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The Cookie Diet

I can’t make this stuff up.

In one of my last posts, I made a half-joke about celebrity-endorsed fad diets. Well, yesterday I ran I across this post in the NY Times Well blog:

Can you really lose weight by eating cookies?

Many would-be weight losers are counting on it. As Abby Ellin is reporting in this week’s ThursdayStyles section, the cookie diet business is booming, endorsed by celebrities like Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson. The cookie diet plans consist of several cookies and one meal a day totaling 1,000 calories or less.

The post ends with a link to an article about the cookie diet, as well as an invitation to “join in the discussion” in the comments. No criticism, no analysis, nothing.

This is why I think the NYT Well blog is one of the worst online sources of information about nutrition, fitness, and health. They take some poorly researched topic, and slap a controversial title on it. This attracts a lot of readers, but at best, the readers are left confused by the lack of analysis, and at worst, they are given bad information.

I understand the whole thing about journalistic neutrality and all, but come on. This cookie diet thing is complete BS. (Remember my rule of thumb: if it’s endorsed by a Hollywood celebrity, it’s probably junk.)

I’m not claiming that it can’t work for some people. Any time you put people on a starvation diet of 1,000 calories or less, people usually lose weight.

The problem is, starvation is kind of an unpleasant sensation. Humans, like most animals, have evolved powerful evolutionary mechanisms to motivate us to seek food when we need it. Although most people can voluntarily starve themselves for a short period of time, most people can’t do it forever. And whenever they stop starving themselves, 80-85% of people gain back the lost weight, and then some.

Going on a “diet” is really the worst thing you can do for yourself if you want to lose weight. Chances are very good you will end up heavier (and less healthy) than when you started.

The solution is to figure out how to lose weight, permanently, without starving yourself. More on that tomorrow!

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By the way, I’m still falling behind on my “one-post-per-weekday” goal, but I’m still posting more than usual, which is the whole point of the experiment. So, I guess the experiment is a partial success.

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By Jae – May 10, 2010

Which Health “Experts” Do You Trust? (Part II)

If you missed yesterday’s post, please take a look at Part I. Today, we’ll continue looking at some questions you might ask yourself to determine whether the health expert you’re reading is really an expert.

Does the author place a firm emphasis on Real Food rather than processed “edible food-like substances”?

Fiber Fit S'mores

Real Food FAIL

This one is a corollary to yesterday’s question about whether your health “expert” makes money off of supplements. Any diet plan that places a lot of importance on expensive, processed food products is one that I view with a lot of suspicion. Some popular diet plans aren’t actually all that bad if you cook Real Food, but make a lot of money off of “Chocolate Fudge Nutrition Bars” or “FIBER FIT TM S’mores” and the like. Do yourself a favor and stay away from these edible food-like substances (again borrowing a term from Michael Pollan).

Of course, my bias is that a predominantly Paleolithic diet (eat Real Food, including meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, some nuts and seeds; avoid sugar, processed foods, vegetable oils, and grains) is best from a health perspective. If it comes out of a box and has “KRAFT” written on it, it’s probably not real food.

Does the author emphasize food quality or food quantity?

Whether you are looking to lose excess body fat or just become more healthy in general, the most important thing you can do is to take care of food quality, which simply means to Eat Real Food Only. You can worry about macronutrient ratios, micronutrient balance, macronutrient timing (eat carbs in the morning? avoid fats post-workout?), and weighing and measuring your food later, if you want. But unless your diet is already excellent 80-90% of the time there’s not much point in worrying about these things quite yet. It would be like worrying about whether your tires are perfectly balanced, when you’re still putting sludge in the fuel tank.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’re an advanced athlete, and your food quality is excellent, then you may experience better performance by fiddling with food timing and macronutrient ratios and all that stuff. But if you’re like most people, you’ll probably do well just by eating Real Food and avoiding sugar, processed food, vegetable oils, grains, and legumes.

If your author claims that carefully measuring the grams of fat, protein, and carbs in McDonald’s hamburgers and Twinkies can result in a healthy diet, you might want to look elsewhere.

Is the author familiar with common anti-nutrients and their role in disease?

Lectins, phytic acid, saponins, trypsin inhibitors, gluten, wheat germ agglutinin — these are some of the most common “anti-nutrients” found in many foods. Lectins and phytic acid are found in nearly all foods, but in especially high concentrations in grains and legumes. Many of these substances bind to minerals and vitamins, making it harder for your body to digest them. They also contribute to inflammation in the digestive tract, which can cause or aggravate autoimmune conditions as well as heart disease and cancer.

Those Nutrition Facts labels can be very misleading, since you will be under the impression that you are getting lots of vitamins and minerals from whole wheat spaghetti, but in fact your body will be unable to absorb most of them. Somehow the nutritionists seem not to have caught on to this idea quite yet, which is why so many of them recommend whole grains as part of a healthy diet.

Some (but not all) of the harmful effects of these anti-nutrients can be mitigated through traditional grain-preparation techniques, such as soaking, grinding, sprouting, or fermenting the grains prior to cooking. Not to mention, most people do not have the time and energy (or the knowledge) to take the steps to prepare grains through these methods. Personally, I prefer avoiding grains altogether, especially wheat. For some reason, the anti-nutrients found in wheat are especially resistant to humans’ clever efforts to neutralize them. Dr. Harris of PaNu makes a compelling argument for avoiding gluten grains in his provocatively titled Avoid Poison or Neutralize It?

You can live fine with zero gluten grains in your diet. Wheat flour is vitamin poor, has no nutritious fat that isn’t rancid, and the proteins in it are incomplete in their amino acid complement. There is absolutely no upside to eating wheat if you are not starving[.]

So why engineer some convoluted preparation ritual in order to eat it? Why not just avoid it?

So, the next time you encounter some health “expert” who advises you to eat “heart-healthy whole grains,”  you might want to consider the possibility that they aren’t really an expert after all.

If you really want to eat grains anyway, I would recommend checking out Stephan’s posts on how to neutralize those poisons. Note that while he is not as anti-grain as Dr. Harris, Stephan still recommends avoiding wheat. Yes, it’s that bad for you!

Conclusion

Of course, I don’t really ask myself all these questions systematically whenever I encounter a new health expert. Over time, you’ll get a sense of who the true experts are. You’ll hear some common themes over and over again:

  • Eat Real Food
  • Don’t eat processed crap
  • Avoid anti-nutrients from grains and legumes
  • Control inflammation and insulin

The rest is just details. (Well, mostly.)

If I get the sense that the “expert” doesn’t hit any of the themes above, I’ll probably look elsewhere for health advice.

Links

On the sidebar to the right, you’ll see some links to blog writers who deliver top-notch nutritional information (in my opinion). That doesn’t mean you just believe me that they’re trustworthy! Ask yourself some of the questions I’ve provided, and see for yourself! Also, if you can think of other questions you can use as litmus tests, please let me know in the comments! (If you’re catching this post on Facebook, please visit www.bloomingtonpowerfit.com/blog to see the links and to leave comments. Thanks!)

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By Jae – May 5, 2010

Which Health “Experts” Do You Trust? (Part I)

Well, I guess my “post every weekday” experiment didn’t get off to a good start. I was very sick yesterday and today, which is what happens when you slack on getting enough sleep and vitamin D for a couple of weeks, I guess. But hopefully I’ll be able to crank out some good posts for the next few days.

Today’s topic is, how do you know which health and nutrition experts to trust? It’s pretty confusing to try to pick out what’s right and wrong from the thousands of different opinions out there. Should I eat Paleo? Vegetarian? South Beach? How about the Okinawa Diet? Low-carb? High-carb? Low-fat? Low-cholesterol? Should I eat many small meals, or infrequent, large meals?

You could just pick one, go with it, and hope it’s the right one. You could listen to the established “experts” such as your doctor, or the American Heart Association. You could listen to your second cousin’s friend’s dogsitter, who swears by the grapefruit diet.

Or, you could learn about how to think about nutrition.

Whenever I read an article about cholesterol, fat, vitamins, or anything else nutrition-related, I start asking myself a few questions. These questions help me determine whether the article seems to be on the right track:

Does the author take into account human evolution?

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” Theodosius Dobzhansky famously proclaimed in 1973. Unfortunately, nutrition researchers often seem to study human nutrition in a vacuum, completely unaware of evolutionary principles. If you think about it, some of the nutrition advice we’ve heard for the last 40 years makes no sense in the context of evolution.

If you stop and think about nutrition in the context of evolution, you’ll start to be suspicious of any “expert” whose advice falls entirely outside of human evolutionary history. Processed foods, vegetable oils, trans fats were simply unavailable until about 100 years ago. Sugar was not widely available until a few hundred years ago. Grains were not consumed in large quantities until about 10,000 years ago. I don’t know about you, but to me, it doesn’t make sense to listen to anyone who recommends eating lots of these foods — for example, the USDA’s or the American Heart Association’s endorsement of whole grains, or the endorsement of vegetable oils that contain lots of polyunsaturated (inflammatory) omega-6 fatty acids because they may “reduce your cholesterol levels.”

Does the author seem to understand the link between inflammation, insulin resistance, and chronic disease?

Pick up any book on nutrition, flip to the index, and look up insulin and hyperinsulinism. If there is nothing there, the book is pure BS; put it down. — Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit

While I have my disagreements with CrossFit from time to time, this statement is right on target.

I’m not claiming that insulin and inflammation are the ONLY causes of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke. There are many other factors involved, including genetics, environmental toxins, sleep deprivation, and stress.

But, our best research suggests that inflammation and insulin resistance are the PRIMARY causes of a wide range of modern diseases. A nutrition book that failed to address hyperinsulinemia would be like a high school biology textbook that failed to address evolution.

There are (at least) three major pieces to the puzzle of modern diseases. The first is inflammation, the primary dietary cause of which is overconsumption of vegetable oils (pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids). The second is insulin resistance, the primary dietary cause of which is overconsumption of grains, legumes, and sugars. The third is probably chronic vitamin D deficiency (caused by lack of exposure to sunlight, living in latitudes exceeding 40N or 40S,  and poor diet). Of course, this 3-pillar hypothesis of modern disease is still up for debate and revision. If your author disagrees with any of these points, then I would like to hear where the disagreements lie. Maybe I can learn something new, as I often do on blogs like PaNu and Whole Health Source. On the other hand, if it seems that your author doesn’t understand these points, chances are he or she doesn’t really know what is going on. A good example of this is the New York Times Well Blog, which is filled with poor research and misinformation (at least, from my perspective) on nutrition and exercise. Follow their advice at your own risk.

Does the author have a simplistic or sophisticated understanding of the biochemistry of nutrition?

A sophisticated understanding means that the author recognizes that the biochemical interactions between various nutrients are enormously complex and not fully understood, even by our best scientists. For example, doctors have been prescribing calcium to older women for years, on the grounds that it would improve bone health. But they failed to understand that taking calcium by itself didn’t accomplish anything. Older American women take a lot of calcium, but have sky-high fracture rates. It turns out that supplementing with vitamin D is critical for improving calcium absorption, and that magnesium, vitamin A, and vitamin K2 are critical for vitamin D metabolism!

A simplistic thinker will report on a study done on rats and say something like, “Researchers fed one group a low-fat diet, and the other a high-fat diet (equal amounts of calories). The high-fat group got obese and sick. See? I told you that fat is bad for you!”

A sophisticated thinker will say something like “OK, but actually another group did a similar study. They fed one group a high-fat diet, mostly from beef fat. The other group also got a high-fat diet, mostly from safflower oil (same amount of calories). The safflower oil group got much fatter and much sicker, even though the calorie and fat content were the same. So, a better hypothesis is that polyunsaturated fat has a uniquely negative impact on rat health. Or, perhaps an omega-3 fatty acid deficiency is uniquely unhealthy (safflower oil is about 78% omega-6 and 0% omega-3). These hypotheses need to be further investigated.” (This example, by the way, borrows heavily from Stephan Guyenet’s analyses of rat studies over at the Whole Health Source blog.) When it comes to macronutrients and micronutrients, it’s rarely as simple as saying “X is good” or “X is bad” — sophisticated thinkers look at the overall context and subtle nuances.

Does the author make money by selling or recommending drugs/supplements/processed foods/books/seminars/DVDs?

I am by nature suspicious of people who make a profit off of drugs or supplements (for weight loss, muscle gain, etc.). These people have a financial incentive to try to convince you to buy their products. My first question would be, does the product work? And second, does the product work better than a lifestyle change (cutting out sugar and processed foods, sleeping more, exercising, meditating) that might be low-cost or actually free? You can probably guess that the answer to the latter question is rarely going to be “Yes.”

Books, seminars, and DVDs are a grey area for me. There are some great nutrition experts out there, and many bad ones. Here’s a rule of thumb that I find useful: if it has an endorsement from a famous Hollywood star, it’s usually a piece of junk. Think about it: these are people who have professional full-time chefs, full-time personal trainers, and are genetically gifted and beautiful people. Of course the cookies-and-artichokes diet worked for them! For us normal people, good nutrition will involve Real Food in a sustainable lifestyle, not subscribing to a gimmicky 6-day slimming program that you can buy for 3 installments of $39.95.

Some exceptions to this: Mark’s Daily Apple sells a lot of supplements; Protein Power sells books and other products; Robb Wolf has a stake in Paleo Brands, which produces processed (mostly) Paleo meals. I do not endorse any of these products, but I think the information on their blogs is always first-rate. Full disclosure: I’ve made $11.03 through my vitamin D referrals (use coupon code YON992) so far. Woo hoo!

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!

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By Jae – May 4, 2010

Random Thoughts

An Experiment

Okay, sorry for the long delay between posts. I have  a lot of good ideas for posts but am having trouble sitting down to bring you long and polished essays that are meticulously researched and simultaneously entertaining, not to mention pearls of precious wisdom. The pressure to perform for my readers (all five of you) is getting enormous. So, to relieve some of that pressure, I’m going to try an experiment by setting a goal of writing one shorter blog post every day (maybe every weekday) for the next two weeks. We’ll see how it goes.

How you can help: please send me questions (via email or in the comments section) that you would like me to answer! You can email me at info@bloomingtonpowerfit.com.

Random Thoughts

1. Cavemen Cookies TropicalI recently celebrated/mourned my 30th birthday. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes! One of my good friends sent me two boxes of Caveman Cookies from Caveman Bakery and they were DELICIOUS! Now, just because they are technically made from Paleo ingredients doesn’t actually make these things good for you. They’re mostly little balls of sugar (honey) and polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acids (almond flour). In other words, if you’re looking to control insulin (fat gain) or inflammation (disease), I wouldn’t eat these on a regular basis. But, as an occasional treat, they were great! No gluten, no trans fats, no vegetable oils, no unpronounceable ingredients — pretty good for a dessert that you can get delivered to your door. I definitely recommend the Tropical flavor over the regular. Macademia nuts = yum.

2. I talked to a client this week who was concerned about her “high” cholesterol levels. I wrote a blog post about cholesterol a while back, but the message is so counter-intuitive for most people that it’s always worth repeating.

  • High total cholesterol is generally a meaningless number that does not accurately predict heart disease or cancer. Better numbers to look at: high HDL = good, low triglycerides = good.
  • Is there anything that high total cholesterol really is correlated with? Yes: a lower risk of stroke AND lower overall mortality, especially in women.
  • LDL cholesterol by itself is a meaningless number. A particle size count of LDL particles will reveal whether your pattern is predominantly large, fluffy LDL (= good) or small, dense LDL (= bad). You can have high total LDL and still be perfectly healthy!
  • Eating saturated fat (meat, butter) and avoiding excess monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oils) will improve your cholesterol profile by raising HDL, raising large/fluffy LDL, and lowering small/dense LDL. I know this is counter-intuitive for those of you who have been listening to the AHA, ADA, ACS, AMA, USDA’s recommendations to eat less saturated fat, but the research, by world-famous lipid researcher Dr. Ronald Krauss, backs it up: saturated fat is good for your cholesterol.

If you want citations for any of these, and much more info, please check out my old blog post on cholesterol.

To summarize: stop worrying about your “high cholesterol” and maybe start worrying about your triglycerides and small/dense LDL count. You generally want both these numbers to be low, and HDL to be high. Ok?

3. “Vegetarian-fed” “Organic” “Cage-free” eggs are a classic example of misleading food labels. First of all, a vegetarian diet is not healthy for chickens!  “Vegetarian-fed” means these chickens were fed lots of grains. While birds are better adapted than humans at eating grains, chickens are healthiest on a diet of grass and bugs, because, well, they evolved eating grass and bugs.

“Cage-free” is a label that producers can use just by NOT confining 4-6 chickens per tiny cage. It does not mean that the chickens had access to grass or even the outdoors or even sunlight. They could have access to a slab of concrete in a dark shed, and the producers can still call that “cage-free. If you buy your cage-free eggs from Kroger or any other major grocery store, that’s probably exactly what the chickens had access to.

Don’t get me wrong, these organic and cage-free eggs are probably better than regular supermarket eggs. In fact, while I may grouse about the “vegetarian-fed” label as being misleading, that’s probably better for them than the mystery meat substances that are fed to some feedlot chickens.

If you really want great eggs, though, you gotta go with grass-fed, farm-fresh eggs. The nutritional value of these eggs (omega-3 and vitamin content) is far superior to “cage-free” eggs, not to mention regular ol’ supermarket eggs. Here in Bloomington, you can get grass-fed, local farm eggs for much cheaper than the big-brand organic, grain-fed, “cage-free” eggs. At Bloomingfoods, look for Copper Creek eggs or Rhodes Farm eggs, for $2.89/dozen. For comparison, the Organic Valley cage-free eggs are about $5/dozen! There’s just no reason to buy the big-brand eggs when the farm eggs are so much better, and cheaper.

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By Jae – April 30, 2010

Motivation

Sorry, it’s been a long time between posts! I have a few big posts brewing, on vegetarianism and environmentalism, more vitamin D info, and a few other things. But for now, I’ll leave you with a video clip of a 70-year-old great-grandmother who competes in powerlifting! It’s only 4:47 long, and trust me, it’s worth watching until the very last second.

I don’t know about you, but I got a little choked up watching that. And, it gave me a little extra boost of motivation for today.

What motivates you?

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By Jae – April 5, 2010

Local Food Resources

A few weeks ago, Michael Pollan gave a talk at Indiana University, and I hope it sparked some interest in supporting local foods. Local foods are almost always more nutritious, safer, and better for the environment. The difference in quality and taste is pretty obvious, even to people with unrefined, barbarian palates (like me).

For example, have you ever compared a local, pastured egg to a supermarket egg? The shell is stronger, the yolk brighter and a deeper shade of orange. There’s something about the taste of the egg that feels more substantial, more real. I haven’t done a blind taste test, so maybe it’s just my bias creeping into my taste buds. Still, independent scientific testing confirms that local, grass-fed eggs blow the supermarket eggs out of the water, nutritionally speaking.

If you buy in bulk, as I do, it’s surprisingly affordable. It depends on how much you buy, and what cuts you want, but you can get some great local meat for around $2-$6/lb. (beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and even rabbit).

Bloomington has a great farmer’s market, which starts up in April, and there’s currently a winter farmer’s market, too. Both the market and Bloomingfoods have tons of local produce, so this post will focus on meat, dairy, and eggs. Here are a few resources to get you started:

Butter

Sahara Mart East carries local butter made from raw milk, but I don’t know if it is grass-fed. Surprisingly cheap at about $7 per pound.

Eggs

Bloomingfoods and Sahara Mart both carry eggs from local, grass-fed hens from Copper Creek and from Rhodes Family Farms. Prices start are $2.89 or so for a dozen.

These eggs are fantastic and they are much cheaper than the so-called “organic” big brands (Organic Valley, etc.). I can’t think of a legitimate reason to buy the Organic Valley eggs when the local eggs come from well treated, grass-fed hens. Did I mention the local eggs are cheaper?

Grass-fed meat

Maple Valley Farm

What: Farm shares include chickens, lamb, rabbit, turkey, with optional beef shares. All grass-fed (I believe the chickens get supplemental corn). Also, individual chickens and smaller orders available upon request.

Cost: approx. between $3/lb. and $4/lb. (estimate); payable in installments; packages begin at $180

When: Several pick-up dates (3 for chicken, 1 for beef, 1 for turkey, 1 for lamb/rabbit) throughout fall/winter

Where: pick up in Elletsville, just 15 minutes from Bloomington

Notes: Larry and his wife Tina are extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and well organized. (I do not receive any compensation from them. I buy most of my meat from them because the quality of their animals is excellent, and because their location is closest to Bloomington.) They will give farm tours if you call ahead!

If they haven’t sold out of their farm shares already, they will very soon, so give them a call today! [Edit: as of 3/23/10, they are sold out of farm shares, but they do have some chicken packs and Thanksgiving turkeys available!]

http://www.maplevalley.howardfamilyenterprise.com/Local_Sources.htm

Swiss Connection Farm

What: beef, pork, and raw dairy products

Cost: beef shares are about $3/lb (whole cow is approx 500lbs. hanging weight — meaning the actual amount of meat is less — with whole, half, and quarter shares available)

When: one pick-up date, when animal is ready, late fall or early winter

Where: pick-up at the processor, usually Rice Quality Meats in Spencer (about 30 minutes from Bloomington)

Notes: I do not generally recommend dairy consumption — except for raw dairy products. The dairy products from Swiss Connection are expensive, but very high-quality. They are always at the Saturday farmer’s market (starts in April).

http://www.swissconnectioncheese.com/

Fiedler Farms

What: Beef and hog shares. Also individual cuts of meat at the farmer’s market. All grass-fed (hogs are fed supplemental local corn)

Cost: Hog shares are $2.45/lb. for a whole hog, $2.50/lb. for a half hog, plus processing fees. (Whole hog is approx. 160 lbs. of meat.)

When: I believe hogs are available year-round, but not sure about beeves.

Where: The Fiedlers come to the winter market (in addition to the summer market), which I really appreciate. You can pick up your hog share at Sanders Processing in Celestine (about 2 hrs. from Bloomington) or possibly arrange for local pick-up, if you call ahead and talk to Jim Fiedler.

Notes: I got a half hog from Jim a few weeks ago. His family is very friendly and the meat is fantastic. I am ecstatic about the lard (pure, no extra additives or hydrogenated trans fats). It is an excellent cooking fat and the ONLY fat I will use to season my cast-iron skillet.

http://www.fiedlerfamilyfarms.com/

Fischer Farms

What: Naturally raised beef and pork. (No farm shares.) Local, but not completely grass-fed.

Cost: varies per individual cut, ranges from about $3.50 for sausage to $5-5.75 for chuck, brisket, etc., and $10-$15+ for flank steak, tenderloin etc.

When: Any time

Where: Bloomingfoods

Notes: The quality of the meat is not as good as the three farms above, for the simple reason that Fischer Farms “finishes” their animals with grains, not grass. This is done to make them bigger and fatter. Unfortunately, feeding grain to cows also gives them ulcers and makes them more prone to infections. (Strangely enough, a grain-free diet improves the health of both cows and humans.)

On a per-cut basis, Fischer Farms meat is often slightly cheaper than purely grass-fed meat, but more expensive than a beef share or a hog share would be (per pound). Similar to Maple Valley, Swiss Connection, or Fiedler, Fischer Farms does not use antibiotics or hormones on their animals, which is a plus compared to most of the meat you would find at Kroger.

On a cost comparison basis, I would recommend that you stick with Maple Valley, Fiedler, and Swiss Connection. The Fischer Farms meat is usually not much cheaper, while the quality is far inferior. If you didn’t plan ahead and you need to take a quick shopping trip to Bloomingfoods, though, Fischer Farms is useful in an emergency.

Don’t get me wrong — meat from Fischer Farms is way better than meat from most supermarkets in town. But if you’re willing to spend extra money for local, partly grain-fed beef, it’s probably worth it to you to spend an extra buck or two and get the really good stuff.

Did I miss anything?

Let me know in the comments about your favorite sources of local meat, dairy, eggs, and produce!

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By Jae – March 22, 2010

Reader Questions

I got a few questions over email from my good friend Matt, and at his suggestion, I’m answering them on the blog. I always welcome reader questions, so if you have any, ask away in the comments!

I get the idea behind the Paleo diet, and it makes a lot of sense to me.  The thing I like most about the idea is that it is a diet that promotes longterm health, rather than short-term weightloss, etc.  But there are a few things about the diet that I’m a little confused about…

1. Is rice considered grain (I think it probably is, but wanted to check to make sure)? What about corn – is it considered a grain or a vegetable?

Rice and corn are both grains. Grains are seeds of grasses, and are probably best avoided.

The main reason that I advocate avoiding grains is not because “they aren’t Paleo” but because they have some harmful biochemical properties. One, they spike insulin levels, which can lead to obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and other diseases of civilization. Two, they contain high concentrations of lectins and phytic acid, which are potent anti-nutrients. Lectins and phytic acid bind to minerals and vitamins, so that your body can’t digest them. Lectins have also been implicated in gut inflammation and virtually all known auto-immune issues.

A partial list of grains to avoid includes:

  • Barley (barley soup, barley bread, and all processed foods made with barley)
  • Corn (corn on the cob, corn tortillas, corn chips, corn starch, corn syrup)
  • Millet
  • Oats (steel-cut oats, rolled oats, and all processed foods made with oats)
  • Rice (brown rice, white rice, top ramen, rice noodles, bas mati rice, rice cakes, Rice flour (all processed foods made with rice)
  • Rye (rye bread, rye crackers, and all processed foods made with rye)
  • Sorghum
  • Wheat (bread, rolls, muffins, noodles, crackers, cookies, cake, doughnuts, pancakes, waffles, pasta, spaghetti, lasagna, wheat tortillas, pizza, pita bread, flat bread, and all processed foods made with wheat or wheat flour)
  • Wild rice

2. Are starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes ok to include in your diet?

It depends. Toleration of starchy carbs is highly variable among individuals. Some people do really well on them, while others do not.

You may want to avoid these foods if:

  • You have excess body fat and want to become leaner.

Starchy vegetables can sometimes inhibit fat loss because the glucose content will raise insulin levels in ways that non-starchy vegetables do not. Insulin is the primary hormone that regulates fat storage. 100g of carbohydrate from potatoes is NOT the same thing as 100g of carbohydrate from spinach!

  • You have inflammatory or auto-immune issues.

Potatoes (but not sweet potatoes) are a member of the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes, eggplant, paprika, and many kinds of peppers. Some people are apparently sensitive to these foods, while others are not. If you have any joint pain, including arthritis and tendinitis, or if you have auto-immune conditions (multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, Celiac disease, etc.), you might benefit from avoiding potatoes and other nightshades.

On the other hand, you may want to consider including starchy carbs into your diet if:

  • If you are lean (arbitrarily, around 10% bodyfat for men, around 15% for women) and active (lots of intense physical activity)
  • You want to gain weight (muscle and/or fat)
  • You tolerate starchy carbs fairly well (no diarrhea, gas, indigestion, etc.)

Also, sweet potatoes are delicious!

3. Why are domesticated plants alright to eat, if they weren’t in a Paleolithic diet?

Most of the fruits and vegetables (as well as some nuts, like cashews) that we eat have been relatively recently domesticated.  For example, broccoli and cauliflower didn’t exist a few thousand years ago.  Neither did carrots, tomatoes, or cashews.

This is a great point. Many modern fruits bear little resemblance to their wild counterparts. Domesticated plant foods have been cultivated to be sweeter, bigger, juicier, and generally more tasty, but not necessarily more nutritious.

Unfortunately for most of us, avoiding domesticated meats and produce is pretty much impossible. Even if we gathered all our food in the wild, and hunted our own game, these plants and animals would be different from their ancestors from the Paleolithic era.

While it’s impossible to eat only “genuine” Paleolithic foods, it is possible to get most of the same health benefits by eating foods that are metabolically close to what hunter-gatherers ate in the Paleolithic era. This means avoiding Neolithic foods like grains, legumes, sugar, vegetable oils, and processed foods. We avoid these foods because they are totally foreign to human metabolism.

High amounts of dense carbohydrates, combined with processed vegetable oils high in omega-6 fatty acids = a recipe for disaster. (Obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, yadda yadda yadda.)

What’s left to eat? Meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. These foods are metabolically similar to foods that have been in the human diet hundreds of thousands of years.

Another way of putting this is, broccoli and cauliflower might not have been around a few thousand years ago, but eating them is perfectly fine. They are similar enough to plant foods that hunter-gatherers ate 100,000 years ago, that they are perfectly healthy for us. Twinkies and hydrogenated soybean oil, not so much.

What about “exotic” foods that wouldn’t have been in a Paleolithic diet? For example, Paleo man in Asia wouldn’t have eaten potatoes because they didn’t exist on his continent.

4. To keep to a true Paleo diet, shouldn’t we be limiting ourselves to regionally available foods?

I’m going to answer this in conjunction with the next question:

5. I guess the big question is, where exactly do you draw the line for the diet, and why?

Dr. Kurt Harris recently posted on this, and it’s the clearest explanation I’ve come across. You’ll see that I’ve been hinting at this in my answers to your previous questions, too:

Coconut and Honey are the two best examples that argue against paleo food re-enactment. We really are not interested in what was available. We are interested in in being healthy and we only look at the past for clues about what might be unhealthy in our current food environment. Emphasizing our knowledge of metabolism first, we find coconut acceptable regardless of its hisory of use, and conversely we are skeptical of eating lots of honey, even though we know it has been available for millions of years.

Metabolism first, history second.

I love how Dr. Harris thinks and writes about nutrition and health; he always frames things so clearly! We don’t care if a food “is Paleo” or “isn’t Paleo.” We care about the impact that foods have on our metabolism.

The notion of “Paleo” is simply useful as a shorthand for avoiding Neolithic foods that are clearly harmful to human beings: processed foods, vegetable oils, trans fats, sugar, grains (especially wheat), and legumes.

There are, however, a handful of truly Neolithic foods that seem to be very healthy, such as raw, grass-fed dairy products (especially butter and some cheeses), and many fermented foods (sauerkraut, kimchi, mis0, to name a few). I don’t see anything wrong with eating these foods!

I don’t think it’s that important for me to avoid coconut just because my Korean ancestors probably didn’t eat much coconut.

I do think there is a lot to be said for sticking to regionally available foods, but I interpret that to mean eating locally and in season. I don’t think it’s that important to avoid foods that were not a part of your great-grandmother’s ethnic heritage.

Sure, there’s some genetic variation with regard to food sensitivities. For example, East Asian people are almost universally lactose-intolerant, while many northern Europeans do ok with milk. But even there, I’ve found that I tolerate raw, grass-fed milk just fine! In the case of food and its effects on human health, I think genetics plays a much smaller role than the environment.

I hope this was helpful! Matt had one more question that I will address, soon. In the meantime, if you have other questions, or if you want me to clarify something, just ask in the comments!

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By Jae – March 15, 2010

MovNat = Avatar in Real Life?

I just saw Avatar a few days ago and was highly entertained. The scenes I enjoyed the most were of Neytiri, the lead female character, teaching Jake Sully how to move, track, hunt, jump, and even fly like a Na’vi (the human-like alien . Neytiri moved with effortless grace and elegance of movement through computer-generated trees, vines, and mountains. (Kudos to actress Zoe Saldana, her stunt double, and the animators.)

The movement of the Na’vi reminded me of a couple of videos I’ve seen of Erwan Le Corre of MovNat. Without dazzling special effects or safety harnesses, he moves with the same kind of power, efficiency, and grace, through rocks, trees, hills, sand, water.

Here he is in “The Workout the World Forgot.”

Even his swimming is beautiful. This is a human being truly in tune with his environment. (Yes, I have a HUGE man-crush on him. How can you not? He is a stunning specimen.)

Slight digression: Le Corre eats a Paleolithic diet.

While few of us will ever attain Le Corre’s Level of Sexiness, following a basically Paleolithic diet will start you on the path. This means: avoid grains, legumes, sugar, processed foods, vegetable oils, dairy (a bit of butter is ok for cooking). Eat meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.

Back to the video: all of the movements you see are functional, natural movements. Running, jumping, rolling, pulling, pushing, dragging, throwing, swimming. You’ll see no bicep curls or leg extensions here, and no machines.

At Bloomington PowerFit, we don’t have the luxury of working out on the beach as Corre does, but we can mimic his workouts with functional movements — no machines. We do these movements because they are movements you would use in nature and because they will quickly help you get stronger and more flexible, better than any machine.

If you want to move just a little bit more like Le Corre or the Na’vi fill your workouts with functional movements: sprinting, jumping, pulling, pushing, throwing, carrying — anything that looks useful in everyday life.

If you are interested in reading more about Le Corre, there is a nice write-up over at Men’s Health.

Do you have a favorite video of someone moving with exceptional elegance and grace? Gymnasts, dancers, soccer players, runners, martial artists? Share links in the comments!

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By Jae – March 3, 2010

Leah’s Testimonial

I was trying to talk a former student of mine into sticking out his graduate studies, when he said “I’d rather open a gym.” As I failed to conceal my annoyed disappointment at his myopic wish to throw away years of intellectual philosophical, logical, and ethical pursuits, Jae calmly suggested I give him 10 weeks and that he’d change my life.

Mind you, my life did not need one iota of changing. Happy-go-lucky and excessively energetic, I work out a few times a week at the gym, dance vigorously several hours a week, am capable of walking 15-20 miles a day exploring foreign cities, and play tennis and racquetball with athletic undergrads whose greatest wish in life – to defeat their logic teacher – is occasionally frustrated. In the last 10-15 years, though, since middle age descended on me, I have developed a respectable little bulge around my waist, knee problems (typical for dancers), a semi-permanently frozen shoulder (which reduced my serve’s efficiency but made me a smarter player), and my weight, still not really heavy, started creeping steadily from the flexible “medium” to a dreaded “large” (a notorious and common phenomenon for my age group). Obviously, I was very understanding and forgiving to myself, believing in the inevitability of physical decline that accompanies aging. There was no way on earth significant progress could be made on any of these fronts, let alone within a mere 10 weeks.

Boy, was I wrong – every which way. In an ascending order of importance (to me), I’ll describe my transformation over 10 weeks: weight loss, power gain, and a drastic reduction of physical ailments.

The Paleo diet was introduced in simple terms, with a built-in discount: be good 80% of the time, and the sweet tooth/cravings could be compensated with pistachio nuts. The 4 lb. bag they sell at Sam’s didn’t last a week—I just went to town on them. I was amazed at the effortlessness of avoiding bread and sugar, and how much lighter I felt from the start. Five days later, I was digging into the dust-gathering drawer we all have, called “wishful” (or “dream-on”)-– tight shirts, skinny jeans, sexy little skirts. A new pile of clothes was accumulating rapidly: the large, the dark, concealing, loose, the ones destined for Goodwill: all forever exiled, never to be used again.

Ten weeks and 20 less pounds later, strangers stop me at the gym to praise my looks, 20-something boys turn heads when I walk by, and female students come by the office to ask how they can look like me. My favorite ring slipped off my finger with a silent protest, my shoe size got smaller, and I hop up the stairs two at the time with uncontrollable glee.

A great believer in working out regularly at the gym, I’ve reached over the years a fairly dignified plateau at most weight machines, pushing, shoving, and pulling while conversing with people around, staying away from dangerous activities such as running or rowing, and obviously leaving the heavy lifting to organisms with substantial amounts of testosterone; and so I’ve managed to leave the gym usually breaking little to no sweat, but with a visible sense of pride.

The sweet routine was turned mercilessly upside down. Jae failed to notice that I’m just a meek aging woman, and demanded outrageous feats while he watched closely, correcting my form constantly until I was on the verge of kicking his butt across the room. Having an abnormally sharp eye for the constant gap between how an exercise is and should be done, he combines his observational powers with his innate cruelty to raise the bar on my performance every day. Running a few laps is now a piece of cake (previously impossible due to knee injuries), and rowing 500 meters under 1:56 is no longer a fantasy. I can do a pull-up with more 70% of my weight (up from virtually nothing), military press 45 pounds (10 were my dignified limit before), and correctly squat 50 times and counting (up from a painful 8 just 10 weeks ago). The day I benched pressed 70 pounds (couldn’t cope with the naked 45 pound bar before) I declared freedom from some long-term fears, such as driving on ice. If you don’t see how these activities are related, think again.

The knee is no longer awaiting the “inevitable” surgery. The shoulder regained some 80% of its previous range of motion, and I lost my only excuse for not lifting bags of groceries and driveway salt.

Best of all: the migraines that haunted me for many years have all but disappeared. As sparse as I’ve tried to be with medications, the twice- or thrice-weekly migraines attacks necessitated taking them if only to avoid walking into walls or just be able to drive home from work. Within three weeks into Jae’s diet and exercise, the frequency of migraine occurrences dropped significantly, and after eight weeks I no longer needed my medication on my night table or in my purse. The migraine rears its ugly head occasionally, but amazingly enough my immune system seems to flex its effective muscles and chase it away quickly.

My body seems to have recruited an army of strong soldiers, capable of combating chronic pains that were quite devastating in the near past.  In my glorious tight jeans, or when out-running the undergraduates on the gym tracks, or into the 3rd hour of Gumboot dancing, I try and fail to imagine the straitjacket of constraints and false beliefs I was in a mere 10 weeks ago. I’m just starting an amazing journey, with miles to go before I sleep; I’ll write again soon, just after trying out for some Olympic team or being invited by Federer to a friendly tennis game.

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By Jae – March 1, 2010

Vitamin D

Cancer Institute Campaign photo of woman in a bikini

Actually, getting a nice tan (without burning!) is the BEST way to get Vitamin D.

I’ve briefly mentioned Vitamin D as one of the two most important supplements that almost everyone should consider taking. (The other is omega-3 fish oil.) This post will go into more detail about Vitamin D: what it is, why it is important to your health, why almost everyone is severely deficient, and what you can do about it.

What is Vitamin D?

Three of the best summaries available online:

Stephan’s is the shortest of the three. All three are very helpful.

Highlights:

  • Vitamin D is not really a vitamin. It’s essentially a hormone, like testosterone and estrogen.
  • Humans normally get vitamin D through UVB radiation (sunlight) on our skin. Being outside in the noon sun for 20-30 minutes every day is probably a good dose of sunlight, if you are in your underwear.
  • Unfortunately, most people spend all day indoors, and we typically don’t walk around outside at noon in our underwear (although we really, really should), so we end up deficient in vitamin D.
  • Also, older people may lose the ability to produce vitamin D through sunlight exposure. This is why finding other sources of vitamin D is important for optimum health.
  • Finally, latitude is important. In the winter months, anyone living above latitude N40 will not be exposed to sufficient UVB rays. (Bloomington is around 39N, which is close enough for me to be concerned about insufficient vitamin D production in winter.)

Why is Vitamin D important?

  • Vitamin D is crucial for maintaining strong bones, and preventing osteoporosis — it helps the body absorb calcium. (Supplementing calcium by itself is almost useless!)
  • It is crucial for proper immune function — it has potent antibiotic and antiviral effects.
  • There is powerful epidemiological evidence that vitamin D plays a role in cancer prevention and treatment/survival (more on this below)
  • Vitamin D is associated with improved insulin sensitivity (in plain English, this may help you lose fat and reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, cancer)
  • Vitamin D also has powerful anti-inflammatory effects (useful for preventing and treating everything from tendinitis to cancer and heart disease)

In short, Vitamin D seems to be about as close to a wonder drug as you can get.

Where can I get this wonder drug?

If you are a young, light-skinned, healthy person who lives between 40N and 40S latitudes, you can get it through sunlight by sitting in the sun for 20-30 minutes in your underwear at noon. Every day. If you have darker skin, it will probably take longer than that.

For the rest of us, the cheapest supplement I have found is from iherb.com.

Get $5 off your first purchase by using coupon code YON992. Full disclosure: I make LOTS of money when you use this code — I’ve made more than $4 in the last six months! I smell an early retirement around the corner.

How much will it cost?

It costs about $15 for a year’s supply if you take 5,000 IU daily, or about $1.25 per month.

What should my vitamin D levels be?

Conventional medical knowledge says that 20 ng/mL is “normal.” This is a level that is high enough to prevent you from getting rickets, but not high enough to support optimal health.

The Vitamin D Council and other top vitamin D researchers are now starting to suggest levels above 40-50 ng/mL as desirable for good health. (This level is far lower than what is achievable through sunlight alone for healthy young adults, but it is a reasonable place to start.) This is because at levels lower than 40 ng/mL, your body will burn through your vitamin D as fast as you produce it. At levels higher than 40-50 ng/mL, your body can store vitamin D for future use — rainy days and winter months.

Stephan Guyenet suggests:

To determine the optimal blood level of vitamin D, it’s instructive to look at the serum 25(OH)D3 levels of people who spend a lot of time outdoors. The body seems to stabilize between 55 and 65 ng/mL 25(OH)D3 under these conditions. This is probably near the optimum. 30 ng/mL is required to normalize parathyroid hormone levels, and 35 ng/mL is required to optimize calcium absorption.

Because of inaccuracies and variability in testing methods, Dr. Kurt Harris recommends that you aim for around 60-70 ng/mL. This level is high enough to ensure that your true levels are above 50 ng/mL, but still leaves a huge cushion below 300 ng/mL, at which vitamin D toxicity becomes a concern.

How much vitamin D should I take?

You should always get your vitamin D levels tested and adjust your dosage accordingly. You can ask your doctor for a blood test.

A general rule of thumb is that it takes 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 to raise your blood level about 10 ng/mL. Unless you work as a lifeguard or eat beef liver on a regular basis, it’s probably safe to assume your blood levels are below 25 ng/mL. Therefore, about 5,000 IU is a good place to start for most people. You can adjust your dosage every six months, depending on the results of your blood tests.

The US Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is a mere 400 IU. Again, this is enough to prevent rickets, but is not enough to promote good health.

Is Vitamin D toxicity a concern?

Yes, if your blood levels register at 300 ng/mL or above. To get this blood level, you would have to take at least 30,000 IU daily for several weeks or months. If you eat massive amounts of liver, go ahead and skip your pills. Otherwise, 5,000 IU is a good starting point for almost all adults.

Can I take a big dose of vitamin D once a week, instead of regular doses every day?

In theory, yes, because vitamin D has a relatively long half-life (several months) in the body. I would not advise you to do so, since humans typically cannot produce more than 20,000 IU per day through sunlight alone. Who knows what happens to your body if you take, say, 35,000 IU once a week instead of 5,000 IU daily? I would rather take a regular dose every day. But if you miss a dose today, it is probably very safe to take a double dose tomorrow, even if your regular dose is as high as 5,000 IU or even 10,000 IU every day.

Anything else I should know about vitamin D?

  • Always take vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), not D2 (ergocalciferol). D3 is the animal form. D2 is the plant form. We are animals. D3 is typically also cheaper, and may be absorbed better by the body.
  • Always get oil-based pills, not powder-based pills. Most accounts seem to indicate that oil-based D3 supplements work better. This makes sense, because vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. The pills available through iherb.com contain olive oil (and importantly, no soy or gluten).
  • Because vitamin D is fat-soluble, it’s probably preferable to take it with a meal that contains fat (meat, olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, butter).
  • Most windows block UVB rays, but allow UVA rays to pass through. This is disastrous, because blocking UVB will also block vitamin D production, while allowing UVA to damage cell DNA. This is why indoor workers get melanoma more often than outdoor workers.
  • If you are overweight, or if you eat grains, especially wheat, you may need larger amounts of vitamin D to reach optimal blood levels.

Graphs! Graphs! Graphs! And Cancer.

Okay, so I’ve told you the WHAT. Here’s the WHY. Everyone loves graphs, right?

I stole these graphs from Free the Animal. They are originally from the presentation Dose-Response of Vitamin D and a Mechanism for Prevention of Cancer (PDF). You can also watch the whole presentation on YouTube. If you know people who has cancer now, or has had it in the past, I highly encourage you to forward the YouTube link to them. It could make a major impact on their survival and health.

Onto the graphs (click on the images fora  high-quality version):

Cancer and latitude correlation.

cancer and latitude correlation

The closer you are to the equator, the lower the incidence of ALL cancers. (Correlation, not causation. We all know correlation does not equal causation, right?) Hypothesis: UVB and vitamin D levels are higher year-round near the equator. Does vitamin D protect against cancer?

Breast cancer and vitamin D correlation.

breast cancer and vitamin D correlation

Higher blood levels of vitamin D are correlated with dramatically lower risk of death from breast cancer. This further allows us to hypothesize that vitamin D is responsible, not some other unknown factor related to latitude.

Preventing cancer through vitamin D supplementation. Causation!

reduction of cancer through D3 and calcium supplementation

This one is from a peer-reviewed journal article (Amer. Jour. Clinical Nutrition) about a trial that accidentally prevented cancer through vitamin D and calcium supplements. Their original intent was to try to prevent bone fractures in older women. (Thanks to PaNu for the link.)

At the end of a year, the group taking calcium + vitamin D had a significantly higher number of women who were cancer-free than in the calcium-only or in the placebo groups.

This is powerful evidence that vitamin D and cancer are not only correlated, but that adequate vitamin D levels can both prevent cancer and increase your likelihood of surviving cancer.

Other reasons to take vitamin D

If preventing cancer isn’t enough of a reason for you, here are a few others to nudge you along:

Additional resources

There is much more evidence coming in about the importance of vitamin D in cancer prevention and in overall health. I’ve presented only a handful of studies here. If you’d like to read more about vitamin D, take a look at these resources:

Thanks to mansikka for the photo. (Creative Commons)

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By Jae – February 27, 2010