Jun 21, 2013

Paleo-Diet: don't do it!

First, go to this website that explains the Paleo diet: http://thepaleodiet.com/  
Ok. For those of you that have had training for nutrition and have done some general research, you will notice that there a lot of good ideas from this. For example: don't eat processed foods, refined sugars, layoff the sodium, increase potassium, eat the "good" fats (like from fish, for example), etc; etc;
Yes, there are some good points. I understand this. 
Newsflash: the good stuff off of this "diet" comes from myplate.gov and/or the food pyramid. 
Don't eat salt? Duh.
Don't eat refined sugar? Duh.
Don't eat processed foods? Duh.
Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables? Duh.
Then it tells you must omit dairy, legumes and cereal grains.
This means you can never eat a bean, piece of cheese or a bowl of whole-grain cereal. Ever. 
 No more bean burritos with cheese. Hell, no bean burritos. Period. Hell, you can't even eat the whole-grain tortilla if you wanted one. 
If you don't know what a legume is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legume   I normally do not condone using wikipedia but at this point, I'll just say that it's actually right about legumes.  
What about dairy? Even lactose-free dairy? Nope. Can't have that. Never mind that it has decent amounts of potassium (that the paleo wants more of) and of course the calcium and etc; etc;
But you cannot have this, if you're on the paleo diet. 
What about grains? What about the people who have a gluten allergy? This is unfortunate, awful but at least it's rare. Plenty of people have allergies and it may be due to several reasons (GMO's, pesticides, genetics stuff, etc).  This doesn't mean that the other 99% of the population should omit grains. 
Again, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal    "In their natural form (as in whole grain), they are a rich source of vitaminsmineralscarbohydratesfats, oils, and protein. However, when refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the remaining endosperm is mostly carbohydrate and lacks the majority of the other nutrients. In some developing nations, grain in the form of ricewheatmillet, or maize constitutes a majority of daily sustenance. In developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial."
In other words, eat the whole grain.... unless you're on the paleo diet.
Follow www.myplate.gov and this should be a better start for you. 
The paleo diet is crap but still have a few good ideas in it. However, the USDA and myplate.gov are the correct choice here.

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