Paleo

Everything in Moderation Will NOT Cause Diabetes

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Okay, so I was sucked into part 2 of Sunday Night’s report on the Paleo diet again last night. If you’ve been living under a rock, reporter Mike Willessee undertook the Paleo diet for 10 weeks with the help of My Kitchen Rules judge and chef Pete Evans (I’ll call him Paleo Pete from here on in).

Admittedly watching the program last night, I was able to learn a little more about this diet. Basically, there are two sources of energy that the human body can use for fuel: carbohydrates and fat. I hear from a lot of people with diabetes who live and advocate for a Low Carb, High Fat (LHCF) diet. I completely respect that, and I’m sure that your body could be fuelled by fat. I myself have seen some merits in reducing “unnecessary” carbs and sugars in my diet, such as bread on my dinner plate and high sugar snacks such as muesli bars or breakfast cereals. But I do still eat carbs. I don’t feel that I could realistically cut them out completely and still be a happy man. But I completely respect those that do make that choice.

I just can’t fathom how Paleo Pete was quick to dismiss healthy, nutritious foods such as Dairy, Legumes and Grains. I also didn’t appreciate the way he referred to all of these carbohydrates as sugar, which is NOT true. And I can’t fathom how you could expect a human being to live without coffee!.

He went as far as suggesting that a diet of “everything in moderation” would cause type 2 diabetes among a string of other threatening diseases. Paleo Pete, you know absolutely NOTHING about diabetes. Don’t make an empty threat on the base of a common stigma. As my Twitter friend Lala brought to my attention, he even suggested that people who follow the Paleo diet are all exclusively healthy.

Paleo Pete is a chef. He is not qualified to provide nutrition or dietary advice. As one Twitter user commented, being around food doesn’t qualify you to provide nutritional advice. It would be like having a passenger fly an aeroplane. The Dieticians Association of Australia is qualified. LISTEN to them.

Paleo Pete also makes a lot of money off of Paleo. He has a series of cookbooks and other money making products that I don’t really care about. It’s a bit hard to take his claims of “speaking the truth” and “never feeling better” seriously.

As I said last week, Paleo Pete also works for the television network that aired this story. He is a judge on cooking show My Kitchen Rules. So is this story just a convenient case of networks keeping their talent happy?

At the end of his 10 week challenge, reporter Mike Willessee said that Paleo had opened his eyes to some of the his food choices. I feel exactly the same way, particularly after watching the similarly themed That Sugar Film earlier this year. What Mike Willessee neglected to mention was whether he’d stick with Paleo or not. I suspect his view would be similar to mine. There are some aspects that I’d take away from Paleo, but I won’t be rushing to clear out the cupboards and fridges of anything even remotely delicious.

I’m finally on Facebook, and I’d really appreciate it if you would like my page: facebook.com/type1writes.

I’m Skeptical of Diets That Cut Out Food Groups

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I was sucked into a story on Sunday Night this week about the Paleo diet. The paleo, or ‘caveman’ diet, seems to be the latest fad at the moment. It’s a diet that My Kitchen Rules judge Pete Evans is well known for. And on Sunday Night this week, one of the program’s reporters took on a 10 week challenge to see if it lived up to it’s promise of ‘changing’ lives.

Paleo is a premise that sounds great on paper – fresh, natural, unprocessed foods. It might be easy if I had the whole day to spare to prepare a fresh meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it might even be fun if I had the time and the money to go shopping around for fresh, organic ingredients. And if I didn’t have to get up and go to work every day, committing to this diet might actually sound realistic.

I do try to include as much fresh foods in my diet as possible. I have a piece of fruit for morning tea every day. I’ve given up cordial and soft drinks for water ever since I’ve had diabetes. I have hard boiled eggs, tuna and nuts with my lunch regularly. And I usually have veggies or salad on the side of my dinner plate.

But I am pretty skeptical of diets that cut out entire food groups. I try not to overload on carbs with my meals, but I honestly don’t know where my energy would come from without them. Whenever I go without carbs at breakfast, my stomach ends up growling all morning. I love that Burgen bread exists, and that I can still pack a quick, diabetes friendly sandwich for lunch in the morning. I’d hate to think of all the extra time I’d have to spend making something extravagent to fit in with this diet. And as for dairy, I love my cheese. I love my milky coffees. I love my desserts. And I don’t know where my calcium and strong bones would be without it.

I also have diabetes. Diabetes means that my diet choices are already restricted. It means that I do need to think carefully about every food choice that I make. It means that I do need to have particular foods in moderation for the sake of my blood sugar levels. And I’ll be damned if I want to begin cutting out food groups and making my life even more miserable. I’ll be damned if I want to give up that piece of chocolate or slice of cake. Being able to have those treats makes me feel human. It motivates me to go keep going with my diabetes management.

Another thing I found interesting about this Paleo story was that the reporter undertaking this challenge had a fairly unhealthy diet to start with. He had a few health scares earlier this year, and lived off of Coca Cola and junk food at home. So of course a major diet overhaul would produce extremely impressive results on him, compared to say, a reasonably healthy person like me.

And don’t forget that people like Pete Evans, who was involved in this report, are making money off of this Paleo fad. Through things like cookbooks, guides and 10 week transformations. Coincidentally, he also works for the network who aired this report. So take it with a grain of salt. I, on the other hand, am giving you my honest, unqualified opinion that I wasn’t paid to write about.

You can read more about the Sunday Night report on the Paleo diet here.