Wow. This is a MUST watch video. Yes, it’s a little geeky (his nickname isn’t Mat the Kraken for nothing), but most of it is pretty accessible.
Mat is a former vegan (2 years) and vegetarian (8 years), who has adopted a paleo-ish diet. But he almost didn’t, because he find some of the paleo “theories” less than satisfactory when held to serious academic rigor:
- Just because our genes are identical to paleolithic man’s does not mean our diet should be identical. How those genes have been expressed (epigenetics) are considerably different today and that makes a difference.
- Lack of grains/dairy and freedom from diseases of civilization is an observation … correlation is not causality.
- Just because a food wasn’t available before the agricultural age doesn’t mean we’re not able to tolerate that food. Rather “there’s been insufficient time and insufficient evolutionary pressure for complete adaptation to seed consumption to arise in homo sapiens and as a result, individuals that tolerate grains and legumes should be considered the minority, not the majority.”
That said, Mat’s not a grain fan (“the proteins are the problem”) and suggests that a diet of meat, vegetables, and tubers is a good baseline diet and from there, people should tweak.
Lots more good stuff there, so be sure to check it out!
