The following post is dedicated to Diana Hsieh and her colleagues who recently launched: Modern Paleo

I have been a reader of Diana’s writings and those of some of the contributers to Modern Paleo long before “going paleo.”  In a recent piece I noted the overlap between those with classical liberal (in the current vernacular that would be libertarian or independent minded world view) and those in the evolutionary living community that favor a human birthright diet, healthy metabolic fitness, and a lifestyle that is in harmony with the world.  Go here to find out more about Modern Paleo Principles and why and how to subscribe to their Paleo Bloggers email list.

Yes, folks that means meat eaters (along with vegetables and fruits) may make grass fed beef purchases that are more environmentally friendly than a grain-eating vegan/vegetarian buying tofu, and the paleo diet adherent may not even be conscious of it!  In fact, a primal adherent’s food purchases may respect property rights and voluntary division of labor much more than an objectivist’s purchasing twinkees.  But that is neither here nor there.

One doesn’t have to define themselves as one or the other (Paleo or Objectivist), or even know what they have in common, but it’s an interesting overlap that may draw one “camp” to the other’s lingo.  Other than reading her masterpieces I’m not an expert on Ayn Rand’s objectivism philosophy, but as a layman disciple of the Austrian economics school, let’s just say that we’re on the same side of the barricades here.  Peace and Freedom.

Again, you don’t have to read or for that matter agree with everything that Hayek, or Mises, or Rand espouse to understand the underlying economic and environmental principles of how “things need to be” to allow the paleo/primal lifestyle to be obtainable and allowed for the human race to thrive in health and continue with mutual benefit towards each other with optimal efficiency.  Ok, so, this one’s for you folks over at The Modern Paleo Blog.

Food or Poison, Crap or Ham Sandwich

“In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” — Ayn Rand, ‘The Anatomy of Compromise,’ “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”

Please suspend your political thinking for 2 minutes.  This post has nothing to do with left, right, socialism, capitalism or a fantasy of a return to a paleo libertarian communal life.  Believe me, I’m not even suggesting that people who don’t eat like me or advocate a different diet than me are evil.  But when there is a choice between food and poison….

Ayn Rand’s quote above  in context was talking about an analogy of if you were given a choice between FOOD and POISON, there is no compromise.  If you eat all or a just a little bit of poison as a “compromise”, poison and death win.  It’s like a ham sandwich and crap (h/t Joe Rogan).  If it’s a 95% ham sandwich and 5% crap, you may call it a ham sandwich but would you eat it?  If it’s 95% crap and 5% ham sandwich, can you really even call it a ham sandwich?

Here’s a quote from an MSNBC article (h/t Free The Animal) that really does a decent job explaining that high levels of bad cholesterol come NOT from fat, but from high carbohydrates.  On the third page of this article we have a quote from Dean Ornish, who, in addition to being a devout believer in phrenology, is also a believer that a nonhuman highcarb/highsugar/lowfat diet full of Healthy Whole Grains is what’s best for you.

Here’s the quote from Ornish:

“I like Ron Krauss and admire his work,” says Dean Ornish, M.D., a fellow Bay Area heart-disease researcher and surely the most visible proponent of the idea that a diet low in saturated fat and high in carbohydrates can help reduce the risk of heart disease. But Dr. Ornish says Dr. Krauss shifted his study participants from pattern A to pattern B by having them eat more of the processed carbohydrates. “The carbohydrates they fed people were predominantly refined, like sugar and white flour,” says Dr. Ornish. “That’s not what I’ve been recommending.”

So what exactly is Ornish recommending?

He’s recommending Healthy Whole Grains.  And as I’ve seen elsewhere on paleo sites, since “whole grains” are always preceded by the word “healthy”, I shall disparagingly call them HealthyWholeGrains, and ask you to read that phrase a bit louder and out loud when you see it, as if you’re overfilled with joy.  HealthyWholeGrains!!! Yippee!!

I remember listening to a Jimmy Moore interview of Michael Eades, when Eades said that Ornish’s recommendation of eating “healthy” whole grains (I’m paraphrasing here) to someone who may be intolerant of high levels of glucose (and may be gluten intolerant, too) is like saying eating sugar is OK as long as it’s wrapped in a coating of fiber.  Great old school interviews by the way with both Michael and Mary Eades, Part I here and Part II here.

I’ll go a step further, Ornish is not just telling you to eat HealthyWhole Grains (yippee!), he’s telling you to make a compromise between your food and poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).  The whole gang advocating 6-11 servings per day of grains to complement a lowfat diet want you to be bipartisan when it comes to food and poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).

HOWEVER, going along with the crap/ham sandwich analogy, Ornish isn’t recommending that you eat a 100% crap sandwich of refined sugar and white flour.

He’s not even recommending that you eat a 95% ham sandwich with 5% of refined sugar/white flour and/or HealthyWholeGrains.

Dean is recommending that you eat the equivalent of a 95% carbohydrate-crap sandwich with 5% of HealthyWholeGrains fiber.  In other words, the HEALTHYWHOLEGRAINS distinction is really just fiber wrapped around the high level of carbohydrate that you’re eating.  It would be like thinking an M&M is OK if it had a fibrous coating instead of a hard candy shell.  Even though the M&M would have sugar in the middle, since it’s wrapped in healthy fiber, it won’t spike your blood sugar!!!!…….  ahhhh, no.

Since this hypothetical M&M would be wrapped in healthy fiber, it just wouldn’t spike your blood sugar as fast.  But if you eat 6-11 servings of M&M’s wrapped in a fibrous coating your pancreas is going to have a nice workout, your blood sugar is going to be spiked, and you’re going to march down the road to metabolic syndrome  (coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes).

Unless you’re “metabolically talented” eating that much carbohydrate from grains devoid of any real nutrition while limiting your fat and protein intake from meat is going to make you, hmmm, how I shall I say?…    the opposite of healthy.

Slice of White Bread from refined flour: 69.2 calories.  Slice of Wheat bread from HealthyWholeGrains!: 68.9 calories.

White bread: 13.2g of carbohydrate (which will turn into glucose upon digestion).  Wheat bread: 12.3g of carbohydrate.

WOW! If you were to switch from white flour to whole grain flour you’ll reduce your carbohydrate intake by 6.8%!  6.8% IS NOTHING.  NOTHING.  NOTHING.

12.3g of carbohydrate from a slice of Whole Wheat Bread is the equivalent carbohydrate level as 2.9 teaspoons of sugar.  If you eat 6 slices of Whole Wheat Bread daily that would be eating the carbohydrate equivalent as 17.4 teaspoons of  sugar.  If you were to eat 6 slices of White Bread it would be eating the carbohydrate equivalent of 18.7 teaspoons of sugar.  Like I said, WOW!!!  About 1 teaspoon of sugar’s carbohydrate content less by switching to fantastic Wheat Bread!  6.8% is nothing.

I am not the food police here.  I have wine on the weekends.  Usually on a Saturday night I have Lindt 87% Chocolate.  It got out of hand there for awhile with the chocolate, now it’s only once a week.  I sometimes have BBQ sauce on my meat.  Ketchup with some chicken breast every now and then.  However, given my prior state of being 50+ pounds plus overweight, hyper tension, kidney stones, and probably prediabetic, the one thing I don’t do is eat wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, and anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup and think that any of it is healthy because I have fiber wrapped around carbohydrate.

My coffee is black, no sugar.  I don’t drink juice.  Decent amount of water.   I eat meat, vegetables and fruits.  Yup, that’s it.  Dairy, nearly zilch.   Cheese rarely and only on my salads.  I eat nuts very rarely given my previous diverticulitis symptoms that magically disappeared the day I gave up grains, whether they were from refined flour or HealthyWholeGrains.  The only time I ingest grains is if I don’t know about.  I talk my way out of birthday cake now.

If you’re a person that handles grains, and you choose to continue eating them, fine by me.  For me (and millions of others out there who are eating like I used to), it’s not an option.  Again, choose your own path.  But please don’t tell me for my health I must eat 6-11 servings of grains, or the carbohydrate equivalent of 17-32 teaspoons of sugar without any of the vitamin and antioxidant benefits that I would get from vegetables and fruit that also contain carbohydrates, but at much much lower levels.  Just what is the benefit of eating grains again?  If it’s simply that that’s the only way we can feed all of the people in the world today cheaply (not necessarily healthily) just say it.   Define the choice with truth.

Ornish, you’re telling me to choose between Food or Poison (e.g., a food that’s unhealthy for you).

T. Colin Campbell, you’re offering me an M&M wrapped in fiber.

Dr. Oz, you’re telling me that a sandwich that is 5% ham (whole fiber) and 95% crap (wheat carbohydrate) is a healthy choice.

Excuse me, gentlemen, though I certainly wish you health and success, I disagree with your conclusions and must refrain from becoming full of crap.  

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