The Paleo Diet thread

Coconut oil is awesome.

Read the saturated fat/cholesterol post in the main topic of the general nutrition thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=261918

I detail various forms of saturated fat (no, they are not all created equal).

The main type of saturated fat in coconut is EXTREMELY healthy.

Butter is not bad for health either as the saturated fats in milk, cheeses, etc. have a fair mix of good qualities outweighing some of the bad.

After all, the fats in these types of foods are MADE for animals to grow properly as infants to adults. Evolution didn't make milks from mothers to childs give heart disease.

so which is better for cooking

avocado vs olive oil

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Ingenol United States. October 20 2011 23:31. Posts 1227

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They're both pretty close. Butter is probably better for cooking, especially if you can find grass-fed butter. If you do cook with olive oil use a lower grade; not extra virgin.

The problem with both avocado and olive oils is they are high in unsaturated fatty acids, which can oxidize under heat. They also both have pretty poor O6:O3 ratios. The high saturated fat content (and thus high heat stability) of coconut oil and butter vs these mostly unsaturated oils is one reason why the former are preferred for cooking.

eshlow United States. October 21 2011 01:45. Posts 5010

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What he said ^^

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zatic Germany. October 21 2011 02:21. Posts 11701

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Can you expand a bit on the oxidizing effect? The thing is I love olive oil to death and couldn't imagine cooking without it.

I reason I can balance the O6/O3 pretty easy through other fat intake, but what exactly makes olive oil bad for cooking on high heat?

Also why lower grade and not extra virgin?

I know Teamliquid is known as a massive building

Twisted Netherlands. October 21 2011 03:17. Posts 11896

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I would never use lower grade olive oil because it's usually refined junk (with more linoleic acid in it than extra virgin) and afaik, olive oil is pretty resistant to oxidative damage (reference).

Ingenol United States. October 21 2011 03:26. Posts 1227

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Unsaturated fats have double bonds, which can be reactive. In particular, polyunsaturated fats are more reactive than monounsaturated (it's taking all my will power to not geek out on organic chemistry here, haha). When you heat something, nearly all chemical reactions take place with greater facility, including the oxidation of these fats to radical species that are harmful to the body. Also, the polyphenols in olive oil in particular--which are suspected to be one of the reasons for its health benefits--are easily destroyed even with moderate heating. So you both create potentially harmful reactive intermediates and destroy potentially helpful compounds by heating olive oil and other oils with high unsaturated fat content.

Extra virgin olive oils have more monounsaturated fats than lower grades, so they have a lower smoke point and are more susceptible to oxidative damage.

For these reasons you should also avoid keeping olive oil in a big jug open to the air and light. It's better in something opaque, and if you're super conscientious you could add a small amount of an antioxidant like astaxanthin to it.

Edit: like Twisted said, there is conflicting evidence on to what extent this oxidation does actually occur in practice.

Last edit: 2011-10-21 03:29:30

Ingenol United States. October 21 2011 03:29. Posts 1227

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Another good oil to cook with is red palm oil, but I've never used it personally.

Orpheos United States. October 21 2011 03:39. Posts 1337

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nvm dumb question

Last edit: 2011-10-21 03:40:12

Zafrumi Switzerland. October 21 2011 03:46. Posts 1256

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eat more vegetables. my bowl movements have never been better than on paleo!

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guN-viCe United States. October 22 2011 07:48. Posts 543

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I found a really good write-up on the debate of beans. If anyone is interested: To Bean Or Not To Bean

Never give up, never surrender!!! ~~ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Sagan

eshlow United States. October 22 2011 08:13. Posts 5010

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On October 22 2011 07:48 guN-viCe wrote:
I found a really good write-up on the debate of beans. If anyone is interested: To Bean Or Not To Bean

Great article. I'll put it in OP.

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7mk Germany. October 23 2011 01:09. Posts 9436

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On October 20 2011 08:36 Twisted wrote:
Red meat causing cancer is something people love to prove, but in reality they can't (at least not up till now). The media also loves putting sensational news on the frontpage and uses studies made by bad scientists (reference, whole presentation is good) as source.

Mark Sisson extrapolated on one such study in a blogpost he made at his site:

Is Red Meat Unhealthy?

cant watch the video atm but that blogpost is kinda annoying tbh ^^
dont get me wrong, he is pretty much right about everything he says, but i mean he just points out some obvious flaws, I could do the same for a lot of studies, like with the retarded pro-paleo milk vs meat protein study I mentioned. And to address one of the big points he makes in the article, there are also studies showing that increased meat intake correlates with increased mortality independently of socio-economic status.

That the media are sensationalist is nothing new and kinda irrelevant imo.

About coconut oil, didnt people attribute the huge obesity problem in malaysia partly to coconut oil?
They mostly use coconut oil for their cooking,
Of course that could be complete bs, malaysia is an interesting country though in terms of their nutritional problem.
And I mean I assume theyve used coconut oil for a long time by now while the obesity problem has only risen in the last few decades

Last edit: 2011-10-23 01:12:16

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Twisted Netherlands. October 23 2011 01:33. Posts 11896

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It's everyone's own choice to interpret any study as he would like, but I don't think you can point to a conclusive clinical study which proves that eating high quantities of red meat gives you a greater chance of developing cancer. Any study that does 'prove' it is purely observational where they drew up a hypothesis and sticked by it no matter what. Most of those observational studies don't think about socio-economic status or other implications that could cause a higher mortality rate.

It usually just comes down to people eating too much (refined) sugar and processed junk. The whole paleo solution is to cut your sugar and stop eating processed foods, but just eat food from natural sources. I don't think it's about excessive meat eating (obviously) so what we're discussing is pretty redundant in that fact

. I think eating well means eating a variety of foods and keep it varied within the scope of the whole paleo theory. Some things to take away from the standard modern 'Western' diet is that you have to eat varied to get all the nutritional stuff that you need, which is obviously something that's true; also for paleo.

The point is that these studies argue that you should avoid red meat altogether and stick to white meat while red meat has a lot of nutritional value. If you cut it from your diet, you're probably not getting enough of something.

About milk, there are different opinions about that too. Some paleo guru's like L. Cordain say you should avoid dairy altogether, Mark Sisson is a bit less convinced (definitive guide to dairy).

About coconut oil, didnt people attribute the huge obesity problem in malaysia partly to coconut oil?
They mostly use coconut oil for their cooking,

Yeah, that sounds absurd. It's probably caused by the fear of saturated fat which is very high in coconut oil so they just assumed that because they eat a lot of saturated fat that they're obese. They are probably obese because of a multitude of other factors which I can't say shit about because I don't know anything about that subject

. It probably has to do with eating too much carbs/refined stuff anyway though.
The native American Indians were some of the most healthy people around until they discovered Western food and Burger King and when they got involved into more of a Western society, their health started dropping rapidly. Maybe something like that happened with the Malaysians as well.

Last edit: 2011-10-23 01:34:39

eshlow United States. October 23 2011 05:26. Posts 5010

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Polynesian/Malaysian/Micronesian culture has been using coconut for millenia, and now they have obesity problems in the last 50 or so years.

I'm going to assume that's because of the introduction of refined carbohydrates into their diet. Not something that they've been eating for a long time that hasn't given them problems before..

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billy5000 United States. October 23 2011 10:01. Posts 610

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how much do you guys usually pay for groceries in the course of a week? I end up spending about $120/week, but I'm not sure if i'm buying smart or not

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand. Vonnegut

Goibon New Zealand. October 23 2011 22:26. Posts 7480

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On October 22 2011 08:13 eshlow wrote:

Show nested quote +

Great article. I'll put it in OP.

Ahh glad to read this. I recently added batch cooked chili to my diet as an extra pre cooked meal option and started reading things about beans which had me a little concerned.

I'm surprised they're not considered 'paleo', but whatever, i'm leaving them in.

Leenock =^_^= Ryung =^_^= Parting =^_^= herO

7mk Germany. October 24 2011 06:40. Posts 9436

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On October 23 2011 01:33 Twisted wrote:
It's everyone's own choice to interpret any study as he would like, but I don't think you can point to a conclusive clinical study which proves that eating high quantities of red meat gives you a greater chance of developing cancer. Any study that does 'prove' it is purely observational where they drew up a hypothesis and sticked by it no matter what. Most of those observational studies don't think about socio-economic status or other implications that could cause a higher mortality rate.

I already mentioned a study which did include the socio-economic status.
( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21971817 )
But that aside, doing perfect studies is not possible. You just cant take everything into account.
If a study shows people who eat more meat have higher mortality / higher rate of cancer then I think it's worth mentioning (how well these studies are done obviously varies a lot). Does this prove that meat causes cancer? No, but it could show theres a problem with nutrition among a certain group of people and that their excess of meat intake is somehow part of that. I already mentioned that I think theres huge flaws with studies on nutrition, but to argue with that to support a different way of nutrition is absolutely pointless. (Esp. if that other side uses studies to support that people should stop eating stuff like bread and milk entirely.)
To mention that they just draw a hypothesis and just stick to it no matter what - thats an exaggeration but bias is of course a problem, thats why doing blind experiments is a good thing, but im not sure how doable that is in studies on nutrition. But this is certainly also true for paleo-supporting studies, especially since all the studies i read so far were actually done by people already supporting paleo.
I dont wanna repeat myself, but at least in none of the studies i read about meat and cancer/mortality they abused young children to prove a point, like they did in the one pro-paleo study.

It usually just comes down to people eating too much (refined) sugar and processed junk. The whole paleo solution is to cut your sugar and stop eating processed foods, but just eat food from natural sources. I don't think it's about excessive meat eating (obviously) so what we're discussing is pretty redundant in that fact

. I think eating well means eating a variety of foods and keep it varied within the scope of the whole paleo theory.

yup I agree =)
And yeah its pretty redundant, but I think this kinda started with me being unhappy with the bias of some of those paleo "gurus" (lol)
If you claim that milk causes cancer then I think that at least the meat issue should be mentioned, if only to defend and support the paleo style.

On October 23 2011 05:26 eshlow wrote:
Polynesian/Malaysian/Micronesian culture has been using coconut for millenia, and now they have obesity problems in the last 50 or so years.

ya thats pretty stupid then ^^ but i got that from news media, so no surprise.

I'm going to assume that's because of the introduction of refined carbohydrates into their diet. Not something that they've been eating for a long time that hasn't given them problems before..

I took a short look into it,
complex carbohydrate supply in malaysia has been in decline, availability of fibre-rich food has not changed,
increase in proportion of calories from fat, oils, sugars, meat, fish, egg.
http://maso.org.my/spom/chap5.pdf
but i kinda stopped caring what exactly the reasons are ^^

Last edit: 2011-10-24 06:41:28

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Levistus Philippines. October 24 2011 07:19. Posts 674

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sup guys i want to try paleo but we eat rice here everyday. what is a good substitute for rice?

Twisted Netherlands. October 24 2011 07:27. Posts 11896

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There are actually good nutritional studies but there is a difference between observational studies and clinical studies.

In clinical studies they usually have 2 or 3 groups of people and they test by changing one variable between the groups. Like in medicine research, one group of people is given a placebo and one group is given the actual medicine. Both groups are exactly the same and have some kind of chronic disease. If there is no noticable difference, the medicine fails and a study like that pretty much proves it.

In a nutritional study, you could test 3 groups of random people (of random socio-economic status etc., so big groups so weed out the variance) and change one variable. In this case, one group is all vegetarian and doesn't eat meat at all, the other eats only chicken and the third group could eat every meat available. You have to make sure with this that only the one variable is different so those groups have to be monitored very closely obviously and each group has to be told what to eat at all times and you have to make sure each group behaves exactly the same (as in exercise, bad habits etc.etc.). Maybe a bad example because this is really hard to do, but I hope it serves it purpose. In a study like this you could conclude some stuff at least.
Maybe a better example is a study where one group is cooking with only olive oil, one is cooking with only vegetable oils, and a third group is only using ghee or butter. I think this has been done actually and the ones on vegetable oils were suffering massive mortality rates compared to the ghee and butter people.

Twisted Netherlands. October 24 2011 07:28. Posts 11896

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On October 24 2011 07:19 Levistus wrote:
sup guys i want to try paleo but we eat rice here everyday. what is a good substitute for rice?

Cauliflower. Google cauliflower rice.

Actually, here you go: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbsidedishes/r/caulirice.htm

Last edit: 2011-10-24 07:30:25