Caroline:
Isn't this Paleo stuff great - everybody can be an expert! Here's my 2 cents
(pence) worth.
You asked a bunch of questions. First let me refer you to another book,
published in your country: "Diet Related Diseases :The Modern Epidemic", by
Seely et al, published by Croom Helm, 1985.
Pages 142, 143 show these correlations with coronary mortality:
meat 0.58
eggs 0.60
sugar 0.84
milk 0.91
In other words, dietary fat and cholesterol, as contained in meat and eggs,
are insignificant causes of heart attack deaths, whereas sugar and milk are
the prime culprits. What is the connection between sugar and milk? Milk is
sweet -- it contains lactose, another sugar. There is also a 90% correlation
between sugar consumption and deaths due to breast cancer.
So, it is sugar which is our enemy, and also refined white flour. All the
refined carbohydrates that Atkins et al. warn us about. They are obviously
correct and of course all these things are non Paleo.
How does this fit with Paleo? Funnily enough, cheese, butter and I think
plain yogurt are ok, because they are fermented and thus do not contain
lactose or other sugars (are not sweet). This isn't Paleo, but I think it is
better to be aware of these things, rather than be too rigid.
Fruit, on the other hand, is a potential pitfall. While intuitively it would
seem that fruit must be ok to eat, I see a problem here. The fruit we have is
not Paleo, in other words, it has been cultivated over millennia. There were
no juicy pears, oranges, plums, strawberries 40k years ago. These fruits have
been bred to have a high (guess what) sugar content (fructose). Wild fruits
(more like berries) are tiny and bitter. So do not eat too many sweet fruits.
I think canned fish is probably fine - I eat canned sardines in olive oil
from Portugal, and very good they are too. Fish and shellfish are wild, for
the most part, and haven't been messed around with by man. Paleo man ate a
lot of fish and shellfish (I know this from my studies of the California
Indians, who were Paleo people when the white man showed up here).
I think raw meat is a red herring (sorry)! Paleo people well knew how to
make fire, and they certainly did roast and boil their meat. The native
Californians most certainly did, for 5,000 years right here in California.
What they also did was to smoke dry the meat to make jerky. This is a highly
nutritious form of meat, which lasts a long time and is easily portable (who
needs refrigeration)? I highly recommend this, if you can get it in UK.
(watch out for sugared flavorings).
Supplements - the closer you can get back to wild foods, the fewer
supplements should be required. Wild foods have a higher nutrient density
than cultivated. I don't take supplements, and I am extremely fit for my age.
Exercise is one of the most important factors in this, and it needs to be
Paleo type exercise. This means outdoors hiking (no gyms with repetitive
machine exercises). Osteoporosis is an autoimmune disease, which did not
occur in Paleo people (or native Californians). They maintained strong
muscles, which put the bones into compression, which will keep them strong.
The women did a lot of heavy physical work -pounding acorns, carrying water,
building dwellings (the women generally built the houses)! carrying babies on
their backs, etc.
And they didn't die young, contrary to popular belief. Since they did not
suffer from any auto-immune diseases (heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, etc.),
and also had no viral disease, since they were generally nomadic, the only
thing they died from was injuries and old age. Many native Californians (and
hence Paleo people) lived to 100 years, and could still hunt rabbits with a
bow and arrow at 90 years old.
The staple food of the native Californians was acorns. These are nuts, of
course, and have a high fat and protein content, with some carbo. The rest of
the diet consisted of wild game animals (deer, quail, rabbits, small
rodents), fish and shellfish from the ocean and rivers, many different seeds
pounded into meal (again high fat and protein), roots and tubers (complex
carbo), various berries, leaves, shoots etc. and large numbers of insects and
grubs (grasshoppers, cicadas, army worms, etc., etc.) Native Californians had
over 600 diferent foods to choose from. This is a very varied diet -- much
more varied than ours, and this is another aspect of nutrition. By consuming
a very wide range of different foods, you are more likely to obtain the
necessary vitamins and minerals.
In fact, insects provided a large part of the fat and protein in Paleo diets,
probably as least as much as from meat. This is a fact which is frequently
overlooked in the literature, perhaps because the white people writing the
books have a blind spot in this respect. They do not recognize these things
as food. I think western man would do well to examine insects as a potential
food source. It probably would be possible to create appetizing meals with
some imagination. For instance, the natives would grind up ants in their
mortars, and make a flour, which makes a thick porridge when mixed with water
and cooked. (so instead of protein powder, try ground up ants)!
Sorry I went on so long, but this is fun. I hope I've addressed some of your
questions!
Charles
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