All Dietary Pronouncements Are Wrong and Paleo is Lost
The dumbest thing in all dietary pronouncements—from wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling; so, voluminously—is the enormous blind spot that neglects to recognize that human animals are migratory masters.
Most species evolve in a single habitat, perhaps migratory birds and a few land-dwelling migrating animals being the notable exceptions. They evolve, really, over hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, in response to niche opportunities for various things, but primarily food. Thus, the habitat generally remains healthy and in balance. That’s until something upsets it, like the climate change that’s been going on for a few billion years: a flood, a drought, an inundation, a fire, an important rise or drop in average temperature. And the habitat is severely compromised, or dies off. Then all the animals but for the scavengers die off. Cycle of life and evolution. Humans are a bit different.
Humans migrate. Rather than exploit nutritional niches to the death, they have generalized their ability to go somewhere else, and make almost anything edible…enough to survive, thrive, and reproduce.
In a sense, the modern “paleo” diet and “Bulletproof” diet are converging for swarms of bee hive and ant hill pussies, afraid of almost everything. That was not Paleoman, and it’s certainly the exact opposite of bulletproof.
Humans have migrated to all corners of the globe—from equator to arctic and antarctic circles, from sea level to 16,000 feet, and everything in-between—and have established permanent thriving and prosperous residency throughout.
Accordingly, every “diet” on the planet is wrong, including a reasonable attempt at paleo, doG rest its soul. But once it became cool, sadly, so very many have really just wanted to make money selling stuff in bottles, boxes, and packages. What’s worse is that they require their adherents to be authority seekers rather than independent thinkers, anathema to a migrating animal. It’s utterly disgusting on so many levels that I barely have the will or enthusiasm to blog about any of it, anymore.
It’s a sad destruction, to enrich a collection of people who have done exactly the opposite of what was always called for and with its great run for a few years with very enthusiastic people. Others saw only a market to enrich themselves, and the cost is that there is literally not a thing distinctive or special about paleo, anymore. I’ve never made much money at it, though some, but my integrity of Free The Animal is intact, and it always will be.
The few things I promote, I use myself. I just think that’s how it ought to be, honestly.
Further reading: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
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BUT THE NARRATIVE!!!
Hehe. There is almost nothing more hilarious than when I (on rare occasion these days) listen to one of these Paleo(TM)/Low Carb(TM)/etc podcasts and immediately hear the host bleating about some food product that’s just the best thing ever. Low carb peanut butter cups and other such bullshit. “Pastabilities” was another head-banging favorite of mine. Don’t skip the pasta for real, whole food…instead buy this packaged crapola! Trade 15% whole food quality for 2%.
Although you’re still selling your eBook here – don’t the Paleo recommendations contradict your current advice?
That’s fair, David. Yep, it’s still for sale and I get a monthly paypal from Hyperink that averages about $60.
Of courese, the amont of money doesn’t go to the principle you’re alluding to. So, I have to weigh the utility of keeping the $60 per month with taking it down until revised or something. But then I get emails from people regularly that it helped them.
I don’t consider the early Paleo narratives as much wrong as I understand them to be incomplete. It’s mostly the incompleteness that bugs me, and one must start somewhere wrong, then strive to be less wrong as a continuous process. But publishing a book is a distict event, not really a process, which is more descriptive of this blog where you don’t go back and correct old posts, you write new ones.
But doing a big revision has been on my mind lately but I’m not yet at the cutt-off point, and I have to get the gut bug book finished first.
I have read FTA since early 2011, and because I was so aware of Richard’s thinking at the time, I didn’t bother reading his e-book. Recently, for no particular reason, I decided to give it a read. I was actually quite struck by how much of remains good advice, and how circumspect and qualified a number of the pronouncements were that left open the possibility for future changes in thinking. The fact is, Richard has never been dogmatic about it; he has always taken a “its right… for now” approach. Personally, I think the e-book stands up well now and he has no reason to repudiate it or take it down. Also, using the 80/20 rule, many people who are just starting out will still benefit tremendously from a lot of “wrong” and “incorrect” suggestions.
Thank you, Daniel. I really appreciate that.
Sounds reasonable to me, though as a long-time reader/ first-time commenter, I’m a little disappointed you didn’t call me a fucktard.
The glacial nature of books and the rapid speed of this evolving research makes for a tricky combination. Interesting to see that there’s a new Primal Blueprint edition coming out though. I won’t hold my breath for a Keto Clarity Redux.
Glad to see “Bulletproof” mentioned in this article. Colpo just did a great article on Asprey and his ‘mycotoxin free’ coffee rip-off.
Maybe Asprey can start a secondary cult for the rest of us and call it The ‘Bulletproof Factory Worker’.
Will Asprey ever admit he’s ‘less wrong’?
Unfortunately no, and I just read Colpo’s post this morning, shot him a link to this.
It’s very sad. I am exactly, so exactly of the mind of Joe Rogan. Important to watch that vid in Anthony’s post.
I like Dave. It pisses me off that he behaves this way. Perhaps I’m the fool.
I don’t know Asprey, except through videos and old podcasts. He does seem like a likable person. Just like Jimmy M and Nora G.
It’s not about disliking the messenger, just their message.
Good call. I adore all of them on personal levels.
Makes me feel bad.
I did always find it odd that you went after Jimmy so hard but “spared” Dave, given that Jimmy is (I think) honestly mistaken and Dave almost certainly knows he’s full of shit.
That’s a decent critique of my imperfection, Eric.
Seriously.
It looks like this Anthony Colpo person cannot be trusted. Examples:
1) Take a look a this: “Asprey has amassed a loyal following, one in which people are prepared to pay US $1,799 to hear their guru impart his unsubstantiated wisdom – and thousands more on the vast array of highly-hyped coffees, supplements and devices he sells.” What’s wrong with this information? For start – hearing Dave Asprey is something available for free – on his free podcast. $1799 was just a price for a conference – with MULTIPLE presenters, and multiple DEVICES. On which a number of atendees doesn’t even justify use of the word “amassed”. “Amassed” is perhaps valid for web shop users, but these buy like around $20 coffees or supplements within similar price range. As well as for the free podcast listeners. So this Colpo person is manipulating his readers into a false image of Dave Asprey listeners, customers etc.
2) Or this: “Asprey cites three studies. Of a 2003 paper, he writes “One study that tested 60 coffee bean varieties found that 91% of green coffee beans were contaminated by mycotoxins.” Indeed it did. But what Asprey doesn’t tell you was that all the positive samples showed OTA levels below the limit suggested by the European Union.” Looks like a government worship – if EU says something it must be right? He’s really fascinated by EU norms “Thirty-six percent of the samples were contaminated with OTA, but none exceeded the EU maximum limit for OTA in coffee (EC/1881/2006).” “OTA was the first mycotoxin subject to European legislation; maximum permitted levels are 5 mcg/kg in roasted coffee beans and ground roasted coffee and 10 mcg/kg in soluble coffee (instant coffee)[2].”, “drinking one cup (250 mL) of even the most contaminated black tea would deliver 2.5 ng OTA/kg bw, which corresponds to half of the safe EU dose”
3) He tries debunk Dave Asprey by linking to Joe Rogan, who confirms he tested Dave’s coffee and found (in his tests) no mycotoxins in there?
4) He doesn’t reference Dave Asprey’s paid material – like his “Better Baby Book” that has a lot of information about mycotoxins, or his “Moldy” movie on the very subject. It really looks like a literally cheap critique – with references only to the information contained in the free articles. Not even to free podcast, where most of the information in the bulletproofexec site is…
5) “None of Asprey’s claims, it should be noted, are backed by any kind of scientific evidence or supportive documentation.”– this would be really dishonest if Colpo didn’t learn about all Asprey’s claims, including his books, podcasts etc. And he shows signs he hasn’t… It’s even worse – Colpo writes “His claims, quite frankly, reek of utter bullshit.” while admitting he doesn’t know what a Buletproof process is, because it is secret…
6) Colpo thinks the current food system is OK when it comes to cleanness “Because this system is not 100% foolproof, does not mean that there’s something fundamentally wrong with modern food hygiene, that the majority of food is contaminated, and that we should only buy over-priced “Bulletproof” foods from some guru” . Does he even read news articles? Eg.
consumerreports.org/cro/food/how-safe-is-your-ground-beef
“We found a type of antibiotic-resistant S. aureus bacteria called MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), which kills about 11,000 people in the U.S. every year, on three conventional samples (and none on sustainable samples). And 18 percent of conventional beef samples were contaminated with superbugs—the dangerous bacteria that are resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics—compared with just 9 percent of beef from samples that were sustainably produced.”
7) There’s no objectivity in Colpo’s writing. There’s something like a review format: you show the product, how it works, it’s fetures, it’s market positioning, end up with conclusions including pros and cons, for whom it’s best, who should avoid it. Colpo is not doing that – he just points out cons, tries to hide pros from his readers. It’s a propaganda. And not even well-hidden one.
8) This whole Rogan vs. Asprey thing is an example of lack of objectivity: Joe Rogan sells overpriced supplements and coffee – good guy for Copolla, Asprey sells overpriced supplements and coffee – bad guy for Copola. “very lucrative one for Dave Asprey, who has amassed an adoring cult-like following that hangs off his every word and readily pays exhorbitant prices for his Bulletproof brand of coffee.” And Rogan beats people up, and likes watchin people being beaten up, while Asprey doesn’t, he rather addresses people with issues to conquer – that’s why Colpo admires Rogan, doesn’t like Asprey?
9) He doesn’t even try to provide an honest context. He makes up some anecdotes to create image of coffee as a very important thing. That’s far away from reality – unlike calories, or nutritients – coffee is optional, you can live, and even live well without it. This brings up a question – what should be the minimal qualities of coffee to even bother with it? Colpo’s fascination with EU norms would suggest (EC/1881/2006) as a minimum. But then you have those more strict Aspreys requirements; coupled with reliability he advertises (the point of his coffee is supposed to be that it is a reliable, repeatable quality, not random hit-or-miss experience). NONE of these standards are required for coffee sold in the US. There was an interesting question on a podcast with an industry insider (at around 44 min) – what happens with coffee that doesn’t meet the EU/internal company standards? It turns out it can end up in unregulated countries, like the US.
So there’s the issue that you have this optional product, and you may end up buying someone’s quality rejects, that exceeded toxins norms. Why even bother with such risks? A good safety measure would be either buy a guaranteed quality product at a price – like this Aspreys one, or the Nespresso that was mentioned as OK, or don’t bother with coffee at all.
10) And by the way – does measuring your weight now requres “peer-reviewed scientifict research” or “verifiable documentation”, rather than just a scale? “The more reliable commentators, however, have posted either verifiable documentation of their own personal transformations, or have deferred to published, peer-reviewed scientific research that supports the plausibility of their claims*”
On a positive side – Colpo touched this overpricing thing. Though at the wrong product – coffee prices are not the most overpriced thing Dave Asprey sells. $5500 “Neuroptimal Personal Trainer Bundle” is. With “300 sessions” licensing limit built in. So had Colpo actually learned about what Asprey offers he ‘d have some actual thing to write about!
The other positive issue of the Colpo writing is some anti-ideology approach. The tendency is OK, just the target seems somehow not a big ideologist. Colpo could easily find some real and important ideology to fight with.
Overall it’s not worth reading Anthony Colpo – he has this biased, propagandist approach, gets highly inflammatory and aggressive on a non-important issue (coffee), includes some trust-the-government items. All probably without even bothering to learn enough about Asprey’s full message. There’s also a risk that a Colpo’s reader might get biased against Dave Asprey and ignore or reject some important information provided or popularized by the former. You CAN get some interesting points from reading Colpo, but as a whole his message seems to be broken. If you want anti-ideology and have a limited time you are better of speding it on Sam Harris.
@Richard – “Please point me to where he’s ever admonished anyone to trust him.” – if he cannot be trusted it doesn’t matter if he says he can be trusted, or keeps quiet about this :-)
There are few easy changes in his approach that would improve the thruth level and value of what he writes. Like giving up on this good vs. evil style and embrace the fulls scale of evaulations. Or stop making big final, abosulutist judghements based on incomplete learning about what he critiques
…but these would make him less macho, less self confident, and less victorious on his website – perhaps thats the problem? He would look just like a regular guy, not a mighty force winning over the enemies as his site triest to pretend he is?
In all fairness his latest articles don’t look good – like a promotion of a this particular soda, while forgetting to tell you it causes premature aging due to the phosphoric acid contents (note: there are other sodas that don’t have phosphates).
anthonycolpo.com/coca-cola-the-sports-drink-of-champions/
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1269243/Fizzy-drinks-cause-premature-ageing-high-levels-phosphates.ht…
Then he tells about the virtues of some kind of a masochistic bike saddle, without saying that sport saddles are suspected of increasing the risk of prostate cancer in men (get a wide, comfortable saddle with spring amortization not the sports one!).
anthonycolpo.com/trigon-vcs06-the-best-road-bike-saddle-in-the-world/
No, you’re full of shit.
You are advancing a premise that factual truth relies upon the teller being trustwhorthy. False to fact.
You’re welcome to critique, but don’t give us that bullshit moral high ground putrid bullshit, which is exactly what you are doing.
“It looks like this Anthony Colpo person cannot be trusted.”
Please point me to where he’s ever admonished anyone to trust him.
And this is the fine point.
@Richard – “You are advancing a premise that factual truth relies upon the teller being trustwhorthy. False to fact.”
Isn’t it what Anthony Colpo is doing? Making a personal attack on Dave Asprey, calling him and his readers names, from what could be just a merithorical question about some specific coffee-related issues?
I actually have a very different approach: that “noisy” and even unreliable sources of information are valuable if only they have some uninque/rare/important information among their message. By noisy and unreliable I mean what they produce is important/novel true stuff + some wrong stuff + some fantasy + completly unimportan things intervined. It is our task as readers to extract those information that are important and true from such a mix.
And if one has such approach then it’s not possible to dismiss Dave Asprey, as he fulfills the premise – among the mix of information that come from him there are multiple vaulable ones. This also means Anthony Colpo is valuable in similar way – you can extract valuable information from his mix of true/false interesting/not interesting novel/repeatable information.
Unfortunately this is not the approach Colpo wants. He wants us to completly dismiss people indicated by him, rather than just filter some information out of their output. Not realizing he is in the same category… and wanting us to reject people from this category by default? Thus avoiding getting information from the category of sources he is in, and getting our information only from sources that can be trusted by default, which he is not in?
(For example Stephan Guynet in the trust by default category, where you can go to his website read information without the need for extensive filtering out and doing additional quality control for what you get there).
As for the moral issues – that’s a weird part. It’s like Colpo has some complexes, that require him to always be a Wise Narrator, and a Victor Of a Fight (on his site, and in the hearts of his readers), while those who claim opposite have their images and dignity lowered on his website. Possibly the most inefficient way to convince people of opposite views to change their mind, but perhaps making him feel good? Perhaps I’m wrong and it’s just some italian cultural style, rather than a personal problem, but then it’s weird anyway for a non-Italian.
GTR stop the racist bullshit. I read Colpo’s blogpost on Bulletproof coffee. It wasn’t a personal diatribe against Asprey unless in your view of the world Asprey and Bulletproof Coffee are the same entity. Colpo is great at doing thorough research and excellent presentation.
Aprey is full of b.s. in regards to this coffee business. He’s a salesman. That’s all. He wants to make money. He’s making money because the educational system is so poor and most people have no concept whatsoever of the effect of high heat on mycotoxins.
It’s about time someone made a succinct analysis and presentation of why it is that roasting green coffee beans reduces any mycotoxin (if present) in those beans to near zero. If refering to scientific studies done in Italy, France, Turkey and wherever else is a personal attack on Asprey, then you’ve got some sort of subjective issues going on.
Re: Colpo
I bought the Fat Loss Bible a year ago for $9.99, I noticed on Colpo’s website it is $29.99 now or $39.99 in paperback. I thought that was odd.
I’d guess we would all do pretty well on crickets and mice and taro if necessary to do so.
But I give them all (the paleo/keto/bodyhack hucksters) points for being anti-SAD, anti-SickCare revolutionaries, but at the end of the day buying MarkSisson mayonnaise shipped 2,000 miles from a factory is really, really a total sell-out on so many levels.
I do like the more mature science based LCHF community, though, like EEnfeldt, Noakes, Gerber, Cummins, Fung etc. these days. There are some great folks in this community. They have my respect and attention.
Looking forward to one of these days seeing the evidence based science come out of Dr Attia’s research center as well.
Meanwhile, gotta say, Art Ayers at coolinginflammation.com is my go-to guru.
Speaking of Dr. Ayers, what does he think of the Elixa probiotics? I just ordered my first pack and I am curious as to what he thinks about it.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Richard,
Have you been reading my blog? ‘Cos two days before you wrote the above post, I wrote nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-cause-of-americas-rising-obesity.html
It’s not a food, or a macronutrient, or even a micronutrient that’s causing an increase in the obesity rate in the US and other countries.
It’s a process, an organisation and corruption.
Cheers, Nige
Hi Nigel.
No, sorry to say that I haven’t. Nothing personal. I just checked and looks like you’ve been pumping out some good stuff.
I don’t typically look at other blogs, anymore, unless someone messages me in some way to check something out. I find it helps with being less “reactionary” and more just coming up with my own ideas and those of a group of collaborators. We have plenty to do.
So, I suppose this means that great minds think alike. :)
Glad to hear from you. Hope all is well and judging from your posts recently I scanned through, it is.
Hi Richard,
“So, I suppose this means that great minds think alike. :)”
Seems legit! :-D
I de-blacklisted you a while back. ‘Twas just an internet spat. I don’t hold grudges.
Cheers, Nige
Nor I.
Have you seen this spoof Bulletproof Coffee video? It’s quite lol-worthy. youtube.com/watch?v=xf-LuBCFINs
Yea, saw that a while ago.
You know, I like the stuff, though I’ve maybe had it only a half-dozen times (use a stick blender). So did my wife. But it’s BS to suggest it’s anything but one way to fatify your coffee, milk, H&H and cream being the classic ways.
I have traditionally taken my coffee black, all my life. I have occasionally added a spot or two of cream or H&H for an after-dinner coffee. Never sugar (though no big deal if you do, tsp or two never hurt anyone). Now days, I’ll have maybe a tbs of H&H in my morning coffee (French press) and I quite like it.
I add Gold Top milk to mine. I add a tsp of sugar and a tsp of granular sweetener (Aspartame or Sucralose-based). Sorted!
I love me some raw honey in coffee. Preferably with at least a tablespoon of heavy cream.
Oh, what actually spawned this post was really off the cuff. Got an email from Kit Perkins who was reading the book I link at thr bottom, said it reminded him of my humans as migrating everyywhere shtick. Realized I hadn’t written on that in a while and so bang, half hour later I have a new post.
Speaking of primal:
“Heat the olive oil (or butter) over medium heat in a 10-inch/25 cm ovenproof skillet (ideally, well-seasoned cast iron).”
Cast iron? Ideally? Don’t they reads stuff or what?
Lol! I love it!
Reading the journals of Lewis and Clark, and their descriptions of the “Indians” (there were no “Native Americans” yet!). Both groups were very interested in food … studied it carefully … and tried about anything. A typical entry: “We found a new animal (a marmot). Shot it and served it to the Captain for dinner”. “The Captain” later wrote about how he was learning to love dog meat, something he’d never tried. But also they tried lots of different kinds of tubers and fruits.
The Indians were even more varied in what they would eat. I think they all would have had a huge laugh over our modern angsting over food.
Actually they had a fair share of indigestion and what I’d call food poisoning. Didn’t slow them down much.