-Part of the “Foundational Diet questions” Series
- Is Paleo the most effective diet for the human body?
I think it’s time for Paleo to move over, because whilst I agree it works, it’s simply the best of a bad bunch.
I simply don’t see the harm in dairy, salt, and a spoonful of honey in your coffee, all of which are taboo for hardcore paleo eaters.
For sure, all grains, beans, vegetable liquid oils, fructose corn syrup, and other total junk starch carbs are dogshit that’ll mess you up, and you could even make a case against potatoes, sweet or otherwise, if you like.
But I suppose it is what it is, and if some of our ancestors did without dairy and potatoes, then presumably we can too, yes?
Except of course for the minor fact, which is peculiarly overlooked in paleo circles, that we’re not doing fuck all else the way our ancestors did, (foodwise) are we, so why get all anal about the eating style, and super strict on salt, honey, dairy, peanut butter or bananas?
Money, that’s why!
And Paleo is big business don’t you know.
If I add dairy, copious amounts of Himalayan pink salt, some occasional sweet potato fries, yoghurt, and a bar of chocolate once a week, how tragic is that?
And how about a beer and a bag of peanuts once a month, where’s the beef with that?
Well, I’ll tell you, its because the minute someone starts making some intelligent and well thought out modifications as we have, it’s no longer Paleo, is it?
And where there’s big money involved brand identity rules over functionality and practicality any day, or even health for that matter!
But as I say, neither are we humans paleo anymore, and if your mother’s gene pool leads to a tropical island, or near the equator, you may very well be adapted to tons of seasonal local fruits, and even perhaps a nice drop of rum.
Yes it’s true, carbs are the root of most dietary and health ills, followed closely by chemical additives and processed foods, and clearly no fucking cave man ever squeezed out 10 oranges, 15 apples, or a whole pineapple, whizzed it all up in some trendy bullshit nutri blender, and drank it down in 5 minutes flat, did he, that’s just retarded, and yet another classic example of taking something from nature completely out of context and totally fucking it up by using our ‘Big Brains’ with a big helping of Sales and Marketing thrown in for good measure.
But look, if you had to pick one particular way of eating, and assuming you can afford grass-fed meat and line caught everything else (nothing farmed or raised on corn), then yes, Paleo will likely as not come out somewhere on top of the diet pile. You can certainly do a lot worse, and no doubt have.
But there are other options, as well as a hell of a lot of science behind those options, and that’s how we roll here at Blunt Coach.
We simply don’t believe in a ‘one size fits all’ anything, so we would never follow the herd on anything as critical as food, water, exercise, or light exposure for example.
Steve and I are not part of any ‘Mong Movement’, clan, tribe or club, since we can think for ourselves thank you very much, and we urge you to do likewise.
If you’re a newbie who’s just starting out, perhaps moving away from the standard American type diet, then brilliant, buy a couple of proper paleo books, then fly over to paleo king Mark Sisson’s Primal website and he won’t see you wrong, as long as you buy all his supplements and swallow them till you rattle!
How come?
Because Mark sells genuinely great supplements first of all, and secondly, because there’s no fucking way you’re ever going to eat ‘True Paleo’, is there? So you’ll need to supplement.
I’m sure Mark Sisson knows, just as I do, that our paleo ancestors ate; ‘NOSE TO TAIL’, and that’s why their fossils show such strong bones, muscles, teeth, and so on, so here’s a question for any paleo wannabes;
Are you seriously going to eat an animal’s brains, intestines, liver, kidneys, heart, eyes, bollocks, thyroid, skin and bone marrow, and not waste an ounce of its fat?
Because that’s Paleo my friend, and anything less is akin to you telling everyone you do CrossFit and know everything about fitness!
It’s worth considering the fact that by giving yourself a label or by joining the paleo clan, you’ll be joining an elite group of Worldwide Wankers who start conversations off with; ‘well, as a vegetarian’, ‘well, as a Christian’, or ‘well, as a CrossFitter’. So bear that in mind, because talking to paleo advocates is just as lame as any of the above.
We never seem to speak to anyone who introduces themselves as the Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra or a Nobel Prize Winner, and later on turns out to be a vegetarian or paleo dude as well, its usually just sad wankers with nothing else going on in life except for a connection to a bunch of CrossFit mongs, Jesus, or who even identify themselves as human beings by a particular style of eating!
And back to the subject of eating, it’s in the above often grizzly and unpalatable body parts of an animal that you’ll find all the seriously nutrient-dense sustenance, that both the real Paleolithic and recent hunter-gatherers, eat and ate, to stay in such brilliant tip-top shape.
In most cultures, in fact, the cuts of meat you class as ‘prime’ (fillet, T bone etc), were thrown to the dogs!
I’m deadly serious, do some fucking research before you leap into any bullshit paleo movement, especially if you’re a tight arse who won’t like parting with serious dough for a ton of supplements.
Or instead, be fully prepared to shell out $200 to $500 a month on said supplements, to put in the nutrients that would have been there (once upon a time), or even today, if you truly ate nose to tail paleo.
It’s Nose to Tail, or it aint Paleo, just stay focused on that!
That’s why all the paleo leaders are coming out with snack bars and treats galore, full of wonderful collagen and amazing fat, loaded with vitamins and minerals and so on, because they bloody well know the diet is both deficient, and incomplete.
It’s also way too heavy in protein, which mark my words, will turn out to be more of a problem than high carbs, especially when it comes to anti-aging, and since I’m of the opinion that our paleo ancestors rarely celebrated their 40th birthdays, you might want to do your due diligence on paleo longevity before leaping in.
So watch this space and see if I’m wrong about protein, but do keep in mind that as far as mother natures concerned, if you’ve reached reproductive age, passed your genes on, and then hung around long enough for your offspring to feed themselves and start their own families………then you can fuck off and die, having fulfilled your worldly purpose.
Well, speaking purely for myself here, I can tell you I have certain age-related goals and targets ahead of me that I reckon no paleo man ever had, and that will necessitate me receiving at least one telegram from Her Majesty the Queen of England (100). And since there’s no good data on long-term paleo eaters, who live in this ‘real world’ and not in the fucking Australian outback or up the Himalayas, then I’m taking no chances with my life based on what a Frisbee chucker might think!
That said if you’re still in athletic shape and under 40, then I wouldn’t worry much about the protein thing.
But if you’re over 40 and just a regular Joe, which 90% of the paleo mob are, then you’re bang in trouble if your protein makes up anything more than 25% of your macros.
Understand this; The Paleolithic period was no place for ‘Fussy Eaters’, or faggots that’d turn their noses up at a nice piece of liver, heart, kidney, brain, eyeballs or intestines, and thus, in spite of millions of worldwide followers, I’ve yet to meet or talk to a single person who’s truly on point with Paleo!
True paleolithic people would eat the boogies out of a dead dogs nose, and I’m guessing that’s not you, any more than it describes us.
So, use all the supplements and snack bars, and you’ll be just fine. Because the ‘Original Paleo’ diet, other than longevity issues, would have gotten a perfect score from me, but the ‘Modern Paleo’ diet, with all its trendy Frisbee players and fussy eaters, is just the best of a bad bunch as far as our research and common sense dictates.
The ‘Cream of the Crap’ if you like.
The ‘CrossFit of the Diet World’
So with all that in mind, why not give it a try? we really have no beef with ‘Well Supplemented, Pasture Fed and Line Caught Paleo’, not when you consider the alternatives out there.
Just stick to the paleo rules till your savvy enough, then break free of them and tailor the diet to your Mum’s haplotype and your own unique environment and health considerations, and keep in touch with us for how to do that.
Be well,
Blunt Coach Andy.
