the original paleo... It's actually not a bad summary to use for defining differences between Cordain's original Paleo and its many, more recent "offsprings" that have taken into consideration a lot of drawbacks, like sourcing of meet, attitude to dairy, nuts etc.

[Timthetaco]

Pretty amusing read. Cavemen made flour (so you're wrong!), but they were cannibals (so they were bad!), but they ate starch (which is good!). Starches fueled the great conquerers (which is... good?), agriculture marked the rise of civilization (which is good!), animal agriculture is destroying the planet (which is bad! but it wouldn't be happening if not for agriculture), and you'd have to kill 9 of your friends so paleo dieters can have their meat.

:/

Basically the only thing he's right about is hunter gatherers getting the bulk of their calories from starch. What he didn't mention is if they didn't hunt to pick up the difference, they never would have survived.

This guy's a hyperbolic nutbag. Let's fly him to New Guinea so he can live on starch in the jungle, like a REAL human being. See if he'll turn down a bird liver if it's the difference between life and death.

And I'm also unclear if I should be eating sorghum like our more recent grain-loving ancestors or if I should be eating trees like our more distant ancestors, the Australopithecines.

[sbhikes]

I'm a vegetarian that eats liver and pork bellies and oxtails and fish and muscle meat. What's destroying the environment is people having babies in excess, driving your car everywhere, air conditioning, and shipping your food (wrapped in multiple layers of plastic every step of the way) all the way from South America so you can have strawberries in the dead of a Michigan winter. Not to mention clearing every diverse ecosystem on Earth to overproduce commodity crops and destroying the desert for solar and wind projects. Good luck with your soy burgers, McDougall.

[Moochy]

McDougall is a vegan and a leader at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine who in turn are associated with PETA. So there you have people with a militant/religious agenda of promoting vegetarian diet and who tell anyone who will listen that eating meat is unethical and will kill you. I find them ignorant and biased.

Regarding the destruction of the planet due to food production: WHY does no one, vegan or omnivore ever realize the destruction of the planet is because there are too many people? People have bred like a plague of rats and no one wants to acknowledge that.

Beware of the vegan menace.

[JennaRose]

"In addition to the usual beef, veal, pork, chicken, and fish, a Paleo follower is required to eat; alligator, bear, kangaroo, deer, rattlesnake, and wild boar are also on the menu. Mail-order suppliers for these wild animals are provided in his book."

REQUIRED?!?!?! i didnt read that anywhere hahahahahaha

this is the most ridiculous article i have ever skimmed

[Tercio]

LOL, I couldn't get past the 1st line. Hey you guys! We're destroying the earth with our diets. Last one out turn off the lights.

Tercio

[Lewis]

A mark sisson response to this article would be cool, just refuting his research and claims.

You could email him with that request if you want.

For myself I don't see that it's necessary to respond every time someone makes a (usually ill-informed and ill-considered) attack on the Paleo Diet or on low carb diets.

Why would one? Out of nervousness thinking one was on the wrong track and wanting to reassure oneself?

The arguments from evolution, from the evidence of the excellence in health of hunter-gatherer (and some other relatively non-modern) populations, and from biochemsitry are pretty impressive. The case-stories from people who've healed bad -- in some cases supposedly intractable -- conditions with such diets equally so:

Watch "TEDxIowaCity - Dr. Terry Wahls - Minding Your Mitochondria" Video at TEDxTalks

And besides all that, the evidence for what happens to people when they eat according to current dogma -- high carb, plenty of gluten-containg grains, pasteurized industrial dairy products ("for the calcium" doncha know), excessive quantities of fruit, and "a calories is a calorie" and "a little of what you fancy does you good" and all the rest of it .... well, the results are all around you. To be frank, it means disease and early death.

[Uncephalized]

Only plants synthesize carbohydrates (sugars). The body parts of animals, including red meat, poultry, seafood, and fish, and eggs, contain no carbohydrates. Animal secretions (like mammalian milk) contain sugars synthesized by plants (the cow eats the grass that made the sugar).

LOL. Apparently gluconeogenesis doesn't exist, and all obligate carnivores have a blood sugar of zero, or are all secretly eating plants every day when the scientists aren't looking.

Seriously, is he claiming that grass contains lactose? Really? What an idiot.

That's about as far as I got. I certainly agree that Paleo ought not imply low-carb, and that the anti-carb scare-tactics need to end, because they seem not to be true. However, that doesn't justify painting animal foods (which are excellent foods to eat!) with the same propaganda brush that low-carbers use on rice and potatoes.