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PYP 115: Don Matesz on the Absurdity of Paleo

don-mateszWeird footnote to this episode: Don apparently forgot everything he wrote in his book and said in this podcast, and now inexplicably advocates a carnivore diet. I leave this podcast up in the hopes that the intelligence and balance expressed herein will be helpful to you.

Don Matesz loves ideas and philosophy as much as he loves nutritional and health research. After spending many years eating a vegetarian diet, he was swayed by a storybook, NeanderThin by Ray Audette, masquerading as serious science.

The story was so compelling, however, and glazed with just enough scientific references to appear legit, that Don fell for it. He and his wife went paleo, and soon started experiencing health problems, some annoying and some quite severe.

But the cognitive dissonance caused by becoming unwell on a diet he had committed to intellectually and emotionally kept him eating a low carb, meat-heavy diet for much longer than was wise.

His book Powered by Plants: Natural Selection and Human Evolution is a comprehensive, critical, science-based, and logically impeccable refutation of the entire paleo movement and philosophy. In today's long-ish and fascinating show, Don and I dive into the research and the ideology of eating and human evolution.

We discuss:

  • the naturalistic fallacy, and why Don fell for it
  • how the Hero's Journey misleads us when we use it as a filter for scientific evidence
  • how the paleo diet damaged Don's and his wife's health in short order
  • the persistence of the myth that humans are omnivores
  • why pleasure and disgust are reliable barometers for the preferred human diet
  • why we give flowers to show love and care
  • why binocular vision suggests fruit-eating rather than hunting
  • lessons from aspirin
  • the evidence that hunting was a sport, not a nutritional imperative, in hunter-gatherer tribes
  • “doing the math” – why humans could never have engaged in persistence hunting on a meat-based diet
  • why the humorous phrase “tastes like chicken” proves that humans are not designed to eat meat
  • what we can learn about our natural diet by studying vision in dogs
  • the physiology of excess and scarcity (this concept blew my mind)
  • why we produce cholesterol, and what that says about eating animal flesh
  • the truth about vitamin B12
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Powered by Plants on amazon

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

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I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

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Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

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7 comments on “PYP 115: Don Matesz on the Absurdity of Paleo

  1. Stephen Turner says:

    I remember Don writing for a Canadian bodybuilder (who sold a fitness course that I spent a lot of money on a decade ago). The main text spent more pages ‘debunking’, not the China Study – lol, but Einstein and modern physics, than discussing exercise form and things that would have been more useful. All this based largely on…philosophy, such as Ayn Rand! At that time I believed in ‘mostly plants, probably’, and Don’s writing sounded convincing and upset my beliefs quite a lot. But I kept reading and thinking, and the claims and rebuttals of Paleo type arguments slowly lost weight to me compared with plant based arguments. I am now ‘all plants’. I am glad to hear that Don has changed his mind also.

    1. Howard says:

      Everyone is on such an interesting journey!

  2. JL says:

    Just found this podcast and this discussion with Don Matesz was great. Was also taken in by the low-carb, previously was a vegan. LCHF at first seemed fine, but after some time; about 6 months to a year. Began having some issues, the usual stuff from eating that way. Kept at it for about another year or so.

    Thankfully something guided me back to eating plant based; vegan in my case. After only a couple of weeks, started to feel like my old self. Will do my best to never stray from a plant based way of eating.

    Thankful to have found this podcast/Howard Jacobson. Need to catchup on your podcasts 🙂

    Thank You Howard Jacobson!

  3. Samia says:

    Rejecting the paleo diet doesn’t mean you have to go vegan, either. A little bit of flesh, dairy or egg should not cause any problems in the majority of people. After all is said and done, so long as you are not over- or under-mineralized, a sensible mixed diet is probably the way to go. Mind you, I am a vegetarian for what might be called “emotional” or “psychological” reasons (an identification with animals) but that does not enter into any discussion regarding nutrition.

  4. Walt S. says:

    I can’t keep up with Don, as he keeps changing teams. Now, he’s “Hyper Carnivore.”

    Eat Meat, Get Fit. Plants Optional.
    http://donmatesz.blogspot.com

    1. Howard says:

      Yeah, it’s a head scratcher..

  5. ant says:

    So guess what, as of 2022 Don has yet again shifted 180 degrees and is back to being a whole-food plant-based advocate (mostly vegan, some allowance for dairy). He’s even written a new book called “Powered By Plants”. Apparently his hypercarnivore diet eventually caused a lot of problems for him and was remedied by going back to wfpb. I’m all for people changing their minds as they learn more (Keynes’ quote rings true: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?’), but it’s a bit strange to see someone flip flop so drastically and dive so extremely into polar opposite ends of the spectrum multiple times. Maybe such a way of purposeful living to find the truth, even if it takes one on a convoluted path doubling back on itself, is actually needed when complex areas of the world do not yield to simpler scientific methods?

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