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This is the diet forum, not the food forum, or the general health forum.
As a weight-loss diet, the Paleo diet is cost-intensive, and not very efficient. There are better and more efficient ways to lose weight, including eating *fewer* carbs than you currently are (however many that is), reducing the fat content of your meats, and exercising more.
Diets are made up of food and are directly related to your health. Your spin, agenda, and irritability are good for a laugh though.
A paleo style diet is not cost intensive and is plenty efficient with a little bit of effort and planning. You can be a vegetarian on a paleo style diet if you want to avoid meat. There are a lot of approaches to it, not a one size fits all. There are other ways to lose weight. The efficiency and effectiveness will vary on an individual basis. Ive lost weight with a higher fat intake and variable carb intake that is near zero somedays and over 300g other days. Regular exercise has been part of my life for nearly 20 years. But this isnt the exercise forum, so lets not talk about it since has nothing to do with anything at all.
"Most people who are buying diet books can afford grass fed beef."
Please tell me how you came about that conclusion.
If you are spending $20 on a diet book when there is a ton of free info on diets online, you most likely dont have a budget so tight that you cant afford a little extra for a specific food.
Fresh fruits and veggies are generally more expensive than canned versions, so should people stop trying to add more fresh fruits and vegetables to their diet? Poptarts are cheaper than whole wheat bread and apple butter. Stick to the pop tarts?
If someones budget is so tight they cant spend a little more, they will simply need to do whats best on their budget.
An industry using diet ideas to promote meat consumption. Hmmm, sounds a lot like the big corps that use "heart healthy grains" on their label to sell sugared up cereals and other junk food with the full approval of the American Heart Association.
I'm not sure how these are that similar, what you're bringing up is that some companies are manipulating the system to market sugary cereals as healthful.
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Originally Posted by SFit
The vast majority of people do have access to organic and/or grass fed beef, and the more people demand that type of meat over the corn fed factory meat, the easier it will become to find.
Its an issue of availability and cost, regardless of whether one has access to it its dramatically more than standard meats. But whether someone eats grain fed or grass fed beef, the beef industry still profits from it.
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Originally Posted by SFit
But the price difference is rather small. If a person were to consume a pound of meat per day (which is a lot, more than I eat), the price difference for a month would be around $75-$100 depending on what types of beef they chose.
The price difference is not small, organic meats are around double the cost of non-organic meats. An extra $75~$100/month per person is a huge cost for most families.
Cutting out soda and potato chips, which are both very cheap per calorie, isn't going to allow someone to afford organic, etc meats as the calories will have to be replaced with other foods.
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Originally Posted by SFit
So we should stop this and go back to the standard diet guidelines and include grains and legumes to save a few bucks? No thanks, my well being is worth a few extra bucks.
Like I said, from what you said it doesn't sound like you were consuming a diet that was consistent with the standard dietary guidelines. Depending on the particular choices, its plausible that one would realize some benefit from moving from the standard American diet to a paleo style diet.....but the standard American diet is far removed from the sort of diet that is recommended by mainstream nutritional science.
In any case, what happens short-term with your bio-markers doesn't say that much about the long-term impact of the diet. People that have good cholesterol profiles on paper die of heart disease all the time..... This is why its critical to follow dietary practices that have been evaluated rigorously, not dietary ideas from diet book gurus.
Fresh fruits and veggies are generally more expensive than canned versions, so should people stop trying to add more fresh fruits and vegetables to their diet? Poptarts are cheaper than whole wheat bread and apple butter. Stick to the pop tarts?
Around here, the only time canned fruits and vegetables are cheaper is when the particular fruit or vegetable is out of season. I'd also dispute the claim about pop-tarts, a loaf of whole wheat bread ($1.50) and a small can of apple butter ($3~$4) is equivalent to around 2 large boxes of pop-tarts which would cost more....
That's the funny thing about eating a healthful, as based on mainstream science, diet.....its actually pretty cheap and I reckon this is why the food industry isn't particularly interested in promoting it.
If you are spending $20 on a diet book when there is a ton of free info on diets online, you most likely dont have a budget so tight that you cant afford a little extra for a specific food.
Fresh fruits and veggies are generally more expensive than canned versions, so should people stop trying to add more fresh fruits and vegetables to their diet? Poptarts are cheaper than whole wheat bread and apple butter. Stick to the pop tarts?
If someones budget is so tight they cant spend a little more, they will simply need to do whats best on their budget.
Did I say stick to pop tarts? People should spend money on whole fresh foods, but when you say that they need to buy grass fed beef in the quantities the Paleo diet asks for you are really spending a lot of money. Grass fed beef is usually a few dollars more per pound, I know because I buy it. But I am not on Paleo and neither is my family so we do not buy a lot of it.
Being able to afford a $20 book as compared to getting suckered into the expensive Paleo lifestyle are two different things completely.
I'm not sure how these are that similar, what you're bringing up is that some companies are manipulating the system to market sugary cereals as healthful.
Right. And you are connecting small farmers who try to stick to nature to the beef industry because they have to pay into programs by mandate. Wait, nevermind, you are right. The beef industry is coercing small farmers against their will. The American Heart Association and processed food companies are both manipulating the system by choice. So I should stop supporting my local farmers because they are coerced into paying into the system?
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Its an issue of availability and cost, regardless of whether one has access to it its dramatically more than standard meats. But whether someone eats grain fed or grass fed beef, the beef industry still profits from it.
The price difference is not small, organic meats are around double the cost of non-organic meats. An extra $75~$100/month per person is a huge cost for most families.
Cutting out soda and potato chips, which are both very cheap per calorie, isn't going to allow someone to afford organic, etc meats as the calories will have to be replaced with other foods.
Some people can't afford it, so they won't. I've already done the price breakdown once. Buying in bulk cuts the price difference nearly 50% for me: effort sometimes changes things in life for the better. Its dramatically more for people on a tight budget as is every expense in life. They should take alternate routes. I would go vegetarian before I would eat conventional beef, chicken, pork or farm raised fish again if money became that big of an issue for me. And I still wouldn't eat grains more than I do now. See above about industry profits.
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Like I said, from what you said it doesn't sound like you were consuming a diet that was consistent with the standard dietary guidelines. Depending on the particular choices, its plausible that one would realize some benefit from moving from the standard American diet to a paleo style diet.....but the standard American diet is far removed from the sort of diet that is recommended by mainstream nutritional science.
I was referring to the recommended diet that includes 6-11 servings of grains, 2-4 fruit servings and 3-5 vegetable servings.
Almost anyone moving from the standard American diet to a diet with very little or no processed foods will see benefits, regardless of whether its just a whole foods based diet with meat and grains, more towards paleo style with very little to no grains, dairy and legumes or more towards vegetarian/vegan with or without grains, dairy and legumes.
I don't think "paleo is the only way". And there are a lot of ways to approach paleo including paleo vegetarians. The word really isn't the best word because it carries so much baggage, mostly because of the dogmatic paleo proponents who think there is one way to do it and think they know how people ate in the paleolithic era. Humans have eaten a wide variety of diets and thrived, from the Inuit and Maasai with very high fat and saturated fat intake, to those in more tropical locations that may never have eaten quadrupeds and thrived on a vegan or almost vegan diet. There are a lot of ways to achieve a healthy weight, high energy levels, and good health. No single way will work for everyone.
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In any case, what happens short-term with your bio-markers doesn't say that much about the long-term impact of the diet. People that have good cholesterol profiles on paper die of heart disease all the time..... This is why its critical to follow dietary practices that have been evaluated rigorously, not dietary ideas from diet book gurus.
Then why are people trying to get their cholesterol into an ideal range if they die all the time with cholesterol in the ideal range?
Did I say stick to pop tarts? People should spend money on whole fresh foods, but when you say that they need to buy grass fed beef in the quantities the Paleo diet asks for you are really spending a lot of money. Grass fed beef is usually a few dollars more per pound, I know because I buy it. But I am not on Paleo and neither is my family so we do not buy a lot of it.
Being able to afford a $20 book as compared to getting suckered into the expensive Paleo lifestyle are two different things completely.
The paleo lifestyle is not expensive unless you don't understand how to use a calculator. I'm sure there are websites that can help you with that.
Some people can't afford it, so they won't. I've already done the price breakdown once. Buying in bulk cuts the price difference nearly 50% for me.
Yes, some can't afford it and that "some" includes a large percent of the population. Most families don't have an extra $100 per person to spend on food. But, as I said, the beef industry doesn't care, they have a higher end product (grass-fed beef) for those that can afford it and a cheaper product for others. I'm not aware of any paleo guru that says if you can't afford grass-fed, etc meats that you should instead opt for the much cheaper organic grains and legumes.....instead they point to the lower cost meats.
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Originally Posted by SFit
I was referring to the recommended diet that includes 6-11 servings of grains, 2-4 fruit servings and 3-5 vegetable servings.
Those are the USDA recommendations, the USDA isn't a scientific body instead its a government body that promotes agricultural products. Other than the fruit and vegetable intake, the average Americans diet is consist with USDA recommendations....needless to say these aren't recommendations for a healthful diet and the recommendations of scientific and medical groups differ.
The diet recommended by most scientific/medical bodies is one based on whole foods, in particular, a diet that consists of whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts with relatively small amounts of lean meat and fish.
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Originally Posted by SFit
And there are a lot of ways to approach paleo including paleo vegetarians.
I don't think being a paleo vegetarian would be advisable, its difficult to craft a well balanced vegetarian diet without grains and legumes.
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Originally Posted by SFit
Humans have eaten a wide variety of diets and thrived, from the Inuit and Maasai with very high fat and saturated fat intake, to those in more tropical locations that may never have eaten quadrupeds and thrived on a vegan or almost vegan diet.
If by "thrived" you mean existed, yes, but the populations you're referring to all had low life-expectancy.
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Originally Posted by SFit
Then why are people trying to get their cholesterol into an ideal range if they die all the time with cholesterol in the ideal range?
Individuals? Because they don't understand the science and are mistaking a bio-marker for actual disease. Lower cholesterol levels, especially lower LDL, is associated with lower rates of heart disease....but around 1/3 of people with heart attacks have normal, under current standards, cholesterol levels. Partly, the current recommendations are too high but the only way most people can get their levels down to levels where heart disease is rare ( total cholesterol < 160) is for them,ahem, to eat a lower fat diet with little meat, dairy and eggs. But the other part is that these are associations and aren't necessarily causal, the only one that appears to be causal is LDL. That is, high LDL levels cause heart disease where as low HDL levels are only correlated with higher rates of heart disease. That is, there is a common cause of the heart disease and low HDL and manipulating the HDL level with drugs or diet doesn't reduce the person's rate of heart disease.
BTW: I've noticed a typo in my first post way back on page one. What I meant to say was:
I'm not saying that everyone needs to be on a low-carb diet, but I am suggesting that no one should purposefully substitute carbs for fat or protein (i.e., don't buy "low-fat" products, don't eat an extra slice of bread thinking it's better for you than an extra portion of meat or eggs, don't etc.)
And on this subject, there is a new book written by neurologist David Perlmutter called: Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers
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