Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked (2013)

scientificamerican.com

33 pointsca98am7920 comments

I am convinced that most weight-loss diets that succeed (even if only for a time) work because they limit you to a subset of foodstuffs.

The diets substitute "have willpower to eat less of everything you already eat" (which doesn't work for most people) with "limit yourself to this palette of food that you will get bored of very quickly", which people seem to do better at.

I have suspected this for a long time as well; by requiring attention and planning to get the appropriate items from the limited set permitted by the diet the real goal, making an evaluation each time you eat, is achieved.

I suspect people cycle through different palettes/diets until they find one that suits their personal tastes, or until some other stars align in their life and motivation such that their next attempt was going to succeed anyway. People then become cargo cult evangelists for that particular diet. That's without even looking at some of the people who profit from diet fads and promote them with various techniques.

That's all conjectural on my part though, perhaps one day a researcher that models memes with techniques from epidemiology will get an appropriate data set to seriously investigate.

All of this highlights the need for more funding towards nutrition science. It's absurdly hard to do this stuff (e.g., controlling what people eat for a year), so it's expensive. But given how expensive things like diabetes are, I think it'd be societally efficient to drop $100M or something on few grand randomized controlled experiments.

This[1] is the closest thing I'm aware of. You'd sorta hope governments would make this kind of thing a priority.

[1] http://nusi.org/the-science/current-science-in-progress/#.U9...

This strawman is the most common way of "debunking" the paleo diet. It's like saying that vegetarians should only ever eat vegetables. The article even sort of acknowledges that:

  Some Paleo dieters emphasize that they never believed in 
  one true caveman lifestyle or diet and that—in the fashion
  of Sisson's Blueprint—they use our evolutionary past to 
  form guidelines, not scripture. That strategy seems
  reasonably solid at first, but quickly disintegrates.

..and then goes on to attack the same strawman.

No doubt there are people out there that think the paleo diet means that you should live exactly like hunter-gatherers and think they know what that means, but I think for most people on it (I am not one), that is just inspiration that leads you to conclude that maybe meat is less dangerous than popular advice would have you believe, and maybe the better guideline is to avoid food that's been heavily processed. This certainly feels like what Mark Sisson is proposing.

The point is that even the guidelines are murky, and that it isn't clear what foods our "evolutionary past" intended us to eat. The best that the evidence seems to suggest is that diets varied widely in early humans.

So basing your diet, even loosely, off a false or unclear understanding of the diets of early hunter gatherers, is probably a worse strategy than following more contemporary research on the health benefits of different dietary strategies.

>is probably a worse strategy than following more contemporary research on the health benefits of different dietary strategies.

You've implicitly assumed that the strategy is not also informed by contemporary research, but the particular framework being criticized, that of Mark Sisson, makes extensive reference to contemporary research.

In fact, a reader of Mark's Daily Apple is probably linked to more peer-reviewed articles than a reader of, say, Scientific American. Consider e.g.:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-resis...

I'm not attacking Sisson's framework. I haven't read much of his stuff, but the Primal Blueprint does seem to base a lot of its information off of assumptions about what Paleolithic hunter gatherers are supposed to have eaten.

The article above makes a pretty good case for why building your diet from this foundation may not be the most reliable framework. If Sisson is using the latest scientific research to develop his system, then fine. But this is hardly a "Paleolithic" diet then. Why not just say "Avoid processed foods because they have been shown in numerous studies to have negative effects?"

I have tried three different strategies so far (dealing with type 2 diabetes gets you to try new things): - Hacker's diet calorie control - The recommended "dealing with diabetes" diet from the nutritionist based around the standard food pyramid (plenty of fruit and veg, less fats) - The paleo diet. Well, something like it. No dairy or bread, avoid sugars, eat as much meat, nuts, green veg and fat as I like.

I've easily had the best results with the least effort from the paleo diet. My blood sugar is down, I've lost weight and gained muscle, and feel fitter and more flexible.

It's not "Science", but I believe evidence drawn from experimentation trumps "studies" that can't be replicated, don't publish their negative results, and munge their data before publishing.

Results from one person experimenting cannot trump studies, or even natural experiments that look at a wide cross section of individuals, at least not in terms of applicability to the wider population.

That said, I'm glad you found something that works well for you, and that provides such positive results

Depends on if you want to experiment to tweak for you, or learn something about humanity. I'm thinking of seed selection in your own garden/farm compared to seed research.

I crossfit, a community that is associated with the paleo diet. No one interprets paleo literally. It's just a buzz word that generally means eat less processed foods, more fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and healthy fats, and limit grains. Some folks do cleanse diets first. I've seen folks loose dozens to hundreds of pounds. For many, this is the first time they've actually paid attention to what they are eating. And this is really the important part. Pay attention to what you eat and avoid processed foods as much as possible. Call it paleo or "clean eating." Who cares.

Aside, I don't think carbs are evil, but they are very energy dense and not particularly satiating, especially refined carbs (i.e. carbs not from produce). I run 60 miles a week, crossfit 3-5x a week, and still have to pay attention to limit calories from refined carbs.

Are you including indigestible carbs (fiber) as part of natural whole grain sources, fruits (pectin), oats (soluble fibers) as part of your "not particularly satiating" carbs? I spent 6 months on paleo, 12 months on keto, and 6 months cyclical keto. I have found that complex carbs have helped my training and weight loss far more than restricting carbs in general. It seems that proper carb sources are just as satiating as loading my bowels with red meat (and the outcome is vastly preferred).

I don't eat red meat but maybe a few times a year. My protein is mostly from fish, eggs, greek yogurt, fowl, and protein powder/bars sparingly.

I don't find carbs in any form particularly satiating. Unless I have protein and/or fat with a meal, I'm hungry quickly after. So steel cut oats, not satiating on their own. But if I add say crushed walnuts to the oats and have a couple eggs or greek yogurt too, I fine almost till dinner. The more refined the carbs, the worse it is for me.

why limit grains? (honest question)

Because they are energy dense and not particularly satiating. A slice of bread can be 75-100 calories, a bagel 200-250 calories, a bowl of pasta 400 calories. I like to translate my calories to miles. A mile walked or run burns ~ 100 calories. So that bagel is 2 miles, that bowl of pasta 4 miles.

I'd rather eat fruits and vegetables, yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, fish, etc.

To be clear, I don't avoid grains entirely. I'll have a slice of toast with 3 eggs at breakfast, or put homemade granola in my yogurt, etc. I eat rice with sushi or chicken tikka. Challah is one of my great weaknesses. It's just that grains are so readily available and easy to eat too much of, so I limit them when I can.

> No one interprets paleo literally

I have done crossfit in the past and have many friends who still actively participate. The majority of them do take paleo literally.

The reality is, I think, that it varies from box to box, community to community.

These kinds of articles are getting tired. Most people who started paleo years ago have modified their diets to be more of a "natural foods" diet. The only people I know who still adhere to a paleo diet are the ones trying to sell cookbooks, or somehow profit on the name paleo.

Furthermore, if these articles really wanted to help people, they would explain what pieces of the paleo are bogus, and what pieces make sense, because the fact is, if most people cut back on processed grain, refined sugar, and processed seed oils, and doubled down on fresh fruits and vegetables and solid protein, they would in fact become healthier.

Robb Wolf is a prominent voice in the paleo diet movement. It's worth noting his comment on this article:

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I'm not sure what it says about the broader scientific community that they seem incapable of actually articulating what has been written by folks in the Paleo/Ancestral health field?

I adress Pro. Warinner's TED talk here: http://robbwolf.com/2013/04/04/debunking-paleo-diet-wolfs-ey...

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Most debunking of the paleo diet actually attacks a strawman. There ARE some people who say they eat paleo and follow this strawman, but most don't.

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