Whole Food Nutrition No Fad

We all should be meat-eaters.

That's the opinion of Loren Cordain, PhD, author of the new book, The Paleo Diet. Meat is a rich source of protein, Cordain says, and we need plenty of it. This Paleolithic, Paleo or Old Stone Age diet is "the one and only diet that ideally fits our genetic makeup," Cordain says and goes on to explain all the reasons why.

I found this hard to swallow. But who am I to argue with a scientist who is "the world's leading expert on Paleo (Stone Age) nutrition?" So I read the book.

With all due respect, Cordain does a wonderful job of confusing readers. It may well have been that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a diet consisting mainly of lean meat, fruits and vegetables 2.5 million years ago, "so that their protein intake was quite high by modern standards, while their carbohydrate consumption was much lower." It was much later (10,000 years ago), when the Agricultural Revolution began, that grains and beans and other starchy (carbohydrate-rich) foods were introduced into the human diet. This, according to the author, has caused havoc to this date. Not only do we eat too much, but we also eat the wrong foods, which causes the obesity that is killing us.

Bread, pasta, legumes and potatoes are starchy foods and must be avoided, Cordain says. For good measure, he throws away all dairy, milk, cheese and butter because the hunter-gatherers could not milk any wild animals. The conclusion is that our bodies need the diet for which they were originally designed.

What surprised me most is that Cordain proclaims that cereals, grains, corn and rice, which have been staple foods for many peoples throughout Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, are responsible for the nutritional maladies we experience in our modern times.

What has really happened in the last 200 years is that our food has been denaturalized by the milling of grains and the removal of fibre along with minerals, vitamins, germ oils and other minor nutrients. The refined vegetable oils, the artificially hardened fats such as vegetable shortening and margarine with the deadly trans fatty acids, are to be blamed for the rapid increase of degenerative diseases, cancer and heart disease. The author does not differentiate between natural and refined, processed food.

The book contains many nutritional glitches. In the recipe section, for instance, there's a recipe for Buffalo Steaks with French Herbs, which calls for two tablespoons of flax oil. You are supposed to "cover the bottom of the baking dish with (flax) oil and place steaks on top of oil." Yet anyone familiar with Dr Johanna Budwig, Udo Erasmus, PhD, and Ann Louise Gittleman, MS, CNS, to name but a few, knows that unrefined, cold-pressed flax oil can turn from a healing oil into a killing oil when exposed to heat!

The sad thing is that The Paleo Diet will be popularized through the press. Because it is "scientifically researched," it will become a reference for nutritional writers (or re-writers) who will quote it as a source in their own sensational discoveries.

I predict this book will be the beginning of another fad, the low carb/high protein diet, which is supposed to make us "fit and lean" as our ancestors were. However, a truly low carbohydrate diet must eliminate all isolated refined sugars and white flour products. Complex carbohydrates--as in whole food nutrition--have never made anyone obese.

Dedicated health and nutrition pioneers, inspired observers and scientists that have kept faith in the laws of nature have brought about the emergence of the natural health movement as we know it. Following their principles is the only way back to health. We must be aware of fads and trends driven by the industry ego or other ulterior motives.