Plant based or Paleo?

Recently I was reflecting on how great I felt while doing my elimination diet. I went to the very basics of foods and removed all meats, and animal byproducts. Due to the fact that I was also eliminating soy I had extreme difficulty finding food that was not just vegan friendly, buy soy free. To add another layer of difficulty, because I am just that much of an overachiever, I was also gluten free. Since understanding that the only things I technically have to remove from my diet are gluten, dairy and soy, I have free reign to try new meal plans.

I spent many hours researching the Paleo diet and found great evidence supporting it. Doctors, dietitians, success stories and journalists have seen fantastic results. Personally, I have many friends who are raising their families in a Paleo environment and the results are astounding. Coming from just having a vegan diet and feeling the wonderful effects I found myself feeling a bit bi-polar. Can you make a half vegan, half Paleo diet work? They are opposites in the obvious meat views but what else? 

A few key things stood out. While you can eat whatever you want in the vegan world as long as it does not include animal products, the Paleo world has strict no processed foods guidelines. On the Paleo side 100% of my vitamins  minerals, proteins and other body building factors will be derived from natural sources. The grains, legumes and other plants that are negative for the body are forbidden. With the artificial food allowed in the vegan diet there is a good chance that chemical additives will be augmenting my numbers. It is perfectly acceptable in the vegan world to load up on chips, dip, cakes, pies, etc. These things, if made animal free, are all fine to consume. Obviously if you are eating for health you want to steer clear of these things but they are considered kosher in the diet. This made me consider why a vegan diet is so great for some and yet still has the potential to be a bad idea for the body.

One of the first things for me that is problematic is lack of vitamin B12. B12 aids in the formation of blood and the nervous system. The NIH lists the negative repercussions of being deficient. "Vitamin B12 deficiency causes tiredness, weakness, constipation, loss of appetite, weight loss, and megaloblastic anemia. Nerve problems, such as numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, can also occur. Other symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency include problems with balance, depression, confusion, dementia, poor memory, and soreness of the mouth or tongue. Vitamin B12 deficiency can damage the nervous system even in people who don't have anemia, so it is important to treat a deficiency as soon as possible."

Clearly, we need B12 but can you get in from plants? Short answer...no. This leads me to search for animal sources.

• Beef liver and clams, which are the best sources of vitamin B12.

• Fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and other dairy products, which also contain vitamin B12.

• Some breakfast cereals, nutritional yeasts and other food products that are fortified with vitamin B12. To find out if vitamin B12 has been added to a food product, check the product labels.

If you have to supplement with lab created products, is the diet complete? I would argue no. this brings me to my second issue with the vegan diet, heavy reliance on soy. While I can see that soy is a wonderful thing because it can take the place of many items in look and texture, I feel that it is too heavily relied upon to fill a void. Look at any vegan meal plan and try to go a day without soy as a main product in a meal. If you eat cereal there is soy milk, drink coffee/tea with soy milk. Soy is used to create fake cheeses, fake meats, as thickeners, and as a main portion. Where dairy or meat once was, soy replaces it. Does this make the diet somehow better than just eating anything? I argue no. Other than the obvious moral choices, if you replace everything good about your diet with something artificial and not even healthy, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. 

But is soy really all that bad? YES. 

Here is a little light reading by Dr. Joseph Mercola. Originally posted in a soy debate article here. 

Who hasn't heard of the marvels of soy? The marketing bandwagon has touted soy as the perfect health food for decades. But could something that sounds so healthful actually be dangerous?

If you take the time to look into the actual science, then the answer is yes. Thousands of studies link soy to malnutrition, digestive distress, immune system breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders and infertility -- even cancer and heart disease.

One of the primary reasons it would be wise for you to avoid soy is that more than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified. Since the introduction of genetically engineered foods in 1996, we've had an upsurge in low birth weight babies, infertility, and other problems in the U.S., and animal studies have shown devastating effects from genetically engineered soy including allergies, sterility, birth defects, and offspring death rates up to five times higher than normal.

Soybean crops are also heavily sprayed with chemical herbicides, suchglyphosate, which a French team of researchers have found to be carcinogenic.

Soybeans -- even organically grown soybeans -- naturally contain "antinutrients" such as saponins, soyatoxin, phytates, trypsin inhibitors, goitrogens and phytoestrogens. Traditional fermentation destroys these antinutrients, which allows your body to enjoy soy's nutritional benefits. However, most Westerners do not consume fermented soy, but rather unfermented soy, mostly in the form of soymilk, tofu, TVP, and soy infant formula.

Unfermented soy has the following 10 adverse affects on your body:

1. High Phytic Acid (Phytates):Reduces assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking, but only with long fermentation. High-phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

2. Trypsin inhibitors: Interferes with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals, trypsin inhibitors in soy caused stunted growth.

3. Goitrogens: Potent agents that block your synthesis of thyroid hormones and can cause hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked with autoimmune thyroid disease. Goitrogens interfere with iodine metabolism.

4. Phytoestrogens/Isoflavones: Plant compounds resembling human estrogen can block your normal estrogen and disrupt endocrine function, cause infertility, and increase your risk for breast cancer.

5. Hemagglutinin: A clot-promoting substance that causes your red blood cells to clump, making them unable to properly absorb and distribute oxygen to your tissues.

6. Synthetic Vitamin D: Soy foods increase your body's vitamin D requirement, which is why companies add synthetic vitamin D2 to soymilk (a toxic form of vitamin D).

7. Vitamin B12: Soy contains a compound resembling vitamin B12 that cannot be used by your body, so soy foods can actually contribute to B12 deficiency, especially among vegans.

8. Protein Denaturing: Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolateand textured vegetable protein (TVP). Chemical processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.

9. MSG: Free glutamic acid, or MSG, is a potent neurotoxin. MSG is formed during soy food processing, plus additional MSG is often added to mask soy's unpleasant taste.

10. Aluminum and Manganese: Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum, which is toxic to your nervous system and kidneys, and manganese, which wreaks havoc on your baby's immature metabolic system.

Soy's antinutrients are quite potent. Drinking just two glasses of soymilk daily provides enough of these compounds to alter a woman's menstrual cycle. But if you feed soy to your infant or child, these effects are magnified a thousand-fold. Infants fed soy formula may have up to 20,000 times more estrogen circulating through their bodies as those fed other formulas. You should NEVER feed your infant a soy-based formula!

In fact, infants fed soy formula take in an estimated five birth control pills' worth of estrogen every day.

As dangerous as unfermented soy is,fermented soy from organic soybeans is a different story altogether and can be a beneficial part of your diet. Fermented soy is a great source of vitamin K2, and K2 (combined with vitamin D) is essential in preventing osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and various types of cancer.

Verdict... Plant based paleo? Is it possible? After weighing both sides of the debate I am opting for middle ground. Plant based diet, free of legumes and grains and filled with lots of wonderful vegetables  fruits and a good supply of farm fresh eggs. I will stick to fresh wild caught seafood and grass fed land animals but keep the critter count to a minimum. Hopefully I can create a 30 day meal plan but I think it is going to be a hard job. I will post recipes as I try them. This could be interesting.