The book contains the concept that taking care of your body is an important part of happiness and that you should eat foods that lead to being healthful and energetic. Not much was covered about what an optimal diet would be, however. There are many people out there with various opinions on diet and lots of choices of healthy diets to follow. However, here is a recommendation for a way of eating which works well for me, and I am hoping will work well for you as well.
The Expandable Modern Hunter-Gatherer diet (EMHG diet)
Obviously, the food we eat will affect our well being and thus our happiness. However, there are many disagreements by nutritional experts on what the optimal diet is. I have done some research and have currently come to the conclusion that something close to the ancient Paleolithic diet (also referred to as the Hunter-Gatherer or Pre-agricultural diet) is optimal for the following reasons:
* The evolution of our bodies occurred mostly before the advent of agriculture, so we are best adapted to eating as hunter-gatherers.
* Some foods, such as wheat and beans, are toxic without being cooked, but cooking does not remove all the toxins, which have a cumulative effect on the body.
* When I personally eat in this fashion, my body feels lighter, stronger, more relaxed and more energetic. It just feels better. Something is right here, at least for me, so this qualifies as the strongest reason.
* No tedious counting of calories. Eat as much as you want within these food groups so long as you are getting enough exercise and not going overboard on the sweet tasting stuff, fatty foods, and oils... those are snacks or used to enhance a main dish. You should feel more energetic and driven to do a bit more exercise, and you should follow those feelings. If you don't allow yourself to follow your feelings to do a bit more exercise with this additional energy, you might get a bit irritable. (This is in no way to be interpreted as advice to begin strenuous exercise without consulting your medical doctor.) The point here is that the focus is on health, and though weight loss should occur in most people, it is not the primary goal.
* You can cook. As opposed to raw food diets, cooking is acceptable. However, you should avoid frying at high temperatures in oil, or using any other method which will burn the food as this causes compounds which are not healthy.
* Healthy meats are allowed. A vegetarian diet can be very healthy, but there doesn't seem to be any health benefit to excluding meats so long as you are choosing meats that have the right type of fat. (A decent ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids) If you can't get the right type of fat, try to have the least fat possible, and make up for it with other foods which are high in omega-3.
* The evolution of our bodies occurred mostly before the advent of agriculture, so we are best adapted to eating as hunter-gatherers.
* Some foods, such as wheat and beans, are toxic without being cooked, but cooking does not remove all the toxins, which have a cumulative effect on the body.
* When I personally eat in this fashion, my body feels lighter, stronger, more relaxed and more energetic. It just feels better. Something is right here, at least for me, so this qualifies as the strongest reason.
* No tedious counting of calories. Eat as much as you want within these food groups so long as you are getting enough exercise and not going overboard on the sweet tasting stuff, fatty foods, and oils... those are snacks or used to enhance a main dish. You should feel more energetic and driven to do a bit more exercise, and you should follow those feelings. If you don't allow yourself to follow your feelings to do a bit more exercise with this additional energy, you might get a bit irritable. (This is in no way to be interpreted as advice to begin strenuous exercise without consulting your medical doctor.) The point here is that the focus is on health, and though weight loss should occur in most people, it is not the primary goal.
* You can cook. As opposed to raw food diets, cooking is acceptable. However, you should avoid frying at high temperatures in oil, or using any other method which will burn the food as this causes compounds which are not healthy.
* Healthy meats are allowed. A vegetarian diet can be very healthy, but there doesn't seem to be any health benefit to excluding meats so long as you are choosing meats that have the right type of fat. (A decent ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids) If you can't get the right type of fat, try to have the least fat possible, and make up for it with other foods which are high in omega-3.
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To the left is a comparison of the Ancient Paleolithic Diet and today's Modern Diet eaten in most of the industrialized world.
The Modern Paleolithic diet will use the same food groups as the Ancient Paleolithic diet, but will take them in different quantities to further enhance the health benefits: more vegetables and less meat. The Expandable Modern Paleolithic diet will also add in a few of the healthiest modern foods. As far as portions are concerned, I personally recommend: 1. Vegetables be the biggest portion 2. Meats/eggs the next largest portion 3. Fruits less than Meats/eggs 4. Nuts, berries, and seeds as snack foods 5. Enough water that your urine is clear With the following optional expansions: 6. Brown rice portion less than Meats/eggs 7. Whatever else works well for you (test it) This would leave you with roughly 20% to 35% of your diet coming from animal sources. |
What to avoid and what to eat
You should try to eat foods that you could find and eat raw without any issues in a pre-agricultural age. (Although most meats require cooking to kill parasites)
Exclusions:
* No Dairy (avoid milk, cheese, butter, cream)
* No foods with gluten or avenin or other anti-nutrients (avoid almost all grains - wheat, barley, rye and oats - and foods containing them such as:
* Low animal fats. Most animals in the wild are not as fat.
* No legumes (including beans, peanuts, soy and peas)
* No potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes
* No alcohol that is fermented from the restricted foods, and any acceptable one in moderation.
* No low pulp juices (throwing away fiber and extra vitamins for sweetness doesn't make sense; blending the entire thing and adding water is fine)
* No Caffeine and other drugs (Caffeine is a pesticide. The toxicity stimulates the body to excrete it; mild stimulation feels pleasant)
* Avoid anything you have a known allergy to
That leaves a wide variety of foods:
* Lean meats (preferably grass-fed and not grain fed to be high in omega-3 fats, and ideally wild so no hormones or other wierd stuff. For fish, salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, trout are high in omega-3.)
* Eggs (preferably not grain fed, to be high in omega-3, otherwise only eat the whites)
* Most nuts
* Some seeds
* Berries which can be eaten raw
* Non starchy vegetables
* Oils easily derived from allowed foods (walnut oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, ideally those higher in omega-3, such as flaxseed oil, which contains 3 times as much omega-3 as omega-6. When cooking, it's important to have a high temperature tolerance or "smoke point", which canola provides along with omega-3 intake as much as half the omega-6 intake)
* Honey
* Fruits
* Some Mushrooms
* Some insects (if you really want to...)
* Herbs and spices
* Pure Water (filter out chlorine)
* Brown rice (This is technically a grain and should theoretically be avoided as it contains a lot of calories compared to nutrients, but it is the only starchy staple food that digests very well and does not result in any gas. It can be included in the diet if you are losing too much weight, or are needing additional inexpensive energy as an athlete and are really craving carbs)
Exclusions:
* No Dairy (avoid milk, cheese, butter, cream)
* No foods with gluten or avenin or other anti-nutrients (avoid almost all grains - wheat, barley, rye and oats - and foods containing them such as:
- breakfast cereals
- pasta
- bread
- beer, whisky and many other alcoholic beverages
- cakes, biscuits and other foods containing flour
- corn
* Low animal fats. Most animals in the wild are not as fat.
* No legumes (including beans, peanuts, soy and peas)
* No potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes
* No alcohol that is fermented from the restricted foods, and any acceptable one in moderation.
* No low pulp juices (throwing away fiber and extra vitamins for sweetness doesn't make sense; blending the entire thing and adding water is fine)
* No Caffeine and other drugs (Caffeine is a pesticide. The toxicity stimulates the body to excrete it; mild stimulation feels pleasant)
* Avoid anything you have a known allergy to
That leaves a wide variety of foods:
* Lean meats (preferably grass-fed and not grain fed to be high in omega-3 fats, and ideally wild so no hormones or other wierd stuff. For fish, salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, trout are high in omega-3.)
* Eggs (preferably not grain fed, to be high in omega-3, otherwise only eat the whites)
* Most nuts
* Some seeds
* Berries which can be eaten raw
* Non starchy vegetables
* Oils easily derived from allowed foods (walnut oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, ideally those higher in omega-3, such as flaxseed oil, which contains 3 times as much omega-3 as omega-6. When cooking, it's important to have a high temperature tolerance or "smoke point", which canola provides along with omega-3 intake as much as half the omega-6 intake)
* Honey
* Fruits
* Some Mushrooms
* Some insects (if you really want to...)
* Herbs and spices
* Pure Water (filter out chlorine)
* Brown rice (This is technically a grain and should theoretically be avoided as it contains a lot of calories compared to nutrients, but it is the only starchy staple food that digests very well and does not result in any gas. It can be included in the diet if you are losing too much weight, or are needing additional inexpensive energy as an athlete and are really craving carbs)
How to succeed at changing your diet
To succeed at changing your diet, you need to redefine how you look at the world. First, it's important to get you into the mindset of a hunter-gatherer. Let's say you are out in the woods and you find a mushroom. You need to know whether that mushroom is edible or poisonous before you eat it. If it's poisonous, it's not food, and you discard it. The same applies to any plant or animal you find. Some animals do not make for good eating.
The same applies when you go into the supermarket, except that most foods have been chosen to not make you immediately ill if you eat them. However, the dangers are hidden as there are many foods that will make you a little bit ill and if you eat enough of them regularly, those effects will accumulate faster than your body can compensate. Some foods may just have way too many calories and not enough nutrition, resulting in obesity since your body will crave more food for nutrients, while other foods may contain actual toxins. Our governments and experts know that some foods are unhealthy, but the focus is on providing a minimum level of safety and allowing the consumer the freedom of choice.
So when you go into a supermarket, think of going to hunt or gather in the forest, and realize that some of what you will find there is actually not good food. Hunter-gatherers would learn which foods were good or not from their village elders. Today we rely on our scientists and nutritionists, but unfortunately there are differing opinions, and a lot of people who are not concerned about the long term effect of foods, but only care about the short term.
A big issue with most diets is overcoming various cravings that you might have. The fortunate thing is that you will be getting so much more nutrition than you are used to that your body will actually have less cravings. You will probably be less hungry all the time as well due to this, and not feel as much need to overeat. This is not a diet designed for you to adopt for a while to lose weight, it is one where your lifestyle changes and you should be happier on it permanently. You will still be able to have the occasional chocolate bar or other treat like pizza if you want it, and really enjoy it, but you should not feel the NEED for it -- just remember that treats are entertainment food, not nutrition food. The point is that this diet should become the basis for how you eat most of the time and what you consider to be normal. The theory is that the standard North American diet is NOT NORMAL for the way our bodies evolved, and that seems to be supported in practice.
Another point with craving is that for certain foods, such as breads and fatty cheeses, you will feel cravings, but they are not your cravings. There is a bacteria called candida which will hijack the chemical signalling system in your body and makes you overwhelmingly crave sugar and starchy foods so that you will continue to feed them. Cheese and milk products also feed the candida, which temporarily reduces the craving for starchy foods, so this also builds a positive association to crave cheese, and the same applies to a lesser extent to mushrooms and to vinegar. This is often the reason that these foods appear to taste so good. If you switch to the new diet and the candida dies off to normal paleolithic levels, these cravings will go away. Can you imagine taking a bite out of chocolate bar and not feeling an immense amount of satisfaction? I've experienced that myself, eventually your body is already feeling great because the cravings are gone, and working towards reducing the craving provides little benefit.
At some point a switch has to happen from foods you are addicted to, to foods that are optimal for your body and leave you feeling good in the long run. Short term pain, long term gain.
The same applies when you go into the supermarket, except that most foods have been chosen to not make you immediately ill if you eat them. However, the dangers are hidden as there are many foods that will make you a little bit ill and if you eat enough of them regularly, those effects will accumulate faster than your body can compensate. Some foods may just have way too many calories and not enough nutrition, resulting in obesity since your body will crave more food for nutrients, while other foods may contain actual toxins. Our governments and experts know that some foods are unhealthy, but the focus is on providing a minimum level of safety and allowing the consumer the freedom of choice.
So when you go into a supermarket, think of going to hunt or gather in the forest, and realize that some of what you will find there is actually not good food. Hunter-gatherers would learn which foods were good or not from their village elders. Today we rely on our scientists and nutritionists, but unfortunately there are differing opinions, and a lot of people who are not concerned about the long term effect of foods, but only care about the short term.
A big issue with most diets is overcoming various cravings that you might have. The fortunate thing is that you will be getting so much more nutrition than you are used to that your body will actually have less cravings. You will probably be less hungry all the time as well due to this, and not feel as much need to overeat. This is not a diet designed for you to adopt for a while to lose weight, it is one where your lifestyle changes and you should be happier on it permanently. You will still be able to have the occasional chocolate bar or other treat like pizza if you want it, and really enjoy it, but you should not feel the NEED for it -- just remember that treats are entertainment food, not nutrition food. The point is that this diet should become the basis for how you eat most of the time and what you consider to be normal. The theory is that the standard North American diet is NOT NORMAL for the way our bodies evolved, and that seems to be supported in practice.
Another point with craving is that for certain foods, such as breads and fatty cheeses, you will feel cravings, but they are not your cravings. There is a bacteria called candida which will hijack the chemical signalling system in your body and makes you overwhelmingly crave sugar and starchy foods so that you will continue to feed them. Cheese and milk products also feed the candida, which temporarily reduces the craving for starchy foods, so this also builds a positive association to crave cheese, and the same applies to a lesser extent to mushrooms and to vinegar. This is often the reason that these foods appear to taste so good. If you switch to the new diet and the candida dies off to normal paleolithic levels, these cravings will go away. Can you imagine taking a bite out of chocolate bar and not feeling an immense amount of satisfaction? I've experienced that myself, eventually your body is already feeling great because the cravings are gone, and working towards reducing the craving provides little benefit.
At some point a switch has to happen from foods you are addicted to, to foods that are optimal for your body and leave you feeling good in the long run. Short term pain, long term gain.
Scientific studies
Scientific studies have shown positive benefits of the paleolithic diet. Those using this diet seem to be largely free of the signs and symptoms of chronic disease (such as obesity, high blood pressure, nonobstructive coronaryatherosclerosis, and insulin resistance) that universally afflict the elderly in western societies.
Because of the unlimited amounts of fruits and veggies permitted on the Paleo Diet, your body will be slightly alkaline -- meaning that diseases and disease symptoms of acid/base imbalance (osteoporosis, kidney stones, hypertension, stroke, asthma, insomnia, motion sickness, inner ear ringing, and exercise-induced asthma) will improve.
The high soluble-fiber content of The Paleo Diet will improve most diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, and the high omega-3 fat content will improve most of the "itis" or inflammatory diseases. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats are types of polyunsaturated "essential" fats that our body can't manufacture from other fats, so we have to get it from our diet. Scientific experiments determined that if the ratio of omega 6 fats to omega 3 fats exceeds 4:1, people have more health problems. This is especially meaningful since grain-fed beef can have ratios that exceed 20:1 whereby grass-fed beef is down around 3:1. The paleolithic diet is estimated to have contained small, but roughly equal amounts of Omega-6 and Omege-3 fats.
The focus on foods with higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals per calorie will ensure that optimum daily requirements are met and will wipe out any issues related to nutritional deficiences. As nutritional needs are being met, there will be less cravings and less overeating resulting in the body going towards it's optimal weight. The only nutrient where the paleolithic diet might not greatly exceed the RDA is with calcium. However, the diet is highly alkaline due to the high quantity of fruits and vegetables, so this will lower how much calcium would be excreted, and thus less calcium would be needed than the RDA calculated for western diets. This is because grains are acid forming and would cause calcium depletion, and the evidence indicates that osteoporosis is actually decreased on a paleo diet. However, you may want to consider eating a bit of ground up egg shell, or taking a calcium supplement just in case. One average 5.0 gram egg shell yields 2.0 grams of calcium, while the rda is about 1.0 grams of calcium a day, and an average paleo diet provides most of that. Consumption of 1 ground up egg shell a week sprinkled into food would make up for any possible issue. Eating some meat soup simmering with bones in them would also give you enough calcium as the bones dissolve into the water. Simply focusing on making sure a good deal of your vegetables are dark and leafy green should be enough as well as those are calcium rich.
The hunter-gatherer diet appears in theory and in practice to reverse or eliminate "diseases of affluence" that are prevalent in Western societies, but are not found in the remaining tribes of hunter-gatherers in the world. Beyond the ones mentioned above, this also includes: colorectal cancer, myopia, acne, depression, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. It is likely the entire lifestyle which creates this effect however, with more exercise, less stress, and more positive social interactions.
Avoiding dairy products and chocolate will remove the two largest factors causing phlegm build up in your throat and lead to having a better voice.
Last but not least, it is good for the health of your teeth and gums, being low in refined sugar. Refined sugar has an atomic density that is so high that any other substance on earth with such a high atomic density is classified as a poison.
Because of the unlimited amounts of fruits and veggies permitted on the Paleo Diet, your body will be slightly alkaline -- meaning that diseases and disease symptoms of acid/base imbalance (osteoporosis, kidney stones, hypertension, stroke, asthma, insomnia, motion sickness, inner ear ringing, and exercise-induced asthma) will improve.
The high soluble-fiber content of The Paleo Diet will improve most diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, and the high omega-3 fat content will improve most of the "itis" or inflammatory diseases. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats are types of polyunsaturated "essential" fats that our body can't manufacture from other fats, so we have to get it from our diet. Scientific experiments determined that if the ratio of omega 6 fats to omega 3 fats exceeds 4:1, people have more health problems. This is especially meaningful since grain-fed beef can have ratios that exceed 20:1 whereby grass-fed beef is down around 3:1. The paleolithic diet is estimated to have contained small, but roughly equal amounts of Omega-6 and Omege-3 fats.
The focus on foods with higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals per calorie will ensure that optimum daily requirements are met and will wipe out any issues related to nutritional deficiences. As nutritional needs are being met, there will be less cravings and less overeating resulting in the body going towards it's optimal weight. The only nutrient where the paleolithic diet might not greatly exceed the RDA is with calcium. However, the diet is highly alkaline due to the high quantity of fruits and vegetables, so this will lower how much calcium would be excreted, and thus less calcium would be needed than the RDA calculated for western diets. This is because grains are acid forming and would cause calcium depletion, and the evidence indicates that osteoporosis is actually decreased on a paleo diet. However, you may want to consider eating a bit of ground up egg shell, or taking a calcium supplement just in case. One average 5.0 gram egg shell yields 2.0 grams of calcium, while the rda is about 1.0 grams of calcium a day, and an average paleo diet provides most of that. Consumption of 1 ground up egg shell a week sprinkled into food would make up for any possible issue. Eating some meat soup simmering with bones in them would also give you enough calcium as the bones dissolve into the water. Simply focusing on making sure a good deal of your vegetables are dark and leafy green should be enough as well as those are calcium rich.
The hunter-gatherer diet appears in theory and in practice to reverse or eliminate "diseases of affluence" that are prevalent in Western societies, but are not found in the remaining tribes of hunter-gatherers in the world. Beyond the ones mentioned above, this also includes: colorectal cancer, myopia, acne, depression, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. It is likely the entire lifestyle which creates this effect however, with more exercise, less stress, and more positive social interactions.
Avoiding dairy products and chocolate will remove the two largest factors causing phlegm build up in your throat and lead to having a better voice.
Last but not least, it is good for the health of your teeth and gums, being low in refined sugar. Refined sugar has an atomic density that is so high that any other substance on earth with such a high atomic density is classified as a poison.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants are compounds which neutralize oxidants, the primary cause of cell damage leading to aging, and to certain types of disease, like cancer. Studies with fruit flies and rats which were given large amounts of highly absorbable antioxidants ended up having lifespans extended up 66%, and were also more energetic and seemed to enjoy a higher quality of life as they approached the end of their lives. Studies with human beings have confirmed life extending properties as well, though not as dramatic as humans don't tend to want to live their lives in a laboratory under very controlled conditions.
So increasing antioxidant intake is very important for health and well being, but it is also important to reduce oxidant intake or production. For intake, the main thing to avoid is burnt or fried food, or intake of burnt products though other channels such as smoking a cigarette. For production, while all cells in the body eventually produce some oxidants as a waste product of metabolism, more are produced under certain conditions. Obviously, the more calories you eat, the higher your metabolism will go to some extent, so it is important to balance a high calorie intake with a higher antioxidant intake. The same would apply to any other activity increasing metabolism, such as exercise.
The paleolithic diet consists of a large amount of antioxidants in relation to calories, as it contains high amounts of fruits, berries and vegetables, leaner meats to lower calorie intake, no calorie gorged supermarket foods with low antioxidants, no deep fried foods, and ideally no burnt foods. A conservative estimate would be 3-4 times as much antioxidants per calorie than an average North American diet.
One thing to be aware of is that food preparation can greatly affect antioxidant content. Boiling in particular significantly reduces certain types of antioxidants, however steaming is fine. Freezing foods will not significantly affect antioxidant content unless the food gets freezer burn, however if you blanch them before freezing them, you have just boiled them, even if it was for a short time. A good rule of thumb in food storage and preparation is that if whatever you are preparing changes color, significant amounts of some types of antioxidants were destroyed. On the other hand, for some types of vegetables with thick cell walls, such as carrots, moderate cooking will help more antioxidants such as carotene to become available and increase the total amount available. Preparing food can yield benefits in other ways as well, for example lycopene from tomatoes is more easily absorbed from tomato paste than from raw tomatoes.
So increasing antioxidant intake is very important for health and well being, but it is also important to reduce oxidant intake or production. For intake, the main thing to avoid is burnt or fried food, or intake of burnt products though other channels such as smoking a cigarette. For production, while all cells in the body eventually produce some oxidants as a waste product of metabolism, more are produced under certain conditions. Obviously, the more calories you eat, the higher your metabolism will go to some extent, so it is important to balance a high calorie intake with a higher antioxidant intake. The same would apply to any other activity increasing metabolism, such as exercise.
The paleolithic diet consists of a large amount of antioxidants in relation to calories, as it contains high amounts of fruits, berries and vegetables, leaner meats to lower calorie intake, no calorie gorged supermarket foods with low antioxidants, no deep fried foods, and ideally no burnt foods. A conservative estimate would be 3-4 times as much antioxidants per calorie than an average North American diet.
One thing to be aware of is that food preparation can greatly affect antioxidant content. Boiling in particular significantly reduces certain types of antioxidants, however steaming is fine. Freezing foods will not significantly affect antioxidant content unless the food gets freezer burn, however if you blanch them before freezing them, you have just boiled them, even if it was for a short time. A good rule of thumb in food storage and preparation is that if whatever you are preparing changes color, significant amounts of some types of antioxidants were destroyed. On the other hand, for some types of vegetables with thick cell walls, such as carrots, moderate cooking will help more antioxidants such as carotene to become available and increase the total amount available. Preparing food can yield benefits in other ways as well, for example lycopene from tomatoes is more easily absorbed from tomato paste than from raw tomatoes.
Vitamin C supplementation
This vitamin deserves special attention as it is not naturally produced by human beings, a few primates, and a few other animals such as guinea pigs, but the majority of animals on earth produce their own vitamin C. The recommended daily allowance (rda) for vitamin C is set by various institutions to be around 90mg/day for an adult male, but this is only the amount required to prevent scurvy in 95% of people, so this is not the optimal amount. An adult goat, which is a typical example of a vitamin C producing animal, produces about 13,000mg/day of vitamin C, this amount increases when they are under stress, and it weighs less than a human being.
Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant and removes free radicals which cause oxidative stress to the body. It's usage in sufficient quantities has been correlated to a reduction in the incidence of various cancers, heart disease, cataracts, colds, strokes, lead toxicity, and blood pressure. Given intravenously in high enough dosages, it can actually selectively target cancer cells and reduce their growth or result in the death of a cancer cell by causing them to produce hydrogen peroxide in greater quanties than normal cells. The effect is safe on normal cells, as opposed to other therapies. For more information click here.
The diets of simians, primates who are very similar to humans, are 10 to 20 times as high in vitamin C as the recommended values for humans from the government institutions. The hunter-gatherer diet is also similarly rich in vitamin C, so this fact alone will bring you health benefits.
The tolerable upper limit (UL) established by the Food and Nutrition Board of the US Institute of Medicine is the highest level of daily intake of a specific nutrient likely to pose no risk of adverse health effects in almost all the individuals of a specified age. The UL is currently set to 2000 mg/day in adults 19 and older. Linus Pauling, a nobel prize winner in chemistry, recommends 2000 mg/day of vitamin C and personally consumed 18,000mg/day in divided doses (No more than 2000mg at a time for a human male of average weight). This is because vitamin C has a half life of 30 minutes, meaning that if you consume 2000mg, there is only 1000mg left in your system after 30 minutes, then only 500mg left after an hour, and 250mg left after an hour and a half. So you would probably not exceed the UL by taking 2000mg every 2 hours, so long as you were taking sufficient water. Exceeding your body's actual upper limit, or saturation dosage, will cause your body to attempt to excrete via your colon as opposed to in your urine. The interesting thing is that the more unhealthy you are, the more vitamin C you need before you will excrete in this manner. The body seems to comfortably take in much more vitamin C when it is unhealthy, and as it becomes healthier and saturated, it will exceed it's actual tolerance at lower doses.
If someone is on a Western diet, I would recommend a minimum supplement of 1000 mg of Vitamin C a day. On the paleo diet, you should not need to supplement Vitamin C as you will intake a high amount, though you could try supplementing 500 mg per day and see if it increases your well being further.
For more information, click here: Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant and removes free radicals which cause oxidative stress to the body. It's usage in sufficient quantities has been correlated to a reduction in the incidence of various cancers, heart disease, cataracts, colds, strokes, lead toxicity, and blood pressure. Given intravenously in high enough dosages, it can actually selectively target cancer cells and reduce their growth or result in the death of a cancer cell by causing them to produce hydrogen peroxide in greater quanties than normal cells. The effect is safe on normal cells, as opposed to other therapies. For more information click here.
The diets of simians, primates who are very similar to humans, are 10 to 20 times as high in vitamin C as the recommended values for humans from the government institutions. The hunter-gatherer diet is also similarly rich in vitamin C, so this fact alone will bring you health benefits.
The tolerable upper limit (UL) established by the Food and Nutrition Board of the US Institute of Medicine is the highest level of daily intake of a specific nutrient likely to pose no risk of adverse health effects in almost all the individuals of a specified age. The UL is currently set to 2000 mg/day in adults 19 and older. Linus Pauling, a nobel prize winner in chemistry, recommends 2000 mg/day of vitamin C and personally consumed 18,000mg/day in divided doses (No more than 2000mg at a time for a human male of average weight). This is because vitamin C has a half life of 30 minutes, meaning that if you consume 2000mg, there is only 1000mg left in your system after 30 minutes, then only 500mg left after an hour, and 250mg left after an hour and a half. So you would probably not exceed the UL by taking 2000mg every 2 hours, so long as you were taking sufficient water. Exceeding your body's actual upper limit, or saturation dosage, will cause your body to attempt to excrete via your colon as opposed to in your urine. The interesting thing is that the more unhealthy you are, the more vitamin C you need before you will excrete in this manner. The body seems to comfortably take in much more vitamin C when it is unhealthy, and as it becomes healthier and saturated, it will exceed it's actual tolerance at lower doses.
If someone is on a Western diet, I would recommend a minimum supplement of 1000 mg of Vitamin C a day. On the paleo diet, you should not need to supplement Vitamin C as you will intake a high amount, though you could try supplementing 500 mg per day and see if it increases your well being further.
For more information, click here: Vitamin C
Additional work
By now, you are probably realizing that following this diet is going to take a bit of additional work, both mentally, to learn what is "good food" and what isn't, and physically, as it might require some additional time and effort to gather in the store or to take trips to less convenient locations. The hunter-gatherer used to walk long distances and get a lot of exercise, however. This additional work is actually going to be a benefit to you as it will keep your mental faculties sharper, and you will also get more exercise, which is one of the primary factors in good health. Any additional time you invest, you will gain back as you will have additional energy to do more instead of being tired or sleepy.
An important extra chore you need to do while supermarket "hunting and gathering" is to look past the dishonest marketing and look at the labels on food. For example, "Extra lean ground beef" has about 13g of fat for every 22g of protein. That's about 37% fat by weight. If that's not bad enough, fat has double the amount of calories as protein and the recommended amount of fat intake is about 20-35% in calories, which is about 11-21% by weight. The government basically allows marketers to lie to us if the statement could be reasonably interpreted to not be a lie in some way, no matter how far fetched this is. The way they do this is to have a product named "ground beef" which is at 15g fat per 21g protein, just debatably enough meat to not be called "ground fat", at 41% fat by weight, and 58% fat by calories, and they market a "lean" version of the "ground beef" with slightly less fat at 14g, and then an "extra lean" version at 13g as well. Is a reduction of 4% of fat by weight from "ground beef" to "EXTRA LEAN ground beef" something which makes any sense? I would have expected at least half the fat to be gone myself, as there is a big difference between an average weight animal and an animal that is lean, and yet more for an animal which is extra lean. There are various opinions published by government agencies of different countries on the exact fat percentage a human starts to be considered obese as opposed to slightly over their optimal weight, but a common figure is 25% for men and 32% for women, and 40% is considered morbidly obese. If we were to use these figures for beef, lean ground beef would have to be called "morbidly obese ground beef" to be consistent. If you are tempted to think that beef are very different than humans in terms of what is a healthy amount of fat, I have mentioned earlier that all wild game has a low percentage of body fat, and this would include grass fed beef.
Although the paleo diet does not include cheese, another common culprit in most diets are cheeses, in particular things marketed as low fat cheese. Just check the labels and compare the fat content in weight to the protein content in weight. In general the only real low fat cheeses are low fat ricotta and low fat cottage cheeses. Otherwise you are basically being sold a bunch of fat in a pretty marketing package. For example, cheddar cheese has 44g of fat for 33g of protein and 2g of carbs, which makes it 55% fat by weight, and a whopping 71% fat by calories. If you knew you were buying a bag that was two clearly separated halves, one half protein (like skinless chicken breasts), the other half fat (like butter), and you had to blend it together before eating it, would you still buy it and blend it and eat it? If your answer is yes, I guarantee you that is a clear sign of fat addiction. A bit of butter is nice with lean chicken, but you are just looking to put in a bit to taste it, not to make it the main part of the meal, at 55% content.
Besides unhealthy fat, the next major culprit is sugar. Basically, there are some people that are trying to sell you something that the body naturally recognizes as garbage by taste, so they add an unnaturally large amount of refined sugar to it to fool your body into believing it is something awesome. Guess what? Healthy food tastes amazing without having to add anything to it once your senses have returned from being overloaded and overwhelmed by processed sugar, which in undiluted form is a severe poison. Below is a link to an example of baked beans which have 13g of sugar, and at 39g overall that makes it 33% sugar. http://calorielab.com/brands/bushs-baked-beans/162/2006604
That's just nuts... beans naturally have next to no sugars in them, so to get something to have 33% sugar, you'd need to add half it's weight in sugar to it, and that's what these companies are doing. Would you take a banana and put it in a blender and add half it's weight in sugar to it before you blend it up to eat it or serve to a guest? What about a chicken recipe that said 2 parts chicken to 1 part sugar? Doesn't that seem excessive? If you were to try to fullfill a daily caloric requirement of 2000 from this food, you would be intaking 173g of sugar, far above the 50g daily absolute maximum that the world health federation recommends. Furthermore, that absolute maximum amount is far above the recommended daily amount (RDI) to consume for optimal health, which you may be surprised to find out is 0, because unless you are starving to death the body doesn't need those empty calories at all and it just lowers your health.
So there is a bit more work than living a life of total convenience, indulgence, and blind trust, but one thing is for sure, it is definitely a lot less work than the paleolithic hunter-gatherer used to do. Eating the hunter-gatherer diet these days is definitely far more convenient than before, and by comparision is actually very easy. The main difference is that the threats used to be mostly from animal predators and difficult food gathering conditions requiring a lot of work, while now the threat is mostly from human predators, interested only in acquiring money and not in the well being of their fellow human beings. Our village elders that taught us to hunt and gather in tribal times are now called "nutrition experts" or "scientists" and instead of them telling us face to face what something is, we get that information through a book, a web page, or a nutritional content label on the food package itself, which is extra work, and that work can be difficult when we are nutritionally exhausted.
However, the most difficult part is to make the decision and preparations to try the "expandable modern hunter-gatherer diet", and then to break your habits and to break your addictions. Many foods have been purposefully constructed to be addictive to guarantee repeat sales by adding extra sugar or fat, or by adding drugs such as caffeine or by adding extremely appealing artificial tastes or flavors.
The bottom line is that you can put in the extra work, or you can continue to be someone else's fool, and exist further down on the food chain as prey to human corporate greed through the weakness of your addictions. There is no better word than prey really, as you are definitely being hunted by the marketers and when they have you - when you buy and eat the food - your health is being harmed with the knowledge of the corporations. The arrows are just a lot smaller, but over time the wounds accumulate just the same and your life is cut short.
An important extra chore you need to do while supermarket "hunting and gathering" is to look past the dishonest marketing and look at the labels on food. For example, "Extra lean ground beef" has about 13g of fat for every 22g of protein. That's about 37% fat by weight. If that's not bad enough, fat has double the amount of calories as protein and the recommended amount of fat intake is about 20-35% in calories, which is about 11-21% by weight. The government basically allows marketers to lie to us if the statement could be reasonably interpreted to not be a lie in some way, no matter how far fetched this is. The way they do this is to have a product named "ground beef" which is at 15g fat per 21g protein, just debatably enough meat to not be called "ground fat", at 41% fat by weight, and 58% fat by calories, and they market a "lean" version of the "ground beef" with slightly less fat at 14g, and then an "extra lean" version at 13g as well. Is a reduction of 4% of fat by weight from "ground beef" to "EXTRA LEAN ground beef" something which makes any sense? I would have expected at least half the fat to be gone myself, as there is a big difference between an average weight animal and an animal that is lean, and yet more for an animal which is extra lean. There are various opinions published by government agencies of different countries on the exact fat percentage a human starts to be considered obese as opposed to slightly over their optimal weight, but a common figure is 25% for men and 32% for women, and 40% is considered morbidly obese. If we were to use these figures for beef, lean ground beef would have to be called "morbidly obese ground beef" to be consistent. If you are tempted to think that beef are very different than humans in terms of what is a healthy amount of fat, I have mentioned earlier that all wild game has a low percentage of body fat, and this would include grass fed beef.
Although the paleo diet does not include cheese, another common culprit in most diets are cheeses, in particular things marketed as low fat cheese. Just check the labels and compare the fat content in weight to the protein content in weight. In general the only real low fat cheeses are low fat ricotta and low fat cottage cheeses. Otherwise you are basically being sold a bunch of fat in a pretty marketing package. For example, cheddar cheese has 44g of fat for 33g of protein and 2g of carbs, which makes it 55% fat by weight, and a whopping 71% fat by calories. If you knew you were buying a bag that was two clearly separated halves, one half protein (like skinless chicken breasts), the other half fat (like butter), and you had to blend it together before eating it, would you still buy it and blend it and eat it? If your answer is yes, I guarantee you that is a clear sign of fat addiction. A bit of butter is nice with lean chicken, but you are just looking to put in a bit to taste it, not to make it the main part of the meal, at 55% content.
Besides unhealthy fat, the next major culprit is sugar. Basically, there are some people that are trying to sell you something that the body naturally recognizes as garbage by taste, so they add an unnaturally large amount of refined sugar to it to fool your body into believing it is something awesome. Guess what? Healthy food tastes amazing without having to add anything to it once your senses have returned from being overloaded and overwhelmed by processed sugar, which in undiluted form is a severe poison. Below is a link to an example of baked beans which have 13g of sugar, and at 39g overall that makes it 33% sugar. http://calorielab.com/brands/bushs-baked-beans/162/2006604
That's just nuts... beans naturally have next to no sugars in them, so to get something to have 33% sugar, you'd need to add half it's weight in sugar to it, and that's what these companies are doing. Would you take a banana and put it in a blender and add half it's weight in sugar to it before you blend it up to eat it or serve to a guest? What about a chicken recipe that said 2 parts chicken to 1 part sugar? Doesn't that seem excessive? If you were to try to fullfill a daily caloric requirement of 2000 from this food, you would be intaking 173g of sugar, far above the 50g daily absolute maximum that the world health federation recommends. Furthermore, that absolute maximum amount is far above the recommended daily amount (RDI) to consume for optimal health, which you may be surprised to find out is 0, because unless you are starving to death the body doesn't need those empty calories at all and it just lowers your health.
So there is a bit more work than living a life of total convenience, indulgence, and blind trust, but one thing is for sure, it is definitely a lot less work than the paleolithic hunter-gatherer used to do. Eating the hunter-gatherer diet these days is definitely far more convenient than before, and by comparision is actually very easy. The main difference is that the threats used to be mostly from animal predators and difficult food gathering conditions requiring a lot of work, while now the threat is mostly from human predators, interested only in acquiring money and not in the well being of their fellow human beings. Our village elders that taught us to hunt and gather in tribal times are now called "nutrition experts" or "scientists" and instead of them telling us face to face what something is, we get that information through a book, a web page, or a nutritional content label on the food package itself, which is extra work, and that work can be difficult when we are nutritionally exhausted.
However, the most difficult part is to make the decision and preparations to try the "expandable modern hunter-gatherer diet", and then to break your habits and to break your addictions. Many foods have been purposefully constructed to be addictive to guarantee repeat sales by adding extra sugar or fat, or by adding drugs such as caffeine or by adding extremely appealing artificial tastes or flavors.
The bottom line is that you can put in the extra work, or you can continue to be someone else's fool, and exist further down on the food chain as prey to human corporate greed through the weakness of your addictions. There is no better word than prey really, as you are definitely being hunted by the marketers and when they have you - when you buy and eat the food - your health is being harmed with the knowledge of the corporations. The arrows are just a lot smaller, but over time the wounds accumulate just the same and your life is cut short.
Making that additional work less painful
Use a big pot. Maybe not this big, but big. It's interesting, but when food is very healthy and full of nutrients, you don't tire as much of having the same dish repeatedly, and it obviously saves a great deal of time. You can also freeze some and have it ready for a later time. When you are hungry and need to eat immediately, when it's just as easy to reach for a pot of healthy, tasty, stew as it is for a snack food, it will be a lot easier.
If it's hard or expensive to get organic meats, you can instead get meats with very low fat content (cut it off if you can) and try to include some other foods with high ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 to balance that out a bit.
If it's hard or expensive to get organic meats, you can instead get meats with very low fat content (cut it off if you can) and try to include some other foods with high ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 to balance that out a bit.
Chewing
Chewing is a part of your diet as it affects what you take into your digestive system. Bigger chunks of unchewed food will lead to incomplete digestion in the stomach and growth of bacteria in the intestines, as well as less lubrication and digestion from saliva. This is particularly important for foods which contain starch, as saliva contains amylase, a digestive enzyme, and starch is found in most foods with carbohydrates. Cereals, bread and pasta are particularly rich in starch, and although the strict Paleo diet excludes these and avoids the problem altogether, if you choose to expand your diet to include them, it is particularly important to remember to chew these well.
The biggest reason for lack of chewing is rushing as the world is a more hectic place than it used to be. When you aren't rushing, eating food is a pleasurable experience full of sensations. Don't deny yourself that pleasure, and don't deny yourself your health.
The biggest reason for lack of chewing is rushing as the world is a more hectic place than it used to be. When you aren't rushing, eating food is a pleasurable experience full of sensations. Don't deny yourself that pleasure, and don't deny yourself your health.
Cancer prevention
If you look at the risk factors for cancer, you will see that the majority of these factors are controllable, and a lot of it falls under diet. The primary factors to consider to control cancer according to the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research are:
* Eating less fat, and better fat (more omega-3 fats, more unsaturated plant fats, more oils with omega-3), don't fry oils at high temperatures.
* Eat 5-13 servings of non-starchy plant based fruits and vegetables a day, depending on your weight. (Potato, yam, sweet potato, and cassava don't count) Eat only limited amounts of refined grains like white bread and pasta. A serving is a half a cup in size, and for an average active person needing 2000 calories a day, this would translate to 9 servings, or 4 and a 1/2 cups.)
* Limit red meat (beef, pork, lamb, goat) to less than 18oz. per week and completely avoid processed meat. (I personally believe that this applies only to agriculturally grown red meats, which are often raised to have unhealthy ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 fats, or other additives such as hormones, and that wild raised or organic red meats are fine.)
* Limiting sugar and sugary drinks.
* Limiting alcohol. (1-2 drinks a day maximum)
* Limiting salt. (2400 mg a day max)
* Get regular exercise. (30 minutes a day vigorous, or 60 moderate)
* Being as lean as possible with a recommended BMI of 21-23 (click here to calculate)
* Don't depend on pills. Some supplements or high-dose nutrients are associated with higher risk of developing cancer. Stick to a healthy diet instead and don't bank on dietary supplements as the magic pills in preventing cancer.
All of these recommendations were normal behavior for someone following a hunter-gatherer pre-agricultural diet and lifestyle, except for limiting red meat. I would also recommend limiting the intake of red meat generally found in stores, though as I explained in the bullet point, I believe there should be no limit on red meat raised in a natural manner.
The most interesting thing is that although obesity and diet are both correlated to cancer and considered to be risk factors, we need to remember that correlation does not imply causation. Now there is interesting research on antiangiogenesis which shows that both Obesity and Cancer can be controlled by the same causative factors, and that those factors can be found in many common foods. Please read the section further down this page on antiangiogenesis.
* Eating less fat, and better fat (more omega-3 fats, more unsaturated plant fats, more oils with omega-3), don't fry oils at high temperatures.
* Eat 5-13 servings of non-starchy plant based fruits and vegetables a day, depending on your weight. (Potato, yam, sweet potato, and cassava don't count) Eat only limited amounts of refined grains like white bread and pasta. A serving is a half a cup in size, and for an average active person needing 2000 calories a day, this would translate to 9 servings, or 4 and a 1/2 cups.)
* Limit red meat (beef, pork, lamb, goat) to less than 18oz. per week and completely avoid processed meat. (I personally believe that this applies only to agriculturally grown red meats, which are often raised to have unhealthy ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 fats, or other additives such as hormones, and that wild raised or organic red meats are fine.)
* Limiting sugar and sugary drinks.
* Limiting alcohol. (1-2 drinks a day maximum)
* Limiting salt. (2400 mg a day max)
* Get regular exercise. (30 minutes a day vigorous, or 60 moderate)
* Being as lean as possible with a recommended BMI of 21-23 (click here to calculate)
* Don't depend on pills. Some supplements or high-dose nutrients are associated with higher risk of developing cancer. Stick to a healthy diet instead and don't bank on dietary supplements as the magic pills in preventing cancer.
All of these recommendations were normal behavior for someone following a hunter-gatherer pre-agricultural diet and lifestyle, except for limiting red meat. I would also recommend limiting the intake of red meat generally found in stores, though as I explained in the bullet point, I believe there should be no limit on red meat raised in a natural manner.
The most interesting thing is that although obesity and diet are both correlated to cancer and considered to be risk factors, we need to remember that correlation does not imply causation. Now there is interesting research on antiangiogenesis which shows that both Obesity and Cancer can be controlled by the same causative factors, and that those factors can be found in many common foods. Please read the section further down this page on antiangiogenesis.
Wait a minute, doctors tell me that dairy and whole grains are healthy for me... are they wrong?
No, they're not wrong at all. Low fat dairy and whole grains are very healthy for you compared to the average North American diet. Most people are using the average North American diet as the baseline to which they compare everything. However, if you use the hunter-gatherer diet as the baseline, you will see that the foods in these food groups are less healthy compared to the hunter-gatherer diet. That's the only message I am trying to get across here. Start to consider the hunter-gatherer diet as the baseline diet for human health and then consider adding some other foods to it that won't significantly decrease the nutrition value of your diet. Stop focusing on reducing this or that on the "broken beyond repair" Modern diet, and start to focus on adding some things to the Ancient Paleolithic diet as they make sense, and develop a Modern Paleolithic diet which suits you.
That said, if you start with a pure hunter gatherer diet, and add in some skim milk and whole grains later on, you will end up with an extremely healthy diet as well. Low fat cottage cheese and ricotta cheese are also quite nutrient rich. These should be treated as "additions" though, and tested individually once a paleo baseline has been established.
That said, if you start with a pure hunter gatherer diet, and add in some skim milk and whole grains later on, you will end up with an extremely healthy diet as well. Low fat cottage cheese and ricotta cheese are also quite nutrient rich. These should be treated as "additions" though, and tested individually once a paleo baseline has been established.
What about organic?
Everything was organic back in the paleolithic days, pesticides didn't exist, so there is less that your body is not used to in organic food. The American Medical Association recommends limiting exposure to pesticides due to long term health effects, and there have been many examples of pesticides used which were later banned due to unexpectedly severe health effects. The goal of a pesticide is to kill things that are alive after all. Some cited health effects in pesticides that are still used today include: skin and eye irritation, nervous system disorders, cancer, and birth defects.
The World Health Organization and the UN Environment Programme estimate that each year, 3 million workers in agriculture in the developing world experience severe poisoning from pesticides, about 18,000 of whom die. According to one study, as many as 25 million workers in developing countries may suffer mild pesticide poisoning yearly. Unfortunately, pesticide sprayed food is often much cheaper, so it depends on where your priorities lie. In general if you wash the food carefully before you eat it, or remove the peel, you will remove the majority of the pesticides, and thus limit your exposure. Be on guard against some genetically modified foods as they may have been modified to produce their own pesticides where the naturally occurring strain did not do this. In these cases the pesticides can often not be washed off as they may be have been produced throughout the food as opposed to just sprayed on the surface.
There are also some cases where pesticides get absorbed and can not be easily washed off. A study was done after produce was washed with a USDA high-power pressure water system, and it was found that 12 items retained a great deal of pesticides, so they were called the "Dirty Dozen". These are:
Celery, Peaches, Strawberries, Apples, Domestic blueberries, Nectarines, Sweet bell peppers, (Spinach, kale and collard greens), Cherries, Potatoes, Imported grapes, Lettuce.
The leader of the study, Amy Rosenthal said: "You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen."
So organic for everything would probably be overly costly, but reducing 80% of your pesticide poison intake by buying those items grown organically is worth it.
The World Health Organization and the UN Environment Programme estimate that each year, 3 million workers in agriculture in the developing world experience severe poisoning from pesticides, about 18,000 of whom die. According to one study, as many as 25 million workers in developing countries may suffer mild pesticide poisoning yearly. Unfortunately, pesticide sprayed food is often much cheaper, so it depends on where your priorities lie. In general if you wash the food carefully before you eat it, or remove the peel, you will remove the majority of the pesticides, and thus limit your exposure. Be on guard against some genetically modified foods as they may have been modified to produce their own pesticides where the naturally occurring strain did not do this. In these cases the pesticides can often not be washed off as they may be have been produced throughout the food as opposed to just sprayed on the surface.
There are also some cases where pesticides get absorbed and can not be easily washed off. A study was done after produce was washed with a USDA high-power pressure water system, and it was found that 12 items retained a great deal of pesticides, so they were called the "Dirty Dozen". These are:
Celery, Peaches, Strawberries, Apples, Domestic blueberries, Nectarines, Sweet bell peppers, (Spinach, kale and collard greens), Cherries, Potatoes, Imported grapes, Lettuce.
The leader of the study, Amy Rosenthal said: "You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen."
So organic for everything would probably be overly costly, but reducing 80% of your pesticide poison intake by buying those items grown organically is worth it.
Fresh water and chlorine
Chlorine was used as a chemical weapon against human beings in World War I and it is now used in our water supply to fight the war against contamination by microorganisms. Its sole function is to kill living material and it is classified as a pesticide. The problem is not that the chlorine is there, as it serves a useful purpose, but that it's not removed before we use it. Low cost carbon filtration systems exist to filter chlorine out of drinking water, yet not everyone uses them. According to the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality, "Cancer risk among people drinking chlorinated water is 93% higher than among those whose water does not contain any chlorine."
Interestingly enough, this is not the only way the body intakes chlorine. According to "The American Journal Of Public Health," up to two-thirds of the harmful effects of chlorine are due to inhalation and skin absorption while showering. A warm shower opens up the pores of the skin and allows for increased absorption of chlorine and other chemicals in water. The steam we inhale while showering contains high amounts of contaminants since they vaporize much faster and at a lower temperature than water. Inhalation is a much more harmful means of exposure since the chlorine gas (chloroform) we inhale gets absorbed through the lungs and quickly passed into our blood stream. When we drink contaminated water on the other hand, the toxins are partially filtered out by our kidneys and digestive system. Chlorine vapors are known to be a strong irritant to the sensitive tissue and bronchial passages inside our lungs, which is why it was used as a chemical weapon. The inhalation of chlorine is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children… which has increased 300% in the last two decades. According to Dr Lance Wallace, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Showering is suspected as the primary cause of elevated chloroform in nearly every home because of chlorine in the water. Chloroform [a known carcinogen] levels increase up to 100 times during a 10-minute shower in residential water."
Fortunately, while shower filtration systems used to be very expensive, they only cost about $30 now and can be picked up at a local hardware store such as Canadian Tire, screwed into place in a few minutes, and reduce 95% or chlorine emissions for 5000 gallons of water, which is approximately 3 to 6 months of usage for most households. A replacement filter is just $20. It's not a complicated thing to fix and I think we can agree that chemical warfare belongs in a war not in your house!
The effects of chlorine have been investigated for some time. In the late sixties, Dr. Joseph Price wrote a controversial book titled Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine and concluded that a basic cause of atherosclerosis and resulting heart attacks and stroke, are elevated levels of chlorine. Dr. Price later headed up a study using chickens, where two groups of several hundred birds were observed throughout their span to maturity. One group was given water with chlorine and the other was not. The group raised with elevated chlorine, when autopsied, showed some level of heart or circulatory disease in 95% of specimens, while the group without chlorine had no incidence of disease. The group with chlorine under winter conditions, showed outward signs of poor circulation, shivering, drooped feathers and a reduced level of activity. The group without chlorine grew faster, larger and displayed vigorous health. Later studies were done that showed that the effect was particularly strong when levels of sodium or calcium were low. Considering that salt is sodium chloride, and that high salt intake by itself is known to increase the chance of cardiovascular problems, it's not surprising that intaking chlorine without sodium might produce these symptoms as the body functions optimally when it is in a balanced state. In part due to this study, most large poultry producers today monitor the chlorine in their water to make sure it is not excessive, or remove the chlorine entirely. It makes sense to apply that same result to raising humans. :)
Another overlooked factor is that chlorinated water has a bad taste and is a reason that people don't drink as much water as they normally would and turn to other drinks. Chickens are also known to lower their water consumption when there are higher levels of chlorine, according to Thomas A. Carter, Specialist in Charge, Extension Poultry Specialist and Ronald E. Sneed, Extension Biological and Agricultural Engineering Specialist in a report on Drinking Water Quality for Chicken for the North Carolina State University College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. To learn some ways to dechlorinate water, for example boiling it, you can read this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Dechlorinate-Water Bear in mind that if you dechlorinate water by boiling it or through other means, you will vaporize the chlorine into the air and possibly inhale it.
Interestingly enough, this is not the only way the body intakes chlorine. According to "The American Journal Of Public Health," up to two-thirds of the harmful effects of chlorine are due to inhalation and skin absorption while showering. A warm shower opens up the pores of the skin and allows for increased absorption of chlorine and other chemicals in water. The steam we inhale while showering contains high amounts of contaminants since they vaporize much faster and at a lower temperature than water. Inhalation is a much more harmful means of exposure since the chlorine gas (chloroform) we inhale gets absorbed through the lungs and quickly passed into our blood stream. When we drink contaminated water on the other hand, the toxins are partially filtered out by our kidneys and digestive system. Chlorine vapors are known to be a strong irritant to the sensitive tissue and bronchial passages inside our lungs, which is why it was used as a chemical weapon. The inhalation of chlorine is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children… which has increased 300% in the last two decades. According to Dr Lance Wallace, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Showering is suspected as the primary cause of elevated chloroform in nearly every home because of chlorine in the water. Chloroform [a known carcinogen] levels increase up to 100 times during a 10-minute shower in residential water."
Fortunately, while shower filtration systems used to be very expensive, they only cost about $30 now and can be picked up at a local hardware store such as Canadian Tire, screwed into place in a few minutes, and reduce 95% or chlorine emissions for 5000 gallons of water, which is approximately 3 to 6 months of usage for most households. A replacement filter is just $20. It's not a complicated thing to fix and I think we can agree that chemical warfare belongs in a war not in your house!
The effects of chlorine have been investigated for some time. In the late sixties, Dr. Joseph Price wrote a controversial book titled Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine and concluded that a basic cause of atherosclerosis and resulting heart attacks and stroke, are elevated levels of chlorine. Dr. Price later headed up a study using chickens, where two groups of several hundred birds were observed throughout their span to maturity. One group was given water with chlorine and the other was not. The group raised with elevated chlorine, when autopsied, showed some level of heart or circulatory disease in 95% of specimens, while the group without chlorine had no incidence of disease. The group with chlorine under winter conditions, showed outward signs of poor circulation, shivering, drooped feathers and a reduced level of activity. The group without chlorine grew faster, larger and displayed vigorous health. Later studies were done that showed that the effect was particularly strong when levels of sodium or calcium were low. Considering that salt is sodium chloride, and that high salt intake by itself is known to increase the chance of cardiovascular problems, it's not surprising that intaking chlorine without sodium might produce these symptoms as the body functions optimally when it is in a balanced state. In part due to this study, most large poultry producers today monitor the chlorine in their water to make sure it is not excessive, or remove the chlorine entirely. It makes sense to apply that same result to raising humans. :)
Another overlooked factor is that chlorinated water has a bad taste and is a reason that people don't drink as much water as they normally would and turn to other drinks. Chickens are also known to lower their water consumption when there are higher levels of chlorine, according to Thomas A. Carter, Specialist in Charge, Extension Poultry Specialist and Ronald E. Sneed, Extension Biological and Agricultural Engineering Specialist in a report on Drinking Water Quality for Chicken for the North Carolina State University College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. To learn some ways to dechlorinate water, for example boiling it, you can read this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Dechlorinate-Water Bear in mind that if you dechlorinate water by boiling it or through other means, you will vaporize the chlorine into the air and possibly inhale it.
Detoxification reactions
As you start to eat paleo, you may be surprised to occasionally find yourself irritable, having pains in your joints, headaches or similar other reactions. This will stop somewhere between 2 days and 9 days for most people and a feeling of overall well being will take it's place. What is happening here is that the body had certain areas of itself "numbed", and when those areas awaken, they go through some pain while they are purging themselves of the contaminants that numbed them in the first place.
You can read up more on detoxification here: detoxification.
You can read up more on detoxification here: detoxification.
Convenient list of super healthy foods for shopping list
Tomatoes, cucumbers, omega-3 eggs (flax fed), flaxseed oil (for salads or cold dishes), canola oil for cooking, celery, bell peppers, eggplants, asparagus, artichokes, okra, avocados, lettuce, spinach, collard greens, kale, beet top, mustard greens, dandelion, swiss chard, watercress, turnip greens, seaweeds, endive, arugula (rocket), bok choy, rapini, chicory, radicchio, carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, radish, jerusalem artichokes, cassava, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, pumpkin, buttercup squash, zucchini, yellow summer squash, yellow crookneck squash, bananas, apples, oranges, berries (strawberry, cranberry, cranberry, blueberry, blackberry), grapefruit, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, pomegranates, pineapple, papaya, grapes, cantaloupe, cherries, apricot, watermelon, honeydew melon, kiwi, lemon, lime, lychee, mango, tangerine, coconut, figs, dates, passion fruit, persimmon, pistachios, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, chestnuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, button mushroom, portobello, oyster mushroom, shiitake, chanterelle, crimini, porcini, parsley, thyme, lavender, mint, basil, rosemary, chives, tarragon, oregano, sage, dill, bay leaves, coriander, honey, crab, lobster, shrimps, scallops, clams, oysters, mussels, mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, salmon, wild game or grass fed animals (avoid grain fed)
The bottom line for diet
Whether the hunter-gatherer diet suits you or not, you should consider what is in your diet, and what is going into -- and out of -- your body. The body can get rid of a certain amount of toxins, but if it takes in more than it can get rid of it becomes overloaded, and illness will result.
It's important to pick a diet that doesn't bring in more toxins than you can get rid of and that considers the elimination process. You can get help to get rid of toxins by drinking ample amounts of water, by eating enough fiber, and by doing some exercise that results in sweating, or spending some time in a sauna. If you never do anything to sweat, it is difficult for the body to get rid of oil soluble toxins.
Pay attention to how your body feels. If you don't feel fantastic shortly after a certain type of meal, then there was probably something in that meal that didn't completely agree with you. Conversely, if you do feel great, there was probably something there that your body really needed, unless it was something that produced short term pleasure such as a drug, or sugars or fats. See how you feel a few hours afterwards.
If you want to try the hunter-gatherer diet you should probably try to follow it very strictly at the beginning and see how you feel after one to three weeks. You should feel some initial benefits already after a few days, though chronic conditions such as a perpetually irritated throat or skin conditions might take several weeks to resolve. Once you start to really feel the benefits, and you feel that you have gotten as healthy as you are going to get on it, then try one of your old foods again that you really liked, and see what happens to your health level. If you maintain your health level over the next week or so then you can consider trying to add another one, if not exclude it again.
Much more information on the paleolithic diet can be found by clicking here.
Good hunting!
Mark
It's important to pick a diet that doesn't bring in more toxins than you can get rid of and that considers the elimination process. You can get help to get rid of toxins by drinking ample amounts of water, by eating enough fiber, and by doing some exercise that results in sweating, or spending some time in a sauna. If you never do anything to sweat, it is difficult for the body to get rid of oil soluble toxins.
Pay attention to how your body feels. If you don't feel fantastic shortly after a certain type of meal, then there was probably something in that meal that didn't completely agree with you. Conversely, if you do feel great, there was probably something there that your body really needed, unless it was something that produced short term pleasure such as a drug, or sugars or fats. See how you feel a few hours afterwards.
If you want to try the hunter-gatherer diet you should probably try to follow it very strictly at the beginning and see how you feel after one to three weeks. You should feel some initial benefits already after a few days, though chronic conditions such as a perpetually irritated throat or skin conditions might take several weeks to resolve. Once you start to really feel the benefits, and you feel that you have gotten as healthy as you are going to get on it, then try one of your old foods again that you really liked, and see what happens to your health level. If you maintain your health level over the next week or so then you can consider trying to add another one, if not exclude it again.
Much more information on the paleolithic diet can be found by clicking here.
Good hunting!
Mark
Additional modification to exclude the remaining "difficult to digest" polysaccharides
The good news is that most of these difficult to digest foods are already excluded from the hunter-gatherer diet, so you should already have much better digestion. However, if you exclude a few more foods you can finish off the remaining digestive issues with little effort and have one less worry in life. Note that although some of these foods are difficult to digest, the parts that do digest end up being very healthy, so there is no additional health benefit here, just the benefit of being more comfortable.
Flatulence-producing foods are typically high in certain polysaccharides, (especially oligosaccharides such as inulin). Those high polysaccharide foods already excluded in the Paleolithic diet include beans, lentils, dairy products, sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, oats, wheat, and yeast in breads. The additional foods to exclude to gain this additional benefit would be: onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, cashews, Jerusalem artichokes, and cruciferous vegetables. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables that belong to the genus Brassica and are commonly reputed to not only increase flatulence, but to make the person somewhat "scent challenged".
If you are wanting to eat these foods, it is good to know that amylase in saliva breaks down polysaccharides, so this effect can be reduced by chewing exceptionally well. This will break down as many thick cell walls as possible to release the polysaccharides, and to cover with as much amylase as possible until the food is just a textureless, flavorful liquid paste.
Flatulence-producing foods are typically high in certain polysaccharides, (especially oligosaccharides such as inulin). Those high polysaccharide foods already excluded in the Paleolithic diet include beans, lentils, dairy products, sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, oats, wheat, and yeast in breads. The additional foods to exclude to gain this additional benefit would be: onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, cashews, Jerusalem artichokes, and cruciferous vegetables. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables that belong to the genus Brassica and are commonly reputed to not only increase flatulence, but to make the person somewhat "scent challenged".
If you are wanting to eat these foods, it is good to know that amylase in saliva breaks down polysaccharides, so this effect can be reduced by chewing exceptionally well. This will break down as many thick cell walls as possible to release the polysaccharides, and to cover with as much amylase as possible until the food is just a textureless, flavorful liquid paste.
Additional modification to improve your voice
If you have worked towards using your voice in a performance and had some coaching by someone with experience, at some point they will counsel you on diet. This could run from public speaking, to singing. Most of these foods are already excluded in the strict paleo diet, though it is important information to know in case you expand back into them.
One piece of advice would be to avoid foods which will make you produce too much mucous and phlegm in your nose and throat. The biggest offenders here are dairy products, such as milk, cheese and butter, as well as chocolate, and you should not have these 24 hours before a performance.
The other end of the spectrum would be to avoid foods that dried your throat too much, such as coffee, citrus fruits, spices that are hot or sour, alcohol, fried junk food, refined sugar, and excessive salt, once again 24 hours before a performance.
Finally, in the hours before a performance, you want to avoid foods with "fizz" such as soft drinks as these could lead to you having too much air in your stomach and feeling the need to burp, as well as drinks that are too cold (or too hot) as your throat might still be reacting to them. As well, you would not want to eat a normal sized meal right before a performance as your stomach would feel full, nor would you want to overeat some time before that. Snacking on neutral foods is fine, except for in the last moments.
Even if you are not performing, life is a stage and it feels good to have a clear voice and healthy throat.
One piece of advice would be to avoid foods which will make you produce too much mucous and phlegm in your nose and throat. The biggest offenders here are dairy products, such as milk, cheese and butter, as well as chocolate, and you should not have these 24 hours before a performance.
The other end of the spectrum would be to avoid foods that dried your throat too much, such as coffee, citrus fruits, spices that are hot or sour, alcohol, fried junk food, refined sugar, and excessive salt, once again 24 hours before a performance.
Finally, in the hours before a performance, you want to avoid foods with "fizz" such as soft drinks as these could lead to you having too much air in your stomach and feeling the need to burp, as well as drinks that are too cold (or too hot) as your throat might still be reacting to them. As well, you would not want to eat a normal sized meal right before a performance as your stomach would feel full, nor would you want to overeat some time before that. Snacking on neutral foods is fine, except for in the last moments.
Even if you are not performing, life is a stage and it feels good to have a clear voice and healthy throat.
Acne
One of the great benefits of a strict paleolithic diet is that your skin health will improve dramatically and visibly, and assuming nothing else is happening to irritate your skin, any acne you have should clear up. In particular, one major culprit I have found which can irritate your skin to a great extent is excessive iodine, which is put into table salt through government policy, the original intent being to prevent a disease called goiter. This includes most processed foods which include salt as an ingredient. If you want to use salt, you can switch to using sea salt, which is paleolithic as it is a natural product.
Another thing which can greatly irritate your skin are foods with a very high fat content and poor ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, the biggest offender being egg yolks produced by agriculturally grown chickens. This intake imbalance causes the oil in your skin to not be well balanced either, and feel thick instead of thin, which can contribute to irritating blockages. You can greatly improve the situation by checking the ingredients labels and eating omega-3 eggs with a very high ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. However, the overall fat content of eggs is still very high compared to lean meats so these should be consumed in moderation. The best honest name for omega-3 eggs is "eggs which won't kill you". Free range eggs are not worth the hike in price at all for the nutrient content, all "free range" means legally is that the chickens are allowed access to the outside occasionally, omega-3 eggs outperform them in balanced fatty acid content. How about that for a marketing lie? The best eggs (which are completely healthy, yet also very rare) are eggs from pastured chickens, where you will see very balanced ratios of omega-3 and omega-6, almost equivalent. The fat to protein ratio of such an egg is still high as the yolk is designed to feed the chicken all the way through to the point that it breaks out of the shell, but this is not an issue unless weight loss is a goal and eggs are being eaten in great quantities.
The same sorts of arguments apply for purchasing beef or other animal products, check the overall fat content and omega-3 to omega-6 ratios carefully. Basically, if you increase the health of your skin and reduce skin irritation, your complexion improves. There are some factors such as your own personal hormones which are difficult to control, but if you control the factors that you can, the remaining factors become easier to control. In particular, it's important to wash away excreted toxins after sweating (sweating is the body's way of excreting oil soluable toxins) or being exposed to other toxins or irritants irritating to skin, including most regular soaps. Controlling things like personal hormone levels which may cause irritating conditions for your skin may be achieved by controlling the amount of stress in your life.
Another thing which can greatly irritate your skin are foods with a very high fat content and poor ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, the biggest offender being egg yolks produced by agriculturally grown chickens. This intake imbalance causes the oil in your skin to not be well balanced either, and feel thick instead of thin, which can contribute to irritating blockages. You can greatly improve the situation by checking the ingredients labels and eating omega-3 eggs with a very high ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. However, the overall fat content of eggs is still very high compared to lean meats so these should be consumed in moderation. The best honest name for omega-3 eggs is "eggs which won't kill you". Free range eggs are not worth the hike in price at all for the nutrient content, all "free range" means legally is that the chickens are allowed access to the outside occasionally, omega-3 eggs outperform them in balanced fatty acid content. How about that for a marketing lie? The best eggs (which are completely healthy, yet also very rare) are eggs from pastured chickens, where you will see very balanced ratios of omega-3 and omega-6, almost equivalent. The fat to protein ratio of such an egg is still high as the yolk is designed to feed the chicken all the way through to the point that it breaks out of the shell, but this is not an issue unless weight loss is a goal and eggs are being eaten in great quantities.
The same sorts of arguments apply for purchasing beef or other animal products, check the overall fat content and omega-3 to omega-6 ratios carefully. Basically, if you increase the health of your skin and reduce skin irritation, your complexion improves. There are some factors such as your own personal hormones which are difficult to control, but if you control the factors that you can, the remaining factors become easier to control. In particular, it's important to wash away excreted toxins after sweating (sweating is the body's way of excreting oil soluable toxins) or being exposed to other toxins or irritants irritating to skin, including most regular soaps. Controlling things like personal hormone levels which may cause irritating conditions for your skin may be achieved by controlling the amount of stress in your life.
Antiangiogenesis
Wow, that's a mouthful. What is this? In a nutshell it means something that stops the genesis of new blood vessels, and can cause excessive growth to unwanted areas to retract. I'll let this video explain things in more detail as it does a great job, so please click the link: Antiangionesis
The thing to take away from this is that there are certain foods which can help to control and wipe out things like cancer and obesity by getting blood vessels to retract from them, cutting off their food supply. This could explain the correlation between obesity and cancer, as they are both affected by the same compounds.
Ranking at the top of the list are mainly foods that qualify as paleolithic: Green tea, Berries, Citrus, Apples, Pineapple, Cherries, Red grapes, Kale, Bok Choy, Maitake mushrooms, Turmeric, Nutmeg, Licorice, Artichokes, Lavender, Parsley, Pumpkin, Tuna, Garlic, Tomatoes (cooked) and tomato paste in particular as all the cell walls have been broken down, Olive oil, Grapeseed oil, Pomegranate. Most of these are quite healthy, though licorice should be taken in moderation.
There are a few foods listed which are not Paleolithic which qualified as well: Red wine, Dark chocolate, Cheese (particularly Emmental, Gouda, and Jarlsberg), Soybeans, Vitamin e.
Of these, I would only highly recommend vitamin e supplements as it is also a powerful antioxidant, and discourage the high fat cheeses and suggest limiting only to low fat ricotta and cottage cheese in moderation. Red wine offers some health benefits, but it also can cause health issues as well due to the alcohol... still, if you are going to drink anyhow, it's one of the better choices. Soybeans, despite being one of the healthiest beans available and conferring many health benefits, also contain lectin which is not healthy. There are enough other antiangiogenic foods available that this one should be omitted.
Dark chocolate is a special case. It does come from a bean, so it is not paleolithic, but the main issue with it is that it has tons of added sugar or artificial sweeteners in it and has tons of cocoa butter, which is fat, and that makes it incredibly delicious and addictive. So while there are so many people out there that claim to be chocoholics and chocolate does taste incredible, it's likely that the person is not actually addicted to chocolate, but to the combination of sweets and fats that are added. To test whether you are actually a chocoholic, consider drinking cocoa without any added sugar, sweetener, or fats for a while and see if you actually continue to like the taste. Frankly, if they were to take coffee beans and add tons of sugar and butter to it and make it into a bar, it's likely that people would get addicted to that as well.
One thing to remember is that the body is a system which thrives best when it is in a state of balance. So if excessive compounds which cause antiangiogenesis are taken, this will cause other issues than obesity and cancer, obviously those which are related to insufficient blood flow such as cardiovascular disease and stroke. The paleolithic diet should be the ideal diet for this state of balance to occur as it is what our bodies evolved to eat. Anyone that could not maintain a state of balance on the paleolithic diet died off and the genes were removed from the gene pool. Do not go on an antiangiogenesis diet binge without having a competent nutritionist or medical doctor who understands nutrition assess your risk factors. Lots of people who try to lose weight too quickly end up having heart issues, for example. The paleo diet along with some exercise will lead to health and eventual balance, but at it's own pace.
Finally, we need to talk about the major factor that causes excessive angiogenesis to occur - stress. Besides causing angiogenesis which can lead to fat storage, how many people do you know who eat a bit more than they should when they are feeling stressed? Stress activates the ‘fight or flight’ response in the body. Many stress hormones are released, among them are catecholamines and neuropeptides. Both of these molecules influence cancer cell growth and tumor angiogenesis. Norepinephrine and epinephrine are potent stimulators of tumor vascularization, acting directly on the endothelial cells comprising blood vessels. They also cause cancer cells to release angiogenic factors that grow blood vessels to feed tumors. Relaxation decreases catecholamines and neuropeptides in the bloodstream.
Perhaps instead of this web page talking about the paleolithic diet, it should talk about the paleolithic lifestyle, which would include far more exercise and stress releasing activities than people are getting in this day and age.
The thing to take away from this is that there are certain foods which can help to control and wipe out things like cancer and obesity by getting blood vessels to retract from them, cutting off their food supply. This could explain the correlation between obesity and cancer, as they are both affected by the same compounds.
Ranking at the top of the list are mainly foods that qualify as paleolithic: Green tea, Berries, Citrus, Apples, Pineapple, Cherries, Red grapes, Kale, Bok Choy, Maitake mushrooms, Turmeric, Nutmeg, Licorice, Artichokes, Lavender, Parsley, Pumpkin, Tuna, Garlic, Tomatoes (cooked) and tomato paste in particular as all the cell walls have been broken down, Olive oil, Grapeseed oil, Pomegranate. Most of these are quite healthy, though licorice should be taken in moderation.
There are a few foods listed which are not Paleolithic which qualified as well: Red wine, Dark chocolate, Cheese (particularly Emmental, Gouda, and Jarlsberg), Soybeans, Vitamin e.
Of these, I would only highly recommend vitamin e supplements as it is also a powerful antioxidant, and discourage the high fat cheeses and suggest limiting only to low fat ricotta and cottage cheese in moderation. Red wine offers some health benefits, but it also can cause health issues as well due to the alcohol... still, if you are going to drink anyhow, it's one of the better choices. Soybeans, despite being one of the healthiest beans available and conferring many health benefits, also contain lectin which is not healthy. There are enough other antiangiogenic foods available that this one should be omitted.
Dark chocolate is a special case. It does come from a bean, so it is not paleolithic, but the main issue with it is that it has tons of added sugar or artificial sweeteners in it and has tons of cocoa butter, which is fat, and that makes it incredibly delicious and addictive. So while there are so many people out there that claim to be chocoholics and chocolate does taste incredible, it's likely that the person is not actually addicted to chocolate, but to the combination of sweets and fats that are added. To test whether you are actually a chocoholic, consider drinking cocoa without any added sugar, sweetener, or fats for a while and see if you actually continue to like the taste. Frankly, if they were to take coffee beans and add tons of sugar and butter to it and make it into a bar, it's likely that people would get addicted to that as well.
One thing to remember is that the body is a system which thrives best when it is in a state of balance. So if excessive compounds which cause antiangiogenesis are taken, this will cause other issues than obesity and cancer, obviously those which are related to insufficient blood flow such as cardiovascular disease and stroke. The paleolithic diet should be the ideal diet for this state of balance to occur as it is what our bodies evolved to eat. Anyone that could not maintain a state of balance on the paleolithic diet died off and the genes were removed from the gene pool. Do not go on an antiangiogenesis diet binge without having a competent nutritionist or medical doctor who understands nutrition assess your risk factors. Lots of people who try to lose weight too quickly end up having heart issues, for example. The paleo diet along with some exercise will lead to health and eventual balance, but at it's own pace.
Finally, we need to talk about the major factor that causes excessive angiogenesis to occur - stress. Besides causing angiogenesis which can lead to fat storage, how many people do you know who eat a bit more than they should when they are feeling stressed? Stress activates the ‘fight or flight’ response in the body. Many stress hormones are released, among them are catecholamines and neuropeptides. Both of these molecules influence cancer cell growth and tumor angiogenesis. Norepinephrine and epinephrine are potent stimulators of tumor vascularization, acting directly on the endothelial cells comprising blood vessels. They also cause cancer cells to release angiogenic factors that grow blood vessels to feed tumors. Relaxation decreases catecholamines and neuropeptides in the bloodstream.
Perhaps instead of this web page talking about the paleolithic diet, it should talk about the paleolithic lifestyle, which would include far more exercise and stress releasing activities than people are getting in this day and age.
When you eat is as important as what you eat.
A mouse allowed to eat 24 hours a day (left) had much higher levels of liver fat (white) than one that consumed the same high-fat diet within an 8-hour daily feeding window (right).
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
In recent years our eating patterns have changed. This may be due to the fact that individuals have greater access to food and tend to stay up later at night. It's possible that in Paleolithic villages, most of the day would be devoted to hunting or gathering or other activities, and then there would be window of time where communal meals would be eaten, with the exception of water intake or possibly light snacking such as a few berries. So the theory is that we are adapted to subsisting on one or more large meals a day when in the village or safety of the cave, as opposed to grazing abundant food throughout the day as we feel hungry.
Researchers put two groups of mice on a high-fat diet - one group was restricted to eating for 8 hours per day, while the other group could eat around the clock. The team found that although mice on the restricted eating schedule consumed the same amount of food as the other group of mice, they were protected against obesity and other metabolic illnesses. According to the researchers, this finding indicates that the health consequences of a poor diet may be partially due to a mismatch between our eating schedules and our body clocks.
Lead researcher of the study Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies said "every organ has a clock." Panda explains that each organ in the body, such as the liver, and intestines, will work at peak efficiency for only a certain amount of time during the day, and the rest of the time they are - more or less - sleeping.
These metabolic cycles are vital for various processes, including the breakdown of cholesterol and production of glucose, and should be advanced to 'turn on' during food consumption and 'turn off' during break times or vice versa. The normal metabolic cycles can be disrupted when mice or individuals regularly eat throughout the day and night.
Organs will work less effectively if they did not get a rest period, much like a person will be less effective during the day if they did not sleep well during the night.
The researchers found that mice on a time-restricted eating schedule suffered less liver damage, gained less weight, had reduced levels of inflammation, and showed improvements in their metabolic and physiological rhythms, in addition to other benefits.
Results from the study indicate that restricted meal times might help individuals keep off the pounds and should be given more consideration in the fight against obesity.
Panda said: "The focus has been on what people eat. We don't collect data on when people eat." ; "Surprisingly, the mice that were eating the same number of calories, but ate only for eight hours, did not become as obese as the first group. Less than 12 percent of their body weight was fat, as opposed to 40 percent. "
In addition, there are many religious traditions in the world that advocate a restricted eating period in return for increased health. For example Buddhist monks following the Vinaya rules do not eat anything after their noon meal, which is quite similar to the study which was conducted above.
There is also a popular diet with noted health benefits called the "Warrior diet" which advocates that a warrior would not eat during the day when they needed to be at their full faculties for hunting, but would rather eat large meals in the evening when in the safety of their camp, as you can often feel sleepy after eating, so it makes some sense naturally to sleep after eating, or at least relax.
It makes sense to me to set a time window of some sort during the day where you would eat and to give your organs an extended daily break for the rest of the time. I tried eating like this for a while and felt an increased sense of energy and well being. That's good enough for me.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
In recent years our eating patterns have changed. This may be due to the fact that individuals have greater access to food and tend to stay up later at night. It's possible that in Paleolithic villages, most of the day would be devoted to hunting or gathering or other activities, and then there would be window of time where communal meals would be eaten, with the exception of water intake or possibly light snacking such as a few berries. So the theory is that we are adapted to subsisting on one or more large meals a day when in the village or safety of the cave, as opposed to grazing abundant food throughout the day as we feel hungry.
Researchers put two groups of mice on a high-fat diet - one group was restricted to eating for 8 hours per day, while the other group could eat around the clock. The team found that although mice on the restricted eating schedule consumed the same amount of food as the other group of mice, they were protected against obesity and other metabolic illnesses. According to the researchers, this finding indicates that the health consequences of a poor diet may be partially due to a mismatch between our eating schedules and our body clocks.
Lead researcher of the study Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies said "every organ has a clock." Panda explains that each organ in the body, such as the liver, and intestines, will work at peak efficiency for only a certain amount of time during the day, and the rest of the time they are - more or less - sleeping.
These metabolic cycles are vital for various processes, including the breakdown of cholesterol and production of glucose, and should be advanced to 'turn on' during food consumption and 'turn off' during break times or vice versa. The normal metabolic cycles can be disrupted when mice or individuals regularly eat throughout the day and night.
Organs will work less effectively if they did not get a rest period, much like a person will be less effective during the day if they did not sleep well during the night.
The researchers found that mice on a time-restricted eating schedule suffered less liver damage, gained less weight, had reduced levels of inflammation, and showed improvements in their metabolic and physiological rhythms, in addition to other benefits.
Results from the study indicate that restricted meal times might help individuals keep off the pounds and should be given more consideration in the fight against obesity.
Panda said: "The focus has been on what people eat. We don't collect data on when people eat." ; "Surprisingly, the mice that were eating the same number of calories, but ate only for eight hours, did not become as obese as the first group. Less than 12 percent of their body weight was fat, as opposed to 40 percent. "
In addition, there are many religious traditions in the world that advocate a restricted eating period in return for increased health. For example Buddhist monks following the Vinaya rules do not eat anything after their noon meal, which is quite similar to the study which was conducted above.
There is also a popular diet with noted health benefits called the "Warrior diet" which advocates that a warrior would not eat during the day when they needed to be at their full faculties for hunting, but would rather eat large meals in the evening when in the safety of their camp, as you can often feel sleepy after eating, so it makes some sense naturally to sleep after eating, or at least relax.
It makes sense to me to set a time window of some sort during the day where you would eat and to give your organs an extended daily break for the rest of the time. I tried eating like this for a while and felt an increased sense of energy and well being. That's good enough for me.
Fast weight loss
I always end up hearing about people that want to lose weight fast as opposed to taking a healthy long term approach and letting it occur naturally with time. So I'll write about this approach for those who simply can't wait, though I would advise that you consult your doctor before you begin any intense diet and exercise program.
Losing weight fast can be done for a short period of time with little adverse health effects. People will seek out all kinds of different fad diets for this, but the fact of the matter is that there are people that have been cutting weight fast successfully in a healthy manner for a very long time. They are bodybuilders.
The danger with a bodybuilding cutting diet is that it is not sustainable, and eventually your metabolism will lower so you will be burning less energy than before. It is also a major health danger if you take it to the extreme that a professional bodybuilder does, and try to get your body-fat down to 3 to 4%. But if you want to use this approach for a short term quick result when you have normal fat levels, you should be pleased with the results.
The first thing you are going to need for this sort of diet is an iron clad determination and commitment to following the program. If you don't have this, and aren't willing to develop it, then you are best off not even trying.
The second thing you are going to need is an ingredient list of foods. In general, a bodybuilding diet is for the most part a Paleo diet where the high calorie foods are limited, such as most fruits, nuts and berries. It includes extremely lean meats, lots of low calorie vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber, spinach, peppers, lettuce), and some limited fruits and berries for antioxidants, as well as leaner nuts such as almonds. In addition most contain some amount of complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, or oats to keep blood glucose levels stable, though the same effect can be attained from eating enough vegetables.
Some foods are specifically included as mood enhancers to help the person get over the extra irritability, bananas work well for this. Extra fiber is often added to counteract the high protein intake, with bran being the premium choice, though once again the same effect can be attained by eating enough vegetables. It also often contains protein powder, often derived from whey, which is a milk by product, but this has been specially processed to make it very digestible in terms of absorbing the amino acids, in fact this is often served in hospitals to people who are having troubles digesting other types of food. A staple of most bodybuilding diets is canned tuna due to it's high protein, and low fat (but healthy fat) content. Low fat cottage cheese is often also included to boost protein and calcium levels, and often egg whites are consumed as opposed to the whole egg. I'm not going to provide actual meal plans here with exact amounts, but there are many sites on the internet which do so, and if you really want one, just let me know as I often add content based on user questions or feedback. The basic idea is to go out and get extremely healthy foods and avoid too much of any high calorie food. Bodybuilding diets can be quite boring and repetitive though, often focusing on the same foods so that digestion adapts optimally to the diet.
The third thing you are going to need is a full body work out program to get your metabolism higher and your calorie consumption up. In particular you are going to need one that targets the major muscle groups in your body and includes cardio. It should be enough that it pushes the limits of your muscles a little without putting you at risk for any injury. An easy way to do this for weightlifting is to see if you can do 12 lifts of any one exercise. If you can, then you move on to the next highest weight. If you can't manage to do 8 of any one exercise, then you go down a weight level.
Two of the three biggest muscles in your body are the front portion of your legs, and your butt, so squats are a very good exercise to do. This can be as simple as slowly going to sit down on the couch, but stopping yourself when you make light contact, pausing for a moment, and then slowly standing up again.
Then there are the lats, the muscles that span your back, so you need to do some form of exercise that pulls things in towards your chest. This can be as simple as reaching out far ahead in front of yourself, making some fists and pretending to pull in something, while resisting your own motions, which is a form of isotonics. Then for the next largest groups of muscles, push ups, sit ups, and pull ups (isotonic style) are all exercises which are easily done as well, a gym membership is not even needed since with isotonics you can resist your own efforts as much as you want to increase the difficulty. However, the first two exercises mentioned above, properly done, cover a good portion of the medium muscle groups as well.
Finally, for cardio, a lot of people push themselves far too much for this to stick to a steady pace and make it very serious. You can get great results by running enjoyably for a while, then walking and resting, and running again when you want to. In fact, there is a name for this, it's called "interval training" and is now known as the best way to improve your cardio endurance and used by professional athletes. Once again, much like the Paleo diet, what is natural to us produces the best results, and it will be a lot easier to get yourself out there and doing exercise regularly if you know you are going to enjoy it. Please consult a medical doctor if you have not been exercising for a while before you do any strenuous exercise, however.
The best way to start this diet is to ease into it. Start by doing some exercise and by eating a regular Paleo diet and see what results this brings you. Then once things seem to have stabilized, and you don't feel your body adapting too much anymore, you can step it up a notch to do a fast weight loss program for a while.
You are going to be more irritable than usual when your calories are restricted, but if you do enough exercise, the endorphins that are released should boost your mood enough to compensate. Attempting to diet without exercising has a very good chance of making you too irritable and causing you to quit, and beyond that your progress will be slower which can be discouraging. Another thing which can help to release endorphins are states of profound relaxation, like you might feel after getting a massage, soaking in a hot tub, or meditating. Weight loss can be stressful and everything should be done to reduce other sources of stress while you are undergoing it.
Losing weight fast can be done for a short period of time with little adverse health effects. People will seek out all kinds of different fad diets for this, but the fact of the matter is that there are people that have been cutting weight fast successfully in a healthy manner for a very long time. They are bodybuilders.
The danger with a bodybuilding cutting diet is that it is not sustainable, and eventually your metabolism will lower so you will be burning less energy than before. It is also a major health danger if you take it to the extreme that a professional bodybuilder does, and try to get your body-fat down to 3 to 4%. But if you want to use this approach for a short term quick result when you have normal fat levels, you should be pleased with the results.
The first thing you are going to need for this sort of diet is an iron clad determination and commitment to following the program. If you don't have this, and aren't willing to develop it, then you are best off not even trying.
The second thing you are going to need is an ingredient list of foods. In general, a bodybuilding diet is for the most part a Paleo diet where the high calorie foods are limited, such as most fruits, nuts and berries. It includes extremely lean meats, lots of low calorie vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber, spinach, peppers, lettuce), and some limited fruits and berries for antioxidants, as well as leaner nuts such as almonds. In addition most contain some amount of complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, or oats to keep blood glucose levels stable, though the same effect can be attained from eating enough vegetables.
Some foods are specifically included as mood enhancers to help the person get over the extra irritability, bananas work well for this. Extra fiber is often added to counteract the high protein intake, with bran being the premium choice, though once again the same effect can be attained by eating enough vegetables. It also often contains protein powder, often derived from whey, which is a milk by product, but this has been specially processed to make it very digestible in terms of absorbing the amino acids, in fact this is often served in hospitals to people who are having troubles digesting other types of food. A staple of most bodybuilding diets is canned tuna due to it's high protein, and low fat (but healthy fat) content. Low fat cottage cheese is often also included to boost protein and calcium levels, and often egg whites are consumed as opposed to the whole egg. I'm not going to provide actual meal plans here with exact amounts, but there are many sites on the internet which do so, and if you really want one, just let me know as I often add content based on user questions or feedback. The basic idea is to go out and get extremely healthy foods and avoid too much of any high calorie food. Bodybuilding diets can be quite boring and repetitive though, often focusing on the same foods so that digestion adapts optimally to the diet.
The third thing you are going to need is a full body work out program to get your metabolism higher and your calorie consumption up. In particular you are going to need one that targets the major muscle groups in your body and includes cardio. It should be enough that it pushes the limits of your muscles a little without putting you at risk for any injury. An easy way to do this for weightlifting is to see if you can do 12 lifts of any one exercise. If you can, then you move on to the next highest weight. If you can't manage to do 8 of any one exercise, then you go down a weight level.
Two of the three biggest muscles in your body are the front portion of your legs, and your butt, so squats are a very good exercise to do. This can be as simple as slowly going to sit down on the couch, but stopping yourself when you make light contact, pausing for a moment, and then slowly standing up again.
Then there are the lats, the muscles that span your back, so you need to do some form of exercise that pulls things in towards your chest. This can be as simple as reaching out far ahead in front of yourself, making some fists and pretending to pull in something, while resisting your own motions, which is a form of isotonics. Then for the next largest groups of muscles, push ups, sit ups, and pull ups (isotonic style) are all exercises which are easily done as well, a gym membership is not even needed since with isotonics you can resist your own efforts as much as you want to increase the difficulty. However, the first two exercises mentioned above, properly done, cover a good portion of the medium muscle groups as well.
Finally, for cardio, a lot of people push themselves far too much for this to stick to a steady pace and make it very serious. You can get great results by running enjoyably for a while, then walking and resting, and running again when you want to. In fact, there is a name for this, it's called "interval training" and is now known as the best way to improve your cardio endurance and used by professional athletes. Once again, much like the Paleo diet, what is natural to us produces the best results, and it will be a lot easier to get yourself out there and doing exercise regularly if you know you are going to enjoy it. Please consult a medical doctor if you have not been exercising for a while before you do any strenuous exercise, however.
The best way to start this diet is to ease into it. Start by doing some exercise and by eating a regular Paleo diet and see what results this brings you. Then once things seem to have stabilized, and you don't feel your body adapting too much anymore, you can step it up a notch to do a fast weight loss program for a while.
You are going to be more irritable than usual when your calories are restricted, but if you do enough exercise, the endorphins that are released should boost your mood enough to compensate. Attempting to diet without exercising has a very good chance of making you too irritable and causing you to quit, and beyond that your progress will be slower which can be discouraging. Another thing which can help to release endorphins are states of profound relaxation, like you might feel after getting a massage, soaking in a hot tub, or meditating. Weight loss can be stressful and everything should be done to reduce other sources of stress while you are undergoing it.