Veggies over fruits?

[kurite]

I was reading up on some of the ideals behind the paleo diet and found a site that said we ate more vegetables than fruit back in the day? Is this true? I kind of get the sense that most members believe in eating more fruit than veggies?
Any thoughts?

[TylerDurden]

I would agree. Vegetables in the wild are more available through the year than fruits.  That said, I think people only really went in for vegetables when cooking was invented. Prior to that, eating roots and tubers would have been a real problem, given the concentration of antinutrients. Other veg such as garlic leaves would have been eaten raw, way before cooking got started in the last 10% of the Palaeolithic era.

[goodsamaritan]

Depends on the veggie and depends on the fruit.
And depends on your definition of what a fruit and what a veggie is.
My fruit definition is anything with seeds.

So I feed my kids cucumbers and zuccini.  They are fruits.  But some people call them veggies just because they aren't sweet.

There are good things like celery which are vegetables.  Then there are carrots which are root crops.

It all depends.  It all depends on what you got in your area.

[SkinnyDevil]

I suspect they ate whatever they could. This means, in some areas (and times), LOTS of fruit & veggies and occasional meats. In other areas (and times), it meant mostly veggies, or mostly fruit, or mostly meats.

Planet Earth is a big place with myriad environmental conditions, and the paleo (as well as neolithic) period covered a lot of time. Homo sapiens alone walked out of Africa some 200,000 years, spread quickly throughout Southeast Asia & Europe, lived through several Ice Ages (glacial maximum) in areas both cold and hot, and are extremely adaptable and opportunistic.

Veggies over fruit? The question is too general. Paleo humans didn't, on the whole, favor one or the other.

I suggest experimenting and seeing for yourself what YOUR body prefers (if either). So long as you have broken any particular "addictions", your body will not steer you wrong.

[cliff]

Most vegetables in there wild state are pretty damn bitter, my feeling is these would have been last case scenario foods and/or heavily cooked. 

[SkinnyDevil]

Bitter? Why would you say that?

[miles]

Is modern garlic bred to be extra strong because of cooking? Would real wild garlic have been nicer?

Also... Some people would say that any desire for sugar is a sign of an addiction there. People who think sugar is bad...

[cliff]

Bitter? Why would you say that?

They usually contain alkaloids.  Wild lettuce is notoriously bitter

[ForTheHunt]

I suspect they ate whatever they could. This means, in some areas (and times), LOTS of fruit & veggies and occasional meats. In other areas (and times), it meant mostly veggies, or mostly fruit, or mostly meats.

Planet Earth is a big place with myriad environmental conditions, and the paleo (as well as neolithic) period covered a lot of time. Homo sapiens alone walked out of Africa some 200,000 years, spread quickly throughout Southeast Asia & Europe, lived through several Ice Ages (glacial maximum) in areas both cold and hot, and are extremely adaptable and opportunistic.

Veggies over fruit? The question is too general. Paleo humans didn't, on the whole, favor one or the other.

I suggest experimenting and seeing for yourself what YOUR body prefers (if either). So long as you have broken any particular "addictions", your body will not steer you wrong.

What an excellent post. Thank you

[kurite]

They usually contain alkaloids.  Wild lettuce is notoriously bitter

Actually wild lettuce isn't bitter until it is full grown. If you eat it young than it is not bitter at all. Modern day lettuce does this to as far as I know.

[ryanwang]

I have always eaten carrots like its a fruit cause of the high sugar content...But I guess fruits do taste better and they are probably preferred back in the ages..

[KD]

I'm definitely of the type that believes we can eat within the kinds of foods we are adapted to - ideally in comprobable quantities that we would have as research unfolds - but ultimately is on the preference of the individual

so while even things like fruit oils might fit within this definition of 'paleo', it doesn't make them healthy, especially in large percentages of the diet. You can apply this to other 'offenders' and percentages of course.

I tend to go in for things like celery and other non-herb vegetables as being positive, but these ARE totally products of agriculture. At the same time, not all wild foods are bitter from experience going on wild food hikes.

I do think most non-root veg in the paelolithic would have been more in the form of herbs, and would not contribute much fiber or starch or even bulk.

---

I'm under the impression that a reason for eshewing vegetables is that they have a much slower transit time than raw meats, and are far less digestible than vegetarians claim, so they might present more problems for us than with healthy primitives, who also would likely just be picking them fresh and infrequently so, not picking and choosing them in between meat meals.

the paleo doctrines mentioned the OP are probably based on cooking, in that case raw or cooked vegetation is beneficial in moving cooked meat through the body.

[SkinnyDevil]

What an excellent post. Thank you

Very kind of you to say. Thank you.

[Vraellie]

I prefer veggies over fruit mainly because fruits tend to spike my insulin levels, making me low blood sugar, which defeats the purpose of eating in my case. I never get hungry, only low blood sugar.

[Destor]

Maybe one or the other was more common in the wild, but really I doubt there's any rhyme or reason to which was consumed more often.

We probably ate them opportunistically, when we came across edible varieties on our travels.  What that means to me is that ideally you would want both sporadically, and in as wide of a variety as possible.

[proteus]

vegetables are for pussies.  traditionally we ate things like roots, mushrooms and leaves.  fruits are just diabetes waiting to happen.

roots & leaves > nuts, seeds & mushrooms > vegetables & berries > fruits > pepsi, coffee, pizza & donuts

[goodsamaritan]

vegetables are for pussies.  traditionally we ate things like roots, mushrooms and leaves.  fruits are just diabetes waiting to happen.

roots & leaves > nuts, seeds & mushrooms > vegetables & berries > fruits > pepsi, coffee, pizza & donuts

Love your analysis.

Any suggestions for roots?
Leaves?
Which seeds?
Which mushrooms?

I want to try raw mushrooms.  Which ones are safe?

[Techydude]

I don't tolerate sugar be it fruit, or any kind, or anything with a seed on my diet. Sugar once or twice a year similar to natives when they harvest honey for pollen and bacteria purposes or from tree sap or pollen.

Veggies, water, fats, organs, meats, and bones and plenty of sun.

[Josh]

I preferred the butternut squash at first as it made my energy more even, but I find that now I'm starting to get adapted to low carb, I don't want it at all, I'm happy with a bit of fruit.

It feels ok to just eat under 30g carb from fruit, then leave it..I'm not getting bad cravings or energy drops.

[Löwenherz]

I was reading up on some of the ideals behind the paleo diet and found a site that said we ate more vegetables than fruit back in the day? Is this true? I kind of get the sense that most members believe in eating more fruit than veggies?
Any thoughts?

Until today I still have never seen ANY wild vegetable in any country that looked palatable in its raw uncooked form.

Take the wild carrot for example, very small, very hard, like a piece of wood.

Why on earth started humans breeding vegetables? There must have been an extreme shortage of real food.

Sometimes I have the feeling that the whole 'wild vegetable thing' is just a myth or nonsense.

Wild fruits are ok. Wild meats are ok. Do we need anything else?

Löwenherz

[kurite]

Until today I still have never seen ANY wild vegetable in any country that looked palatable in its raw uncooked form.

Take the wild carrot for example, very small, very hard, like a piece of wood.

Why on earth started humans breeding vegetables? There must have been an extreme shortage of real food.

Sometimes I have the feeling that the whole 'wild vegetable thing' is just a myth or nonsense.

Wild fruits are ok. Wild meats are ok. Do we need anything else?

Löwenherz

I never understood that whole thing either. Another example is a potato. Supposedly they were poisonous while still wild and we bred it to be not poisonous. But what was the purpose?

[proteus]

Love your analysis.

Any suggestions for roots?
Leaves?
Which seeds?
Which mushrooms?

I want to try raw mushrooms.  Which ones are safe?

no clue about mushrooms or roots in practice - was saying it theoretically.

leaves - i use organic spinach, as well as just an organic spring salad mix that they sell at the store ( i don't even know what they put in there ).  but you have to make sure any leaves you get are organic because they have a huge surface area so if they are sprayed you will get a huge dose of toxins.  theoretically i know i should be using more leafy greens but they don't stay fresh very long so i am reluctant to buy them in fear that they will go bad before i can use them.

seeds - i use hemp and chia.  chia seeds i blend.  hemp seeds you can eat just like that, they are much softer and better tasting.  sprout the seeds if you can - this will make them more easily digestible ( i don't do this myself, but i probably should )

i also use this:

http://www.thesynergycompany.com/ps_ingredients.html

which contains roots, mushrooms, leaves, grasses, sprouted seeds & algae ... but i only use about one spoon per day because of the high cost.  and even aside of the cost i would rather consume fresh food than dried powder - but it is very convenient if you use a blender on a daily basis as i do.

[Löwenherz]

I never understood that whole thing either. Another example is a potato. Supposedly they were poisonous while still wild and we bred it to be not poisonous. But what was the purpose?

To become independant from volatile food availability? After that we all became starch addicted. And today brainwashing is our daily business. See McDougall & all these other well educated experts. All physicians I know still recommend whole grains. Oh God!

The authors of the Bible knew this as Cain and Abel show us.

It must have been Devil's plan...

Löwenherz

[miles]

leaves - i use organic spinach

IIRC Spinach is un-paleo, bred from some inedible leaf I think, don't remember exactly though..

[magnetic]

Be careful eating such foods raw.  They contain anti-nutrients.

no clue about mushrooms or roots in practice - was saying it theoretically.

From:
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/toxins-in-food.html

Hydrazines: volatile carcinogens found in many raw mushrooms, including shiitake and the white button mushrooms common to the grocery store produce section. Mice display a significant increase in the incidence of several types of tumors after they are fed uncooked mushrooms. Cooking the mushrooms destroys a third of the hydrazine compounds.

leaves - i use organic spinach, as well as just an organic spring salad mix that they sell at the store ( i don't even know what they put in there ).  but you have to make sure any leaves you get are organic because they have a huge surface area so if they are sprayed you will get a huge dose of toxins.  theoretically i know i should be using more leafy greens but they don't stay fresh very long so i am reluctant to buy them in fear that they will go bad before i can use them.

Spinach is listed below.  Note that the list includes strawberries, pears and peaches (three of my favorite fruits):

Goitrogens: a class of toxins in food which suppress the function of the thyroid gland by interfering with iodine uptake. Long term exposure can cause an enlargement of the thyroid (goiter). Foods containing these substances include soybeans (and soybean products such as tofu), pine nuts, peanuts, millet, strawberries, pears, peaches, spinach, bamboo shoots, radishes, horseradish, and vegetables in the genus Brassica (bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, canola, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, rutabagas, and turnips.

seeds - i use hemp and chia.  chia seeds i blend.  hemp seeds you can eat just like that, they are much softer and better tasting.  sprout the seeds if you can - this will make them more easily digestible ( i don't do this myself, but i probably should )

Seeds have phytic acid:
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/phytic-acid.html

I stick with certain fruits.  Banana, apple, blueberry, grapefruit, etc.