7) THE MANY WEIGHT LOSS DIETS POSSIBLE
b) The "Hunter Gatherer Diet"
For the author, probably the diet approach that makes the most sense is looking at what the hunter gatherers of 50,000 years ago ate and trying to duplicate their diet. Our bodies still reflect the evolutionary changes that enabled our ancestors to best survive roughly 50,000 years ago as Paleolithic hunter gatherers of the African savannas. Early humans in Africa probably ate a great many different items and were highy adaptable, eating largely meat in one season and largely fruit, leafs and vegetables in other seasons. What is important is not what these early humans ate, rather it is what they did not eat. They did not eat grain based foods and they did not eat selectively bred "feedlot" meats. The current state of knowledge regarding the diet of our prehistoric ancestors is nicely summarized in Speth [1991, p. 265]:
"Stone tools and fossil bones--the latter commonly displaying distinctive cut-marks produced when a carcass is dismembered and stripped of edible flesh with a sharp-edged stone flake--are found together on many Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites, convincing proof that by at least 2.0 to 2.5 Ma [million years ago] before present (BP) these early hominids did in fact eat meat (Bunn 1986; Isaac and Crader 1981). In contrast, plant remains are absent or exceedingly rare on these ancient sites and their role in early hominid diet, therefore, can only be guessed on the basis of their known importance in contemporary forager diets, as well as their potential availability in Plio-Pleistocene environments (for example, see Peters et al. (1984); Sept (1984). Thus few today doubt that early hominids ate meat, and most would agree that they probably consumed far more meat than did their primate forebears. Instead, most studies nowadays focus primarily on how that meat was procured; that is, whether early hominids actively hunted animals, particularly large-bodied prey, or scavenged carcasses...
I fully concur with the view that meat was a regular and important component of early hominid diet. For this, the archaeological and taphonomic evidence is compelling."The comments in Mann [1981, pp. 24-25] further illuminate the above:
"Nevertheless, given the available archaeological evidence and what is known of the dietary patterns of living gatherer/hunters and chimpanzees, it appears unlikely to me that all early hominids were almost exclusively carnivorous or herbivorous. It is more reasonable to suggest that the diet of most early hominids fell within the broad range of today's gatherer/hunter diets, but that within the wide spectrum of this adaptation, local environmental resources and seasonal scarcity may have forced some individual populations to become more dependent on vegetable or animal-tissue foods than others."
If you made a rough table of the average yearly intake of the hunter gatherers the African savannas of 50,000 years ago versus the modern diet, the comparisons are astonishing:
Percentage By Calorie Intake 50,000 years ago Percentage by Calorie intake today 30% to 50% "wild" protein 10% to 20% "feedlot" Protein 5% to 15% "wild" fat (5% saturated, 15% unsaturated 0.80% omega 3) 15% - 30% "feedlot" fat (15% saturated, 5% unsaturated, 0.01% omega 3) 1% to 2% plant omega 3's with a 1 to 1 ratio to plant omega 6's 5% to 10% plant omega 6's with a 20 to 1 ratio to plant omega 3's 5% - 15% very low glycemic index (amylase carbohydrates) starchy nuts, tubers and fruits with 10 to 25 grams of fiber per day in them (no grain) 30% to 60% very high glycemic index (amylopectin carbohydrates) grains, flours, fruits and sugars with little fiber, including so called "whole grains" 20%- 40% uncooked green leafy vegetables with 25 to 50 grams of fiber per day in them 5% - 15% cooked starchy vegetables with 1 - 4 grams of fiber per day in them 0% trans fats 0.5% - 2% trans fats The diet of 50,000 years ago is just what is being recommended by many (the author included) as the healthiest for modern man (although not necessarily for persons with diabetes!). The "20%- 40% uncooked green leafy vegetables" is the most glaring point. The Paleolithic hunter gatherer was constantly "browsing" and eating greenery as they moved about the Savannah. It should be noted that Paleolithic man proved himself quite capable of considerably changing the "mix" of the different groups without significant health impacts (witness the eskimo who ate only protein and fat for long periods of time). Specifically the amount of "wild" protein and fat probably became higher when the hunter gatherers moved closer to the ice sheets of the ice ages. It is the hypothesis of many anthropologists that it was only when modern grain based agriculture and grain based animal husbandry took over in some cultures that the health began to deteriorate. It is interesting to note that thoughout the last 5,000 years of recorded history on all continents, the "barbarians" and tribes which conquered the "civilized" agricultural civilizations were almost always meat eating "savages" from colder climates (Attila the Hun, the Germanic tribes, Genghis Khan, the Vikings, the Manchurians, etc.). These tribes ate large quantities of wild meat and fish and did not eat the refined grain carbohydrates of the peoples that they conquered. And they were healthier, as witness the ability of the warriors of Genghis Khan to cross deserts which had never been crossed.
There is one interesting point that needs to be emphasized. Namely that every single diet we could find says you can eat unlimited green leafy vegetables. There are good reasons for that. There are a multitude of studies which show that green, leafy vegetables are the healthiest food that an individual can eat, even if they don't have type 2 diabetes. Many studies have shown that eating green leafy vegetables slows many disease processes, extends life expectancy, lowers blood pressure, improves cognitive thinking and slows the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's. So the eating of unlimited amounts of spinach, kale and collards is a feature of ALL these diets. We suspect that if wild game were the subject of intensive study, the experts would also be recommending unlimited quantities of wild game. Unfortunately, the best we can recommend is unlimited quantities of fish. We can't recommend feedlot meat.
Note that broccoli, summer squash, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, peas and beans are also very beneficial foods, but not to the extent of the dark green leafy vegetables. There is a lot of speculation as to why these dark green leafy vegetables are so wholesome, from the level of magnesium to the level of fiber to the level of vitamin E to the Omega 3 fats in these foods, but nothing has been proven. What has been proven beyond any doubt is that green leafy vegetables in any form are very beneficial to one's health.
There at least are three decent "Paleolithic" diet books: "Neanderthin" by Ray Audette, "The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat" by Loren Cordain and "The Origin Diet" by Elizabeth Somer. They all make some good points. "Neanderthin" has some unusual ideas on toxins in cooked foods such as beans, for which we can find no research support for, and it doesn't discourage the eating of saturated fat, recommending pemmican (60% fat!) as the ideal food. "The Origin Diet" says protein made up 40% of the Paleolithic diet but it recommends that modern man only consume 20% protein because modern man doesn't have the muscle mass of Paleolithic man. We cannot find any research supporting this protein restriction unless a person has a renal deficiency to begin with. But it is a very good good diet book overall. In Loren Cordain's excellent book he makes the point that 61% of the calories eaten by modern man were simply not available in the same form to be eaten by paleolithic man. Of course then he claims that 60% of the calories in a buck mule deer are in the form of fat. We can find no confirming data on this and highly doubt its veracity (see data below), as any deer with 60% fat calories would have difficulty running rapidly enough to escape carnivorous animals. It has to be remembered that none of these books was written with the person with diabetes in mind. In a nutshell, these diet books support eating a diet as close as possible to what is outlined above for what Paleolithic man ate 50,000 year ago. Another source of information is "paleo diet" on Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia "paleo diet" article does state that:
"This dietary approach is a controversial topic amongst nutritionists and anthropologists, and it has been qualified as a fad diet by the National Health Service of England and American Dietetic Association. Critics have argued that if hunter gatherer societies failed to suffer from "diseases of civilization", this was due to a lack of calories in their diet, or a variety of other factors, rather than because of some special diet composition. Some researchers have taken issue with the accuracy of the diet's underlying evolutionary logic, and have disputed certain dietary recommendations and restrictions on the grounds that they provide no health benefits or pose health risks and are not likely to accurately reflect the features of ancient Paleolithic diets. It has also been argued that such diets are not a realistic alternative for everyone."
This statement goes counter to the large amounts of research which have found "feedlot" saturated fats and refined carbohydrates (including "whole grains") to be detrimental to one's health. It is exactly these two classes of food that most of the the "paleo diets" tell everyone to avoid. I've read the three books and found their arguments pretty convincing. We are genetically programmed to eat a certain mix of food. And that genetic programming has only changed a limited amount in 7,500 years of an agriculture based food chain. Anthropological studies have invariably found that cultures who eat "wild" based food chains invariably have much lower heart disease and diabetes than their agricultural based neighbors. These same studies have found that cultures who have recently transformed to agricultural based food chains have greatly increased their amounts of modern diseases (the Pima indians being but one example). The huge vacuum here is that there is one camp of experts which claims that the problem is modern meat and there is another camp of experts which claims the problem is modern carbohydrates. And like so many of these issues the two camps refuse to recognize that, in actuality, they are both right.
Limited evolution in mankind can occur in as few as a few thousand years. The Chinese have farmed rice for about 7,500 years and tend to be so resistant to modern diseases they have even spawned a diet book "The China Study" in which it is claimed that a vegetarian rice based diet cures all of the "modern diseases". It is well known that the people surrounding the Mediteranean (including Iraq and Egypt) are somewhat resistant to modern diseases, thus the origins of the "Mediteranean Diet". This same area has had agriculture for about 5,000 years. Europe has had agriculture almost as long, and Europeans such as the French tend to be somewhat resistant to modern diseases. Africa has had intensive agriculture for only a short period of time, eating largely wild game before that. And those of African descent who now eat a grain based diet are at decidedly higher risk for modern diseases. Polynesians are at very high risk for modern diseases (they used to eat large amounts of fish). At highest risk for modern diseases are the several of the American indian tribes who has had agriculture for the least amount of time.
On the protein and fat side, the intake of saturated fat is one of the most glaring changes in 50,000 years. Wild animals typically have little fat on them. The total amount of fat has gone up from 3% in wild boar to 30% in domesticated hogs. The amount of the healthy omega 3 oils has gone from 2% of the fats in wild boars to zero percent in domesticated hogs. The fat in pork has gone from 63% unsaturated fats and 37% saturated fat in wild boar to 7% unsaturated fats and 93% saturated fat in domesticated hogs. There was very little in the way of trans fatty acids 50,000 years ago. These are huge changes.
According to the latest edition of the McCance and Widdowson’s standard work "The Composition of Foods", venison is the leanest meat and even leaner than chicken. It also has the highest protein and lowest energy levels of the meats compared (Table I).
Table I: Nutritional information
.....................................................................Composition per 100g
..................................................Protein.......................Fat.............................Energy (KCal)
Venison Haunch (Raw)...............22.2......................1.6................................103
Venison Roast.............................35.6......................2.5................................165
Chicken (average)(raw).............22.3.......................2.1................................108
Chicken Roast............................27.3.......................7.5................................177
Beef Topside(Raw)....................20.4.....................12.9................................198
Beef Roast..................................29.9......................11.4 ..............................222
Lamb Leg (Raw)........................19.0......................12.3................................187
Lamb Roast................................29.7......................13.0................................236
Pork Leg (Raw)..........................19.0......................15.2................................213
Pork Roast..................................30.9......................10.2................................215
Venison is low in fat and cholesterol, high in protein, high iron level, high omega-3 fatty acid content, and high in polyunsaturated fat content. Research at the University of Bristol’s Department of Meat Science showed that the carcase lean has very little subcutaneous or intramuscular fat and the lean itself contains only low levels of marbling fat. Venison has a high polyunsaturated : saturated fatty acid ratio (P:S), about twice that of beef and lamb.
Doctor Andrew Weil has a similar analysis:
"Nutritionally, deer meat (venison is a broader term that also applies to meat from elk, moose, caribou and antelope) is healthier than beef. A three-ounce serving provides only 134 calories and three grams of fat, including only one gram of saturated fat. Beef gives you 259 calories for the same three-ounce serving, and 18 grams of fat, including seven grams of saturated fat."
Some have hypothesised that eating grass fed beef and free range chickens solves the problem. Unfortunately it only solves a small portion of the problem. The major reason that the feed lot meats are marbled with fat is that the animals were selectively bred to produce meat that had marbling. Taking such a selectively bred animal and feeding it green grass and free range food only solves a small amount of the problem. In order to really solve the problem you need to return to the native cattle that were bred a thousand years ago. About the best alternative is buying venison, bison, elk, and ostrich in specialty butcher shops or over the internet.
Loren Cordain has an intrigueing hypothesis. He hypothesizes that very early pre-paleolithic man lacked the hunting skills necessary to hunt game, so they were semi-intelligent tool using scavengers, able to use primitive rocks and tools to break open bones and skulls that other animals could not break open. Since the scavenged animal brains had extremely high levels of omega 3 oils and since these same omega 3 oils are essential to the growth of large brains, Loren Cordain feels that mankind's brain was able to develop to be large and intelligent because of mankinds' diet of brain. When mankinds' brain grew large enough for him to develop the skills necessary to hunt large game such as elephants, he could move out of the African savannas into the more hostile environments such as Northern Europe, Mongolia, the steppes of Russia, the Americas, and Australia. If true, the hypothesis emphasises the role of omega 3 oils in human evolution and nutrition. Note that it has been noted that modern man's brain volume is smaller today than it was 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. The exact reason for this and its long term consequences are only speculation.
On the carbohydrate front, 50,000 years ago there were no fields of wheat, rice or corn. Sugar cane did not exist in its modern form. What the gatherers ate in way of carbohydrates was largely green leaves, very fibrous roots, and fibrous fruits, generally uncooked, with low starch and sugar contents, which were slow to digest. Breads did not exist. High fructose corn syrup definitely did not exist. So there is a huge difference in the type of carbohydrate intake. The over-all carbohydrate calorie intake was probably on the order of 20% to 40% of total calories, slightly lower than it is today, but the carbohydrates were very much different. The Paleolithic carbohydrates (fibrous vegetables and fruits, not grains) were much higher in fiber and much lower in simple carbohydrates than the modern day equivalents. It should be noted that modern "whole grain" products such as "100% whole wheat bread" were not Paleolithic foods and are only healthy in comparison to modern refined carbohydrates. The wheat these breads are made from has to be genetically engineered to produce a flour which has the gluten and other ingredients necessary to make a decent bread. This genetic engineering makes the "100% whole wheat" products almost as bad as refined carbohydrates. And we could find no research which identified any essential nutrients which grains supply and which vegetables do not supply.
One point that needs to be made, in Paleolithic times our ancestors were programmed to a "see food" diet, in other words: "see food", eat food. Our ancestors needed to build up fat reserves to see them through times of scarcity. This is the most difficult area for all diets. Most of us are genetically programmed to eat a lot. Staying hungry when there is food available is very very difficult. Virtually all diets will fail if food is eaten in an unrestricted manner. Only a strict "vegan" diet might be an exception and there are some real challenges with staying healthy on a strictly vegan diet (and most people just won't stay on the diet!). So once again, almost all diets must have the calories and food intake monitored and recorded. It is a pain but, for a person with type 2 diabetes, it is a necessary pain.
As usual, there is a caveat. If you are reading this you probably have type 2 diabetes. Our Paleolithic ancestors did not have diabetes. So your diet needs to be adjusted accordingly. It would seem prudent for an individual with diabetes to eat more protein and fewer carbohydrates than our ancestors (but NOT to the point of ketosis!). It is also important to spread out the carbohydrate intake to less than 15 to 30 grams each meal (we recommend the minimum amount of carbohydrates which avoids ketosis, typically somewhere between 25 and 50 grams per day per 100 pounds of body weight). Try to keep the saturated fat and omega 3 fat levels similar to what we ate in prehistoric times (very low saturated fats, very high omega 3 fats), not an easy task in the modern world. You'll end up eating a great deal of fish and fish oil capsules! Loren Cordain recommends 7 to 8 fish oil capsules per day. And getting the fiber load of Paleolithic times is just plain impossible. We do not recommend taking fiber supplements. These can cause serious bowel obstructions and death. Just eat a lot of vegetables.
Some of these hunter gatherer diets make the point that milk, milk products, cheeses, yogurts, white meat chicken, white meat turkey, and legumes such as beans, lima beans, peas, peanuts, and soybeans were not around in Paleolithic times. They recommend not eating them. We cannot come up with any "cause and effect" reasons or any research supporting a ban on these products so we continue to recommend them. If one tries to diet without these foods included, the diet just becomes too restrictive, it becomes a diet no one can follow. It should be noted that as people age they tend to suffer more from flatulance and gas. This tends to be blamed on old age. In actuality, people typically just become more and more lactose intolerant (intolerant of milk products) as they grow older. Lactose intolerance increases flatulance. If your such a person and your significant other can take it, go ahead and consume dairy products. My dog moves to the other side of my king sized bed when I eat dairy. Beans can increase flatulance but the effect is typically temporary and beans represent one of the best sources of fiber in today's supermarkets. Beans are also one of the most balanced foods you can eat, with very slowly digested carbohydrate complexes and a high level of plant protein.
It also needs to be pointed out that taking protein much above 55% of calories risks something called "Protein Poisoning". It is a form of ketosis where the body grows weak with frequent bouts of nausea. The intake of vegetables and fats needs to be kept high enough to avoid this. Even the Inuits suffered this in the spring when much of their food would consist of lean rabbits. They called it "rabbit sickness". Note that ultra-low carbohydrate diets with large amounts of fats containing omega 3 oils seem to be able avoid ketosis. This is an intriguing area that needs more research.
Current Chapter: 7) The Many Weight Loss Diets Possible
a) Diets: Which One is the Best?
b) The "Hunter Gatherer Diet"
c) Moderation Type 2 Diabetes Diet
d) Good Diets
e) Reasonable Diets
f) Helpful Diets
g) Radical Diets
h) Diets We do not Recommend
i) Fad Diets and Pills
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