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Old Forum Paleo question

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I always think the arguments I make in law school exams are awesome until I get them back.  Thankfully cases aren't self-arbited between parties in real life.

I mean that playfully.  I majored in theology and have graduate study in it.  I'm also involved in local interfaith events and feel like I could respond to a number of the posts here.  The truth is though, I don't think it the conversation would be all that helpful and would just rather not.  I still think you guys should just let it drop.
 
James, I have made a bit of  a study of theology myself.  Sometimes it is useful to define ones terms.  As you well know, the word theology comes from the Greek theos and logia, and is the study of or beliefs about God.  Everyone, technically, has their own theology.  Individual beliefs about God obviously vary quite a bit, from denying the existence of God on the one hand, to the belief that there are many gods on the other, to even the belief that the spark of divinity rests in all of us. But, you can't deny that everyone has their own theology.
 
I thought I made that clear in my sentence above that begins with  "I am angry because..."

You and the rest of the world benefit from the advances that scientists like myself and countless others  have made.  It makes me angry to see that work discounted by people like you who are happy to benefit from it, and then ignorantly refuse to accept the fundamental principles that made that work possible.
 
But, you can’t deny that everyone has their own theology.

I can. I make no claims at all about gods existing or not. I don't recognize it as a field that should even exist. I don't have theology any more than you have Santa Clausology.
 
If you deny the existence in God, then that is your theology.  What is the big deal about that?
 
Reading and following this thread - Jeffery has put forward sensible comments and recommendations on the Paleo diet independent of his beliefs.  He only made the point, perhaps correctly, that the context of the Paleo, their philosophy, is based in evolution which is the logic or reasoning behind the basis of the diet, and while he disagrees with evolution he doesn't have a problem with Paleo eating.

As Geoffery says: "All the decent science points to moderately low protein, moderately low fat, high carb (all complex), and most of all of it from plants as minimally processed as possible. There is no proof that small amounts (under 5-10% of total calories) of animal source foods is a problem but the rest should be from plants. That is the science of it."

Science is also trying to maximise "health" or healthy eating with nutrition, food science etc.  We have "evolved" technologically and as a society to have the most knowledge and capability in history ? yet our diets don't affect that, but instead we are looking back at a "caveman" diet, or back 4000yrs.  So that is not saying much for evolution as a general term?

As the original question is: will Paleo evolve to include grains, seeing as some include milk.  The religious philosophy of Paleo will probably mean no, yet a more scientific answer perhaps is eventually?  That's where the Scientist, in my opinion, should give us his expertise instead of being a bit hyper-sensitive about Jeffery and losing some objectivity.

Geoffery points out that we have evolved to adapt to something in 200 years, so a scientific argument would be that perhaps grains and milk will be "ok" based on that evidence?

To me it seems that despite modern science and trusting in it, people are following the Paleo diet upon faith, faith in the belief that cavemen did eat this way and were stronger and healthier, the Scientist included.   There might be some evidence to support this faith, just like there are arguments with proof to discredit its claims.

Not all great scientists are atheists either.  #40710.
 
Maybe I have a bit of free time : but I still feel the original post by Hunter has an interesting question.

There have been non-Paleo civilisations that have done well. Was their eating of necessity, or are they more evolved than the Paleo’s? Why hasn’t Paleo evolved?

A rhetorical question: What is the difference between processing (ie. cooking) meat (which is “toxic” raw – like raw grains/legumes) and processing grains, processing nuts to get oils (including olive oil)? I’d have to learn more about the Paleo philosophy I guess.

You’d think it is unusual that one of the most nutritional foods currently popular – coconut oil - has a limited geographic availability. Not every civilisation had access to cows, beef as meat and therefore conventional dairy. Or again, a modern nutritional superfood – red salmon. Perhaps pure necessity is at the heart of most ancient diets? Today we don’t have that problem – most of the world anyway (availability not a problem, affordability perhaps). Together with so much scientific knowledge, even to the molecular level and DNA – why is there even this “best diet” question?
 
I know this has gone all a bit off-piste but I think a paleo diet is a great place to start when addressing your own nutrition, or looking at fat loss or strength gains, or eating for health, or avoidance of certain foods and tweak it for your needs/lifestyle. As far as I understand the paleo movement as a whole and its history/development it has evolved from hardline/radical 'you can't be paleo unless you devour an entire leg of cow in one go' to the more moderate 'heh, if you can tolerate milk then guzzle it down, man' to the modern marketed 'aswell as my grass fed beef steak I munch on coconut milk protein shake with 10mg of added leucine and s*** loads of additives and food colouring and it makes me s**t strong'. Sitting nicely alongside the paleo movement is also the idea of evolutionary fitness and strength training and how best to optimise your 'own' genetic expression, or that of humans generally. That cavemen/woman didn't exercise on a treadmill or use a machine for fitness and strength is analogous to the fact that they didn't eat bucket loads of processed food either. But we are simply not living in caves anymore, we have modern stressors to contend with and the constant bombardment of product advertising and other stuff to deal with that the idea of living in a cave and hunting a few antelopes sounds far more appealling than a 21st century modern lifestyle. I guess we'd all like a more simple life. And we do, thanks to Pavel for his teachings. The rules of strength have never really changed much, nor has human nutrition.

I'm 50 now and live in the uk. When I was a kid, no one was fat, it was pre the low fat, anti-saturated fat is the devil's sperm and coconuts were banned era and pre computer games, when playing was an 8 hour a day thing. I had my first bowl of pasta on a trip to Italy when I was 19. Never knew what a pizza was, nor a bagel. There were no macdonald's. The science, we now know, of this new low fat dawn, was flawed and a massive increase of food products steamrolled into our homes. This was my diet back then. I was an athletic, strong, sporty kid: hundreds of bananas, coconuts (bizarrely loved them as a kid, no one else did), liver and bone marrow once a week (cuz it was cheap), traditional sunday roast, salmon once a week, cheap old tins of spam and pototoes, ice cream now and then, custard, buckets of nuts, everything cooked in lard, buttery toast, pasties (a westcountry pastry of cheap meat, pototoes), the odd choc bar and gallons of creamy, full fat milk. In short, with the exception of some missing greens (no kid likes spinach and broccoli although I did eat sprouts), not far off  paleo with carb back loading, a paleo for athletes mix for good measure.  So you don't need to go back 10,000 years ago at all, 35 years ago is fine.

Obviously I didn't know that at the time, nor did my parents, nor their parents. You ate what was given to you, what was on the table and got on with being a kid. With the exception of the imported coconuts. bananas and nuts everything else was local and cheap. What I've read and understand now about nutrition and science - kickstarted by the paleo movement - is that there are many,many diets suited to us. Cross-cultural studies, traditional foods, anthropological studies all point to the same thing - food. Proper unadulterated food, most the the time. The caveman thing is just that 'a thing'. It could be an eskimo thing too, all whale blubber. Call it what you will, plants and animals or God's palate, to get back to the religious 'thing'.
 
I don't see a reason alb eversion of the paleo diet saying that all modern foods are bad. Some certainly are, and other are probably not. This varies greatly based on the individual person, their activity level, and the amount being consumed.

The useful thing that I see it saying is: all of these whole foods that people have been eating for several hundred thousand years are almost certainly good choices, because we have had ample time to evolve as a species to tolerate them well. It doesn't mean that any person needs any one specific food. It just means that they are all good choices.

Matt,

"What is the difference between processing (ie. cooking) meat (which is “toxic” raw – like raw grains/legumes) and processing grains, processing nuts to get oils (including olive oil)?"

The difference for me is that in the case of cooking, the food is left intact. In the grain processing and oils extraction, the food is separated into fragmented parts and you are consuming purified nutrients that are not a real food anymore. A good example is sugar: consuming a moderate amount of sugar from whole fruits seems to be fine, because the fiber in fruit tissue slows digestion and avoids the sudden rush of fructose (your liver doesn't like that) that you would get from consuming the exact same amount from just drinking soda or sugar water.
 
Alastair,

Funny you should bring up the cave man.  The world has never been covered with caves.  Sure, you may have had some prehistoric men dwelling in caves, but you also had prehistoric men living in the forest eating forest food, prehistoric men living in the dessert eating dessert food, you even had prehistoric Cajuns eating prehistoric Cajun food.  Of all the prehistoric men, I think it was the prehistoric Cajuns that had the most fun.  Those guys were crazy!
 
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