| Which Diet Should I Follow? |
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| Thursday, 11 August 2011 14:18 | |||
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For years I have been asked, "Which diet should I follow?" Macrobiotic, Diabetic, Paleolithic, Vegan, Vegetarian, South Beach, Specific Carbohydrate, Low Fat, Fruitarian, Atkins, Low Cal, Raw, 100 Mile, Blood Type, The Maker's, Weight Watchers; the list goes on and on. I can understand why people feel so confused about this subject. Here are my thoughts… Before I answer this let me tell you my basic food philosophy. "There are 6.5 billion different diets for 6.5 billion different people on this planet." I do not believe that there is one generalized diet that is good for everyone. We all come with our own specific medical background that we need to pay attention to in order to know what we should be living on. I believe in a "Live-it" style approach to the food we consume. Dieting suggests a temporary state that you can break off once you have obtained your weight loss goal. You must consider the food you eat by the nutrients it gives you not just the calories it contains. The cells of your body require a certain amount of macro and micronutrients in order to function and regenerate. Feeding your body nutrient dense vegetables and fruit while on a 'diet' only to go back to 'living' on refined carbohydrates and rancid oils is completely counter productive. The Basic "Live-it"I believe the Michael Pollan's quote, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" summarizes how you should be eating. There is way too much food being consumed in most westernized countries so the concept of calorie restriction does play a factor in a healthy Live-it. I do not believe in actively counting calories but I do believe you should have an awareness of what is high in calories so you can tailor the amount you eat to the amount of activity you participate in. For example foods such as avocado, coconut, dates, raw nuts/seeds are all high in macronutrients such as sugars or fats. These foods are healthy and should not be avoided but you wouldn't want to eat them by the cupful unless you are planning on expending a lot of energy within the next 12 hours. "Mostly Plants"After all of the research I have read on subjects such as diabetes, arthritis, ADHD, heart disease, cancer, weight loss and a host of other diseases, I believe in consuming 10 servings of colourful, organic, fresh vegetables per day. (I do not include corn and white flesh potatoes in this category.) If you have ever tried to eat 10 servings of green, yellow, orange and/or red vegetables in a day, you will know that this does not leave a whole lot of room in your stomach for junk food. Fruits give you a range of certain phytochemicals that cannot be obtained from other sources so I believe in eating 2-3 servings of them per day. Besides they bring so much pleasure! Feeding your emotional self is just as important as feeding your body. To Cook Or Not To Cook?This is a controversial question in the health food industry. Fresh, organic, raw fruits and vegetables do have the largest amount of nutrient content. They also have the active enzymes that you require to help break down your food. If you do not have Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBS) and can digest raw whole vegetables and fruit, it is a good way to eat them for the most part. This is particularly true if you live in a warm climate such as the South/West Coast of North America or the Southern States but eating a lot of cold raw salad, vegetables and fruit is counter intuitive during the long, cold, damp months of a Canadian winter. It is important to point out that there are certain nutrients that are more bioavailable when they have been cooked so having a variety of cooked and raw foods might be the best balance. Eating What Is AvailableNot that long ago many of these diets would simply not be possible as they require the use of modern day petrochemical transport. I seriously question when someone proposes that we are to only subsist on foods that must be transported from half way around the planet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the benefits of organic coconut, olive oil, quinoa, spices and the variety of fresh fruits we have access to throughout the year but a time may come when we cannot use these products so freely. We need to focus on what we can grow locally to get the nutrients we need to be healthy. Either that or we need to migrate to a location were we can have access to the foods we desire. I strongly believe in supporting our local organic farmers, as they are the backbone to our homegrown health industry. Eating MeatEnvironmentally eating a Live-it that is low in animal products and high in local vegetation is the best choice. That said, there are many people today who are not only unable to digest plant-based proteins, their bodies have built antibodies against them. There is now a technology to determine if you are having an IgE and/or IgG response to food via a blood test. (This is the same technology that is use to match an organ donor to a transplant recipient.) If you consume foods that cause an IgE or IgG response, you are doing more damage than good. If you are unable to eat plant based proteins such as whole grains, legumes, beans, nuts and seed because of an intolerance or allergy you do not have a whole lot of choice when it comes to eating the amount of protein your body requires to build and maintain itself. Eating animal based proteins may be your only option. If this is the case it is vital to consume only animals that are raised organically. Animals live at the top of the food chain therefore they concentrate any chemicals they are exposed to. Find out how much protein you actually need in order to be healthy. An animal protein heavy diet is not only environmentally and financially expensive, it puts a lot of strain on your kidneys. Eating Like Our AncestorsHow did our ancestors eat? How did our bodies adapt to the foods that were available? One thing is clear, the Homo sapiens that came before us did not have the refined, abundant food products that we consume today. They had to work hard for their food and they earned every calorie. They ate what was available and most likely felt grateful for the plants and animals that they survived on. Waste was not a luxury that could be afforded. If you lived in what is now known as Canada or Europe 10,000 years ago, you ate a variety of raw and cooked vegetation; cattails, milkweed, dandelion, milk thistle, burdock, nettle, plantain, sumach, mushrooms, leeks, sunchoke, pine needles, hazelnuts, berries, apples and tree sap. You had limited access to honey or salt but would use it when available. You might collect a bit of wild grain but it was a challenge to have it in a large amount. The predominant protein sources were smaller animals, foul, insects, fish and seafood if you lived near the ocean. Larger animals were often hunted collectively and every part of their bodies used for food or tools. Should you return to eating like your ancestors? I think it is a good idea to look back to your roots to find out what your body was designed to thrive on but it is a challenge to live a strict Paleolithic diet today. You need to take into consideration the region of the world your ancestors came from. What a Paleolithic person would eat in a more tropical region would be very different from a Northern climate. In any case you would need to spend most of your time hunting, gathering and processing foods and few people have that sort of lifestyle. It would also mean cutting out many wonderful and healthy foods that are available to us from regions we don't live in. Many of the healthy vegetables and fruit we eat today didn't even exist 10,000 years ago and we would be hard pressed to recognize their ancestors. Eating a Live-it that avoids glutinous grains, refined foods and most dairy products is probably beneficial for most people but it is important that the Paleolithic diet is not simplified down to eating a heavy meat based diet from animals that are factory farmed with a bit of raw vegetation thrown in. Research suggests many of our Paleolithic ancestors were strong, healthy and opportunistic individuals who used a variety of raw and cooked plants and animals to survive. In summary, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."
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Comments
Yes I eat Paleo, and I eat quality meat and tons of fresh fruit and veg. It's a lifestyle and not just a way of eating though: good sleep, avoiding stress, exercise methodologies etc. I don't actually find it hard to eat out at all. I choose places to eat carefully as I don't want to eat junk food (regardless of whether i eat paleo or not), and then I ask questions about how the food was prepared, where it came from etc. If friends want to go out for pizza, I eat a salad because I choose not to eat grains and dairy. It's pretty simple really
Thanks for your feedback. You make some very good points. My sister adheres to the Paleo diet and has had great success with it. Like yourself, she focuses on good quality animal protein and lots of fresh vegetation. The only concern I have is that there are people who feel that the Paleo diet is about consuming a diet very high in meat with little thought to a balanced diet that includes plant matter. Fortunately it sounds like you have a very healthy approach to the Paleo diet (as many experts in the Paleo field do) but there are people who I believe have misunderstood the essense of the diet. I am glad you wrote in to clarify this very beneficial lifestyle.