Are Legumes Paleo

Many people wonder are legumes paleo. The Paleo dogma on legumes is that they are not paleo and should not be consumed.

However, there are many varieties of paleo. While the earlier versions of paleo were extremely strict, many modern paleo dieters are not married to the early paleo dogma and have relaxed the restrictions based on newer evidence that may not have been available to the early paleo adopters. 

We cannot know exactly what our ancestors ate. But we do know is that there wasn’t any one diet back then just as there is no one diet being consumed by mankind today.

 Are Legumes Paleo - Paleo Dogma

 

Paleo dogma says legumes are not paleo and should not be consumed mainly for these two reasons:

1. They were not part of the ancestral diet
2. They contain lectin and phytic acid which are toxic antinutrients

 

Are Legumes Paleo

Dr. Stephan Guyenet posted an article in November 2013 titled Beans, Lentils and the Paleo Diet.

Dr. Guyenet said in part:

“there is good evidence of widespread legume consumption by hunter-gatherers and archaic humans, and that beans and lentils are therefore an “ancestral” food that falls within the Paleo diet rubric”

“Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were a hominin species closely related to modern humans.. evidence is accumulating that their diets also featured a variety of plant foods, including wild legumes and grains.”

Dr. Guyenet also identified several contemporary hunter-gatherer groups that consumed significant amounts of legumes, including the !Kung San of the Kalahari desert and the Australian Aborigines.

The claim that legumes are not paleo does not hold up according to Dr. Guyenet.

While it’s true that this information was not available to the authors of early paleo diets, it is available today.

Are The Antinutrients In Legumes Toxic?

Paleo dogma holds that legumes contain toxic antinutrients called lectins and phytates or phytic acid and should therefore not be consumed. Let’s take a look at how they came to this conclusion and whether or not it makes sense.

Lectins In Legumes

Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are found in all foods and legumes do contain a high concentration of these antinutrients. Those who say we should avoid legumes point to studies which mentioned problems that could result from eating lectins such as damaging the lining of the small intestine, destroying skeletal muscle and interfering with the function of the pancreas.

We always need to take a close look at studies to make sure they were designed in a way to provide credible data and not structured to prove a point. We need to ask whether or not these studies really show that legumes are harmful when consumed as part of our diet.

We need to ask:

1. were the animals fed abnormally large amounts of lectins
2. were the animals fed raw legumes

Why? If the test subjects were fed amounts of lectins much higher than we could possibly consume, it does not follow that normal consumption would be harmful. The question regarding raw legumes is important because we usually eat cooked legumes and cooking just happens to neutralize the lectins found in most legumes.

As to the small amount of lectins left after cooking, the simple carbohydrates in legumes will bind to the proteins and minimize the antinutrient activity.

Are Legumes Toxic

There is one study that is often used in the paleo community to prove we shouldn’t eat legumes. However, on closer examination we see that the study reports a case of food poisoning which resulted from red kidney beans that were not cooked properly. To use a study like this to say we shouldn’t be eating kidney beans is engaging in hyperbole or possibly trying to misinform people.

People rarely eat raw legumes. There have been cases of people getting ill because they were served undercooked legumes, but a more appropriate response would be to educate people on the importance of preparing food properly.

Are Legumes Paleo - Conclusion

Some people are married to dogma. Dogma is defined as a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. When confronted with new evidence, people who are married to dogma dig deeper to find reasons to resist change, rather than making changes that would incorporate the new information.

If it is important to you to follow the dogma of the early paleo diets, then by all means don’t eat legumes. Frankly though, I don’t understand the reasoning.

Beans and lentils for example have a lot going for them. They’re satiating because they are rich in protein and fiber. They are also nutritious and a low cost source of vitamins and minerals that are alway available regardless of the season.

Why not eat food that is both nutritious and inexpensive if you like the taste and can tolerate it well.

Supersize It

Supersize It

Bottom of Form

More is always better right? Fast food restaurants and take out joints are all on the supersize it bandwagon battling it out to see who can offer more for less.

Supersize Me

About 10 years ago Morgan Spurlock made a film called Super Size Me. He recorded 30 days of eating all his meals at McDonald’s. Everything he ate or drank during that time came from McDonald’s. In the movie viewers watched the 33-year-old’s physical condition deteriorate day by day as he gained 25 pounds in one month of living on fast food.

Forget Supersize Me

In 2014, John Cisna, a high school biology teacher from Ankeny, Iowa, documented opposite results from eating McDonald's fare as he ate nothing but McDonald's for three months. Unlike Spurlock, he managed to lose 37 lbs and says he also lowered his cholesterol.

Mr. Cisna said he was largely inspired to do the experiment by Spurlock’s film, which he called irresponsible journalism because it didn’t teach kids choice. 

Cisna’s My McDonalds Diet

John Cisna says he set out to prove that it is possible to lose weight by eating nothing but McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 90 days straight. Let’s take a closer look to see whether he managed to do what he said he was doing and see whether he fits in the Fact or Not category.

Calories In vs Calories Out

It’s not surprising that Mr Cisna lost 37lbs. If you’re overweight to begin with and you cut calories by dieting, you will lose weight and your cholesterol, your blood sugar and your triglycerides will all come down as well. However, it has nothing to do with the food from McDonald’s - it has to do with calories in vs calories out and not where the calories come from.

It turns out that Cisna has lost significant amounts of weight before with other plans including Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. He was not able to maintain the loss before and I’ll wager he won’t this time either.

At his age Mr. Cisna’s was consuming about 3,300 calories a day to maintain his weight. By cutting back his calorie intake to 2,000 calories a day, there is no other possible outcome but to lose weight no matter what or where he was eating. In addition, he also started going for a brisk 45 minute walk each and every day, something he was not doing before.

It had nothing to do with eating fast foods!

The Math

It’s not an exact science, but you need to cut about 3,500 calories in order to lose one pound of weight. To lose one pound a week, you need to consume 500 calories less per day than usual each day of the week. Or, you could burn 500 calories by walking briskly for 1 hour every day.

To lose 37 pounds, Cisna had to cut 129,500 calories from his diet! 139,500/90 days = 1,349 fewer calories per day. 

To lose that amount of weight in 90 days, he needed to eat 1350 calories less than the 3,300 he had been consuming before. That brings him to his 2,000 calories a day diet at McDonald’s. The extra 400 calories he was burning up by walking gave him a bit of leeway for the odd snack at home.

Was Cisna’s Hypothesis Fact or Not

The fundamental rule in testing a hypothesis is that you change only one thing and keep everything else the same. That is the only way to know whether or not your hypothesis is correct. In other words, Mr. Cisna would have had to figure out exactly how many calories he was taking in before the trial and then make sure he kept eating exactly the same amount of calories during the entire trial. He would also have had to maintain the same lifestyle in terms of calorie expenditure. His experiment was a failure in that regard as well because he started walking for 45 minutes each and every day, something he was not doing before.

It's hard to imagine that Mr. Cisna didn't know this since he is a science teacher. The entire trial diet was a sham and more of a publicity stunt. The fact that he involved his students in this so-called experiment makes one wonder whether he should be teaching science.

This experiment had nothing to do with whether or not you could lose weight by eating at McDonalds.

Mr Cisna admits that he didn't exercise or watch his calorie intake before he went on this diet. He also doesn’t tell us what type of food he was eating before the diet. Was he already a regular customer at McDonalds?

Which brings us to the point of this article: Was Mr Cisna testing for the whether or not you could lose weight by eating at McDonald’s or was he testing to see whether or not you could lose weight by cutting down your calorie intake in conjunction with an exercise program?

It’s clear he was testing for the second hypothesis: can you lose weight by cutting calories and exercising.

Mr. Cisna said he was largely inspired to do the experiment by Spurlock’s film Supersize It, which he called irresponsible journalism because it didn’t teach kids choice. If he considers Spurlock’s film irresponsible journalism, what would he call a sham study by a science teacher?

As a science teacher, Mr. Cisna knows that in order for his experiment to be valid he would have had to maintain his 3,300 a day calorie diet and simply switch to getting all his calories entirely from McDonalds. He should also have astained from taking up any form of exercise he wasn’t doing before. Had he held both his calorie intake and his level of physical activity constant, he would have made the point that all calories are the same no matter where you get them from; and that’s assuming he wasn’t a regular at McDonald’s before he started the experiment!

The Verdict: NOT FACT