Deconstructing the Paleo Diet – with Author Brenda Davis

that was so lovely thank you so much Steven thank you so much for having me here and thank you all for coming this evening I know it’s it’s a long day so to come out in the evening as well I really appreciate you being here and I hope that you you get something out of this presentation

and and just to give you a little bit of a you know of a foreword to this presentation I can remember must have been eight or nine years ago I was at my gym and people the buzz was paleo everybody was talking about it my fitness instructors all my favorite and fitness instructors were on the Paleo diet they were talking about where to get you know coconut bread and all of these things

and and it worried me because I knew what they were eating that they were eating just truckloads of meat and it worried me because of course I’m very concerned about what’s going on in terms of environment and animals and of course health and I thought you know really care about these people and I don’t want them to be facing cancer in in a few years by eating what they’re eating

and I thought you know I don’t know a lot about the Paleo diet and I thought I need to be able to speak to this whole movement with some knowledge and so I I started my my search for what the Paleo diet really is and what this movement is really all about

and of course it doesn’t really matter whether you call it paleo or primal or caveman or Stone Age or whatever we are seeing truly a new reverence for our you know ancestral style diets and the basic premise of the Paleo diet is what humans ate in pre-agricultural times is the diet that’s really best suited to our genetic make

it’s the same as with any animal what they ate in the wild is what they are meant to eat and it’s the same with human so that’s their their premise and they believe that the shift from a hunting-gathering diet that was rich in wild meat and wild plants to an agricultural diet rich in grains and legumes gave rise to our obesity and chronic disease epidemics so that’s kind of their tagline

I don’t know if you’ve heard of David Katz dr. David Katz he’s one of the most respected voices in nutrition in certainly North America and perhaps the world and he was the founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center and is a medical school professor he’s also the past president of the American College of lifestyle medicine and this is what he had to say

he said well it makes sense that our native diet is apt to be healthful we can’t conclude that a diet best suited to a two to four decade life which is how long people in Paleolithic times lived is just as good for an eighth decade life regardless for the sake of the argument let’s just say it is a good idea to eat like our ancestors

what would be the first question you would want to ask what did our ancestors eat right we need to know what they actually ate and in truth there was no one Paleolithic diet pre-agricultural people you know this was a long period of time so they ate a mix of wild plants wild animals fish insects whatever they could get

but the balance of these foods varied with the time frame within the Paleolithic period their location how close they were to the equator the season their gathering and hunting skills which of course evolved over time the tools they have had access to their culture and so on and so on

and there were very significant changes over time during the first 80% of the Paleolithic period humans were predominantly vegetarian probably 98% vegetarian during the last 20% of the Paleolithic period humans ate more of an omnivorous hunter-gatherer diet

so a lot of people say well I wonder if they were mostly hunter-gatherers are mostly gather hunters and of course it depended on where they were they were closer to the equator they were usually more gather hunters if they lived further north they were more hunter-gatherers

and the estimates of how much plants versus how much animals were if they were closer to the equator they ate you know one-third animals two-thirds plants if they were higher up it might have been as much as 2/3 animals one-third plants

so what didn’t they eat well they certainly didn’t eat anything from a box or a bag they didn’t eat any deep fried foods or fast foods they didn’t eat refined oils fats sugar salt they didn’t eat or drink the milk of other mammals or any products made from that milk

they certainly didn’t eat bacon ham salami sausage or any other processed meats and they didn’t drink alcohol they didn’t have access to any of these things so what is the Paleo diet well the Paleo diet is a pattern of eating that attempts to mimic the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors

and the slogan that you often hear is if a caveman couldn’t eat it then neither should you and this is what one of there are several Paleolithic sort or paleo food guides and this is one of the the common ones and you can see that the Paleo pyramid is about half meat and then fruits vegetables nuts and berries

and at the bottom you can see here that there’s a you know no grain bread corn rice etc there’s no legumes and there’s no dairy products and there are certain paleo superfood so paleo enthusiasts choose beef over beans eggs over ODEs they love organ meat bone broth and coconut oil these are all hailed as super foods

so the big question that I asked myself was I wonder if these new paleo diets have any really bear any true resemblance to a true Paleolithic diet so I decided to take a look at nutritional anthropology and in fact I came across two studies that provided very very detailed estimates of what Paleolithic man actually consumed

and the first was done in 1997 by Boyd Eaton and Melvin Conner and Boyd Eaton is a very famous name he’s these are fathers of the paleo movement if you will then in 2010 Melvin Conner and and Boyd Eaton came up with a revised version of their original estimates

and and what this revision was really all about was allowing for a greater range of intakes at different time periods and if when people were you know whether they were close to the equator further away etc but in this paper they say the following early ancestral diets were overwhelmingly plant-based with some insects and very small amounts of animal flesh

reliance on meat increased in later ancestral diets as hunting skills improved however much proof points to continued significant if not predominant dependence on plant foods so that’s very important so what did their research show

well on the left here you see the DRI this is sort of the recommended intake of macronutrients to the right of that you see the true Paleo estimates from 1997 and then the revised estimates from 2010

and so they estimated in 1997 average energy intakes were about three thousand calories a day the estimated protein intake sat around twenty five to thirty percent of calories they estimated carbohydrate in takes their original estimates were forty five to fifty percent of calories

they changed that to 35 to 65 again allowing the greater range of intakes 35 for people eating mostly meat 65 for people eating mostly plant fat they originally estimated total fat intake at 20 percent of calories they upped that to 20 to 35 percent of calories in 2010

saturated fat they estimated originally at 6 percent of calories they upped it to 7 point 5 to 12 percent in 2010 cholesterol around 500 milligrams omega-3 to omega-6 fat omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids around the two-two-one and fiber around originally they estimated a hundred and four grams a day later 70 to 150 plus grams a day

so is there anything that jumps out at you from those numbers anybody fiber-like holy smokes the average vegan gets 50 or 60 grams of fiber a day if you’re on a really good Whole Foods diet it might be 70 or 80 if you’re lucky but they were eating a hundred two and and you know possibly more than a hundred and fifty grams of fiber a day

so my you know little spidey senses went off and I went there’s no way no newfangled paleo follower is eating anywhere close to this amount of fiber and then the other thing that kind of stuck out at me was this originally when they were looking at a total fat intake of 20% they estimated saturated fat at 6

now all of a sudden they’re estimating at 7 point 5 to 12 even though the low end is still 20% so why shouldn’t it be 6 to 12 instead of 7 point 5 if we’re still at 20% total fat so I call I I email dr. Connor Melvyn Connor who was the senior author on that paper

and I said why did the estimate for saturated fat increase from six to seven point five percent of calories in a diet with 20% of calories from fat and this is what he wrote back he said this is an extremely insightful question and goes to the heart of a long-standing disagreement between Boyd Eaton and me or really between Loren Cordain

anybody that knows anything about ileal movement he’s another one of the kings of the paleo movement and Boyd versus me in my opinion coordinate al gave too much weight to the Arctic and Antarctic hunters mounted hunters and forest hunters which really had extraordinarily high levels of meat and fat but Melvin Conner put more weight on the plant eaters

so there was some disagreement there they ended up with the hut with a higher number but still didn’t really answer my question why the six to the seven point five percent so what about micronutrients well I’m not going to go through them all but I’m gonna tell you what really stuck out

vitamin C five to six hundred milligrams calcium one to two thousand milligrams potassium seven to ten thousand five hundred milligrams is what they were estimating if you know anything about nutrition well what where does vitamin C come from fruits and vegetables now what does the average vegan get maybe two or three hundred milligrams

calcium well they weren’t drinking any milk so they certainly weren’t getting it from cow’s milk where were they getting it from green leafy vegetables how much were they eating well they originally estimated almost two thousand milligrams lowered it to one to fifteen hundred

potassium originally ten thousand five hundred down to seven thousand the the the DRI you know the sort of acceptable intake forty seven hundred milligrams I can tell you it is tough to design a plant-based diet even with that much potassium it’s a challenge so imagine they were getting almost double act

so I again thought all of this just tells me planets plants plant so I thought to myself I wonder what really comes closer to a true Paleolithic diet a paleo diet or a vegan diet and so what I did was I went to the most popular paleo website on the internet that I could find and they actually had menus took three days of their menus

I they had all the recipes so I analyzed all the recipes analyzed the entire menu and calculated how much of what they were getting so I could actually compare it to true Paleolithic intakes then I did the same thing with a recommended vegan menu calculated everything so I could compare the two

and here you have what I did was was I I actually um made sure that it sort of they were isocaloric or all right I adjusted to make sure that the calories were three thousand for each menu so we could fairly compare them with a true Paleolithic diet

so you see the new paleo diet is is that has the red heading and then the true paleo in the middle and then on the right and the green is the vegan so let’s take a look at the nutrients in these menus compared to a true Paleolithic diet

so protein well there’s actually more the the new Paleo diet was closer to a true Paleolithic diet in terms of the amount of protein so you can see 32 percent for the for the new paleo about 25 to 30 percent for the true paleo and about 15 percent for vegan

carbohydrates were closer on a vegan diet at 57 percent the the true paleo 35 to 65 and look at this the new paleo they’re getting about 15 percent of calories from carbohydrates

then for fat closer on a vegan diet 20 to 35 percent of calories from fat for the real Paleolithic diet 29 for the vegan diet look at this 53% of calories from fat on this recommended Paleo diet

saturated fat well again the vegan diet was closer at 6 percent and as you recall they’re they’re estimating somewhere 6 or 7 point 5 to 12 and in the the new Paleo diet 19 percent of calories from saturated fat what’s recommended to remember the ACC the American College cardiology and the American Heart Association recommend no more than five to six percent of calories from saturated fat

these guys are getting 19% from this particular menu cholesterol well it’s zero in a vegan diet so it kind of gave it to the paleo because they’re eating some cholesterol but look at this they’re eating thirteen hundred and eight milligrams of cholesterol and it was about 500 in Paleolithic times at least estimated to be that

actually even the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 was closer on a vegan diet at four to one it was 11 to 1 on with this paleo menu and fiber well needless to say it was much closer on a vegan diet which came in at 70 grams of fiber they were at about 31 for the for the Paleo diet

so let’s look at the micronutrients we’ll go through very quickly riboflavin was closer in a vegan diet thiamine was closer on a vegan diet vitamin C closer on a vegan diet vitamin A was closer on the Paleo diet vitamin E was closer on the vegan diet

iron was actually closer on the vegan diet zinc was closer on the Paleo diet calcium closer on the vegan diet sodium closer on the vegan diet and potassium way closer on the vegan diet surprised surprised

so in summary what we’re seeing is the Paleo diet came closer to a true Paleolithic diet for the following nutrients protein cholesterol zinc and vitamin A the vegan diet came closer to a true Paleolithic diet for the following nutrients carbohydrate total fat saturated fat essential fatty acid ratio fiber riboflavin thiamine vitamin C any iron calcium sodium and potassium

which one comes closer to a true Paleolithic diet yeah bottom line is a new Paleo diet is nothing like a true Paleolithic diet compared to a true Paleolithic diet the typical new paleo menu contains about the same amount of protein and significantly different levels of most other nutrients

and why the preference for protein will the focus with the new paleo folks is achieving the protein intakes of Paleolithic people they don’t have any concern about matching other nutrients obviously hence the emphasis on meat as opposed to plant foods that would be necessary to achieve 70 to 150 grams plus a fiber right

so if you look at macronutrient discrepancies like there’s some huge difference between this you know new Paleo diet versus the Paleolithic the total fat in the new Paleo diet was about double the estimated intakes saturated fat two to three times higher cholesterol two and a half times higher carbohydrates were only a quarter to a half of true Paleolithic intakes fiber about a third

if you look at micronutrient discrepancies vitamins thiamine they got about 69% of the thiamine true Paleo Paleolithic people ate about 40% of the riboflavin 64 percent of the vitamin A 45 percent of the vitamin C 73 percent of the vitamin E and minerals iron was far lower zinc lower calcium lower sodium was the only thing that was way higher potassium about 68 percent

so why the difference why such a huge discrepancy between you know what when you think about it Palio’s meat and veggies right meat and non starchy vegetables is is nutritionally if that’s the case well meat was the primary staple in the menus analyzed

meat is not necessarily the primary staple of our ancestors and meat and vegetables consumed today were not available in Paleolithic times and bear very little resemblance to those eaten by pre agricultural populations and of course they used oil and salt and the recipes which of course people didn’t do in Paleolithic times

if you look at wild meat versus domestic meat meat from wild animals is much lower in fat than from domesticated animals it’s about 6 to 16 percent of calories from from fat versus 30 to 60 percent in farmed animals it’s much much lower in saturated fat and much higher in omega-3 fatty acids

meat from wild animals it’s also wild animals are free of hormones and antibiotics and of course in Paleolithic times also free of environmental contaminants so what about wild versus domestic plants here’s a bit of a surprise

cultivated vegetables and fruits have been bred for appearance palatability transportability digestibility and yield wild plants deliver over three times the fiber fiber of commercial plant foods that’s how we explain the discrepancy in the in the fiber really because they would have had to be eating truckloads of food to be able to get 150 plus grams of fiber

but because the food was you know of a third lower in in fiber or the food is a third lower in fiber today that explains that difference they are also more concentrated wild plants in vitamins minerals and protein and they’re much lower in sugar

so all of that having been said paleo and plant-based health advocates agree on a number of things we agree that highly processed fried and fast foods are best eliminated from the diet or at least drastically reduced there are primary sources of refined carbohydrates trans fats heated fats damaged fats added salt artificial sweeteners colors flavors food additives all of those things

we also agree that dairy is not necessary for humans we agree that alcohol is harmful especially in excess we agree that processed meat and meat from factory farmed animals are best removed from the menu even though a lot of paleo types don’t do that generally the the leaders of the paleo movement would advocate that

we also agree that vegetables and fruits should take center stage nuts and seeds are healthful foods organic local and fresh our best we agree on all of those things so where do we diverge

well paleo diets exclude legumes and grains they are featured staples in plant-based diets in a lot of plant-based diets whereas paleo diets feature meat poultry fish and eggs as staples and they are excluded or minimized in plant-based diets

so let’s look at these issues first of all issue number one the avoidance of grains and legumes so the Paleo rationale for eliminating grains and legumes include the following they say they were not a part of our ancestral diets they say they’re high in harmful anti-nutrients especially phytates and lectins and they say they cause inflammation and disease

so let’s take a quick peek at those claims so we’re grains and legumes truly not a part of our ancestral diets well actually there’s quite strong evidence that grains and legumes played key roles in pre agricultural diets

so we have some I’ll just give you a little flavor of some of the studies we have we have studies on Neanderthals showing that they ate wild legumes peas and fava beans and grains we have studies showing the icons sand of the Kalahari relied on the sin beam as a dietary staple only the mongongo fruit they consumed in greater quantity

we have studies showing legumes where the main energy source in the spring for the middle Paleolithic humans in Mount Carmel Israel we have studies on middle Stone Age with looking at middle Stone Age tool from Mozambique that showed home Ian Howe Pia homeo sapiens relying on grass seeds

so these are just a few of the studies that we have showing that our ancestors did rely on legumes and grains now there’s a another group from the University of Sydney and I actually just printed this out before coming the quarterly a review of biology and if you couldn’t read the small letters under there it says the importance of dietary carbohydrates in human evolution

and what they suggested is that Paleolithic humans would not have evolved on today’s paleo diet they said that cooking starchy food was central to the dietary change that triggered and sustained the growth of the human brain and so very interesting research by this particular group

but even so even if our ancestors didn’t eat grains and legumes sure Domitian in Paleolithic times mean exclusion today and I would argue that excluding foods because of their alleged absence in Paleolithic diets defies rationality

grains and legumes stand out as exceptional food sources for a growing human population when we consider the health economic ethical and environmental attributes of these foods so the next claim is that these foods are high in anti-nuclear ah paleo grains equal leaky gut say goodbye to grains and gluten let go of legumes why we should say no to beans

and this is the this is the mantra of the Paleolithic movement and I took this off turd off of doctor Dan but dr. Ben Bowles nur’s Paleolithic diet web blog and here’s what he says about anti-nutrients he says anti nutrients are toxins the vast majority and highest levels of anti nutrients are in neolithic foods like grains beans and potatoes

the Paleolithic diet has incredibly low levels of anti nutrients compared to the usual modern diet I believe that this is the number one advantage of this diet so he’s saying this is why because of the anti nutrients in plants this is why people should eat paleo

so what are anti nutrients well anti-nutrients are compounds like lectins and phytates these are the two examples most commonly used that actually interfere with the absorption of nutrients or are toxic at high levels the highest levels of anti nutrients are in plant foods especially legumes and grains

so why are they in plants well anti nutrients are necessary for the propagation and survival of plants they have two main actions number one to ensure that nutrients are not released prematurely because they need to be used by the plant slowly as it’s growing number two to serve as a chemical defense system against predators so to protect the plants that’s why they’re there

so let’s take a look at lectins and phytates just briefly so first lectins so what our lectins will lectins are a type of sort of carbohydrate binding protein they and and so they combine to both carbohydrates and to cell membranes so their type of protein

they can a gluten ate red blood cells which means they can cause red blood cells to stick together and make us quite sick in doing so they’re most concentrated in legumes and in grains the Paleo perspective they say that impaired intestinal integrity produced by dietary lectins may cause low level inflammation in our blood streams and this is a necessary step for atherosclerosis and cancer

so they’re basically blaming atherosclerosis and cancer on these anti nutrients they also go on to say that they may look like cells in your brain pancreas etc so the same antibodies that were created to attack lectin will actually go launch attacks on your own body and that’s the cause of autoimmune disease

so they’re saying you know type 1 diabetes celiac disease lupus ms are all you know this is all a part of causing these diseases so let’s take a look at what science says

well what science says is that some lectins are very damaging they can severe adverse food reactions like food poisoning and they can damage the lining of the small intestine and interfere with nutrient transport

others are actually very health promoting they decrease the incidence of disease they help the body with inflammatory modulation decreasing inflammation and they have actually quite powerful anti-tumor activity and there are just dozens of studies going on looking at specific lectins and even using them to treat cancer

so there’s a lot of research in this area but the bottom line is intakes of lectins are rarely high enough to threaten health and the reason is is that the the damaging lectins are lectins that we cook out of foods before we eat them

so and the studies suggesting adverse effects are predominantly on animals that are fed raw legumes humans cook legumes and conventional cooking practices completely destroys lectins

so for example red kidney beans if you don’t soak them you need to cook them for at least an hour at a high enough temperature bring them to a boil and boil them for about an hour if they’re soaked overnight 10 to 15 minutes will kill all the lectins like a hundred percent gone so we just need to be aware of that

a germination and fermentation can reduce lectins by seventy five to a hundred percent depending on how long we ferment and how long we sprout so you know we they red kidney beans probably not a good plan to eat them raw sprouted because there’s still lectins that are very dangerous lectins that would remain

now I thought I came across this quote and I thought it was it was interesting because I don’t know if you’ve heard of crisp crecer but he’s a paleo advocate he wrote your personal Paleo code and he’s he’s quite astute he’s really quite a bright guy but this is what he said about about legumes

he said to my knowledge there’s only one study demonstrating humans being harmed by consuming legumes this study is often used by paleo advocates to prove that legumes are dangerous however what is often neglected is that this study described a case of food poisoning that occurred in hospital patients who he ate legumes that hadn’t been cooked properly

now he’s wrong there are dozens of studies that show this as a matter of fact there was one in 2015 I believe from Japan where somebody started this weight-loss craze where they were recommending that you you a toast white kidney beans for three minutes on a frying pan then grind them up in a blender to a powder and sprinkle the powder on your rice and thousands of people got violently ill it was a nightmare

and so we do have other reports of people consuming raw legumes with these very toxic lectins so that’s a lesson we know we need to cook large legumes but to me the acid test and have said this before the acid test is to examine the diets of the longest-lived healthiest people on the planet the people of the Blue Zones

and of course you recall the five Blue Zones Okinawa Sardinia Loma Linda Korea Greece and the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and the lifestyle patterns that are common to all of them are the the family the not smoking socially engaged the physical activity they all eat plant-based diets and they all eat legumes

if legumes if the lectins and legumes were so poisonous these people wouldn’t be the healthiest longest live people on the planet their their their main diet main dietary staples for all of them so I think that’s just a really important thing to remember

and we have a study that that we you know I just thought was amazing they them they found legumes to be the most important dietary predictor of survival in older people of different ethnicities and when food intake patterns of people seventy years plus from a variety of cultures were examined the only statistically significant food intake ur food indicator of longevity was legume intake

for every two thirds of an ounce or 20 grams of legumes consumed there was a seven to eight percent reduction in mortality you do the math how much reduction in mortality would you get if you actually ate a whole cup

so you know we know there are so many benefits of beans legumes have been associated with improved gut microflora they’re one of our most powerful prebiotics they reduce risk of diabetes metabolic syndrome heart disease in some forms of cancer

why because they’re our richest source of dietary fiber there they have very low glycemic index their nutrient dense they have a lot of protein iron zinc potassium magnesium and folate they’re high in phytochemicals and antioxidants they’re high in plant sterols and they’re very low in fat and a particularly low in saturated fat with the exception of soybeans and peanuts which are legume as well which are a little higher in fat

so what about fight AIDS well phytates first of all what our fight AIDS phytates are phytic acid bound to minerals in in plant food so it’s really the storage form of phosphorus in in foods

in the so they’re bound to calcium iron magnesium and the richest sources of phytates are whole grains legumes nuts and seeds we get smaller amounts and roots and and other vegetables and the most the richest source by far is is bran like wheat bran and rice bran are particularly concentrated

so as a vegetarian or a vegan one thing you do not want to do is sprinkle wheat bran on your food remember people who are you know sprinkle wheat bran to help with constipation and stuff vegetarians get enough fiber you don’t want to put a phytate bomb on your food

you already reduce about 50% less zinc than a non-vegetarian would say you need to do what you can to maximize absorb absorption of those minerals you don’t want to be sprinkling phytate bombs on but it doesn’t mean that you can’t have some phytates in your food

the paleo perspective here’s what they say about phytates beans and legumes like nuts and seeds are the primary source of calories for many people around the world and eating foods that so rich and phytic acid as a new as a nutritional staple is quite unhealthy basing your diet on these foods can lead to severe nutritional deficiencies this is ridiculous

but anyway here’s what science says phytates can impair mineral absorption however we reduce phytates when we sow sprout ferment bland juice roast yeast like raising of breads or expose foods to acid like lemon juice or vinegar so there are a lot of things that reduce phytates

but here’s what’s really interesting people eating largely plant-based have intestinal bacteria that are more capable of breaking down phytate mineral complexes than omnivores so our bodies adjust to a little bit higher load of phytates

but here’s the other thing a growing body of evidence suggests that phytates have multiple potential beneficial actions they’re strong antioxidants they help to repair DNA they protect against amyloid plaque formation where have you heard that before amyloid plaque formation is associated with dementia like Alzheimer’s

they lower cholesterol and triglycerides they inhibit tumor growth they improve glycemic response they inhibit bone loss and they reduce kidney stone formation so maybe we want a few phytates in our diet

you know what’s really interesting is legumes and grains are not the only sources of lectins and phytates many Paleo approved foods including not seeds vegetables fruits berries spices are also significant sources

and if you look at this list what you can see is the things in in pink are paleo forbidden the things in in green are paleo proved and so they approved some of the things that are actually at the very top of the list of phytate foods even higher than wheat bran is spinach and they eat plenty of spinach sesame seeds almonds walnuts pecan so they do eat phytates so they have a little bit of a selective exclusion there

and then finally do grains actually cause inflammation well absolutely if you have celiac disease or a grain intolerance otherwise the evidence suggests that whole grains reduce inflammation and refined grains increase inflammation that’s what we know

so issue number two is the Paleo preference for meat ah you know paleo rationale that they should be eating all of this meat is meat that this is what they say meat is essential to health providing many nutrients that are not provided by plants like vitamin b12 and vitamin k2 and carnitine and taurine and conjugated linoleic acid

eating meat results in higher protein lower carbohydrate intakes reducing our risk of chronic disease so those are the claims so let’s take a look at those claims nutrients necessary and meat do we really need meat for vitamin b12

well the answer is we can get b12 from fortified foods we can get b12 from supplements there’s even some evidence to suggest we could get b12 from some like chlorella and and blue-green algae so there are other sources of b12

but what paleo people probably don’t recognize is the Institute of Medicine and in countries around the world recommend that everyone over 50 years of age get their b12 from the same place as vegans get their b12

why because b12 is bound to protein in animal foods and when you reach 50 years of age plus the amount of enzymes and the amount of digestive acids you produce may not be sufficient to cleave the b12 off the protein it’s bound to and so you may end up thinking you’ve got a really good source of b12 but you can’t get the b12 from the animal products

so the recommendation is that everyone over 50 get their b12 from fortified foods or supplements vitamin k2 well anybody with a healthy gut flora and what we know if you heard my first lecture is vegans have a healthier gut flora then then omnivores

so we have a healthy gut floor if you have a healthy gut flora you should be able to do this little conversion of vitamin k1 that you get from plants into vitamin k2 which we need now if you’ve taken antibiotics then you may not be able to do that conversion for a while so you might want to take some k2 but we also can get it from you say natto natto is the fermented soy or of course from supplements if we so choose

so what about carnitine and taurine well both of these amino acids are adequately produced in most vegetarians we have a little bit lower levels but we still produce plenty and we have concerns about carnitine and TMAO production you don’t want to be eating massive amounts of carnitine

so TMAO are you familiar with TMAO this is trimethylamine oxide and and trimethylamine n-oxide to be precise but but what this is is when people eat meat or eggs there are certain components of these foods and one being carnitine another being choline

that that when they enter your gut you have microflora or omnivores have microflora in their gut that convert these things into something called tea ma and the tea ma get shuttled to the liver where it gets converted to TMAO and TMAO is highly atherogenic

it causes us to lay down plaque in our blood vessels and increases our risk for heart disease and kidney disease and so TMAO is not something you want to be making a lot of what’s really interesting is vegans don’t make any even if you take a carnitine supplement you don’t make tea ma because you don’t have the bad bacteria in your gut to produce it

so this is a you know one of the benefits of being vegan I would say but these amino acids are not to be concerned about linoleic acid or CLA the clinical evidence does not suggest any health advantage to consuming preformed CLA we don’t have to worry about it

what about the claim that you’ll get reduced disease risk well actually we do have a growing number of small clinical trials that suggest impressive short-term improvements in body weight satiety lipid profiles blood glucose insulin sensitivity inflammation blood pressure using Paleo style diet

why the favorable results well paleo diets significantly reduce foods that are linked to obesity and chronic disease so you’re eliminating refined grains refined sugar refined fats and oils fast foods fried foods processed meat like bacon ham wieners high-fat dairy products like cheese and ice cream and alcohol

so if you remove all of those things you might get some you know some some good things happening however what you need to understand is clinical trial paleo diets do not equal popular paleo diets you saw the numbers when I analyzed the three days worth of menus they were getting 53% of calories from fat 19 percent saturated fat so they were getting a lot of not such good things

the clinical trials they are very carefully designing these diets so that the fat is around 20 to 30% the saturated fat is low so this is you know a big clue here and and so and also they load the diets up with vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds so paleo menus are just way less rigid for most people they’re using oil they’re using processed meat they’re using salt and definitely not the same as clinical trials

the other thing we need to recognize is we’ve only got very short term clinical trials and in my view it’s short term gain for long term pain paleo diets induced weight weight loss and we see favorable lab results in the short term but there really significant concerns to adopting such diets in the long term

and so there’s one study from Harvard 2014 that looked at over 4,000 post heart attack survivors and this is in the Nurses Health Study in the health professional study and they found that those that were adhering to a low carbohydrate diet high in animal sources of protein

this was this diet was associated with a 33% increase in all cause mortality and a 51% increase in cardiovascular disease mortality and they said that an increase in adherence to a plant-based lower carbohydrate diet was not associated with changes in all cause or cardiovascular mortality

and there are many concerns with meat animal protein as you if you’ve ever read dr. Colin Campbell’s work if you’ve looked at any of the new research on animal protein I’ll talk a little I’ll tell you about some of it you’ll know that animal protein is not all it’s cracked up to be

there are a lot of agro chemicals in in meat again the carnitine there’s endotoxins don’t endotoxins are these are toxins that meat has a lot is contaminated with a lot of bacteria and dead bacteria when it it it decomposes there are very significant toxins that are highly inflammatory and so these are endotoxins

environmental contaminants persistent organic pollutants like dioxins and PCBs heme iron which is a pro-oxidant hormones and antibiotics on neu5gc which is a pro-inflammatory molecule in animal flesh foods nitrosamine x’ from processed meat products of oxidation when you cook the meat like heterocyclic amines polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons advanced glycation end-products saturated fat and cholesterol

and we see an upregulation of cancer-promoting genes when meat is consumed there are a lot of concerns with meat there is a scientific consensus on me the scientific report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee said that the the committee’s examination of the association between dietary patterns and various health outcomes revealed remarkable consistency in both findings and implications for all conclusions

heart disease hypertension cancer diabetes etc with moderate to strong evidence higher intake of red and processed meat was identified as being detrimental to health that’s from the USDA

if we look at the most recent meta analyses on red meat and mortality very consistently red meat and processed meat increase mortality from anywhere between you know ten five ten percent to forty four percent for processed meat

meat and diabetes and not just red and processed meat but also total meat and poultry we see consistently they all increase diabetes risk and some profoundly a serving increasing risk by 51% for processed meat and even for unprocessed meat as high as as you know a 20% and for total red meat again as high as almost 50% in a couple of studies

if we look at red meat and cardiovascular disease it’s the same story all over again you can see unprocessed meat less damaging than processed me but both increasing risk

if we look at unprocessed red meat in cancer again we see consistent increases of risk in every type of cancer colorectal cancer glioma or brain cancer bladder cancer breast cancer colon cancer non-hodgkins lymphoma lung cancer and you know it’s just the same story for for all of these types of cancers processed meat and cancer even higher numbers

the current recommendations from the American Institute of cancer research and the World Cancer Research Fund is to limit intake of red meat and avoid processed meat they say people who eat red meat should consume less than 500 grams or 18 ounces a week or two point five ounces 70 grams a day very little if any to be processed

in 2015 the World Health Organization declared processed meat a group one human carcinogen and red meat a group to a or probable human carcinogen so this is you know this I when I think about this I think you know we’ve got all of these cancer organizations

and I can remember not so many years ago was probably three or four years ago walking by a cancer fundraiser and they were selling hotdogs it you know selling hotdogs Itzik selling cigarettes to raise money for cancer research so we know it’s in the same category now it’s in the same category is cigarettes alcohol asbestos and arsenic so this is this is something people need to be aware of

there’s another study they have a Harvard health professional study that came out in 2016 over a hundred and thirty part participants that were followed for about thirty years and here’s what they found

they found that if we replace we replace animal protein with plant protein and and just three percent of calories from animal protein with plant protein we would reduce risk of death by thirty four percent

if we’re replacing just three percent of calories of processed meat with three percent of calories from plant protein 12% for unprocessed meat 19 percent for eggs eight percent for dairy six percent for fish six percent for poultry

the author conclusion hi animal protein intake is positively associated with mortality and high plant protein intake is inversely associated with mortality substitution of plant protein for animal protein is recommended

there was another study in 2014 by Levine and he took over 6,000 participants this was 18 year follow-up looking at people aged 50 years plus and people who were consuming at least 20% of their calories from protein

so people of 50 to 65 years of age over 20% of calories from protein increased their risk of mortality by 74 percent increase the risk of cancer death by 433 percent that’s over four times increase their diabetes risk by three hundred and ninety three percent

and this is what’s interesting the associations were abolished are greatly attenuated with plant protein which means this didn’t hold true if the 20% of protein was coming from plants it only held true if the protein was coming from animal foods

and they looked at people 65 years plus and they found the higher protein intakes were actually an advantage except it increased risk of diabetes about 10 times so you might wonder why why did people 50 to 65 years of age why were they so much greater risk for disease and death with 20% plus of calories from protein whereas people over 65 weren’t

I thought about that myself so I did a little bit of math and protein absorption first of all is significantly diminished in seniors so even if they’re eating more protein they’re not actually absorbing as much into their blood streams

but even at 20% of calories from protein senior seniors don’t eat as much and so if you look at protein intakes of 20% you look at 1,600 calories which a senior might be eating that’s 80 grams of protein that’s precisely what the Australian government says a man over 70 years of age should be consuming actually theirs is 81 grams of protein

so 1,600 there bang on because they’re not absorbing you know they’re only absorbing 75% of that probably so they’re getting exactly what they need to get about 60 grams right well a younger man eating 2800 calories would be getting a hundred and forty grams of protein there’s a big difference there and he’s absorbing it well

so that’s probably why they didn’t see the same kind of results with older people there was another study called his meat killing us Mayo Clinic 2016 this is a very highly respected organization they reviewed six studies over three million participants

they found a strong consistent association they found strong consistent evidence that increased intake of red meat especially processed red meat is associated with increased all-cause mortality and vegan diets and they use the word vegan

vegan diets improves several parameters of health including reversal of cardiovascular disease decreased BMI decreased risk of diabetes and decreased blood pressure and their conclusion avoidance of red and processed meat and a diet rich in plant-based Whole Foods including fruits vegetables whole grains nuts and legumes is a sound evidence-based recommendation

so I wanted I had to throw this in what about bone broth because have you heard bone broth is like the superfood of the century so paleo folks are very strongly advocating the use of bone broth

and so I did a little search on PubMed PubMed is where I go when I want to find the most current literature and do a search on whatever you can go to PubMed you can type in meat diabetes and see what comes up you can type in bone

so what I did was I did a couple of certain these are the common claims they tell us that it heals liek he got reduces joint pain and inflammation diminishes cellulite boosts immune function makes your hair shiny diminishes food intolerances and allergies and so on and so on

so the first search I did was bone broth and health I typed in those two words and I found 14 articles that’s it out of millions of articles on PubMed not one single one of those 14 articles was on the health effects of bone broth

it was on using bone broth in in research studies as a on a petri dish or whatever it wasn’t about bone broth having any effect on health so I did another search and my second search was bone broth risks and there were 10 articles that came up

only one article was relevant to human health and here it is the risk of lead contamination in bone broth diets in a controlled blinded study lead concentrations in three different types of organic organic chicken bone broth was found to have markedly high lead concentrations

researchers advised doctors and nutritionists to take the list the risk of lead contamination into consideration when advising patients about bone broth diets that’s it that’s all I could find I don’t know where all of the claims come from because they sure as heck don’t come from science I found nothing that’s it arsenic

so Ken knew paleo diets ever equal true paleo diets well it would be difficult if not impossible to recreate a true Paleolithic diet but to bring new paleo diets closer nutritionally they would have to increase high fiber nutrient dense plant foods including vegetables fruits and and berries

they would need to include more fiber rich starchy foods to get the carbohydrates up and the fat down like legumes intact whole grains and starchy vegetables and they would need to eliminate processed meat and eat less meat that’s what they would need to do

but even if true Paleolithic diets were optimal for human health and we could effectively recreate a Paleolithic diet a diet is really only as good for the human species as it is ecologically sustainable and ethically justifiable

paleo diets downplay the ecological crisis that makes eating lower on the food chain an ecological imperative during the entire Paleolithic period the human population grew from an estimated 1/2 million people to about 6 million people

today we have over 7 billion in getting close to 8 billion people on this planet by 2050 it will be well over 9 billion people if we all ate paleo and I didn’t do the math on this one dr. David Katz did the math on this one and he said if we all ate paleo we would need an estimated 15 planet Earth’s to sustain the current population

there was a study done in 2008 by Webber and Matthews and they said that in this study eating a hundred percent plant-based diet just one day a week reduces greenhouse gas emissions more than eating a hundred percent local seven days a week 24/7

the United Nations environmental expert panel concluded two activities have a disproportionately large effect on the planet’s life-support systems number one animal agriculture number two the use of fossil fuels their recommendation a global shift to a plant-based diet

the National Academy of Sciences in 2016 said that by 2050 greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 29% if everyone on the planet followed the recommended the global dietary recommendations to eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat sugar and calories but it would be reduced by 70% if we all ate vegan their recommendation a global shift to a plant-based diet

well what about eating just just eating free-range well most paleo eaters promote the consumption of free-range grass-fed animals meat from these animals is more expensive it’s not always available especially if you’re eating at a restaurant

but even if you did eat completely completely free-range this is what a lot of paleo folks don’t know look at we’re here we have what we basically have is the kilograms of co2 per kilogram of food produced

and the very top of this list is what grazing beef free-range beef has the highest carbon footprint of any meat then we’ve got sheep meadow beef and feedlot beef being even lower then we’ve got seafood pork agriculture seafood chicken and eggs

and at the bottom of the list we’ve got meat substitutes beans peas and soy almost nothing by comparison you know and I I think I told this story before but I’m gonna tell it again since I have time

when my son was in university in environmental sciences during his fourth year his professor had all of the students in the class calculate their carbon footprint and he he phoned me right after class and said you’re never gonna guess

what we had to calculate our carbon footprint my carbon footprint was less than half of anyone else in the class I had by far the lowest carbon footprint and he said everybody was so mad because they ride their bikes and take two minutes hours and do all of these things and I’m driving harder to school

and my carbon footprint was still less than half theirs and and they all said to the professor but why Sir why and he said read my lips he doesn’t eat meat and that’s why so we’re starting to get it

you know if our entire population ate a paleo diet our planets dwindling resources would very quickly run dry if everyone ate a plant-based diet the global calorie supply would increase by 50% which some say could effectively wipe out hunger

and the paleo founders concur Boyd Eaton and Melvin Conner are the founding fathers of the current Paleo diet movement much of the essential foundation of the movement is based on their research will not anti meat

they agree that eight billion people cannot eat a meat-based diet without sacrificing the planet their advice heat less meat get most of your protein from plants

paleo diets are also disregard the ethical issues associated with an increased demand for meat 70 billion land animals are slaughtered for food every year most are raised in Kay foes concentrated animal feeding operations paleo diets increase the demand for meat and they increase animal suffering

and for those of you that aren’t aware I just want to tell you just a tiny little bit about this most of the animals in that 70 billion are poultry are chickens and every animal is an individual

and the animal I offer I like to talk about because I think people can relate to this animal more are pigs I like to talk about pigs because pigs have a lot in common with dogs into of intelligence

dogs there was a study done in California that rated dogs at about a two and a half year old child the intelligence of a two and a half year old child they raided pigs at a three-year-old child

and as a matter of fact I was just astounded when I read what they were doing research-wise they taught pigs to use a joystick on a computer and they had a game for them that they had to match up shapes on each side of the computer

and if they match the shape correctly they got a treat coming out of this little funnel and the researcher said there was no pig that ever made a mistake and the researcher also said she couldn’t teach dogs how to do that

no dogs no matter how smart they were the dogs could not learn that game and she also said we taught a chimpanzee to play the game as well and she remembers saying to the chimpanzee if you were a pig you would have had this five minutes ago

and and so you know the point being that that somehow somehow someway we love the animals in two categories according to how animals choose to you or how humans choose to use those animals

if we use the animals as pets and they are companions they are given a very very different we look at them very differently than we do animals that we consider food

somehow animals we consider food we forget about their sensibilities about their intelligence about their needs and and for those of you that don’t know pigs that are raised in Kay foes we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of pigs sometimes in one facility and they each have a small space and the space is so small that they can’t even lie down

pigs would live about 12 to 15 years they live six months in these facilities their life is six months when pigs are oh I don’t know I’m not an expert on this but I think it’s about three weeks of age

because they go insane in the facilities because their smeller’s are about 200 times stronger than ours and they the the the dust and dander and stench and we have to put gas masks on when we go in because we can’t stand it

their smeller’s are 200 times more powerful than ours you can imagine what it would be like that they go insane and so they try to bite one another’s tails off they’re just in this tiny little space

and so what we do is cut off their tails we cut off their ears we cut off their genitals with no anesthetic whatsoever when they’re babies and and that’s that’s we have modified animals we have turned them into meat making machines

and we are so far removed from them that we forget that they’re living beings they’re feeling loving beings and and it’s so easy to forget when they’re as my friends had camouflaged in cellophane in the grocery store

and when we look at you know I think back not so many years when my mom grew up on a farm she you know they had a few pigs and a cow and they had names for all of their animals and and yes those animals still died at the end of their lives but they actually lived quite long lives

today I think people just don’t know we it’s too hard for people to take the blinders off because if you take the blinders off you can’t eat these animals anymore you just can’t

it’s there’s that there’s this cognitive dissonance between what’s really going on and what we’re doing and when we know we can’t do the same anymore and in my view when we when you think about all of this there is no way humans can justify what we are doing to animals there is no justification for it

it’s um you know it just makes no sense for humans to cause such horrendous pain suffering and death in billions and billions of animals not including any of the animals from the-from waters any of the fish or turtles or any of the other animals we kill when it is absolutely completely unnecessary

not only is that unnecessary we’re destroying the planet we’re killing ourselves you know it it’s it’s unnecessary and it’s harmful it’s got to stop it’s just got to stop

the ultimate question is not whether paleo diets can support human health but rather how humans can best adapt to their current environment to sustain a growing population on a shrinking planet that’s the ultimate question

and we as individual human beings have a choice it makes sense to eat Whole Foods however it makes very little sense to funnel those Whole Foods through animals in an overpopulated world when we consider the consequences of our food choices not just for ourselves but beyond ourselves a plant-based diet just very simply makes sense

and I want to tell you because I actually have a few minutes left I want to tell you a story and this is the story of my son when he was three years old this is 27 years ago I have two children one is a 33 year old daughter I have one granddaughter whose will be two in April and I have a son who’s thirty years old

when he was three I can remember he used to watch you know whatever it was Sesame Street and there were commercials about McDonald’s and in the commercials there were hamburgers growing on this tree and the hamburger at the Hamburglar what he call hamburger glar or whatever he would come and steal the hamburgers off the trees

the hamburger ler anyway he would come and steal the hamburgers off the trees and and I can remember driving I was driving in the car with my son and he saw a big you know golden arch sign and he said mommy can we please stop and have a McDonald’s hamburger

and I thought okay now is the time I need to tell him I need to tell him the truth and so I said to him honey I said the hamburgers at McDonald’s are not the same as the hamburgers at home I said the hamburgers at McDonald’s are made of cows

and he looked at me and he went like this mom people do not eat cows like it was the stupidest thing it ever heard in his entire life and he just kind of like stupid and and so and so I I didn’t say anything right away and then he said do they mummy do they and I said honey yes they do

and and he had these you know little tears coming down and he looked at me and he said but mommy them have eyes he said mommy them have noses them have ears them have mouths he said don’t they know that cows are people too

and and I thought to myself why is it that children get it you know they just get it and then we spend the next you know 10 20 years desensitizing them we need to remember where we came from and what we’re here for

and you know I’m going to finish the story because about two weeks later he got invited to a McDonald’s birthday party his best friend and at that time McDonald’s had pizza and so he you know I figured well it’s not vegan but at least they had vegetarian pizza maybe he could just have that

and so he’s in the lineup he gets to the front of the line and he says I want a hamburger with no cows inside the lady looked at him she did not know what to say

so in summary avoid fatty meats eat your veggies and get your daily exercise that is the key to a long and healthy life not a paleo diet thank you thank you so we we actually have a few minutes and I would be absolutely delighted to take any questions you might have

Q&A Session

yes a question Mike wooden I’ll have a glass of water thank you for your magnificent presentation my question is this I use a a vegan meatball they have chicken a michael protein corn qo r in how do you feel about that as a product

yeah corn where where I am in Canada we can’t get that it’s a like you say it’s a micro protein product very very controversial some people react to it and and to be honest with you I haven’t looked into it with great enough depth to feel really confident and saying don’t eat it or it’s it’s safe

does anybody else has anybody else seen anything that might be helpful you know I guess the bottom line is is in if you’re using meat analogues you want to choose sort of the least processed meat analogues you can if if it’s available

so so we see in burgers we see black bean quinoa burgers or we see burgers that are made of soy protein if you’re choosing a very meat like product at the very least you want it to be organic and the reason is is a lot of these proteins are extracted with harsh chemicals like hexane which is a neurotoxin

and so if you choose organic they do not use those kinds of dangerous chemicals to extract the soy protein and I would never say I I mean I you know well we’re on the topic and I brought it up the topic of soy there are a lot of strong anti soy sentiments in the even in the plant-based world

most of them you can trace back to West the Weston a price foundation and the work of Marion against Ally felon and one of the concerns I have is that we actually have a truckload of evidence on soy and the truckload of evidence is pretty favorable

so what we know about so and again if you’re using soy stick to organic soy I would say that for sure the less processed forms of soy like edamame tempeh tofu those kinds of soy products organic

and and so what do we know about soy well we know that women from Asia who consume soy on a regular basis have considerably less breast cancer young children and adolescents who consume soy during that time of their life have a significantly lower risk of lifetime risk of breast cancer

women who have breast cancer and consume soy have less recurrence and lower less chance of dying of the breast cancer we know that men who have aggressive prostate or at risk for aggressive prostate cancer have about a 50% risk reduction if their regular soy consumers

men with for less aggressive types of prostate cancers but a 30% risk reduction we know that soy reduces blood cholesterol levels and is much easier on the kidney than a lot of well than any animal protein that’s for sure

and we’ve even got some evidence that it can reduce male pattern baldness and in in reduce symptoms of menopause and again if you do the acid test two of the five zone of blue zones consume soy on a regular basis

the Okinawans and the seventh-day adventists vegetarians and the Okinawans consume two servings of soy a day and they consume that not just fermented soy they consume tofu and they consume miso which is fermented

so I think just to to be and because one of the things that I I get concerned about when we say you know don’t you know eliminate everything is is that the intake of soy gives more variety it’s a very high quality very versatile protein source

and it allows for just a much more for many people enjoyable diet because it’s a really good substitute for meat and it has that texture if you have really firm tofu for example or tempeh so it allows greater variation and is a good quality food

so I at least that’s from my experience and the stew and the the literature searches that I’ve done so any other questions

yes I just heard there was women who had breast cancer they were advised not to use soy yes so so thank you for that and and they they were advised because um soy contains what we call selective estrogen receptor modulators

and what that means is that is that the phytoestrogens in soy are serve as weak estrogens in some tissues and anti estrogen in other tissues and in breast tissue we’ve now learned that it serves more as an anti estrogen

so it actually attaches to estrogen receptor sites and keeps the really potent human estrogen off which is very you know increases cancer growth it acts as a more of a weak estrogen in brain in bone tissue for example which is a good thing it helps to build bone

so we don’t know how significant that is but it seems to do that now in 2012 the evidence became so overwhelming in favor of soy with breast cancer that the American Cancer Society and the American Institute of cancer research actually released statement saying women don’t have to worry about so anymore as a matter of fact it’s probably protective

you just say that soy helps with bone growth well well you know the studies are limited but what I’m saying is it acts as it seems to act as a weak estrogen in bones and that weak estrogen estrogen increases both you know increases bone density so there’s some thinking that soy may be protective in that way as well

what is the attitude of your son towards me now Oh what is my son’s opinion or his view towards meat now you know the story continues I mean I can remember when he was 16 years old and we went to my parents place and they were doing barbecuing meat and we brought our veggie stuff to to do

and I can still remember him running down the stairs crying because he just couldn’t stand it he just couldn’t stand it I can remember one time being on a plane with him and he was even a little bit older and they were serving chicken or whatever it was and I just saw the tears coming down he is a very hardcore vegan

I’ve had breast cancer triple positive her2 cancer and my doctor now has me on a remedy X for ten years do you think on being on a vegan diet with no soy or very little soy that it’s really necessary to be on an estrogen suppressor

oh well a soy is an estrogen repressor so so I wouldn’t be saying you need to eliminate soy by any stretch because even people on tamoxifen they do better with soy in their diet than without the studies are very clear on that

we have a lot of studies now so so on a vegan diet whether you have soy or not I don’t know I haven’t seen studies that would show that you do not need to be on and I mean to me soy in it that’s what it is because it attaches to estrogen receptor sites

it keeps estradiol off which you know is the the dangerous estrogen is the human estrogen not the soy estrogen it protects us against the human estrogens attaching to those receptor sites it’s doing the same job as the drug Iran okay so just to realize that

so I don’t know I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be comfortable saying that you should go off that medication mm-hmm I’m sorry yeah so if you go on to PubMed and just put in soy breast cancer you will see dozens of studies come up just put soy breast cancer and you’ll see them all very very clear

what is it about the Okinawans that live the longest what is it special about their die cuz I know they eat like 70% of sweet potatoes what is it I know sweet potato has almost every vitamin you can imagine but so what

it what is it that they do because I know they don’t have any blenders I don’t think they use any juicers and I think yeah so I mean know what is it about them their diet that they they go to 100 and still be working in the field yeah yeah

and you know what I think it is I think largely they know processed foods and they are lean they’re not they do not over consume this so they call it Harry Hachi booth stop eating when you’re 80% full

they’re very very lean and they stay fit they keep constant constantly active but in terms of diet what they’re doing is about 60% of their calories is from purple sweet potatoes or was I mean their diet has changed

the Okinawa is not the traditional Okinawa that is a blue zone it’s changing rapidly which is very unfortunate there’s even we see you know little pieces on on you can look on YouTube and you can see that the the centenarians that their kids are dying their 70 year olds are dying of heart disease now because they’ve changed their way of life so much

but the traditional Okinawans they they the purple sweet potatoes ate two servings of soya day they ate seaweeds they ate a little bit of rice but it wasn’t a primary food

they eat a half an ounce of fish which was is a very very tiny amount and their portions were fairly small and of course they a variety of vegetables and such and that was and miso was their really their diet

but also one of the things about the Blue Zones is the social aspects I I mean they if you’ve ever read one of the other books that I think is just absolutely beautifully written is healthy at 100 by john robbins and he looks at the Vilcabamba pnes and the applications and the several of that long other long-lived peoples in the world

and and it you know it’s just so much he I think he he brings it out more brilliantly than anyone about the social aspects of longevity and the respect for for seniors and for elders and and the way they’re treated and and and just the the social engagement within these these long-lived populations

I don’t think we can underestimate the value of that I see documentation that say that then she’s only a certain amount of soy yes oh thanks for that Steve no I’ll tell you everybody should only eat a certain amount of soy okay

so the recommendations and I really appreciate you bringing that up for children we say just one or two servings a day because they have little bodies and phytoestrogens can they can get too many quickly

I one time dealt with a couple actually a physician couple who’s a four year old girl was probably consuming ten servings a day and she had actually started to bleed so way too many phytoestrogens so in in in children you know fairly small amounts

in adults the recommendation is two to four servings a day as being very safe amount now in men there were two studies that showed men getting sort of feminization from like growing breasts and feminization from consuming soy

in one of the studies I believe the guy was eating twelve servings of soy a day and in the other I think it was 20 servings it was just ridiculous I mean they were just living on soy that’s all they were eating you can’t do that you shouldn’t be doing that with any food

so otherwise there have been many studies looking at the consequences of soy for men and it doesn’t affect any much of anything it doesn’t affect their hormones it doesn’t as a matter of fact look on there’s a website which probably you are all familiar with called nutritionfacts.org michael greger he’s got some wonderful little clips on soy and men so he summarizes the data quite low but it quite nicely you’re welcome

oh you were talking about soy and this consumption where would I look to find information as it relates to like someone who has thyroid disease and under function thyroid you know and then just soy but also the the types of vegetables the cruciferous vegetables

so the question about if you have a thyroid disorder and the goitrogens that are present in food that combined you know that that can actually reduce the uptake of iodine in the production of thyroid hormones

and so these goitrogens are present in a lot of foods soy is one of them but flax seeds are fairly high in goitrogens especially if they’re uncooked uncooked cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and kale and brussel sprouts and so forth even nectarines and peaches and strawberries have some goitrogens

there are a lot of millet a lot of foods contain some goitrogens if you cook the foods you reduce the goitrogens you know the goitrogenic potential of the food so with flaxseed when they’re cooked you you reduce the cyanogenic glycosides that are problematic

so generally you obviously have to be more careful if you have thyroid disease but one of the things that I would say is for many people what we know is Gorgons are not an issue if you get enough iodine okay

so it’s the combination of a lack of iodine in your diet and a lot of goitrogens that can put you in into trouble so if your if your iodine status is adequate you can usually handle a reasonable amount of goitrogens including some soy and some cruciferous vegetables

so just and what happens we do see this especially in Europe where the soil levels of iodine are a little lower where people go on a very healthy plant-based whole food plant-based diet but don’t include a source of iodine

cuz they don’t want to use iodized salt which is you know sort of the vehicle of fortification with iodine for the population they remove that and a lot of people seaweed is just ooh you know they just the thought of seaweed they don’t like that fishy taste

and so they don’t use seaweed because it’s another natural source of iodine and so if you’ve eliminated you don’t eat seaweed and you’re not using iodized salt you can end up with with you know problems with with thyroid

so so just be aware of that make sure that you’ve got a reliable source of iodine in your diet

so what do I recommend for as a diet for babies okay I think all babies you know the thing I focus a lot on diet and disease and disease reversal and and so when you’re looking at disease reversal you’re really the number one goal is to you know stop the the harmful components coming in

where babies and children are concerned you need to change your focus the focus has got to be ensuring adequate growth and development brain development muscle development you’ve got to make sure that the child has adequate nutrition that’s your top priority

so you need to be very careful about being overly restrictive with fat and you need to make sure that you’ve got a source of the key nutrients that could be low on a plant-based diet

so a plant-based diet for young children and the other thing is young children have fairly small stomachs they need to eat a little more often and they may need a little bit more concentrated sources of calories especially on a vegan diet

so if you look at the literature and you look at failures vegan children that have failed to thrive we see a couple of a couple of researchers that looked at populations there was black Hebrew population there there there there there was a microbiotic population for a while

and in in almost every case of failure to thrive in vegan infants what’s happening is they’re they’re using a just completely inadequate milk for the baby so the milk might have you know 17 or 20 calories per hundred mils instead of the you know hundred that it should or seventy that it should it so it’s just grossly inadequate formula

so number one is if at all possible breastfeed for at least two years okay number one because you will be providing the baby with you know the essential fatty acids the type of protein of the nutrients that are really important for an infant and the protection that are really important that is really important for an infant

so I would say child led weaning is is wonderful normal human breast feeding or or nursing is two to four years two to four years is normal and natural for humans less than a year is not so good

if you stopped breastfeeding before a year you must use a commercial infant formula and if you’ve ever seen the ingredients on these things they’re not great okay so you really want to do whatever you can do to breastfeed and preferably for a full two years

once you’ve that’s taken care of by six months of age you need solid foods so some people try to go beyond that but what happens is by four to six months iron stores are running out breast milk is not a very rich that the iron in breast milk is very very very bioavailable as is everything in breast milk but nonetheless there’s not a lot there

and babies can start to get iron deficient and iron deficiency means brain deficiency so you just don’t want to fool around with that so what’s a reasonable source of iron well now pediatric associations are saying meet you know stomach meet the first food which just kills me but anyway it’s ridiculous

it it sets up for an unhealthy microflora it just does all kinds of things that are not good so first food you can use you know iron rich vegetables or iron fortified infant cereals would be a reasonable choice

and and then you want to start right away getting in the vegetables and a variety of vegetables you don’t have to worry about yeah we weren’t used to worry about high nitrate vegetables for babies when we were starting with solids when they were really little but when you’re doing this sort of feeding starting at six months it’s not as big of an issue

and then the other thing that’s very controversial right now is do you need to puree food and if you start at six months you actually probably don’t you can mash foods you can let babies my daughter did this kind of child led I mean her little her little girl has always fed herself pretty much

it puts the food down and the baby feeds herself and and and she loves beans she loves you know and that’s one of the first foods as well beans would be a very good food to start with you want to start with beans fairly quickly by at least seven months and in a variety of beans

so that’s a really important food and you can do some tofu as well but but you just want to get variety in there and make sure that you’re not doing a lot of foods that have very little value because babies tend to eat such little quantity you want everything that crosses their lips to be a value

canned milk no no I’m talking about commercial infant formula period that’s it well you can get soy based or dairy based or you can get these you know amino acid you know the hydrolyzed anyway the you these are not your first choice by any stretch

but you cannot should not do a home made infant formula because whenever we see very sad stories of infants dying or infants with severe malnutrition it’s almost always because parents have been overly restrictive or given them a home-made infant formula that is grossly inadequate nutrition

so they need to get the nutrients and you need to make sure vitamin b12 is absolutely critical so if you’re nursing you need to make sure you’ve got a source of b12 because your baby without b12 if you’re not taking b12 and you’re nursing your baby within months your baby could have irreversible brain damage okay

so it’s nothing to fool around with your baby needs a source of b12 your baby needs vitamin D and so you should be doing vitamin D drops and those are really important and then the source of exogenous iron by six months those are really important you’re very welcome

one more question yeah okay my feelings on canola oil and canola oil is it was hybridized to remove the heuristic acid because heuristic acid is poisonous and so it was hybridized not genetically modified to produce canola oil

however probably you know the greatest percent of canola oil and the market is genetically modified to be pesticide resistant so for that reason if anybody’s using canola oil you would want it to be organic preferably

but other you know it canola oil probably has the lowest amount of saturated fat of any oil but my take on oils is oils are highly processed foods taken from Whole Foods that have very little nutritional value and 120 calories per tablespoon

it’s the most are that I should say the least nutrient-dense food on the planet so if you look at nutritional density score charts at the top of the charts are leafy greens then non starchy vegetables you know and going down the list and at the very bottom B low French fries and cheese you’ll find oil

okay so it has hardly any nutrients and a lot of calories so my preference is to get most of my fat from Whole Foods avocados nuts seeds those kinds of foods rather than getting it from oils

if you are using oil a little bit of oil in something I would say to stick to fresh pressed organic oils and preferably if you’re using themselves for salads something with a little bit of omega-3 in it so you get that essential fatty acid easily absorbed or something that’s mainly mono rather than something that’s omega-6 rich

so omega-6 rich oils are sunflower oil safflower oil grapeseed oil corn oil soy oil so those are omega-6 six rich rows and the reason you don’t want an omega-6 rich oil is because it tips the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 in the omega-6 direction too much

so you can eat sunflower seeds you can eat you know these higher omega-6 rich seeds like poppy seeds and sesame seeds and so on but you don’t want to be downing the oil so if you’re having oil it’s either mono or omega-3 rich mono avocado oil olive oil would be them the high mono oils

really yeah well it they do there there are several companies that do do an organic canola oil but there’s still if you tested it it’s possible that seeds from a GMO flew into their you know into their farm and and it’s contaminated

but I know there are companies that do their best to produce organic hemp oil and is a you know hemp seeds are amazing hemp as a crop is amazing it’s probably the greenest crop on the planet because basically you don’t need pesticides you don’t need herbicides

it grows in a hundred days it’s quickly renewable and you can make twenty five thousand different products with it and the food itself hemp seeds are super high in high-quality protein but twenty percent of calories from protein and the ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 is about three to one it’s really good

and the other thing is that hemp seeds contain something called steroid onic acid and steroid onic acid so you’ve got omega-3 is alpha linolenic acid the parent fatty acid the first conversion in that chain to get to epa and DHA is to steroid onic acid

well hemp seed is one of the very few foods that actually contains preformed steroid onic acid and so the conversion from Steyr donek acid to epa is much more efficient than from alpha linolenic acid to epa so that’s another bonus of hemp seeds

hemp seeds are are really a food worth looking at I use them all the time so if I’m using almond milk I’ll blend it with some hemp seeds if I’m making a salad dressing I blend some hemp seeds in I use them on a regular basis I think they’re wonderful food well thank you very much