Healthy people that eat grains...
(206 posts) (49 voices)-
bobbylight
BlockedWhat do you guys think about people that eat grains that are in much better shape than yourself? What about professional athletes that are on high carb diets that involve grains?
Are these people actually not healthy? Are they secretly killing themselves wearing a veil of pasta and rice?
Can you guys admit that people can be very healthy and in great shape while eating a high carb diet heavy in grains? Or do they just seem healthy, and are not actually healthy?
And if you think they aren't actually healthy and they just seem healthy, how do you know they aren't actually the healthy ones and you fall into the group that just "appears" healthy.
Posted 4 months ago # -
@bobbylight - I don't know if I can answer that question for myself, but Mark's own experiences as an athlete on such a diet should be of interest, if you don't know about them already.
In my own experience, I was a 'fit' person on a diet of lots of whole grains, lean meat, fish, veg and fruit and I felt unwell, was overweight despite all the exercise I was taking and was suffering with all kinds of intestinal problems. Now I eat no grains and very, very limited dairy, have lost 25 pounds in 6 weeks and have never felt better. This way of eating works for me.
If you are truly having serious doubts about this way of eating and living, why not go back to how you were before?
Posted 4 months ago # -
Ry
MemberI will agree that people can be healthy on a high carb diet. But not a high carb diet based upon grains we use like wheat.
The kitavans show that eating 70% of ones calories from tubers has no apparent negative health effects. There are traditional asian populations that are healthy on rice based diets. However, I am unaware of any traditional populations that use wheat as staple. And it seems like where ever wheat goes, the diseases of civilization follow.
And to compare people on this forum to pro athletes is somewhat pointless. It should also be noted that athletes tend to die younger than average folk.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Raphael
MemberAn interesting article on this: http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2009/03/can-high-carb-low-fat-be-healthy.html
What I'm getting at here, in a long-winded, haphazard sort-of-way, is this working theory:
* Fructose in excessive quantities (i.e. standard American diet) is detrimental to human health.
* Starch alone is not detrimental to human health.
* A high-carbohydrate, starch-based diet -- that includes animal proteins & fats -- is a viable diet for long-term health.
* Human beings can thrive on a wide variety of diets -- a high-fructose diet does not seem to be one of them.Posted 4 months ago # -
Don't get me wrong here, but have you actually read the PB?
I'll admit I haven't BUT I spent a long time reading through the articles on this site, and I'm also nearly finished reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories"
I think reading will be your best bet to understanding why "we" think as we do.
It's a lot to condense into one thread! :)If you read through some of the journals on here too, there are people that have struggled all their lives with weight or health issues, and this lifestyle is helping them. Now that doesn't prove cause and effect, but it is surely worth a shot?
Personally, I feel better.
Why don't you suspend disbelief for a month and see how you go?
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedI just don't know. Personally I like the diet I am eating now, and it is fully primal. I plan on keeping this diet until it stops working or until I reach my goal weight, and then I will tweak it.
I don't mean to stir up too much controversy. I realize that some people do much better on a low carb diet. I don't disagree with this. I also think that there are a lot of people that do much better on a diet with more carbs. I just think that a lot of people here are missing that.
Fruit is good for you. Nuts are good for you. If you are rationalizing cutting these completely out of your diet (or limiting them extremely) then you should probably look at your reasoning behind that. Other than diabetes or some allergy there should be no reason to cut these out. Some of the people here don't even eat vegetables, just meat. That is not beneficial for health, and I have no idea why anyone would think it is. The O3:O6 ratio is either complete BS, or it barely matters at all (research seems to back this up). Nightshades are not bad for you.
Basically, Mark makes good points and for his body he seems to have a great diet. The diet he promotes seems to work well for him and a large amount of people that follow it. But a lot of people here seem to be taking some of his theories here to an extreme.
Some examples: well carbs are bad so I will eat basically none of them.
The O3:O6 ratio is so important I will not eat nuts because it will hurt this ratio.
Nightshades are bad and should not be eaten.
But, in reality, Mark eats lots of nightshades, a lot of veggies and fruit, and he even eats a good amount of nuts.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedRy, you said "It should also be noted that athletes tend to die younger than average folk. "
Do you have any evidence for this? I have never heard this and it doesn't seem to make sense to me. I'm not saying it isn't true, but where did you get that info from?
Posted 4 months ago # -
"Good for you" depends on your definition of "good". (See surviving versus thriving.) It also ignores individual variation (though I see every reason to believe that grains are one step removed from poison, regardless of individual variation).
"Some of the people here don't even eat vegetables, just meat. That is not beneficial for health, and I have no idea why anyone would think it is."
Why do you believe it is not beneficial for health? If you have no idea why anyone would think otherwise, then you haven't given adequate consideration to those views that oppose your beliefs.
Posted 4 months ago # -
@ bobbylight - I agree that making 'absolute' decisions isn't necssarily the right thing to do - everything we eat should be based on what works for each individual. For example, I eat only limited fruit because I know from experience that my body burns through it so rapidly that I'm left hungry less than 30 minutes later - for me it's a treat.
Going primal allows me to listen to what my body wants and needs, so I can tweak the basics to suit me.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedNorthern Monkey, I am eating primal right now (minus 2 cheat meals a week on tuesday and saturday) and I feel great. I have been losing weight and I have a lot of energy. I am very happy with this diet. It is working out very well for me. I have not read the book, but I have read through a lot of the articles here. I think I have a good understanding of the Primal blueprint. I do not know why so many people on the forum take some teachings to the extreme though.
Anyway, I like the primal blueprint a lot. It works for me, and I am happy with it. I just want to let people know that just because someone eats grains does not mean that they are not healthy.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedFrogfarm, it is proven that intake of vegetables are directly related with decreased risk of all sorts of diseases. I could also make similar claims about nuts and fruits as well. Not eating these things, as well as completely negating a whole macro nutrient cannot be good for your health.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedBasically, I just want to argue against the very narrow view on dieting here. To mainstream dieters, we are no different than the vegans that preach their diet as dogma. If you changed "grains" to "meat" on this forum, you would pretty much have a hardcore vegetarian forum. Yes, they have studies to back their side up, just like we have studies to back our view on grains up...but their are many studies that oppose our views. I am just saying open your mind a bit.
I am not saying everyone here should start incorporating grains into their diet. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying though, is that someone can be perfectly healthy and THRIVING while eating grains. And if you don't believe me, go to a gym and I am sure that the people that are in the best shape are pretty much all eating grains.
Posted 4 months ago # -
soror
MemberFirst of all seeing the bodybuilders at the gym w/ the biggest muscles and less fat does not necessarily translate to the healthiest people to me. Plenty of bodybuilders do so on drugs and plenty more on tons of fake processed crap- do we want to make the argument that those things are healthy based on their appearance of health.
Secondly, I am not an expert on anything but there are many facets to the Japanese diet. One can not point to one thing as a causative facor in their longevity. They also practice calorie restriction as well which is very well known to increase lifespan. They also stay very active and live very different lives than we do as well and consume plenty of pork fat as well.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedRaphael, yes, exactly, people claim to feel great on vegan. And that diet works for many people. Some of my friends are vegan and they are healthier than me (at least now in my fat state). At least they keep their weight down for the most part. I would say the average vegan is probably healthier than the average person in the west.
Anyway, as for frogfarm, if you doubt the benefits of vegetables to your diet, then I don't think we know anything at all about dieting. If you don't think that vegetables help prevent heart disease and other diseases then there is no reason at all for us to think anything at all is healthy or unhealthy. There is probably more studies and literature showing the correlation between vegetables and overall health than any other factor in dieting. If you don't believe that vegetables are good for you, then why do you believe trans fats are bad for you? Is it because of the studies that say trans fats are bad for you? Well there are more studies saying that vegetables are good for you than saying trans fats are bad for you. If you can't agree that vegetables are good for you with all the evidence in the world backing you up, then we don't know a thing about dieting.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
Blockedsoror, you said "Secondly, I am not an expert on anything but there are many facets to the Japanese diet. One can not point to one thing as a causative facor in their longevity. They also practice calorie restriction as well which is very well known to increase lifespan. They also stay very active and live very different lives than we do as well. They also consume plenty of pork fat as well. "
This basically proves my point. You can thrive on diets involving grains.
Anyway, as for body builders being healthy or not...maybe some of them are, but maybe some of them are not. But what about the guys at the gym that can run a faster mile than you, the can do more pushups, pullups, and burpees. Are they not healthy either because they eat grains? Would they be healthier if they cut out grains? Well if you think so, that is quite the assumption to make.
People are different when it comes to dieting. Some people do well on low carb diets, some do not. In some studies it was shown that people that were insulin resistant did better on a low carb diet and people that were insulin sensitive did better on a low fat diet (or the other way around, I always get sensitive and resistant mixed up). Anyway, it just shows that different people thrive on different diets.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Get Primal
Memberbobby, I don't understand the continuous nagging on this type of thing. Eat a diet that you want to eat. Why do you care so much what others on here think? Let's assume everybody on here is narrow minded and even incorrect in their beliefs? It doesn't affect you negatively in any way does it?
To answer your original question, here are my thoughts. Appearing healthy means very little in the grand scheme of things. Lamar Odom (NBA star) eats bags of candy every day. I shudder at what he looks like on the inside. He appears to be one of the healthiest people anywhere. I'd bet if you took every professional athlete's NMR test results and compared them to individuals on a primal diet that appeared far less impressive you'd be shocked to see who the 'healthy' ones were. Of course this will never happen, and that is only my opinion so it means nothing.
With all respect you shouldn't be surprised to see people on a Primal Blueprint forum being a little skewed in their primal beliefs.
Posted 4 months ago # -
@Bobbylight
Glad to hear you're feeling great :)
It seems from what you say that Primal is working fantastically for you.
The extra restrictions (fruit, nuts, veggies) come from a slightly different concept. A "sister" plan if you like, which does have it's reasons for the restrictions...
Perhaps it would help if you considered what would *probably* have been available for ye olde caveman to eat. In temperate zones, you're looking at any animals, some nuts and berries in autumn, maybe a few roots (burdock for exampe). But the non-meat foods are restricted either in time, or they are too much effort to obtain. That's a very basic outline :) The nightshades come in because they weren't distributed worldwide (therfore are not necessary in the diet) and they contain toxic compounds and can't be eaten raw.There are people around the world living on all kinds of foods, from high carb to no carb. Your classic examples being the Kitavans and the Inuit.
I think what I'm trying to say is yes there are people who seem to do well on high carb. BUT do they eat grains? Wheat? HFCS? Ultimately, you're right in that we'll never be 100% sure. Life, and science, aren't like that.
From what I've read, I believe in this.Maybe read up on the actual Paleo way of eating, and compare/contrast?
Also, be a critic of all scientific studies ;)
Something that shows that veggies = decreased risk can be confounded by so many things (as with all diet studies). For example, what if the veggies were replacing pasta? The benefits may come simply from not eating pasta. Or if you keep the pasta AND the veggies, you're increasing calories - so that's another variable.
Maybe the healthy folks are the only ones who give a damn about eating the veggies (thus reversing cause and effect)?
I get a lot of "brain freeze" moments when I try to really get my head around stuff like that!Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
BlockedYou can't come up with any reasons not to eat meat? I can guarantee you that the vegetarians have better arguments against meat than you do against vegetables. The science is not on your side. (and that doesn't mean that the vegetarians saying you shouldn't eat meat are right by any means, just that the people saying veggies are good for you have a lot more evidence than the people saying they are not.)
Posted 4 months ago # -
Can you guys admit that people can be very healthy and in great shape while eating a high carb diet heavy in grains? Or do they just seem healthy, and are not actually healthy?
And if you think they aren't actually healthy and they just seem healthy, how do you know they aren't actually the healthy ones and you fall into the group that just "appears" healthy.
What are your parameters of health? Who are the people that you are specifically referencing that are such great examples of grain-fed health? (Anecdotal athletes at the local gym do not suffice as evidence.) How do you determine the difference between appearing healthy and actually being healthy?
You are challenging people to admit to poorly defined statements. Essentially, you are asking your reader to disprove your ambiguous assertions. This is not how logical debate works. If you have the conviction that it is possible to be healthy on a diet of grains, it is your responsibility to define your statement and prove it with evidence.
Also, it later seems that your main gripe is not necessarily the avoidance of grains but the further exclusion of nightshades, fruit, and dairy which many people have adopted. This is a separate issue. If you do not see sufficient evidence to support these additional dietary restrictions, it is your choice not to follow them. If this is forcing you to then question the evidence against eating grains, there is a wealth of resources both on this site and in Mark's book to support the exclusion of grains.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
Blocked"With all respect you shouldn't be surprised to see people on a Primal Blueprint forum being a little skewed in their primal beliefs. "
Most of the people on this forum aren't even following mark's diet though. Many eat far more meat than Mark and far less carbs. It is like primal atkins.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bobbylight
Blocked"Something that shows that veggies = decreased risk can be confounded by so many things (as with all diet studies). For example, what if the veggies were replacing pasta? The benefits may come simply from not eating pasta. Or if you keep the pasta AND the veggies, you're increasing calories - so that's another variable.
Maybe the healthy folks are the only ones who give a damn about eating the veggies (thus reversing cause and effect)?
I get a lot of "brain freeze" moments when I try to really get my head around stuff like that! "I completely understand this way of thinking. But there are SOOOOOO many studies saying veggies reduce the risk of different diseases that it would be a lot more of a stretch to think it is just coincidence.
Posted 4 months ago # -
@bobbylight - not everyone on here takes the PB way to extremes - I know I don't! The thing is, because we are all individuals with our own minds, we're not all going to mindlessly follow a plan without questioning it or testing things out - much as you are asking questions right now! I have my own opinions about zero carb, dairy, fruit, carnivore etc, but at the end of the day, everyone is entitled to do what they want.
By the way, it sounds like you're doing very well yourself. It's great to find something that works, isn't it?
Posted 4 months ago #
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