User richard - PaleoHacks.com

Answer by Richard for Can salt replace carbohydrates as a sleep aid?

2012-02-10T20:42:53Z

As soon as I hear anything freaky like "I eat six apples every day" its an alarm bell.

Lets get sensible for a minute. "Paleo" meant eating similarly to how pre agricultural humans ate. We did not eat six apples a day. We did not eat mountains of agricultural grains. We ate a wide variety of foods, all of which shared the characteristics of growing naturally. We ate meat, vegetables, and fruit, as we could get our hands on them. Now, we might not say today that this is the best diet possible in the universe, but where did you get the idea that six apples a day were good? It amazes me that people can eat some crazy shite then ask if its "good".

Answer by Richard for Paleo - supplements ? Ha ha

2012-02-03T15:32:50Z

I think you need to remember that even with a conscious effort to eat according to pre-agricultural principles, it just cannot be done 100% in the modern urban world. Its unlikely that most people will spend most of their waking hours outdoors, for starters, so they are not going to synthesise as much vitamin D. Our activity levels are lower and less natural, and the types of stresses we face are different. Not necessarily worse - getting stuck in traffic is far better than facing down an angry bear. Yet its not the nature of the stressor but the inappropriateness, so often today, of responding with a burst of physical activity to clear out the cortisol and adrenalin rush, that puts us in a different place than our ancestors. We forget that simply dealing with hundreds of unfamiliar faces constantly is not a natural thing either.

Then there is the fact that even the "right foods" are not as our ancestors found them. Those insanely swollen apples and oranges at the supermarket are not much like the original wild types. On top of that, you don't know how many days from the tree to your mouth.

The last factor is many people are trying to reverse damage caused by poor food choices for 10, 20, 40 years. Perhaps for a time they will need more of particular nutrients than an already healthy person is likely to.

So these are just some good reasons why supplementation might make sense even within a paleo framework, though I am sure all would agree its better to get your nutrients from food when possible.

Answer by Richard for Males, has your masculinity ever been questioned because you try to eat healthy?

2012-01-29T04:26:12Z

Real men eat whatever they damned well like!

Comment by Richard

2012-02-13T08:16:35Z

When you make healthy foods for the children, why not throw in a bit more salt and sugar, if they are addicted to hyperpalatable foods? Meat and veg with a bit more salt is not going to hurt them (or you for that matter). I would think its more about eliminating the bad fats and grains, than being dogmatic about a few additives.

Comment by Richard

2012-02-07T07:53:21Z

Gary Taubes' book Good Calories Bad Calories is stuffed to the brim with peer reviewed research results. For those with less patience, he wrote "Why We Get Fat" - a briefer and less technical treatment of the same material. Taubes is not exactly paleo but his book does demonstrate that a lot of the principles in paleo are well founded.