On Nutrition: Food To Avoid

(Just a very quickly written heretic list.)

This deserves a longer post, with reasons for every point – alas, it is not meant to be at the moment. The list is heavily influenced by the Paleo Diet (avoid evolutionary novel foods) and my personal experience (avoid foods that lead to acne flares, gastrointestinal problems, excessive hunger and other ill health).

So here we go.

Food that most likely will not kill you immediately, but quite likely in the long run

1. Trans-Fatty Acids
   (AKA "partially hydrogenated seed oil", AKA margarine, AKA shortening)
   Stay away from it. Seriously, this shit is dangerous in the long run.
2. Seed Oil
   (AKA vegetable oil, especially sunflower oil)
   Small amounts every now and then will not kill you. But the high Omega-6 content will kill you in the long run, if you consume much seed oils. Some seed oils are at the "less dangerous" end of the scale – especially olive oil. Nevertheless, eat in small amounts, if at all.
3. Dairy
   (AKA cow milk, AKA milk products, especially from pasteurized milk)
   My advise: Stay away from milk and milk products (e.g. desert, milk-chocolate) – it will be better for your health.
4. Cereal Grains and other seeds
   (AKA wheat, soy, corn)
   It will be better to avoid grains and other seeds, trust me. Bread causes me to get very very hungry after a couple of hours, for some hours.
5. Eggs
   Eat in moderation, if at all. If you have health problems that don't quite go away on a paleo diet, stop the consumption of eggs and see if it helps.
6. Industrially Produced Meat Products
   Especially sausages. Seriously, they put all kind of crap in there. If you have a local butcher (that you think you can trust) then buy sausages there.
7. Honey
   It is not natural to consume honey every day. Cavemen did had little access to honey.
8. Legumes
   (AKA Beans, AKA Pulse, AKA Peas, AKA Lentil)
   Might be OK if traditionally prepared. I avoid it, as it causes gastrointestinal problems for me.
9. Supplements
   Avoid, unless you have a medical condition where you know that you need them.
10. FODMAPs
    Causes gastrointestinal/IBS problems for some people – haven't check it myself.
11. (Coconut Milk)
    Causes gastrointestinal problems for me, so I don't eat it.

And of course, many of these foodstuffs hide in "Crap In A Box" foods – better not to eat crap, I reckon.

And don't consume additional vitamins (unless you have known vitamin deficiency, or have other health problems you know where vitamins are beneficial).

Foods in health limbo (if I knew!)

1. Rice
   Honestly, if I knew. I try to eat it in moderation – once a week, at most.
2. Potatoes
   (AKA "White Potatoes")
   From the family of nightshades.
   If you have health problems that don't go away with a nutritional intervention, stop the consumption of nightshades (including tomatoes) and see if it helps.
3. Other Nightshades
   If I knew. 
4. Nut, Seeds
   I avoid them at the moment.
5. Shellfish
   I avoid shellfish at the moment.
6. Raw Milk and Dairy made out of it
   I avoid it at the moment. But it is better than milk products from pasteurized milk. I avoid all dairy at the moment, regardless of raw or not.
7. Cured Meat
   If I knew. I try to eat it in moderation
8. Beef
   I avoid beef at the moment, as dairy causes definitely for me inflammatory and/or auto-immune problems – so I am suspicious of all cow products (except clarified butter) and cautiously removed beef from my diet. My fears regarding beef might be unwarranted though, and I will try to reintroduce beef in the future.
9. Tea
   Seriously, if you drink lots of tea, this might be problem. Cavemen did not drink lots of tea. I avoid it.
10. Coffee
    I need my coffee. Might be better to limit the consumption or even avoid coffee.
11. Sugar
    Eat in moderation, at most. It might be better to avoid sugar – but I think the bad reputation that sugar receives lately is only partially based in reality.

Foods that should be OK

(Unless you know that they cause health problems for you, e.g. if you have an known allergy)

1. Fish
2. Meat
   Freshly prepared, regardless of origin (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, lamb, and so on)
3. Animal Fat, Saturated Fat
   (I'm a heretic after all)
4. Tubers, Roots, Carrots and such
5. Most Vegetables
   (AKA Greens)
6. Most Fruits
7. Salt

And ignore macro nutrient ratios, and ignore all talk about low-carb (LC) or very-low-carb (VLC) for now.

Turned out to be quite a long heretic list, after all. Has to be enough for now.

Needed Nutritional Intervention Studies

I was thinking that we need some nutritional studies with regards to pathogenic effects of evolutionary novel foods, and whether a evolutionary "correct" diet (aka "the" Paleolithic Diet or "Paleo" for short) can alleviate health problems.

Patients should receive nutritional intervention in the form of counseling and be assigned to one of two groups:

• The control group should receive counseling based on the consensus view on optimal nutrition. As the "gold standard" with regards to nutrition seem to be the advise from the U.S. Department of Agriculture(!) (USDA), from the American Heart Association (AHA) and from the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the control group should receive counseling based on their advise.
• The treatment group ("Paleo") should receive counseling based on the avoidance of foods containing evolutionary novel ingredients (more or less an "Elimination Diet" based on evolutionary plausibilty):
  1. Avoidance of cereal grains and soy
  2. Avoidance of dairy
  3. Avoidance of seed oils
  Pre-intervention levels of those four ingredients should be recorded. Calorie-countring should not be recommended, macro-nutritient ratios should not be prescribed, the diet should neither be low-carb, nor low-fat, nor low-meat – so the health effects of these four evolutionary novel food ingredients can be investigated. However, some minimum recommendations of what foods to primarily eat should be made.

Diseases should include the "Diseases of Affluence", but not be limited to them:

• Obesity (doh!)
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Asthma
• Hypertension
• Gout
• Acne*, Dermatitis, Psoriasis, etc.
• Allergies (Hay Fever and the like)
• Cardiovascular Diseases
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Other neurological/psychological/mental/etc. health problems (e.g. Bipolar Disorder)
• Multiple Sclerosis (MS), cf. Terry Wahls
• ME/CFS

A pilot study for each disease should include at least 10 patients from that chosen disease.

The dietary advise should be followed for 3 months, possibly with an extension to 6 and 12 months.

Objective markers for each disease (e.g. weight for obesity) should be recorded as the primary disease makers by the investigators before the study, at 1 month, and after that at each 3-month-point. Surrogate markers should be recorded in addition, but not for the primary measurement of outcomes.

Patients should have a simple food and symptom diary. If possible, the patient should be encouraged to record disease makers, both objective (e.g. daily activity level with an odometer, daily weight) and subjective (e.g. perceived fatigue).

After a patient stops a diet (either at the end of study, or patient drops out), she/he should be (if possible) followed for another month with regards the aforementioned disease markers and symptoms.

If positive health effects from an Paleo Diet are found for one disease, follow-up studies could be further refined with an focus on individual components (e.g. only dairy, or dairy from pasteurized* milk).

There is a lot do and many pitfalls to avoid before such studies would get off the ground…

* As I traced my acne back to dairy from pasteurized milk (and to a lesser extent to eggs), studies finding an positive effect of avoidance of dairy could further look into the difference between raw-milk dairy and pasteurized-milk dairy.