RE: Moving Towards a Plant-Based Diet
I watched the same documentaries and I couldn't help but think about its fallacies. Yes, there is a big dose of "inhumanity" in industrial farming and that has to change. Stuffing animals with corn is not only bad for them but for humans too. It increases omega 6 content of meat, which causes inflammation - my mother-in-law gets into excrutiating arthritis pain whenever she eats red meat.
However, humans are not designed for a plant-based diet as our teeth show. You should watch Fathead to see that carbs, not meat, is the enemy. Ever since I turned (more or less) paleo I have melted - now comfortably sitting below 8% body fat. And despite eating at least 50% of my calories from fat, my blood work is stellar.
But you DO have a good point about grass-fed protein. The omega 3 content (good for the heart) is higher. But if ever you completely vegetarian/vegan, don't forget coconut oil. It's pure saturated fat of the good kind - anecdotal evidence suggests it is excellent for cognitive functions.
Excellent points and I agree with the skepticism. Good recommendation about Fathead, I'll check it out, but have heard similar things about our natural diet consisting of meat. Paleo is my go-to when I want to shed; it's an awesome way to drop weight fast. I'll keep y'all updated on how this experiment goes. I'm certainly not going to substitute meat for high glycemic starches, but i've long been interested in trying this, so here goes...
Not only to shed pounds but also to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I barely eat grain now, and I incorporate more fruits (real/dried, depending on what I have) when I need extra calories when I train harder like right now.
For sure, I just meant that that's how I've used paleo in the past. Some things that've kept me from maintaining it as my long run baseline:
I'm Italian-American and can't imagine a world without pasta! Albeit, it's now more of a treat than staple in my diet ~2x per month.
The anti-legume thing in paleo just never made sense to me.
I still feel like paleo encourages too much meat. I'm not entirely abandoning meat, just reducing and staying well diversified.
Otherwise, you can't really go wrong eating more whole foods and minimizing grains certainly keeps weight off, which is a big aspect of long run health.
absolutely and i've certainly tried a variety of the alts to pasta, just not a fan. i'm tempted to eat pasta every day, but i've settled on the 2x/month lower bound...
also with you on the seeds and nuts.