Paleo in the Press
There’s no doubting that Paleo is definitely making its presence known more often these days, and while most of the media is still presenting it as ‘difficult to stick to’, ‘possibly lacking in calcium’, ‘too high in protein’ and other skewed negative commentary, the thing I fail to understand is why so many are spending so much time trying to bash it.
I could understand if everywhere we looked, we saw another article about why eating candy was bad for us because… well, it is! Or if at least once per week there was a snippet in the newspaper about how drinking soda is really something we should all stop, immediately.
Those two issues are rather straightforward and I’d be hard pressed to find even the slightest argument that anyone could present to the contrary, and as such, it’s doubtful anyone is making too much of an effort to prove that candy and soda really are good for us because they offer ‘x’ health benefits.
Back to Paleo, then. First off, it’s all too often misunderstood and consequently reviewed unfairly.
Look at it this way: if we took the name “Paleo” away and called it (guess what?) “A balanced diet of local, organic produce, natural fats and protein from wild sources”, what’s the problem? Why do some have to keep getting so up in arms to say ‘there is no science behind it’ (um, really?) and ‘our bodies have evolved to be able to eat grains’ (oh, so then why do 1 in 133 people – and that is only what’s officially reported- have at least mild to very severe gluten intolerance issues?).
Even if our digestive systems were able to break down the toxic anti nutrients of grains (and yes, this includes the currently trendy ‘ancient grains’), which they are not, why would that in and of itself be a good reason to eat them when we can get every single last mineral, vitamin and nutrient you can think of just by eating real food.
Hey, we could eat paper if we wanted to, but does that mean we should? I’m not being silly here, I’m completely serious.
Personally, I observe that anytime anyone is adamant about angrily trying to show everyone they’re right, it tends to be because they’re trying to convince themselves, too.
As I’ve said many a time before, this is precisely why I feel the best approach is to lead by example and answer questions about Paleo when asked, but even better, let people come to you and ask what your secret is to how you’ve lost weight/cleared up your acne/increased your energy/ gotten rid of your migraines and so on, and so on, and so on…
And chuckle when you read yet another article by another RD or doctor suggesting we eat any of the crap (oops, did I write that?) that is the majority of the MyPlate food system along with a silly and inaccurate rationale about why Paleo simply doesn’t work.
Whatever (smile).
