What to think of Matt Stone

[Annette Louise Alvidres Grable]

What do others think?

Just reading through books in a bundle I bought on the Paleo lifestyle and spent some time in Matt Stone's "12 Paleo Myths: Eat Better than a Caveman" and now I'm wondering what's going to happen in the long run if I stay 99% Whole30 compliant over the long term.

This e-book makes it sound like it doesn't really work and that all ailments--acne and joint aches and eczema and inflammation etc.--will all return with a vengeance and that the only solution is to add back in sugary carbs and processed foods.

I welcome all thoughts on this. Stone's work left me a bit perplexed as to what his book was doing in a bundle of pro-Paleo works.

Help!

Annette

[Renee Lee]

link?

[Moluv]

Can you expound on exactly HOW he thinks processed foods help inflammation?

I'm probably not the right person to comment on this seeing as how I've not read his work- but my first reaction to that advice is "he's a mole implanted by Big Food/Big Pharma".

[Renee Lee]

I just googled...his premises are faulty. It looks like he traces all these things back to paleo folks being low carb...which just isn't a given for paleo at large, and certainly not anywhere in the Whole30 guidelines.

Until you give it the label "paleo," nobody is going to say that eating high quality, nutrient dense, unprocessed foods, with a push towards an endless variety of veggies is unhealthy.

[Annette Louise Alvidres Grable]

Hi. Just about to post his website: http://180degreehealth.com/

Here was the first thing that made me wonder what his book was doing in the package:

"Anyway, that's the basics of what the Paleo diet and lifestyle is. This book is about challenging some of the components of the Paleo diet that are:

 Scientifically inaccurate – such as the belief that carbohydrates raise blood sugar and insulin levels

 Built on assumption – such as the belief that the typical human diet from 100,000 years ago MUST be the optimal diet

 Built on a false premise – such as the belief that if every society eats grains and has inflammatory diseases, the grains are the cause of those inflammatory diseases

ï‚· And so on"

And

"I have communicated with many people, particularly young people, who had their health, social life, and sanity completely decimated by entering into the Paleo world. I have answered tens of thousands of emails and have communicated with people of all ages and genders all over the globe in the 30,000 comments on my site. Failure on a Paleo diet, particularly when carbohydrates are restricted as is so often the case with the generally negative bias against them in the Paleo community, is not uncommon. It is VERY common, and the reasons for it are a matter of simple human physiology."

And so on.

I think his problem is that he was unbalanced in what he ate.

I feel like chucking the book from my computer because it is caustic.

Thanks for confirming that for me.

Annette

[Susan W]

Ugh...he makes me mad. He certainly didn't do much research.

[Annette Louise Alvidres Grable]

Hi Moluv-- Here is some of what he says about carbs but it's only a small bit:

"Actually consuming potatoes – like baked potatoes or boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes, reduced their fattening effect. In other words, the more potatoes in the potato, the less fattening it was. Get 60% or more of your calories from potatoes and tell me how fat you get doing it. In the right context, the potato is one of the most excellent foods for improving body composition. The potato's satiety index is one of the highest of any known foods – perhaps because taters raise the appetite-crushing/metabolism boosting (eat less, burn more) hormone leptin as much or more than any other food on a calorie for calorie basis. Okay, enough about taters. Love them things though. Don't be no tater hater!

I could go on for an entire book about the false belief that the carbohydrate is inherently fattening, or that a diet with more than 150 grams of carbs will cause insidious weight gain. In fact, in the second half of 2011 I lost about 15 pounds, and I did so without ever eating, to my knowledge, less than 300 grams of carbohydrates in a single day – much less under the 150 gram “mark.†For now let's just say what Mark Sisson's claim about carbohydrate intake is… It's retarded. It's disgraceful. It's wrong. It's inaccurate. There is absolutely no scientific or observational validity to it. It's just plain crap, and, despite many of the wonderful health principles coming

out of the Sisson camp, this one idea is enough to single-handedly make a mockery of the man who made the mistake of writing it. I've written some really dumb stuff too, but eventually I always correct myself when I have new insights that make me capable of seeing my mistakes. I hope Sisson can think his way out of this one, and come clean on it. He's made a few feeble attempts, but could definitely try harder."

Annette

[Annette Louise Alvidres Grable]

Actually--and this is another reason I was confused--he does show a lot of research and footnoting.

"Calorie density of the diet and food availability (particularly carbohydrates, sucrose in particular when it comes to height) seems to have a lot more to do with the ability to build large muscles and even height. And neither building muscle beyond a certain point or being tall have any positive associations with longevity or lower rates of degenerative disease. As Paleo researcher Staffan Lindeberg points out, height is usually a positive risk factor for many diseases and a shorter lifespan. Why the Paleo community would repeatedly brag about how fierce and ferocious Paleo man was prior to agriculture escapes me. Current observation of huntergatherers refutes the idea that they were large, dominant beast-like men (most hunter-gatherers today are short, and frequently overbellied and undermuscled compared to a typical athlete on a Standard American Diet). And greater size hasn't really been shown by anyone to be a health asset."

[Fenderbender]

Fact: there is a ton of research published

Fact: research results are easily skewed by the observer

Fact: not all research is done on statistically important sample groups

Fact: results are often skewed by the observer to attain a desired result

Fact: if you throw enough s$&t against the wall, something's gonna stick

Everybody needs a niche to sell there brand of snake oil ..... Gee, lets see? What books have been atop the NY Times best sellers? Oh Paleo books.... Lets attack Paleo for some press....

Or like my 17 year old nephew would say" don't be hatin"

[CaseyD]

What, carbs don't raise blood sugar and insulin levels? Wow, really. Tell that to the conventional doctor and nutritionist that advise my diabetic mother, because even they agree that they do - and they both frown on the high fat part of the paleo diet.

Here's the best advice I have. Eat what works the best for your body. No author out there can pull up enough studies to show you that you are wrong if you are doing that.

[Susan W]

Yeah maybe it's just me in Kill All The Things moment, but I say we stop wasting precious band width on this.

[Moluv]

Can someone please tell me what that whole paragraph about potatoes is about. It's just a bunch of words that don't make any sense. Seriously?!? LOL

"don't be no tater hater"~ Matt Stone

[Zoodles]

I stopped reading at "carbohydrates don't raise blood sugar"... What the? Haha I wish, then I could quit giving myself insulin injections! For 27 years I've been doing that for nothing?! *facepalm*