From Hunt, Gather, Saute: Bacon-kale-avo salad = protein + good fat + calci-yum!
Hunt, Gather, Saute 101 has been moved to 1/30/11 (from Superbowl Sunday… oops). Sign up SOON! Also, the next nutrition seminar will be Sat. 2/5 to coincide with the next Paleo Challenge. Make it an xmas/start-the-new-year-right gift!
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Perhaps the most common and ‘obvious’ question I get regarding the paleo diet is how one is supposed to reach the recommended daily allowance of calcium and Vitamin D when you cut dairy from your diet.
This question raises several very different and very important sets of issues that I will attempt to address. You’ll wish you never asked, but you might have more family members around and a lower health toll/bill if you’ve got the will to validate it and implement it.
What is the meaning of the RDA or DRI (Dietary Reference Intake) and is it relevant if you eat a paleo diet?
Lifting heavy things helps build and maintain bone mass, big time.
Furthermore what is its relevance to people who eat grains, beans, dairy and other processed modern foods?
Check out the definition of RDA/DRI here. Basically, the RDA is an amount that is considered “sufficient to meet the requirements’ of nearly all ‘healthy individuals”. I dunno about you, but I am definitely not going to take a lot of stock in a nutrient suggestion that comes from same group of health professionals who support the food pyramid (and its lack of scientific basis). I’ll go with evolutionary biology, thanks.
I look at RDA’s for most vitamins and minerals as the bare minimums. Run a standard day of paleo eating through an RDA calculator on fitday.com and see what I mean. Eating a good paleo diet that’s heavy in a variety of vegetables will far exceed the RDA’s for all vitamins and minerals perhaps except for calcium (we’ll get there) and Vitamin D.
For some vitamins and minerals, the tolerable upper limits (TUL) are measurements have been clearly demonstrated to be toxic in some cases, but these are literally impossible to reach solely from eating a good paleo diet. They do however represent a very real danger to people who eat processed foods and ‘health food’ products which are heavily fortified or who also take supplements.
RDA’s are relevant when analyzing a food log for someone eating a standard American
Epic fail, Whole Foods.
diet (a.k.a. SAD), however, even if you meet RDA’s with SAD, this doesn’t take into account the lost vitamin and mineral status as a result of the phytates, lectins and net acid load in the kidneys that are inherent to a diet with grains, beans, dairy, and processed foods. RDAs are also relevant when making sure minimums are met when feeding a sick person (medical care, hospital food; unfortunately, these foods are based on the food pyramid, contain vitamin/mineral status-depleting food components thereby rendering much of the nutrient content ‘useless’ or unavailable to the patient). SAD story huh? Pun intended.
How is it that pre-agricultural humans had amazing bone density much better than ours today without dairy? Is there something more to bone density than just calcium intake?
Pre-agricultural human bone density (along with most other biomarkers) was excellent compared with agricultural societies or those into which grains/dairy/sugar had been introduced. Modern humans have much lower bone density due to a high-dairy, high-grain/sugar diet.
How is this if a good paleo diet is so low in calcium? This question belies a misunderstanding regarding how good bone status is maintained. There is much more to bone density and adequate Vitamin D status than dietary intake of the two — much, much more. The answer to how pre-agricultural humans had amazing bone density and Vit D status lies in the biochemical meaning behind the absence of grains, beans, dairy, or other processed nonsense in their diet.
Dietary calcium is not as the major contributing factor to bone density — calcium retention is. Calcium retention is more influenced by other dietary factors such as dietary magnesium and phosphorous (very high in an ancestral diet; very low in a modern diet) and the net acid load of the diet on the kidneys (low in an ancestral diet, high in a modern diet).
There’s even more to it – as if it weren’t bad enough that modern dairy products (and grains, beans, processed foods) contribute to bone density loss via the acidifying effect of those foods and the inherence of the low content of more relevant minerals/vitamins (phosphorus, magnesium, Vit D for example). To add insult to injury the mere presence in the gut of certain components of these foods literally blocks and/or inhibits the absorption of many vitamins and minerals. Grains, beans and dairy contain ‘anti-nutrients’ such as phytates and lectins that cause this.
And if you thought that was bad enough, think again. The coup de gr âce of agricultural foods is in the long-term effects. Via the action of their lectin components, these foods are likely the main contributor to the development of autoimmune diseases, hyperinsulinemia (the obesity/lifestyle disease ‘epidemic’ in developed/developing countries), and links to cancers are growing stronger. How is this so?
Chard has calcium bound by oxalates which make it unavailable to you, but they contain lots of other good stuff!!
Grains, beans and dairy products present a huge load of lectins which (similar to gluten in grains) increases permeability of the gut lining allowing lectins (and whatever other intestinal contents happen to be present) into the blood stream which demonstrably elicits an immune reaction and interferes in all sorts of cell signaling, hormone production and communication.
These lectins are likely the culprit in wreaking a long list of havoc in a variety of systems (immune being just one of them). Lectins also cause damage to the gut wall which may allow other non-lectin proteins to cross into the blood stream and cause allergic reactions. Having gained access to general circulation several types of lectins common in dairy may bind to surface cell membranes in (they have portions identical or similar enough to receptors on) arteries and vessels, organs. This binding sometimes begin antigen/antibody reactions which lead in many to autoimmune disorders (now so-called degenerative diseases).
Different lectins bound in this fashion have been strongly correlated with the onset of different diseases. Dairy lectins have been implicated in a large host of autoimmune-related, malabsorptive, and some endocrine-system related diseases.
Vit D is also much more complicated than just intake. Here’s my brief summary. Vit D can be made by the body and does not necessarily need to be supplmented. However, Vit D is one of the few supplements many people might need since they either don’t spend enough time in the sun or a modern diet has reduced Vit D levels. You should get a blood test to see what your serum levels (of 25-hydroxyvitamin D) are.
The biochemistry of a modern diet not only decreases bone density, but also Vit D levels. An ancestral diet is naturally very high in magnesium which maximizes Vit D activation of the Vit D your body synthesizes and also maximizes activation of dietary Vit D. RDA for Vit D is a sad joke, especially considering the Vit D depletion action of a SAD.
Here’s an excellent post by Dr. Kurt Harris that covers pretty much all you need to know about Vit D. Also, here’s a good Robb Wolf post “Paleo vs. Osteoporosis”.
A strong bones breakfast (leftover bacon grease for sauteed kale, two fried, eggs, some organic blackberries... the bacon got inhaled before picture was taken)
Okay, you get it, not eating grains/beans/dairy will help me retain calcium, plus these things will slowly kill you, I’m on board at least with the whole emulating pre-agricultural diets thing, but where the hell do you get the calcium and Vitamin D from!?!?
Dietary calcium is most abundant in an ancestral (paleo) diet from dark leafy greens. Calcium from DLG’s such as kale is absorbed better than from milk (and won’t do all the awful stuff to you grains, beans and most dairy).
Sun exposure (a good calculator for this) is the best source of Vitamin D. Vitamin D can also be found in eggs, liver, fish and oysters. Should your Vit D levels be low, supplementing may be an important course of action.
Here are some great articles and posts to help you out…
What your kitchen should look like before a cooking-fest
Websites/posts
- Dr. Cordain’s Paleo Diet site on acid/base balance
- The Paleo Diet website Calcium FAQ
- The Whole 9 ‘manifesto’ on dairy
- Some posts on Vit D from Dr. Eades: Vit D & Influenza, Statins & Vit D, Vit D & Folate, Rapid health improvements with a Paleolithic diet
- Heart Scan Blog’s review of the recent IOM ‘updates’ to the Vit D RDA
- MDA’s series starter on Vit D
Some papers
- Dietary Acid-Base Balance, Bone Resorption, and Calcium Excretion (2006)
- Calcium requirements: new estimations for men and women by cross-sectional statistical analyses of calcium balance data from metabolic studies (2007)
- Diet, evolution and aging The pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet (2001)
- Adverse Effects of Sodium Chloride on Bone (2008)
What is the best kind of bacon to buy that doesn’t have nitrates and nitrites? Does it matter? Thanks!
Another great post, Remy!! I think this is the most common question after people get over the initial, “Wait, you don’t eat bread… or pasta… or beans?!?!” shock.
@ Trevor, almost all grocery stores (including Ralph’s and Von’s) carry bacon that doesn’t contain nitrates or nitrites, although it is usually a bit pricier. Usually it is written nice and large on the front of the package.
i <3 krannie!
@Trevor/Cody: Ralph’s/Von’s might offer nitrate/nitrite-free meat, but it’s still going to be made from animals who were fed corn/grain/soy which makes for animals as sick as us if we were to eat just that. That makes for meat with very low-quality inflammation-inducing fat, not to mention whatever hormones/pesticide/antibiotics we might ingest.
Niman Ranch is a brand available in Trader Joe’s and by mail order. http://www.nimanranch.com. Check out eatwild.org to find local farmers who will sell you some yummy pork straight from their pasture.
It’s really not worth it to eat the crappy stuff just to save an extra $1-2. Cut that from another budget and savor the healthy/happy pig meat
@ Remy: yep, right again … Except that, unfortunately, Niman Ranch uses “vegetarian feeds” (meaning soy, grain, corn)… although, I do like the fact that they never use hormones or antibiotics on their animals.
Super informative! It’s been neat, as I’ve been learning more about nutrition and Paleo eating, to flip all the traditional nutrition knowledge we’ve learned over the years completely on its head. like…you don’t need milk to get your calcium? whatttt?! (of course, some of it has to do with who’s getting what subsidies too…)
Thanks, Remy! Safe travels
i need remy for dummies.