who doesnt eat grains, carb questions

[Oblivian]

Dude, the title of that blog post is "Why Grains Are Unhealthy." The man's laying out his case for, well, "why grains are unhealthy." It wouldn't make any sense for him to lay out that case, and then conclude by saying, "grains are unhealthy, but maybe you should eat them." :icon_conf

I'm not sure what you're getting at, though. Paleo-type eating does make a fairly general recommendation that everyone would be better off without grains. That doesn't mean that a diet without grains is inherently better than a diet with grains. It just means that a diet with grains is never as good as it could be, because any of the positives of grains can be obtained from other foods, without the "baggage" that grains bring along.

 

[XTrainer]

There's no contradiction. A 500 calorie grain-free diet for an athlete that burns 4,000 calories a day will be vastly inferior to just about any diet, including diets that include grains.

I'll repeat, (I think this is pretty clear), I'm saying that a diet that does include grains is never as good as it could be, because anything positive you can get from grains, you can get from non-grains, thus avoiding negatives of grains (and getting the additional benefits of more micronutrient-dense food to boot).

 

[Oblivian]

There's no contradiction. A 500 calorie grain-free diet for an athlete that burns 4,000 calories a day will be vastly inferior to just about any diet, including diets that include grains.

And the above post basically sums up the D+S.

I'll repeat, (I think this is pretty clear), I'm saying that a diet that does include grains is never as good as it could be, because anything positive you can get from grains, you can get from non-grains, thus avoiding negatives of grains (and getting the additional benefits of more micronutrient-dense food to boot).

I'll repeat what I have said about 50 times. Not a single article has produced a valid argument to show that a diet without grains will be beneficial for an athlete who already eats grains and is successful with grains. Therefore, runny nose nerds that blog all day with their marketing tactics shouldn't say, "Everyone should stop eating grains". These SALESMAN have no business making blanket statements, especially when there are hundreds of elite athletes who are very successful with a diet with grains. But I'm sure these buzzword douchebags could turn these athletes into better, healthier athletes, right?

 

[immovablestone]

I interpret the below article as stating "everyone should avoid grains". Do you interpret it differently?

Why Grains Are Unhealthy | Mark's Daily Apple

You know, I never really looked at that website until linking it this time. Major lulz.

Well by perusing Mark's site, you're diving into a world of folks who completely buy into some things that you, at least as far as I can tell, do not. I don't think anyone would really use Marks surface articles (unless you're someone like Jaedong) as supporting scientific evidence for anything. You've got to scrape off all the surface Grok-talk and dig deeper into his material for that.

I also laugh quite a bit at the way Mark tries to present things usually, but regardless, that community has had shit-tonnes of positive results with their diets and training, just as you have had plenty of positive results with your diet and training.

It's like a kung-fu guy and a karate guy arguing over who has the better punches and kicks, instead of just agreeing that they both can kick some ass and going about their business.

 

[XTrainer]

And the above post basically sums up the D+S.

Not sure what you mean there.

I'll repeat what I have said about 50 times. Not a single article has produced a valid argument to show that a diet without grains will be beneficial for an athlete who already eats grains and is successful with grains.

If you're looking for a clinical study that concludes, explicitly, "Athletes that switch to Paleo improve," no, you won't find one, just like you won't find any legitimate studies that come to such a broad and unqualified conclusion about anything.

Does that mean we should ignore all of the research which demonstrates the benefits of Paleo/grain-free and the risks associated with grain consumption? I think not.

All one needs to do is look at the catalog of negative negative effects associated with grains, and consider, "How could, would, or do these effects impact my performance?"

 

[Oblivian]

Not sure what you mean there.

If you're looking for a clinical study that concludes, explicitly, "Athletes that switch to Paleo improve," no, you won't find one, just like you won't find any legitimate studies that come to such a broad and unqualified conclusion about anything.

Does that mean we should ignore all of the research which demonstrates the benefits of Paleo/grain-free and the risks associated with grain consumption? I think not.

All one needs to do is look at the catalog of negative negative effects associated with grains, and consider, "How could, would, or do these effects impact my performance?"

Who is saying that we should ignore the research? I'm saying ignore the arrogant nerds that say, "Everyone should avoid grains". Let's review:

-You admit that you can have a have a healthy diet with grains.
-Hundreds of elite athletes eat grains and have very strong performances with grains.
-There is no guarantee that avoiding grains will make a healthier, better performing athlete.

Agreed? Therefore, no one should be making a statement that everyone should avoid grains. That's what I'm saying. Ignore the douchebag salesmen, which from what I've been seeing lately, are pretty much a lot of the bloggers linked on here.

 

[joshetc]

If I want to gain weight and not eat grains and not puke my brains out do I:


a) drink half a tub of whey protein a day
b) eat 2 pounds of sugar a day
c) don't be a jackass and eat simple carbs from grains

 

[Jaedong]

Dude, the title of that blog post is "Why Grains Are Unhealthy." The man's laying out his case for, well, "why grains are unhealthy." It wouldn't make any sense for him to lay out that case, and then conclude by saying, "grains are unhealthy, but maybe you should eat them." :icon_conf

I'm not sure what you're getting at, though. Paleo-type eating does make a fairly general recommendation that everyone would be better off without grains. That doesn't mean that a diet without grains is inherently better than a diet with grains. It just means that a diet with grains is never as good as it could be, because any of the positives of grains can be obtained from other foods, without the "baggage" that grains bring along.

Can you get enough carbs eating paleo/primal if you are a big athlete that trains intensively daily and wants to put on even some more muscle mass ?

 

[Gary Peters]

One of the jokes Oblivian said in another thread stuck out to me.

"Didn't you hear each serving of grains takes X amount of days away from your life."

I think thats the big question here.. when it its severely preached to avoid grains we need scientific research to show it actually decreases your life span and/or performance. So far I am not convinced that it does.

 

[Oblivian]

You won't get that from this forum. What you will get is a vague response that says, "But you do acknowledge that grains have bad qualities and that you CAN eat healthy without them!" I think it's summed up pretty well with the below post:

-You admit that you can have a have a healthy diet with grains.
-Hundreds of elite athletes eat grains and have very strong performances with grains.
-There is no guarantee that avoiding grains will make a healthier, better performing athlete.

 

[Jaedong]

Well by perusing Mark's site, you're diving into a world of folks who completely buy into some things that you, at least as far as I can tell, do not. I don't think anyone would really use Marks surface articles (unless you're someone like Jaedong) as supporting scientific evidence for anything. You've got to scrape off all the surface Grok-talk and dig deeper into his material for that.

I also laugh quite a bit at the way Mark tries to present things usually, but regardless, that community has had shit-tonnes of positive results with their diets and training, just as you have had plenty of positive results with your diet and training.

It's like a kung-fu guy and a karate guy arguing over who has the better punches and kicks, instead of just agreeing that they both can kick some ass and going about their business.

When did I say it was scientific evidence ? The conversation is about paelo / primal aka diets without grains and I posted an article form one of the main anti grain gurus. Matter of fact if we look at your post history you have been following mark's daily apple regularly and buy into what he preaches. It's pathetic how because I have a relatively bad reputation, I get singled out by some posters to make them look better.

 

[immovablestone]

When did I say it was scientific evidence ?

You didn't say "scientific evidence", I was just using you as an example of dumbness...

Matter of fact if we look at your post history you have been following mark's daily apple regularly and buy into what he preaches.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but that's no surprise...

I put stock in a bunch of the articles he's referenced regarding grains and fats, sure. There are great bits of information there when you take the time to dig through all the Grok stuff. There are also great recipes in his posts occasionally, and in his forums, as well.

 

[Oblivian]

You didn't say "scientific evidence", I was just using you as an example of dumbness...

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but that's no surprise...

 

[enright3060]

There's no contradiction. A 500 calorie grain-free diet for an athlete that burns 4,000 calories a day will be vastly inferior to just about any diet, including diets that include grains.

I'll repeat, (I think this is pretty clear), I'm saying that a diet that does include grains is never as good as it could be, because anything positive you can get from grains, you can get from non-grains, thus avoiding negatives of grains (and getting the additional benefits of more micronutrient-dense food to boot).

What is the objective criteria that determine whether a diet is superior? We want to avoid just conformation basis.

Is it statistically normal blood profiles? Enough vitamins and minerals? What is it?

 

[plugchop]

The diet that produced this:

is superior to the diet that produced this:

(note the fatty's grains!)

 

[DEVILsSON]

I want to look like Sly when I retire.

 

[joshetc]

he looks like he needs a sammich

 

[XTrainer]

Who is saying that we should ignore the research? I'm saying ignore the arrogant nerds that say, "Everyone should avoid grains". Let's review:

-You admit that you can have a have a healthy diet with grains.
-Hundreds of elite athletes eat grains and have very strong performances with grains.
-There is no guarantee that avoiding grains will make a healthier, better performing athlete.

Agreed? Therefore, no one should be making a statement that everyone should avoid grains. That's what I'm saying. Ignore the douchebag salesmen, which from what I've been seeing lately, are pretty much a lot of the bloggers linked on here.

There's nothing wrong with the 3 points you posted. I say again, it's a question of can you do better? I'll reiterate: You can get all of the positives of grains from non-grain foods, without the baggage of grains, and with better micro profiles to boot. In short, a diet with grains can certainly and obviously be improved upon. That's not to say that any non-grain diet will be superior to that grain-containing diet. All I'm saying is that any diet with grains is obviously not the best diet that person could be consuming (again, from a pure health perspective, not considering external factors).

I really don't understand your potshots at the Paleo crowd, Oblivian. I have an awful lot of respect for the sacrifices they are willing to make in the name of better health and performance.

If I want to gain weight and not eat grains and not puke my brains out do I:


a) drink half a tub of whey protein a day
b) eat 2 pounds of sugar a day
c) don't be a jackass and eat simple carbs from grains

Obviously, gaining weight is harder with less food choices. This is one of those "practicality" and "financial" compromises I've described, not a health concern. You could gain weight without grains, even on strict paleo, but it takes more money, more work, more prep time, etc. In the end, it's probably worth it to you (and me) to compromise health in some minor way in order to make the ordeal of gaining weight easier.

There's nothing wrong with that, I'm just saying with should call a spade a spade.

Is it statistically normal blood profiles? Enough vitamins and minerals? What is it?

Too much for a simple post...blood profiles would be a start, but "normal" isn't good enough, because, ideally, we want to achieve blood profiles that lead to lower than normal incidences of diseases, sicknesses, etc.

As a side note, "blood profile" is an awfully general description, since darn near anything can be measure via blood tests, but most profiles only take advantage of a small percentage of these measurements.

Vitamins and minerals are a means to various ends (performance, absence of sickness, etc.), so whether or not you're getting "enough" of those nutrients would be dependent on the results you're getting. Since different people require different amounts of various nutrients, we can't look at a diet and say, "this provides enough." We can only look at the person and say, "he or she needs more (or less) of X."

I mean, we could list a million different health and performance indicators. My point is, those indicators cannot be best served by a diet containing grains--even though those indicators may very well be sufficiently served for your purposes. It goes back to the "it can be improved upon" characteristic that grain-containing diets necessarily have, which I alluded to in this post and several previous posts.

In order deny deny that^, you would have to go back to point "B" I mentioned here:

I would think that if we were really being honest here, there would be more people who:

A)Believe Paleo has a lot to offer, but do not fully implement for reasons outside of health/performance in the purest sense. (This describes me, FYI)

OR

B)Believe the core Paleo principles are just factually, biologically, wrong, that Paleo is in fact unhealthy compared to X, because of reasons A, B, and C.

Rather, the argument we get is always "it's not necessary," "it's extreme," etc. I don't find these argument satisfying at all because they don't address the core questions of comparison and superiority/inferiority between Paleo and other strategies in given situations.

I have no problem with people in the "B" camp. On the contrary, I would be quite interested to hear what they have to say. It runs contrary to my knowledge and experience, but I certainly don't know everything. Or even a lot.

My problem is with people bashing Paleo on other-than-health grounds when Paleo never claims to be the easiest, cheapest, most fun, or most convenient way to eat.

 

[dza76wutang]

I cut grains to the minimum (occassionally use some bread to make a sandwich), didn't really change anything else (shifted my macro nutrients away from carbs but I'm not zealous), increased protein/unsat fat and I feel better in general. I eat fruit and vegies all the time and I'm not paleo because I consume a lot of dairy (kefir is a dietary staple, as is greek yogurt, plus I use milk in my shakes). Body composition/weight has not really changed yet, but nixing the grains seems to have improved my general wellness so I'll stick to that.

My only dietary "law" is I won't eat anything with high fructose corn syrup, and I TRY to eat organic produce when possible, but Whole Foods keeps downsizing the frozen vegies selection to my chargrin.

The main reason I abstained from grains is the stuff I've seen floating around here about grains and inflammation, and inflammation's impact on health/wellness.

Just one anecdote, I'm not claiming wisdom.

 

[Oblivian]

I don't really need to go round and round about this. My position is pretty clear and was summed up in those 3 points. Your point is that the diet "can be better" from a pure health perspective. Honestly, I don't give a shit as long as I am generally healthy. My #1 concern will be performance, and honestly, I think a diet with grains (and other non-paleo foods like milk) will be much more efficient in regards to performance than a paleo diet. Furthermore, I think any health benefit that you claim from a paleo diet will be minor, if at all, provided that the non-paleo diet is a complete diet where you are meeting your nutrient levels. On top of that, the non-paleo diet will be much more convenient, less expensive, and practical. So yes, a paleo enthusiast can blow their time and money all they want to live that lifestyle, it's their right and I have no problem with that. When you have douchebags with blogs full of hyperbole + sales pitches that state EVERYONE should eat a certain way, I am going to call "a spade a spade" when I call them nerdy, irrational salesman.