The Glade 4.0

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-the-campaign-to-stop-america-s-obesity-crisis-keeps-failing.html

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration used a method to calculate the number of calories based on placing a sealed container with the food to be measured in water. The food is then burned, and the rise in water temperature calculated in degrees Celsius. Every 1 degree the temperature is raised equals 1 calorie.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

She explained to me how one of the managers of the store had recently “gone Paleo,” but that she had tried it for a week herself but that she just couldn’t do it. I asked her why not (of course). She said it was too expensive. I continued the conversation, asking her what about this new way of eating it was that she found expensive.

It was the grass-fed, pasture-raised, all-organic food that was too expensive.

I quickly explained to her that she absolutely did not need to be eating the most perfectly-sourced foods 100% of the time if it’s not affordable for her. I assured her that, yes, she could in fact glean the vast majority of the health benefits of eliminating processed and refined foods from her diet without buying 100% perfectly raised and sourced food all the time.

This lovely Lulu was paralyzed by what I like to call: Paleo Perfectionism.

If you are a Paleo Perfectionist, your approach (and, subsequently, how you explain Paleo to others) may look something like this:

Never touch a grain, grain-derived food, grain-derived ingredient or even something that ever touched a grain.
Never eat meat that hasn’t been raised perfectly on its original and evolutionarily appropriate diet.
Never eat produce that is not organic and locally grown.
Never eat refined seed oils.
Never eat sugar, or anything that looks, tastes, or or acts like sugar.
If you break any of these rules, you’re doing it wrong, you fail, and you may as well not even bother.

That’s a whole lotta nevers!

I was both saddened and encouraged by this exchange. I found it sad that whoever explained this way of eating to her neglected to mention (perhaps because s/he wasn’t taught):

That the foods you eliminate or avoid as part of a Paleo approach are the ones that are doing the most harm to your body. So, the first steps of simply eliminating grains, beans, refined seed oils, sugar/sweeteners, and grain-fed/pasteurized dairy products takes you at least 80% of the way towards achieving optimal health on a Paleo diet.
That Paleo is more about eating foods that are real, whole, unrefined, unprocessed, and nutrient-dense than it is about striving for some (non-existant, if you ask me) level of perfection.
That the largest benefits of Paleo are not about having access to food of optimal quality 100% of the time.
That fussing over the minutia of optimizing every aspect of your diet (some call this hacking) may actually do you more harm than good. You do realize that stress can undo everything you do nutritionally, right? No? You didn’t know that? Well, now you do. It can. Stressing over your diet may actually be making you far less healthy than those few bites of dark chocolate or that non-organic banana. Or that (gasp!) grain-fed flank steak. You likely take great pleasure in that dark chocolate (or insert other imperfectly Paleo food here). Life is about not just being healthy, but being able to enjoy being healthy!

Do ever want to just grab someone and say...WTF is wrong with you?