Talk:Paleolithic diet/Archive 4

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Toward an honest "opposing views" section

The fact that any non-wild plant forage will necessarily consist of exclusively modern cultivars should be included. Additionally, old-word humans from which all European/African/Asian/native Australian peoples are descended did not eat potatoes, tomatoes, any type of squash, any number of legumes, bell peppers, corn/maize, period, as they are exclusively native to the Americas. For that matter, no wild plants remotely resemble the modern brassica (e.g., kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts) or any other modern old-world vegetable which would be forbidden for intellectually responsible practitioners of this "diet," for the reason that their antecedents would be nearly unrecognizable. The same goes for every type of mammalian meat available at the local supermarket. To one with this particular "opposing view," the diet is merely a curiosity in the annals of practical hypocrisy. 173.21.106.137 (talk) 11:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears straw men are easier opponents than windmills. The above isn't included because they are not truly arguments against the paleolithic diet, but rather arguments by one who enjoys reducing things to the absurd.Peter Napkin Dance Party (talk) 03:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. There are different versions of the Paleolithic diet of varying levels of extremity. Some versions are quite moderate. You can always look at the most extreme version of anything and refute it, but that only means you refuted the most extreme version, not the entire philosophy. Mac520 (talk) 03:58, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The "paleo diet" is about getting as close to the human paleolithic diet as possible. It's recognized that modern foods will necessarily differ slightly, and there are varying degrees of strictness, with some eschewing nightshades because they are native to the Americas as you say. However, "as close as possible" does include the word "possible. Warren Dew (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

These arguments really are valid. Quibbling over the spectrum connotation of diet (regardless of whether there even is one) is also a little absurd and escapist (lest the reality of the pile of problems with "paleo" get too real). There is no "quite moderate" vegetarian diet, for instance, or a "quite moderate" gluten-free diet. Like other fringe bogeymen included in this article, gluten gets impaled here despite the fact that there is zero proof that sensitivities to gluten exist outside of diagnosed Celiac disease. Yet what about the fact that Americans can't by produce/meat that hasn't been scientifically tampered with in about a dozen ways? It simply isn't possible for an intellectually honest person to pretend that they are eating a "paleo" diet. "Modern hunter-gatherer fantasy diet?" Sure. Raw-foodism? Fine by me. The fact of the matter is that the supposed diet can't be reproduced 1)because it was hugely broad and adapted to diverse ecological niches, 2)we really don't even know what it was, and 3)modern cultivars, (e.g. corn) are genetic monstrosities compared to their wild antecedents (see for example teosinte). 173.21.104.57 (talk) 21:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

What is the Halford Watch?

The Halford Watch is listed in the second-to-last paragraph as a source of information. I can find no information on the Web about such an organization, and there is no link provided in the article.

J Kulacz 96.18.39.97 (talk) 19:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Holford watch is a website critical of pseudoscientific claims made by Patrick Holford, things like overextension of the research literature, exaggeration of the benefits of vitamins and supplementation, non-organic food fear-mongering and the like. I'd read the website, but I don't know if it is adequate as a source for the page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Surely adequate. This page suffers from a non-neutral point of view problem. This diet is represented as if it were not a highly disputed and scientifically weakly supported diet. It definitely could include more critics. For example it talks about general decrease in body stature and dentition size at the end of the paleolithic era. Thats right, but correlation is not causation. There was a climate change as well, and this effect can be observed in regions where the diet didn't change. Or for example it talks about the relationship between autoimmune diseases and agrarian diets. This is not more than guessing as there is no such data. 195.228.205.8 (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Arguments

1. As already addressed (but not fully), a lot of vegetables, fruits, and meats found in super markets would have to be cut by this diet if truly accurate. Not just things they didn't eat, but a lot of our modern foods have been both adapted naturally and by human tampering since paleolithic times. You're simply not eating the same things. 2. There is also a lot of modern contamination via pollution that they weren't exposed to in those time that adds risks to things like sea food, fruits, and vegetables. 3. There are more and stronger diseases today than then that are both contaminating the foods, and that your diet must be able to keep you well against. Just because it allegedly did the job back then (yeah, right...) doesn't mean it will do as well now. 4. The peoples in paleolithic times certainly did not prepare and cook their food in such ways as that sea food dish in the picture on this wiki article which therefore cannot correctly be called paleolithic. 5. To be truly correct, what you're eating should vary by region. The point of the diet is to get natural and cut away things with more man-tampering. If you're not cutting away highly tampered foods or keeping strictly local in your food selections you are therefore NOT a practitioner of this diet. At all. There can be no such thing as "levels" in regard to diet. Either it is or it isn't the diet you're calling it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.165.177 (talk) 23:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The article already makes it clear that most paleo practitioners attempt to simulate a paleolithic diet using readily available modern foods. The criticism section must address what the movement actually is, not what the critic thinks it must be. Elmo iscariot (talk) 18:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I've wondered if ancient man even had access to hardly any vegetables or fruits to eat. How many of these were cultivated by agriculture so that they increased in size and deliciousness? Ancient corn for instance was very small. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.104.190.237 (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposing a section entitled "Practicality"

Unlike the Atkins diet, in which one can go to the store and buy pounds of corn-fed pig cuts called "bacon," there are practical problems with this diet. The first is trying to escape problems with its philosophical ethos by saying the diet is a continuum. However, no other diet gets to slip out of the trap that easily. Not vegetarianism (no meat whatsoever), not veganism, raw food, fat-free, salt-free, HCFS free, gluten free, nor really any of the other fad diets. If you're on the Atkins diet, you're eating the burger and not the bun - unless you had a relapse. Practical issues: 1)early humans ate local by necessity, not predilection; 2)early humans ate wild food, not cultivars with hundreds or thousands of years of human selection; 3)early humans ate according to season and location; 4)early humans ate organic food by necessity; 5)early humans did not eat foods that are native to the New World. This list could go on, but I think I'm making my point. The practicality of this diet IS an issue, and belongs just as much as the "nutritional concerns" sections belongs to the article on veganism. 173.21.104.57 (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You need reliable sources to create such a section, we are not permitted to engage in original research. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

That's why I said "proposing" as opposed to "I'm creating," noodlehead. Nevertheless, I think most people who do not have pasta for brains recognize hunter-gatherers did not have an interstate highway system that allowed them to eat, for instance, green vegetables out of season. 173.21.104.57 (talk) 21:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

That's wonderful, but let me again state - without relaible sources to verify your point, this is original research and therefore should be removed immediately from the main page. If you aren't proposing a change to the main page, wikipedia is not a forum for general discussin and therefore our discussion is inappropriate. In other words, your "proposal" is irrelevant without sources because it will never end up on the main page and we're wasting time and server resources discussing it. Idle speculation is not appropriate. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It was never added. You're wasting space by not checking article history and verbosely flying off the handle. Certainly research has been done in this area and interested contributors may add it, along with sources, to address how modern humans can reasonably engage in an outmoded regimen that is extremely difficult to enact. Overreacting, without addressing the suggestions proposed for improving the article, undermines effective talk page discourse that leads to better articles. 173.21.104.57 (talk) 20:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell you man - if you don't have any sources, then it's an interesting idea that can't go up. If you have the sources, write it. I'm not over reacting, them's the rules an all the discussion in the world doesn't make any difference without a reliable source. If you have the sources to write the section, if they're found in the article history, pull them out and use them. I can show you how to reference them if you don't know, proofread it, check the neutrality, but I don't have the sources, I haven't seen any links to any sources, and there's no text to check. You may have an idea of a section to include, but as my first comment says - without sources your idea can't be added to the main page. Not sure what else you want me to say. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 23:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, once again, the diet _is_ flexible, and attempts to broadly simulate a paleolithic diet with, as the article already says, "commonly available modern foods". Whether or not you think flexibility in a diet is appropriate is frankly irrelevant. It is what it is, and Wikipedia exists only to document what it is. The most we could properly get out of this is a sourced section explaining that some people think the name is misleadingly simple. Elmo iscariot (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)