Tuesday, December 23, 2014

eventually, there's a LAST frontier

I've been reading yet another article bitching about how Paleo has gone to the dogs, and why That Guy is bailing.  Of course, I couldn't finish it -- it was full of smug self-righteousness and bullshit ... all perfectly true from his point of view but far from universal.  He couldn't have composed a better example of what I wrote about the other day.

All his actions do is muddy the nutritional waters.  He was one who had the influence necessary to help straighten out Paleo when it first started wobbling, but his own self-promotion was all that was really important after all....

That Guy complains that less-toxic forms of foodstuffs which the 20th-centurions have come to rely on are widely available now!  He seems to be of the opinion that ease of access spoils his Real Food Ancestral Lifestyle paradigm -- if you ain't spendin' hours in the kitchen you're doing what a friend of mine once called "Flintstones Reenacting*".  He bemoans the fact that SOME PEOPLE really need to limit carbs -- i'm sure he thinks there's no problem with ALL of us going out for a ten-mile run to burn off the sugar in the carrots THAT I SHOULD BE EATING EVEN THOUGH I DON'T REALLY LIKE THEM ... because they're Paleo-approved by some yoyo whose approach is not really Paleo.  [head.bang.desk]  He proclaims that since Chris Kresser says legumes are all right, well, by god they ARE, and EVERYBODY should be eating them because prebiotics! 

If we ain't doin' it his way, we ain't doin' it RITE, and by cracky, if we won't stop calling ourselves "also Paleo" he's gonna take his ball and bat (cricket, not baseball) and go out and start another exclusive club.

In other words, someone who's been profiting off the Paleo label for years now has no interest in FIXING what's wrong with it.  No, he's going to CONTRIBUTE to its corruption instead.  He's going to bad-mouth a template that the potential of doing a lot of good for a lot of people, just because he's tired of the drama. 

He's going to move into his new frontier and put a new name onto the "TPG version of Paleo," all the while making it actually useful to a smaller percentage of the modern-health-troubled population.  He's contributing to the littered landscape of "failed" dietary templates, all because too many people try to define "Paleo" too narrowly, and take it beyond what he thinks it should be.  Well, I hate to tell you, laddie, but if your style of "ancestral health" takes off, the same damned thing is going to happen to it.

Your disciples WILL bend your new template to suit their convenience!  You can be a purist yourself, and you can define your "movement" as broadly or as narrowly as you like, but what is perfect for you won't be perfect for ANYBODY else.  Not one.  Lifestyles and tastes, genetics and gender-differences are way too various to make ANY plan "one size fits all."  And in 20 years, your current "perfect" won't be perfect for you anymore either.

People give lip-service to the need for individualization (it's a libertarian thing), but to a great many of them it's a very uneasy dispensation.  Maybe younger high-carb paleoids are uncomfortable with the older low-carb types because they're seeing US as THEIR future?  Perhaps it's fear that causes them to push us away so strenuously?  If they can keep us out of sight and out of mind, they can hide the realization that if they live long enough they'll experience a gradual decline too?  After all, at thirty most of US were lean, active, and health-conscious as well....

Time will come when THEY can't do the amount of exercise they can now.  Eventually their hormone production will taper off, and they'll find that the "right" gut-bugs won't cure the accumulated damage.  Some day they'll find themselves on the extreme edge of the world with no new wilderness to retreat into.  They'll be scanning for a new frontier as they step into ever-deepening water.
_________
*  my old friend Julie was inspired by the sight of a really crummy "reenactor" wrapping a piece of burlap around a soda can -- I thought her analogy was brilliant.  :-)

24 comments:

  1. The recent Wooo's outcry about several paleos (RN unreasonably took most of the blame) recommending to treat Hishimoto with RS was the final nail on the case in my opinion. At the beginning they were eating liver and pastured meat, then added starches, and later legumes.

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    1. RN has always been a loose cannon, trying one extreme after another and probably making his health worse each time. Kresser doesn't deserve to be described as paleo any more AT ALL -- his success has driven him to embrace some ideas that are highly questionable. :-( I see he has a new post out about microbiota and autoimmune issues -- OF COURSE there are associations!!! Anything that makes you SICK will screw up your digestive tract!

      It all boils down to the fact that these people WANT to eat certain foodstuffs. Thus, they go out of their way to rationalize their desires.

      YES, if people can't afford anything better, they can subsist for awhile on "poverty proteins" ... but these things are NOT the epitome of good nutrition. You can tell from the photograph that RN posted recently that his health has gone downhill in the last few years -- those years when he was pigging out on milk and potatoes!

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    2. Richard claims feeling better on more starch and less fat, but the picture on Wooo blog doesn't support his claim. He brought his FIL as an example of healthy diabetic on ancestral starches(in comments on Hyperlipid), but that lovingly prepared beans didn't prevent him from getting diabetes on the first place.

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    3. If he's one of those people susceptible to the endorphins of carb-eating, i'll bet he DOES "feel better," but it doesn't mean his HEALTH is better!

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    4. He also claimed his blood sugar levels were better, but in his case more probiotics and lower FBS did't get correlated with a healthier appearance.

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    5. All guys in a paleo-sphere seems to be well interconnected, and differ less from each other than we can guess on the first glance, while Richard looking like being a classic loose cannon, and Kresser looking like almost an icon "Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac is a globally recognized leader in the fields of ancestral health, Paleo nutrition, and functional and integrative medicine. " , it was Kresser telling Richard to ditch his thyroid hormone replacement despite TSH being clinically high.

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    6. Kresser must have lost his wits -- how irresponsible! sounds like he's COURTING a malpractice suit....

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  2. "it was full of smug self-righteousness and bullshit"

    Yes, and I'm sorry to say, but I have long thought That Guy to be not just an a**hole, but an insufferable one at that.

    The past few weeks have been a joke, especially with that picture mentioned by Galina above. For RN to be dishing out advice is laughable. And with regard to complaints about Paleo brownies and the like, well, when R Wolf tweeted pictures of the meal served at Kessler's book launch, one of the courses was a Paleo brownie! And everyone, including RN, was tweeting their wish to be partaking in it. Hypocrisy.

    I should really stop reading their nonsense, just like I did with CS. I think I will. Good new year's resolution.

    Have a nice xmas!

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    1. :-) i'm glad the perception of his "attitude problem" isn't all in MY head...!

      Really, he hasn't written anything very useful for quite awhile, it's all been about his running off to seminars and conferences. I was looking at their new Re/evolutionary site to see if i wanted to link it on my blog list ... but the answer is "no."

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    2. lol'ing at myself.... i get wrapped up in ONE subject too easily! Yes, one of the problems with some of these people is what they're committed to today, they're dead set against next month! I'm sure that even conventional brownies are fine "in moderation" with RN these days....

      Thank you for the holiday wishes! Have a Kewl Yule, yourself!

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    3. Just look at this kind of pathetic, condescending exchange:
      https://twitter.com/drgregbrown/status/547478032890331136/photo/1
      Like I said, I'm done with reading all these people. Just smug self-righteousness.

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    4. Btw, I wouldn't trade my steak and oysters for that crap, irrespective of "ketosisez".

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    5. And I easily found the comment that alerted me the first time, as I remember exactly what was said:
      http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/orthorexia-in-paleoprimal-community.html?showComment=1359851642336#c837989243852157822
      Sean and Exceptionally Brash on the ball here.

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    6. Another orthorexia fighter. It looks like he successfully reached with his anty-LC message his friend from Australia Anastasia. She was noticeably chubbier on her last pictures from AHS.

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    7. I guess they may have a point with regard to orthorexia. There is some of it out there. But to me, Paleo, as practiced by these people, is itself a form of orthopraxis. If you're not eating your ancestral carbs, then you're doing it wrong.

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    8. Michael, I liked Robert's last comment on that thread best: 'Yes, "orthorexic" seems to be a bit circular and self-congratulatory when looked at closely. It's another way of saying "My way of eating is EXACTLY picky enough to be healthy. So if you don't eat as I do, you're either unhealthy or obsessive."'

      HERE'S TO STEAK AND OYSTERS! :-D

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  3. I'm so outta the loop. I swear I never know who you are talking about. Feel free to email me specifics. names, links, etc. LOL

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    1. :-) i'm sorry! i always assume we all read the same blogs ... even though this fellow hasn't posted much for a long time. I'm referring to That (erstwhile) Paleo Guy, who has been so prominent in the south Pacific version of the ancestral health scene. Just another fitness coach who jumped on the bandwagon in the early days and has succeeded in the corporate-contract world -- think of a much less-likeable Robb....

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  4. I'd be pleased if I could find non-hydrogenated lard instead of making my own. At least, a bucket of lard that didn't cost a bucket of money. I have things I'd rather do than chop hog fat into little pieces. And chicken livers--they're hard to find, too!

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    1. you've surely already googled for it in your area.... i believe US Wellness Meats carries it, but their stocks vary through time. the last time i rendered tallow from beef suet i did it in the oven and it was considerably less demanding -- have you tried that?

      I often find organic chicken livers in conventional groceries and our local Whole Paycheck.

      I don't know if the Weston Price foundation website has specific buyers' guides for those things, either, but maybe their Denver chapter could help you out...?

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    2. In my area chicken livers are sold everywhere for pennies.
      I would use a meat grinder on a pork fat.

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    3. Whole Foods has chicken livers sometimes--I stock up when they do.

      There's cattle galore around here, but hogs, not so much. I made my lard out of fat scraps from Whole Foods and rendered it on the stove; my makeshift double-boiler probably wouldn't fit in my oven. (I froze it in a silicon cookie sheet with tablespoon size indentations--neat!) But I'll contact the Weston A Pricers.

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  5. Very off topic but we just wanted to stop by and wish Tess (and all fellow bloggers) a very Happy Christmas

    All the best Jan and Eddie

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    1. Thanks, and our very best wishes to you two, too! :-) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to ALL of our English friends!

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