Plant vs. Primal? How about Primal Plant?

In the last few years I've dabbled with several dietary lifestyles, but the most prominent of the three were vegan, raw vegan, and paleo/primal (I go with primal because I like butter). Raw vegan is actually a subset of both primal and vegan. There are some overlapping themes between these and also some major diverging concepts. As a short summary:

• All of the above think dairy overall is bad. Primal is OK with butter and some cheese, but it doesn't advocate drinking milk.
• All of them advocate whole, real foods, preferably organic, non-genetically modified.
• All of them claim that eating their way will help you lose lots of weight and prevent heart disease and a host of auto-immune disorders.

In my own experience, primal is the easiest of the above to follow in the modernized world. You can eat lots of veggies, fruits, animals, and nuts in most meals, and overall one feels good on them. However, that doesn't mean it's the best for everyone.

Both vegan and raw vegan believe that cholesterol = bad. Vegan thinks that high fat = bad, high carb = good. Primal thinks high fat = good, high carb = bad. Raw vegan thinks that anything that is animal or cooked = bad. Primal thinks anything with grains = bad, vegan loves grains, and raw vegan hates grain.

So anyway, how do I get to this post. I've been doing primal at around a 95% level for about 3 months now, and overall I like it a lot. It's simple to maintain, I am enjoying learning how to cook, and I've been getting excited over the uses of almond flour and coconut flour. But there are some things about vegan/raw vegan I miss:

• The use of the bathroom. On a vegan/raw vegan diet, dropping a deuce is the nicest feeling in the world, and it takes under a minute.
• My skin was always so much nicer on purely plant-based diets. My sister, at one point while she was entirely raw vegan, had people stopping her on the street commenting on her skin.
• I sometimes had these bursts of energy on raw vegan that would last for hours. No mid-afternoon sleep trough. On primal, I still do feel somewhat tired and have to nap. This isn't a bad thing, if you have a nap room.
• Quinoa was amazing. I still think it should be considered primal since it's closer to spinach than to grain.
• Despite whatever Loren Cordain, Mark Sisson, or Robb Wolf tell you about cholesterol, there is still the compelling story of Dr. Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic, as relayed by Dr. Colin Campbell in The China Study, where all patients who had suffered heart attacks were entirely cured by plant-based diets.

Furthermore, human anatomy suggests we started as herbivores (long stomachs, hands for grabbing fruits instead of claws for slashing prey, and eyes that detect colorful fruits). We may have evolved to process meat, but I highly doubt our paleolithic ancestors were eating meat all the time, especially in equatorial climates.

I also don't like eating so much meat all the time. It seems a little excessive to have bacon and eggs each morning, and I miss the raw vegan days where my breakfast would consist of grapefruits and apples or maybe a green smoothie. On the flip side, primal seems to work really well with intense workouts (CrossFit).

There's also a darker side to primal.... I feel like my chest gets tigher when I'm eating primal. I don't know how to describe it--and it may just be anxiety, after having read research on vegans vs. omnivores... but something doesn't feel right, even at the moment while I type this.

So, what to do? Well, on some days, especially recovery days, I may just stick to plants! Eating raw vegan a day or two per week is super easy, and it's easier than intermittent fasting (IF). But I don't want to start eating lots of grains, since both raw vegan and primal agree that grains = bad.

Then, over the last few days, I've pondered -- why hasn't anyone tried a combination of both plant and primal diets? Call it Primal Plant (P2). The P2 diet. Basically you would still eat a primal diet, except you'd minimize most of the animal products you consume (the only exceptions might be fish oil, and maybe actual fish from time to time). This diet would then consist of:

• Veggies
• Fruits
• Nuts
• Some fish oil

I'm in New Zealand now where I have bought tons of nuts since they are so cheap at the local stores. These nuts are all high in protein and good fats (cashews, brazil nuts, almonds). If we are concerned about maintaining high levels of protein and fat levels, then why not just eat lots of nuts and avocados? This also keeps calorie levels sufficiently high.

Well anyway, this is a relatively new idea that I wanted to float to the intertubes so I can get it off my mind. I have another 2 weeks in NZ before my short trip back to the states, and I have about 4-5 days' worth of animal products left in my fridge. What I may do is keep rocking primal but stop restocking anything animal-related, then try out a purely primal plant diet for a week or so and notice any differences I feel. I made a stir fry the other day, but left out the meat -- and I didn't even notice the difference. Eating all of those veggies lightly stir fried with a little bit of tamari -- delicious.

I do like the idea of primal living -- walking around barefoot all the time feels great, sprinting a couple of times per week has tons of benefits (just google "HIIT"), and hanging outside in the post-5PM sun with my shirt off using my jump rope (and some day throwing a spear) feels fantastic. But I don't think primal humans were eating meat every day -- they were probably getting most of their nutrition from leafy greens, nuts, and berries.

I think I found my most recent experiment. Onward!