My Running Journal, 020510

I should subtitle this - the woes of dietary romanticism.

No running this morning - today is a rest day on the training calendar, and I probably need it. While I feel that this week is a rough start, I think that it actually went pretty smoothly. Except for some snafus with mileage and motivation, everything else is coming into place.

I have added several small, achievable goals into the mix that increase the complexity of the process. Like any other goal driven activity, you can break the process down into individual bits, and each one of those part of the process can be as complex as the entire process itself. Hooray for intellectualizing physical activity! (actually, it is good to intellectualize it, as your Brain is the biggest individual/small system energy consumer in your body. - the more and harder you think, the more calories you burn).

So within the hopelessly complex network of small goals leading to a bigger goal, there are a few that I have started working towards. I have already covered some of it - getting up at an early hour on a regular basis, charting my mileage, following a training schedule, etc., etc.

Today I want to talk about diet, and the small goals therein.

I am about to start Crossfit training, and part of that is keeping a food log and modifying your diet in the direction of the "Paleo" diet. The basics of the Paleo Diet seem pretty simple - the underlying theory behind it is that Humans were distinctly Human by the paleolithic era (Stone Age). And the assumption being that Paleotlithic Man's diet was primarily that of a hunter/gatherer. So the focus of the modern primitive diet is meat. Easy enough, I love meat. Another protein source is tree nuts, which are enormously high in fat and protein, and are very healthful when eaten raw. Supplemented by lots and lots of vegetables (not tubers or legumes, but actual vegetables) - again, this is a good idea, since you need dietary fiber and other vitamins, with a small amount of fruit, and as little processed carbohydrates as possible.

I love it - simple diet to follow, and it is pretty much what I have been trending towards - although I still eat loads of processed foods.

Now, the concept of "processed" foods is an interesting one. I've read a bunch of writing in support of the Paleo diet and the theory behind it - Paleolithic Man had minimal tools, and so would have had limited ability to process foods. Additionally, most tubers and legumes will make you sick if eaten raw on a regular basis. So why would Paleolithic Man eat them? Same goes for grains - the argument being that 10,000 years ago grains would have been found in limited areas, and that the processing necessary to get from a seedhead to a usable, edible product, would have been energy inefficient.

That is a big component, as far as I can tell, about the philosophical theorizing behind the Paleo diet - the food that would have provided the biggest immediate bang for the buck would have been the one that Paleolithic Man would have gone after. The more time you have to spend gathering and preparing food, the less energy efficient it is, or so the theory goes. The more tool development needed to prepare the food, the less likely Paleo-man would have eaten it - tubers and legumes generally need to be cooked in order to be safe to eat for any length of time, and grains need to be harvested and in most cases threshed to be useable, and in order to make them edible, they need to be cooked.

While I appreciate the overall dietary concept of the Paleo Diet (Proteins and Vegetables with a minimal amount of "processed" carbohydrate sources), I would argue that the theory that Paleolithic Man was primarily a carnivore, roasting his kill over an open fire is romantic claptrap.

Think about it for a minute. We can think of all of the tribes that still exist, and that have in effect been recently discovered in the Amazon, as well as the Bushman of the Kalahari, the Australian aborigines, and many of the American Indian tribes.

Yes - they all hunt animals for food. Yes, they all place alot of store on successful hunts - meat is a brilliant source of energy when you can get it. But do any of these particular groups avoid eating tubers or legumes or grains?

Several of the indigenous tribes in the Amazon harvest Manioc - otherwise known as cassava, and is what Tapioca is made from. the Manioc grown in the jungle is poisonous - the plant contains compounds of cyanide in its raw state. This necessitates processing. It is also the staple food source for the tribes that harvest it.

Or several of the American Indian tribes that existed prior to European exploration - putting aside the more advanced forms of plant cultivation that they used, we can look at acorns. Acorns in their raw state are pretty much indigestible by humans - most contain very high levels of tannins, which make them very bitter. Most things in the wild that are bitter tasting Humans avoid. But when you soak them in several changes of water, you can remove the tannins. And then the acorns can be eaten as is, or pounded into a flour and turned into cakes.

Now, it can be argued that manioc/cassava is a bad example - undoubtedly what is meant by "paleolithic man" means pre-pre-agriculture.

Okay, so let's look at the Bushmen of the Kalahari. What do they eat? It is well known that they are great hunters and trackers, and that they eat every last part of the animal that they kill. But they also collect tubers - which are an important component of their diet, as they are great sources of water in the desert.

The argument about efficiency in the Paleo diet doesn't bear scrutiny or logical thought. The argument that you eat what is most convenient in nature excludes most tree nuts. Almost every tree nut in existence comes in the following package - outer layer of fruit, then shell, then nut. Now, I don't know about other people, but I have collected and eaten fresh Almonds. Getting to the nut is a pain in the ass - the fruit around the nut is bitter and slippery, and the shell, when it is fresh, is very difficult to get through. Same thing with Walnuts - slippery, bitter outer skin, tough shell, and then lots of work getting the edible parts of the nut out. How about Brazil nuts? I've never harvested them myself, but from the looks of it, you have to penetrate something that is as tough as a coconut's outer husk and inner shell, and then the shells of the individual nuts. Nice and energy efficient there, huh?

I also don't understand the argument that, since it requires time and patience to gather some of these foodstuffs, that Paleolithic Man wouldn't have done it because of inefficiency. Why? Because he was in a hurry to get somewhere? If we take the romantic idea of Paleolithic Man as a member of a small tribe that existed prior to regular trade and "civilization," then what else, other than hunting and gathering food, would he have to do? Get to the Stonebucks to meet with his next Client? No - when you are existing in the wild, you spend the majority of your time foraging - anything that is edible goes into your bag, and when you hunker down for snacky times, you eat what you found. If you live in a small tribe, and have communication and organization, you will learn to divide the foraging and hunting - that way you optimize, in your Paleo brain, the opportunity to always have at least some food available. Paleo Man didn't have to be anywhere specific most of the time - I doubt that there is much rushing about when you don't have to be anywhere or meet any specific deadline.

While I fully intend to trend my eating habits away from processed and refined carbohydrate sources, I'm not a fan of the argument behind the Paleo Diet. I wildcraft/collect a fair amount of my food, and let me tell you - active hunting is perhaps one of the most dangerous and high energy consumption processes out there, with little guarantee of reward. Tubers don't run away from you.

I could go on and on about this. Suffice to say, I am going to start following a modified Mediterranean diet next week - heavy on the leafy greens, fruit, fish, and nuts, with the modification of adding in animal proteins and small amounts of grains.

My small step will start with modifying my lunch to look like that, and then my dinner, and eventually my breakfast.