It’s not necessary to follow a paleo diet in order to be healthy, but it might help.
Many readers have told me that they have benefitted from eating paleo for a short or long period of time, so I thought it would be important to explain more about the premise behind paleo eating to those who are curious.
I don’t currently teach or talk publicly about the paleo diet, but you can always read a lot more about it in a book “Practical Paleo,” and get over 100 easy recipes that are paleo-friendly.
The USDA has a lot to say about cholesterol in your diet.
According to the American Heart Association, individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.
Although the 2015 Guidelines no longer recommend limiting your cholesterol intake to 300 mg or less per day, the idea that cholesterol is bad for your health remains pervasive. The government itself has been spreading fear of cholesterol in the past editions of its Guidelines.
The fear of dietary cholesterol is linked to the notion that eating cholesterol can lead to heart disease, and therefore by avoiding dietary cholesterol, we can avoid heart disease. There are many studies that introduce this idea, but they are problematic. They were primarily based on research done on rabbits, who naturally do not eat foods containing cholesterol! How can we expect human cholesterol metabolism to mimic that of a rabbit? Rabbits don’t eat cholesterol, so it’s impossible to be sure. More reliable studies show that, contrary to popular belief, dietary cholesterol has a minimal effect on the level of cholesterol in the bloodstream. In other words, eating cholesterol won’t raise your blood cholesterol levels.
It’s believed that the idea that dietary cholesterol is unhealthy emerged as early as the 1950s in order to promote the sales of factory-made vegetable oil products. An article in Time magazine in 1984, entitled “Hold the Eggs and Butter”, was among the most influential pieces of propaganda that has molded the modern food landscape that we know today. The article claimed that cholesterol is proved deadly, and our diet may never be the same:
For decades, researchers have been trying to prove conclusively that cholesterol is a major villain in this epidemic [of heart disease]. It has not been easy. Cholesterol is, after all, only one piece in a large puzzle that also includes obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, stress, and lack of exercise. All of these play their part in heart disease “like members of an orchestra,” explains pathologist Richard Minick of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. . . . Despite its bad reputation, cholesterol is essential to life: it is a building block of the outer membrane of cells, and it is a principal ingredient in the digestive juice bile, in the fatty sheath that insulates nerves, and in sex hormones such as estrogen and androgen.
The fact that cholesterol has been linked to heart disease doesn’t mean that we should fear it. Healthy levels of cholesterol are essential to good health and the human body can produce enough of its own, so we shouldn’t fear it. Unfortunately, the image used with this article created the wrong impression for most people and led them to believe that it was a negative health article. The media has created a massive fear of dietary cholesterol, and it has the potential to do great damage to public health.
Nearly everyone who has a heart attack is suffering from other problems. There is just one problem. A physician, Mike Eades has said, “Only about half the people who have heart attacks have elevated cholesterol levels.” The experts were still not quite able to pin the blame on cholesterol, however.
The entire country, for better or worse and despite conflicting ideas about cholesterol and heart health, was encouraged to stop eating natural foods like butter, cream, egg yolks, and fatty meats.
Egg substitutes are hardly a healthy alternative to eggs. These products are made from soy, algae or other processed plant parts and contain little nutritional value.
The 2015 Dietary Guidelines have acknowledged that there’s no need to fear dietary cholesterol. But they still recommend avoiding it because cholesterol tends to be found in foods that also have other nutrients, like saturated fat, added sugars and sodium.
Most chronic conditions are rooted in your overall level of immune health, which directly depends on the foods you eat. Are you suffering from any of these conditions? We can improve them by dietary and lifestyle changes. We all want to get healthy and stay healthy, but often find it difficult. If we could just get back to that natural state of health, would it be easier? Are there natural ways we could achieve this?
We’ve got a new mission for the food industry. The industry is shifting to real food, not processed junk that’s been pumped full of chemicals. It is now believed that dietary fat does not contribute to obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease in humans. In fact, it may even be beneficial for our health. Doctors may not be the best source of information on nutrition, but the public is beginning to question conventional wisdom and recognize that they may not have all the answers. From where I stand, the shift in thinking about whether or not butter is more healthy than Crisco is palpable.
As people begin to realize that they are no longer destined to suffer from diseases caused by modern food and unhealthy lifestyles, they are beginning to take responsibility for their health. We have found a better way. Let’s get back to food that comes from well-tended plants and properly raised animals.