Optimum Diet for Captive Humans: Part 3

In parts one and two I discussed the theoretical optimum diet for a human in captivity, and the nutritional adequacy of such a diet.  Here I will continue to address the AZA feeding program guidelines by examining the feeding instructions and acceptance of the diet.

Feeding Instructions:

Part of our captive existence in society is that food is readably available for most of us.  Granted this is not true for everyone.  One of the largest failings of urban city life is the lack of adequate groceries and markets, instead a replacement convenient store full of processed food and a complete lack of fresh produce and meat.  But for a lot of us, groceries and markets are accessible, and they supply us with easy access to food- it’s our jobs to figure out how to ideally pick the right foods, specifically for our paleo, hunter gather diet. 

There is typically a trade off in most weight reducing diets- you either eliminate calories, or eliminate foods, sometimes both.  The paleo diet prescribes eating ONLY meat, veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds, and NOT EATING grains (wheat, corn, rice etc) legumes (beans, tofu, etc) or dairy.  There is debate and discussion in the paleo-sphere around different specific foods, such as potatoes (typically not allowed) and sweet potatoes (typically allowed), or dairy in general.  But specifics should be tailored to the individual and will be addressed further in Part 4.  So the trade-off for this elimination of grains, legumes and dairy is getting to basically eat until satiated (and if for weight loss not having to count calories).  The typical paleo diet is an ad libitum(literally at one’s pleasure)- you can basically eat as much you please.  For the person concerned with weight loss, this needs to be prefixed with some descriptor to the contrary, such as “sensibly” or “reasonably”.  Humans are not wired for self control, and eating a jar of almond butter a day is not a recipe for weight loss.  But the general diet allows one to eat when hungry, and eat until full- and that is full, not stuffed or gorged or jammed packed or bursting.

Some of the best advice I have heard on grocery shopping is to only shop the perimeter of the store- this will get you through the produce department and to the meat department.  Basically there is nothing good in the aisle.  It is all boxed food that was made in a machine.  It was processed and manipulated.  I will use an analogy of the Coca leaf- debatably the leaf itself is fairly benign and has potential medicinal use².  It is natively used as relief from altitude sickness, headaches, arthritis, and general anesthetic use.  It is chewed and used in teas.  However, you process it, manipulate it and you have cocaine.  So we’ve gone from a natural plant, something relatively benign, to something definitively bad.  You should consider your food the same way- the more process sing and manipulation it has had, the less you should want to eat it, it’ll probably end up being addictive^3,4,5,6,7 and detrimental to your health.

So basically eating instruction would be to eat as much variety of colorful vegetables and fruits as you can, and lots of meat.  Throw in some nuts and seeds to taste, and your set.  Avoid all grains, legumes and dairy.  Of course this would need to be tailored specifically to the individual, but I will address this further in Part 4

Adherence:

Perhaps the most important feature of any diet is the ability to actually follow the diet, demonstrated by this study⁸.  The basic conclusion is that the health benefits of any diet can only be realized by following the diet, and perhaps it may be more beneficial to follow any diet than no diet.  Differences between the diets are basically negligible compared to the effects of NOT dieting.  So what are the theoretical adherence rates of a paleo type diet?

The basic set up of the paleo diet tends to be low carb-ish.  They are not strictly low carb, and can be tailored to provide more of a carb loading scheme, particularly beneficial to athletes.  But for the sake of argument, we will assume that this is a low carb diet, with most of the carbs coming from fruits and veggies. 

In the same study⁸ mentioned above, four popular diets were analyzed for weight loss and adherence.  160 people were randomly placed into one of the diets (Atkins, Zone, Weight Watchers and Ornish).  The Atkins diet, which is low carb and would be somewhat similar to a paleo diet, had a reported 18% of the group unable to adhere.  Compare this to 20% unable to adhere to the zone, 18% unable to adhere to Weight Watchers, and 23% unable to adhere to the Ornish diet.  

Another study reported an overall 80% adherence rate to a low carb diet (< 25 g/day) after six months ⁹.

In a randomized trial of a low carb diet for obesity¹⁰, sixty percent of a low carbohydrate diet group.  The low carbohydrate diet was defined as 20g/day initially and gradually increased throughout the 12 months of the study, but having unlimited amounts of protein and fat.  It was running alongside a group assigned a calorically restricted “conventional diet” .  The diet is described as “high-carbohydrate, low-fat (1200 to 1500 kcal per day for women and 1500 to 1800 kcal per day for men, with approximately 60 percent of calories from carbohydrate, 25 percent from fat, and 15 percent from protein)”.  In this study, compliance was higher in the low carb group compared to the conventional diet group at the 3, 6, and 12 month marks.

In a similar study¹¹, a 78% adherence rate for a low carb diet comprised of 20g/day initially gradually increased to 120g/day.

Overall, I would say the adherence rate of such a diet would be projected to be around 80%, not significantly better or worse than any other diet. Of course personalized tweaking to the diet should be performed after initiation, something I will address in the next part.  Adding a little flexibility and modification to any diet to personalize will increase adherence, and remember, sticking to a plan is the only way to reap the benefits!

1.       “Nutrition Advisory Group Feeding Program Guidelines for AZA Institutions” AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, 2002
2.       Weil AT. "The therapeutic value of coca in contemporary medicine." J Ethnopharmacol. 1981 Mar-May;3(2-3):367-76.
3.       Bart Hoebel, Ph.D. “Sugar can be addictive, Princeton scientist says.” 
4.        Serge Ahmed, Ph.D. “Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward” 
5.        Gold, Mark S MD “Food Addiction?” Journal of Addiction Medicine 2009;3: 42–45
6.        Avena NM, Rada P, Hoebel BG. “Evidence for sugar addiction: behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake”. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2008;32:20 –39.
7.        Cocores, James A., Gold, Mark S. “The Salted Food Addiction Hypothesis may explain overeating and the obesity epidemic” Medical Hypotheses 2009; 73(6):892-899
8.        Selker HP, Shaefer EJ. “Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets for Weight Loss and Heart Disease Risk Reduction” JAMA. 2005;293:43-53
9.        Westman EC, Yancy WS, Edman JS, Tomlin KF, Perkins CE.  “Effect of 6-month adherence to a very low carbohydrate diet program” Am J Med. 2002 Jul;113(1):30-6
10.    Foster GD, et al “A Randomized Trial of a Low-Carbohydrate Diet for Obesity”  N Engl J Med 2003;348:2082-90
11.    Shai, Iris “Weight Loss With  Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet”  N Engl J Med 2008;359:229-241