“Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

There are two things at work: Paleo diet works (not much disputed here) and Paleo diet works because it's like what we ate 10k years ago and we haven't adopted to our "new food" yet (a lot of people dispute that).

You do understand there is no proof eating like a caveman (table manners excepted) will prolong your life. At least not unless your alternative is the suicidal diet many people have.

Also, the argument based on evolution and selection is ludicrous. We have not stopped evolution.

I strongly suggest you ingest more fiber and avoid sugar, but I also remind you the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

In a modern american diet is it possible to eat grains without your laundry list of "sugar, oils, junk food, HFCS"? It doesn't matter if you "can" eat grains although they're almost never available in a format that meets the other requirements.

Don't try to tell me every american, especially fat ones, cracks open a can of creamed corn kernels every meal for a vegetable. In a modern fat american diet, grains = wonder bread (or equiv) made out of sugar, oil, and HFCS, doritos made out of oil aka junk food. Pizza with the wheat and soy flour crust baked on oil with a super sugary sauce covered in oily meat and dairy cheese. What, if anything, do americans eat made out of grain that isn't a junk food? Bread is junk food. Donuts are junk food. Pretty much everything from the bakery is junk food. Breakfast cereal is junk food. Granola bars are junk food. Oatmeal (my son needs special GF uncontaminated oatmeal..) is just a delivery vehicle for 25% by weight brown sugar, butter, and maple syrup, so thats junk food too. Anything fried, baked, and heavily seasoned and sealed into a shelf stable bag contains wheat and/or soy and is junk food. Is there any junk food out there made without dairy, soy protein extract, or wheat? I have extensively researched this and the answer is basically "no". My son can eat a couple kinds of corn chip and some unflavored potato chips, thats about it for his "typical american diet" junk food. Almost anything "heat and eat" from the freezer section of the store is off limits.

My son has a medically diagnosed allergy to a protein in wheat. So for about a decade, no wheat (ditto soy and dairy ... so we eat what boils down to medically required paleo diet at home since about 2004, although we don't (probably to our detriment) exclude potatoes, rice, and beans). Coincidentally, exclusion of wheat pretty much excludes all junk food. There's not much he can eat in the category of "junk food" other than some plain potato chips, and specialty expensive therefore rare exotic gluten free junk food. I only get to eat "junk food" while at work, its not like I'm gonna dig into a cake in front of a kid who can't eat it without exploding out both ends...

I see it as a happy coincidence. If the FDA mandated all junk food contain blue food coloring, and a diet was proposed that we shouldn't eat stuff made with blue food coloring, it doesn't "really" matter that its not the blue dye making us fat...

1+2 are good. Also:

3. Abundance. People didn't have to "limit themselves" 2000 years ago because they either were usually, or at best occasionally, starving back down to size, along with massive vitamin and mineral deficiencies (so you can eat 3000 calories per day as a sailor, but if you're also simultaneously dying of scurvy, they you don't have to worry so much about getting fat). In the shorter term, religious fasting seems to have died out although oddly enough we keep religious feast traditions alive pretty well. Also gluttony seems to have disappeared from the list of sins. Someone who wanted to eat until 400 pounds 2500 years ago could want all they want for free, but they simply aren't getting the food to do it, so... hungry and skinny even if their internal weight thermostat says 400 pounds is a great goal. No caloric intake limit for an entire lifetime in 2010s America.

4. Non-ag lifestyle beginning a century or so ago has lead to weird ideas about our diet, so "rediscovering" what farmers have always known seems new. So 98% of the population doesn't farm. People discover corn products can be yummy and start exploding waistlines. The 2% of the population who farm are like "duh, everyone knows corn is the best way to fatten up hogs and other mammal livestock, duh!" but we don't respect farming as a profession so we need scientists to "discover" hmm corn consumption seems to positively correlate with waistline, how curious I wonder if cutting back on corn would help obesity... naah the corn industry lobbiests would kill me if I said that... Pretty much if farmers slop the hogs with it to fatten them up, you probably don't want to eat that unless you need fattening up.

Good enough for dad good enough for me but is there any research to support it? There is no shortage of research supporting low carb whole grain and fresh fruit over highly processed foods. There are also numerous well documented incidents of people moving from native foods to processed grain and other food suffered negative health effects. Personally I dont think whole grain foods are all that bad in reasonable amounts.

I got lazy as there it doesn't take much work finding research supporting increased fresh fruits vegetables and lean meat. http://www.ars.usda.gov/news/docs.htm?docid=9234 http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=23004 http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=22791