Saturday, January 9, 2010

More Paleo in the Mainstream Media


The New Age Cavemen and the City

This was in the New York Times. Art DeVany, Erwan LeCorre, intermittent fasting and Crossfit also get a mention.

It might just be me, but I sort of feel that they are making fun of the approach a little bit. For example:

The caveman lifestyle, in Mr. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Mr. Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits.

Don't we all fast between meals?

It is all becoming too fashionable.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Fashionable is fine. It's funny, just because it’s not mainstream doesn’t mean it’s a “lifestyle,” but whatever. It's mainstream media. That's how they roll. It's good stuff. The tide is turning.

As an important sidebar: Grass-fed/pasture-raised is the next imperative that needs to be beaten over people’s heads. Meat by itself isn’t the answer. Until we move away from feeding livestock grains we’re perpetuating the flawed, agribusiness grip on the status quo and setting ourselves up to constantly argue with the growing, simplistic, meat is bad for the environment crowd.

Eric said...

Technically most people don't fast between meals, especially from the point of insulin levels. "Grazing" became a popular dietary way to keep your basal metabolic rate high, so people eat breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, another snack, dinner, and sometimes a final snack. Paleo practitioners will forgo the snacks, a meal, or sometimes quite literally "fast" for 12 to 18 to 24 hours between meals. This is how I understand it, anyway.

Chris said...

Thanks Eric

If you poke around this site you will find quite a lot on intermittent fasting. I fully understand, support and practise fasting. i just thought this was poorly explained in the article.

Hunsdon said...

Chris:

Given how alien the paleo/primal/EF/ancestral fitness approach is to the modern American way, I thought the article was surprisingly good.

Despite the comment about fasting between meals, there were references to a 24 hour fast (the brothers Sanocki). Personally, I was more upset about the reference to the 30 year lifespan . . . but in a brief article, it's hard to convey the underlying principles of ancestral fitness.

I'd be interested to see how many searches for de Vany, Taleb, Cordain and le Corre took place after this article showed up.

http://www.thepaleogarden.com/

Jeff Pickett said...

Wasn't it the Washington Post a week ago and now this in the NY Times? Even if a few areas are off kilter, its great to see the Paleo/Primal plan getting the attention it deserves, particular in these times of healthcare issues.

Warren said...

good article. a little annoid by the religiosity with wich they describe de vaney. funny how vegans are described as a "rival tribe" made me think of that scene in 'anchorman' where the rival news teams do battle.

Asclepius said...

I like the bit about Durant going to see ADV in the flesh,

'...asked if Mr. Devany looked as muscular in the flesh as in pictures on his blog....[Durant said].."he looks great. You feel like he could at a moment's notice, charge at you and trample you." '

Best comment ever!

Zach said...

Warren, great Anchorman imagery!

I truly did imagine the Paleo folks squaring off with the veggie-cons, and then I flashed to the scene in the office in the aftermath.

"LeCorre, did you kill a vegetarian with a trident? Yeah, I think you should lay low for awhile."

Not advocating violence by the way! Just a joke for those of you that understand/appreciate Will Ferrell humor.

Chris said...

Interesting that since this article went up I'e had loads of hits on my interview with Erwan LeCorre all from Google searches for his name.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you also caught the NYT's somewhat jocular tone in the article. A diet high in animal fat/protein is only considered "macho" to people who prefer pasta and soy lattes - which I imagine is quite prolific at the NYT editorial offices.