43 replies to this topic

[xec]

"It's good to point out that grains and soy aren't edible in nature
without processing and so it's safe to assume we haven't eaten them for
millions of years. Only since the advent of agriculture we started to
rely on grains for our food supply. That was a huge mistake. There are
several reasons why grains and soy are bad:

Grains are in fact a large supply of starch, surrounded by a kernel.
Starch decomposes (digests) into maltose and isomaltose in the
intestines, which then decompose into glucose. You can look at it this
way. When you take a slice of bread and crush it in your hand, you are
virtually eating that amount of refined sugar. The problem is that that
amount of sugar elevates the bloodsugar levels amazingly fast and
causes your pancreas to produce lots and lots of insulin to metabolise
it. Humans are not adapted to eat such amounts of concentrated
carbohydrates and the pancreas (and adrenals) aren't fit to the job.
Over time one will develop insulin resistance, hypoglycemia, diabetes
II. Another problem is that the immune system crashes when your
bloodsugar levels increases to high levels. It takes *hours* for the
the immune system to recover fully.

Another problem with refined grains is that it's void of minerals and
vitamins, which are needed to properly digest and metabolise the huge
amount of starch. So, each time you eat a slice of bread, your body
needs to take minerals and vitamins from its limited stores to digest
and metabolise it. Over time, you will develop deficincies of these
vitamines and minerals.

You could eat the grains unrefined, but then a lot of antinutrients
will remain. Antinutrients are substances that bind to essential
vitamins and minerals, making them worthless or impossible to absorb
from the digestive tract.

So, either way, refined or unrefined, grains will cause problems..

Further, many grains contain a lot of allergens which upset your immune
system and causes the development of allergies. Imagine this: Humans
have never in their evolution of millions of years eaten grains and
now, since only 4.000-10.000 years ago, we are relying on this food.
Our genes aren't adapted to these foods. Grains are in fact
incompatible with humans (and also dogs and cats and many mammals)...

Soy beans aren't edible raw and they are full of antinutrients and
substances that act like hormones in the human body. Eating soy can
cause women to have menstruations that last 2 days longer than normal
and are way more painfull.

Another problems with grains and soy bean it that they can't be eaten
raw, which only allows us to eat them cooked. Cooking essentially
damages all foods. The more you eat raw, the better you will feel..

I forgot perhaps the most important reason why grains are bad: They are
very hard to digest properly. As I said above, they need to be digested
in two phases.. First, the starches, which are very long chains of
carbohydrate molecules, must be seperated into small pieces consisting
of 2 glucose molecules. This is called maltose (or isomaltose). Next,
the intestines need to produce enough enzymes (maltase) to digest the
maltose into the elemental glucose molecules. As you see, quite a lot
of work.. The problem is that the human body isn't fit for this job and
a part of the starch isn't absorbed and descends into the large
intestines, feeding critters, causing inflammation, gasses, damage to
the wall of the intestines, and other problems.

Compare this to fruit and honey, which are predigested foods. They
primarily contain glucose and fructose, which don't need to be digested
at all and can be absorbed painlessly by the intestines. Because
everything is easily absorbed it can't feed the critters..

I bet there are even a dozen more reasons why grains and soy are bad
but I think these are the most important..

As for the problem of not getting enough carbs: No such problem exists.
Carbohydrates are optional. You can survive and feel perfectly healthy
on a zero-carbohydrate diet.. Look at the Eskimo's who virtually eat
zero carbohydrates and look at the thousands of people eating according
to a low-carbohydrate diet.. They are a *lot* healthier than people
eating their grains each day."

for carbs eat low starch vegetables...if we all stopped eating grains and dairy and soy then the USA would no longer be the leader in heart disease, diabetes ect...

the path to clear skin is instilled in the food you eat! Every food product you eat has a different response in your body, everytime you reach for that bread you are destroying your insides....jeeeez why is it so hard for people to realize...the government and 'doctor's are liars, if you eat from the food pyramid its a clear path to chronic diease and inflammation of the skin

[notadoctor]

I have been on the Paleo Diet for 2 months and 2 weeks now and have seen a lot of improvement. I have been getting the newsletter for the Dietary Cure For Acne, Ill quote it and paste because it pertains to this.

Dear _____,



A new study on the relationship between diet and acne is about to be published, Dr. Cordain has written a paper on the topic, and I have a couple reader emails that you may be interested to read.



Recent studies on Diet and Acne



In May of 2006, Harvard researchers published a study titled Milk consumption and acne in adolescent girls. That study included 6,094 girls, aged 9-15 years, who reported dietary intake on up to three food frequency questionnaires for three years. The researchers found a positive association between intake of milk and acne.



Now just one year later, a new study is now about to be published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology: The effect of a high-protein, low glycemic-load diet on biochemical parameters associated with acne vulgaris: A randomized, investigator-masked, controlled trial. In this study, 43 male patients completed a 12-week dietary intervention study, eating a "low glycemic load" diet, also higher in protein. Dramatic before and after pictures illustrate the conclusions of the study suggesting that nutrition-related factors do play a role in acne pathogenesis.



Not only was total acne lesion count significantly reduced, but circulating androgen levels were reduced and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1 (IGFBP-1) was increased. As you know from page 41 of The Dietary Cure for Acne, increased androgen levels directly stimulate overproduction of oil from the sebaceous gland.



IBFBP-1 binds IGF-1, making it less available, a good thing. On page 49 we discuss how increased IGF-1 may stimulate overproduction of skin cells, ultimately leading to pore blockage.



So this is the first modern study to show that diet underlies acne. The participants in the above study ate a diet with a higher protein level and a lower glycemic load, and showed significant improvement. They did however eat dairy, pasta, and other foods that likely had a negative effect. It will be very interesting to see how these results may improve in future studies that incorporate all of the recommendations from The Dietary Cure for Acne.





Dietary Implications for the Development of Acne: A Shifting Paradigm



The dermatology textbooks still teach that diet and acne are unrelated, but that myth will soon be dissolving. Dr. Cordain recently wrote a paper in U.S. Dermatology Review (available at www.ThePaleoDiet.com/published_research/), Dietary Implications for the Development of Acne: A Shifting Paradigm, which discusses the recent studies and new findings.



Reader's Stories

Acne is the result of both genetics and environment. There are some who can eat whatever they like and not get acne; others may be extremely sensitive to certain foods. Here are a couple emails that came in recently which can give you a feel for the different ways people respond:



Hi Wiley,



I'm not sure what happened but my acne is gone. It such a dramatic effect that I'm wondering if it's not just that I've come to the age where my hormones are settling down. I'm 23.



At first I was strictly avoiding most if not all foods that had a high glycemic load. This included bread, potatoes, rice and other such foods. I have also been taking fish oil supplements along with Zinc 50 mg, Vitamin E 400 IUs, and probiotics everyday.



Now that my acne is basically gone, I have been adding some of those high glycemic load foods back into my diet. So now I am eating bread, brown rice, some butter, olive oil, potatoes occasionally although I prefer rice, pasta very occasionally and some beer and wine. I haven't noticed really any effect.



One thing that I have continued to do is to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I'm eating about 3 apples and 2 kiwis everyday as well as at least one big salad with tons of stuff in it. I feel like I'm really getting all the vitamins and minerals I need now. And I can't help but wonder that maybe acne might be related somehow to vitamin and mineral deficiency.



Oliver



Oliver may be correct about his particular situation, as we discuss zinc and vitamin D in the book. Here's another very interesting story from someone who had greater challenges:


Hi, Wiley!


I have only now gotten to a place that is pretty stable with my acne. I worked very hard from the day I received the e-book. And I had stayed on the Paleo Diet for months at a time in the recent past, and it had not worked. This time I did exactly as recommended, for about four weeks.



Results:
My skin improved, but I still had "random" breakouts. I found that I kept eating more and more fruit and was hungry and craving most of the day, in spite of eating plenty of lean meats. I was also still constipated most of the time.

I could have tolerated all this for a while if my skin had cleared up completely. So, what I did was eliminate more and more, using the clues in the Acne book. The simplest thing was to get down to meat and water.

On meat and water, I found that I STILL had acne IF I ate too much protein and too little animal fat. (I had breakouts if I used canola or olive oil, so I went with just the animal fat. I know Loren advises against saturated fat, but this is what it took to reliably clear up.) So for about three months, I have been eating fatter meat, fish, poultry. As long as I ate at least 60% fat, with 40% protein, and no carbs at all, no breakouts.

I found that I am definitely allergic to eggs and have severe breakouts from them. I tried fat dairy, and sure enough, as Loren says, bad acne. Salt also causes edema and breakouts. Oh, and a multivitamin with soy was the WORST. At least with Loren's book, I could easily narrow down the options and find the culprits. This is phenomenal, considering I have been trying to solve this problem for about four years!

In the last week or so, I have been adding back non-starchy veggies. So far, very good! So here is what I am doing now that is working: Moderately fat meat, poultry, fish (all wild, pastured, or grassfed, and usually the red meat is quite rare); cooked non-starchy veggies (no legumes); a clean multivitamin (no grain, legumes, dairy, yeast, etc.); a teaspoon a day of fish oil. That's it. I MAY try some spices again, but I did have breakouts from black and red peppers. I may try adding some fruit back, but I'm in no hurry, since the sugar apparently affects me adversely.

What I had to eliminate to get here was: grains, legumes, dairy, salt, potatoes, all the rest of the supplements I was taking, vegetable oils (yes, even the ones Loren recommends), coconut products, additives (MSG, etc.), coffees and teas (even herbal and decaf), all spices and all sweeteners. I had eliminated many of these in the past, just never all of them at once. The book is what helped me see what I needed to do--that I'd have to get them all out to get the desired result. I'm pretty sure every single one of these is a problem for me.

Not only is the acne cleared up, the constipation is gone, my joints are not so easily inflamed, my energy and endurance are very good, and I able to do both high-intensity interval training and resistance workouts, along with long walks every day.

I am 55 years old, and maybe, finally, I can have an acne-free face. I will try to report again if anything major changes. I am especially interested to see my lipid profiles, since I am eating the saturated fat instead of the veggie oils.

Thanks for everything!


Julia



So we're all different. Use The Dietary Cure for Acne as your guide, but then listen to your body, and figure out exactly what works for you. Please let me know how things are working for you, and if you have any questions.

Best regards,



Wiley Long

www.DietaryAcneCure.com

Paleo Diet Enterprises LLC

2261 Shawnee Ct, Suite 101
Fort Collins, CO
80525
US

[xec]

Thank you for also posting that article, as I stated before if one no longer consumes grains, dairy, soy, and refined sugars chronic disease will be cured 90% of the time

Low GI foods, low starch veggies, healthy facts (coconut oil, olive oil, fish oil) lean white meat (chicken + turkey) is the key to success in the health of your body

[-lxl-]

i eat rice every single day... clear on the face

[Marrakech]

I think the topic should focus on avoiding refined grains. Grains can be good for you too, as your body NEEDS carbs to live, you might have to eat 3 servings on veggies to equal 2 slices of bread for the carb value. Other grains such as barley, are very beneficial for moviing waste out of your intestines.

[xec]

i eat rice every single day... clear on the face

but not on the inside

I think the topic should focus on avoiding refined grains. Grains can be good for you too, as your body NEEDS carbs to live, you might have to eat 3 servings on veggies to equal 2 slices of bread for the carb value. Other grains such as barley, are very beneficial for moviing waste out of your intestines.

the body cannot digest grains, it causes insulin imbalance and pro inflammatory response

you dont need as much carbs as you think, green vegetables are a sustainable carb source, and it all gets absorbed and used properly by the body

[Cyph31]

i agree with the OP but he's forgetting something

fruits and veggies are mostly moisture and fiber and nutrients, any macronutrients that exist are probably a small % of carbs or protein (unless you eating something starchy like beans or bananas)

this means you can eat a decent serving of those and not have much room left for what will actually fuel your body, such as fish/chicken

unless you eat 5-6 small meals each day you will run into this problem very fast, i have and have unfortunately (i do NOT want to lose weight) lost 15 lbs in the past 5-6 months by pretty much replacing most of my grains with veggies/legumes

and when you have to eat that many meals a day it is goddamn frustrating to say the least

every damn diet guide i read (even from places like whfoods.com a very informative site) says "the majority of your plate should consist of veggies or other nutrient dense whole foods" which they then forget to mention that an hour after that meal you will be bloody starving once your body processes through that fiber and water of those veggies and finds nothing to keep you going

i WANT to maintain muscle and i WANT to reduce inflammation but filliing myself up with fiber and water is not going to do it

i go to nutritiondata.com and just put in various whole food vegetable names and see how much calories are in a serving of those veggies, and i just shake my head in sadness because i can't imagine the mountains of them i will have to consume at every meal to look like something more than a thin weak person

[xec]

TRUE - you need a giant slab of lean natural chicken or turkey to each meal four times a day, morning, mid-day, afternoon, and late evening. Also make sure you are chewing properly and very slowly the meat and veggies (which you should have plenty of on the side of your dish). You will be full longer.

[Qdogg]

what about all the asians who eat rice everyday?

[xec]

What about them?

[Case N]

What about them?

Way to skirt the question

[Adam82]

A person's lifestyle dicates what kind of diet is sustainable. If you're sitting in front of a computer all day, by all means go grain free, Paleo Atkins, whatever..it's all basically the same. This worked really well for me right after my knee surgery because my caloric needs were really low. After returning to basketball and weightlifting, it's impossible for me to get through the day without some rice or grains or else I drop weight fast. You can increase your insulin sensitivity by dedicated weightlifting whcih is better for you in the long run than giving up grains. As far as digestability goes, just properly prepare your grains. Soak rice, oats whatever. It's not that hard.

The problem with these diets and their advertisers is that they are sorely shortsighted. Yeah, maybe we are eating too many carbs, but the problem is more likely the lack of activity nowadays. People used to walk, have physical jobs, didn't have computers to do everything for them. Grains probably aren't the problem, it's the lack of activity. If you are truly active, most likely you'll find it hard to exist without grains. That's a good thing.

[h20]

Cyph is right. These diets in theory are very good, but alot of people lead busy lives, alot of men and women like to also maintain a healthy strong physique, and personally this diet is very good for those who need to lose weight, or do not do any form of exercise.
That being said, i think sweet potato, dried fruits and beans such as lentils, kidney butter beans can be tolerated by most people without a problem. One must also remember that alot of the time these diets advocate taking in high fats to replace the carbs, and generally they reccomend nuts such as almonds which are very high in omega 6 content, and that alone can cause some very troublesome skin.

[notadoctor]

Thank you for also posting that article, as I stated before if one no longer consumes grains, dairy, soy, and refined sugars chronic disease will be cured 90% of the time

Low GI foods, low starch veggies, healthy facts (coconut oil, olive oil, fish oil) lean white meat (chicken + turkey) is the key to success in the health of your body

I really don't think that red meat is bad for you. It has much more zinc than other meats (aside from oysters) and can actually be very lean if you get certain cuts, if you are worried about saturated fat. Grass-fed beef is pretty much an ideal meat if you can find it. It has plenty of vitamins and minerals, a very good source of Vitamin E and Selenium on top of all of the nutrients that corn fed beef has. It also has a much healthier ratio of fats. I think really that there is not a type of meat that is really bad for you. Bacon or some other really fatty meat from an animal that is grain fed might cause problems, but most meat is pretty damn good for you.

A person's lifestyle dicates what kind of diet is sustainable. If you're sitting in front of a computer all day, by all means go grain free, Paleo Atkins, whatever..it's all basically the same. This worked really well for me right after my knee surgery because my caloric needs were really low. After returning to basketball and weightlifting, it's impossible for me to get through the day without some rice or grains or else I drop weight fast. You can increase your insulin sensitivity by dedicated weightlifting whcih is better for you in the long run than giving up grains. As far as digestability goes, just properly prepare your grains. Soak rice, oats whatever. It's not that hard.

The problem with these diets and their advertisers is that they are sorely shortsighted. Yeah, maybe we are eating too many carbs, but the problem is more likely the lack of activity nowadays. People used to walk, have physical jobs, didn't have computers to do everything for them. Grains probably aren't the problem, it's the lack of activity. If you are truly active, most likely you'll find it hard to exist without grains. That's a good thing.

I have been eating Paleo for 2 months and 2 weeks and I run 5 miles a day, lift weights, and play basketball 3+ days a week. Most people don't understand that protein actually has calories and so does fat. Carbs are not the only source of energy. Fat has 9 times the amount of energy gram for gram. Your body also can convert the protein and fat into glucose. After about 3 weeks the body completely adapts to less carbs and you actually can exercise much more. For the first few weeks on the Paleo Diet my muscles felt really tired, but then I started feeling incredible. My mood was much better after the 2nd day, but my muscles took a while longer.

I do agree that exercise is lacking in most people nowadays, but you definitely don't need grains if you exercise.

The whole idea behind avoiding grains is that people have not evolved to properly utilize grains in their diet. People have lived without grains in their diet forever up until 10,000 years ago, and even then most people on earth did not have grains in their diet until even more recently. If our ancestors could live without grains and exercise way more than any of us do now, I think we can too.

[xec]

^ notadoctor, thank you for sharing my opinion, i agree with you 100% and the people who do not agree have either not tried avoiding the 'evil' foods long enough, do not have enough discipline or are too lazy to try it, or are still brainwashed by the food pyramid (LOL)

I have so much more energy after replacing my carb choices of grains and potatoes with low starch veggies

the problem with red meat is the high content of arachidonic acid which creates a huge pro inflammatory response which is very bad for acne sufferers =(

interestingly, white meat has less of it

[alternativista]

For the love of everyone...PLEASE STOP EATING GRAINS!!???

Wow, that's extreme.

"It's good to point out that grains and soy aren't edible in nature
without processing and so it's safe to assume we haven't eaten them for
millions of years. Only since the advent of agriculture we started to
rely on grains for our food supply. That was a huge mistake. There are
several reasons why grains and soy are bad:

I'm not disputing that the western diet contains way too much in the way of refined grains. But the only part of the above that's true is that we haven't eaten them for millions (plural) of years. Because we haven't existed for millions of years. And the ancestors that did exist then, lived in the tropics and and ate primarily fruit, as our all of our relatives still do. We were herbivores for the vast majority of our evolution. Meat eating is relatively new. Of the five species in our family, humans and chimps are the only ones that hunt and kill other animals for food.

Our ancestors then spread out in different directions and climates and ate whatever they could find, adapting to a variety of diets. There is no such thing as 'The' paleo diet.

Here's an article excerpt for you:

Remains of plant foods at Paleolithic sites include seeds, berries, roots, leaves and bulbs. Sunflower seeds, prickly pear seeds, amaranth seeds and limber pine seeds have been found at Rocky Mountain sites. Various types of nuts were consumed by primitives in the Americas and on the European continent. The amount of plant food in the cave man diet varied according to the climate and locality. Obviously plant foods were minimal in the diets of those in arctic climates, but played a large role in tropical regions. Nuts, of course, provided additional fat. The pecan, consumed in large quantities by the Indians of the Southeast, contains 85% of calories as fat. In tropical regions, palm nuts and coconuts provide large quantities of saturated fats.

Present day hunter-gatherers employ special preparation methods for carbohydrate-rich foods. Acorns, for example, are soaked in water and lye to remove tannins; tubers are buried in the ground, pounded or cooked in hearth ashes; seeds are soaked, pounded and allowed to ferment in various ways. It is safe to assume that the ancient hunter-gatherers employed similar techniques to neutralize the many enzyme inhibitors, irritants and mineral blocking substances found in tubers and seeds.

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_di...an_cuisine.html

Grains, legumes and nuts are all seeds. And they were eaten long before the advent of agriculture. They figured out agriculture by observing that the seeds they dropped started to grow around their camps. And many thousands of years were spent with minor agriculture in combination with hunting and gathering before any full time agricultural societies developed.

It's interesting that she mentions pecans in the article above, because here in Texas there are sites that anthropologists have determined that nomadic bands visited annually coinciding with the pecan harvest. They wouldn't have done that if pecans weren't a vital part of their diet. And in Big Bend, there are sites with bowl-shaped holes carved into the rock were people soaked or cooked their food.

Also it's not true that we haven't adapted to these newer foods. We adapted to eating meat, didn't we? And we aren't all lactose intolerant.

[doktrin]

Only since the advent of agriculture we started to
rely on grains for our food supply. That was a huge mistake.

To put the "huge mistake" in perspective - if we as a species had never begun consuming grains not one of us would be alive to have this discussion today.

...if we all stopped eating grains and dairy and soy then the USA would no longer be the leader in heart disease, diabetes ect...

I doubt its that simple. Japan is the oft-cited example of longevity in the developed world and they consume very high quantities of refined grains.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two questions :

1. Does the 'paleo' diet modify the recommended caloric intake - cause its damn hard for me to get 4000 calories a day off meat and veggies.

2. Since you're making this a blanket recommendation for 'everyone' - do you have a plan of action that would (minimally) feed 6 billion people without any grains whatsoever?

Not to be a dick, but I'm trying to figure out how this diet could practically work - both for those of us who have the luxury of giving it a go and those who don't.

[incubus4284]

There are tons of ppl who can eat grains and not have skin problems or anything. Heck rice is considered a grain is rated pretty high in terms of glycemic load yet ppl in china live long as hell. How do you explain that high rate of disease there. On top of that humans are pretty capable of eating grains that is why your saliva contains an enzyme called amylase which is used to break down starch and if you listen to your momma you would learn to chew your food better so you wouldnt have all that starch breaking down in your instestines same goes for any food.

As for carbs being optional, its the main source of energy for your body. Thats why its good for diabetics to carry around candy bars with them just in case they beome hypoglycemic and may end up dead. Carbs are also the most efficient way your body can take in energy, eatin protein requires energy to be converted into something your body can use thats y ppl use atkins diet. Only reasons why our body cant take a huge load of sugar is not because of our bodies but its because some of us are fat asses and eat too much of it. I mean a serving size of oreos is 2 cookies and it gives you around 400 calories so if you dont wanna get diabetes then eat only 2 cookies. The same went for the lawsuit against McDonalds, its not their fault your a fat ass and keep eating their food, they even suggest that you eat only one serving instead of ordering 3 double cheese burgers for lunch

[Mike@UOC]

I stopped eating grains and dairy this week, and now I'm eating considerably more meat and veggies than I ever did.
My weight is rock solid... I shall do well on this diet.

Mix your meat up... beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, ham,
mix your veggies and fruits... lettuce, spinach, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, apples, oranges, kiwi, banana etc.
mix your nuts and seeds... almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds

and you got a supercharged diet which with exercise will make you lean, mean strong, and probably clear of acne.



Organic if you can get it.. but above all, freshnes is the key.

[alternativista]

Only since the advent of agriculture we started to
rely on grains for our food supply. That was a huge mistake.

To put the "huge mistake" in perspective - if we as a species had never begun consuming grains not one of us would be alive to have this discussion today.

...if we all stopped eating grains and dairy and soy then the USA would no longer be the leader in heart disease, diabetes ect...

I doubt its that simple. Japan is the oft-cited example of longevity in the developed world and they consume very high quantities of refined grains.

Yes. The problem with grains is not that we haven't been eating them for millions of years. It's what we've been doing with them for the past 50 years or so.

And by we, I mean we Americans and others with similar diets. It's a big planet with a lot of different cultures and dietary habits. And there are plenty of grain eating peoples out there without high incidences of heart disease.