Despite the many grain free recipes on this blog and my frequent admonition to eliminate refined grain based carbs from the diet and limit even properly prepared grains to a moderate level, I don’t choose to eat paleo or primal.
I especially don’t want my children to eat this way.
My reasons are pretty straightfoward when it comes to Paleo. They are more subtle with regards to Primal.Â
Paleo Diet – Misguided from the Get Go
The Paleo Diet as written by Loren Cordain can be quickly dismissed as unhealthy because it makes a number of wild claims that are completely unsupported through close examination of Traditional Societies as studied and documented by Dr. Weston A. Price in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
For starters, he says that wild animals are low in fat, but buffalo fat is more saturated than even beef fat from domesticated cattle.
He recommends canola oil as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, yet most canola oil is deodorized during manufacturing which destroys these delicate fats. It is almost always of GMO origin.
Cordain extols the virtues of lean meats but Traditional Man prized the fatty, cholesterol rich liver and other fatty cuts.
Perhaps Cordain’s most ridiculous suggestion of all is to rub flax oil on meat before cooking. Flax oil should never be cooked as it turns rancid and would be toxic and carcinogenic to consume!
His recommendation against grains and all starchy root vegetables (tubers) goes against discoveries of grains in the ashes and pottery of some of the most primitive humans and widespread use of tubers by many Traditional Societies. For example, ancient hunter-gatherers ate oats as confirmed by archaeological evidence.
Finally, his claim that primitive man did not consume salt is just plain baffling. Just because a salt shaker wasn’t on the dinner table doesn’t mean that salt was not consumed via other methods!
Ashes from salt rich marsh grasses were added to food in African tribes. Salt rich blood from hunted game was used in food preparation after being carefully collected.
In the final analysis, there isn’t a whole lot of paleo in The Paleo Diet! Â
With so many misguided recommendations in the book as a whole, embarking down the path of the Paleo Diet is clearly fraught with a clear and present danger to health!
Primal Diet – Traditional But Is It Optimal?
My reasons for not eating Primal, however, are a bit more subtle.
Folks who eat Primal typically base it on the book The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. The diet excludes all cereal grains and recommends against all conventional dairy although raw dairy is considered acceptable. Saturated fat and natural cholesterol are rightfully embraced as health supporting. Learning how to make bone broth is advised.
The book warns against soy, transfats, phytates, lectins, processed foods, and of course sugar.
In essence, the Primal Diet does indeed recommend a way of life and eating that is in harmony with Traditional Wisdom and following this approach to eating can be a healthy choice for some.
Remember though, that only a few Traditional societies didn’t eat grains. The vast majority did! Hence, unless you are of Eskimo or Masaai heritage who ate a carnivore diet, it is best to be eating your grains.
Primal Eating Blows Out Thyroids?Â
As an example of Primal eating not being a good long term choice, let’s examine the case of the former Fitness Editor for this blog, Paula Jager CSCS, who used to eat Primal for several years. She was even featured on Mark Sisson’s website in 2011 as an example of newly minted 50 year old in amazing physical condition. Indeed, Paula eats extremely well and works out religiously. She’s gorgeous!
However, back in 2015, Paula made the decision to go back to eating traditionally prepared, gluten free grains for health reasons. I know several other women who went back to grains due to failing thyroid health after several years eating Primal or Paleo. Women beware! I have not observed a single woman do well on this type of diet for more than a few years, particularly those with children or those who are perimenopausal or menopausal.
Why is eating traditionally prepared grains ultimately a better approach than Primal?
Not All Traditional Diets Are Created Equal
In Dr. Price’s travels, he noted that some Traditional Societies were healthier and had more excellent physical form than others.
For example, during Dr. Price’s travels in Africa, he examined several five cattle keeping groups: The Maasai of Tanganyika, the Muhima of Uganda, the Chewya of Kenya, the Watusi of Ruanda, and the Neurs tribes on the western side of the Nile near the country of Sudan.
These groups were largely carnivores with their diet consisting primarily of blood, meat and milk. Fish was also eaten by some. The liver was highly priced and was consumed both raw and cooked.
Grains, fruits, and vegetables were consumed in small amounts.
These largely carnivorous tribes were very tall with even the women averaging over 6 feet in height in some tribes. All these tribes had marvelous physiques and perfectly straight, uncrowded teeth. Six tribes had no dental decay whatsoever.
On the other extreme, Dr. Price also examined largely vegetarian tribes such as the Bantu. This agricultural group’s diet consisted primarily of sweet potatoes, corn, beans, bananas, millet and sorghum. A few cattle or goats were kept for meat and milk and frogs, insects, and other small animals were also consumed.
These tribes were dominated by their carnivorous neighbors and they did suffer from low levels of dental decay – about 5-6% of all teeth.
The final African group Dr. Price researched were the Dinkas.  The Dinkas followed a truly mixed diet of whole foods without the tendency toward the extremes of the carnivorous Maasai or the agricultural Bantu.
While not as tall as the primarily carnivorous, cattle herding groups, they were physically better proportioned and had greater strength.
The Dinka diet primarily consisted of nutrient dense, properly prepared whole grains and fish.
Dr. Price’s close study of these African groups convinced him that the best Traditional Diet – one that encourages optimal physical development in children – consisted of a balance of properly prepared whole grains along with animal foods (especially fish), and not tending toward extremes in either direction.
This is surely one of the most important lessons from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Avoiding of extremes particularly when it comes to the diet of growing children, is the best and most wise approach when their optimal development is the goal.
So while I am not against eliminating grains in the diet particularly when a temporary period of gut healing is called for (such as with the GAPS Diet), the long term optimal way of eating is a balanced one that includes grains as described and noted by Dr. Price.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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Sources
The Paleo Diet, Thumbs Down Book Review
More Information on Maintaining a Healthy Weight
Dukan Diet
Losing Weight with Coconut Oil
Zoe Harcombe Diet
Fasting with bone broth
Raw milk fasting
Bulletproof Coffee Weight Loss Risks
People,
One thing that MOST of you are not taking into account with your responses is that Sarah is referring to the OPTIMAL diet for GROWING healthy CHILDREN!
I had to lay off grains for almost 3 years, and this worked wonderfully for me, mind over matter style…. until I was pregnant. Since I’m nursing it is not possible for me to ignore my craving for breads and fats. I’ve had to learn how to bake, and soak my grains so that my psoriasis doesn’t come back, and so far I’m doing quite well.
Our creator gave us instincts for a reason…. to choose what we need to eat to survive and build healthy babies. Sometimes you need to do a Blood Type/GAPS/Candida cleansing diet to heal, but you’ve already built your body, for better or for worse.
As adults, you aren’t growing organs and cells FOR THE FIRST TIME. Most of you (like myself) are trying to heal broken bodies from following some version of the SAD diet for many years, or trying to repair the damage done to our children, before we knew any better….
That said, Weston Price, travelled for 10 years around the globe and gleaned the information from HUNDREDS of tribes, with THOUSANDS of years of collective experience, at a time in history when they were untouched by modernization, (and advertising).
The knowledge of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration didn’t belong to Dr Price. He was a scribe, who hunted it out, wrote it down and used his scientific background as an authority to explain some of why it worked to us so we can grow healthy bodies and healthy children too. It’s info handed to him from people who have been growing hardy generations for THOUSANDS of years.
Paleo or Primal authors to not have ANY generations of healthy disease free bodies as proof of the efficacy. And like several of you have said, the fact that it keeps needing adjusting says that it was not complete.
How any 5-200 people born in this current lifetime could compete with that body of knowledge is beyond me. Most of all that is right with Primal/Paleo/ can be found in Dr. Price’s book.
Dr. Price’s info was that you can grow healthy bodies on MANY combinations of foods. Proof was in the bodies of the natives that he met, and the hundreds of generations of skeletons he examined. Some ate grains, and others did not, and either way they had results of immunity so similar that *as long as you have the essentials*… IT DOES NOT MATTER if you eat them or not! I don’t know about you but to go from 20-50% cavities and 1-5% cavities is good enough for me.
If you are descended from the Masai and that tribe represents your heritage of what to eat go for it! I for one am probably NOT going to drink blood or eat bugs or burn salt marsh grass to get the nutrition that some of those tribes did. One thing all the tribes did was make due with what they had. They also hunted wild game. I’m also not likely to do that. Grains are here. They are available. If properly prepared I can tolerate them now. So why not?
With my health history as my experience, I find it hard to believe that if you can’t digest grains, you don’t have a gut imbalance. I sure as heck had one and did fine off grains for years until my son. I had a craving for banana pancakes so bad when I was pregnant, trying to continue with the BTD for Type O (grain and white potato free) I cried until I ate them, then I cried when I didn’t have a reaction… like my son was the gift to let me know I was healed.
Our creator did not make us for any food to make us sick. A few years grain free (and a baby) might fix that. Worked for me.
We are grain-free & gluten free but I wouldn’t call us paleo. I have no prob. using their blogs as resources for recipes. My son is doing better now that he is grain free & my hopes are that we can reintroduce gluten-free grains some day. What resource do you recommend for learning how to properly prepare grains when we do reintroduce them (they’ll be gluten free).
Hi Sarah,
How many servings of grains per week is healthy? Is it fine to consume 1-2 servings of grains per day? Thanks!
Hi Erica, we have 1-2 grain free days in our home per week typically to compensate for school days where more grains are served than I am comfortable with. Yes, I strive for no more than 1-2/day optimally. This would be moderate consumption and in line with what I’ve read traditional cultures consume. More on some days, less on others as your needs for carbs ebb and flow.
Sarah, thanks for this site and for, what I believe, is your sound advice. I’ve read books by Gary Taubes, Drs. Eades, and often follow the sites of Dr. Eenfeldt (dietdoctor.com), as well as the Ancestral Health Foundation (ancestryfoundation.org/). It is an evolution of ideas, much of which is finally based on real science. I know from personal experience that these changes in our diets are taking us down the right track. Getting people off the fat-phobia idea and away from processed food is huge. But what needs to be added to that advice in my opinion (and this seems to be mostly ignored by all these writers) is the WAPF advice on our need to consume lacto-fermented foods/beverages and properly prepared grains/seeds/nuts/legumes. When we left the old world we forgot that we need to soak key parts of our food. This isn’t hard to do – just soak something while you sleep, or spend a few hours making real sauerkraut that will last for months. Digestion issues and the auto-immune diseases and other serious health problems that go with that can be solved or at least greatly helped by regularly introducing natural lactic acid bacteria to our guts. Most of North America is deficient in magnesium, just one key to good health. Eating moderate amounts of soaked grains (ideally heritage grain) addresses that and allows so many other nutrients to be absorbed. Eliminating processed foods and eating real, local, grassfed meat and organic veggies/berries is undoubtedly important – but to me that’s just part of the picture. What you contribute to solving the puzzle of our poor health, Sarah, as a Chapter Leader of WAPF, is GOLD! Thank you, again, from a Canadian member of WAPF.
Wow, Nana. Thank you so much for those kind words! I really appreciate the vote of confidence 🙂
My children are thriving also. Asthma gone, my oldest lost 15 pounds and now has straight A’s. I really really believe grains are not good.
We eat Paleo/Primal and are thriving like never before. We do still consume raw dairy. I have never heard of that author you are talking about, but he’s got it all wrong. There are many Paleo people that follow a traditional diet like we do just with no grains.
Why I Don’t Eat Paleo or Primal – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/yMo8heSz
Wow, Sarah, I am always amazed by such strong reactions to food, or opinions on it. I look at a lot of blogs, see all kinds of things touted as “healthy” (soy, canola, low-fat, vegan, etc.) but would never take such a tone as some of your commenters have in responding. It was pretty clear you were simply expressing why YOU have chosen not to follow certain things in your diet and what you follow instead. I follow your blog and appreciate your articles very much, but do not expect any one blog/person/researcher/nutritionist to have all the answers. Everyone has the responsibility to research for themselves and not just blindly follow ANYONE.
My family has done very well on The Maker’s Diet, treating it as a guide for our food choices, but not law. It was instrumental in leading me to Sally Fallon’s NT and Dr. Mercola, which have also been excellent resources. Simply put, it works for us. Unless I’m missed something, that is what I thought you were saying in the article — what works for you. Thanks for sharing.
People get really touchy about food. I’m still going to speak my mind though. I’m not deterred in the slightest. No worries there 🙂
I think most of the negative comments seem to be knee jerk comments from those who didn’t read the entire post. The ones commenting that “grain free has saved my life” type stuff are the ones who needed to go grain free for health reasons (either weight/hormone issues, gut problems whatever). I never said eat grains in those situations. I said if one is healthy, a balanced diet which includes some properly prepared grains is optimal.
I’m used to folks not reading the whole post though and getting all bent out of shape. Whatever.
I eat much raw food in my diet including raw liver. I think it definitely has benefits. Many traditional cultures consumed these foods. BUT, eating cooked foods were also embraced as well. For example, the Masai written about in this post ate liver both raw and cooked.
Again, I feel that balance and avoiding extremes is a good way to go.
GLAD I FOUND THIS BLOG. IT IS REALLY INTERESTING. IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYONE IS REALLY ON THE SAME PAGE BUT WITH A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT TWISTS. THERE IS NO ONE DIET THAT IS PERFECT FOR EVERYONE ONE, SO LISTEN TO YOUR BODY, EAT FROM NATURE, EAT LOCAL AND COOK YOUR OWN FOODS. THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT IDEAS. IT IS GREAT TO FIND PEOPLE THAT ARE TRYING TO BE HEALTHY AND ARE NOT SLAVES TO PROCESSED FAST FOOD.
THANKS
DAWN
SNACKINGOUTSIDETHEBOX.COM
Yes, most of us are a bunch of mutts after all. Examining which traditional diets match our genetic makeup best is a good place to start. My background and also my husband’s is Northern European and these cultures traditionally ate grains and which is why I choose to do so and find it in my best interests although I did do a short GAPS stint to heal my gut and take it to the next level.