On the heels of that, they published a real stinker in February. It starts [...]]]> In January, Men’s Journal had a terrific article about fitness by Daniel Duane. The gist of it is that you should pass on the treadmill and elliptical and lift heavy. If this is news to you, go read it.

On the heels of that, they published a real stinker in February. It starts out well. The #1 rule is “Don’t go on a diet, change your diet.” Daniel Duane starts out by quoting Gary Taubes theory of Why We Get Fat. I mostly agree with Gary. Mostly, but not entirely. That’s a subject for another time, however. The #2 rule is to shop the periphery of the supermarket:

If you want to live by one rule instead of 10, this is it, not least because it’s the easiest to follow. Shop only the periphery of the supermarket, choosing whole fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and dairy products…

Again, agreement here. After this, Mr. Duane presents a food pyramid (god save us all from food pyramids!) that goes like this:

Never Eat: refined carbs, simple sugar
Eat as a treat: whole fruit
Eat these less often: whole dairy, whole grains
Eat these every day: nuts, seeds, legumes, tofu, extra-virgin olive oil, canola oil, avocado
Eat these every meal: leafy, cruciferous, brightly colored vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, game, eggs

Whole grains are NOT found on the periphery, and it’s suggested here that one should eat more whole grains than fruit. Tofu is also a processed food and should be on the “do not eat” list, but here it is presented as something it’s ok to eat every day. Canola oil is heavily processed. You’d be better off using coconut oil or ghee for higher heat cooking.

It’s abundantly clear that Mr. Duane is leery of saturated fats. He quotes this:

Many major research institutions, including the Harvard School of Public Health, no longer believe that dietary fat, even saturated — found in red meat, pork, butter, and cream — is bad for heart health. What’s more, a study published last year in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found no link between saturated-fat consumption and incidence of heart attacks.

But then says this in the next paragraph:

This rethinking of dietary fat doesn’t mean you can consume all the steak and eggs you want. While it’s best to eat a little protein at every meal, you should vary the type you consume by rotating through beef, poultry, fish, game, and pork, in addition to eggs and plant-based protein like soybeans.

Again with the damn soybeans!

He later concedes that butter made from organic cream might be OK, but his meal plans contain this oh so appetizing breakfast: Oat-bran toast with extra-virgin olive oil; scrambled egg.

Wow. Sounds delicious! Here’s the breakdown on this meal assuming 2 slices of toast, one scrambled egg and 1 teaspoon of olive oil:

This is not a low-carb meal, it doesn’t contain enough protein, and 266 calories *might* keep a child satisfied until lunch time, but a grown human? I really doubt it with that level of protein and fat, the two most satisfying macronutrients. If you subbed egg whites (keeping one whole egg) and vegetables instead of the toast, you could get the same amount of calories and a *filling* breakfast.

His third rule is to not count calories. I’m fine with that one – it seems to psych people out, make them feel deprived and make them stressed. Four out of seven of his breakfast meals are distinctly NOT low-carb and sound pretty calorie restricted to me. On Monday and Saturday his breakfast includes meat and eggs, and are pretty normal for an adult.

Monday: Mixed-herb omelet with applewood-smoked bacon; side of sauteed spinach
Saturday: Scrambled eggs with bacon at your neighborhood diner; swap cottage cheese with hash browns

Both of those sound good to me, and they are actually low in carbs. They appear to contain sufficient protein as well. Good luck finding cottage cheese to sub for potatoes – this is something I try to do sometimes, so I do actually know about it. At least half of the breakfast places I eat don’t have it at all, and the ones that do charge you for substitutions. Most will charge you the normal price to leave off the hash browns (or anything else) and then charge you for a side of cottage cheese. It’s annoying. Anyway, on to the other days.

Tuesday: Steel-cut oatmeal with organic raspberries and sliced almonds

Wednesday: Sprouted-grain toast with almond or peanut butter; whole orange

Thursday: (oat-bran deal mentioned above)

Friday: Steel-cut oatmeal with halved, raw walnuts and fresh blueberries

Sunday: Time to cheat again: banana pancakes with melted butter and maple syrup

Since he acknowledges that Sunday is a “cheat” (I hate that term), I didn’t bother to run the numbers on it. On a typical day, breakfast averages out to 350 calories, 15g of protein and 50g of carbs. That is a recipe for failure. I’m too lazy to analyze all the meals (and let’s face it, reader’s eyes would glaze over), but this is a lot of cooking for not enough calories. He later quotes Gary Taubes’ rules for weight loss, and the first one is to eat 20g or fewer carbohydrates a day. This meal plan is moderate in carbs, but it’s nowhere near 20g! He’s big on the glycemic index, but it does not take into account the total carb count, just the way a food causes a diabetic’s blood sugar to react. A low-GI food can be very high in fructose, and eating fructose is no way to lose weight. I’ve complained about the glycemic index before, of course.

His plan doesn’t include snacks, but he knows people will eat them – I know I’d be starving at 10:30 with most of those breakfasts. Here are his snack suggestions:

Stay stocked up on healthy, low-GI foods like nuts, beef jerky, cheese, plain yogurt; low-sugar fruit like berries and apples; and even energy bars made from only whole ingredients, like Lärabar, Raw Revolution, and Clif Nectar. In the store, reach for natural nut butters like Justin’s Classic Almond Butter or plain organic yogurt from Stonyfield. Pair a stick of Golden Valley Natural organic beef jerky with cheese sticks from Horizon Organic, or indulge in a low-sugar treat by looking for dark chocolate with a cacao content of greater than 70 percent.

Craving something salty? Avoid pretzels, potato chips, and rice cakes, and reach for a bag of mixed nuts or pop your own popcorn and flavor it with extra-virgin olive oil. If you like crackers, choose RyKrisp, Ryvita, or Wasa instead of Saltines, Ritz, Melba Toast, Wheat Thins, or others made from enriched wheat flour. Sweet-potato chips and even protein-packed pork rinds can be healthy snacks when consumed in moderate amounts.

Larabars and Clif Nectar bars are made of dried fruit with some nuts and are mostly carbohydrate. If you’re going to eat popcorn, why avoid rice cakes? Their nutritional profiles are very similar. And as for flavoring popcorn with olive oil…I sure hope people don’t pop the stuff in extra-virgin olive oil (oxidized fats, anyone?), so I’m assuming he suggests you should use that instead of butter. Ew!

After the awesome article on fitness, I’m really disappointed in this one. Most of Gary Taubes diet advice is taken straight from Dr. Atkins, but this reads more like a Dr. Oz diet than anything Dr. Atkins would recommend. I feel like this is an opportunity missed after the goodwill engendered by pointing out that cardio is a waste of time. You’d do a lot better following the Tim Feriss slow carb diet.

I already have a Level-1 CrossFit certification, but liability insurance companies do not [...]]]> At present, my blogging has been very thin because I’ve got a lot of other things going on. Sadly, these things are not paid work, but the primary distraction from keeping up my blog has been studying for a personal trainer certification.

I already have a Level-1 CrossFit certification, but liability insurance companies do not recognize that as a mainstream certification and thus charge more for insurance. If I get a mainstream certification, I get an annual insurance discount that covers the certification in the first year. Seems like a no-brainer here, but there’s 310 pages of material that I need to absorb.

A lot of it has been interesting – I had forgotten a fair amount of biology (big shock, I last studied that in high school – all my college science was physics), and the biomechanics chapters were interesting on their own.

Of course there are 30 pages on nutrition. Of course it’s all conventional wisdom. On the second page, I encountered this:

For athletes and physically active adults, each meal should consist of 60-65% of the calories from carbohydrates, specifically complex carbohydrates, 15% from lean protein and 10% from fat. Carbohydrates, which are converted to the forms glucose and glycogen, are the body’s primary source of instant energy and longer term energy storage, respectively. Additionally, carbohydrates are required to burn fat; without a sufficient quantity of carbohydrates, a person will not effectively lose body fat. Protein is required to build and repair body tissues and structures. It is also used in the process of synthesizing hormones and is also used in the process of synthesizing hormones and hemoglobin, and is the body’s alternative source of energy if there is an insufficient source of carbohydrates.

That ought to come as a shock to anyone who has lost weight on Atkins Induction.

While protein can be turned into glucose, that process does not require carbohydrates. Furthermore, they seem to have not considered ketones that are created out of your own fat, and your brain can certainly run on ketones.

I think there’s a lot [...]]]> After years of long study of nutrition and diet, I seem to be coming around to the idea that you can either have carbs or fat along with your protein, but not both. When I saw that this appeared to be Zoe Harcombe’s thing, I bought her book right away.

I think there’s a lot of great information in there, particularly the folly of counting calories. Her basic rules are good ones, but her explanations of what is a carb meal and what is a fat meal bother me. First, here are her three rules:

1. Don’t eat processed foods;
2. Don’t eat fats and carbohydrates at the same meal;
3. Don’t eat foods that cause your cravings.

Personally, I don’t really have food cravings. All my compliance issues with diets are usually about eating too much generally, but anyway, these are sound, yes?

The problem is this: she defines anything containing a food that had a face to be a “fat” meal, which means that fish and lean meat cannot be eaten with a high carb meal. Carb meals may contain tofu, quorn, milk, cottage cheese or high quality yogurt. Skinless chicken breast and fish aren’t OK, but coconut milk is OK? She has a recipe for a delicious sounding butternut squash curry that contains 25g of creamed coconut per serving. That’s 195 calories and 16.9g of fat. It’s all healthy fat, but it’s still fat. For 6g of fat and 150 calories, you could have a 1/3 lb. pork chop, so why is the prohibition on meat instead of fat?

Why allow tofu at all? Soy can’t be eaten by humans if not processed, so I’m not really clear why it’s allowed at all. It causes problems for *so* many people, and if they can’t eat dairy, what’s left? Quorn? I still can’t actually figure out what that stuff is. The wiki entry for mycoprotein sounds kind of…creepy somehow. “The fungus can double its mass every five hours.” Ewww…

I think she’s really on to something here, but the arbitrary nature of how she defines a fat meal and a carb meal really leaves me cold. I know a lot of people find fat to be the most satisfying macronutrient, but for me, it’s definitely protein. There’s an experiment in my future, but done my own way.

Like any diet that’s ad libitum, I don’t think I’d lose weight on it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a healthy way to eat. I am leery of the fact that the non-mixing of carbs and fat just “sounds right” to me, but I think it’s worth a try for maintaining weight while eating some high carbohydrate meals. Sometimes, the hunting wasn’t good.

His basic rules for eating are much more tight with the fat than what I know a lot of Primal/Paleo types eat. I have to say that, to be honest, I cannot free-eat Paleo [...]]]> I’m currently reading Art DeVany’s new book (The New Evolution Diet) – only the Kindle version is out at the moment.

His basic rules for eating are much more tight with the fat than what I know a lot of Primal/Paleo types eat. I have to say that, to be honest, I cannot free-eat Paleo with unlimited fat and expect to lose weight. I don’t *gain* weight, but don’t lose any either. He does allow for cheese as a flavoring – just not much of it – so that sets him apart from Cordain (Loren Cordain, The Paleo Diet). He also recommends no dried fruit at all and limited nuts. Cordain is pretty generous with both.

I do say that I share some of the paleosphere’s confusion on the canola oil thing. Why allow ANY OF IT at all? Cordain has changed his mind about it, and I think he’s right. If you need cooking oil, use light olive oil or 100% olive oil (these are more refined than extra-virgin and don’t burn anywhere near so readily).

I’m just getting to the bit on fitness, something I’m very interested to see.

Eventually, I’ll put up a proper review.

I’m not willing to carry the paleo placard in lieu of common sense. No, we don’t eat grains, legumes, or sugar. Yes, we eat plenty of grass fed meats, saturated fats, and [...]]]> I’m going to start out plugging this blog entry at Tribe of Five, because it echoes a lot of my feelings on this subject.

I’m not willing to carry the paleo placard in lieu of common sense. No, we don’t eat grains, legumes, or sugar. Yes, we eat plenty of grass fed meats, saturated fats, and fermented foods. But, so what? I’m not going to Trader Joes, picking up a pack of “free range” eggs and a jar of coconut oil and smugly walking out, feeling like I’m doing my part for the paleo party. We need to be connected to our food, to our farmers, to our land, and to ourselves in order to really understand how our ancestors walked this earth. That’s the only way we can make a difference of significance.

You should read the whole entry – it’s worth the few minutes it will take.

I’ve been trying to write something about this without sounding like a complete bitch. You don’t win friends by beating people over the head with your ideas. These entries at Honest Meat have been kicking around in my brain since they were written.

• So You Say You Want A Food Revolution?
• So You Say You Want a Food Revolution? Part Dos
• The End of our Farm

The following is the most relevant bit to me, but if you want to know more about the trials and tribulations of running a small biodynamic farm, read the entries above:

We certainly have some amazing customers, some who have been with us since the beginning, others who have loaned us money, and many who put faith in us when purchasing an egg share. We get the occasional compliment like “your eggs changed my life” or “I feel comfortable eating meat again when it is from you”. Yet we have other customers who want our products to be cheaper, for us to stop using organic feed, or for us to lower our standards in other ways. There are people who want us to use a soy-free feed, but yet are not willing to pay the added price that a non soy feed will cost (it takes longer to grow out an animal without soy and laying hens produce fewer eggs when not on soy). Many customers, in fact, will choose to get eggs from several states away from a farm they have never seen in order to get a soy-free egg or they will buy bacon or sausage that is sugar-free but happens to come from some nameless farmer in Iowa. Many people prioritize their personal dietary preferences du jour (I say “du jour” because these preferences change often over time) over supporting an actual local farmer or perhaps over humane animal care, environmental sustainability, etc. I encourage you all to look at the bigger picture and think about what values you want to support.

I know a lot of paleo peeps on the web would not approve of the beef I buy from the farm where I get my eggs and raw milk. Some of the meat they sell was grain finished for the last 30 days, but I care a lot more about the fact that I might have seen that beef out walking around and eating grass for the other part of it’s life. Some of the hamburger I’ve been eating for the last few months actually came from a former dairy cow, so it’s the final product of raw milk production. That cow ate grass for probably six years. The meat is a bit different than a steer that’s raised in a short window solely for meat, but it’s still quite good. I think it’s a great deal at $3.89 per pound.

The pork I buy is out in a pasture where the pigs can do as they like. They do root and dig, but they also get a corn and soy feed. What I care about is the fact that when I go to pick up my meat share once a month, my future meat is out there living a normal piggy life. They never use farrowing crates for piglets. It does not really matter to me if their feed is organic or contains soy. I care more about Haskins Family Farm staying in business. He makes most of his money on bacon, and you need fatty pigs for that. The realities of the marketplace are that people want particular cuts from an animal, and are not interested in many of the others. Corn and soy make for more pork belly. You have to pick and choose what’s important to you.

Speaking of Haskin’s Family Farm, a while back I wrote about stewing hens. That bird came from their farm, and that hen laid (I’m sure) many tasty eggs while she ate bugs and was fed a grain supplement and was protected from predators (foxes are a real problem – they have a dog out at night when foxes hunt and the chickens are in their coop). Again, it’s the end product of your breakfast eggs – it’s worth learning to work with it, especially if you like schmaltz.

Small scale farming will not make you a millionaire – the only reason to do it is because you want better food for yourself and your family, and you make that work by selling in what is a difficult marketplace. Part of the issue is slaughter.

This is from Honest Meat:

This topic warrants a much longer post, but basically California has only a handful of USDA-inspected slaughter and butcher facilities. Because there are only a few, it is hard to even get an appointment to bring your animals in (one place we called had a 7 month waiting list!). Also, because these abattoirs don’t have much competition, they don’t have to provide high-quality customer service to ranchers. They can charge what they want, they can choose not to follow your detailed butchering instructions (for example, put nitrates in the hams that you asked for “nitrate-free”, cut all the fat off your pork chops when you asked for 2 inches of fat on them, etc.). These abattoirs charge you by the carcass weight of your animal and then sometime they won’t even give you the whole animal back that you paid for, such as taking the head, the organ meats, the feet, etc.

The situation in Virginia is much the same. The Haskins Family can’t seem to get necks and organs back from their chicken processor. I’m not really clear on whether it’s not allowed for that processor or if it’s more of a demand issue where the processor just doesn’t have to care much what the customer wants. Their pigs are taken to True and Essential Meats in Harrisonburg, which was resurrected through the efforts Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. Without them, they have few options.

What this all boils down to for me is that buying meat at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s is no different than buying at a conventional supermarket. I know just as little about the meat either way. Most of TJ’s and WF’s products come from industrial farms that have jumped through the hoops to get that organic label. If you read the Omnivore’s Dilemma, you know that’s worth the paper it’s printed on and nothing more. Small farms often can’t manage that, but the meat is more honest and lives a normal life, even if it’s getting a grain or soy supplement. These people are barely making this work – support them instead of buying what is, let’s face it, mystery meat from supermarkets, even organic ones.

If you join a meat CSA, you might get cuts you have no clue what to do with, but it’s worth it. Ask the farmer what to do with it – they always have ideas. Branch out from the premium cuts – your grandmothers and great-grandmothers did. Look at old cookbooks for more ideas. It’s more economical, and you’ll eat more variety this way and support people who are worth the effort.

Part of the problem is that every day paleo mostly consists of meat and veg and maybe some fruit for dessert or some nuts [...]]]> I read a number of blogs from Paleo eaters, and while I enjoy them, I’ve been seeing a lot more…excuses lately. These so-called excuses are almost always about non-paleo recipe ingredients.

Part of the problem is that every day paleo mostly consists of meat and veg and maybe some fruit for dessert or some nuts for a snack. This doesn’t mean the diet is at all boring, but it does mean that half the recipes seem to be for desserts. It’s not that hard or complex to make meat and vegetables taste great, after all.

I’m not even going to pretend that it’s easy to stick to a Paleo diet. If you’re not surrounded by like-minded people all the time, it’s socially difficult. If you eat out much it’s even harder. Personally, I’ve only made it two weeks on full paleo, then I added dairy back in and made it an additional month or so before I started experimenting with adding back foods and ethanol.

If you’re putting up a recipe for paleo pancakes, cave cookies or a dish containing white potatoes, why do your readers need to hear about how you “don’t eat like this all the time”? Anyone reading the recipe can see that it contains butter or potatoes or whatever. Flag it as non-paleo, mostly paleo or primal or whatever you need to do. It’s not a competition or a re-enactment – just tell us what’s awesome about it and get on with the recipe!

I always wonder if the rationalizations are about assuaging guilt. Guilt over eating is stressful and unhealthy. Please do *yourself* a favor and move beyond it. And speaking of guilt, the other thing that drives me bananas is the idea of a “cheat meal.” Who or what are you cheating (on) exactly? Is there a referee watching and waiting to call you out for crossing some line? Are you “on a diet”, or is this a lifestyle change? I hope it’s the latter, but either way, a “free meal” sounds one hell of a lot better than suggesting you’re “cheating” on an inanimate concept like the Paleo Diet.