Repair, Recover, Restore say the evidence does not support low carb in paleo diets of less than 75grams per day, and that health and happiness is better with paleo-friendly carbs of that and more.
Garrett Smith NMD CSCS BS, aka "Dr. G"
Repair Recover Restore
Listen to me on the radio!The Path to Strength and Health
Specializing in the Repair, Recovery, and Restoration of Neolithic's health
Extracts:
The Paleolithic Reality
The title of this article…it’s time to address that. Read this editorial from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, entitled Hunter-gatherer diets—a different perspective. I’d like to cover a very choice quote. This is very important, particularly for you “zero carb Paleo” folks and those of you who want to emulate the Eskimo diet.
When hunter-gatherers eventually extended their range into higher latitudes, where plant growth is greatly curtailed, they must have been forced to live largely or entirely on raw animal matter, including their own body fat. Alaskan Eskimos, for example, had an estimated total daily energy intake of 12552 kJ (3000 kcal): ≈50% from fat, ≈30–35% from protein, and ≈15–20% from carbohydrates, largely glycogen from meat (7).I’m going to save you from doing the math, but you’re welcome to check mine if you need to. In a 3000 kcal diet, choosing the lower end of their estimate of 15% of the kcals from carbohydrates, this means that 450 kcals were carbs, and thus ~112.5 grams of carbs were consumed a day!!!
Change this to a 2000 kcal/day diet, we’re looking at 75 grams of carbohydrates a day…hence my chosen cut-off for what LC means. Defining LC would be something I wish other people would do more often, most leave it this nebulous concept so they can be wishy-washy about it So you don’t miss what I’m really getting at here…the lowest amount of carbs that any “Paleo-ish” group has been documented as consuming–on an average daily basis assuming a baseline 2000 kcal diet, is 75 grams. This means your LC Paleo, where you only eat non-starchy vegetables and probably severely curtail any fruit intake (because you’ve somehow been convinced that fructose is one of the roots of all dietary evils because the food industries poisoned us with processed foods like HFCS and agave nectar) is your own “Neolithic fantasy”.
Healing People With More Carbs!
It so happens that a major tool that I use in rehabbing the metabolisms of chronic Paleo LCers is…wait for it…upping the quality Paleo carbs significantly, often combined with significantly increasing calorie intake as well. Amazingly, they feel happier, sleep better, have more energy (particularly for their workouts), and oftentimes even start leaning out again!
The important message here is that “LC Paleo” is not supported in the Paleo literature. Our modern-day stress levels combined with a lack of sufficient carbohydrate and/or Calorie intake (which demands more stress hormones to create glucose for the brain), often combined with excessively intense exercise–yeah, I’m particularly looking at you, CrossFit/Paleo/Zone/Intermittent Fasters–doesn’t end well for anyone and may cause some amount of permanent damage to the metabolism!
If you are reading this article in disbelief or just reflexively trying to call BS on me because you’re still on your “Catecholamine Honeymoon”, don’t worry. I will be here for you later, whether through my distance consulting or future blog posts.
Now, for G-d’s sake, go eat some root veggies or *gasp* some fruit. Stop being such a carbo-phobe and truly follow in your ancestor’s footsteps. Me, Cordain, Wolf, and the Paleo literature have your back. The Jaminets of “The Perfect Health Diet” state that the Paleo literature and their own research supports a recommendation of 20% of the daily Calories coming from carbohydrates (that’s 100 grams of carbs a day on a 2,000 Calorie diet, 150 grams at 3,000 Cals/day, not LC).
For those of you who want to throw back the “there are NO essential carbs!!!” line, that’s fine. You go ahead and take the time to really ponder that when you are lying in bed, wide awake in the wee hours of the morning, a victim of reactive hypoglycemia due to excessively low “non-essential” carb intake.
One final note…if you find yourself unable to tolerate carbs of nearly any sort, it is very possible that one reason for this is that your adrenals are not functioning well (there are many reasons how this could have happened, a long history of low-Calorie and/or LC dieting being common causes). Consider an Adrenal Stress Index to get your saliva cortisol measured and addressed.
I’ve given up the evolutionary side of the argument – it seems to get into the “faith” realm too often, hence folks referring to the “Paleo cult” and “Paleotards” – in favor of real-world results and the general idea of avoiding processed foods. My current conclusions may surprise people…that’s for a future article though.
This article is aimed at folks who are currently following, or have followed, a LC diet, particularly the Paleo version, in the hopes of it curing all of their (and humankind’s) ills…only to watch their health eventually (in the space of days, months, or years) start spiraling downward.
In the LC Paleo world, I’ve been recently referred to (in private messages, of course) as the lone voice of reason in Paleo-land for my all-too-often suggestion of raising “Paleo friendly” carbs as a way to return their health and make the Paleo diet both more enjoyable, more beneficial for their health, and quite possibly MORE PALEO than what they were doing.
Comments on the website
Re: Low-Carb Paleo Diet: A Neolithic Fantasy
by Kilian » Fri Apr 15, 2011 3:30 pm
Re: Low-Carb Paleo Diet: A Neolithic Fantasy
The benefits are short-term. This is why no culture has ever stuck with them long-term, and they continue in-and-out of the public eye as a "fad" diet.
Re: Low-Carb Paleo Diet: A Neolithic Fantasy
From the link you posted:
Diets used to treat conditions like epilepsy or Type II diabetes (until it is resolved) are not implied to be good diets for generally healthy people long-term.- There is no one "ketogenic diet". There is a diet which has been officially dubbed the "Ketogenic Diet", which is used to treat epilepsy. This diet is not only very low in carbohydrate, but limits protein as well. Whether or not a diet is ketogenic is not an either/or situation - it's more accurate to think about the extent to which a diet is ketogenic. A diet lower than 50 grams of carbohydrate per day is certainly ketogenic in almost every sense of the word. A diet lower than 130 grams of carb per day is at least mildly so. But to what extent the body generates ketones thoughout the day is also dependent on other factors such an the individual's metabolism and activity level. The diet of a high-performance athlete may be ketogenic on as much as 200 grams of carb per day. Also, some people's bodies are probably more efficient than others at making glucose from protein (gluconeogenesis), which limits ketogenesis.
I defined low-carb in my article based on the some of the same research that Cordain used to create The Paleo Diet. Many people don't go so far as to actually define "low-carb", which clouds the whole issue.
Whether or not a diet is ketogenic is not the same as saying it is low-carb, and the author you cited said that athletic people can possibly still be ketogenic at potentially up to 200grams of carbs a day. 200g a day is not low-carb by anyone's standards.
Controlling insulin, as is mentioned, can be done with many methods. Eating unprocessed foods is the most important one, IMO. Restricting carbs results in higher cortisol, which has been deemed extremely detrimental to health, and likely why no "low-carber" (by my definition) has apparently reached 100 years of age.
