No, I haven't been enjoying a Who music festival ... though it sounds like a good idea. :-) I'm "reacting" again, to another silly blog-post, of someone who is no longer on my list. -->
Somebody who USED to produce good work has not only gone all libertarian on us, he's one of those narcissistic types who think what works for HIM should by-god be good enough for the rest of us! And he's been listening to audiobooks.
Now, people who write nonfiction often have their little agendas, and they're not proven to be RIGHT, just because they wrote a thesis on the subject and think their wisdom should be shared with the world. Whether their references and the conclusions they draw from them are actually VALID is always a grey area. Those who read such books also bring their own opinions and draw their own conclusions, so these FURTHER inferences that are drawn are probably even farther afield....
It seems that Native Americans not only hunted, they FARMED (and why the man didn't seem to realize this before is the mystery...). Bingo! We should all eat squashes and tubers ... but let's all ignore the fact that they also grew maize and legumes -- after all, them thaings ain't HEALTHY!
[sigh]
Are your ancestors Navajo? ...or Hadza? ...or Kitavan? ...or Inuit? No? Then why the hell do you consider THEIR diets and lifestyles ideal for YOU?
WHO ARE YOU? Where did your people come from ... and i'm not talking about two hundred years ago. What did your ancestors live on, a couple of thousand years ago? Five thousand years? Ten thousand years ... when a small proportion of Old World people BEGAN farming? I dunno about you all, but my people have been in the British Isles and northern Europe for a helluva long time. I doubt seriously that they "enjoyed" the products of agriculture nearly as long as people with a Near East or Mediterranean genetic background.
Not only do we have different genetics (and epigenetics) to deal with, there is a gamut of hormonal statuses amongst us, different tolerances when it comes to FODMAPs, histamine/tyramine/salicylates, different colon lengths, different levels of nutrient absorption ... ad infinitum! HOW in the gods names are we all expected to thrive, identically, on one perfect diet?
If Mr Youknowwho finds the Perfect Health diet a good fit for himself, whooptidoo! That's terrific, and I wish him well ... or at least good-riddance. But why is he making a grand pronouncement that THIS is THE perfect diet, and he was wrong before? Does he not come across as implying, "i was a low-carber before, and I was wrong. You are a low-carber now, so YOU ARE WRONG"???
If I had his lack of physical limitations, i'd probably indulge in more of the fruits of the season too, but i'm stuck with a much less-forgiving body. To be well, i'm much better off forgoing some of his highly-touted plant-origin foods. "Meat meat meat" actually takes the strain off many of my systems, and I DON'T suffer from "glucose deficiency" ... whatever that is. I DON'T get symptoms of stress from making my liver do its job. I DON'T see any sign whatsoever that my thyroid is not happy.
It's when I take in too much vegetable matter that I feel crummy. I don't care if every hunter-gatherer the world has ever seen lived on tubers -- some (like cassava and sweet potatoes) give me problems, so I WON'T eat them. Nor some other fruits and vegetables. My ancestors probably ate a meat-and-seafood-heavy diet, and guess what -- that suits me just fine in OUR times.
"So tell me, who are YOU?"
Ha ha, that was my thought exactly: how are people who planted and harvested crops and tended herds considered anything but farmers? Yet he kept referring to southwestern Native Americans as "paleo." It's amazing how he likes to harp on flaws in other people's thinking.
ReplyDeletesome groups did the hunter-gatherer thing, and others stayed in one place and farmed! if you know ANYTHING about SW tribes, you realize we're not talking about ONE CULTURE, but many.
DeleteIf you're Kresser or Guyenet then maize and legumes are healthy apparently. And it seems most are joining them now. The list of still respectable Paleo blogs has become rather short. It's a shame.
ReplyDeleteAnd the PHD... Well, the Jaminets put a HD photo of themselves on their blog the other day and I thought they should have named it the Perfectly Average Health Diet. A bit mean, but they're asking for it with that ridiculous name.
i started out thinking well of them, but it soon became apparent that PJ at least has delusions of grandeur. Like the subject of this blog, the Jaminets had health issues and beginning pot-bellies, but they were never obese, nor did they have the kinds of problems that require LONG-TERM VLC diets. They, like others without a pressing NEED, easily slip back into a WAPF format.
DeleteI agree that grains (except wheat) and legumes CAN be made to be LESS toxic, but they're definitely something that most of us shouldn't eat every day.
A perfectly average diet is probably how it plays out over time: I imagine people get tired of sourcing exotic root vegetables and organ meats and it turns into a meat and potatoes diet.
ReplyDeleteFor people without food-sensitivities, that's probably "good enough" ... but for others of us, definitely not!
DeleteHi Tess
ReplyDeleteAs we know there are certain individuals who have become very high profile in the low carb and paleo world. Many if not all have something to sell. To keep the money coming in they have to be controversial. The newspaper people have known this from the start. Put some good news on the front page and no one wants to know. Tell them the mad axe killer is still on the loose in their neighborhood and everyone wants to know.
In some ways I admire these people, they have been able to tell the same story year after year blog post after post, with just a small twist to keep the interest going. Sometimes some real outrageous stuff hits the blogosphere, like being on a show with a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, that wakes a lot of people up. Maybe tweeting a photograph with half a pound slab of butter on your breakfast plate, that was a clever touch. What that achieved in the positive promotion of low carb or paleo I am still trying to work out. Another very well known blog went through a period of condemning a young gang rape victim and calling women every four letter word under the sun. You get my drift, and how cosy all these people are with each other, never let anything get in the way of making money, last years mortal enemy is this years best friend.
Apart from academic interest, what do I care about what some cave dwellers ate 10,000 years ago, whether they were farmers or hunter gatherers or a cross between the two. I am interested in what foods I can obtain today and how they affect my health. Note I said my health, not your health. In many ways our diets are similar, but the differences, make all the difference to our health and well being. We tell our stories and talk about our experiences and people can take it or leave it, either way, it won’t change our lives too much, but then we have nothing to sell.
Kind regards Eddie
You're so right, Eddie! I'm interested in the past because history is "my thing," but ultimately i eat the way i do -- using contemporary foodstuffs -- for my health.
DeleteNo, i'm not going to hunt a wild animal and eat its intestines (with contents) "warm reekin'." But that doesn't mean that stuff coming out of a laboratory is FOOD to me. Basically, i AM in agreement with Weston Price's nutritional philosophy ... but Dana Carpender's recipes are MUCH better than SF's.... ;-)
It is ridiculous, but I suspect it's al about the Benjamins. Yanno? I will still read blogs I like for content and ignore foolish charlatans.
ReplyDelete[nodding...] When people have something to sell, their blogs tend to be less a writing-exercise, and more a form of advertisement....
DeleteI also recently read a book which depicted the life of Native American people.The title is "A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner", it was first publisher at 1830. It is a memoir of a white man who was captured by Indians when he was a child about 10 yo as a replacement for their child who had died, he returned to white people in his 40-s.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was a part of their migration routine to live close to the place where they planted corn, then they collect crop and moved on. They also made maple syrup. However, most of the narrative is about hunting, it doesn't look like corn was a staple food, more like a supplement, and there are many descriptions in the book of situations when hunting is not successful and their group of people was in a danger of dying. I guess if they had corn all the time in their possession, their survival wouldn't depend so much on on hunting .
The main argument against grains eating is not the dubious fact that hunter-gatherers never ate grains, but rather the idea that grains are the recent addition to human diet, therefore not the optimal human food to be in the base of a food pyramid. Humans need to watch for the level of an individual tolerance to grains and starches. In Tom's case it is higher than he thought before.
Various pre-European peoples in the Americas had VASTLY different lifestyles, partially depending on the type of land where they wanted to live. In the northeast, early European settlers found people farming on the extremely-fertile land, whereas the desert southwest "screams" pastoral ways.
Delete[evil grin] ... THEN you go down to MesoAmerica where the Aztecs used to eat their fellow humans. I really enjoyed the book "Cannibals and Kings"!
Humans survived the best they could, and they didn't have our modern problem - how to avoid over consumption of the food. We have to make a choice what to skip.
DeleteMany native people had starches in their diet, but the argument of most people who follow Paleo principles is that agriculture is the latest addition, and we still adapted to the products of agriculture less that to the meat eating.
Culture travels and people share ideas. I recently saw a demonstration of cooking foods native fro Louisiana, among other things they demonstrated how native Indian people of Louisiana prepared fried bread. Nowadays fried bread is a bona fide traditional food of native people of most of Northern America. However, I doubt such tradition goes deep into their past, and it certainly doesn't prove that wheat is healthy .
No, fry-bread isn't very old, even though it's become a popular item. I THINK the nearest dish that's truly ancestral is the paper-thin corn preparation which was made by smearing the batter on a heated, greased stone and almost immediately rolled off. The recipes I've seen of dishes that agricultural tribes used to make were mostly stews.
DeleteOf course, North American tribes didn't work with metals before Europeans arrived, so their cooking methods included pit-roasting as well as cooking over the fire; some used earthenware pots, and others cooked in baskets filled with water, into which hot rocks were placed to heat the mixture. ...Fascinating subject!
When people were nomadic or tribal travelers, they ate what they found and hunted. When they settled and farmed in whatever manner, they changed obviously. I don't see why some folks must be right about everything they BELIEVE. That's all it is as we have no real record of any of this. Yes, we have some fossil and written evidence, but we don't have a precise detailed accounting of any of it. So for my part I accept the hypotheses that have been presented. I don't worry about precision like some do...it will drive them MAD! ha ha!
ReplyDeleteoh my -- they're not "coming to take you away, haha" are they? ;-)
DeleteAfter I looked at my 23 and me results, I know exactly where I came from on my Mom's side. No big surprises there.
ReplyDeleteWith our molecular genetics and genotypes and phenotypes, there will be differences in food templates. Toss in some environmental aspects and it's molecular stew- for sure.
The upshot for me is when I eat within my food template = I feel good. I don't even need a 23 and me report to know that. Just a big n=1.
precisely! some younger folks can eat anything and feel "fine" but others of us are a little more sensitive to dietary "sins." J Stanton wrote a really good post once about people who don't get a bad reaction from a foodstuff so they assume it's okay -- I need to go back and read it again.
Delete