Paleo Doubts of Mine

Plain Oatmeal
Plain Oatmeal

1 Banana
1 Banana

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For those unfamiliar with the Paleo Diet, the premise is simple; you simply eat whatever your hunter-gatherers ancestors ate before the advent of agriculture. This means removing all grains, legumes and dairy from your diet. Leaving you with lots of vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, fowl, nuts and healthy oils. The rationale behind this diet is that it takes a long period of time (something like 10,000 years) for a species to adopt a new diet, and we haven’t passed that threshold yet. Paleo advocates also claim that some components of grains are actually toxic and detrimental to overall health.
I’ve gone Paleo for the past 8 days in an attempt to optimize my health and nutrition. For the first few days it seemed to be a welcome change; I’ve lost the need to have to munch on something every couple of hours and maybe even felt a bit more energized. But recently I started getting strong carb cravings and feelings of malnourishment. I should note that in tandem with this diet, I am also working out pretty rigorously following my usual routine. So that might be causing my body to crave more carbs.
In keeping up with the Paleo guidelines, I end up binging on fruits and tubers. All this consumption of Paleo-aproved carbs got me thinking if the diet is sound. By comparing the nutritional facts we learn that a single banana has more carbs than a bowl of oatmeal! Is this Paleo thing really ligit?! I am being unfair — Paleo enthusiasts do suggest limiting your fruit intake. But what would be the harm in replacing my morning banana with a bowl of delicious oatmeal?
Reading through Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint reveals some holes in his biological rationale for going “primal” (Mark’s cooler version of Paleo). He mentions that a high carb diet leads to an over-production of insulin. Which, in turn, causes cells to become unreceptive to glucose — causing malnutrition and the buildup of body fat. But fruits have carbs too!
Dylan Klein does an amazing job at explaining the flaws of The Paleo Manifesto.
Coincidentally positive results from going Paleo might just be some sort of placebo effect taking place. If I recall the statistics correctly, more people heal from placebo drugs compared to actual ones. So there you have it!

The Ultimate Oatmeal Recipe


Everyone knows that oatmeal is good for you. It is made up of slow digesting carbs, fiber, and 5g of protein per serving!
But eating plain oatmeal everyday can get boring and I must admit it doesnt taste that great.
I stumbled upon this recipe online and modified it to my liking:

  1. Place 1 cup of milk (for extra protein–8g) into a pot on maximum heat.
  2. Add a dash of cinamin, half a teaspoon of brown sugar and a drop of vanilla extract to the milk.
  3. As soon as the milk starts to bubble lower the heat to medium.
  4. Add 7 tablespoons of oatmeal.
  5. Add a handful of raisins and some nuts (I prefer walnuts, but almonds work too.)
  6. Stir the oatmeal for 3-5 minutes and enjoy!

Protein count: 1 cup milk-8g, 1 ounce walnuts-4g, 1/2 cup oatmeal-5g=17g of protein!! If this breakfast follows a workout add 2 hard boiled or scrambled eggs as a side for another 12g, leaving you with 29g of protein! Not too shabby. Skip the whey protein and stick to natural.
For a pleasant crunchy nutty flavor, try out steal cut oats. The ingredients stay the same but the cooking time goes up to 30 minutes–you can only add milk in the end to avoid burning.