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Comment by lenazegher | Hacker News Reader

My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat.

The point you quoted was intended to illustrate that you can lower the ratio of grain in your diet not because you think grains are the devil but simply because you want to eat more of other things. For me, those other things are fruits and vegetables but they could equally be dairy or meat or nuts or legumes or any number of things. Exploring that area felt thematically different and this article was already rather long so I thought I'd save it for another post. Apologies if it seems although I was dodging the issue, possibly I didn't choose my closing words carefully enough.

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> My main motivation in writing the article was to try to explain why grains so dominate the food landscape: because of their ability to deliver raw caloric energy. I think that's an interesting story regardless of whether or not it influences what you choose to eat.

That's all well and good as long as you give the full story, but you've forsaken the anti-grain diet fads while parroting their mantra almost verbatim. Namely, the idea that grains are a primary food source only because they're an easy source of calories. What about the fact that they're also rich in essential nutrients and have numerous documented health benefits?

When you say this:

> fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains.

And then follow it up with this:

> Around 12,000 years ago, a group of Neolithic humans conducted an experiment that forever changed the course of human development. They left behind the way they had eaten for countless generations and moved to a diet that helped them face new problems and evolve in new ways. I believe it’s possible for this generation to do the same.

It's clear you're trying to persuade people to eat fewer grains. Don't get me wrong, I love to re-examine common knowledge we all take for granted as much as anyone, but there are good, scientific reasons people say "eat lots of whole grains" and it seems very odd to condemn them without taking those reasons into account.

> That's all well and good as long as you give the full story, but you've forsaken the anti-grain diet fads while parroting their mantra almost verbatim. Namely, the idea that grains are a primary food source only because they're an easy source of calories. What about the fact that they're also rich in essential nutrients and have numerous documented health benefits?

They aren't rich in essential nutrients. They don't have numerous documented health benefits. And most certainly the reason why we bake bread and eat rice is because of their caloric density and ease of storage of rice and wheat.

A diet void of vegetables (and to a much lesser extent, fruit) is horribly unhealthy. You can't say that about grains. Is it really so unreasonable to postulate that the solution to our obesity pandemic is to remove the dense and less-satiating sources of calories and replace them with fibrous fruits and vegetables that contain many more micronutrients?

> I love to re-examine common knowledge we all take for granted as much as anyone, but there are good, scientific reasons people say "eat lots of whole grains"

Most of the studies you would find are observational studies made comparing processed grains vs whole grains. It seems obvious between those two choices the option with more vitamins/minerals is going to be healthier.

A long worded response seems pointless. There is a saying which may or may not be true that "Reality has a well known liberal bias". Regardless if that saying is correct or not, it does seem very realistic that a similar "Reality has a paleo diet bias" is almost certainly true, regardless if anyone likes it or not.

The anti-pattern of trying to present both sides as equally valid, probably to maximize advertising revenue or something, is not terribly useful. A sliced apple simply is healthier than a twinkie and a handful of pecans is healthier than a bag of Doritos. If it were theoretically possible to make a healthy grain based diet (I suspect it is inherently not possible, but I will humor the cheetos and chez whiz addicts) then it wouldn't matter anyway because the dominant American grain based diet is incredibly unhealthy. Either way you have to put down the triple quarter pounder with bacon and cheese and step away slowly, and frankly the paleo stuff tastes better than the grain stuff unless you use megatons of the unhealthy meat/dairy/grease/artificial flavors aka the standard american diet. I mean, seriously, given a choice of a lifetime of civil war style hardtack or a platter of grapes, berries, and cherries...

>there are good, scientific reasons people say "eat lots of whole grains" and it seems very odd to condemn them without taking those reasons into account.

Do you have sources for that that don't rely on correlational studies?

Serious question, not snark. I'm curious.

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