cassius
Registered User
- Jul 23, 2004
- 13,560
- 706
Hmm.. I am not sure I agree with you at all. There's lots of folks that have achieved good results on a paleo type diet.But absolutely no wheat. Apparently, if neanderthals didn't eat it (and they ate basically nothing that we eat today) you shouldn't eat it.
The Paleo diet is ********. The basic premise of the diet is correct, eat lean proteins, tons of fruit and veggies, and nuts but the science and history of it is super sketchy. At the end of the day, it's just a marketing ploy. A successful one, mind you.
At the end of the day, you gotta go with what your body responds best with. I know when I was eating a ton of carbs and lifting, I gained muscle but a lot of it went straight to my gut.
Now that I cut back and stick to a Paleo-ish diet (I still eat bagels, oatmeal, bread, etc.. just a lot more sparingly than I used to), I'm seeing crazy results. It's all about experimenting with different diets to see what your body responds best to. For me, high protein (200g per day) and moderate carb (150G per day) is working out perfectly.
If you ask me, #1 reason why people have excess body fat is because they consume way too many processed, simple carbs. The main driver behind that is.. you guessed it: $. Processed, high calorie, high carbhydrate foods are ridicuously cheap. Look at a bag of Doritos or a 20oz bottle of Pepsi. Given how many carbs/calories are packed in those foods, the cost is extremely low. If you walk into a convenience store, you could buy probably 2000 calories worth of food for $4 without trying too hard. Granted, it's all absolute garbage with 0 nutritional value, but that is a different story.
There's a ton of economic forces behind this and without going into too much detail, it goes back to the familiar cast of characters: Washington, rich corporations, and powerful lobbyists.
Sugars are subsidized by the department of agriculture, so essentially these foods are available at "below market" prices. Companies can then produce junk food at below market prices, invest massive amounts in proven marketing campaigns (putting lipstick on a pig), and then sell this junk to the masses. It then creates a cycle where people get extremely addicted to these foods.
The government is basically putting money in the pockets of rich corporations like Frito Lay, who sell junk food that ultimately destroys peoples health. It's a great example of how counter intuitive the world can be at times. You would think that the government would subsidize healthy foods and place huge taxes on junk food, which would steer people in the right direction. Instead, it's actually the total opposite.
For folks who live a sedentary lifestyle (i.e. 9-5'ers, students), I see no reason why they should be eating 300G+ of carbs a day. That's a fast track to diabetes if you ask me. There is no reason to be consuming that many carbs unless you are a serious runner, biker, or you work an extremely physically demanding job
If this whole country bought into the Paleo trend, obesity would immediately decrease and health premiums would go down. Instead, people are totally in the dark when it comes to nutrition and they end up making poor choices. With universal healthcare rolling out, ultimately you and I are paying for these "poor decisions" in the form of higher insurance premiums.
Okay that was a massive tangent, but you get the idea. I really don't think Paleo is as bad as you are making it out to be. In my mind, Paleo is a very useful solution to the high carb, high sugar, high processed food diet that is driving the obesity epidemic in the US.
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