US News Gave the Paleo Diet a Low Rating - Is it Legit?

US News has recently rated the Paleo diet low on its list of healthy and acceptable diets.  I get so upset reading articles about how bad eating a Paleo diet is for you.  It's always backed up by misinformation, misrepresentation, and blatant attempts to protect their advertisers.  I’m not saying the editors or panel polled were unduly influenced.  However, how can it be that Weight Watchers was rated as one of the best overall diets for weight loss, but something that encourages you to eat whole, unprocessed food, can be the worst?  I also find it a coincidence that Weight Watchers has an advertisement on every page of US News’ diet section, which makes it even harder for me to take this 'study' seriously.

So let's look at these so-called flaws they've found with the Paleo diet.

Will you lose weight?

US News Stated: “No way to tell. Paleo diets haven’t yet drawn the attention of many researchers.”

This is a ridiculous statement! No way to tell?   Seriously, if you own a scale, and you really stick to this diet, it's almost 100% guaranteed you will lose weight (assuming of course, you have weight to lose).  Plus, there are several studies that show a Paleo type diet allows you more bang for your calorie buck.  It is a diet full of real food, like meat, veggies and fruit. Plus it removes all processed, homogenized crap that strips out precious nutrients.   It's all of those extra nutrients that allow you to feel full longer, per calorie than most other diets.  This leads to needing fewer calories.  Shockingly, decreasing calories usually always ends up in weight loss, and you don't even feel hungry.  The bonus is that you normally lose weight in all the right places, decreasing the hip to waist ratio and decreasing liver fat, which leads to a whole lot of health benefits!

Are there any cardiovascular benefits?

“Unknown. While some studies have linked Paleo diets with reducing blood pressure, bad “LDL” cholesterol, and triglycerides (a fatty substance that can raise heart disease risk), they have been few, small, and short. And all that fat would worry most experts”

Inconceivable!  How can you say unknown, then make a statement that the biggest markers for cardiovascular risk actually decrease when you follow a Paleo diet?  This kind of double speak is sickening to me.  The media and medical establishment have been telling us for the past 5 decades to reduce fat, and eat a diet of highly processed food.  They tell us that our risk factors for heart disease will decrease, and the rate of heart attacks will go down.  However, the exact opposite has been happening.  When are we going to wake up and realize that Statin drugs and decreasing dietary cholesterol aren’t the answers?  The answer is eating the food we were designed to eat: protein, veggies and fruit.

How well does it conform to accepted dietary guidelines?

US News knocks it because it is slightly higher fat, protein and significantly lower carbohydrate intake than what the government recommends.  This is one of my bigger head shaking moments.  They are knocking a diet for decreasing the macronutrient, which is linked to causing diabetes.  Typical carbs in the American Diet are usually empty calories, so it really is the macronutrient that should be decreased.  Plus I am really getting tired of this war on fat.  We were told to slather up with sunscreen and stop eating fat.  Then magically,30 years later they tell us that we are severely deficient in Vitamin D, E and A, yet those are all the FAT soluble vitamins!  We get them from consuming fat and the sun, the two things we have been told to avoid at all costs.  Yet, why is the medical field perplexed by this?

And the best for last....

Are there health risks?

“Possibly. By shunning dairy and grains you’re at risk of missing out on a lot of nutrients. Also, if you’re not careful about making lean meat choices, you’ll quickly ratchet up your risk for heart problems.”

Okay, so I won't revisit the heart disease argument.  However, I will address this whole 'lean meat' myth.  Let me first just say that the grass-fed meats that Paleo encourages, are actually lean (yes, even the beef).    The grass-fed beef and game meats are also significantly higher in omega 3 fats and other essential nutrients  than the conventionally raised food usually consumed on the American plate.

Then there's the part about eating grains.  They fail to mention that the grains we typically consume are genetically modified, stripped of all nutrients during processing, but then they attempt to chemically add those nutrients back to the stripped out flour.  It's because of this 'must eat whole grain' mentality, that we have become a society, dealing with constant inflammation and gluten sensitivities.  Americans don't even know what it means to feel good anymore, we just have learned to deal with feeling crappy, and I believe grain is a huge culprit of this.  Even if you're not ready to jump on this Paleo bandwagon, I would encourage you to strip grains from your diet and see how much better you feel.

The Schopenhauer quote about truth is pretty fitting to close with

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer  So I'm just curious,  are there any of you out there who have tried the Paleo diet (100%) and weren't happy with the results?