People are odd

[Joshua Katz]

Heard at a restaurant yesterday:

Customer:  What is paleo?
Waitress:  It's a diet with very low carbs and no dairy.
Customer:  That doesn't sound healthy.  You shouldn't call it the health and fitness menu.

I looked over later to see what this group was eating.  One had a hamburger with fries, one had a sandwich on a croissant.  Now, science aside, all paleo and low carb ideas aside, how can it possibly be more dangerous to eat exactly what they were eating, minus the bun, croissant, and fries?  Meanwhile, there I sat with a plate full of vegetables, some all-natural sausage, and some grilled chicken, all drenched in olive oil.  Can anyone, with any starting point, possibly consider my meal less healthy than theirs? 

The logic of most attacks on low carb or paleo eating centers on "you shouldn't take out a whole food group."  When I hear this, I like to comment that I agree, you shouldn't leave out a whole food group, but the things we're leaving out aren't food at all.  Picture a country where everyone considered it normal to eat a bit of arsenic with each meal.  If you came along and suggested not doing that, you could be met with all sorts of objections "We've been eating it for all this time, surely we wouldn't be doing so well if it were poison" - said as rates of all major diseases skyrocket.  "Well, sure, maybe too much arsenic can be a problem, but there's no need to be a radical about it."  "Everyone is different, each person can tolerate different levels of arsenic."  "It's unhealthy to cut an entire food out of your diet completely." 

[Christian McClellan]

"It's unhealthy to cut an entire food out of your diet completely."

The thing that gets me so fucking angry about this is nobody throws that at vegetarians. In fact I have had vegetarians actually say that to me. It's like, "listen to yourself!"

[Marley Matthias]

It's amazing how many people don't know what food is really for.  A lot of people eat to satisfy their boredom, frustrations or happiness, but have no idea why we really eat and what food is really supposed to do...most don't even care.  Those are the same people who are quick to tell you how unhealthy something sounds and then flip the coin and say "it doesn't matter what we eat, we all die at some point anyway".

[Christian McClellan]

By the way, in what restaurant are the waitresses even that aware of the paleo diet.  If there are restaurants that are supporting the diet by noting paleo options on the menu, I would go out of my way to support them!

[Marley Matthias]

I second that, Christian

[D. Saul Weiner]

Joshua, I have had that same thought. People say that we should eat
everything in moderation, and that sure sounds like a sensible thing
to do, but what does it mean in practice? Should we eat insects, like
some of the groups that Weston Price studied? Hell no! But why not?
It is culturally determined what is even considered to be part of the
universe of substances we consider food. And even if we could agree
on such a universe of foods, what exactly is moderation? Should I eat
beef once a day, once a week, once a month? I don't know. I suppose
if everyone around me was eating beef daily, then that would seem like
a moderate intake to me. But in actuality, that might not be optimal
for me, based on my body's own nutritional demands.

[Joshua Katz]

It's a neat restaurant in my town. It looks like a trendy coffee shop
(complete with jazz quartet...) but the owner and many of the staff
are paleo/Crossfit guys. During the last paleo challenge, they put
together a paleo menu, with advertising on the menu for the local
Crossfit. Now they're expanding it to the Crossfit Paleo Health and
Fitness Menu. Everything is strict, not cooked in butter, natural
meats for the paleo meals, and so on. Also, the receipts have ads for
Crossfit.

On Jun 27, 11:07 am, Christian McClellan <chmcclel...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> By the way, in what restaurant are the waitresses even that aware of the
> paleo diet.  If there are restaurants that are supporting the diet by noting
> paleo options on the menu, I would go out of my way to support them!
>