Picking up the guest post baton and setting off at a very respectable pace this week is the guy that I like to call Guy. I like to call him that largely because it’s his name, although it hasn’t gone unnoticed that he is actually a guy too. In fact a little known piece of trivia is that Elton John wrote ‘Song for Guy’ for Guy. I’m not 100% sure it was this exact one, but it probably was.
Guy is an academic and when he’s not writing for the always entertaining My One Piece of Advice blog and loitering around on the beach with his kids, writes papers the titles of which make my head hurt.
So if you notice his background in Academia has him not just sitting on the fence, but actually buying the damn thing and welding himself firmly to the top of it, simply roll your eyes to the heavens. And if you’re in the UK, please feel free to mutter something about wasting tax payer money on brainiacs like him who never get any real work done.
One last thing before I leave him to his own devices. When I first spoke to Guy he told me he’d worked for Amnesty International some while before. “Wow, I bet that was a tough job to get?” “It was” he said, “But to be honest, I always said I’d kill to work for Amnesty” I laughed my ass off.
Going Primal
I was originally going to write a guest post about pants (that’s underwear to our American friends). But on reflection I thought that might be a tad too controversial. So as Tim’s wonderful blog is all about questioning beliefs I am going to write about how everything you have ever been told by the governments, media and industry about food, diet and weight loss is wrong. So not controversial at all.
Recently I have been going through lots of behavioral changes, some of which Tim has helped with and some of which have been self led. One of these changes has been the old “get fit, improve diet” chestnut.
Now I have been quite fit at various points in my life, I have been a member of numerous gyms, I have commuted to work on my bicycle, I have attended many an aerobics class. I even cycled half round the world once when I was bored (and most of these things were done whilst smoking two packs of Marlboro a day!).
But as I get older, 39 at the last count, I am making what I hope to be permanent changes. The smoking has finished now, and hopefully for good, the alcohol is down to quality wine, exercise is coming along nicely and my diet has been mostly rid of crap for a couple of years now, or so I thought.
Over the last few weeks and months I have discovered the world of Primal living, there are various or sub-genres of this theme such as the Paleo Diet or Evolutionary Fitness, but the background idea is the the same for all of them .
The premise of this ‘lifestyle’ is that humans/prehumans have been evolving for around 3 million years and for most of that period we lived as ‘hunter gatherers’. However it is only in the last 10000 years that we have created “agriculture” and the fed ourselves the products created by that, which are mostly starchy crops or grains, such as wheat, corn and rice, which are rich in carbohydrates. As this is a fairly recent change in evolutionary timescales,our bodies have not adapted properly to this change in diet. (Editors note: Didn’t most people thousands of years struggle to make it to their 40’s? If so, couldn’t it have been down to all that bone sucking?)
Prior to this we ate mostly meat, vegetables (not tubers or legumes), nuts and berries. Whereas today our energy comes from carbohydrate and sugar/glucose based products our primeval ancestors got their energy mostly from animal fat. Our bodies reaction to these carbohydrate energy sources is to produce insulin which in turn leads to fat gains. Now to some of you this may be familiar, particularly those of you who have followed the Atkins diet. However for me this has been a bit of a revelation.
Whilst I was growing up and even in fact as an adult, my preferred foods have always been meat based products particularly those that evolve around bones, ribs, chicken wings, the bones from the Sunday roast. The best part of toast or crumpets is the thick layer of butter I would spread over it. However like many of you we have been told that fat is bad. Red meat is bad.
So according to conventional wisdom all my favorite foods are bad for me and will lead to increased risk of heart disease. What everyone says we should be eating is a balanced diet,with low fat,especially avoiding saturated fats, eat whole-grains such as brown bread, pasta and rice. Yet ever since this ’healthy diet’ has been pushed onto western society obesity levels have been rising to our near epidemic levels.
Reading about the ‘primal’ diet however, I am finding that the research this ’low-fat’ diet was historically based on has been shown to be flawed, and people are beginning to realize that perhaps it’s not the red meats and animal fats we should be worried about. Rather it is the the carbohydrate/sugar/glucose laden foods we consume and the vegetable oils we use to cook them in.
So the Primal diet is based around eating good quality(preferably grass fed/organic) meat, poultry including skin and fat, fish and vegetable, refraining from all grains ,processed sugars and preferably legumes and beans, using saturated natural fats such as lard rather than processed vegetable oils.
That’s about it. Some people seem to want to complicate matters but I think it is quite simple and straightforward. Not always easy to follow.
Now I know some people will disagree and it’s easy to understand why. This low fat message has been pumped into us for 30 years now. But that doesn’t mean it is correct. This is perhaps also what makes it so hard for governments/science/media to retract their position.
But have you read the original research? Or have you taken every one’s word for it?
You don’t believe your governments word on everything, yet why do you accept it on food?
But is this beginning to change?
“We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.” Dwight Lundell MD Heart Surgeon Admits HugeMistake!”
I am sure a lot of you you raise your eyebrows every time there is a story in the paper about scientists saying chocolate is good for you/chocolate is bad you,(an aside this is mostly just sloppy journalists, not the scientists who will generally have written a peer reviewed journal article with lots of caveats to the research). This sensationalist journalism tends to turn people of,so when something important is discovered it can get hidden or buried.
So what is the point of this post then Guy? Are you saying we all need to live like cavemen? Do we need to scientifically research everything ? Is everything the government tells us wrong?
No, the point I am making is that sometimes society gets it wrong. You must not take everything experts or governments say as being right.
Now this primal lifestyle may turn out to be the biggest load of bollocks ever, but it may also be most obviously simple solution to all our western health and diet problems and who has the most to lose by finding out?
Now I have concentrated mainly on the diet aspects of the primal/paleo lifestyle yet there are also thoughts on other traits of modern life such as exercise and how steady state cardio, the conventional way of losing weight is not the optimum way, how high intensity interval training can be even more effective in weight loss.
Meaning a couple of 15/20 minute workouts a week replace those hours on the treadmill or stationary bike. Or how running shoes actually increase your risk of injury and you would be better going bare foot or in cheap sneakers. Or how about that using sun tan lotion may increase your risk of skin cancer not decrease it. There are lots of alternative views on ‘conventional wisdom’ out there that I will leave you to discover that on your own.
But please do not take my word for it, I am not an expert in this area, just a beginning enthusiast,so use this post as a jumping board and have a dig around the Internet for people who have been doing this for years and see whether this belief worth shattering.
This post is not scientifically written. However the ideas it discusses do have a basis in the scientific literature, so feel free to explore more and contact me if you want to be pointed into the direction of more sources. I am also not advocating anyone should follow this diet do your own research and see if you come to the same conclusions.
Check out Guys blog here and you can follow him on Twitter here.
Brain Update: I’m on day 10 with my brain experiment and I’m not noticing any improvements as of yet, in fact the elder of the two dogs beat me at chess yesterday morning, which was a tad discouraging because I usually force a draw.
See, I somewhat agree with this post as I never agree with science unless it agrees with me first. On the other hand, everyone knows the key to good health is eating lots of rice, kimchi and seaweed soup.
Really though, I’ve seen enough folks have serious problems with gluten and so forth to believe that for at least some of us, it actively causes ill health. I’ve met tons of children that have had their functioning immensely improved by going on gluten/casein free diets. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for my own child, but it can’t be coincidence that it worked for so many others.
I suppose though that there is an entire range of diets that could possibly be healthy and not one is optimal for every person.
Tracys last blog post..Beautiful Boy, A book review
@tracy bizarrely my OH is coeliac.
Yet I always used to make fun of her psychosomatic illness. She nearly died before being diagnosed.
She still eats non gluten carbohydrates, though recently has cut down following my conversion, and combined with some exercise(mostly yoga) has never looked better (well not since I’ve know her), and inches are dropping off.
guys last blog post..Baroness Greenfield puts everyone else to shame
Who killed my blog?
Was it you two?
According to my highly expensive Gastro guy I probably have a Gluten intolerance as well as dairy and I also have confirmed hemochromatosis.
Bloody Law of Attraction.
You know what, I think there is something wrong with the internet today. My last post doesn’t have hardly any comments, which I’d understand, but I didn’t write it and it actually makes sense and everything!
Or maybe we’re just too real, man.
Tracys last blog post..Beautiful Boy, A book review
I have to say Tim, that your article seems fair and is simply expressing an alternative view whilst not giving any creedence to its contents or insistence on it’s veracity.
That’s also the way I prefer to discuss matters of interest.
I doubt that the “primate” brothers assisted your “blogocide”.
Guy and Tim. I love this article and I happen to agree with it 100% on both diet and exercise. My reading of the research and thus my opinion goes with the ideas expressed here on both. On thing though on red meat. The kind we eat now, beef fattened on grains, is not the kind of red meat our ancestors ate while our biology was developing. The differences between corn fed beef and grass fed beef is huge and it makes all the difference in the world in the ratios of essential fatty acids. That’s difference is the difference between health and illness. Great stuff!!!
Stephen – Rat Race Traps last blog post..Positive vs Negative Decisions
[...] Original post by Tim Brownson [...]
I was incredibly skeptical about this until Guy posted. I have since done some reading and my skepticism has diminished somewhat.
I think we’re in the dark ages with a lot of stuff to be honest, but this makes as much sense to be as going raw.
The fact is imho the food industry are invested in making profits and not in maintaining the nations health. That results in them pumping product out that is quite frankly, of little value at best and toxic and seriously harmful at worst.
Thanks to Guy for a brilliant post, it is just the kind of thing I’m looking for. In retrospect I wished I’d held it back until the end of the vacation period when there is more debate because I’d like to have got a load more opinions on this. Especially those that disagree and the reasons for that.
If that’s you, let’s hear it!
darn, I just wrote a big long comment and accidentally lost it. will try again.
@tim I love to eat my meat raw, so bring on those raw foodies!!
Thanks for all the comments on the post. I am glad people enjoyed it. I was not particularly happy with it, I found it difficult to write as it was calling for more scientific approach, but I didn’t wasn’t to make it too academic nor did I want the wishy-washy bloggy-woggy style.
Also I notice Tim has been trying to drag up a bit of discussion from the depths of twitter. One thing I have noticed Tim, is that most people can’t handle the possibility that this lifestyle is right, the low-fat diet being so ingrained in our society. Thus when primal people discuss it most people are incredulous and derisive. So generally we don’t talk about or discuss it. We just enjoy the compliments on how much weight we have lost and how well we are looking and just say we are eating and exercising well!
One facet I did miss out was that of intermittent fasting (IF), which many primal people indulge in . This is normally random 24 hour fast which help simulate the idea of gorging on kills followed by leaner times. Fasting when eating starchy carbohydrates with the resultant insulin rush driving hunger is hard. When on a primal paleo diet is surprisingly easy. This coming from a man who would go mad if he missed breakfast or was late for lunch.
guys last blog post..Emergency celebrity update
I’m a BIG fan of the primal lifestyle. I also believe in evolution. With all the corporate influence and political corruption that affect our food and health care, I am much more apt to trust the habits we evolved on more so than what someone in a white lab coat has to say.
A few things in regard to “most people thousands of years ago struggling to reach their 40’s”:
1. Much of our increased lifespan today is a result of significant improvements in reducing infant mortality and death from infections.
2. Back in the hunter and gatherer days, accidents were also a significant cause of death.
3. Research shows that since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, we’ve become short and our brains have shrunk. In other words, we DEvolved!
4. There are many instances of prominent historical figures being active and vibrant well into their 70s and beyond suggesting that this was not atypical.
5. The work of Weston Price has shown that modern primitive cultures living the hunter and gatherer lifestyle were very healthy into old age, much more so than today’s typical senior citizen. Many of today’s common diseases were practically non existent in these cultures.
6. Simply look at heart disease and cancer statistics from around 1900 to see what kind of impact modern advances have had on our lifestyle, and in turn, our health.
Saturated fat is a great example to consider. We ate animal meat that’s full of it for millions of years. All of a sudden, researchers say it’s a problem. Well, if you read books like The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov MD PhD, you’ll see that much of the research supporting the notion of saturated fat being bad was manipulated, particularly the early research from Ancel Keys.
As Stephen pointed out, most modern day red meat is unhealthy, but that’s because most of the animals it comes from aren’t evolved to eat grains they’re fed any more than we are. In addition, modern farming practices contribute to quality problems as well. This is why it’s best to eat pasture raised meat.
Science is certainly important, but it needs to give much more respect to the intelligence of nature.
For more information on the primal lifestyle, I recommend reading Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.
Vin – NaturalBiass last blog post..Vitamin D’s Flawed Recommended Daily Allowance
@ Guy – I dunno mate. It is ingrained I agree, but so was the meat and 2 veg belief when I was growing up. I don’t remember there being incredulity when that change started occurring, although I may just have been too young to remember it.
@ Vin – That’s all cool stuff and I’d like to read the Mark Sisson book. My concern is I am damn sure there are people just as well qualified saying the complete opposite and backing it up with solid science.
I would like a link to the reports that we have shrunk as have our brains, because that is in direct conflict with stuff I seem to remember reading. I’ll have a dig around.
Quite frankly, I’m confused!
Just found this Vin fwiw – http://historymedren.about.com/b/2004/09/15/tall-medieval-men.htm
There’s a frequently-encountered assumption that the average height of humans has grown steadily taller as the centuries have progressed. However, studies have shown that the average height of a population is related to general health and economic well-being, which is affected by such factors as climate changes, the growth of cities, war and population cycles. Thus, average height fluctuated throughout history.
And it turns out medieval men weren’t a whole lot shorter, on average, than men of the new millennium.
A recent study conducted at Ohio State University, based on skeletal data from 30 previous studies, reveals that men living during the 9th to 11th centuries had an average height of about 5 feet 8 inches. Average height then steadily declined until it reached a low point of 5 feet 5.5 inches in the 17th and 18th centuries, rising again through the 19th century and only reaching prior heights in the first half of the 20th century. An article on the study by Richard Steckel appears in the Social Science History journal.
According to the feature by Jennifer Warner at WebMD, Dr. Steckel noted that “Average height is a good way to measure the availability and consumption of basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and exposure to disease.” Frequent wars and a rise in the spread of deadly diseases impacted population health and height, as well.
Today, average height in American men is about 5 feet 9 inches and in American women 5 feet 4 inches. According to a study completed in 2002 (see the article by John Carvel at the Guardian), Britons have similar average heights, while most Europeans are an inch or two shorter. The exception is the Dutch, who are about an inch taller than Brits and Americans
Hi Tim,
You’re absolutely right. There’s always two sides to an argument and that’s why it’s so important for each of us to take responsibility and educate ourselves to make informed decisions.
I’ve done enough reading to be convinced myself to base many of my lifestyle choices on the age old habits that got us through millions of years. There’s always room for a difference in opinion and I’m just happy to open peoples mind to another way of thinking. :)
As you mentioned, there’s certainly a lot of factors that can contribute to height and brain size. I don’t necessarily think they’re the most important considerations when evaluating the implementation of primal principles into one’s lifestyle, but it’s certainly worthy of attention.
It’s in Dangerous Grains by Braly and Hoggan that I read we lost 5″ to 6″ in height and 11% in brain size after the advent of agriculture (page 24 to be exact). However, I’m not sure which of the many references provided at the end of the chapter backs up these numbers. I’ve come across similar numbers other places as well, but don’t remember where off the top of my head.
Here’s an interesting article about
Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture by Stephan Guyenet’s Whole Health Source blog. I’d love to read this book, but it’s not easy to get. There’s one used copy on Amazon for $350!
Here’s a paper by Loren Cordain that addresses the popular life span argument. I think The Paleo Diet (his book) errors far too much on the side of being politically correct (i.e. saturated fat), but that shouldn’t discount all the research he’s done.
In the paper, Cordain claims that “About 20% of hunter-gatherers reach age 60 or beyond [6,7], but even in this age bracket, individuals from foraging and other technologically primitive cultures appear almost completely free from manifestations of most chronic degenerative diseases [8,9]”
References 6 and 7 are Demography of the Dobe !Kung by N. Howell and Ache Life History by K. Hill and A. Hurtado. Sections of both can be read on Google books, and if I remember correctly, both give instances of some people from these primitive tribes living into their 70s and 80s and still being able to function well with the exception of hunting.
Vin – NaturalBiass last blog post..Vitamin D’s Flawed Recommended Daily Allowance
[...] Going Primal – ADaringAdventure.com – Guest post by Guy Baumann – I thought this was a great piece about going back to our natural diet of meat, vegetables, nuts and berries and Guy explains why it could be good for us. I liked it because it was unbiased and was not trying to sell another diet. [...]
Ok… now… well.. first I thought this article was a joke, going from saying something to making a point for the exact opposite. Instead it’s a bunch of… pseudo-scientific guesses without any evidence.
First of all.. there is a quote of an MD in heart surgery, which is then one of 50000 or so in the US alone, let alone around the world. Second, there is no source for this quote and no mention of what this guy actually changed his mind around. Just that he at some point made some mistake. So, one guy making one mistake is evidence for a whole load of articles, studies, … being bullocks?
Second: It is absolutely correct that our ancestors lived on meat, berries, nuts and vegetables. But, one of the main points you forgot to mention is that they were likely living on the constant edge on starvation, the point being that they didn’t have much of any of the above. The main cause for obesity is overeating, no matter which type of food. Also carbohydrates are seen as one main cause, the number that is usually far more associated with obesity is: kg of meat. There are several studies showing clear correlations of mass of meat (and other animal products) consumed and BMI and weight.
Third: the cardio stuff is known for a long time already. Steady long-time exercise reduces weight and gives longer energy, short interval exercise increases speed and agility. To claim any is “healthier” is bullocks as the question is what the goal is – you want to increase strength and speed or you want to loose weight? If you see weight-loss as “healthy” in itself that’s quite odd as you then assume that everybody in the first place is unhealthy+fat.
Fourth: It is known that carbs is a cause of obesity. Everybody agrees – if you eat MUCH. The same is valid for oils of all kinds, as they ARE fat, and only that! But I never heard of or read any article that even in the slightest claimed there was such a relation for vegetables and obesity, so to say we should eat more meat to lose weight is quite a strange idea.
If you want to live like the cavemen… well, go, throw your job, starve yourself and then go and hunt and fish and see how you can do. We’re obese because we’re living not in forests but in offices and we don’t hunt for food with our bare hands, but we buy it prepackaged in the supermarket and drive it home with our SUV. So, if you want to live healthy change that first – and not stop eating certain foods.
Well, to finish it. You said you read a lot on it. Would be nice if you would let us know what, so we can check it ourselves. So far everything you said above seems to me like a bunch of crap – show me that I’m wrong, but with some evidence!
You say: “No, the point I am making is that sometimes society gets it wrong. You must not take everything experts or governments say as being right.”
You make a grave mistake here. Humans are social beings and our today’s culture relies on specialisation. Everybody knows something specific, is an expert, that’s why we’re efficient as we are – so you need to rely on experts, be it those building your house (should not break), your car, the plane you’re in, … – and also the information you have. So, you will have to rely on experts, what you have to decide is: on which!
@ Konstantin – LOL, welll that sure was an in-depth response and I’m intrigued to see whether Guy replies.
I just wanted to throw a couple of things in as the person that asked Guy to post.
Firstly, the post was to get people to think and to entertain different opinions in an air of mutual respect. I happen to disagree a lot with what Guy said, but I’ll refrain from saying its a bunch of crap.
You do make some valid points, but you kinda lose some credibility when you say this:
Steady long-time exercise reduces weight and gives longer energy, short interval exercise increases speed and agility. To claim any is “healthier” is bullocks as the question is what the goal is – you want to increase strength and speed or you want to loose weight?
That is simply not true and not been conventional wisdom since the early 80’s.
Leading work by people like Dr Jim Loehr (who has trained some of the greatest sports people in the world) amongst others, has demonstrated that the best way to lose weight is a combination of short burst interval training and free weights.
Of course if you are going to run marathons, then you have to run long distances. But if you want to strengthen your heart, interval training that involves raising the heart rate significantly above 80% max with recovery, out trumps anything in terms of return on time invested. A 30 minute interval work out can improve stamina more than a 90 minute jog.
Thanks for your comment!
Konstatin, thank you for taking the time to comment on my article. Unfortunately your tone comes across as a wee bit aggressive and I am sorry if my article caused this. I also think you may have misconstrued the intention of my article and perhaps Tim’s blog.
I was under the impression that this blog exists to promote Tim and his business, it also provides Tim and guests the opportunity to write posts to discuss alternative viewpoints on things such as beliefs, values, religion etc. These aren’t peer reviewed journal articles or even referenced articles. They are opinion pieces.
Now my original piece to Tim had a lot of external links in it. However Tim’s response involved many expletives, so rather than pick or choose which links and references to leave in I removed them and offered the suggestion for the reader to perhaps do their own research as I did or perhaps contact me for some links. Why you did neither I am not sure.
However if you would like me to Google it for you …
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Primal+living
Other words you could Google are:
Gary Taubes
Mark Sissons
Art de Vany
Lauren Cordain
These people are all good starting points for finding out more about the concepts and science behind the primal/paleo/evolutionary lifestyle.
I am not going to respond to any of your other points as you have misquoted and misinterpreted me and I think there may even be a straw man in there somewhere and I really can’t be arsed if you can’t be bothered to do your own research.
Anyway I am off to chew on my lovely big bone, got a big day hunting tomorrow ;-)
oh I forgot to mention here is a great video by
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
that will explain why we get fat, why all calories are not equal and why sugar is killing us.
I’ll warn you it’s about an hour and half.
@tim yes I was unsure whether to respond or not…