
For Evolving Brains, a ‘Paleo’ Diet Full of Carbs - prostoalex
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/science/for-evolving-brains-a-paleo-diet-full-of-carbs.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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fasteo
There is a very simple rule I use for this; not sure how accurate it is, but
it works well for me.

\- Protein - meat - is for repairing/building

\- Carbs are for fueling

\- Fats are somewhere in between. Cells membranes are basically fat and fat is
also a very clean,dense and "slow" form of energy.

Based on your activity level:

\- Couch potato: Eat very low carb (basically no starches, under 50g per day).

\- Light activity: Eat low carb (under 100g per day).

\- Moderate activity: Eat moderate carbs (under 200g per day). I am here,
weight training 3 times per week, with 2-3 long walks (about an hour)

\- High activity: Eat high carb (>200g per day)

\- Eat between 1 and 1,5 g/protein per kilo.

\- Adjust fat to achieve your desired calorie intake. For most of us, between
2.000 and 2.5000 kcals/day is a good target.

The key here is to stop demonizing carbs/fats and recognize that they have its
place in our diet.

I have also observed that, regardless of your activity level, starting low-
carb when you are obese is a good thing to do, but after 1-2 years, low-carbs
diets go against you.

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cconroy
One thing is clear: our brains required tremendous amounts of energy. Cooking
starches allows us to extract more energy from them. Meat eating is
calorically dense too and so that could of played a role (see Expesive Tissue
Hypothesis). I have read meat-eating was hugley beneficial during resource
scarcity.

The critical question is what diet do we thrive on? A carb rich plant-based
diet is my guess based mostly on Dr. Michael Greger's work on summarizing
nutrition science literature [0]. But I shall be convinced otherwise if the
science is there.

[0] [http://nutritionfacts.org/](http://nutritionfacts.org/)

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monting
This article is completely off the mark about the paleo diet.

Paleo is not necessarily low carb - usually about 20%~40% of calories are from
carbs. Tubers like sweet potatoes are specifically recommended in paleo
regimens.

The author is confusing Paleo with Atkins/ketogenic diets.

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abledon
I read a bunch of articles from John Douillard, and he likes to say hunter
gatherers were really hunter diggers. They mostly dug up tubers and ate those.
You had to be the luckiest caveperson alive to be able to eat ham every
morning.

~~~
joshuapants
> I read a bunch of articles from John Douillard

> John Douillard DC is an Ayurvedic Practitioner

Maybe I'm weird, but I like my authoritative positions on human evolution to
come from evolutionary biologists, not woo-peddlers.

At any rate, humans can eat a very diverse range of foods. Inuits eat a
primarily animal-derived diet, supplemented with a meager amount of gathered
plants during a small portion of the year. Then the spectrum moves all the way
over to peoples that eat mostly plant-matter with few animal products. Humans
adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that
happens to be "right."

~~~
dang
> woo-peddlers

Please don't do this here. "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument
instead of calling names."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
gburt
In a space as high-dimensional and full of incorrect intuitions as nutrition
science, credentialism is perhaps a worthy signal.

~~~
dang
I don't disagree, but calling names is noise, not signal. "Woo" is certainly
one of those names. We just don't notice it because most of us happen to
agree. But the mechanism is just as harmful here as it is anywhere else. It
closes thought rather than opening it.

~~~
joshuapants
If I were referring to a scammer, a con-artist, or a black-hat hacker would I
be calling names or merely describing their professions?

~~~
dang
I don't know.

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nazgulnarsil
We've made resistant starch a big art of what we optimize for in MealSquares
because there are 30 years of studies showing health benefits and the
mainstream just never seems to have gotten the memo. Resistant starch is
starch you can't digest but your gut bacteria can. When RS2 is heated and then
cooled it forms into RS3, which seems to be the most beneficial version.
Mostly from oats, though we have experimented with cassava (the starchy root
used to make tapioca).

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sytelus
This is big slap on paleo movement. People have often complained having
"sluggishness" in their thinking process and performing challenging brain
activities while on strict paleo diet. Our brain thrives on carbs and it is
the fuel that powers it so the results are not entirely a surprise. As usual,
the lesson is that neither extremes are usually not a good place to be: Too
much carbs or too much proteins, both are bad choices.

~~~
mixmastamyk
My days were a lot less productive when I ate a lot of carbs. I spent about
half the day sleepy or starving, unable to really think at those times.

~~~
dogma1138
Eat a balanced diet and exercise it's really not rocket science, people are
spending way too much time and money on trying to hack their life style.
Run/Walk 5-10KM a day, do some anaerobic 2-3 times a week and don't eat total
crap...

OFC when you eat 1000 cal meals you are going to have a huge sugar drop
doesn't matter if it's a huge steak or whole cake. People also waste too much
time on controlling caloric intake over way too short periods if you can't
control you weekday intake to the required levels just lay down on it during
the weekend and you'll still be fine.

All these diet's are really a waste of time and money, eat on a regular
schedule (never eat when you are starving, as in never get to the point of
feeling real hunger), have a diverse diet, try to expand your meals to as many
a day as possible, heck I've seen people losing pounds in a heart beat by
doing things as simple as droping 1 item from their lunch or moving it to an
afternoon snack...

~~~
loopdoend
Anecdotes aside, steak won't spike your insulin.

~~~
dogma1138
50-60% of the absorbed your protein intake is metabolized into glucose.

Not to mention that people don't tend to eat the leanest cut available so all
of those T-Bones and Rib-Eye's add a huge chunk of saturated fat into the mix
and that's without all the addons like that nice sour cream and peppercorn
sauce with those nice roasted potatos....

Consuming large portions of meat will increase your BG level's they won't
spike as fast as if you would chuck down a bowl of ice cream but they'll rise
quite well and crash just as quickly later...

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Well, because meat provides other calories than sugar the crash is 'buffered',
right?

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XzetaU8
"A New Human Trial Undermines the Carbohydrate-insulin Hypothesis of Obesity,
Again"

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.gr/2015/08/a-new-human-
tri...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.gr/2015/08/a-new-human-trial-
seriously-undermines.html)

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OnleMeMeMe
I'm open to everything that is proven by trials.

Everything else is opinion.

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itistoday2
I am grateful to everyone who has helped me expand my thinking beyond myself
when it comes to dietary choices.

Whether or not the latest diet fad says X is good for me, I now think about
how consuming X affects not just me, but the environment, and the X.

