Quote Originally Posted by Owlie View Post
No, the Standard American Diet isn't the healthiest, but I'm not sure that rejecting whole groups of food is a great idea either.
The more moderate approach to this isn't that grains are bad necessarily, it's just that because of some of the mechanisms in grains (ie, a grain will not grow once it's been chewed and digested, so they have components to protect them from that happening so that they can survive), they aren't the best choice. Even if you look at all the vitamins and 'good things' in whole grains, the reality is that a lot of that good stuff is not bioavailable to your body. If your body can get all the same good stuff from veggies (and more), why bother with grains? It's not unlike choosing to eat home-grown organic spinach over iceberg lettuce from McDonalds. Both are considered food, but the spinach is SOOOO much better for you, why wouldn't you choose it over the lettuce option? Taste? Perhaps. But I can attest that it doesn't take long to stop caring about eating grains when you feel this good without them.

Again, there are lots of places on this planet where the only choice for food is grains and certainly, eating grains is better than not eating at all. The point is that grains (and legumes, and in some cases, dairy) are not the BEST option.

In my case, I felt totally fine (and even healthy) before I went paleo. I only did it out of curiosity, not out of need. What continues to shock me to the core is how much BETTER I feel eating this way.

I don't have my copy of ISWF here at work, or I could find the studies and post links. There may be links to some of them at their website/blog:

http://whole9life.com/

Another good online resource is Mark Sisson's blog. He does a lot of research and isn't one to spout off 'caveman' ideals...you may be able to find the relevant research on his site as well (though his definition of 'primal' does include some dairy):

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/welco...#axzz22VSN3YDS