On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 6:28 AM, hillrunner_tx <preedntx@aol.com> wrote:
Hi,
Yep, agree with you on that. But, consider:
1. The Masai tribe are held up by the low carb advocates as an example of a society that is free of coronary disease and their diet is primarily blood, whole milk and meat from their cattle. Researchers have actually found this is not 100% correct.
Actually they tend to live primarily off milk. The tradition is 9 days of milk, then one day of blood. Meat is usually for feast days, in most cultures that are "nomadic" in eating pattern. Living off milk though, is really common, and has been reported in a lot of cultures that did just fine healthwise, some of which were noted for longetivity. Living off milk though might require a genetic alteration to handle lactose: however, often the milk in milk-drinking societies is fermented.
2. We also face the issues of oxidization of cholesterol. Scientists are still trying to figure out when or how or what foods are vulnerable to this concern. (I've got a friend who has a PhD in biochemistry and he confirmed this one for me…you may want to check with you dad and see if he has insights as I'm curious.)
One of the things about oxidation is that it is very often (or maybe always) catalyzed by iron. The Maasai are an interesting case in this: they are borderline anemic from all that milk. When researchers gave them iron supplements though, they got sick, and also caught malaria more.
3. Just plain bad or cheap meats. The fatty, grain fed meats (chicken, beef, pork) have zero resemblance to what our grandparents ate or what real "meat" looks like. Anyone who has been a hunter or gone through military survival school can back me on this: deer, elk are lean, lean meats. Bugs, small rodents and rabbits are lean. (If you're in survival school, you'll learn bugs are a good source of protein.) They are also loaded with Omega 3 fats, not this s----y crap they call "meat" that is loaded with Omega 6 fatty—which are incredibly pro-inflammatory and are associated with heart disease, cancers, etc.
It is true that many or most of the meats available today are awful. The stories about how they make hamburger are pretty nausea-inducing. And grain-feed beef cows are sick, so it would make sense their meat has problems.
I wouldn't say that the wild meats always lead to a low-fat diet though: the Maasai, for instance, drink mainly milk, which is not low fat. Wild meats have *more* Omega 3, but they still have plenty of Omega 6. Bugs aren't low-fat either: some of them are full of fat.
The thing is: if you look at all the people worldwide, there is a huge variety of diets. High fat, low fat, high carb, low carb. The percentage of protein, amazingly, stays more or less constant for all peoples (Americans actually eat less protein% than most, in one study I read). Anyway, ALL of those diets work better than the American/European diet, and that has been the case for the last 100 years at least. Probably before that. Europe is a really *WEIRD* historical case from a dietary viewpoint. Europeans, and esp. Eastern Europeans are among the least healthy people in the world.
People have been trying to figure out what it is about our diet that makes it bad ... it isn't grain-fed beef, because that is a very recent thing. It isn't carbs either, because most of the world eats lots of them. It isn't trans-fats etc. either, because those are recent also. The issues that we face actually started in the 1800's and 1900's, and probably before that (although I agree things got dramatically worse since the '70s).
Problem is, most of us are only really familiar with the foods we grew up with, and those of our grandparents. Those are our tradition. What we really need to do is compare that tradition with what other folks actually DO ... and not just the outlyers like the Maasai and the Inuit, but also the technologically-advanced cultures before they adopt the Western diet ... like Japan, China ...
The pattern I'm seeing is that the healthiest peoples are usually seaside people, and inland peoples tend to have more problems. In the paleo record things are more mixed, because the people tended to migrate, and spend half the year near the shore, then move inland during the winter.
That's where the Atkins, Taubes, etc., mindset went so wrong. Our ancestors or peoples still "living off the land" never ate animal proteins that are chock full of SFAs/Omega 6 fats. Wild animals are lean and clean.
I agree more with the ideas in the Zone: focus on leaner proteins, consume Omega 3s through plant and animal source, limit starches and avoid/eliminate sugars while limiting your caffeine intake—as you note, very inflammatory.
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