Those of you who have spent some time on my web site know that my dietary recommendations for most people can be summarized in a short paragraph. Eliminate sugar and HFCS from your diet, keep your fructose intake below 25 grams per day, greatly reduce or eliminate grains and legumes from your diet and avoid drinking milk. If you do consume dairy, cheese and unsweetened yogurt might be acceptable. Get your carbohydrates mainly from vegetables and some fruit. The ideal composition of a healthy diet is low carbohydrate, moderate protein and high fat, assuming that you are eating healthy fats like coconut oil, olive oil, omega 3 fatty acids and avocados. That pretty much leaves you with meat, seafood, fish, vegetables, nuts, berries and some fruit.

Although I don’t always use the term, my recommendations clearly fall into the mainstream Paleo style diet. By definition, a Paleo diet relies on food that was available before we began domesticating animals and growing grains over the past 10,000 years or so. In other words “find it” or “kill it” type food.

In This Corner, Wearing the Blue Trunks, is Ron Rosedale
When it comes to carbohydrates, the Paleo world seems to be splitting into two separate camps and the conversations between these groups have recently taken on the air of a championship heavyweight boxing match. In one corner is a group led by Ron Rosedale, who advocates a very low carbohydrate, high fat, ketogenic diet. In his view virtually all of us are metabolically damaged to one degree or another, and carbohydrates are a form of toxin when we consume them.

In Rosedale’s world there is no such thing as a good or safe carbohydrate. He isn’t so concerned about matching the diet of our Paleo ancestors, even if they did sometimes eat carbohydrates. In his view Mother Nature’s plan is to support us through our childbearing and child-raising years, and then once the kids are on their own, our longevity is no longer a priority. He believes that severely restricting carbohydrates is one way to thwart Mother Nature’s plan, giving us some extra longevity.

In This Corner, Wearing the Red Trunks, is Paul Jaminet
In the other corner is the “safe starch” crowd led by Paul Jaminet. They believe that certain starches that are relatively free of anti-nutrients and toxins like potatoes, sweet potatoes and white rice can be a part of a healthy, Paleo-style diet. They don’t believe that glucose per say is a toxin unless levels are abnormally high.

At the recent Ancestral Health Conference at Harvard I witnessed the first round of this championship bout and a lot of punches were thrown with no clear victor. Even though Jimmy Moore is definitely on the low carb, ketogenic team on a personal level, he did an excellent job moderating the panel.

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/video-my-safe-starches-panel-at-ahs12/16567

Since being exposed to both views at the conference, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure which side of this argument I should plant myself, and to date I am still somewhat undecided. When I read Ron Rosedale’s blog posts on the topic, I tend to drift in his direction. He makes a really strong argument that most people are already heading down the road to insulin resistance and type II diabetes and a ketogenic diet is the only way to move back towards health. He also points out that although a ketogenic diet may not be natural, it tricks Mother Nature into extending our lives when her plan is to put us in the grave after raising our children.

We Didn’t Invent Low Carb Eating
We know that certain cultures have gotten along quite nicely with few or no carbohydrates. This would include groups like the Intuit Native Americans before they were introduced to Western food. Although in the past they seemed fairly free of many of the chronic diseases of modern western living, it’s unclear if eating this way did anything for their longevity. Ron Rosedale might argue that’s because they ate too much protein. He advises limiting protein to one gram per kilogram of body weight per day and I doubt that the Intuit were into counting grams of anything. Unlike protein and fat, carbohydrates are not an essential part of our diet because we can make glucose from both protein and fat, yet the reverse is not true. On the other hand, certain carbohydrates are good sources of anti-oxidants and flavenoids that have many beneficial properties when it comes to our health.

At the conference Paul Jaminet made a very strong counterargument that safe starches can actually enhance health and quality of life without shortening life expectancy. He also correctly points out that many traditional cultures have eaten variable amounts of carbohydrates while remaining quite healthy. I live with a Greek wife who has been eating a lot of safe starches for years. For me this is starting to get really personal. Try turning down your wife’s homemade treat like Baklava and you’ll see what I mean. There’s health and then there’s marital harmony!

After Nine Rounds, Who’s Ahead?
For someone in the bleachers watching this smackdown from afar, it isn’t always clear what one should do when it comes to a healthy diet. Eat a few carbs and self-destruct? Eat a few safe starches and live happily ever after? This is getting really confusing.

When faced with a confusing situation, over the years I have learned to take the broad view. What we are really talking about here is two separate issues: quality of life and length of life. Don’t get me wrong—they are both important. What good does it do for you to live to 150 if the last part of your life is painful and unproductive? I prefer to first focus on quality of life and then worry about length of life.

How does one sort through this plethora of attractive arguments? I prefer to take a global view. When it comes to longevity, there are likely hundreds or thousands of variables at play, many of which we have yet to recognize. Biology is extremely complex because there are always a zillion unknown variables. To date there have been no scientifically documented methods to extend human life more than a short period of time. Avoiding stepping in front of buses is a no-brainer. Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting look promising, but they are unproven. Dr. Rosedale’s approach is attractive, but it is also very restrictive and unproven. If you gain a few more years of life using these techniques, more power to you, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a fountain of youth.

Stratify, Stratify, Stratify Your Risks
When it comes to health risks, I like to stratify them. Not all risks are the same. If you walk in front of a bus, you will suffer very immediate negative consequences. If you eat bad food, you may suffer negative consequences in a few decades. If you eat a few safe starches, who knows? I like to break risks down into a few simple categories. Tigers are risks that you simply can’t ignore. They will make lunch out of you in a heartbeat if you become complacent. Rats chew on your ankles and make you miserable but they don’t kill you, at least in the short run. Mosquitoes will drive you crazy, but they will never kill you, unless of course they carry a disease like malaria. Tigers, rats and mosquitoes—it’s a pretty simple system.

So let’s first look for the tigers. In my opinion, the tigers in our diet are fairly clear: excessive fructose mainly from sugar and HFCS and high glycemic carbohydrates mainly from grains. If you eliminate these toxic elements from your diet, you will experience dramatic improvements to your health and wellbeing. There’s also a good chance that you will live longer. Excessive amounts of partially hydrogenated fats and vegetable oils are also likely tigers, or a least they are baby tigers. Legumes and dairy products are also baby tigers or perhaps rats.

What about “safe starches”? In my opinion these are rats or more likely mosquitoes. They are certainly not tigers. I suspect that your ability to handle safe starches depends on your genetic makeup. We know that the number of human amylase gene copies (AMY1) is correlated with the amount of starch that a given race has traditionally eaten. This suggests that evolutionary adaption plays a role in how carbohydrates affect us.

If Ron Rosedale is right, then eliminating these safe starches might buy us a few more years of life, but to date we have no controlled studies supporting that this is true. It is also possible that eating some safe starches might shorten or prolong your life, yet at this point we are basing our views mostly on theoretical musings. Rather then feel like a ping-pong ball bouncing back and forth between these equally attractive perspectives, I suggest including some philosophical considerations.

The Many Faces of Food
Throughout the history of mankind, food has always been more than just something to sustain us. Food also has strong cultural and social connections. We “break bread” with those we love, even if we have given up bread as I have done. In my opinion virtually all traditional ethnic diets are much healthier than the typical American diet that is loaded with tigers. If you tweak these traditional diets—say by eliminating most grains, legumes and dairy, you will be eating a pretty darn healthy diet. You may not get those few extra years of added life (or perhaps you will—who knows for sure), but you will definitely have more variety in your diet, and as they say, variety is the spice of life.

In my opinion variety increases enjoyment of life, as long as your exclude the tigers, because tigers definitely affect both quality and length of life. If locking yourself in a closet extended your life for a few years, would you do it? In other words, there’s more to life than length of life. I haven’t seen much evidence that including some safe starches in your diet decreases the quality of your life and I suspect the opposite is true. Jimmy Moore is a big fan of a ketogenic diet because it has reversed his metabolic problems, likely improving both the quality and length of his life–excluding the proverbial bus of course. If you are metabolically damaged because of a combination of your genetic makeup and past dietary indulgences, then this type of extreme diet can be very effective at turning around the ship.

Find Your Own Dietary Sweet Spot
For these reasons, I am currently leaning towards the value of safe carbohydrates in my diet, but that may not be the best choice for you. I may change my mind as we gather new evidence. Study and learn all you can, listen to both sides of the argument and pay attention to how your body and brain responds to different dietary patterns. Not everyone wears the same size shoes and there is no such thing as a perfect diet for everyone. Focus on the tigers, and avoid the rats and the mosquitoes if you can. While doing so, don’t forget to find some enjoyment and pleasure in your life.