Paleo Grandad is off tonight being an extra in a new TV CSI-type series being shot in Vancouver, so he will be eating movie set food tonight. (It turned out he ate tofu, as the extras got to eat after the actors and that was all that was left. He is suffering as a result but he sees the value to the Paleo lifestyle more every time he eats something that causes inflamation and gut problems - if I could just convince him to stop drinking diet sodas...but he says "It isn't going to happen".)
Tofu is made from soybeans and soybeans are legumes, which have been shown to cause inflammation in the body. According to the Paleoista, Nell Stephenson, soy contains "antinutrients" known as lectins and phytates. The Paleoista quotes Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple (my go to site for more science-based information about the Paleo lifestyle) who says that "Lectins are essentially carb-binding proteins universally present in plants. They are relatively sticky molecules, which allows them to bind with the lining, particularly the villi, of the small intestine, resulting in intestinal damage. This leads to reduced absorption of other nutrients, including minerals and protein."
So, if your stomach hurts after you eat something with soy sauce (sushi) - bloating, gas, cramps - you might want to try eliminating soy from your diet and see how you feel.
I was at Chapters yesterday picking up Food Blogging for Dummies (I am learning how to blog as I go along, so stay with me) and picked up a Paleo book that I hadn't run across before called Paleoista: Gain Energy, Get Lean and Feel Fabulous with the Diet You Were Born to Eat by Nell Stephenson, the Paleoista. I am on the last chapter and I liked it - it had a lot of good information, written in an easy to understand style if you are interested in reading more about Paleo.
Nell Stephenson is nutritional consultant and an athlete who discovered the Paleo lifestyle trying to get a handle on several health issues and, in the process, collaborated on a Paleo cookbook. As an athlete, and to eliminate excess body fat, she is a lot stricter on her diet than I am, even though I do want to lose extra weight.
For example, she recommends sweet potatoes as fuel only before she runs a marathon, because they are pretty high in unrefined carbs (but still better for the body than white potatoes). I am not an athlete (more about the exercise "problem" later), and I love sweet potatoes, so I have them more often. If you are trying to feel better and lose weight, you might want to stay with green vegetables (cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, bok choy...) and make sweet potatoes an occasional treat - whatever your definition of occasional is!
Paleo Grandad is home, so I'm off to ask if anybody famous is in the new TV series. See you later.
No comments :
Post a Comment