Common points between paleo, GAPS and Wahls diets

Some diets are very close one to the other, which I believe is the case with paleo, GAPS and Wahls diets.

I would like to discuss about their common points, and then their differences, may be to help decide what to do...
and I believe that the more common points, the more it shows what is important.
Discussing make it more clear in the mind,
I am not able to compare them straight away!

Their 1st common point is the use of animal products, especially meat, which is not so "common" for health diets!
Then, there is the general emphasis on vegetables, before fruits.
Fruits is the main sugar source, and all these diets go beyond gluten-free diets, they suppress all grains, and even all starch such as potatoes.

Then, I think they differ on the acceptance or not (with grades) of dairy, pulses, honey.
The percentage of raw and cooked food might also be different.

Whoever wishes to correct and complete this is more than welcome!

There are lots of different diets called "paleo" but I think the GAPS and Wahls diets are more specific.

Yes, they are specific, as cures.
Still on paleo basis.
So yes, there are different ways of going on a paleo diet.

Hence the idea to find out the common points.
Then the differences can be seen as adaptations one can chose according to ones goal.

Would raw food be a sort of paleo diet?

The common point among many seems to be large quantities of fresh vegetables, often raw.

Yes I think so!
And more vegetables than fruits.

Raw or cooked seems to depend on the state of irritation of the guts.
Cooked is often recommended as a start, except in the raw food diet of course.
May be, raw can be stood for better, only if it is 100% raw...

The paradox one has to deal with is that foods that are normally cooked till they're dead (like meats) are more nutritious when consumed raw,
whereas many foods thought of as ideal for raw, "live" consumption (like vegetables) can be highly problematic in that state - they often contain compounds that you'd be well advised to kill stone-dead !

Hm, I'm not familiar with Wahls and haven't tried to tackle GAPS, though I seem to keep hearing about GAPS. When I read the OP, it reminded me of a comparison chart I saw out on FB that surprised me. It basically implied that a paleo diet was (often?) a low-fat diet.

(Edit: apparently the image I found is no longer available, but had been - I tried to google that chart but found this one instead: Eat Real Food Diet Comparison Guide.)

What I find discussion-worthy is the row in the chart about fats or animal fats. Most of these recommend low omega-6 fats, but the chart doesn't mention that grassfed animal fats can also be low omega-6 fats. Or least that is what I've heard.

In my search, I found The Healthy Home Economist's take on Why I Don't Eat Paleo or Primal. I think she has a balanced, and interesting perspective. Though I imagine any time a food trend takes hold there will be authors, perhaps such as the ones she refers to, that misinterpret or misrepresent the bases for certain diets.

(Btw, I love Sarah's Five Fats You Must Have post, too.)

I agree with Xisca and Michael that eating raw versus cooked, or grains versus none can be a matter one's own digestion. In the chart above, even the "ancestral" paleo allows dairy and grains (WAPF/fermented?) to be added in as folks heal their guts.

I've resigned myself to the idea that it's my life work to heal my gut. Which likely means very few starches in my diet until or unless I re-double my efforts (yet again) and happen upon a protocol that is "the one" for me.

Until then, I feel far, far better and have lost some weight on a more primal/paleo/WAPF-but-without-the-grains kind of diet. Veggies either raw or cooked seem to be fine, though I do want to eat more naturally fermented veggies (and feel even better when I include them regularly).

When I was a kid, about 30 years ago, I struggled with my weight. One summer, my stepmother and dad put me on a low-carb diet. I remember the small paperback book was blue & yellow, and had a subtitle about "the diet formerly known as the air force diet" or something like that. I lost a bunch of weight that summer, but when I went back to live with my mom, she couldn't understand a diet that did not have it's base foundation as bread. Consequently, I put back all the weight I lost that summer.

Fast forward 30 years: I still struggle with my weight (some) but I'm not obese anymore, and I don't worry about it all that much. From my childhood, I have an interest in different types of dietary regimes. The common thread I see to all "successful" diets is that they reduce or eliminate carbs in the form of refined flours and sugars. Even the Atkins, which I think has been proven to be nutritionally deficient, has a foundation of reducing carbs.

The Mediterranean, Paleo, others all seem to eliminate or greatly carbs and focus on proteins and fats. Some seem to include various levels of fruits and veggies. Almost all agree that veggies should be a substantial part of any diet. About ten years ago, when my first child was born, I did one called, "No Flours/No Sugars". As the name implies, anything with flour or sugar on the ingredient list was off-limits. I lost substantial weight and felt really good.

From that jumping-off point, there seem to be variations: Differences in beans/lentils/cheese/the amounts & types of fruits/types of meat/honey/etc are present in what I've read from the few I've studied. I am not a dietary expert.

To me, the similarity of the various dietary programs seem to be the reduction or elimination of refined carbs and sugars.

Terry Wahls is a doctor with a pretty amazing story about recovering from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (she was in an inclined motorized wheelchair at her worst--she didn't even have the strength to stay in an upright wheelchair). She first looked into nutritional supplements, took a lot of them for months, didn't think they were helping until she got frustrated and stopped taking all of them and immediately felt terrible. She started to realize that it was probably much better to get her nutrients from real foods instead of supplements, and now she eats 3 cups of dark leafy greens EACH DAY, 3 cups of "sulfur rich" vegetables each day (this includes all the onion types as well as brassicas) and 3 cups of colorful veggies per day. Mass quantities of nutrient dense vegetables. She now rides her bike to work.

If you have 18 minutes, it's really worth watching her TED-X talk about "feeding your mitochondria."



Oh, and her son is pretty amazing in his own right, but that's for another forum.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:Some diets are very close one to the other, which I believe is the case with paleo, GAPS and Wahls diets.

I would like to discuss about their common points, and then their differences, may be to help decide what to do...
...
Whoever wishes to correct and complete this is more than welcome!

I'm still learning the various diets but feel that comparisons can be difficult and at times misleading, or perhaps even dangerous.

If you look through old photographs of travelers in the American West you often see men depicted with vinegar bottles. Travelers who of course would be uncertain of their diets often carried there own vinegar, mustard and beet sugar.

Any individual item has probably changed over time. Unless you are using heirloom seeds or something most of our food products have been "genetically" shaped by manufacturers. I don't mean artificially necessarily, just shaped by constant selection for size and shipping. A present day peach would have thirty percent more fructose in it than a peach of similar size.

Also foods used to be described by time of the year. Nettles were often recommended for teas, soups, salads, etc. but only at certain times of the year. The differences are obvious since Nettles are also known as Stinging Nettles. Much knowledge was passed down in rhyme and aphorisms but precise meanings have been lost. "Starve a cold, feed a fever" is sometimes interpreted as advice, but more often than not it is correctly interpreted as an admonition: if you starve a cold you will be feeding a fever.

Julia Winter wrote:Terry Wahls is a doctor with a pretty amazing story about recovering from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (she was in an inclined motorized wheelchair at her worst--she didn't even have the strength to stay in an upright wheelchair). She first looked into nutritional supplements, took a lot of them for months, didn't think they were helping until she got frustrated and stopped taking all of them and immediately felt terrible. She started to realize that it was probably much better to get her nutrients from real foods instead of supplements, and now she eats 3 cups of dark leafy greens EACH DAY, 3 cups of "sulfur rich" vegetables each day (this includes all the onion types as well as brassicas) and 3 cups of colorful veggies per day. Mass quantities of nutrient dense vegetables. She now rides her bike to work.

I have a library copy of Minding My Mitochondria. Her recommendation of 9 cups of veggies each day really resonates with me.

I have a few friends who could not get proper diagnosis for strange things that were happening all over and in their bodies. They are doing the Dr. Gundry’s recommended protocols.

I agree a pictorial representation of the comparison of the different diets would be great to see their similarities and differences.