“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”—Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, a book which I have not actually read, but which pretty much describes my attitude to all of the diet fads around (including geek fads like paleo), and my actual eating habits.
If you eat paleoish with 5-6 servings of diverse fruits and vegetables daily, you might only be deficient in [list of nine (ten in women) nutrients]
Pollan’s book is horrible. It is actually against science per se in nutrition, continuously bringing up the supposed holistic irreducibility of diets and emphasizing “common sense”, “tradition” and “what our grandparents ate” as primary guidelines. Pollan presents several cherry-picked past mistakes of nutrition science, and from that concludes that nutrition science in general is evil.
I am not fundamentally against heuristics derived from tradition and/or evolution, but Pollan seems to use such heuristics whimsically, mostly to push forward a personal agenda of vegetarianism, organic foods and an extremely warm and fuzzy philosophical baggage of food culture and lifestyle. Also, Pollan’s arguments are almost exclusively based on affect (nature = good, artificial = evil, people selling artificial food = monstrous, etc.). Actually, looking a bit into the book to refresh my memories, Pollan doesn’t even use traditions to make inferences about foods’ healthiness; they are merely convenient sources of positive affect.
Plant nutrition is more difficult to optimize than animal sources. Plants are not strictly necessary, and become completely optional once comfortable starch intake is achieved.
Yes, paleo is great. No, it is not a fad, although it contains various fads.
Fad: “a temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., especially one followed enthusiastically by a group.”
Paleo is no more a fad than are herbal remedies. Neither are temporary phenomena.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”—Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, a book which I have not actually read, but which pretty much describes my attitude to all of the diet fads around (including geek fads like paleo), and my actual eating habits.
And paleo is “great”?
Pollan’s book is horrible. It is actually against science per se in nutrition, continuously bringing up the supposed holistic irreducibility of diets and emphasizing “common sense”, “tradition” and “what our grandparents ate” as primary guidelines. Pollan presents several cherry-picked past mistakes of nutrition science, and from that concludes that nutrition science in general is evil.
I am not fundamentally against heuristics derived from tradition and/or evolution, but Pollan seems to use such heuristics whimsically, mostly to push forward a personal agenda of vegetarianism, organic foods and an extremely warm and fuzzy philosophical baggage of food culture and lifestyle. Also, Pollan’s arguments are almost exclusively based on affect (nature = good, artificial = evil, people selling artificial food = monstrous, etc.). Actually, looking a bit into the book to refresh my memories, Pollan doesn’t even use traditions to make inferences about foods’ healthiness; they are merely convenient sources of positive affect.
Paleo is a big tent with many suboptimal stalls.
Plant nutrition is more difficult to optimize than animal sources. Plants are not strictly necessary, and become completely optional once comfortable starch intake is achieved.
Yes, paleo is great. No, it is not a fad, although it contains various fads.
Fad: “a temporary fashion, notion, manner of conduct, etc., especially one followed enthusiastically by a group.”
Paleo is no more a fad than are herbal remedies. Neither are temporary phenomena.