Cornerstone #1: Eating a whole food diet

While doing some research for another post I came across an interesting article by Spreadbury about how the type of carbohydrate differs in an ancestral diet compared to a western diet.  The article, “Comparison with ancestral diets suggests dense acellular carbohydrates promote an inflammatory microbiota, and may be the primary dietary cause of leptin resistance and obesity.” was just published the other month, and is available for free online.

The article is really great and is well worth the read.  He starts off by explaining the discord between much of the data for macronutrient ratios and obesity.  While both high fat and high carbohydrate diets have been implicated in the development of obesity in western society, these diets result in very healthy people when consumed in a “traditional” culture.  Since these diets only promote obesity in a western culture, there must be some other factor that makes these diets cause obesity, rather than the carb/fat ratios themselves.

A human need for fiber?

Well after attending AHS 2012 the other week I came home with more questions then I could have imagined going into it.  All of the presentations were fantastic, however the safe starches panel seems to be the most talked about.  This was very interesting, as it seemed like the panelists covered almost the entire spectrum of a carbohydrate intake continuum.  Another point that was brought up was the need for dietary fiber, and, being somewhat unsure about this topic, I decided to dig a little further into it.