I've gotten back to eating a more Paleo/Primal Nutrition Plan. Here are my thoughts.
Carnivore is what Paleo/Primal started out as and it should have
stayed that way. We should have listened to the message from "The
Perfect Human Diet" by C.J. Hunt. But we didn't. We went off
track by several ideas that came into the Paleo movement. We got
caught up in trying to make it easy and include more people. We got
shamed by society for acting like cavemen and women. But now
carnivore has helped bring us back to our dietary heritage. We can
once again proudly display our steaks, roast, and host of meats while
we dance around our campfires. Well maybe our grills, air fryers, and
ovens
There
were several ideas that came into the Paleo sphere that changed it.
People brought their plant baggage with them into the Paleo diet.
Others brought their high fat beliefs. And then there was the
scientist
and bio-hackers. All of these different ideas splintered the Paleo
diet and pulled people away from the core idea of the Paleo, "Eat
a lot of meat".Paleo accepted in all the people who were sick and over weight
that had failed to get results from other ways of eating.
The plant
based group was willing to accept the idea that they needed to add
some animal protein to their diet, but they clung to their old idea
that plants were more important to health than meat. They wanted to
keep fruits and vegetables at the core of their way of eating. All
their years of hearing that we have to be plant based just couldn't
be dropped. So they argued the fact that we just had to have our
fruits and vegetables. They not only wanted to have fruits and
vegetables but they wanted their properly prepared safe starches.
They argued for those as well.
The high fat people wanted to keep fat and alternative low carb
food and treats in their Paleo plan. The benefits of fats were
elevated about the need for protein. They got everyone worried about
their blood glucose level and ketones. Everyone started started
chasing their blood glucose and ketones numbers. All while ignoring
their calories and body weight on the scales. They forgot about Robb
Wolf's driving principle, "How do you look, feel, and perform".
People were sitting around with butter in their pockets and wondering
why they weren't seeing the results they wanted.
It is hard to blamed the plant-based and fat-based people for
clinging to their old ideas because the scientist were there to back
them up. The doctors, nutritionist, dietitian, and bio-hackers were
there in increasing numbers to lay out the data and research behind
their dietary strategies. Once again we started tracking all sorts of
numbers and adding supplements to help us see the results we wanted.
We got all wrapped up in our microbiome, heart variability, and other
bio-markers. Instead of looking in the mirror and asking ourselves
how we looked, felt, and were performing, we looked outside ourselves
to the data.
I never bought into the high fat ideas, it just didn't make sense
to me. Also I saw that the ones that were preaching the high fat doctrine were the ones that looked the worst. I also do not like artificial sweeteners nor do I believe that they are good for you.
But I did believe that plants were good for us. I've had in
drilled in my head for years. I've preached it myself. So I went the
way of the plant-based Paleo diet. I started increasing my plant
consumption and lowering my animal products. I started eating more
fruits, vegetables, and safe starches. I got to were I was only
eating animal products once a day and the rest of my meals were
plant-based.
After 3 years of eating less and less animal foods and more
plant-bases foods the wheels started falling off of my wagon. I
started looking, feeling and performing worst than ever. Lucky about
this time Dr. Shawn Baker and the Petersons started popping up on
podcast toting the virtues of a carnivorous diet. They really weren't
talking about anything new. Most of the ideas they were talking about
were things we had talked about early in the Paleo movement. Ancient
man eating a more carnivorous diet than hyenas, Vilhjalmur Stefansson
and his time with the Eskimos, and how poisonous plants were to
humans. We had been over the anti-nutrients time and time again, but
some scientist was always there
to argue about the benefits of plants.
But Jordan and Mikla Peterson's message was one that caught
people's attention for some reason. People started getting carnivore
curious. They weren't setting out to start a movement, but it
happened. Jordan just laid out what was working for them and admitted
he didn't know why it was working but they were getting better. He
said he didn't know if it would work for anyone else but they might
give it a try.
Dr.
Baker's approach is a different. Eat meat and drink water until you
feel better. All the nutrition science is biased and not reliable. He
is unapologetic and stands his ground. Keep it simple and see the
benefits. We should have been unapologetic in the Paleo movement and
kept our way of eating; animal protein based. We should not have let
our need to include more people or our need for scientific proof sway
us from our core belief, eating animals made us human and its the
proper human diet.
I'm looking, feeling, and performing much better now that I have
returned to eating animal products at the core of my diet. I feel
like I've returned to the true Paleo/Primal way of eating.