Tag Archive for: Paleo

Diet: It Just Doesn’t Matter

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Long-time readers probably know I love using quotes from movies. One of my favorites is a Bill Murray line from the movie Meatballs. Although it’s part of a much longer rant, the key phrase is, “It just doesn’t matter!” That’s what I want you to remember from the study that examined the percentage of energy nutrients in the paleo diet. They found a significant difference in the range of nutrients, but the ranges are wide enough to incorporate the ketogenic diet as well as the Mediterranean diet.

Looking at the diets of hunter-gatherers in different parts of the world showed that the types of carbohydrates were dependent on what was available. In some cultures, digging up root vegetables and tubers was critical to the diet. But eventually, we learned to grow and process grains, and now we have an abundance of refined carbohydrates such as breads and pasta, often to our detriment.

What are the lessons?

Personalization

In one of the many commentaries I read on the merits and downfalls of the paleo diet, one researcher said this:

Ultimately, the best way to eat for your health is the change you can keep up with. Most people know what they need to do: limit calories, eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. The challenge is how to do it. There are lots of ways people can achieve this. The key is figuring out which is best for you as an individual that you can keep up with.

That uses a whole lot more words, but the message is the same as always: eat better.

When It Comes to Weight, It’s All About the Calories

Whichever way you decide to eat—and there are many ways to eat a healthy diet—losing weight is always going to be about how many calories you eat versus how many calories you expend. You can eat the carnivore diet, which is essentially all meat, although I wouldn’t recommend it. Or you can become a vegan. You can follow the DASH diet that I talked about a couple weeks ago, or you can eat the paleo diet. It just doesn’t matter. As long as you control the number of calories you eat, you can get to and maintain a normal body weight.

I believe you have to have vegetables and fruit as the foundation of your diet, but there’s a difference between maintaining a normal body weight and sustaining a healthy lifestyle. What we eat does matter. But quality aside, as always, it is and it will always be about the calories. Nothing else matters in controlling what you weigh. Eat less.

And if you can, eat better.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2022.12.003

Is Summer Paleo Diet Time?

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Now that we’re past Memorial Day, we’re officially in the summer season. For many people, that typically means they grill more than at other times of the year—I know that I do. It also seems like we favor more vegetables and fruit. In a way, it seems to mimic the paleo diet approach: we eat foods closer to nature before planned agriculture became common. I can’t say we’re hunter-gatherers because we mostly shop at the same grocery stores, but we may buy foods closer to the source due to the prevalence of roadside stands and farmers markets. With all the fresh food available, we also may eat fewer grains and starches, which also fits the paleo profile.

Or does it? Researchers at Simon Fraser University decided to examine the premise behind the paleo diet in terms of proportion of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. The current paleo diet approach consists of 19-35% protein, 22-40% carbohydrate, and 28-58% fat. While the range of percentages in each energy category are wide, it does focus on much higher protein and much lower carbohydrate, especially refined carbohydrates.

In a recently published paper, researchers at Simon Fraser University examined the percentage of energy nutrients in the diet of ten hunter-gatherer societies and in different locations. They derived the following percentage of energy nutrients: 14%–35% protein, 21%–55% carbohydrate, and 12%–58% fat. The percentages were significantly different—they incorporated a wider range in each nutrient category.

Are these differences meaningful in the real world? I’ll let you know on Saturday. Meanwhile, time to grill some burgers and veggies.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2022.12.003

We Adapt

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In a recent paper in the magazine Nature, researchers compared the genes of a group of Inuit Indians, Europeans, and Chinese. As you might expect, there are many similarities. We’re all human, after all. But there were some specific differences, including an area in the genes related to the way the Inuit processed fat and the hormones they produce and how it contributes to height and weight.

The typical Inuit diet involves high amounts of fatty fish, rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein; they don’t have access to many vegetables or fruit. We would expect this . . .

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