Really, U.S. News? Really?

Recently, U.S. News & World Report ranked the top 20 of the diets currently circulating in the public consciousness, "with input from a panel of health experts." All of these diets are superior to the typical western diet, but they put the Paleo Diet down in the basement, at #20. I thought this odd, when I read of it (and so did the author of The Paleo Diet, Dr. Loren Cordain... you can read his response to the diet ranking here), so I hopped over to the U.S. News website and took a look, and found this blurb next to the Paleo Diet on their list:

Experts took issue with the Paleo diet on every measure. Regardless of what a dieter's goal is—weight loss, heart health, or finding a diet that's easy to follow—most experts concluded he or she is better off looking elsewhere.


Really, U.S. News? Really?

The weight loss (or, if we look at it from a more positive, accurate, health-oriented, and social-stigma-free perspective, body-composition change) of any diet is, for most people, dependent upon being coupled with an adequate level of physical activity. If you're intensely physically challenged by your vocation or everyday life, that's fine, but for most of us this need translates to our fitness program. Accepting this requirement, Paleo Diet success is plastered far and wide across the internet, and often ends with the most dramatic increase in fitness. Besides our Rhonda at QuantumFit, I'm not going to bother with links. Just Google "paleo diet success stories."

We all know that fat causes heart disease, right? Oh, wait... if you've been paying attention to anything I've written, linked to, or talked about for the past year, you know the science about this is not as sound as we've been led to believe. There are good fats and bad fats, and it comes as a total lack of surprise to me that those which have evidence to support their goodness are abundant in foods associated with the Paleo Diet (stearic acid, DHA, and EPA to name a few), and that fats known for their badness are limited or, in the case of the very bad trans-fat, absent entirely. Other than a higher intake of fats relative to low-fat diets, I'm not sure where the concern about heart health comes from here... no one I know of interprets the Paleo Diet as "eating buckets of lard."

Easy to follow? OK... I'll give them this one, from one perspective; changing habits is hard. If you've not been eating paleo, or close to it, if you love your Coke or Pepsi, this will be a real challenge. However, it's also one you need to take up (or some similar diet) because the crap you are eating is killing you. And, no one said you have to dive in all at once. Some people (like myself) do better with diving in, committing 100% to a dietary change. Others may do better adopting Paleo in stages... first lose the soda, then lose pre-processed foods, then start cutting back the grains... it's do-able.

From the perspective of what the diet requires, what constitutes it, I would argue it's the easiest to follow on their list. Diet #1, the DASH diet, lists two different sources to explain the premise of the diet in the "how does it work" section, and opens with the phrase "first, decide how much you want to read." By contrast, the Paleo Diet in this section neatly outlines the entire dietary model in one sentence, and opens with "Paleo diets are based on a simple premise." Could you read more about it? Sure... I read bucketsful of info on the Paleo Diet regularly. It all depends on how specific you want to get. However, the basic diet is a simple philosophy, and the beauty of it is, despite efforts to the contrary, it's hard to posit a valid argument that it's unhealthy. We may find, someday, that it's not actually optimal... but eating lean meats, veggies, nuts and seeds, avoiding processed foods? I've read rants about the dangers of the Paleo Diet which make it sound like we're suggesting people eat Snickers bars and drink gin all day. What is so dangerous about eating lean meat and veggies?

In fact, the U.S. News "Are There Health Risks" section on the Paleo Diet cautions that by shunning grains and dairy, we could be missing out on a lot of nutrients. As I've said before, there are no nutrients in grains and dairy which you cannot get in abundance in foods which are on the Paleo Diet. Technically, yes... if you cut all the non-Paleo foods from your diet and don't replace them with the quantity and variety of veggies, nuts, and fruits that you should be eating, you could end up malnutritioned. But, that's true of any diet.

I'm not qualified to say that the Paleo Diet is unequivocally, objectively the best diet for optimal human health. I advocate it because it is structurally simple, proven effective, and manifestly poses no inherent health dangers if you're following it properly. However, reading the U.S. News diet rankings, I think that the issues brought up in their review don't hold up well... sometimes in the light of statements made in other sections of their own article.

Most telling however is that the Paleo Diet has, in response to the question "Did this diet work for you?" which is posted below the blurb for each diet on the list, the most "Yes" votes and least "No" votes. Overwhelmingly.

Why There Are Better Choices Than Soybean Oil

Between various forms of usage, the people of the US consume over 12 billion pounds of soybean oil per year. That is an average of  33lbs per person, if you go with an estimated population of 375 million.

Clearly, we're growing and using quite a lot of soybeans.

Soy was once the golden child of health food marketing, but since then we've found out various ways in which it's not a particularly healthy choice. But, what about just the oil?

Well, my opinion is that it's best avoided, and here's why.

Firstly, soybean oil is usually hydrogenated. This is done to make it more palatable, and also more stable (giving it a longer shelf life). To simplify the process, hydrogen gas bubbles are passed through the oil and the hydrogen latches on to the fat molecules. The problem with hydrogenation is that it creates trans-fats. While you'll hear me extol the virtues fats almost anytime you get me talking about food, trans-fats are to be avoided because they stack against each other easily (making them the only fat likely to cause arterial blockage), and also because they're shaped like fats which perform vital bodily functions (so your body will try to use them as such), but are chemically unable to to do the job. Thus, essential nutritional needs go unmet, and your body keeps signaling that you need to take in more nutrients, leaving you hungry.

The demand for soybean oil has become great enough, and the awareness of trans-fats pervasive enough in the public consciousness, that in typical Big Agra fashion a type of soybean oil which does not "need" hydrogenation has been developed. Whether more genetically modified organisms introduced into our food supply is a good idea is probably a subject of debate for many who will read this (my opinion is, no, please stop frakking with our food), but for the purposes of this article we'll take it at face value: increasingly, hydrogenation of soybean oil won't be required (though the new GMO product hasn't come remotely close to fulfilling supply... presently, most soybean oil is still hydrogenated).

Is there anything else wrong with soybean oil? Again, the answer is "yes."

100g of soybean oil contains 7g of omega-3 fatty acids to 51g of omega-6: a ratio of 1:7. Flaxseed oil, in comparison, has an omega-3:omega-6 ratio of 3:1. Also, soybean oil is almost over 50% linoleic acid, a fatty acid which, in high doses, can potentially cause some problems

If you're going to eat out, or especially if you're eating anything processed or packaged, soybean oil is so prevalent that it's hard to avoid. However, if you're minding your diet, it's probably best to avoid it. There are plenty of alternative; olive oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, to name just a few.

Breast Cancer and the Paleo Diet

You can tell by this scientifically accurate representation of a typically happy
and sunny Paleolithic day, replete with smiling veggies and bone-in mammoth
roast, that even though she supported cure research Jane Ugg probably didn't
get breast cancer herself.  OK... but that last part is true.

This is National Womens' Health Week, and so I thought it would be a good time to address a few topics that are of particular concern to women. We'll start with breast cancer.

While it's true that men can develop breast cancer, it is overwhelmingly predominant in women: over 250,000 new cases were projected to be diagnosed last year in women, and fewer than 2000 cases in men.

I believe it it generally true that proper diet and good exercise promotes health, and that a Paleo diet model and functional fitness such as we do at QuantumFit are sound definitions of "proper" and "good," but there is a specific aspect to address here regarding breast cancer and, indeed, many cancers in general.

Cancer cells need sugar to grow. Part and parcel of the mutations which cause cells to become cancerous in the first place is the loss of their ability to make use of aerobic energy production... rather than prioritizing energy production via the mitochondria, priority is given to processes of cell division. In this state, the cell becomes totally dependent on glucose.

With this knowledge, some of the research being done and the conclusions drawn from it seems strange to me... for example, this article discusses the discovery part of the why and how by which cancer cells utilize glucose (the name of the molecule under discussion, "pyruvate kinase," essentially means "mover of pyruvate," which is the molecule glucose is broken down into during glycolysis), and goes on to suggest development of drugs to inhibit the production of this protein. What is not mentioned once in the article is what might happen if the patient stopped feeding the cancer glucose.

Similarly, this post at Mark's Daily Apple nicely addresses as study involving mice which was presented as evidence that dietary fat and cholesterol may raise the risk of breast cancer development, yet the western diet mice were eating (a) not real food and (b) a diet which was overwhelmingly sugar, not fat. And, sugar feeds cancer.

There is even research into a process called Insulin Potentiation Therapy, which exploits the hunger of cancer cells for sugar to increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs while also reducing the impact of those drugs on healthy cells. It should not be surprising that cancer cells have vastly more insulin receptors (they're screaming for glucose, and insulin brings it to them). But how much more effective would this therapy be if the patient already had, or was promoting, a higher degree of insulin sensitivity by maintaining a low-sugar/low-carb diet?

That sugar feeds cancer is not news... so why isn't it plastered everywhere? Why aren't there big billboards which say, "Cancer eats sugar, so you shouldn't?"

Let's be clear on this, again; your body does not require excess dietary sugar or carbs. There are only a few areas of the body which require glucose to operate, and your body can make the amounts that you actually need, all on its own. You'll get some sugars from eating ripe veggies and fruits, but you don't need to take in more than that.

If cancer has developed, will adopting a Paleo-type diet beat it? No, not on its own. But inhibiting the ability of the cancer to grow will certainly help. And, as a preventative measure, the Paleo diet makes your body an environment which is hostile to the development of most cancers in the first place, by depriving them of an opportunity to take hold.

Everyone's body produces cancerous cells on a regular basis, but the body has mechanisms in place to regulate and repair, so cancer as a disease never develops for most healthy individuals. But, if you've cultivated the perfect cancer-growth environment (eating lots of sugar), you increase the likelihood of the cancerous cells out-pacing the corrective actions. Yes, it's more complex than that, but it's a sound rule of thumb; avoid sugar, inhibit cancer. A fire can't burn if you take oxygen away, and cancer has a hard time growing if you take glucose away.

So, in this way, a Paleo diet will act as a preventative measure against breast cancer, and help inhibit its growth if developed, because it inherently is a low-sugar diet.

Once again, it comes back to this; eat real food. Avoid (or at least avoid an excess of) grains, dairy, legumes, and starchy items like white potatoes. Eat lean protein, healthy fats, plenty of vegetables, and some fruit. It is both amazing and (in hindsight) totally obvious that this will positively impact and help prevent the development of almost every disease linked to diet, from diabetes to cancer. But, I think given the prevalence of breast cancer, this scenic route to the blanket usefulness of adopting a Paleo-type diet was worth it.

Grill, Baby, Grill! (and a bit about Vitamin D)

So, so tasty! My mouth is watering just looking at this...

It's been rainy as hell (which would actually be pretty useful in hell, now I think about it...) Um... it's been rainy as Scotland the past couple of weeks, but it's warming up and the best days of spring and summer are just ahead! During the long months of winter it's vital that we take vitamin D, but now we're reaching the time of year when we Midwesterners can get it from the best natural source; the Sun. Or, speaking more accurately, we can use the Sun to make our body produce it's own vitamin D.

I'm certainly not saying “go spend all day in the sun.” However, if you ramp up your exposure periods over time, starting off with just 10 minutes or so in direct sunlight, and work up, your body will adapt and you'll be able to spend more and more time in the sun without burning. Obviously, if you're of a very fair complexion, adjust accordingly. You've lived in your body a long time and you know best how you respond to sun exposure. However, it's definitely true that it's far more effective for your body to produce vitamin D naturally than it is to ingest it, so make sure you get your butt outside and play when the weather is nice!


As a quick aside, there is some evidence to suggest that you should forgo using sunscreens, but if you have to spend a long period in the sun and haven't had an opportunity to build up your tan, as it were, it's probably preferable to occasionally wear sunscreen rather than get a nasty burn.

Speaking of getting outside to play... everyone owns a grill, right? No? Go buy a freakin' grill (I am vehemently on the side of charcoal, but if gas is your thing I won't judge you... to your face. :) ). Meat + Fire = Dinner is about as Paleo as it gets, so here's a simple, amazingly tasty method for grilling up some awesome chicken:

Ingredients

1 whole Chicken, w/ skin

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

(seriously, that's it)

Chicken Prep: is easy; cut out the backbone, and flatten it out. Coat it thoroughly with olive oil, then liberally sprinkle the salt and pepper.

Grill Prep: once your coals are ready, put them all on one side of the grill. If you have a gas grill, turn the burner on on one side only.

Place the chicken breast-up on the side of the grill away from the heat, and cover. Optionally, you can toss a piece of smokewood on the coals (or however you Philistines with gas grills do smoke) for some extra flavor.

Come back in 30-40 minutes to temp it, but it will usually take about an hour. It is super tasty, and the skin is one of the top ten flavors I've ever had in my mouth.


Enjoy!

Grass-Fed Beef: Healthy Meat, Happy Cows, Terrified Big Agra Biz

Our freezer full of the tasty, healthy side of grass-fed beef
(formerly known as Rocky) which we got from Mundt Farms.

It comes as no surprise to me that Fox "News" recently ran a piece extolling the virtues of conventionally raised beef. They have repeatedly and consistently shown their bias to be in favor of big business, and there aren't many businesses as big in this country as the production of our food, and the production of our drugs (and one system feeds the other, have no doubt about that). I will not deal directly with the segment of the John Stossel show in question, Paleo nutrition guru Robb Wolf does a fantastic job dissecting it here, and you should definitely take the time to divert away from this article and read it... fantastic stuff. In full disclosure, unlike Robb I'm pretty convinced about the issue of human carbon production, the folly of fossil fuels, and lean further to the left politically, but the man is absolutely dead-on in this article, and in the belief that we all need to take our health in our own hands and start making better choices (and, thus, votes) with our money. One of the most effective votes you can cast is choosing grass-fed beef.

One thing mentioned in the report that is usually true is that grass-fed beef is a higher per-pound cost for the end consumer (normally, I don't like using that word to describe humans, but in this case it's literally true). In my personal experience, it's not twice as expensive, but it is more costly. I think this is partly a cost of "boutique" demand; those who are aware of the value in health and environmental impact are willing to pay more for quality, and are currently enough in the minority that the prices can stay high. The far bigger issue is the fact that it's not a part of the established mainstream food system in this country, which makes it much more costly... if all those corn subsidies (which, as Robb pointed out, are basically welfare for huge industry) were redirected into growing vegetables and raising grass-fed beef it'd get much, much cheaper.  I'm OK with tax money going into reducing the cost to our citizenry of life essentials like food if it's actually supporting the health of citizens.

Luckily, there is a way to mitigate the higher cost of buying grass-fed beef somewhat; buy in bulk.

We recently bought a side of beef from our friends at Mundt Farms, and offered to split that among some friends. We ended up keeping about 1/2 of the side. Based on the cuts they chose, our friends who shared in paid an average price-per-pound ranging from $5.31 to $7.50.  Here's a more specific breakdown for the meat Darren and I kept, along with the cost of the same cuts from our local supermarket:

Cut of Beef	Our Grass-Fed Cost	Kroger's Corn-Fed Cost
Ground Beef (90% lean)	$4.75	$3.94
Chuck Roast	$5.50	$4.79
Ribeye Steak	$11.00	$10.99
Sirloin Steak	$9.00	$7.99
NY Strip Steak	$15.00	$11.99
Soup Bones	$3.00	$1.69
Liver	$3.00	$2.49
Heart	$3.00	N/A
Tongue	$3.00	N/A

And, those are the prices for the beef which is marketed with no claims to specialness... in other words, their labels say nothing about being all-natural, hormone-free, pastured, etc. Given the very lean nature of grass-fed beef, I used the 90% lean ground beef as a comparison.

Start looking at the special stuff (in the case of Kroger, "Laura's Lean Beef," raised without anti-biotics and without added hormones), and look at what happens to the prices: ground beef becomes $5.07/lb, more expensive than the grass-fed ground beef, acquired from the farmer who we know personally and know definitively isn't doing the absolute minimum by FDA/USDA requirements to qualify for a claim on a label, but is actually raising his cattle in a sustainable way and feeding them properly.

On a quick tangent, the liver is potentially packed with nutrients, but let's face it... it's also a filter. If the animal whose liver you're eating has been eating exactly the wrong stuff and said liver has had to filter loads of toxins and is full of bad fats, guess what... it's in your food too. We ate a bit of Rocky's liver the other night, and it was far and away the sweetest (in the literal sense of the sensation of taste), best tasting liver we've ever had. Why? It was a healthy liver from a healthy animal. 

So, keeping this in mind when comparing the slightly-more-expensive grass-fed liver to the cost of conventionally-raised liver, right next to it in the supermarket was calf liver, for $4.29/lb. I don't know if people really will just pay more for the word "calf," but if there's any aspect of flavor superiority (I have no personal experience of it), I would bet it might be because the animal was slaughtered sooner in it's life, and so the degradation of the liver did not go as far. That's just my guess, but it seems logical to me... I mean, it's not like it will be more tender because it's been exercised less, in the manner of skeletal muscle.

And, of course, Kroger doesn't carry beef heart or tongue at all, and by all that is good and right in the world, if you haven't tried beef tongue you must do so. It is so tender and flavorful... I just had some of the best I've ever had last week and I am now salivating just writing about it and remembering the meal. Seriously, holy crap... try beef tongue! (I like it in tacos)

If I were to go out to the farmer's markets around town, the grass-fed prices are usually higher still... so, we definitely saved some buying the side. Beyond these immediately apparent comparisons in price, though, consider the following...

• Grass-fed beef is much more nutritionally dense, and better for you (if you're still doubting this thanks to the debatably wise words of Dr. Capper, spend some more time reading Robb Wolf, or indeed, just Google for a bit).
• Grass-fed beef is, when the whole system is considered, more environmentally friendly and sustainable.
• It is inherent in choosing grass-fed beef over conventional beef that big corn production (tied to many other problems in our food supply) is not supported.
• The cattle are healthier and enjoy a superior quality of life, insofar as can be told from behavior, and enjoy a much stronger similarity to what would be their natural environment were they wild animals (minus the predators, which has to make for added happiness, right?).

That last may have no meaning to some, but I for one feel better about eating an animal which has been bred for the sole purpose of being my food source if I know that the time it spent maturing into dinner wasn't a nightmarish experience.

I'm partial to Mundt Farms, partly because they're friends, partly because their prices are good, and partly because Rocky has been so tasty thus far. However, there are a lot of choices in Indiana for getting your hands on a side of grass-fed beef:

Royer Farm Fresh Beef

Seven Sons Farms

Apple Family Farm

Brothers Beef

This is not an exhaustive list, by any means, but it will get you started!

Also, if you don't have a deep-freeze to store it, just hop on Craigslist... we got ours for $130, and I saw some (which had already sold) for as low as $40 which the sellers claimed were in good working order. Caveat emptor, of course, but I'm sure a freezer in good condition could easily be had for less than we paid.

So, buy a few less coffees per month (or, depending on your habit, week) at Starbucks, drop part of your cable TV package (you need to get out and be active more anyway), take other small steps to make it financially viable, and invest in some high-quality protein. Your body, the cattle, and Mother Earth will thank you.

Cavepersons at the Drive-Up Window

Let me be clear; given the opportunity to eat good food (organically grown, fresh, ripe, etc.), any kind of fast food is a crappy choice. With few exceptions, and certainly none I can think of at any of the huge chain fast-food places, the food is sourced from our industrial agriculture system, where the beef is grain fed and chock-full-o'-antibiotics, the produce is grown halfway around the globe and forced into ripeness chemically, and the omega-3 / omega-6 fatty acid ratio is off-the-scale and in the wrong direction.

However, it is conceivable that we may sometimes be stuck for options. I remember vividly (during my previous life as an event production guy, or "roadie") doing a tiny crap event in Texas for a gaming client. I had to drive hours from Houston to get there, as that was the nearest airport, and not even the Interstate highways went anywhere near it. To this day I have no idea why we set up at the event (the event in question was some kind of local festival, and it involved killing lots of snakes. Don't ask, I don't know).

The only restaurants in town were McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Dairy Queen. That's it.  There was a grocery store, but I had no facility for preparing food at my motel. Now, at this point in my life I wasn't as concerned about nutrition as I am now, but I still tried to eat what I thought of at the time as "well," and these choices were definitely not on the list.  Now that I'm concerned with what I eat, I'm actually less depressed when they are, for whatever reason, the best or only options (though, thankfully, those kinds of situations almost never arise now).

If I were to be dropped into Freer, TX again I would order the side salads from McDonald's, get a Double Quarter Pounder (without cheese) and hold the bun, thanks. I would get water to drink (the little cup of free water, from the fountain machine, which you can refill as much as you want). I would get the buffet at Pizza Hut, get a few slices of "with everything," and just eat the toppings, along with a salad.

I would eat similarly at Dairy Queen as I would at McDonald's... though, I would probably still get a small ice cream cone, dipped in butterscotch. It's attached to some great childhood memories. Sue me. :-)

The point here is, you can still eat pretty well within the strictures of the Paleo diet, even at fast-food joints. The quality of the food might not be great, and certainly not as high as you'll have preparing your own meals, but avoiding grains and other starchy carbs, dairy, and legumes is pretty do-able.

At Taco Bell, you can get a couple of chicken soft tacos, and just eat the guts out of them, leaving the tortilla. At Subway, you can get all the stuff you'd get on a sandwich done as a spinach salad, dressed with salt, pepper, and olive oil. At any burger joint or sandwich shop, you can always have them hold the bun... and if they give you the confused, blank response I got at a McDonald's one day, you can toss the bun out somewhere for birds to snack on after you get your meal. And, these places almost all have a side-salad option of some kind, now.

Faced with the prospect of eating out, especially at a fast-food restaurant, we see nothing but what look like poor options, nothing healthy, and the temptation is strong to just go ahead and order a burger and fries because there're no better choices. But, that just isn't the case... it's always possible to make some adjustments to bring your meal more in line with your paleo plans.  Doing so at a traditional restaurant is even easier; get the veggies as a side dish, order an entrée that isn't covered in a sugary sauce, ignore the basket of rolls they bring to the table before you order. No sweat.

So, remember this post the next time you're shouting into that crappy little intercom...

Gluten Sucks

I was sent this article by our athlete Sara O. (who also happens to be a biologist) which is a pretty good introductory article on why gluten should be avoided.

Dr. Ansel started to lose me around page 2, and really at the beginning of page 3, with the the successive claims that cutting gluten from your diet wouldn't necessarily lead to weight loss, and then citing a cautionary example of a replacement food which had more calories and more fat.

You can immediately see my issues... firstly, consuming fat is not bad, providing you're getting the right kinds. Secondly, the food cited (gluten free pretzels) is problematic because it's not a food I'd recommend anyone eating on the basis that it's going to be all carbohydrate. This, really, is why gluten-free eating will probably lead to weight loss (presuming you're overweight to begin with)... avoiding gluten (and eating whole foods) leads one away from grains and grain products, and processed foods. Even if you're not making any specific effort to do so, you will very likely reduce your carbohydrate intake just by trying to cut gluten.

Then, she makes the important point that the key to this, and this is really the point of everything I'll ever tell you about nutrition, is that you have to eat real food. 

Yes, if you just go and grab packaged and processed crap off the shelves at the market which bears the label "gluten-free" it is as much of a dietary Lotto play as grabbing the crap without that label in terms of your overall health (and has about the same odds as winning the lottery of bringing you to your best ever health, probably).

But, if in the process of cutting gluten out of your diet, you plan your meals and eat lean meats, a variety of veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds... well, then you're well on your way to health and wellness.

OK, so after my $0.02 worth, here's the article (originally published in Woman's Day magazine):
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/is-gluten-bad-for-you.html