There's a large amount of evangelism in the different dieting/lifestyle camps about which is better, and sometimes the arguments can get quite heated.
There's the strict paleo camp, normal paleo, primal, Atkins, Banting, ketogenic and LCHF camps, and there's even splinter groups within each of these, all with their proponents arguing that theirs is the one correct way.
The thing is, even though they all start at very different points, they end up at remarkably very close conclusions. Each of these “diets” are essentially, at heart, the same, there's only minor differences in what you can and can't eat. Yet those minor differences are the makings of almost holy wars.
When we talk about paleo and primals, they are based on the premise that we have been eating a certain type of food for 200,000 years before the advent of modern farming technologies and the human body is built to consume those particular foods. This directs us to “real foods” which our ancestors consumed, things like naturally reared meats, fish, and simple farmable vegetables, and away from mass farmed, mass produced items like wheat, sugar, legumes, gluten and in some cases dairy.
The LCHF style is based on the assumption that the human body runs best off fats and oils, in a mode known as ketosis and that when we eat excess carbohydrates our bodies shut ketosis down to convert to glycolysis. This allows us to eat things that are high in fats, such as meats, fish and full fat dairy (minus anything containing lactose), and encourages us to restrict our intakes of things that are overly high in carbohydrates, like wheat, sugar, and starches (including potato, corn etc).
There are also a few examples like Atkins, Banting, bulletproof and ketogenic too. However with all of these diets while their origins and reasoning are all varied and different, the final conclusions they come to all have a very high degree of overlap. If you're doing paleo or primal, you're basically doing LCHF. If you're doing LCHF, you're pretty much doing primal or paleo.
It's remarkable, that with so many different theories and origins, there were so many different people all working through the same problem and all coming so close to similar conclusions, don't you think?
If you want to sum up all the best parts of all the diets, and conclusions, what you end up with is:
Eat good naturally raised foods that we have been eating for many hundreds of thousands of years, keeping up high consumption of the fatty and oily foods, and keeping low or eliminating any foods that are artificially or mass produced and super high in carbohydrates.
Now if you take that conclusion, and compare it against any of the diets mentioned above, you'll see it makes a pretty tight fit with any of them.
So what were we all fighting about again?
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I've often thought that most of the friction was artificially caused by proponents who are trying to preserve or promote a "brand name" for their book writing careers. The adherents pick it up from them and use it to feel like they are in a special "in the know" group. Human nature is spread all over that like cheap peanut butter.
The worst ones ARE those that rebrand and then try to make it their own. Then when they get called out about it (“Oh so isn't that just paleo?”) fabricate points of difference just so they are different, and then lie about the other diet to make it look bad. I can't stand those guys.
Unfortunately for Cordain, "Paleo" has become the "fridgidair" of diets, in that his name for his diet has become the common name. Others, who tried to promote the same idea but failed, include Audette who came earlier with "Neanderthin".
Later folks, including one of my favorite web authors, Mark Sisson, tried their names but only succeeded in becoming addon frigidaires, as in "Paleo and Primal diets".
I've been refining my diet as I age for over 30 years now, you hit the nail on the head with this one.
As @baerdric said, if you're even doing a just the tiniest little bit to make yourself healthier, you're a hero.
We should all keep that in mind when we meet people who are doing things differently to ourselves. It doesn't mean they're doing it wrong because they're different to us, it doesn't mean we're doing it wrong because we're different to them.
here's room for all of the variations, and they've probably got a good reason for theirs.
Listen, learn, reevaluate.
I agree!
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Great to see you! And while I encourage any whole foods diet over a typical first World diet, I have a tendency to push the LCHF myself. So many diseases of civilization just go away when you cut the carbs.
It also depends, there are enlightened vegetarians who can actually manage to pull off LCHF. It's very tricky and requires a lot of macro and micronutrient tracking, but it can be done.
The problem is with the vegetarians who can't see the lighthouse through the broccoli they've hung in front of their face. (Not that broccoli isn't a fantastic food, I love it!) And then there's the ignorant, the misinformed and the deliberately evil, all working against “the cause”.
Glad to have you here, and looking forward to seeing some of your posts in #paleo!
mostly, i find, the people who argue most vehemently are experiencing an imbalance in their health. this includes myself. with any of these diets, it seems they have some weaknesses in common. overuse of intermittent fasting makes me angry, no matter the diet. mold toxins also are a common weakness across diets.
personally i solved many issues once i eliminated nightshades. this is only a challenge for about 20% of the population.
the most vitriolic attacks i experience are from long term vegans. since i have fixed my diet, i am able to more predictably remain calm. i also found, that no matter the diet, my difficulties did not subside until i reestablished my intestinal flora.
maybe there is a dietary fix for rambling. i haven't seen one yet.
Yeah, you gotta do what's right for your own body, and generally this means you need to listen to it and understand what it's saying to you and then a lot of trial and error until you figure it out properly.
There's also a long journey of rediscovery of things that we should know, but have been ‘forgotten’ (by which I mean that our entire society has been long term brainwashed) and we're only just now beginning to ‘remember’ through researching and dredging up old records, a lot of the things our ancestors knew instinctually.
Rambling is skipping from topic to topic without completing a thought properly and with a lack of clarity. Apart from your lack of capitalisations, I find your thoughts to be always on topic and coherent. Believe me, I've seen rambling before; it's not pretty and the people in question could definitely use a diet change.
thank you very much for the reply. i'll keep doing my best.
Thanks!