Too many in the general public think the surgery is a panacea. Even 1-2 years after “successful” surgery, most bariatric surgery patients are significantly overweight. The successful ones lose about 1/2 their excess weight (fat), not half of their baseline weight.

-Steve

I’m not yet very familiar with the paleo diet. But I’m getting the distinct impression that grains are not favored!

I think it’s too soon to reject all grain consumption. The science isn’t there yet. Rather than get into a lengthy debate right here, I promise to do some reading at Mark’s Daily Apple blog when time allows:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Is that a good source?

As it stands now, I am very favorably disposed towards whole grain consumption in moderation. I’m not in favor of highly processed, refined grains, especially in someone trying to lose weight. It’s way to easy to overeat the refined products such as chips, bread, crackers, pastries. And the refined product has less fiber, phytonutrients, minerals, and vitamins, etc.

Here’s a link to an old blog post of mine, “More Evidence of Whole Grain Goodness”: http://advancedmediterraneandiet.com/blog/?p=41

-Steve

There are still debates within the paleo about the saturated fat or the importance of fiber so there are not just one official standard, as I have gathered.

Marks Sisson at MDA developed a wholistic approach to diet and exercise called “Primal Blueprint” - so it’s one flavor of paleo, so to say.
(and the reward for following its principles is looking like this at 55: http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/Frisbee2-1.jpg

So you might want to look at his site starting with a post called
“What’s the Difference Between Primal and Paleo?”
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/whats-the-difference-between-primal-and-paleo/

as for the article on grains, I will look there later.

-Steve

The paleo diet rationale seems to be based on an evolutionary argument: Certain foods were available to us during 99% of our evolution, so our bodies adapted to work optimally with them. I.e., humans/humanoids/higher primates who were not suited to the available food did not survive and reproduce, so their genes were not passed on to us.

For most of human existence, maximum lifespan was probably 25-30 years, on average. If that’s as long as you’re going to live, it may not matter much what you eat. Eat paleo, vegetarian, McDonald’s, Atkins, or Mediterranean. Most diet related conditions except overweight are not going to be an issue before age 30.

But now we live to be 80, long enough for diet-related diseases to appear. We have cancer, heart attacks, and strokes that paleo man never saw because he died of trauma or infection. We see the expression of genes that were not subjected to survival pressure: Alzheimers disease, Huntingtons chorea, some breast cancers, etc.

In other words, we carry genes that don’t matter if you die at age 30. If you live longer, they express themselves, and I believe we can modify their expression through diet and lifestyle. And not necessarily the paleo diet.

I’m still thinking it through.

I wonder which insects Mark Sisson recommends eating?

-Steve

I think Mark likes the ones with a high saturated fat content, and no carbs

I don’t think they’re in the USDA Nutrient Database.

I saw SurvivorMan roast and eat some grasshoppers one episode.

-Steve