Fruit Restriction isn't Paleo

It's January 18th, and that means if you went with the packs, you are almost 2 weeks into your 21 Day Sugar Detox or, I believe, roughly half way through the torturous Whole30® ... or maybe you took up Amy Kubal's invite to drag the paleo yo-yo out of sleeping dog with Robb's 30 day plan (upon which Whole30 is based).

Ya know, if you don't think there's science behind paleo, just ask Robb!  He'll shoot you a Lindeberg or a Frassetto.  Let's look at that latter one for just a bit more than I did HERE.  The Frassetto paleo diet is an outlier in that all of the others ended up spontaneously reducing calories (~1400 to ~1900 cals) while this diet modestly increased calories from baseline to ~2700.   Furthermore, in Frassetto, total carb intake before and after the diet was roughly equal at around 250 grams per day.   They ramped up in three phases for 7 days and then followed the paleo diet for 10 days.  Here are the menus:



Looking at that paleo diet, it would be fair to say that at least 150 grams of the 250 grams carbs were sugars, and quite a bit were from "fast acting" liquid or concentrated sources:  carrot juice, tomato soup, honey.  Also, one can fairly safely assume that the pre-study diet contained more starch and was thus, by default, lower in sugar.  As a result the Frassetto paleo diet increased sugars from baseline.

Given as the study group was ~38 years old, ~27 BMI, and sedentary, and no significant weight loss was involved, the changes are intriguing.

Toss me a Lindeberg then?  Well, the Jonsson study with the breakdown had a diet of a combined 77 grams of mono- and disaccharides, of which 29 grams were sucrose ... in diabetics.    If participants in this study had consumed 2000 cals/day, they'd be flirting with 100 grams of sugars per day.   There's reason to believe Lindeberg shakes out similarly as it is heavy on the fruit as well.

How about Robb's sample diet (from Cordain)?  See for yourself (Table 3), 76 grams of sugars.  

But they're natural?  Not so fast!  Sugar = sugar = sugar

Where did this notion of paleo = super low sugar come from?  That modern fruits are too sweet so they, too, should be limited?   (Leaving aside the mainstream views of those like Nathaniel Dominy and evidence pointing to starch as major carb in the paleolithic).

Maybe the #solution to this #dilema ...


... is to #ditchthefakeopaleo and #eatsomestarchandsugar

My new "real paleo" book, is proving to be a goldmine.  From Staffan Lindeberg (p. 49, decluttered of references)
Fruits differ from other edible plants in that they contain appreciable amounts of fructose, a monosaccharide, which typically constitutes 20–40% of available carbohydrates in wild fruits and 10–30% in cultivated fruits. A (very) high intake of fructose contributes to obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in rats and mice, but the effects on humans have not been fully established. Unlike rodents, pre-hominin primates likely consumed considerable quantities of fruit for 50 million years or more, from the time of early primates until the emergence of Australopithecus 4 million years ago. An enhanced ability to handle fructose may have been conserved among Australopithecus and Homo. Therefore, findings in rodents should be interpreted with caution. 
A daily fructose intake below 60 g, corresponding to 4–5 kg of pineapples, appears safe. Approximately two thirds of dietary fructose in the US population is provided by non-natural foods and additives, mainly sucrose (a disaccharide built up of fructose and glucose) and high fructose corn syrup. 
In conclusion, the concerns about dietary fructose are not strong enough to suggest that humans are not designed to eat large amounts of fruit.
Apparently Sanfilippo, the Hartwigs nor Robb Wolf know about this?

Comments

David Madarro said…
Well to be fair Evelyn, Wolf et al have all been "duped" so you can't really blame them... ;-)



I wonder, will this be the year when the Paleo / LCHF scene will start losing ground for real, or is it going to get even crazier before it gets better?



Will some new stupid mainstream diet fad break through this year, or are people finally going to get through their heads that long term health is determined by your lifestyle choices, not jumping on the latest trendy quick fix solution?



One thing is for sure, 2014 is going to be entertaining, with all these quacks around who the hell needs TV!
Scott Peterson said…
I haven't been following the scene much lately. What new fads are coming down the line?
carbsane said…
It's funny I keep wondering when it will blow apart and I think 2014 might just be that year. Though it will get crazier for sure. Great to have you and all my readers along for the ride, that's for sure.
carbsane said…
I think egg is replacing butter in coffee for starters. Poop in capsules and potato starch enemas perhaps.


Oh! Almost forgot ... Oatmeal for breakfast! I know, I know ... crazy talk you say ... but I hear it has actually come with some health improvements for some.
Jaie Jac said…
The scope of the "disordered" eating among some within the paleo-sphere is pretty disheartening to say the least. I am currently working on my masters (for Pyschotherapy) and seeing fear over something as healthful as Modern fruit is scary. Ignore your inate desire for sweetness and carbohydrates, go ahead, it's a battle with your very nature as a human being. As i have said in several posts here, Healthful eating has been studied by modern nutritionists for at least one hundred (If not more) years. We never needed a paleo diet to tell us to eat healthier food choices and limit extra crap, Apples are not the same as Mcdonalds apple pies.

Furthermore, we never needed another crazy fringe diet like Paleo that people with borderline and full fledged eating disorders can latch on to.
magic66 said…
I was sure you were kidding about eggs in coffee! (It was "bulletproof coffee" that convinced me these people were truly insane.) Then I decided to do a quick Google and found a post from MDA....
charles grashow said…
Vietnam/Norway

http://www.iloveallrecipes.com/ca-phe-tr%E1%BB%A9ng-egg-coffee-only-viet-nam/

http://www.worldviator.com/recipe-of-the-month-vietnamese-egg-coffee/

http://blog.khymos.org/2010/08/04/norwegian-egg-coffee/
carbsane said…
Sad isn't it??
Radhakrishna Warrier said…
In table 3 I find:

............................................................Usual Diet.........Paleolithic Diet

Fasting glucose (mmol/l) .................... 18±3 ....................17±2

If the mmol/l unit mentioned in the table is the same mmol/l that I see on my glucose meter everytime I check my blood sugar, then numbers like 17 or 18 are very high fasting glucose numbers. A normal non-diabetic will have fasting glucose numbers around 5 mmol/l or less. In my case, my morning fasting glucose readings are often between 5.5 and 6.5 mmol/l because of what is called 'dawn phenomenon' typical of many type 2 diabetics. But later "fasting" readings such as those before lunch or supper are usually between 4.5 and 5 mmol/l in my case. If the people who participated in the study had fasting readings 17 or 18 mmol/l as shown in the table, what they need is neither a "usual diet" nor a "paleolithic diet". They need proper treatment for their high blood sugar and a carbohydrate restricted diet till their blood glucose levels normalize.

Regards,
Rad
charles grashow said…
Sam is at it again

https://www.facebook.com/LLVLC/posts

Jimmy Moore
January 17Good
luck to my British bud Sam Feltham who is embarking on his next
5,000-calorie-a-day experiment of a Dr. John McDougall-styled low-fat,
high-carb starch-based diet starting on Monday.
ExEffectsGuy said…
In the 1922 (!) edition of "Dietetics for Nurses" that I found thanks to this site there is a recipe for adding 2T egg white to a cup of coffee! Just mentioning it. I admit I tried butter in coffee. Yes it did taste good. It also started to raise my blood pressure after a week, so I quit immediately. I am not above doing stupid things at times.
John Craft said…
Thx! Also check out this cool plaeo recipes www.paleo99diet.com
David Madarro said…
"Poop in capsules and potato starch enemas perhaps" - sounds like a sustainable business model to me, I wonder which guru will pick up on it first :-p

In regards to eggs & butter in coffee, to be fair, I actually think butter works very well in coffee, especially ghee, for a more nutty flavor. It's not much unlike Coffee shops that offer to add Hazelnut syrup, Cacao, Vanilla etc. sometimes it's interesting to try new things.

Eggs & Coffee sounds a bit weird though.. :-)

The problem I have with it, is when it suddenly becomes a "miracle cognitive, fat burning" marketing gimmick with no bases in reality. The idea is fine, it's the false list of promises that comes along with the promoters of these ideas that pisses me off.

Personally, I prefer my coffee BLACK, from quality fresh grind beans, but to each their own ;-)
markgillespie said…
The latest fad in the UK is the 'Sugar Detox' based on the idea that 'sugar is as addictive as nicotine'.
charles grashow said…
Fecal transplants

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colleen-r-kelly-md/fecal-transplant-progress_b_3569342.html

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/fecal-transplants-work/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=swapping-germs
charles grashow said…
He's really scraping the bottom of the barrel

http://www.lowcarbcruiseinfo.com/

Come Hear From Our Special Guest Speaker Lineup For 2014:

Dr. Eric Westman
Dr. Jayson and Mira Calton
Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt
Jackie Eberstein
Dave Asprey
Tom Naughton
Jimmy Moore
Franziska Spritzler
Christine Cronau
Dr. George Diggs/Dr. Kerry Brock
Tommy Runesson
Maria Emmerich
Dana Carpender
Rocky Angelucci
Emily Maguire
Dr. Adam Nally
Dr. Jeffry Gerber
Fred Hahn
David Pete said…
LMAO at potato starch enema!
Yeah, don't know if added oils, soy and just keeping fat a wee under 100 grams is anywhere in the McDougall, fat-phobic paradigm. More of the same nonsense from the last experiment.