As it has said before, the diet consists of meat, fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and healthy fat. This being said however, there is an all too common misconception that as long as you are eating from that list, that you are following a correct paleo approach. Here are some of the biggest flaws and their dangers. Improving these things will gain you title of a true paleo eater, rather than just a low carber.

1. Eating Only Meat
Paleo is not an “all meat” program. I see this a lot in people who are either trying to follow a very low carb approach or those who are too lazy to chop up vegetables. Just because you are eating meat, does not mean you are eating paleo. This makes you more of an Atkins dieter.  If you are worried about carbohydrates content for weight loss you can stick with leafy greens such as kale, spinach, collard greens, chard, etc, but you still need to be eating your vegetables. Still eat good quality meat at every meal, just eat some greens with it!

The Issue: By skipping out on vegetables, you will likely be switching yourself from the body’s needed alkaline base to one that is acidic, putting you at high risk for osteoporosis. You also lose out on tons of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and fiber that you would be getting from the vegetables.

2. Eating Low Quality Meat
Just like paleo isn’t an all meat program, it also holds strict standards to the types of meat you are eating, specifically how they were raised prior to consuming them. Our ancestors were not eating corn fed factory farmed animals and you shouldn’t be either.

The Issue: The nutritional content of grass-fed animals vs corn fed is completely different. The fat profile of grass-fed meat is almost identical to heart healthy fatty fish that we all know to be good for us. The omega 3 – 6 ratio is spot on where it should be. By eating cheap meat, you are throwing off your body’s adapted 2:1 ratio of omega 3′s to 6′s. In addition, corn fed animals have 4x less vitamin E, 4x less conjugated linoleic acid (a cancer fighting compound), and numerous other nutrients. You end up also taking in traces of antibiotics and growth hormones that were fed to the animal, which lead you down an unfriendly road. While some bad meat is better than none, if you are buying cheaper meat, and can’t afford to upgrade, it is essential to go as lean as possible (lean cut, fat trimmed & drained) and look at supplementing fish oil at every meal.

3. Eating Processed Meat
Another thing I see often is people who’s normal lunch is sliced deli meat from somewhere like Safeway. Beef jerky, sausages, and yes bacon come into this topic too.

The Issue: In addition to all of the issues listed in issue #2 above, processed deli meat is loaded with preservatives, added sugar, salt,  and other artificial ingredients. Beef jerky also typically has soy sauce in it, which means gluten! It is nothing like the meat that we evolved on, and definitely isn’t doing much for your health in a positive way. Sorry people, I hate to be that guy, but unless your bacon is made fresh from a quality butcher, it is not paleo.

4. Eating Misleading Meat
When dining out especially, browsing over the menu looking for acceptable options is tough. You may think you are safe with any meat choice but you are far from it. Meatloaf, meatballs, crabcakes, italian chicken dishes, beer battered / braised meats, more often than not have breadcrumbs or other sources of gluten. Teriyaki dishes typically will always have soy sauce, which contains wheat. A very common ingredient in thick gravy is flour.  It is really important to avoid these if you are not sure about the establishment. Also as a reminder, check when ordering if your salad has croutons!

5. Eating Lots and Lots of Fruit
While some fruit is good for you, especially fresh seasonal berries, eating fruit all day at meal times and at snacks is not paleo.

The Issue: Our modern day ways of producing fruit significantly increases the amount of sugar that is in it compared to fruit back in the pre-agricultural days. Fruit was also more of a treat in the past unlike how easily accessible it is now.  If you are eating lots of fruit and expecting to reach your weight loss goals, you can think again as it likely will not happen. Sugar is carbohydrate regardless of how natural the source is. Keep fruit as a treat or dessert for best results.

6. Eating too many Nuts & Seeds:
While yes, nuts and seeds are paleo, using them as a substitute to meat and vegetables is not. They should be eaten in moderation, working your way to as little as possible. I typically don’t eat nuts unless I’m hungry in a place without food, I keep some in my car. Nut flour, nut butter, paleo seed bread, and all the other inventions that have come out of nuts and seeds really are not too paleo.

The Issue: Most nuts and seeds are extremely high in omega 6′s. Lots of the more recent paleo research is also showing people achieve much better results when cutting out nuts and seeds. Some nuts and seeds also may have trace amounts of lectics, one of the danger’s grains and legumes have. Finally with a caloric content so dense, it can definitely stall weight loss.

7. Eating Paleo Bake Goods and Alternatives.
Paleo pancakes, paleo pizza, paleo pie, paleo cookies, you name a food you miss, someone’s made a paleo alternative. They are all tempting and delicious.

The Issue: In addition to the fact that you likely will over eat these, you probably also had to use a nut flour to make it possible, skyrocketing your omega 6 intake. If its a dessert you made, something made it sweet. You either put lots of fruit in it (sugar) or sweetened it with honey (more sugar) or agave (toxic sugar). While these foods make an awesome treat on a special occasion, having them as a staple is not a good idea, and again if you are trying to lose weight, you will for a while and then will likely plateau and stop. Think meat and vegetables at every single meal and then see where you have room for these.

Another thing to consider with all the fruit and sweeteners you may be consuming, these still have a glycemic response, it can still give you a major sugar crash, and can still make you develop diabetes while trying to follow a paleo diet!

Does this sound like you? If so, I’m glad you are reading!

1. Saturated fat: Cordain labeled all saturated fat as bad due to the possibility of raising your” bad” cholesterol (LDL). It is now known though that however much it may raise your “bad” cholesterol, it also raises your “good” cholesterol (HDL).  Additionally, the risk for heart disease and other illness isn’t based on the amount of a certain cholesterol, but is based on whether or not you are likely to oxidize it.

Risk factors for oxidizing cholesterol include lack of exercise, smoking / drug use, excessive alcohol, and eating a diet high in sugars and other blood sugar spiking foods. Basically, if you are following the primal lifestyle avoiding high glycemic foods, drugs, and getting exercise, saturated fat is not something that needs to be worried about. The only reason to avoid saturated fat on the paleo diet is if you are struggling to lose weight even with a very low carbohydrate diet. For those of you following a standard american diet with lots of grains, dairy, and sugar in it, saturated fat is not something you should be eating (along with the other 3 things too).

2. Fatty Meat: The issue with fatty meats was primarily for the same reasons listed above for saturated fat, so the same rules apply. If you are following the paleo lifestyle, then you can eat the fatty cuts of meat. This being said, I would ONLY recommend eating fatty cuts of meat if you are sure it is 100% grass-fed. If it is not entirely grass-fed, still go for the leanest cuts available since they will have a poor ration of omega 3 – 6 balance. If you have free ranged chickens, the skin doesn’t need to be tossed.

3. Eggs: Same issues as above, as long as you are following paleo lifestyle and buying cage free, free ranged, pastured raised, omega 3 enriched eggs, you don’t need to limit to 6 per week.

4. Canola oil: Cordain liked Canola oil due to its good ratio of omega 3′s to 6′s. Unfortunately, Canola oil is heavily processed and far from anything that was available in the Paleolithic era. Additionally, with all the heat unstable omega 3′s that are in there, cooking with it can be much more likely to damage it, creating cancer causing free radicals. With so many other options to cook with, there isn’t any place that canola is necessary.

5. Low heat oils: Extra virgin olive oil, nut oils, and flaxseed oil should never be exposed to much of any heat. Cordain initially said to cook with flaxseed oil however has retracted that statement.

For the good oils for different temperature ranges see here

6. Vinegar: is fine, as long as it is not malt vinegar, which is grain derived

7. Salt: salting food to taste is fine in controlled amounts (ie when cooking a steak). The issue with sodium is more from processed foods that you should be avoiding anyways. Try to go for sea salt containing all the electrolytes as well as iodine.

8. Fruit: It was written that you can have as much fruit as you want and still lose weight. Unfortunately for many this is not true. If you are stalled on the paleo diet, it is time to start cutting back on fruit in take. In the end, sugar is sugar.

9. Starchy Carbs: In addition to fruit, carrots, tomatoes, squash, and other starchy vegetables should be avoided.

10. Maintenance: If weight loss isn’t a concern, the yams,  sweet potato, fruit, carrots, squash, etc are fine (no regular potatoes though)

11. Cheat Meals: Cordain said that any cheat meal is fine up to 3 times per week. We now know that you must try to stay gluten free during these times. The best and worst cheat meals can be found here.

12. Artificial Sweeteners: Cordain had said the occasional diet soda is ok. While it is better than regular soda, aspartame and other sugar free sweeteners are bad news.

Are you following Cordain’s plan verbatim with stalled results? Try these changes and let me know how it goes.

Seattle seems to be leading the board with the most interest, but we want to make it even bigger.

You are all invited to the official Seattle Paleo Meet-up party at 6:00pm at Golden Gardens.

More information and RSVP here:

http://www.meetup.com/PaleoDiet/10969/

On another note, it is time to get this blog back up and running. Expect more frequent posts from here on out.

Rule #1: Keep them rare.

Having one good meal of eating and then taking a break isn’t going to get you anywhere. Same goes for eating good one day and then going off. Try to keep them to once per week.

Rule#2: Don’t plan them.

People often like to say something in the lines of “I’ll go strict until Saturday and then have a treat then” or have their own reasoning behind planning in a treat meal. It is much better to avoid it and just let it happen when it comes up socially. What happens when you eat a treat Thursday night by yourself and then you get dinner invitations the following night? The once a week treat is now happening at least twice.

Rule#3: Avoid fake food

Even during a well earned treat meal, synthetic food should be avoided. The destructiveness of this is too high for it to be worth it. Eat real, good food. Especially avoid trans fat and high fructose corn syrup.

Rule #4: Avoid fast food

Don’t have your treats be at McDonald’s or Dairy Queen. Go for something that tastes better and doesn’t violate rule #3

Rule #5: Stay gluten free

The recovery time for eating gluten can be as much as 2 weeks. It really isn’t worth it at least to me anymore to put my body through that struggle.

Here’s a list of the best and worst treats you can have. When searching through the dessert menu at a restaurant try one of these before you go into the real bad areas.

Desserts:

Best:

-Dark chocolate
-Coconut milk ice cream
-Flourless chocolate truffle cake (often on menus)
-Chocolate mousse (often on menus)
-Chocolate covered strawberries
-Panna Cotta, Creme Brulee, Flan, Custard (often on menus)

Ok:

-Milk chocolate
-Dairy Ice cream (includes gelato, frozen custard, frozen yogurt)

Avoid:

-Cake
-Cookies
-Brownies

Non-sweets:

Best:
-Sweet potato fries

Ok:
-Gluten free grains (rice, corn, etc)
-Legumes
-French fries
-White potatoes
-Potato chips

-Corn / rice tortillas / chips

Avoid:
-Bread
-Pasta
-Wheat tortillas / chips
- Any gluten containing grain

My diet mainly consists of meat, fruit, vegetables, seeds, and nuts, so it would be safe to assume that any menu that says served with “seasonal or fresh vegetables” would be good to go for myself and everyone else trying to up their vegetable intake. So what causes my extreme sadness when I get my entree? What do I see when I look for my vegetables? I see this:

Corn

Corn is not a vegetable. Corn on the cob is still not a vegetable. Regardless of how you prepare corn, it is not a vegetable. Corn is a grain. Corn grows like a grain, is used like a grain (corn flour) and has the same high glycemic starchy inflammatory properties as all other grains do. Please, stop serving us corn as a vegetable.

Beans

So many forms of beans are served as the “vegetable” side everywhere. Whether it be green beans, snap peas, pea pods, loose peas, or anything else with the word “pea” or “bean” in it, it is not a vegetable. It is a legume and contains all the negative health attributes that legumes have.

Soy

It is much less common to get a side of soybeans as the vegetable, but it is still possible. Also, a lot of times meats will say they are fed a “vegetable diet” consisting of soybeans as a main staple (along with corn of course). Soy”beans” are not vegetables, and as they sound, they are legumes.

Potatoes

Ok yes technically potatoes are vegetables but honestly who thinks of them as such? If you order a side of vegetables are you really wanting potatoes? Most people wouldn’t think getting mashed potatoes or french fries counts as eating vegetables. I know when I order, I definitely don’t want potatoes as my vegetable. Do you?

Hopefully this cleared up some confusions about what is a vegetable and what isn’t. I can only hope that someday I don’t have to question the restaurant staff of what vegetables come with it to see if they actually are vegetables as stated.

Have any of you had this happen to you as many times as I have?

Let me know.

“Our new recipes contain:

No artificial flavors

No artificial trans fats

No artificial dyes

No high-fructose corn syrup”

It is great to see more and more places doing this on their own – with no need for government regulations demanding it.

Also just as a reminder, even with this improvement, a piece of coffee cake still isn’t going to be healthful, but at least it is real.

Source: http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_freshfood.asp

In this post (rant) I will tell you why this is a bad idea and not what should be happening!

Let’s start with calories. As some know a calorie is the amount of energy required to heat 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. Calories are energy and we need them.

Saturated fat is another thing we need.

In addition to being two things we need, there is another characteristic they both share. THEY AREN’T MAKING EVERYONE FAT!!!

Obesity is caused by:

-Trans Fat
-High fructose corn syrup
-Monosodium Glutamate
-Sugar
-Complex carbohydrates
-Fatty and processed meats
-Lack of adequate exercise

Our bodies are designed to handle calories and saturated fat. They are NOT designed to handle the other things on the list.

All the time people try to lose weight by following these low calorie and low fat diets. They typically don’t work, and are very miserable.

A processed frozen pot pie loaded with artificial ingredients but that only has a few grams of fat and is low in calories is not healthy!

An avocado has about 325 calories in it, and is also quite high in fat. Does this mean it is less healthful than a 100 calorie snack pack? Absolutely not!

This new labeling law leaves out the most important piece of nutritional information available. The ingredients list. If everything in there is real, then the amount of calories doesn’t matter because you are eating real food.

McDonald’s is not an unhealthy dangerous “food” establishment because their food is high in calories. It is a horrible and dangerous place because all their food has tons of trans fat and other artificial ingredients in it. If McDonald’s kept the amount of calories but changed all their food to 100% organic, people would stop dying from it!

Who goes to McDonald’s and doesn’t order something because it is too high in calories anyways? When people start to count calories, it greatly increases the risk of an eating disorder. Knowing that the salad you are about to eat still has quite a few calories might very well scare people off from eating it. They may even go order some french fries instead after seeing it is near the same amount of calories. Calories also sets an automatic signal of disapproval and makes eating less enjoyable.

When you are eating the world’s healthiest foods (lean grass-fed meats, all natural free ranged chicken, fish,  fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts) the amount of calories is completely not important.

King County, if you are going to do something, please let it be telling us what is in what we are eating, not how much energy is packed in it! Unfortunately that is not what they are doing, so this site will hopefully help people.

Today browsing the isles of Metropolitan Market I found some Microwave Kettle Corn made by Pop Secret.

Curious as always, I checked to see if and how much trans fat was in it.

One serving of this particular item contained 6 grams of trans fat. As ridiculous as that seems, it only gets worse.

In each bag, there are 3 servings, making a total of 18 grams of trans fat in a single bag.

Each box had 12 bags which means by the time the whole box is empty, whoever ate this has consumed 216 grams of trans fat.

0.5 grams is already too much, I was and still am shocked to think that a product that bad is on the shelf.

According to Amazon.com however, it is not bad at all:

“Excellent source whole grain. Good source fiber. 0 grams sugar.”

It may be whole grain, it may have fiber, and no sugar, but it at this point holds the record for the highest amount of trans fat that I have ever seen. If you find something with more, please leave a comment.

http://shop.safeway.com/dnet/RichProductInformation.aspx?promo_window=1&bpn=109300619

Even their home-made lemonade has HFCS.

Also a warning for those of you trying to lose weight, the saturated fat content of Panera Bread products is shockingly high.

This is a bummer to me as I ate there thinking everything served was healthful. The email I received from them is as follows:

Dear Gil,
Thank you for taking the time to find out how Panera deals with trans
fat and other ingredients.

Our customers’ well being is important to us at Panera. That’s why,
several years ago, we started looking into ways we could reduce or
eliminate trans fat from your favorite bakery and cafe items.

We proudly offer a menu essentially free of added trans fat. What does
this really mean?

Animal products, like dairy and meat, have small amounts of naturally
occurring trans fat. Naturally occurring trans fat cannot be entirely
eliminated.

Added trans fat – like partially hydrogenated vegetable oil – is found
in very small amounts in some food ingredients to help extend a food’s
shelf life and to stabilize food’s flavor.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined that foods that
have under 0.5 grams per serving of trans fat can be identified on the
Nutrition Facts Panel as having 0 grams trans fat.

You may see a few menu items listed on our nutritional information that
have 0.5 grams, 1 gram or even 1.5 grams of trans fat. These items
contain naturally occurring trans fat from butter, cheese and meats, and
a few may have very small amounts (less than 0.5 grams) of added trans
fat.

Panera is committed to exceeding its customers’ expectations for
delivering great tasting, quality food that people can trust. To this
end, Panera continues to look at ways to try to reduce or eliminate
added trans fat from its menu items.

The only item containing monosodium glutamate on the Panera menu is the
Greek Salad Dressing.

High fructose corn syrup is a widely-used and FDA-approved sweetener. We
are following the most recent scientific studies regarding its usage. To
date, there is no strong evidence to support the claims that it is
responsible for obesity or is any more or less healthy than sugar or
other sweeteners.

Any artificial coloring that we may use is also FDA approved. There are
many items on our bakery menu, however, that do not include
preservatives or artificial colors or flavors.

We have no information to share regarding interesterified fat, but if
you’d like, I can request that our nutrition group research it for you.
Let me know.

You can find nutrition and ingredients information for our products in
the Menu & Nutrition section of our website and at our bakery-cafes when
you request the information from a Manager.

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your business and value
your comments.
Sincerely,
Stella
Customer Comment Coordinator

More information on their nutrition can be found here: http://www.panerabread.com/menu/

Right now, oil used in fryers must contain no more than 0.5grams of trans fat per serving.

We must wait until next April before the 0.5gram restriction is broadened to all items, not just oil.

While restaurants may claim they are trans fat free by being under the 0.5 limit, on this blog, the restaurants that we say are trans fat free, are actually completely free.