That's a ballsy tactic, I'll give you that! Personally, when I incorporate teaching more primal eating into my very rigid Canada Health Guidelines recommendations, I use a much sneakier approach (oh, I hope dearly my supervisors don't haunt forums in their spare time).

Instead of saying "Hey guys, you should never eat grains, legumes or dairy", I focus more on "Hey guys, here's the best way to eat- whole foods! Nothing processed! Nothing out of a box! As few ingredients as possible!". I mean, who's going to have something negative to say about that?

When it comes down to the details, I emphasize consuming plenty of greens, vegetables, safe starches, and "good proteins" (fish, beef, shellfish, chicken, duck etc). When we construct meals for examples, that's when the grains kind of naturally slide out of the picture. I talk about the importance of being aware of gluten intolerance, because it is highly under-diagnosed, and recommend that if they have ever experiences digestive upset/rashes/anxiety/bloating/allergies/asthma they may be at risk of having a gluten intolerance or celiac disease, and it's something they should consider getting tested for, or eliminate temporarily to see if any of the conditions improve. I ask them to try and replace the lower nutrient density foods, like rice or barley or other grains, with higher nutrient dense vegetables, like turnips or broccoli or kale or sweet potatoes.

I think you will rarely get a welcoming or positive response if you just come out and say "Hey everyone, here are all the things you should never have and are bad for you". People don't want to hear that, especially parents who now have a confused kid who is bugging them about everything. Taking a positive, whole foods approach will cause a lot less headache for you, and consequently, the parents.

Instead of forcing it onto the students, why do you have them discover the advantages of eating whole foods? Have them design a day of food on Cronometer with the requirements that they meet nearly all nutrient needs in a reasonable calorie budget.

Or do as Richard Nikoley does, have them compare equal calorie amounts of a variety of foods and the nutrition they provide.

Discovery and inquiry is much better for learning that rote memorization and lecturing. Preaching paleo comes off as pushing an agenda, something that'll get you in hot water. Instead, let students come to the logical (paleo) conclusion themselves. And certainly, it's not the only way to eat, so if they come to a different conclusion, that's fine too.

I have a better idea...

Why not explain to the kids and parents all of the amazing foods they can eat? I think its easier to explain to someone in simple terms why beef, seafood, veggies, fruits, raw whole fat dairy, etc. is great for you. It's whole, real food. Bread is not whole food. Tell them to look at the ingredients of their loaf.

Just tell the parents to look at the ingredients of all of the food they buy. Then ask them what the ingredients are in the foods you recommend to them. That may "convert" a few...

If I was a parent, I'd be upset too. There is still so much we don't know about these foods - look at all the division and debate among even the leaders of Paleo. So to tell impressionable kids that "grains, legumes and dairy" are bad, full-stop, seems a little heavy-handed. It's a sure-fire recipe for family conflict around the dinner table (given that the parents are probably feeding them grains, legumes and dairy) not to mention possible eating disorders, striking fear in impressionable minds about food.

I agree with others - focus more on how whole foods are healthy, and processed foods contain chemicals and additives.

I agree with you teaching kids to not eat grains, because the vast majority of humans are intolerant to them, especially wheat's gluten, and especially the US version, which is more selected than the European variety and more difficult to break down.

For legumes, it depends on the kind of legume, and how it's been prepared. For example, lentils soaked on water for 12 hours supposedly removes most lectins, and they're generally safe. Plus they have lots of iron, manganese, folate etc. Some other legumes are more dangerous though, the Paleo-similar SCD diet has a list of which legumes are more safe than others.

I don't agree at all with you teaching kids to be away from dairy though. Sure, there are many who are dairy-intolerant, but that's mostly for cow milk (which is A1 casein instead of the more human-compatible A2 casein), and for non-fermented dairy. It's super-healthy for example to consume home-made goat kefir, fermented for 36 hours to remove most lactose. It's a super-food and a gut-healing one too. For those who are not super-intolerant, getting dairy from goats/sheep, and only butter/cream from cows, is ok. In Greece, where we mostly have goats/sheep, I never met any dairy-intolerant person. It seems that they're all in the US...

Why would you delete your account (in response to your newest response)? Healthy debate is part of education. If your "agenda" is something you are passionate about, it makes sense to get a sense of other perspectives. Otherwise, how are you going to respond to these parents if you aren't willing to even give people online a chance to speak?

I don't really have much to add, but as someone who did child assessments, curriculum work and home visits with Head Start populations, I'm pretty shocked that your low-income students' parents are even involved with their children's education. Parental involvement is nearly non-existent due to perspectives of their roles in their child's lives, work schedule/obligations, beliefs in the importance of education so major props to them for voicing their opinion. The complete opposite was what I ran into in real-life and in papers.

Anyway, if free and reduced lunch is all they have access to, what do you suggest they do? It seems like even if they wanted to make better choices, they don't have the opportunity to. And school lunches in high school aren't perfect, but students can still make wiser choices.

"Once a kid goes home and informs the parents that they can’t eat grains, legumes and dairy, the parents get a bit pissed." That seems to indicate that you placed emphasis on avoidance of these items.

I am conflicted. One the one hand, I think it's dangerous to have teachers teach their own agenda, and the better tactic, as many others have said, is to teach investigative skills and curiosity, present options, and let kids make their own choices. And let's face it, children don't make dietary choices, their parents do. Ideally, when they get to buy their own groceries, they will make great choices thanks to you.

On the other hand, I can understand that you'd feel irresponsible teaching what you think is a dangerous diet. It's really just a war of theories, and if you feel it's worth the risk to your job, maybe it's more ethical than teaching the book. Goodness knows I have no love for public school rigidity or the FDA.

Perhaps the best way to not have angry parents is to bring them in on the front end. Say you want to present some new and different options for eating healthy, and let families choose if they want to participate. Make it easy for them - don't just drop a "No potatoes, no pasta, no milk" bombshell on them via the (not necessarily accurate) voice of their child. Instead, give some recipes they might want to try that do certain things: tasty ways of making healthy vegetables, replacing pasta, cooking sauces without cream, etc.

Helps parents feel like they are participating in an experiment for class, not being told how to eat. Helps kids learn how to eat healthy within a pyramid-structure food world.

I'd be annoyed if you told me I shouldn't eat dairy

None of this should come as any surprise to us. The simple metabolic chemistry underlying the "paleo" paradigm is deeply threatening to some of the most powerful global agribusiness corporations on the planet: Cargill, W.R. Grace, ConAgra, Monsanto, Novartis. Whole governments will find the economic consequences of widespread adoption (or perhaps I should say RE-adoption) of some version of paleo-motivated diet to be catastrophic for whatever existing grain-based infrastructures sustain their agriculture. The implications of all this go so far beyond mere diet, personal health and lifestyle as to shake the consumption habits of civilization as have experienced it so far. I'm not surprised that so many people and institutions might be either ideologically or emotionally or financially affected by the radical implications of the paleo diet argument Not surprised at all. I'm guessing that soon enough simply exposing the research data to the next generation in schools might come to be considered a very radical or "subversive" discourse.
My strongest arguments focus on the dual inflammatory/addictive character of the specific proteins involved. And the self-evident purpose of these inflammatory proteins as essentially "toxins" to protect the survivability of the various species of grasses (grains) from the appetites, tastes and digestive vulnerability of their natural animal predators. This inflammatory (and tolerance-building or addictive) effect can be seen most dramatically in the cases of both gluten and gliadiin with respect to Celiac Disease. With dairy they can be seen in the lactose intolerance that is the natural genetic legacy of much (or most) of the world's populations. I'm still unclear on whether the latter pertains only to cows' milk or also includes sheep and goat milk. I'm still just a student myself.

Personally, I would love my kid's school to talk about more Paleo nutrition ideas, but they don't. This year it's been about how low fat dairy and whole grains are good for you, and so when my five year old comes home and tells me that his gym teacher tells him he HAS to have dairy and whole grains, I have to hold in the rage. So the question is not so much "what are the scientific facts to encourage this sort of lesson" but rather "should nutrition be taught by schools or at home"? I'd rather my kids learn about nutrition at home, obviously, and while I would appreciate a teacher like you to guide my kids toward the non-processed Paleo world, not every parent would.

Sorry I don't have more of these off the top of my head right now I'm about to pass out, but I'm feeling bad about the lack of positive feedback you got earlier. I did a bit of a search around pubmed, but then realized that the blogs are where it gets discussed and translated in way that might be helpful.

Grains: http://www.gnolls.org/2052/how-heart-healthy-whole-grains-make-us-fat/

Legumes: http://jdmoyer.com/2011/02/15/to-bean-or-not-to-bean-that-is-the-question-legumes-lectins-and-human-health/

Milk: I am completely agnostic about milk for kids so I don't have anything to offer there because I haven't look for it, sorry, as far as I'm concerned it is cheap nutrient dense calories covered by WIC, and most children don't develop problems with lactose until they are fully grown.

Could your class grow some pots of parsley, cilantro, dill, fennel, oregano, basil, etc? Super fresh herbs pack a mighty nutritional and flavor punch, and the kids could take some home. Potatoes, carrots, kale, chard, and collard greens are also super easy to grow, and might make fun homework projects to have each kid grow a few things to bring in for a potluck at the end of the quarter.

Why not have a nutrition movie night for the families and watch Fathead? I think it is a good starting place, and kinda shows how if you are going to eat fast food how to do it with minimal damage, and then gets into full on paleo and why veggie oil is up to no good near the end. Think baby steps here.

Maybe as a part of the movie night or during breaks or lunch at school the students could do a healthy snack fundraiser, and have a concession stand with foods you would like to see them eat.

If you or your students are in one of those food desert areas of the country you could check to see if there are any CSAs around where the students could volunteer or work after school.

It has a bit of CW saturated fat phobia and "healthy whole grains" propaganda in it, but other than that I thought Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution series was very inspiring, you could also do a screening of that, or assign it as homework to get the discussion rolling in the right direction.

I bet if you suggested Denise Minger's site (my apologies in advance to Denise for the comments you may receive) the teenage boys would be hanging on her every word, and might even learn a thing or two about statistics and how to dissect a study...not to be superficial, but she does seem to have that effect on people.

I apologize for not having come up with a direct answer sooner, but in my personal philosophy about teaching is that it is more important to teach kids how to think, rather than what to think, and the question came across more as wanting to push what you think. If you instill these kids with decent bs detector for food "science", maybe a "follow the money" game, they'll do okay.

Why not just approach it as not eating processed foods/junk food? It's not the food pyramid anymore, it's the "plate", which - while not perfect - is about a million times better than the pyramid?

Advocate rice, potatoes, brown rice as opposed to white flour. Talk about the negatives of sugar. This is something most experts agree on and doesn't "sound" as crazy. It's how I explain my diets to others, and generally - while people don't want to try it themselves, I get a lot more respect for this one instead of saying "I cut out X and Y, oh and Z will kill ya soon."

it must feel good to be so real with people!

Second, screw trying to help kids in a public school, u are going to get fired! I'd stop with the paleo teaching.

Be healthy urself, screw helping people who aren't going to help you back.

I have certainly had feedback from my children that they have been told that what I eat for breakfast (bacon, eggs) was bad for me whereas cereal (sugared grains junk which most people eat) with milk is better.

I'm a teacher who is also interested in teaching a paleo/primal unit and I was wondering if you'd be willing to share your resources?

Start with the Grandaddy of them all. Cordain's published research. This one appears to address grains, in particular, and there are sure to be answers for the others in that list.

It is indeed hard to get real answers here. Things have taken a dull turn since twitter, facebook, and the like has turned people from producing well thought out blog posts to writing snarky answers for likes. And it is pretty damn phenomenal the hate people have for the paleo diet on a site that purports to be about the paleo diet.

(Of course, there is a limit to blogging. It is easy to flounder because there doesn't seem much left to say. It is also easy to get a false sense of achievement by constantly commenting in less than 140 characters.)