<story><title>Why do we eat grains? Thermodynamics</title><url>http://supplementsos.com/blog/why-do-we-eat-grains/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Irregardless</author><text>&amp;#62; Eating fewer grain products is not synonymous with popular diets like low-carb or gluten-free. It needn’t be borne by commitment to a food movement like paleo.&lt;p&gt;Sure, it doesn&apos;t &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be related to the Paleo diet, but that&apos;s still where it all stems from. It&apos;s the same as any other fad diet or pseudoscience: Come up with some reasonable-sounding claims that take advantage of poor scientific awareness (e.g. &lt;i&gt;10,000 years isn&apos;t enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead&lt;/i&gt;), then make millions of dollars promoting your diet and selling books to your unquestioning followers.&lt;p&gt;There&apos;s a common sentiment among Paleo zealots that they finally need to distance themselves from the irrational underpinnings that started the whole fad (see here[1] for a FAQ by the &apos;Paleo diet&apos; inventor). The problem arises when they go searching for scientific evidence to support their grain bashing, and then we end up with statements like this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; It can stem from the simple proposition that fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains. That’s an argument I’ll cover more deeply in later posts.&lt;p&gt;Oh, how convenient. Save the crux of the argument for another time. We&apos;ll all be patiently holding our breath.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>potatolicious</author><text>I don&apos;t see a paleo slant to this at all.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;&quot;(e.g. 10,000 years isn&apos;t enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead)&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a common claim by paleo supporters, but I don&apos;t see it in the article.&lt;p&gt;If anything the approach is the opposite: carbs are fine, but they are calorie-dense. In an era where we&apos;re over-consuming calories it makes sense to start cutting the most calorie-dense (and also least filling) foods first.&lt;p&gt;As someone who went to Fat Class when he was a kid, this has been accepted practice for dietitians for years. If you&apos;re over-consuming, you want to optimize for a balance of the amount of calories reduced vs. the amount of hunger increased. Leaving oneself hungry is the surest way to fall of a diet-change wagon - and cheap sugars give the &quot;worst&quot; combination of fillingness vs. calories consumed (it would be best if we actually needed said calories).&lt;p&gt;The argument doesn&apos;t stem from some pseudoscientific belief that some foods are magically worse than others for inscrutable reasons like inverting the polaron field. It makes its argument from the (typically anti-paleo) stance that all foods are (more or less equal) and calories are the primary concern.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why do we eat grains? Thermodynamics</title><url>http://supplementsos.com/blog/why-do-we-eat-grains/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Irregardless</author><text>&amp;#62; Eating fewer grain products is not synonymous with popular diets like low-carb or gluten-free. It needn’t be borne by commitment to a food movement like paleo.&lt;p&gt;Sure, it doesn&apos;t &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be related to the Paleo diet, but that&apos;s still where it all stems from. It&apos;s the same as any other fad diet or pseudoscience: Come up with some reasonable-sounding claims that take advantage of poor scientific awareness (e.g. &lt;i&gt;10,000 years isn&apos;t enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead&lt;/i&gt;), then make millions of dollars promoting your diet and selling books to your unquestioning followers.&lt;p&gt;There&apos;s a common sentiment among Paleo zealots that they finally need to distance themselves from the irrational underpinnings that started the whole fad (see here[1] for a FAQ by the &apos;Paleo diet&apos; inventor). The problem arises when they go searching for scientific evidence to support their grain bashing, and then we end up with statements like this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; It can stem from the simple proposition that fruits and vegetables are generally healthier to eat than grains. That’s an argument I’ll cover more deeply in later posts.&lt;p&gt;Oh, how convenient. Save the crux of the argument for another time. We&apos;ll all be patiently holding our breath.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>michaelkeenan</author><text>&amp;#62; 10,000 years isn&apos;t enough time for humans to adapt to eating grains, so we should eat like cave men instead&lt;p&gt;One of the details of that argument is that grains contain phytic acid[1], which humans can&apos;t digest. Phytic acid binds with important minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, making them unavailable when digested. Cows, sheep, goats, and other non-humans produce various phytases, enzymes that digest phytic acid, but humans don&apos;t. Some people (such as Marlene Zuk, author of Paleofantasy, recently linked on HN) say that 10,000 years is enough to adapt to a new food, and cite lactose tolerance as an example. But lactose tolerance is the result of a single SNP, which can occur in at least two places. To digest phytic acid, humans would need to evolve a whole new enzyme. You need more than 10,000 years for that.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>