I'm venturing down this path. Feel strongly about it.
Funny that the last post I wrote mentioned Matt Fitzgerald and running on the track. Just crossed paths with the former by way of a poorly-written article I came across while sitting on my ass tonight. Visited the latter in person on Tuesday morning for a few 400m repeats.
Why do I say Matt's article is poorly written? Maybe that's not fair. He's got better chops than many, and certainly a more expansive portfolio than anything I could even approach. And I've enjoyed most of the articles and books he's written.
Perhaps more accurately, this skeptical look at the "Paleo diet" (I hate that fucking term) seems to propagate logical fallacies at best, and completely turn folks off of the idea at worst. Citing two vague epidemiological studies and inconvenience as the primary reasons why real food isn't worth the effort? His first example correlates brown rice with less worse health effects than white rice. But he frames it in a way that tries to tout grains as being able to "enhance health." Nice twist.
How do folks buy this? How can we say that we spent literally tens thousands of years without modern grains in our diet and that somehow we're now at risk of being "deficient" by not consuming them? And it's not like we scraped by during those times. We spent all those thousands of years thriving and evolving into our modern selves, all the while living without electricity, plumbing, or grocery stores. Compare that to our current predicament, in which it's "normal" to be overweight and weak. Are we thriving?
I know diet's not the sole component in all this, and I hate to get all prophetic about it. But it just drives me crazy that prominent people, folks that are held as leaders in their respective circles, parse together these weak-ass arguments and broadcast them to the masses. People trust people like Matt. Let's have some respect and offer some legitimate, concrete arguments please.
Funny that the last post I wrote mentioned Matt Fitzgerald and running on the track. Just crossed paths with the former by way of a poorly-written article I came across while sitting on my ass tonight. Visited the latter in person on Tuesday morning for a few 400m repeats.
Why do I say Matt's article is poorly written? Maybe that's not fair. He's got better chops than many, and certainly a more expansive portfolio than anything I could even approach. And I've enjoyed most of the articles and books he's written.
Perhaps more accurately, this skeptical look at the "Paleo diet" (I hate that fucking term) seems to propagate logical fallacies at best, and completely turn folks off of the idea at worst. Citing two vague epidemiological studies and inconvenience as the primary reasons why real food isn't worth the effort? His first example correlates brown rice with less worse health effects than white rice. But he frames it in a way that tries to tout grains as being able to "enhance health." Nice twist.
How do folks buy this? How can we say that we spent literally tens thousands of years without modern grains in our diet and that somehow we're now at risk of being "deficient" by not consuming them? And it's not like we scraped by during those times. We spent all those thousands of years thriving and evolving into our modern selves, all the while living without electricity, plumbing, or grocery stores. Compare that to our current predicament, in which it's "normal" to be overweight and weak. Are we thriving?
I know diet's not the sole component in all this, and I hate to get all prophetic about it. But it just drives me crazy that prominent people, folks that are held as leaders in their respective circles, parse together these weak-ass arguments and broadcast them to the masses. People trust people like Matt. Let's have some respect and offer some legitimate, concrete arguments please.
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