SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Yes, these foods were "allowed" - Even nuts, albeit in limited amounts. Ok, I have to admit that I have repeatedly made fun of "paleo" in the past. Its "cultish", sometimes even "sectarian" appeal is and will remain as hilarious in my eyes as the (for some people life-or-death-)question whether certain foods "are paleo" or not (who cares, as long as they are healthy?). If you happen to have seen my presentation at the Paleo Convention in Berlin, last year, you will know that, despite my apathy against the quasi-religious sides of "paleo", I do appreciate a certain set of "rules" or "principles" (or whatever you may call them) all iterations of "paleo" have in common. These principles work! And they have just been shown to help middle-aged type II diabetics (age 59±8 years) shed a quite impressive 6.7 kg of body fat (w/out exercise "only 5.7kg) in 12 weeks - without  dieting as in not e...

Image 1: Potato roasting caveman-style - probably not the best way to "cook" your potatoes As a non-native-speaker, I must admit that the first time I heard someone talk about "tubers" was on Robb Wolf's famous podcast, back in the day, when I was "listener #6" (or seven ;-). Contrary to common (foreign) belief, not all Germans subsist on potatoes and sauerkraut and, what's more, even those who do, don't really care that a potato is a "tuber", i.e. a "Knolle" in German - I suppose the idea that it grows in the dirt is not too appealing to some, while the large majority probably just doesn't care as long as those "tubers" make a good addition to their Schweinebraten... yet, whatever the reasons may be, my first encounter with "tubers" has ingrained the link of these "underground structure[s] consisting of a solid thickened portion or outgrowth of a stem or rhizome, of a more or less rounde...

As a diligent student of the SuppVersity, you are well aware that the absolute and relative overabundance of n-6 fatty acids (also known as omega-6 or linolic acid) in Western diets literally lies at the heart of heart disease. It is thus dear to my heart to turn your attention to the recent advances of the American Heart Association Nutrition Subcommittee of the Council on Nutrition to reestablish the myth of the heart-healthy omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Image 1: You better watch out, other than the American Heart Association wants you to believe , one of the "better fat sisters" (Poly, the one in the middle) turns out to have a very dark six-times unsaturated side ;-) Back in 2009, already, the American Heart Association had published an article (AHA. 2009 Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Risk for Cardiovascular Disease), the putative intention of which was "to summarize the current evidence on the consumption of omega-6...

Image 1: Salmon, one of the few foods, even the extremists allow themselves (photo by Dezidor ) "Do you [eat] Paleo?" Over the last years, the "Paleo lifestyle" , once some sort of esoteric "back to the roots" movement, has attracted more and more followers and has long become a multi-million dollar business. Somewhere in the course of this process, however, the original idea, which was to look at the nutritional history of humanity to identify those nutritional strategies that have been working for humanoids for ten-thousands of years, got lost. Mainstream paleo has turned into an obscure cult the members of which add food item after food item to their lists of "bad foods" , the consumption or rather non-consumption of which distinguishes the "real" from the 99% paleo-eaters. Yet, while eating gluten-containing (the paleos would probably say "contaminated") foods has, proba...