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

[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.