Here we go again re paleo and cheating, this time over at Paleoista:
[W]hat on earth are people eating on their ‘diets’ that makes them need to even conceive of the idea of ‘cheating’? Who are they cheating? No one other than themselves.
One of the virtues of Paleo, when done properly, in its inherent, balanced fashion, is that the meals are so deletable [sic] and all made with things we are truly meant to be eating, that one wouldn’t want to cheat.
I don’t personally agree with the idea of ‘having one cheat meal each week’; doing so implies that there’s something to be missed if one adheres to Paleo, and that’s simply not the case. Plus, if we recognize how detrimental dairy, grains and legumes are, why would we want to eat them at all?
Why indeed?
Why do people smoke? Cigarettes will kill them eventually. Why do people text when they drive? ‘Cause they think they can. Why do people drink too much? Maybe because one drink messes up their ability to stop at one.
The simple answer is that some of us (not apparently Paleoista) find these non-paleo foods appealing or desireable, at least in the moment we consume them.
Coping mechanism. I had a great conversation at AHS12 with Lynda Frassetto on the link between diet compliance and stress response (turns out she was co-author on a paper about rewiring the stress response a while back).
I wrote a post over a year ago about emotional eating, and I think much of that holds true. I think emotional eating is largely physiological. And like I said recently in paleo not a panacea 2, I agree with Chris Kresser that you’ve got to do the work to get to a good place re eating. And I definitely agree that an ancestral approach to diet is a good one.
But sometimes knowing it’s the right approach and doing it 24×7 is a challenge. I wish folks like Paleoista really understood the struggle more. Really, if it was just that easy, why wouldn’t we all be doing it?
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health, & food policy. And cats! 
It’s also important to consider that we don’t live in a vacuum-we share our lives with other people-many of them not paleo. My biggest issue isn’t sticking to it on my own at all, it is sticking to it when I am in a situation where I don’t control the food. I can’t just sit on my hands and not eat anything at family gatherings and there can be huge social implications to bringing your own food to a dinner party, or avoiding the food that is served. Food = Love in many cultures, and even though you explain (sometimes over and over again) why you can’t eat grains, or why you can’t eat sugar-there is still this idea deeply ingrained (no pun intended) in our culture that all you have to do is moderate your intake, you don’t have to cut out these things in order to be healthy.
With family, it is very hard to get them to accept that you are suddenly “allergic” to grains, legumes and dairy. They can see your rejection of these foods as a rejection of your family. It takes a lot of perseverance and communication to get them to understand, and that is only part of the picture. What about friends? What about work situations? What about school events? And the list goes on and on…Having an occasional “cheat day” can enable you to live in the real world. Maybe you have to give up gluten because you have celiac, But maybe once in a while you can have a bite of your grandmother’s artisanal cheese or a bowl of your dad’s homemade ice cream. The sense of belonging that family and friends instill in you is also important to long term health.
Awesome comment. I think this is partly what Yoni Freedhoff has in mind when he says “live the live you’ll love, not the one you’ll tolerate.” Or as Ragen Chastain says, “you’re the boss of your own underpants.” You get to choose for you and they get to choose for them. And it’s not a “moral failure” if the choices you make in life aren’t the ones that meet someone else’s definition of optimal.
I understand if someone doesn’t care if they never ate another non-paleo item again in their lives but if eating the occasional paleo pancake - or even the non-paleo kind - makes you happy, doesn’t make you sick, and isn’t feeding some kind of addiction, that can only be a good thing. Because it enhances our lives to do things that are enjoyable. I like Chastain’s saying; we’re eating this way to improve our lives, not to be “perfect.”