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genuinegirly · 01-11-2010, 09:25 AM

Do you like eating huge slabs of raw meat? How about a workout that involves tossing rocks barefoot in the frigid outdoors? Do you enjoy fasting for days at a time? This may be the diet for you. Here's a description from a New York Times article: - LINK-

Some questions to get people talking:
Would you be willing to try the Caveman diet? Why or why not?
How do your eating habits differ from those addressed here?
Do you feel that their claims of increased vitality are valid?
Have you incorporated fasting into your current diet plan? If so, do you feel it is beneficial?
What is the longest you have voluntarily fasted, and what kind of a meal did you eat to conclude the fast?

Quote:

The New Age Cavemen and the City
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
...

The caveman lifestyle, in Mr. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Mr. Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits.

These urban cavemen also choose exercise routines focused on sprinting and jumping, to replicate how a prehistoric person might have fled from a mastodon.

In a city crowded with vegetarian restaurants and yoga studios, the cavemen defy other people’s ideas of healthy living. There is an indisputable macho component to the lifestyle.

“I didn’t want to do some faddish diet that my sister would do,” Mr. Durant said. ...

Experts in early humans dispute some of the tenets of latter-day paleos, including the belief that fasting is beneficial and that the body is unequipped to handle an agriculture-based diet.

Still, there is a “sharp contrast” between the strength and fitness of our distant ancestors and us, said Clark Larsen, a physical anthropologist at Ohio State University. “The male or female of 12,000 to 15,000 years ago will be considerably stronger and in better shape,” he said. Unfortunately, life was short: If you made it to age 30 or so, you had done well.

But the surprising consensus of the paleos is that the city is a paradise.

“New York is the only city in America where you can walk,” said Nassim Taleb, an investor who gained a measure of celebrity for his theories, described in “The Black Swan,” that extreme events can roil financial markets. “People treat walking like exercise,” he said, “but walking is how humans become humans.”...

Instead of eating three square meals a day, many of New York’s cavemen fast intermittently, up to 36 hours at a stretch. ...

Another caveman trick involves donating blood frequently. The idea is that various hardships might have occasionally left ancient humans a pint short. Asked when he last gave blood, Andrew Sanocki said it had been three months. He and his brother looked at each other. “We’re due,” Andrew said.

Most of the cavemen at Mr. Durant’s gatherings are lean and well-muscled, and have glowing skin. A few wear trim beards. Some claim that they no longer get sick. Several identify themselves as libertarians.

They regularly grumble about vegans, whom they regard as a misguided, rival tribe. But much of the conversation is spent parsing the law of the jungle. The most severe interpretations generally come from Vladimir Averbukh, a jaunty red-headed Web manager for the city who was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. ...

Mr. Averbukh is a pre-Promethean sort of caveman. Much of his nourishment comes from grass-fed ground beef, which he eats raw. In a bow to the times, he sometimes uses a fork.

The other cavemen in New York find Mr. Averbukh’s preference for raw beef a little strange.

“I draw the line at sushi,” Andrew Sanocki said. “Paleo man had fire, didn’t he?”

Beyond Mr. Durant’s tribe, it is likely that other New Yorkers are practicing a milder, diet-focused version of the lifestyle. An Upper East Side physician, Grant Macaulay, said he has recommended the diet to hundreds of his patients, and sends them to Barnes & Noble to buy a copy of Mr. Cordain’s “Paleo Diet.”

But these computer-savvy cavemen are not interested in living off the grid, like others who share their ambivalence toward the indoor life. And their eating and exercise habits aside, the cavemen say they have no nostalgia for the prehistoric world.

Mr. Averbukh, who drives around town in a red Smart Car, said the thought of “throwing yourself in the forest with a stick and seeing how long you survive” held no appeal.

The cavemen are happy in the modern world, they say, but simply want to regain the fortitude that they attribute to their ancient ancestors.

“The problem is that as soon as we get out of our temperature-controlled environments, we’re weak,” Mr. Durant said. “Where’s that wildness that allowed humans to flourish throughout history?”

With this view of humanity’s past, what does Mr. Durant see in his future? One idea is a restaurant called B.C. or Wild.

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My response:

Would you be willing to try the Caveman diet? Why or why not?
No. The very idea is repulsive. I'm not fond of the taste of meat. Fear of pathogens are enough reason to keep me away from raw meat. Besides, didn't they have fire?

How do your eating habits differ from those addressed here?
I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I like the concept of living off the grid and being able to prepare all of my own food from scratch - I can raise chickens, I can raise plants. I can't kill. I enjoy eating plants, I take far more pleasure in preparing plant-based meals.

Do you feel that their claims of increased vitality are valid?
Anyone who takes an account of their daily caloric intake and attempts to reach peak fitness could experience similar vitality.

Have you incorporated fasting into your current diet plan? If so, do you feel it is beneficial?
My current diet does not have room for regular fasting. I have incorporated fasting into my diet in the past, while I was still eating meat, I found it was a good way to clear my system, always felt like a fresh start. Usually just 24-hour fasting. On a veggie diet, I don't feel the same urge to fast.