What is the healthiest diet you could possibly eat? (as a general consensus)

Before you respond, make sure you don't mischaracterized my argument. I am not arguing for a low-carb diet, but a right carb diet. I don't believe in Atkins or highly carb restrictive diets, but I also don't believe runners need to get 70% of their calories from carbs.

I eat around 3500 calories a day running 80 mpw and perhaps 1200 or so from carbs. Almost no simple sugar (fruit only, but a good bit of it), and no gluten or phylates. I am 6'4" and weight 155, but I am not overly skeletal - I can bench a set of 10 at my bodyweight easily and do a set of 50 military reg pushups easily.

Monounsaturated fat is probably 1/3 of my calories.

I got into paleo late last year experimenting with leaving off gluten and casein to try to get rid of chronic allergy-like congestion (which worked!). I only incidentally discovered I felt better and ran better, and was less hungry. Before that, I ate a ton of pasta and cheese and stuff like that like most runners. I haven't had pasta in 4 months or dairy in 4 months.

Dairy is of course a food. It isn't a "food group" in terms of a required food for good health. We don't need dairy in our diets. I mean the idea that it was included as a necessary food group with a number of optimal servings per day is owed to lobbying. People have been brewing beer for thousands of years to, but it isn't a "food group".

Grains contain gltuen and phylatic acid. Phylatic acid prevents mineral absoprtion (worried about calcium? Don't drink milk - get rid of phylates). And gluten. If you are 100% tolerant of gluten and have few natural mineral absorption issues, you are probably fine with grains and legumes.

You are conflating the concept of "healthy" with the concept of "optimal".

Agriculture has been around long enough for us to evolve our genome to it to some extent. So we have a more carb-tolerant genome than we used to (expose hunter -gatherers with no history of agriculture to a western diet and see what happens).

In which depraved universe do you exist where beer isn't a food group? I challenge you to a duel, sir!

My general recommendation would be that if you are really lean, have a strong insulin response, aren't hungry in disproportion to your caloric needs, are as lean as you "should be" given your acativity level and calorie intake, have a good blood lipid profile and what you are doing seems to be working, stick with your high carb grains diet.

But if you are somebody who exercises a lot, eat a ton of complex carbs, and are sure you control calories but still seem to feel hungry all the time, have to exercise a great deal of self-control and sill aren't as lean as people around you that eat more, you might benefit by trying something different.

http://thepaleodiet.com/

How do you get enough fiber on these gluten free diets?

For example, I eat bread with everything. What would I substitute for bread?

redux wrote:

If the furnace is hot enough...

No matter how hot the furnace, my body could not utilize gluten or latex fruits.

You get fiber from eating I plenty of fruit. I eat a large bowl of at least 4 kinds of fruit as part of my dinner. Last night it was white grapes, oranges, kiwi, and strawberries. My dinner last night was about ounces of grass fed beef, a yam, a sweet potato, and the aforementioned fruit.

I also eat yams and sweet potatoes and vegetables. Athletes can't really do the full-on obsessed quasi-religious paelo-diet - we have to make concessions for your somewhat higher carb needs. Read the "for athletes" version of the book.

Some "paleo-for-athletes" people make a concession to white rice (a pure neutral starch - no phylates or gluten). I eat some rice. Most of my carbs come from yams, fruit, and brown rice syrup (it has no fructose and is half complex carbs and is easy and convenient for post run carbs, when they do the most good). Of course, it wasn't a hunter gatherer food, but chemically it is not highly glycemic, being 50% complex and only 3% glucose. A concession to endurance athletic needs.

Lots of bad info in this thread. The new consensus is that a plant based diet is best for you. Meat, dairy, and processed foods should be eliminated or severely restricted in your diet. If you don't want to go so far as to eliminate all meat, you should at least cut out the red meat.

A great diet would look something like this...

>70% Vegetables

~20% Fruit, Nuts, Legumes

<5% Grains

<5% Lean meat/fish

Based on experience and scientific evidence.

iuli wrote:

How do you get enough fiber on these gluten free diets?

For example, I eat bread with everything. What would I substitute for bread?

vegetables and fruits would be your main source. almonds, and seeds have fiber. isn't the rda for fiber like 35g? that't not hard to get through veggies and a few pieces of fruit

Eat The Sun's Energy wrote:

Lots of bad info in this thread. The new consensus is that a plant based diet is best for you. Meat, dairy, and processed foods should be eliminated or severely restricted in your diet. If you don't want to go so far as to eliminate all meat, you should at least cut out the red meat.

A great diet would look something like this...

>70% Vegetables

~20% Fruit, Nuts, Legumes

<5% Grains

<5% Lean meat/fish

Based on experience and scientific evidence.

First, how on earth can you get 3500 calories a day with 70% of your calories from vegetables? DO you mean 70% by volume (that would be even worse - what would that be - hundreds of grams of fiber a day? Would you ever leave the toilet?)

If all you have is corn fed meat, though, you might be right. That fat profile of corn fed beef is not very good. We evolved eating lean, seasonal grass-fed meat. Should lions also stop eating meat? Meat enabled the growth of our brains and we clearly evolved to be omnivorous.

Now, the moral issues of eating meat are a completely different conversation, and a serious one, i think (before paleo, I went a year without eating any meat and I still have reservations about it). I just don't like when people who have moral qualms about eating meat (which I take seriously and I do think are troubling) try to harnass nutritional arguments for what are emotional and moral arguments.

Cordain wrote:

http://thepaleodiet.com/

Man, people sure do looooove to impose rules upon themselves. Whether through some made up religious garbarldy goop or pseudoscience. This especially seems true when it comes to diet.

Is there any thing that gives people like this more joy than going to someone house or to a restaurant and loudly proclaiming "Oh my I can't eat ANYTHING on this menu."

Silly silly silly attention seeking behavior...

Guidelines, not rules.

Of course, everyone has to eat with some kind of guidelines and I am afraid convenience and taste have become the rules most people follow.

Paleo is pretty easy to eat in restaurants, for the most part, although compatibility with restaurants probably isn't the best hallmark of a good diet, for obvious reasons. Especially "for athletes". I live in the Rockies, so grass fed meat and buffalo is available nearly everywhere and many restaurants cook in olive oil.

Who eats at restaurants daily? I eat out infrequently enough (once a week maybe) so making minor concessions to restaurants doesn't spoil the general plan. I will eat a corn fed burger or whatever on occasion. What is important are your normal routines, not the rare exceptions. You won't go to hell for sinning, you just want your normal routine to be within the guidelines. Small infrequent amounts of stuff not strictly paleo is clearly no big deal - it is what you design your daily habits around that matters. I drink a few beers a week, but I don't want beer to be a staple of my daily diet. I might have a cookie or something with a little wheat once a week or even sweetened soda. It just isn't part of my routine.

Dr Joel Fuhrman wrote:

Health = Nutrients / Calories

Have you used fiurhman diet? I have, lost weight,and felt great. The problem was long term it seemed hard to do

I don't think there is a consensus. Personally, I used to stick to the very low fat (less than 10%) high carb (high sugar) diet for years but didn't do well on it. I suppose it had high fiber as well. My gut was wrecked all the time. I often had "emergencies" while I was running and was tired. Plus I had dreams about eating cake and ice cream all the time, which I don't think is a good sign.

Then, after a time living with some in-laws and eating their higher fat, higher protein diet, I realized I had lost weight and my gut felt much better. Since then, I've researched a lot on "traditional" diets and try to eat much less sugar and less processed food.

Here are my favorite foods to add in to stay healthy: coconut oil, olive oil, chia seeds, flax seeds, almonds, walnuts, organ meats, meat, including fatty meat, eggs, apple cider vinegar and other fermented foods, like kimchi and sauerkraut, spices like turmeric, and cinnamon, yogurt, cheese, lots of organic fruits and vegetables. I still eat bread but we bake it ourselves. And we have a garden here that grows collard greens, arugula, spinach, basil, mint, sage, rosemary, oregano, hot peppers, and tomatoes.

cliff clavin wrote:

Yes, J.R., it is obvious you were responding under a different name, and no, I know that humans don't need to add lots of salt to their food, but as one who is vastly intellectually superior to you, I am cognizant of the need for humans to consume some salt. You were so stupid as to not recognize this.

Heh, I've not posted here since yesterday. If you really haad a modicrum of intelligence, you wouldn't be adding salt to your food.

I have no ever added any salt to my food my whole life. The Kenyans and other African runers don't add any salt to their food. Animals don't add any salt to their food. Now who's the stupid one.

J.R. wrote:

cliff clavin wrote:

Yes, J.R., it is obvious you were responding under a different name, and no, I know that humans don't need to add lots of salt to their food, but as one who is vastly intellectually superior to you, I am cognizant of the need for humans to consume some salt. You were so stupid as to not recognize this.

Heh, I've not posted here since yesterday. If you really haad a modicrum of intelligence, you wouldn't be adding salt to your food.

I have no ever added any salt to my food my whole life. The Kenyans and other African runers don't add any salt to their food. Animals don't add any salt to their food. Now who's the stupid one.

Nobody said anything about adding salt to their food. You stated that the diet should include NO SALT. You either did not mean that, or you are the stupid one, or both.

You can tweak it if you have higher caloric needs. The point is to have your entire diet (or as much as you can) made up of plant based whole foods. Fiber is good for you. After the initial detoxification, you will become more regular with more solid stools.

This has nothing to do with the moral issues - purely health reasons. It's ridiculous that people still cling to the idea that humans need animal based foods for protein and fat. There are many other nutrient rich foods that provide protein and fat that haven't been linked to cancer and heart disease.

Cliff Clavin wrote:

Nobody said anything about adding salt to their food.

Really????

Cliff Clavin wrote:

I am cognizant of the need for humans to consume some salt.

Actually you said it right there.

Cliff Clavin wrote:

You stated that the diet should include NO SALT. You either did not mean that, or I'm the stupid one, or both.

Right. THE DIET SHOULD NOT INCLUDE ANY SALT.

Therefore NO SALT.

Eat The Sun's Energy wrote:

You can tweak it if you have higher caloric needs. The point is to have your entire diet (or as much as you can) made up of plant based whole foods. Fiber is good for you. After the initial detoxification, you will become more regular with more solid stools.

This has nothing to do with the moral issues - purely health reasons. It's ridiculous that people still cling to the idea that humans need animal based foods for protein and fat. There are many other nutrient rich foods that provide protein and fat that haven't been linked to cancer and heart disease.

Truth. Bill Clinton has it figured out... took him too long, though.