Paleo-Fascism

Thank god someone said it. It's getting a bit ridiculous, no? "Is yoga primal?" "Can I eat hummus?" I guess it just shows how little people listen to their own bodies and require the strictness of a "diet." I feel like paleo/primal gives you so much freedom, & yet everyone wants to put what they eat into a little box.

Personally, I struggle to get enough calcium in my diet, despite eating plenty of foods that contain it. It's something that runs in the family, & my mother has an incredibly difficult time absorbing D as well. If I include dairy in my life, I daresay there's a good reason! To hear some people talk, that means I'm out of the "club." As though that's why we're really here...

I wish I had seen this earlier. I wrote a post about this same thing. About feeling guilty if you can only get grain fed beef. This whole paleo food snobbery thing is ridiculous. But as I expected I got some negative comments. So Im glad posts like yours, and the one at Free The Animal, seem very much in line with what I am thinking.

I keep reading people post things like "dairy doesn't bother me in small amounts" so it is okay. Paleo eating is more than the instant response from food. It is about avoiding the diseases of civilization that now plague us. There is ample information pointing to long term negatives with dairy consumption. The most recent on this is Cordain's newsletter article in August 8, 2010 - Volume 6 Issue 24 titled "The Adverse Effects of Milk - by Loren Cordain & Pedro Bastos."

Cordain has also recently written several articles on the deadly nightshade family, especially potatoes. Now for practical reasons nightshades are harder to eliminate completely than it is to eliminate dairy. One can eliminate them at home, but when eating out one can end up in situations where either rice or potatoes have to be eaten to fill oneself up.

If you want all the benefits of the paleo diet you have to be both gluten and casein free. Then bend elsewhere only when you have to.

All this is great, but I think that unfortunately people need guidance and clarity in general to be comfortable with trying something new.

If we want more people to get in and try eating a paleo diet, it has to be clear and simple. Heck, even the name is confusing: paleo diet, evolutionary diet, primal diet, PaNu, Wenton Price, natural diet... Brands get known and popular mostly because they have an easily recognized name.

I think one reason why the raw food movement attracts more people is because they seem to all agree on the same rules and they are pretty strict about it. To them any cooked food is poison. It makes it easy for people, when they see all these websites telling them the exact same thing, to trust that it must be the right thing. On the other side, blogs about the paleo diet all have a different name for the diet, some include dairy or legumes or properly prepared grains, ... I'm not saying that these blogs aren't good resources, I'm simply saying that they are not for the outsiders looking for an easy answer. If I had found about the Paleo diet 3 years ago, it would have saved me lots of health problems, but no outsider friendly blog or website found my way.

I think it's perfectly fine for people to be introduced to the concept in a rather strict or, dare I say, dogmatic way, and then, if they are curious and analytic like most of us, they'll dig deeper and find resources suited to their very needs. There has to be a balance between easily marketable guidelines and science.

I first found out about the paleo diet through MDA and I'm very glad that Mark created a resource so accessible, well marketed and easy to grasp for outsiders. However, unlike most people who start and end their research on health on MDA, I had to dig deeper to find why it didn't work right away for me. I'm sure most people reading his site aren't even really aware about the term "paleo diet" though, but that's fine.

Anyway, before I end up writing a book, I think that if the goal at the end of the day is to get more and more people on the Paleo bandwagon, we need sites that tell us to cut salt, dairy and legumes, just to make it clear for people while also trying to offer contrast and choice. Then perhaps those sites can point to more technical sites for people who want to learn more about it.

Ouff, ok, great post indeed Melissa.

Melissa, what a fantastic article!

We discussed this briefly over dinner recently and I really think this sums it up.

Some people discuss certain aspects of Paleo adoption with religious zeal or look down their noses at people who may not see eye-to-eye with their viewpoint.

Similar to most of those replying, I have made my own decisions about the 'Paleo' diet and realise that what works for me, may not work for others. It is as you say about experimentation and philosophy.

I am making better decisions which may be adapted in future to suit my needs or change based on increasing knowledge. I am avoiding 'food like products' and processed foods like protein bars, etc and learning more about what I consume. That's the most important aspect of this discovery.

Genetically I have a tendency for Hypertension, so I avoid salt where possible. I am Lactose intolerant so avoid milk, but I can enjoy mature raw milk cheese. I no longer eat grains/legumes but enjoy the increased uptake of fruit and vegetables and the nutrient density this choice brings.

Interestingly I am reading 'Paleo Diet for Athletes' again and realise there are so many areas that I now disagree with Cordain on.

But I feel I agree on the most important points.... :-)

Thanks for your post.

-Darryl
http://www.TheFitnessExplorer.com

I've often said that Strength & Conditioning specifically and life coaching (including diet) more generally is 90% psychology and only 10% physiology. I think very few people are naturally "wired" to see things *other than* simply black/white, good/bad, right/wrong -- either that, or they still haven't recovered from the conventional education system. I think the "early adopters" to Paleo (as is with any "new" technology/idea) were, by natural selection, deep and thorough thinkers. What we see coming on board now are many second wave folks -- which is great; the more the merrier, I say -- but with that new influx comes a rash of "mainstream" thinking and (lack of) logic.

Thanks for this Melissa. In most people's minds diets are about restrictive rules. Paleo has never really felt that way to me (maybe in the beginning that's how I viewed it). It feels somehow artificial, or like it's missing the point to explain paleo to people by saying, "You can't have X. You can have Y." It's difficult to convey to a newcomer, but I think this post puts it very well.

There's a fine line between accepting certain data regarding the likely merits of pre-agricultural diets, following it and the odd righteousness of orthrexia. I have no beef (ha!) with those who vigilantly patrol the boundaries of their own notions of dietary orthodoxy until it impinges on their characterization of my intelligence and capacity for a reasoned conclusion that might be a little different.

I've distilled the core tenets of Paleo down to eliminating grains, refined sugars, and vegetable oils - processed fake foods as well. I figure doing those things probably accounts for the majority of the benefits of the diet.

Worrying about legumes, potatoes, and dairy is something that I think should be left to individual circumstances and genetics.

I'm not going to go tell the Masai or the Swiss to stop consuming dairy because its not evolutionarily adaptive to their genome.

But, I can see why some people cling to a more dogmatic view - it makes it much more simple to explain what Paleo is all about. The more your deviate from orthodoxy, the muddier the water becomes.