Walk into any Crossfit gym these days and the predominant nutritional advice you’ll hear is unfortunately that of the Paleo Diet. Now I am by no means knocking Crossfit – it is a fantastic style of exercise programming that forces extreme intensity and can yield awesome results in strength, speed, and endurance. I do find it disappointing though that such a great program is nearly always lumped with the Paleo diet. If you haven’t heard of it, the Paleolithic diet was created by Dr. Loren Cordain, and specifies that the ideal diet for homo sapiens is one that our hunter-gatherer ancestors (possibly) ate – one that is low carb, high in meat, vegetables, some fruit, and devoid of ‘modern foods’ that require agriculture or cooking such as grains, legumes, and dairy products.
While eating lots of fruits and vegetables and avoiding dairy products are obviously great ideas, current nutrition science shows that basing your diet off of meat is dangerous and will greatly increase your risk of heart disease and cancer, among other things. But don’t take my word for it!
An awesome video series has just been released that completely refutes the logic of the Paleo diet point by point, with loads of scientific evidence and all using scholarly rhetoric (as opposed to argumentative/opinion based-rhetoric)! And Marcella and I were honored to be shown in the first video as examples of athletes who follow a non-Paleo diet successfully; thanks for the recognition! Even if you aren’t nesecarily interested in whether or not the Paleo diet is scientifically sound, this series serves as one of the best resources for human nutrition I have ever come across, even when compared to university courses and professional certifications I have attended! I urge you to watch the entire series, and to share it with your friends (and your local Crossfit gym-goers!).
Some common questions about our evolution and nutrition that this series covers are:
- When did humans start eating grains and legumes? Video 6 Are these foods really unhealthy? Video 17
- Did meat consumption really contribute to encephalization (our brain size)? Video 10
- Was the paleolithic climate really so cold that the only food source humans could find were animals? Video 11
- Just how nutritious is the Paleo diet? Video 14
- What about protein, is meat really the healthiest source? Video 19, 20, 21
- Weren’t Eskimos healthy eating an animal-based diet? Video 27
- Is fruit fattening? Video 49
- Are low carb diets healthy? Video 52
- Is grass-fed ‘natural’ beef environmentally friendly? Video 70
And much more! With 71 videos at roughly 10 minutes each, there is a phenomenal amount of nutritional information in this series – everything is covered! To introduce his series, the producer wrote:
“Welcome to The Primitive Nutrition Series. Created by someone who was nearly seduced by the Paleo Diet idea before going vegan, these videos provide a wide-ranging response to the evolution-inspired rationale for meat eating which so many have uncritically accepted… These videos are intended to be viewed in order, from 1 to 71. See them all and you will never again fall for a fad diet. It’s time to move away from gimmickery and hype, and toward a healthy and sustainable future. Let’s start something positive!”
So, please check it out and share it with your friends, plant-based advocates and skeptics alike!
View Comments (42)
Why do I not know any meat eaters that are over 50 (and many younger than that) that don't suffer from some sort of ailment be it diabetes, poor eyesight, impotence, heart disease, obesity, anemia, cancer, death, etc? Why are ALL of the vegans I know SO healthy, including my 97 year old grandparents, and my 70's parents? Please tell me why my husbands sex drive increased 100% and his eyesight improved and continues to slowly improve on a vegan diet?
Derek and Marcella,
Thank you for posting this and to all who shared so passionately.
I had two thoughts while reading (most) of the posts.
1) I didn't see anything on the time lining of eating more meat and the advent of cooking our food. It appears that cooking our food may have more to do with length of life and garnering calories from our food than does eating meat.
2) I went back over the posts and it appears (I believe) that the people who are so passionate about the paleo diet are much more aggressive and less able to hear another side( does anyone else see that?).
As an aside, I am age 40, a longtime vegan bodybuilder at 5'7" 180 and 10% body fat and healthy as a "horse". I am grateful for the information that I have learned and the way that I eat in regards to my health, the planet and my longevity.
Are people seriously still harping on this nonsense that meat causes cancer and heat disease? Wow, haha. I thought everyone was past that nonsense. If you completely ignore evolution, and examine just molecular biology, it's still pretty damn obvious. Poor, poor vegans.
Actually, meat DOES cause cancer, heart disease, and obesity. Get over it.
@Michael -Hominids evolved in a single climate zone.
@Squidey-Along with technology and civilization came the modern diseases that we see in agricultural societies. These diseases are virtually absent in hunter gatherer populations today. Brain size and musculature was greater in Neanderthal Man than in modern humans, this is scientific fact. There is current and evolving evidence that is pointing toward an acclimation of pre-modern humans into modern human genetics instead of a vanishing of the sub-species. Agreed that agriculture provided us with more time to spend working on craft specialization rather than resource acquisition. This mattered up until the industrial revolution when technology provided us with increased craft production that no longer required specific craftspeople to create everyday items. People hoping to recapture the health and fitness realized by the hunter-gatherer populations have returned to our biologically adapted lifestyle.
i was on the paleo diet too long ketosois set it blood pressure plummeted to dangerously low levels, i had problems sleeping and i experienced electrolyte imbalances. Fortuantley i recognized this early enough before it led to kidney or liver damage. i wish i had been warned.
A recent NOVA exploring Darwins theories of selection suggests that brain development had NOTHING to do with diet, so sorry to both the meat eating and plant eating factions. Primates have enormous jaw muscles, and a result the sutures in the cranium must fuse in order to support that muscle. Humans have a genetic change the causes the jaw muscle to be smaller than primates. The cranium in humans due to this smaller jaw muscles do not fuse until adulthood and allowed for brain expansion.
I am a little late in joining the discussion but I thought I would add my two cents.
In an attempt to find the ''perfect'' diet the most important aspect is how foods affect us NOW. It is interesting and in all likelihood reaffirming to know about our evolutionary history in regards to food, but we can only confirm that which we know now. Most scientific studies seem to show that a plant-based diet is beneficial to human health. As far as Lierre Keith, if you look at her interviews it is quite evident she has very little nutritional knowledge. ''There are no plant sources for fat-soluble vitamins''. I cannot think of anything more silly to say. This is false.
In any case, for those who need to understand the evolutionary reasons for why humans seem to do well on eating mostly plant foods, Evolutionary Nutrition: The Scientific & Theoretical Validation of Veganism, is a very interesting read. It is based on archaeological and scientific evidence, although it must be said, just like any other theories regarding the evolutionary history of our diets, it is a theoretical work. It has theoretical explanations on human brain expansion, the benefits of caloric restriction, the benefits of plants, the false illusion of the benefits of protein-rich animal foods, etc. I encourage anyone interested in evolution to read it with an open mind and consider its claims.
I have personally corresponded back and forth with the author who is a very educated person with a lot of nutritional knowledge with a PhD in Public Health/Epidemiology and a Masters in Thanatology. He is in addition an accomplished powerlifter who seems to be doing extremely well on a calorically restricted vegetal diet. Although his physique does not prove anything scientifically, it is certainly provocative considering his diet which is counter to what many would consider the optimal diet.
On a last note, his book also answers the questions concerning the diets of our fellow primates, the ''Great Apes', of whom we are a part. The carnivorous hunting excursions of certain chimpanzees is discussed.
I am in no way associated financially with the author, but his work has challenged my own thoughts concerning nutrition and I thought he deserves a broader audience for those willing to research.
I used to be vegan. Was for 4 years. All I can say is wow, when I switched to paleo. It makes so much sense now that I might just be the another one to write about the switch from vegan to paleo. Which by the way I don't see any vegans that switch to paleo, switching back to vegan. Maybe it is because your are missing something? You can not survive in nature on a vegan diet. Without those supplements like b-12, your screwed. Synthetic just doesnt cut it either and if you switched to paleo youd have a clear head for a change.
Gluten is bad. and any other "gluten like" protein found in grains and other starches is bad. Fact. Can't argue that. Grass fed beef and wild caught fish are kings of protein. Starch makes you fat. Fact. Bodybuilders are the leanest people on the planet. No dairy and carb cycle in which they eventually completely cut out starch to get their leanest before a show.
If gluten is so bad for you, why did my grandma, who thrived on a mostly vegan, high grains high fruit/veg diet, live to be a healthy (still lived by herself) 97 years old? And why did her son, who ate a heavy meat diet, need heart surgery at 47? PLEASE tell me?????
@grapeape such nonsense, gluten is fine for most of the population and there is nothing inherently fattening about starch. Saying 'fact' after each statement doesnt make them so.
If you Google "Beef linked to Cancer," you will pull 35,700,000 results that implicate beef as the cause of cancer. But if you Google "Grass-fed Beef linked to Cancer," you'll find 500,000 results that suggest that CLA and Vitamin E in grass-fed beef PREVENT cancer. Ha! Where's the beef now!!!
Find another argument, genius.
Ah, yes, the scientific method: when comparing two hypothesis just type them into the Google search bar, and see how many results you get!! It's how I learned that it's possible to enlarge one's penis naturally (1,190,000 results) and that I can cut belly fat with just one weird old tip (2,010,000 results)...
So much easier than book learnin'...
Australopithecus robustus - vs- Australopithecus gracile.... we are direct descendants of Australopithecus gracile.. they began to forage for meat and bones.... Australopithecus robustu was exclusively Vegan.. the became extinct.. as for the post above ^^^.. decisions about nutrition should NOT be influenced by its impact on the environment. We should exclusively choose our foods and sources of those foods based on their impact on OUR BODIES. The suggestion exemplified by the study above is tantamount to suggesting that we all hold our breath because of its impact on the atmosphere.