in which i'm cranky about paleo

[hummingbirdmadgirl]

for the past week i've seen four or five FB posts linking to this article:

http://hells-ditch.com/2012/08/archaeologists-officially-declare-collective-sigh-over-paleo-diet/

which when viewed in its original context (satire) is funny, however it has seemed (and i could be dead wrong on this) that it's now being passed around as something with actual valid content, which makes it about a thousand times more frustrating. i -get- the idea that the name is a misnomer and i have no problem calling the lifestyle out on that, but what i do have a problem with is a whole bunch of people who seem to historically have had no problem with linguistic, or even cultural appropriation, suddenly turning into anthropologists or linguists taking great umbrage at the misuse of the word paleo. however pretty quickly instead of it being a discussion on language and the evolution of words, it reads more like "fuck your fad diet, it's annoying"

last year ethan and i decided to do the whole30 thing to clean up our diets as we were getting pretty sugar logged as a result of the bevvy of delicious cupcakes and doughnuts you can find in LA. i was originally not too into the idea since i thought it was sort of a hippie atkins, and my own diet was pretty limited due to the masto, but i went along with it for moral support (plus it would be way easier to only have to cook one meal vs two). at first i felt kinda awful, like i was going through withdrawal or something. but after the first week i started to feel good, like really good, like better than i had in years. my skin lesions decreased, my tryptase dropped a medically significant amount, my bone lesions disappeared, my bone density increased substantially...and i was taking less medication as well. i in fact was going through withdrawal, from sugar and gluten. two things that in retrospect made me feel awful, but were also super addictive. (a friend actually posted something about how when she stopped drinking, her desire for all things sugary shot up through the roof, kind of replacing one drug with another)

here's the thing about paleo - no one who follows the diet takes the name seriously. go listen to any podcast, read any blog or cookbook, no one truly invested in this lifestyle thinks to themselves "right on, i'm totally repping the paleolithic era in a comprehensive and accurate manner", much in the same way people who follow a Mediterranean or South Beach diet don't think to themselves that they are accurately replicating the dietary practices of people who live on the Mediterranean or in South Beach. Plus, for the most part, the Mediterranean and South Beach diets are just that, they're *diets* where the onus is on rapid weightloss (i think this is more true with South Beach than Mediterranean, something that is totally illustrated by the vast amount of SB approved prepackaged crap you can buy), where with paleo, the onus is on overall -health- (which I think is a pretty important factor when trying to compare them).

I think what bothers me about this paleo backlash is that saying it's solely about the name, to a degree, seems disingenuous, especially since again, most people who adhere to the lifestyle don't take the name seriously, they know they're not really eating like warriors or cavemen (much in the same way no one at manray was ever plotting to overthrow some modern day equivalent of the roman empire), they are just eating whole food, low carb, low processed sugar diets with the intention of improving their health. it almost seems like people -not- invested in it are taking the name way more literally than it was ever intended.

but even aside from that, why is it -THAT- important to critique either the name of the dietary lifestyle OR the dietary lifestyle of your friends? why immediately decide that it's a "fad" diet, why even fucking care? i don't care what my friends eat/drink/smoke; as long as they are healthy and happy, that is what matters.

i think i take issue with this since these dietary changes have markedly improved my quality of life. as i mentioned before, many of the serious problems i have due to the mast cell disorder have been changed for the better. my stomach is in better shape, my bones are in better shape, my skin is in better shape, i have more energy, and i went from needing -thousands- of dollars in medication a month just to ensure i wouldn't end up in the hospital, to maybe taking two hundred dollars worth of medication a month. that is medically significant, all my bloodwork and bone scans are medically significant, it's not a case of "well i've radically overhauled my diet, i better at least find something good about it" it's literally hard data proving that since i've made these changes I have dramatically improved my overall health. and because of all this, yeah i feel defensive about people calling it a fad or going for the low hanging fruit & criticizing the name.

blah. realistically i'm putting too much thought or effort into this. people can mock whatever they want, but for the life of me I cannot understand wasting the time and/or energy picking apart something that is clearly making positive changes in people's lives. EVEN if it has a dopey name.

Comments

[nepenthedreams]

I think Paleo is cool.
I love that it's getting people to eat grass-fed beef instead of CAFO beef.

[brigid.livejournal.com]

right? i mean that's the thing, it's essentially a diet saying "modify this however you want but stay away from super processed/super sugary stuff"

plus i love that even though animal protein is a part of it, it really pushes for seasonal and local shopping as well as grassfed & humanely treated animals. that (to me) seems pretty ethically sound

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

i don't care what people want to call it and don't see much reason to spend time and energy critiquing it, but I definitely _have_ seen/heard people earnestly advocating the very literal "eating like cavemen!" idea.

[brigid.livejournal.com]

oh see that is just stupid. i mean...yeah i haven't really interacted with anyone who thinks they're keeping it super duper oldschool (that would be incredibly irritating)

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

See, it IS incredibly irritating. And stupid. And I have encountered those people! Those are the people the satire is mocking, and NOT the sincerely healthy & rational people who relate to the types of foods eaten in Paleo.

I've also eaten a low-glycemic index diet, carefully monitoring my blood glucose 4x a day. I've spent a week experimenting with recipes to make a birthday cake that is gluten free/dairy free for a friend. I've done careful eliminations & BRATY at different times for tummy troubles. I stock the freezer with local, CSA pork & fish. I worship the heck out of Joel Salatin/Michael Pollan.

But yeah, I admit it, the name BUGS me. There's cavemen on the "official" Paleo website, and a smattering of machismo and tribal appropriation that goes along with it. The dismissal of 10,000 years of agriculture and agricultural history bugs me. The often mentioned premise that we're not evolved to process the products of agriculture is inherently and blatantly false. We don't need to go back 10,000 years to rediscover a healthy lifestyle. We only need to go back 100. Why are we not all on the Steampunk Diet? (Because that would be AWESOME.)

[jasonlizard.livejournal.com]

Like many of the other restriction diets, I think paleo is just another way to get calories back down to where they ought to be. If you cut all the processed junk from your diet, you eat far more reasonably. And a lot of people need rules in order to function so they don't have to make decisions based on subtle distinctions.

That said, A tried paleo and was taking shots of olive oil to get the necessary fat calories. Which sort of defeats the purpose.

I think Michael Pollan nailed it, "Eat food[1]. Not too much. Mostly plants."

[1] Anything your grandparents would recognize as food from their childhood. Pop tarts and things that are ready in the microwave in 5 minutes probably don't make the cut.

[brigid.livejournal.com]

that is, to me, what paleo is, eating real food, not stuff that will last sitting on a shelf longer than i'll probably exist on the planet ;)

i'm surprised that A had a hard time with the fat calories, is she a vegetarian?

[plankton.livejournal.com]

Paleo definitely appreciates a lot of what Michael Pollan has to say even if they disagree on some of the details. They really push the "eat things only your grandparents would recognize as food" and there's a lot of concern in the community that as the diet becomes more popular there will be lots of prepackaged paleo foods put on the market. At least just about every book, podcast, blog, etc advocate buying food either from farmer's markets or shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. I'm always kind of amazed at the center aisles at conventional grocery stores (not trying to sound elitist or too get off my lawn, but really the sensory overload is remarkable).

To me any way of eating that keeps you away from food that is designed and marketed to be so palatable that it encourages overeating is going in the right direction. So yeah, the fact that the diet does not allow many modern foods that trigger overeating is a part of why it works well in maintaining a reasonable daily caloric intake. The details on avoiding specific food types (ie seed oils, gluten, processed sugars, legumes, dairy) are a little hazier to me in terms of scientific validity and I'm playing around with some of them myself as they may be more personal rather than general guidelines. I may also not want to give up greek yogurt and peanut butter as they are surprisingly delicious together. :)

Anyway, I'm also kind of shocked that fat/calories were a problem for A. Considering that saturated fats are not shied away from nor avocado or coconut, fat calories have never been a problem. I also think that changing my macronutrient bias towards more fat/protein makes the biggest difference in long term energy and satiety. If I eat more carbs I'm way more on a hunger and energy rollercoaster which is no fun at all.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

I recently did the Whole30, and had a similar experience of the center of the grocery store. I was walking through the middle to get to the chopped salad bar, and suddenly, I also felt overloaded by all the rows and rows of processed foodstuff.

[rpkrajewski.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I was going to say/steal. It's amazing/depressing how much the criterion “looks like food” eliminates.

[sirendipity.livejournal.com]

What I wanted to say on FB, but felt it would add to the flames is that I think part of the reason why people struggle with the idea of paleo (and atkins, etc) is a symptom of 30 years of "healthy = low fat, high carb" teachings. People struggle with staying healthy, feel guilty when they aren't, and when a new way of "healthy living" comes around that's the opposite of what they've been told for decades it's like a slap across the face. They HATED atkins. Hated. I tried it for a few months and friends would get angry at me - yes, angry - because I would opt for berries as opposed to an apple. It was like I personally affronted everything about them as a person. It was... weird.

I imagine there are some people who are really only upset about the misnomer; I venture to guess, though, that much of the annoyance from others stems more from this emotional tie to what constitutes healthy eating... and what doesn't.

Like you, as long as my friends are healthy and happy, I don't care what they eat. Just wish sometimes, we could have good, informative conversations about food and diet without it becoming emotionally charged.

[brigid.livejournal.com]

well that's the thing, to me the article was annoying because it's seriously picking at the lowest hanging fruit since "yeah this diet is sound and healthy but the name is dumb so we're going to poke at it" because (to me) it just seems like a proxy for actually making fun of the lifestyle and people who practice it, just in a less direct way as opposed to flat out saying "it's a fad diet and you're stupid for doing it" (which is essentially the direction some of the comments went anyway) which just sort of felt disingenuous.

i think the only "diet" i've ever reacted really harshly to is the master cleanse, and that is solely because it's incredibly unhealthy for women since it leaches calcium like you wouldn't believe and because it's completely founded on really insane pseudo science (i read the book by the guy who designed the diet and it's flat out bizarre)

[iswari.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you that paleo critics get hung up on the caveman crap, and it's crazy, because most paleo people I know are just not into that at all. I also agree that most people I know who are paleo are prioritizing health over weight (and I've heard so many stories from friends about the specific ways in which eating in this way has improved their health), in contrast to those I know who have gone on the Atkins or South Beach diets (which may contain a lot of processed junk).

A former teacher of mine recently posted about co-authoring this, and it annoyed me on so many levels (I read it just to confirm my suspicions!):

http://www.amazon.com/The-Low-Carb-Fraud-Colin-Campbell/dp/1940363098

Debating whether or not to respond. I also did the Whole30 (though probably more plant-based than some, being mostly pescetarian), and really benefited from it.

[crystalns.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to start up the Whole30 thing. I read it based on your suggestion and enjoyed the book, and even tried out some of the replacements (though I prefer peanut butter to sunflower seed butter--I DEFINITELY taste the difference, unlike they suggested). I'm making a more concerted effort to eat the stuff they label as healthy, though it's hard, especially when visiting parents, to avoid the bad stuff (which is the real kicker). But yeah as a whole (no pun intended), they seem to say, "Look this is what science has said so far, and if you'd like to feel better, consider dropping [x], but if you can't live without [x], at least you'll know what it could be doing to your body."

But yeah, I've seen a lot of the "hurr durr paleo how dumb" posts and I'm like... okay, but do you have critiques of the actual system? There are some out there, and that's great because if there were none I'd be a little concerned, but harping on the name is just stupid.