Weekend Link Love
Because ninjas never sat down to type WordPress blogs.
Speaking of ninjas, let Al Kavadlo show you how to do a kip up.
Should we kill animals that kill humans?
A recent study suggests that “dense acellular carbohydrates” (in other words, grains) were found to promote inflammatory intestinal microbiota, as opposed to carbohydrates from “cellular tubers, leaves, and fruits.” Sound familiar to anyone else?
The Human Food Project quizzed a group of 37 microbiologists about their thoughts on diet and gut flora, including what a diet that promotes a healthy microbiome would look like. The results are pleasantly unsurprising.
New research shows that traditionally-shod runners who go barefoot for the first time immediately improve their running economy and adopt a shorter stride length.
All the more reason to support pastured (or at least organic) poultry: antibiotic use in chickens has been linked to bladder infections in humans.
Did you know that the Paleo diet is uncivilized, unhealthy, and untrue? That we’re just all a bunch of savage bloodthirsty heathens? Yeah, apparently it’s true. Seriously, though: a $50 gift certificate to PrimalBlueprint.com to the person who comes up with the best comeback or rebuttal in today’s comment section. The Worker Bees and I will judge. Contest ends at midnight PDT, July 17 – two days from now.
Co-evolution, schmo-evolution; pit bulls are natural born killers. Right?
Recipe Corner
- Because I know that rabbit has been burning a hole in your chest freezer.
- For a quick, non-caloric change of pace, here are 10 recipes for health-boosting herbal tea, courtesy of the Wellness Mama.
Time Capsule
One year ago (July 15 – July 21)
- Eating Earth: Exploring the Mysterious World of Geophagy – Eat earth, mostly topsoil?
- 8 Natural Ways to Prevent a Sunburn (and Sunscreen’s Not One of Them) – Prepare your skin before you head out to make vitamin D.
Comment of the Week
Oh boy, you’re putting your foot in it again, Mark! ;o) *says the grandma who is younger than you and who is also interested in the science of it*
- Yup, I shoulda known, Janet and Estelle. My apologies to all the grandmas out there.
Grab The Primal Blueprint Cookbook Today and Receive Free S&H and a Free Primal Blueprint Poster
Posted By: Mark Sisson
Here’s the rebuttal: Michael Duncan Clarke is a vegetarian.
Obviously this man hasn’t eaten enough meat, because his brain cells are starving. Reminds me of when I used to be vegan and I would start crying for no reason because I was in a perma-brain fog. Saying that a suggestion that Dr. Cordain made to eat alligator meat is a requirement of paleo is absurd and dishonest. Saying that Dr. Cordain’s statement that the world population would be smaller means we should basically pick out, to murder 10 of our family members so we can have our paleo world is so absurd, and so illogical, I am utterly beyond words. He is mistaking a by product of what could have been as a requirement for the paleo diet. You would have to be an outright moron to do that. I cannot imagine how this person graduated from a four year college, let alone medical school. The future attorney in me would love to eviscerate this article piece by piece but why bother… I have meat to cook, vigorous, healthy little celiac children who are thriving on a paleo diet to take care of, sunshine to soak in, and a life steeped in natural order to LOVE. If you want to kill your brain and your muscles by starving them, go for it. Not me though, and not my babies:)
in the forks over knives, article, did anyone notice that the link for “heart disease and other forms of atherosclerosis” links to the comment section (!?) for a study showing that high carbohydrate diets lead to atherosclerosis? ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16540158.1 )
Nicely spotted. I didn’t click all the links and I missed that one. Interesting!
Simple biochemistry.
Essential Amino Acids are required for the human body to survive. All of these can be obtained simply from proteins derived from animal meat. You would need to eat a lot more plant food to get the required nutrients than you would need to eat animal based products.
Essential Fatty Acids are also required. Again, you can obtain these from animal based foods. It would be difficult to find all the required acids through plant food.
What the body does not require is carbohydrates or sugar. Any of these can be created on an ad hoc basis when the body requires it.
YOU DO NOT NEED VEGETABLES OR FRUIT. All of your nutritional requirements can be derived from a meat based diet. You cannot however, derive all of your nutrition from a plant based diet. If you tried you will succumb to disease and die.
The proof is in the puddin’.
Many dog breeds are “baby sitters.” They protect family members from other people.
When raised from puppyhood, the problem with Pit Bulls isn’t the danger to your children, it’s the danger to every other child who comes into your home.
After all the Geiko commercials, you’d think people’d stop underestimating cavemen.
McDougall leans on unjustified claims like ‘ketosis (state of illness)’, ‘artery clogging saturated fats and cholesterol’ and ‘disease causing meats’. He also comes to the ridiculous conclusion that we can’t really practice paleo without cannibalism.
If this is the output of one of the vegan movement’s finest minds, there should be no lingering doubt as to which diet is better for the brain.
With people like Art De Vany and Nassim Taleb on our side, there’s no need to argue against the likes of John McDougall and T Colin Campbell. The argument is long over and we won.
For a guy who probably has tubors growing out of his ears, he’s sure full of a lot of bull.
If the paleo diet is such a repulsive nutritional nightmare, why are the results so damm attractive?
A wide variety of plants and animals for our ancestors: $0
Optimal health and weight: $0
plenty of play and sunshine: $0
A vibrant primal life: priceless
There are some thing a primal life can’t improve (doctor salaries), for everything else, there’s the starch diet.
I’m so ashamed of my unhealthy, savage ancestors for living in their dirty tribes, telling stories instead of tweeting, and respecting a lush, vibrant earth. If only they had known back then how planting a few grains and potatoes would lead to overpopulation, global pollution and a pharmaceutical industry…we all might not have been born and had to suffer through that idiotic article.
And, Mark…
seriously, thank you for posting that pit bull article. My best friend would give you a high five if you were here with us. (yeah, my dog gives high fives.)
Me fail paleo? That’s unpossible!
I now have the proof I need – low carb diets will cause you to eat your children.
This is the usual fanatical response when beliefs are challenged, an emotional response with specially selected information to bolster their arguments.
The difference is we (the MDA community) like to experiment and try new things, if they work great, if they don’t, change it.
I think the way we need to settle this is not via argument but by an experiment.
How about this:
10 ForksOverKnives readers and 10 MDA readers get their cholesterol, fat and various other levels tested. They then follow the others recommended diet (getting a veggie to eat meat would be difficult but they want to prove they are right don’t they?) for 6 weeks then get re-tested.
Thoughts?
That’s too small a sample size to get a good statistical analysis. We’ve got enough on both sides to get at least a couple hundred people from each camp in on it. That would be enough to account for variables like vegans vs vegetarians, dairy vs nondairy, activity levels, et cetera without totally skewing the results.
I agree, but my point is that they approach vegetablism (as I like to call it) as a religious cult, whereas paleo /primal comes from scientific research into cause and effect.
Such a poorly researched, uncited article is hardly even worthy of response, IMHO.
Results show more than any internet arguing ever will. People that are looking for long-lasting answers, and that are willing to follow the results, will find us. We don’t need to run around trying to prove ourselves to people who make broad assertions without citing sources, mostly likely in the attempt to sell their books on low fat eating.
I think what the Forks Over Knives people are missing is that Paleo doesn’t force me to eat organs, skip veggies etc… But holy hell do I *want* to eat organ meat, it’s delicious! And I don’t skip veggies, I eat my greens like its going out of style, I have a garden full of kale, broccoli, leaf lettuce etc…
It would be unreasonable for anyone to follow any diet 100% of the time, and the assertions that the author makes are wild, for instance I have never experienced:
“Furthermore, according to Dr. Cordain, a diet very high in animal protein foods would cause a person to become seriously ill with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and eventually death from protein toxicity”
Any person – well any rational person – who experienced that would quit the diet in a heartbeat. But none of us have quit the diet because none of us have had that experience. Fat is delicious, protein is delicious, I actually eat less now than I ever did!
Finally I went Paleo because I’m a Celiac – actually my full diagnosis is non-responsive celiac with IBD and since going Paleo, for the first time in my entire life, I’m actually losing weight (60 lbs so far) and putting on muscle.
I’m also a lot less cranky, my joints aren’t always on fire, the bathroom isn’t a dreaded cauldron of hatred and I’m generally better.
I think the author of Forks over knives needs to try Paleo for at least 6 months before passing that kind of judgement.
BTW – Rabbit Starvation is caused by eating lean meat – which is generally tasteless – not fatty meat – which tastes like heaven.
I would bash the primal diet too if my book was called ‘The Starch Solution’.
Besides he went to Michigan State.
“For most of us the thought of eating bone marrow and brains is repulsive.”
^^
Stopped reading here, clearly the author has never had goat marrow.
Yeah.. that argument boils down to: “Ewww.. icky poo!”
-Tim
McDougall, is that the name of a comic-book character? I cannot believe he is a real person (let alone doctor).
rebuttal:
Let them eat cake.
McDougall went boasting,
in an internet posting,
and said paleo’s uncivilized.
To the heart it is brutal,
and contesting it’s futile,
when meat is so grotesquely prized.
But just like some ramen,
his comments were straw men,
with little nutritional clout
When we peel back the curtain,
see his vegan friends lurkin’,
we understand what he’s truly about.
-Tim
<3
Contrary to popular thought, the high infant mortality rate of the Paleolithic period was not due to stress or environmental factors, rather, it was due to the anthropological truth that children are, in fact, tasty.
The first thing that went through my mind reading McDougall’s article (besides laughter) was recalling Survivor season 1 … didn’t they end up eating rat? Because they were hungry and to be honest, anyone that’s dropped on a deserted island is going to first search out food sources and at some point are going to make spears to hunt things.
His (John McDougall) knowledge of agriculture is just as bad.
Industrial livestock methods use grain as the main feedstock. The modern production of grain is dependant on modern fertilisers. Modern fertilisers are derived from methane. In the process of making fertilizer large quantities of CO2 is produced. Modern fertiliser run off into the water systems creates quite unpleasant results (toxic algae blooms for one)
The raising of grass feed beef (or any other naturally raised animals) does not require the need of external fertilizers and therefore is carbon neutral.
Further, cows feed on good quality pasture with a mix of different grasses and plants produce significantly less methane than cows feed a modern grain diet. Recent research has found that our friend omega-3 (in grass) inhibits methane production in ruminants.
Oh, and animal poop is a fantastic fertiliser.
I’ll take happy, healthy and fit any day over a civilized SAD diet.
I was a vegetarian for ten plus years in good health and spirits, and definately on the forks over knives bandwagon. I then switched to a paleo diet to support the misses in her weight loss after our 2nd child. Surprise, surprise I became much healhier with in two weeks of stopping eating grains and was shocked at how much better my back/legs /and hips felt after eliminating grains and sugar for only two weeks (I feel like I have found religon, where I am trying to spread the gospel of how much better it is without grains and sugar in your diet).
Twice a year fast for a week (for about 10 years now) and did not see any difference like this. I have literally rolled back my athletic clock by about 10 years in how my legs/back/hips feel and act in the mornings and thru the day. I will never go back to eating grains and sugar on a regular basis again, because my body just did not like it.
P.S. I put happy, healthy and fit, with fit last, because happy and healthy come first, but being fit is fun. I droped about 7 pounds after about two months being paleo and look fantastic. If I had known about being paleo when I was young (up thru my mid thirties) and athletically competitive it would have made a big difference in my performance and injuries.
Looking forward to passing paleo on to my 2 boys, and maybe a little girl and watching them run with it,
Thank you paleo.
A friend of my mom actually forwarded this to me. The part that made the the most mad was about the Eskimos. Two issues with that; the link that was provided doesn’t result in ANY useful info. and I have already seen a video about these two guys who basically proved Eskimos eating a traditional diet were in fact extremely healthy, and that the Eskimos shopping at the market were the ones who have actually started having health problems.
This was my rebuttal to a friend who posted the article on Facebook, saying “Don’t fall for all these fad diets people”:
“Consider that the writer is not an unbiased source, however–he, too, has a method to sell–books, 10-day residential program. etc.”
“And unfortunately, Dr. McDougall doesn’t seem to consider that just because ‘the Agriculture Revolution, with the efficient production of grains, legumes, and potatoes–the very foods forbidden by the Paleo diet–allowed us to become civilized”, it doesn’t automatically counter-indicate that this “revolution” occured because it was the most biologically beneficial way. We shifted our attention elsewhere once we no longer had to make a lifestyle following our food (both plants and animals)… in the same vain of convenience and very closed related to our technological revolution, we now have bags of artificial food that can last on a store shelf for years; simply noting that it has happened doesn’t mean it was optimal!”
I also sent the friend a link to this website, shared the Primal Blueprint book with him, and recounted how my own experience with Paleo/Primal eating has dramatically changed my health. [I am anemic and have had a lifelong history of extremely bothersome seaonsal allergies, both of which DRASTICALLY changed for the better when I re-tooled my diet and lifestyle.] Additionally, I used supplemental materials regarding carbohydrate intolerance written by Dr. Phil Maffetone to reinforce that our grain-based diet was not constructed on the parameters of having better health and well-being. It is worth noting that he has since visited the website, is in the process of reading the book, AND has even come as far as accepting some help transitioning into minimalist-style footwear for running/exercise and is considering a makeover for his heavy-lifting/too-many-cardio-miles workouts!
As an ex-vegan: There’s a little too much in common between the paleo diet and the vegan diet to really start throwing dirt like this.
Lots of fresh veggies at every meal is not an earth-shattering proposition. It’s also the primary reason the people in Forks Over Knives lost weight. They – like many Primal eaters making the shift – didn’t get enough of the good stuff before. Mudslinging over the differences between two lifestyles that get people to eat their veg is ridiculous! Especially since both camps tend to get defensive about their choices…
*claps*
“Children were not off the menu. And we are supposed to eat the favorite meats of our uncivilized, pre-Agriculture Revolution, hunter-gather, ancestors?” I don’t know about you, but I’ve never thought, “Wow, those kids are starting to look pretty delicious,” after being an uncivilized, hunter-gatherer for the last 2 years. Really?