so so i just started doing this paleo diet thing - feels like it should be bullshit. is it?

lamb is crazy expensive

yeah i had no idea. $12+ a pound iirc?

well you're sure gonna eat less meat that way

Lamb is my favorite of all meats, but we only do it once or twice a year. It's ridiculous

yeah normally when you see something called "stew meat" you do not expect to cash in your retirement fund to buy it in my up until now experience.

My friend's dad farms sheep and I kind of feel guilty for the lambburgers I consumed without a second thought

DJP - one note on the shopping list: It doesn't include pantry basics stuff like coconut oil, butter, spices, or fresh herbs.

haven't had a chance to read through the book yet so thanks for this heads up; will definitely scan the recipes for staples and add them to the list

There's a "TEDx" talk making the rounds of some doctor named Terry Wahls who claims to have cured her MS using paleo diet. This has led to VERY frustrating arguments, but at the same time, at least what Wahls is promoting amounts to a healthy diet and not snake oil. I find the "paleo" aspect of this diet to be kind of a gimmick, but the system itself is certainly one version of eating very healthy.

http://www.terrywahls.com/about-Terry-Wahls

I think it's also very possible that she believes she cured her MS through diet. It's also not impossible that she did. But it's a little disappointing that a professor of medicine would make this kind of claim with nothing but a single piece of personal anecdotal evidence, especially with a disease as complicated as MS that has been known to go into remission on its own.

And she will tell you all about it, in a series of high-priced books and DVDs

http://www.terrywahls.com/books-dvds-cds

my sister in-law is managing her MS through a v hardcore paleo diet (but she's also on a ton of vitamin supplements so maybe not the same thing), so far it's working. she used to get debilitating headaches every other week, and she's had maybe 2 in the past 6 months. but yeah, I don't know how much of that is just the diet and how much is just MS being v complicated

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ms.html

again, since there doesn't seem to be any doubt that the paleo diet is generally a healthy diet, no reason for her to stop (@VG)

yeah pretty much

my mother in law is on the Gershon diet for her pancreatic cancer, which is about as close to quackery as you can get without being completely insane (and it's kind of insane)

what I have learned from my family members experience with these quackish methods is basically - fuck it, if it works for them & they're happier with it than without it, who cares

which is not to say that I don't think it's all kind of bonkers

there doesn't seem to be any doubt that the paleo diet is generally a healthy diet

it tied for dead last in this list. not that that means it's unhealthy, but I wouldn't go so far as to say there isn't any doubt.

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-overall-diets?page=3

i think a healthy diet is always going to make your life easier with MS, but afaik there is currently no cure at all for the disease

it's more just managing symptoms, same as you might with any kind of chronic illness; ie you have MS, you will always have MS, but here's a way to live with it and not be a prisoner of it

yeah pretty much

I mean this crazy paleo thing my sister in law is doing works because she has never really cared about food - she'll eat whatever she has to to not have headaches, and if that means there's only 5 things she can eat, she's fine with that. I'd go insane, personally.

I have a friend (VG will know who I'm referring to) who has lost ~ 90 pounds so far by just watching what he's eating and restricting calories. Caloric restriction! What will they come up with next?

:)

There are a great many ways to skin a cat. The paleo in the paleo diet is just a catchy hook, a gimmick. There is no way under the sun for a modern city dweller to eat the actual diet of paleolithic hunter-gatherers. So, in that respect it is all a bunch of bollocks.

However, the real test of any diet is whether it supports overall health and well-being. Afaics, the paleo diet is capable of improving some people's health, maybe just bcz it focuses them on making choices and being aware of what they eat. But, if it works, it works, and I have no problem with that.

^^^

it's just finding a way to eat healthily that works for you personally. i'm losing the pounds at a rate lately and my plan was basically to eat more plants and less meat or carbs, and only have one large meal in a day.

combined with exercise it seems to work a dream. i think it's helped by finding healthier types of food that suit you.

but i dunno, overall real diet change reminds me of giving up smoking. when a day comes that you actually want to do it rather than that you feel you should, it's really easy.

really the only way to live is to figure out what kind of foods you want to eat (when factoring in health and weight, not just taste) and switch to them, then never change. Ever. That's your diet. Being "on a diet" is kind of crap.

Yeah when I said I meant that it was a healthy diet, I meant, like, a person who eats junk and processed food and switches to paleo will be healthier, not that it's the optimal way to lose weight or reduce cholesterol or w/e. And catchiness is good because it helps people remember what to eat and what not to eat. E.g. I always liked Michael Pollan's "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" -- maybe some plants are higher in some nutrient than others or some have too much sugar, but a simple formulation will help you have an overall healthy diet.

eat mcdonalds, not too little, mostly quarter pounders

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/archives/2012/Sep

Hmm.

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/archives/2012/Sep

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/092712/salt-the-wonder-food.gif

salt is my achilles heel i have to say. need to start phasing it out.

That paleo cookbook JJ linked to is pretty interesting. There is a 'staples' shopping list included for you to pre-stock your pantry even though there aren't staples listed w/ each dish.

Would guess that it's easy on the spice because it's aimed at Middle America. Spices are generally looked upon highly as far as health.

do you have any idea how hard it is to get fragrant mastodon powder, though

haha

was reading the anti-inflammatory diet upthread... surely this would be an insane amount of food every day?

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02995/Dr-Weil-Anti-Inflammatory-Food-Pyramid.html

presumably the serving sizes are smaller than what people normally consider a "serving"

seems highly unmanageable to me, like you'd be having tiny bits of so many things. v hard to plan meals and costly/wasteful?

that diet looks delicious

i think there's some day/week misprints

Saw Joel Fuhrman profiled somewhere - he recommends a pound a day of raw vegetables and a pound of cooked. I like greens but I can't imagine putting away a pound of raw veggies a day.

welcome to the poop diet

hey djp, did you give this a shot yet? recipes are 90% great, but imo everything they do with shrimp can be avoided, also it has opened my mind to the possibilities inherent in skirt and flank steak, and opened my mind to squash which up until now has been among my most hated things ever. spaghetti squash is awesome! butternut squash soup is the fucking best! my solution to the spice (or lack thereof) aspect has been to double the amount of pepper recommended most of the time.

what is the logic behind the lack of spice?

If you really want to do a paleo diet you should be ripping raw marrow out of bones and eating root bulbs. Anything less is just dilettantism!

Just not eating processed food is a good fucking thing.

I have not tried this yet, because I am super lazy

also I haven't had a chance to go shopping this week and this weekend I have two rehearsal on Saturday and two rehearsals and a concert on Sunday so I'm likely not going to get the opportunity to really look into this until next week (although I have another concert two weeks from Sunday and another one the Sunday after that)

I bought a big thing of frozen shrimp this weekend so hearing all the shrimp dishes can be skipped is a little ;_;

to be fair, i kind of hate shrimp in general so i maybe should not be trusted wrt that.

the lack of spice thing is prob a nod to the idea that the book also has a lot of stuff for people with gi problems or food intolerance issues and whatever. its def not part of the design in general. as of this morning i am down ten pounds, so the 3 pounds a week sorta steady loss thing seems to be working, i am assuming thats will slow down in about another 5 pounds or so which will be pretty much optimum, then a much slower loss of 5 more pounds and i will be at my lowest weight since uh college?

wow

okay I need to stop procrastinating on this

wtg jjj!

I was curious about the spice thing bc my MIL's weird paleo therapy is very specific about no 'aromatics' - almost zero spices, only a handful of herbs. But I think you're right about the GI problems/food intolerance...seems to me there's a tendency to just advise against it altogether, as a precaution for those who have those kind of problems

Also they make food taste good? And a lot of these lifestyle diets are actually about deprioritizing the taste/luxury of food and making it more of a necessity that you keep v simple?

I was real anxious and lost five pounds last week