Paleo Diet: Cave menu
Paleo dinner
Kolacja w stylu paleo
Menu z jaskiniMarta Zaraska, "Polityka", Poland
Translation: ИноСМИ.RuAmerica is obsessed with the topic of paleo diet: at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the shelves of bookstores were filled with cookbooks with recipes for caveman cuisine and reference books on how to live in the Paleolithic style.
There are even iPhone apps that help to adhere to the ancient diet, and restaurants offering "paleopitsa" and "paleomaffins" have opened in New York and San Diego. Dishes in the style of the Stone Age can be tasted even near us: in Berlin, since 2011, they have been offered by the Sauvage restaurant. Hollywood stars – Megan Fox, Uma Thurman, Matthew McConaughey – are also said to be switching to the paleo diet.
In Poland, this fashion is just beginning to win fans, but we already have books with the titles "Lose extra pounds, improve your shape, defeat diseases" or "The Stone Age diet for athletes".
The era continuesThe principle is simple: if our ancestors who lived in the Paleolithic era (2.6 million – 8000 years BC) did not eat something, we should not use it either.
That is, "yes" to meat, fish, eggs, honey, nuts, mushrooms, fruits and vegetables, "no" to all dairy and cereal products (including whole grains), potatoes, salt, sugar and legumes. The creator of the diet, Professor Loren Cordain from the University of Colorado, believes that from a genetic point of view, man has remained in the Stone Age. In his opinion, the ten thousand years that have passed since humanity began farming are too short a time for our body to get used to a new diet. We have evolved for many millennia, eating mainly meat, vegetables and fruits, so our digestive system works best when we eat these foods. According to Kordein, the sudden (from the point of view of evolution) introduction of new products into the menu had a negative impact on our health. Since evolution has not adapted us to the digestion of cereals or dairy products, their overabundance on our tables leads to diseases of civilization: diabetes, obesity, cardiological problems. Although Cordain has become the most famous popularizer of the caveman menu now, this idea appeared already in the 80s: scientists from Emory University in Atlanta, Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner, proved the benefits of the diet of ancient ancestors. They calculated that in the Stone Age, the human diet consisted of 34% protein, 45% carbohydrates and 21% fat. For comparison, the modern diet of Poles has much less protein (18.2%), about the same amount of carbohydrates (46%) and more fat (32%).
Our cave ancestors, compared with the modern inhabitants of Poland, consumed three times more fiber and five times more vitamin C. Their food, as Cordain, Eaton and Conner prove, contained the optimal (from the point of view of the evolution of our body) amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6, potassium and sodium, and also had a low glycemic index. As proof of their theses, scientists cite the results of studies that have shown that compliance with the paleo diet not only helps to lose weight, but also contributes to the normalization of blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
The concept that we should eat what our body is adapted to sounds convincing and helps sell millions of books. However, not everyone agrees with her: in last year's ranking of diets, which was compiled by the popular US magazine U.S. News & World Report, the paleo diet took the penultimate 28th place (before the Dukan diet, which was recognized as the worst). Even the ambiguous theory of raw food ("raw food") took a higher place. A spokeswoman for the influential American Dietetic Association, Joan Blake, in a comment for Polityka, called the basics of the paleo diet pseudoscientific.
So what: does the Stone Age diet suit us or not?
The man has changedThe first problem that arises with regard to the Paleolithic diet is that no one knows exactly the exact menu of cavemen.
We can only make assumptions based on the tools found by archaeologists for hunting and processing food, topographic analysis of the places where ancient man lived, as well as his bones and teeth. However, not much is known. Moreover, as Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, says, archaeology gives underestimated data on the number of vegetables in the diet structure of ancient man, because they decompose faster than bones. So maybe our ancestors ate less meat than we thought until now. In addition, scientists recently discovered a fossilized grain that got stuck between the teeth of a Neanderthal. So, the ancient man could also eat cereals.
The second problem of the popularizers of the paleo diet is an increasing amount of evidence that, from the point of view of genetics, we have already moved away from the caveman. Numerous studies demonstrate the changes that have occurred in human DNA over the past few thousand years. According to John Hawks, professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, human evolution has accelerated a hundred times in the last 10,000 years. Has our body adapted thanks to this, at least in part, to a diet that includes dairy products and grains? It looks like yes.
An expressive example is the digestibility of lactose. Although the body of children produces enzymes that break down lactose, that is, milk sugar, most people, after coming out of infancy, lose the ability to digest milk. Even about 8000 years ago, none of the adult inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe could drink milk, and already 3000 years ago, one in four tolerated lactose. Now 80% of the inhabitants of this region can consume milk quite calmly (in Scandinavia – 95%). Why did this happen? Due to the early domestication of cattle, the associated increase in milk consumption and natural selection. For comparison, only 1% of Chinese digest milk. But many Asians have a variant of the gene that causes an increased heartbeat and redness of the face even after drinking a small amount of alcohol, this turns people away from drinking strong drinks and reduces the risk of alcoholism. Modern man also has no problems with the digestion of starch (a large amount of which is contained, in particular, in potatoes, wheat or rice), which were characteristic of our Paleolithic ancestors. Representatives of peoples whose diet has long had a lot of foods with a high starch content (for example, Europeans and Japanese) have a variant of the gene, thanks to which they easily digest this carbohydrate.
Followers of the Paleolithic style of eating may have problems with the selection of products for the menu (assuming that we know what our ancient ancestors ate). Firstly, the meat available in stores is not like the one that ran around the savannah 100 thousand years ago. And not only because we eat cows, but our ancestors ate mammoths. The meat of wild animals contains very little fat, at the same time it contains a lot of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids and few saturated ones (which are responsible for the development of cardiovascular diseases). Fish has also become different: now it is often possible to detect toxic substances in it, for example, pesticides or mercury. In addition, the diet of cavemen was poor in vitamin D and calcium, and their lack in our sedentary lifestyle contributes to the occurrence of osteoporosis. In the Stone Age, people spent so much time in the sun that they could not worry about vitamin D, but we have to get it with food. Joan Blake warns against excluding whole grains and legumes from the menu, because they contain a lot of nutrients.
What about the studies that have proven the positive effect of the paleo diet on waist size or cholesterol levels? Unfortunately, they were conducted on too small groups (for example, 10 and 14 people) and covered a short period of time (three to five weeks). To claim that such a diet really helps to lose weight or reduce blood pressure, longer and more extensive observations are needed.
Without sugar, alcohol and saltOpponents of the paleodiet also pay attention to the fact that the life expectancy of our ancestors averaged 25 years, and most of the so-called diseases of civilization make themselves felt later.
This, however, does not mean that all people then died at such a young age (archaeologists also found skeletons of old people), since the average life expectancy is reduced by high infant mortality. Many cavemen died from infectious diseases and as a result of accidents. However, from the point of view of evolution, one thing was important: to live to reproductive age and leave offspring. Therefore, a paleo diet may make sense if the main goal of an organism is to pass on its genes to the next generations. "I, for example, plan to live a little longer," Joan Blake laughs, "and therefore choose a diet that promotes longevity." And he just excludes an overabundance of meat, especially red.
Of course, the Paleolithic diet has its advantages. Dr. Cordain and his followers advise, for example, to give up processed foods, sweets, alcohol and limit the use of salt, which we eat 50-70 times more than our ancestors. Supporters of the Stone Age menu are also driven by the feeling that humanity has strayed too far from its roots. "Paleo" has already turned into a lifestyle in which it is recommended to walk barefoot (or in special shoes with five fingers), communicate with nature as often as possible, move a lot (not in the gym, but do swimming and running), abandon the obsession with cleanliness (which can, for example, contribute to allergies and autoimmune diseases), less likely to watch TV and use the Internet. It probably won't hurt anyone.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru24.06.2013