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To say there's little research on a primal or ancestral diet is absurd.
I'm referring to scientific research....not books filled with conjectures and fairy tales about hominid history. But just because the diet is founded on fairy tales about our history doesn't mean its bad, but there are very few studies (and no long-term studies) that show that its a diet that promotes health or weight loss.
Oh the other hand, there is decades of research surrounding vegetarian and vegan diets...in particular those focused on wholefoods.
The Paleo diet is mostly just another excuse to eat a lot of meat and fat.... Though at least it avoids refined carbs, unfortunately it also avoids numerous nutrient rich whole plant foods as well.
I've tried so many diets in my life. The only thing that worked for me is eating a mainly whole foods vegan diet, which is eating starches with no fat, brown rice, fruit. No oil, no flour, which means no bread. And eating raw as much as possible. Add exercise to it, like walking for an hour a day or more. The weight melts off. I lost 49 lbs in 3 months.
All the other diets I ever did, counting calories, measuring, writing every morsel down, never worked. The way I eat now, mostly Mcdougall type, I can eat whenever I am hungry, no measuring...and I constantly lose. When I go off the plan, I gain everything back.
So all I can say is, find something that works for you and do it. Good luck.
A vegan diet is not natural for humans which is why there has never been an indigenous vegan society in the history of the planet. That's right, I am not exaggerating: there is no such thing as an indigenous vegan diet, one has never existed, and it never will.
Forget diets, here is a simple eating.plan: Make half your plate veggies, add a protein that is the size of a deck of cards. If you like starches, add a serving that is half the size of a baseball. Brown is better than white, or go with something like quinoa. The end.
A vegan diet is not natural for humans which is why there has never been an indigenous vegan society in the history of the planet. That's right, I am not exaggerating: there is no such thing as an indigenous vegan diet, one has never existed, and it never will.
Forget diets, here is a simple eating.plan: Make half your plate veggies, add a protein that is the size of a deck of cards. If you like starches, add a serving that is half the size of a baseball. Brown is better than white, or go with something like quinoa. The end.
A vegan diet is not natural for humans which is why there has never been an indigenous vegan society in the history of the planet. That's right, I am not exaggerating: there is no such thing as an indigenous vegan diet, one has never existed, and it never will.
Actually you are exaggerating and making huge leap in logic, though there is no evidence of any indigenous vegan diets you can't conclude from this that "one has never existed and never will". Lack of evidence of X, isn't a demonstration of not X.
But whether or not a vegan diet is one that promotes health is rather independent of the degree to which it was practiced in prehistory. After all, unlike today, the biggest problem in the past was simply getting enough food and if meat was the only food available well.....you were going to eat it regardless of its long-term effects on your health.
But sure forget about diets. Just eat whole plant based foods...end of story.
Actually you are exaggerating and making huge leap in logic, though there is no evidence of any indigenous vegan diets you can't conclude from this that "one has never existed and never will". Lack of evidence of X, isn't a demonstration of not X.
But whether or not a vegan diet is one that promotes health is rather independent of the degree to which it was practiced in prehistory. After all, unlike today, the biggest problem in the past was simply getting enough food and if meat was the only food available well.....you were going to eat it regardless of its long-term effects on your health.
But sure forget about diets. Just eat whole plant based foods...end of story.
The vegan diet is not a natural way of eating. Period. There is no evidence of an indigenous vegan diet ever having ever existed in all of mankind. It isn't a natural way of eating. NONE have ever existed through choice, and I can say that because unequivocally it is not a sound diet for any human who is bred to favor survival over all other things. Yes, we lazy losers in the US today can "get by" on it, but just look at us.... we are a disgrace.
The vegan diet is not a natural way of eating. Period. There is no evidence of an indigenous vegan diet ever having ever existed in all of mankind. It isn't a natural way of eating.
And to say it again, you're making wild leaps of logic here. You are making a number of bold complains, yet these claims aren't supported by the mere lack of evidence. The lack of evidence of an indigenous population with a vegan diet just tells us that we don't know whether such a diet was practiced by indigenous people. We actually have very little information about how early humans ate, so using the lack of evidence to conclude that "its not a natural way of eating. period" is just...well a bit absurd.
You're ignoring the real issue here, whether the diet was practiced by our early ancestors is pretty much irrelevant to the question of whether a vegan diet promotes good health in today's world. Today's world, if you haven't noticed, is dramatically different than the world that existed 10,000+ years ago. For example, today our meats are filled with industrial chemicals.
Lastly, the idea that a vegan diet is some how an unnatural diet for a human is peculiar considering we have a number of very close ancestors that have vegan diets and its a common diet in our evolutionary history. Where exactly do we draw the line? Do we consider the natural diet to be the diet of the last 10,000 years? the last 100,00 years? The last 1 million years? The last 10 million years? There is no clear dividing line and our species evolved from a long line of vegetarians and vegans....so the idea that such diets are some how in major conflict with our natural history doesn't make too much sense. But our ancestors, like all mammals, possessed at least a moderate ability to consume animal based foods and would certainly do so when faced with starvation. If you look at the natural diet of our closest living relatives (the chimps), its around 1~5% animal based foods depending on the population you look at.
Now, as far as a real paleolithic diet goes, it would look something like this: tubers, leafs, fruits, insects, nuts and the occasional animal product. Funny that insects are missing from the paleo-diet despite being a well known food source of hominids huh?
I'm referring to scientific research....not books filled with conjectures and fairy tales about hominid history. But just because the diet is founded on fairy tales about our history doesn't mean its bad, but there are very few studies (and no long-term studies) that show that its a diet that promotes health or weight loss.
Oh the other hand, there is decades of research surrounding vegetarian and vegan diets...in particular those focused on wholefoods.
The Paleo diet is mostly just another excuse to eat a lot of meat and fat.... Though at least it avoids refined carbs, unfortunately it also avoids numerous nutrient rich whole plant foods as well.
Beans, lentils, barley, rice, oats, corn, etc. The paleo-diet excludes these things because they claim, rather inaccurately, that grains, etc weren't consumed during the paleolithic period. Now, there is a few grains of truth to their claim, namely that the modern cultivated versions of these plants weren't consumed much past ~10,000 years ago......but the ancestors of these crops were consumed throughout hominid history.
But that is the amusing part of the diet, they happily consume fruits and vegetables that have all been domesticated over thousands of years but refuse to eat the domesticated versions of legume, grass, etc crops. To add to the amusement they also have no problem consuming domesticated animal animal products. Domestication is only an issue, ironically, when it comes to the most macro nutrient rich plants.....the removal or which essentially forces you to eat meat.
Remove the pseudo-science and fairly tales...and the paleo diet is just another low-carb diet. At least Atkins was straight-forward about matters!
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