Will the world's oceans turn to slime?

Image: MiketsukunibitoIt’s encouraging to see alarm for the world’s oceans within the diplomatic literature. In an essay in the November/December 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs, Alan B. Sielen, Senior Fellow at the Scripts Institute of Oceanography, challenge readers “to summon the will and moral courage to restore the seas to health before it is too late.”

Paralleling the view of PaleoTerran, Sielen writes: “Of all the threats looming to the planet today, one of the most alarming is the seeming inexorable descent of the world’s oceans into ecological perdition."

Just a century ago, ocean life seemed unalterable,

“Yet that sea life is now in peril. Over the last 50 years – a mere blink in geological time – humanity has come perilously close to reversing the almost miraculous biological abundance of the deep. Pollution, overfishing, the destruction of habitats, and climate change are emptying the oceans and enabling the lowest forms of life to regain their dominance. The oceanographer Jeremy Jackson calls it “the rise of slime”: the transformation of once complex oceanic ecosystems featuring intricate food webs with large animals into simplistic systems dominated by microbes, jellyfish, and disease. In effect, humans are eliminating the lions and tigers of the seas to make room for the cockroaches and rats.”

Source 
Alan B. Sielen. The Devolution of the Seas: The Consequences of Oceanic Destruction

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Neurologist David Perlmutter on Brain Dysfunction & Your Daily Bread

"Yes, you read that right: Brain dysfunction starts in your daily bread, and I'm going to prove it. I'll state it again because I realize it sounds absurd: Modern grains are silently destroying your brain. By "modern" I'm not just referring to the refined white flours, pastas, and rice that have already been demonized by the anti-obesity folks; I'm referring to all the grains that so many of us have embraced as being healthful - whole wheat, whole grain, multigrain, seven-grain, live grain, stone-ground, and so on. Basically, I am calling what is arguably our most beloved dietary staple a terrorist group that bullies our most precious organ, the brain. I will demonstrate how fruit and other carbohydrates could be health hazards with far-reaching consequences that not only will wreak physical havoc on your brain, but also will accelerate your body's aging process from the inside out. This isn't science fiction; it's now a documented fact."

Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers

Image credit: Don't Die Early - The Book

John Durant on the Typical Hunter-Gatherer Diet

"The typical hunter-gatherer diet was very diverse. Over the course of a year a diet might have included hundreds of wild plant species and dozens of wild mammals, fish, reptiles, and insects. Almost the entire animal would be eaten or put to use, including bones, organs, and marrow. Roots and tubers were an important food source. The wild predecessors to grains - like wheat, corn, or rice - were negligible until late in the Paleolithic, though some wild grasses were consumed (we ended up domesticating them after all). Some foods were eaten raw, but a variety of cooking techniques were used. Because of the wide variety of food available and the tribe's migrations, famine was rare to nonexistent."

The Paleo Manifesto

Amanda’s journey from sick to wonderful

“In December 2009, I was 25 years old and weighed 210 lbs. I was obese for my 5’5″ frame, never felt well, and was popping handfuls of pills every day just to get by. I was taking 2 anti-depressants, anxiolytics, prescription sleeping pills, courses of Prilosec once or twice a month, acid-blocking pills or antacid tablets 1-3 times a day, anti-diarrhea pills several days a week, and I was constantly catching respiratory infections and frequently took courses of antibiotics. 

“… one fateful day somebody posted a link to Mark’s Daily Apple.”

“I was completely blown away. Everything I thought I knew to be true about diet, health, and weight loss was all wrong.” 

Learn more: I Am Strong, Energized, Off All Medications, and Feel Wonderful!

Not responding to a gluten free diet? Maybe it's contamination.

"A study that measured contamination by gluten tested 22 single-ingredient inherently gluten-free grains, seeds and flours, and found 32% of these products contained >20 ppm gluten and one product contained 2,925 ppm of gluten. The products tested that were positive for gluten included soy, millet, buckwheat, rice and sorghum flour. This is sufficient gluten to cause on-going symptoms in many celiac disease individuals.[1]"

Learm more at Primal Docs: Non Responsive and Refractory Celiac Disease Study: 
A paleo type diet gives 100% remission for most

Late night alcohol & sleep

"We get more REM sleep in the last half of the night. Which means that if you are woken unexpectedly, your brain may not have dealt with all your emotions - which could leave you stressed and anxious. Drinking alcohol late at night is not a good idea as it reduces your REM sleep while it's being processed in your body."

Learn More: How much can an extra hour's sleep change you?

Registered Nurse taught her patients the Standard American Diet

BEFORE

I am a Registered Nurse and was taught the Standard American Diet (SAD), therefore, I taught my patients the same, “whole grains and brown rice are good for you!”

AFTER

After David was convinced of this Primal lifestyle, he tried to convince me. I remember saying, “but David, you NEED grains!” “Why?” he asked. “Well, I’m not sure, but it’s part of the food pyramid.” I look back at that silly conversation now and giggle!

Learn More at Marks's Daily Apple: I Am Healed from the Inside Out!

From “NEVER Paleo” to “Never Turning Back”

"I will NEVER go Paleo." Those are the words I repeated over and over to my CrossFit coach, members in my morning class and anybody else who found success with the highly controversial diet that is a throwback to the Paleolithic days."If cavemen had access to corn, potatoes and dairy, they would have eaten it!’ I believed every word of what I shared with people.”

Then, somewhat later - 

This laughter came to a screeching halt when my celiac disease symptoms ramped up to life-altering proportions. After eliminating gluten and finding instant relief, I turned my attention to the many highly processed gluten-free products such as corn, potato and rice-based flours, baking goods, pastas and bread.

Source: I Tried The Paleo Diet And I'm Never Turning Back

“Wheat sensitivity” and irritable bowel syndrome

An extensive review of non-celiac gluten sensitivity published in Nutrients found “recent studies raised the possibility that, beside gluten, wheat amylase-trypsin inhibitors and low-fermentable, poorly-absorbed, short-chain carbohydrates” contribute to irritable bowel syndrome. If future investigations confirm these initial finding, non-celiac gluten sensitivity may be more appropriately called “wheat sensitivity.” (emphasis added)

Source: Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity: The New Frontier of Gluten Related Disorders

John Durant: Rickets & "blue blood"

"In 1651 a British physician named Francis Gibson published the world’s first comprehensive treatise on rickets, an “absolutely new disease … never described by any ancient or modern writers.” Now seen the world over, it was dubbed “the British Disease.” Rickets is a childhood condition characterized by skeletal deformities, twisted bones, bone pain, dental problems, and muscle weakness. Left untreated it will disable a child for life. Rickets is caused by a vitamin D deficiency, resulting from a lack of sun and poor diet – two things for which Britain has long been known."

"Though most people associated rickets with the urban industrial poor, holed up in windowless tenements, rickets started out as a disease of the proto-industrial rich. The rich were wealthy enough to avoid the most widely available cure for rickets – sunlight – because they didn’t have to work in the fields. Pale skin even became fashionable. Rickets emerged just decades after the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was famously pale; the aspirational merchant class mimicked the high status behaviors of the hereditary elite. The very term “blue blood” is a reference to paleness so extreme that a person’s veins are visible through the translucent skin."

Source: The Paleo Manifesto

Dr. Loren Cordain: Fruit consumption in the overweight or insulin resistant

"Dr. Cordain’s original recommendation to eat fresh fruits as your appetite dictates still holds for most people. However, if you are very much overweight or are insulin resistant, he recommends that you initially limit high sugar fruits (grapes, bananas, mangos, sweet cherries, apples, pineapples, pears and kiwi fruit) from your diet until your weight starts to normalize and your health improves. Try to include more vegetables in lieu of the high-sugar fruit. As per his previous recommendations, dried fruits contain excessive sugar, and from the table below, you can see they more closely resemble commercial candy than their fresh counterparts. Note that some fruits (avocados, lemons, and limes) are very low in total sugar and should not be restricted."

Surgar Content of Fruit 

Mark Sisson: The Hadza & Tubers

"They eat lots of tubers because they are widely available and they eat less meat and honey because they aren’t always available (even though they prefer the latter two). Before agriculture and the rise of the state, land was sparsely populated by humans and rich in game. Animals were simply more numerous and thus easier to come by. I’m not saying that our ancestors were carnivores – quite the contrary, in fact – but all else being equal hunter-gatherers on game-rich lands will have more opportunities to consume (the preferred) animals and less cause to fallback on fibrous tubers than hunter-gatherers on marginalized lands."

Read more of this excellent post: 

Starch: Fallback Food or Essential Nutrient?