Reading, Reading, Reading....

I'm reading Dr. Loren Cordain's book, "The Paleo Diet" - he is considered one of the foremost experts on paleolithic nutrition, and the book is written in a way that I can understand.

I'm overwhelmed by the constant references to clinical trials, and all of the good and bad qualities of numerous oils, acids, etc. It's too much information, but he continually reinforces lean meats, veggies and fruits as the basis of the diet. The book has a ton of recipes, and resources for getting fresh game meats, etc delivered if you don't live in a hippie friendly city like I do. :-)

One of the most interesting tidbits I've learned from this book is the relationship between omega 6 polyunsaturated fats and omega 3 polyunsaturated fats. Omega 3's are found in fish, veggies, good oils, and walnuts (some other nuts are good, but walnuts are the best). Omega 6's are found in highly processed foods, and Omega 6 is contributed to the development of heart disease and certain forms of cancer - it also aggravates auto-immune and inflammatory diseases. The ratio for Omega 6 to Omega 3 fats should be about 2:1, but in the average American diet, that ratio is more like 10:1 or 15:1 - pathetic, huh? We wonder why we are so unhealthy...

I also thought that nuts, in general, were good for you. Not so - all nuts and seed, except for walnuts and possibly macadamia nuts have unacceptable levels of omega 6 to omega 3 fats. Pumpkin, sunflower seeds, almonds, and peanuts are the worst offenders - the ratio of sunflower seeds omega 6 to omega 3 is horrifying. Keep in mind that the desired ratio is 2:1; sunflower seeds boast a ratio of 472.9:1. Unbelievable. Does this mean that we should stop eating all of these nuts? Of course not; they do have healthful benefits for us as well. But it does mean that they should be eating sparingly, and used more as toppings for salads, etc, than eating plain by the handful.

One other statistic jumped out at me from the page while I was reading last night. The humane genome, according to carbon dating and DNA studies, has changed 0.02% in the last 40,000 years. Staggering. Even if you don't buy into evolution and carbon dating, etc - and think that the archeologists are 30,000 years off on the bodies that they are excavating and testing - fine. But you can't argue with the 0.02% change. It's amazing to see how in the last 300 years, most notably in the last 50 years, how much our diet has changed. It is making us sick? Are we betraying thousands of generations of wisdom?

For my health's sake, I hope that the answers to these questions are yes. I hope that by going through this crazy diet overhaul I'll eventually get better.