Background: Last week (February 18, 2014) Chris Kresser was a guest on the Dr. Oz show, “Find Your Personal Paleo Code, Pt 3,” and proceeded to say eating Legumes (beans) was acceptable up to 3 times a week, as well as whole fat dairy twice a day. Needless to say this got my attention, as legumes and dairy are two types of foods that are 100% NOT allowed on the Paleo Diet! When I’m talking about the Paleo Diet, I reference Dr. Loren Cordain, well, simply because he created it, not Robb Wolf, and certainly not Chris Kresser. I asked Chris to clarify what he said on the Dr. Oz show, via Twitter. It got into a testy back and forth with people jumping in on both sides. This then fueled my rant in the YouTube video above. I have voiced on a couple of interviews recently my concerns with people in the Robb Wolf and Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) camps changing the definition of Paleo and Ancestral Health, as outlined by Dr. Cordain, Dr. Price and Dr. Pottenger.
It takes a lot of ego and a very small brain to ordain yourself as the Paleo and Ancestral Health Oracle, when you had very little to do with the original concepts. I guess with my background of serving my country and actually investigating food, drug, health and wellness crimes, I’m a little humbler than some of my so called peers in this movement. I’m not against someone having their own take on health, but I have a big problem when someone uses a hot moniker like “Paleo” in everything they do, and then changes the rules to fit their agenda. It appears a split in the movement is now unavoidable, as I can no longer see a reason to deal with this type of thought process. The bottom line, it’s about helping people and not organizing your network marketing empire to sell books, which seems to be the main focus of some of the folks in the movement at this moment. This is my message to these people: I spent almost half of my life in military intelligence and criminal investigations, if you think you are some how going to slide your not so ethical agenda by me you are greatly mistaken. It appears to me you have no desire to police your own when they say something incorrect, or just flat out stupid for that matter. Don’t worry, I will not be so lenient, and will voice my concerns when I think something needs to be said. I wish you all good luck at that, because I was a really good investigator!
As I write this, Chris is continuing to fight for beans via Twitter, all based on science, because we all know Chris is a widely known acupuncturist food and nutrition science expert! (See image below in transcript Chris admitting on Twitter he doesn’t consume legumes) This was after a long defense by Chris and how beans are Paleo, and he would decide what was Paleo, and what was not. (Pretty arrogant guy!)
The entire transcript of the rant is below:
Gary Collins: Hey, this is Gary Collins, the creator of the Primal Power Method, and it is time for another Gary rant. I know you guys are going, “God, Gary, it’s been what, like a week?” Yeah, I kind of went off on the Jack Sperko show last week, The Survival Podcast, on an interview there, where we discuss things about Paleo and Primal health. We got into entrepreneurship and how those all relate and some of the things going on that I really don’t agree with on the business side of the health business, but that’s a side topic.
This rant is on something different, but the timing was pretty close because recently, just this week ‑ or was it ‑ yeah, it was this week, Dr. Oz aired a three‑episode special on “Finding Your Own Personal Paleo,” and on it…A guy named Chris Kresser came on there, and he’s known in the Paleo community, I know the name. And went on there and started discussing his take on the “Paleo Diet” and kind of stepped in it, far as I’m concerned. He got on there and started talking about how eating legumes or beans three times a week is OK, and then how you can eat whole fat organic dairy a couple times a day.
OK, I’m not going after Chris in a sense of the food. That wasn’t it, for the most part. I don’t agree with him, but that’s fine. Everyone’s different, and I preach that myself. But he uses…It’s a Paleo show, and he talks about Paleo, and it’s all over his stuff. He’s a speaker at Paleo conferences, his website’s plastered with Paleo, his book has Paleo in it. And it’s like, OK, dude. All right.
If you’re going to use the term, though, don’t go on national TV and say, “legumes and dairy are Paleo because they’re not.” OK? I’m a Primal guy. Primal’s a little different. It’s a little looser on some of the food choices. And Primal’s a lifestyle; Paleo’s a diet, guys. I don’t want to hear this crap anymore about the Paleo lifestyle. I sometimes use it interchangeably, I’m guilty of it. But it’s because I’m talking about Primal Lifestyle and Paleo is part of Primal, so…But there’s the problem.
(Trust me I saved you the pain, and the possibility of your head exploding by only showing a part of the chain of Tweets. He spent a ton of time defending beans and how they fit into Paleo and then sends this mind bending response)
But we’re going to use what Paleo is, and Paleo was basically created by Dr. Loren Cordain in 2002. His book, “The Paleo Diet,” very straightforward. The Paleo Diet, that’s what’s called. It is not Robb Wolf who created Paleo. Nothing against Robb Wolf, but his book came out eight years later. Robb Wolf was a student of Loren Cordain at college, he taught there. He was literally a student of his. I just want to get the facts straight because I get smacked in the face with this whole Robb Wolf thing, all the time. He’s the king of Paleo, and…no. He’s not the creator. That’s no big deal, let’s just get over that.
Let’s talk about Loren Cordain really quick, here, and where I’m going. Here is the back of his book. “Loren Cordain, PhD, is one of the top global researchers in the area of evolutionary medicine, generally acknowledged as the world’s leading expert on the Paleolithic diet. He is a Professor in the Health and Exercise Science Department at Colorado State University. He lectures regularly around the world and has been featured on Dateline, in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other media.”
He is the author of “The Paleo Diet Cookbook” and “The Paleo Diet for Athletes,” which I have read, The Paleo Diet for Athletes. I don’t agree with everything Dr. Loren Cordain says, and nor should I. I have my own opinions of what I feel…is part of my philosophy, which I label correctly. You’re starting to see my point. Let’s go to the book and let’s figure out what Paleo is, Chris. “The Ground Rules for the Paleo Diet,” this might tell us something.
As a former Federal Agent/Investigator, with decades in health and wellness, about 30 years playing sports and all that good stuff, and investigations, education, and a little bit about this stuff…Number one, all the lean meats, fish, and seafood you can eat. Number two, all the fruits and non‑starchy vegetables you can eat. Number three, no cereals. Number four, no legumes. Beans, Chris! No le‑gu‑mes. Number five, no dairy products. You’re killing me right now. Number six, no processed food, pretty much a no brainer. Anyone with half a brain in their head who’s in wellness and nutrition knows to teach that.
My problem was, again, is he’s using the term Paleo. He’s on a show talking about Paleo and he’s completely screwed it up. The problem I have with that is I work with a lot of people. I have clients and I get questions all the time, via email, I take calls. People call me. [laughs] I’m one of the few people that do that. I actually care and try and help people, so I’m accessible. What goes on is they’re confused.
I’m not picking on Paleo, in general. I go off on the health and wellness industry as a whole. There’s a bunch of rubber turd salesmen out there who have no clue what they’re talking about. It’s like 99 percent of the people in the industry are lost. They have no clue about anything as far as health and wellness. That’s just a fact. It’s also a part of Paleo and Primal. It happens in everything. What it does is it confuses people.
I don’t know how many people I’ve had come up to me in the gym or when I’m out and about. They see my t‑shirt and they go, “Is Primal like that Paleo thing?” And I go, “No, they’re different.” Then the conversation goes, “I tried that Paleo thing. Ugh, I ate all the grains and dairy and beans, and I gained weight.” No kidding! That’s not Paleo!
Again, you’re confusing people. Now they think they can go out and eat these items because it’s Paleo. It’s just like all these dumb Paleo cookbooks that keep coming out where, yeah, the recipes are Paleo but the whole point of Paleo is about regulating your blood sugar, and that is Primal as well, and eating a carb bomb loaded with honey? Yeah, it’s Paleo, but it’s a carb bomb. It doesn’t work.
Beans, Chris, beans are high on the glycemic index. Go look at the Harvard Medical School chart. It’s just as high on the glycemic index as banana bread made with sugar! Don’t give me the glycemic load crap, Chris. It’s almost the same there, too. Don’t go there. Let’s just nip that in the bud right now, alright? No more.
This would be the equivalent of me using the Atkins moniker, it’s a bad example but just bear with me on this one, and incorporating parts of the Ornish diet into Atkins. They’re completely opposed to each other. It is false advertising for me to do that, to claim Atkins and then on the back-end I’m swooping in vegetarian [laughs] basically diet on the back-end on this or vegan for that part in some of it, depending. Like I said, my heartburn was with using the term Paleo.
There’s a lot of people…It seems like anyone who ever read a Paleo book now has a blog and is a Paleo expert. Honestly, it aggravates me. It’s in the health and wellness industry, too. Again, there’s a lot of people go get their personal trainer certificate and think they’re rocket scientists. They’re out teaching people and they have no clue what they’re doing. If you have no background in it…This is another thing that I’m going to make very clear right now. This stuff pisses me off. This is part of the new movement that I don’t like at all.
I have heard and I had people on Twitter…This is where this all started was on Twitter, and it got a little nasty. I just questioned Chris, said, “Hey, dude. On Dr. Oz, I’m a little puzzled. What’s going on?” It got into a little tit and tat, and people started chiming in.
I thought I was fairly polite, but I get agitated. People know that about me. I speak my mind, but it’s because I got the credentials and the background to back everything up.
This thing of reading a couple Paleo books, throwing a blog out when you’re a hair stylist or gardener, whatever…Nothing against those jobs. My mom was a hair stylist and I was a gardener in college and high school, so bear with me. I didn’t call myself a nutritional expert after reading a couple books.
The next person who comes to me and says, “Someone not trained in the traditional side of nutrition or exercise is much more knowledgeable than someone who has been taught in the wrong practices,” my head’s going to explode. What? Taking someone who has no background in health or exercise, doesn’t have a clue at all. Didn’t even put in the effort for the most part, is going to have more knowledge than someone who learned at least the basics. Had to take biology, biochemistry, chemistry, had to go to labs.
You’re going to tell me that the other person has more knowledge and is an expert in that field? And they’re all over these conferences as speakers and all this. I cringe, and that is the problem. We got the wrong people giving the wrong advice. So that’s my little side note right there, but it ties in.
But that being said, that was my beef. I wanted to make it clear, because like I said, a bunch of people were chiming in, and it got a little nasty, a little back and forth, but there was only one guy that got a little out of hand and basically told me to F off. Not just basically, he did. He used those words, and I didn’t curse back.
Be proud of me. Former military guy and law enforcement, and I kept my cool. You know why? Because I’m a professional. I have experience, so I didn’t fall for it. Again, if you’re going to be in this field, learn your facts, get your stuff straight. Chris, I know you’re not an amateur, I know you’re an acupuncturist. I read up, I looked at it. Hey, I respect acupuncturists, but again, let’s be careful with what we’re saying, all right?
Well, that’s another Gary rant, expect there to be more. I don’t go looking for these, first of all. They come across, and actually people, I’ve been called the “Ted Nugent” of health, which actually I kind of love. It’s pretty funny.
But with that being said, if you’re going to say something stupid and you’re going to do something stupid in this arena, that I’ve spent a large part of my life breaking my back learning and figuring out, I’m going to get you. I’m going to call you out. Plain and simple. I won’t be rude, I think I’m very professional in the way I do it, but don’t be the fool. Don’t do that, all right?
All right, again, this is Gary Collins, creator of the Primal Power Method. You can find all of my books and information at www.primalpowermethod.com, and Amazon. And soon iBooks, when I can get their stupid software to load. But take care, and make sure to ask any questions you may have. Talk to you later.
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