Diet showdown: Paleo, #IQS, the 5:2 diet and activated almonds - Herald Sun

But there they were, back in late 2012, embroiled in their own Twittersphere controversy after celebrity chef Pete Evans mentioned them in a Sunday newspaper column.

The almonds were not the problem per se, but Evans copped plenty of flak on social media for claiming he liked to start his day by activating them. How pretentious! How ridiculous, came the cry from many on social media.

Two years on, and we are all so knee-deep in kale chips and green smoothies (sipped out of a jar and Instagrammed) that Evans' enthusiasm for activated almonds doesn't seem that extreme.

Food that would have been deemed downright wacky five years go - chia seeds, juiced sprouts, acai berries - are now perfectly respectable menu choices on our exhausting journey towards 'wellness'.

Take, for instance, the veritable potpourri of lifestyle diets just waiting to put a serious dent in your wallet, with their attendant superfoods, seeds and special oils at eye-watering prices.

You can join the hordes avoiding the fructose component of sugar in Sarah Wilson's I Quit Sugar program, eat grass-fed meat and vegetables alongside Evans on the Paleo diet, intermittently fast on the 5:2, adopt a whole foods approach or shun gluten.

Unfortunately, the range of alternative diets on offer doesn't mean there's harmony among the subverters of the food pyramid; indeed, turf wars often break out among the rival camps, as subscribers to one diet question the science behind another's.

Evans has butted heads with the Heart Foundation and the Dietitians Association of Australia over the merits of the Paleo diet, which he vigorously defends but they warn is dangerous because it eliminates food groups.

One of Australia's best-known nutritionists Dr Rosemary Stanton came to the defence of carbohydrates - at least those found in wholegrains and fruit - early this month when the ABC's Catalyst program featured scientists claiming we should be eating more fat instead of carbs.

There are also plenty of food skirmishes occurring in our own homes and offices, as anyone who has ever tried one of these diets will attest.

BURWOOD mum-of-three Ivy Thompson switched to a Paleo diet four years ago after feeling sick and overweight after the birth of her third child.

Thompson, 34, is a changed woman these days, and not just because her Paleo diet has given her more energy and helped her lose her post-baby weight.

The experience of being one of the early Paleo adopters - she writes a blog called Paleo in Melbourne - exposed her to the thoroughly modern phenomenon of food shaming, most commonly delivered in nasty or jealous comments about another's food choices.

People, Thompson realised, can be very quick to judge what others eat.

'Because I have a presence on social media, they will try and catch me out,' she says. 'If you post a picture of a smoothie on Instagram someone may ask whether our ancestors made smoothies in the caves.

'But I don't walk around with a badge on my chest that says 'Paleo Police'. If I want to eat a slice of gluten-free bread, I will have it.

'My focus is on wholefoods and I often tell people it is really just meat and three veg and that takes the fear out of it.'

While these days her family is more accepting of her diet, she admits they took a while to come around.

'My family felt entitled to tell me what they thought of what I was eating,' she says. 'That is the beauty - and the misery - of families.'

One of Thompson's sisters, in particular, took a while to see the benefits of the diet - even refusing Thompson's home-cooked meals for takeout pizza - but she has since adopted many of her healthy eating habits.

'She refused to eat anything I made for a while and then (weeks later) she called me and said, 'OK, tell me everything about it'.'

Thompson admits she became 'a bit preachy' during the early phases of the diet, and was guilty of boring her friends about the virtues of the Paleo movement.

'I don't do anything by halves and I think once you start a new diet you are on your high horse for the first six months,' she says. 'But now I have the perspective from having done something long-term, and I know these diets are not a straightforward road.

'I am not preachy about it any more and I can usually tell pretty quickly if people want information about it.

'You don't know really what anyone else is going through and I would never judge now. I have found the balance in the diet that works for me.'

LIGHT BULB MOMENT

FELLOW Melbourne mum-of-three Julia Kelly, 40, lost 20kg when she gave up sugar three years ago.

She now runs a business selling sugar alternatives on her website, The Sugar Break-up, which she started a year ago, and has managed to convince her sister to go sugar-free, while another 'is not as interested'.

Kelly had a light-bulb moment reading anti-sugar tome Sweet Poison by David Gillespie, but concedes not everyone around her has endorsed her lifestyle.

'But you have to know you are doing it for the right reasons and that is all that matters,' she says.

'I feel free now. I felt like I was imprisoned before because it was an addiction (to sugar).'

Kelly says some people have even tried to change her mind about going sugar-free, but she has remained steadfast.

'They don't come right out and say it is wrong, but they will try to get me to eat a dessert at a restaurant or something they have made knowing it contains sugar, or they will ask questions heavy with judgment,' she says. 'Sometimes people simply want to undermine you, but you have to realise that there are some people in the world who are just like that.

'You have to have confidence in yourself and know there will always be knockers.'

Nutritionist and author of Change the Way You Eat: The Psychology of Food Leanne Cooper says part of the problem is that some women don't have confidence in their bodies, which is played out in the competitive arena of food choices.

Cooper argues that far too many women reduce their meal times to a series of equations, as they mentally tally up calories, Weight Watchers points and fat grams before they even take a bite.

'It is a very reductionist view of eating,' Cooper notes. 'What people should be doing is really stepping back and looking at what is on their plate, whether the portions are too big, whether the food is nourishing.'

This, Cooper concedes, is unlikely as long as we compare ourselves to others or focus unduly on food being 'good' or 'bad'.

While women have long been focused on their weight, Cooper believes the obsession with making food choices has become much more of a problem in the past 10 years.

'These days food and body image are so closely related, and we think if we beat ourselves up on an (extreme diet) we will be able to fit into those size 10 jeans,' she says.

Partly, she notes, the phenomenon is to do with the demise of the experts, as we increasingly place our trust in lifestyle and celebrity bloggers to package the 'science' for us.

'The problem with the more extreme lifestyle diets is that they demonise certain food groups and it only serves to send out that confusing message about certain foods being bad,' Cooper says.

'I meet people who tell me they don't eat grains, or they don't eat dairy, or they don't eat fruit and you end up wondering what they do eat. You now see people who are even diagnosing themselves as gluten-intolerant. It has become a bit obsessive.'

THE SPORT OF SHAMING

SO what is the root cause of all this intense focus? Why have we become so consumed by what we - and others - consume?

At the heart of it all, Cooper suspects it is about women trying to find order in their lives.

'I think we have such chaotic lives these days that these women are saying to themselves, 'Food is something I can control',' she says.

When others upset the balance by failing to join them in their food choices, some feel annoyed or even betrayed by their friends. Which is where the shaming comes in.

'Sometimes others find it hard to see other women addressing their diet because they think they are saying they are better than everyone else,' Cooper says.

'It is almost like the tall poppy syndrome in that respect, and people who are not eating healthily want you to join them in their demise.'

Dr Rosemary Stanton agrees we have become a lot more judgmental about the food other people consume and she lays the blame at the feet of the food marketers.

'I don't want to knock shows like MasterChef because I think they have been good for encouraging people to cook from scratch, but there is this whole marketing side that has sprung up around it,' Stanton says.

'Food has become a spectator sport and a source of status, but a lot of these new niche products, such as coconut oil, are actually very expensive.

'But people think if something is expensive or elitist then you may look as good as the celebrity promoting it.'

Stanton notes that the sheer number of lifestyle diets to choose from has confused almost everyone, and she is regularly quizzed at barbecues about the veracity of the health claims some of the diets are making.

Dietary confusion has also led to more and more headline-grabbing health claims, she argues, such as those made on the Catalyst program.

'The dietary guidelines really haven't changed that much over the years, but eating healthily is actually quite boring,' she says.

'The dietary guidelines are never going to be the latest fad.'

While Stanton regularly offers her views publicly on the strengths and weaknesses of the latest lifestyle diets, personally it is a different matter.

'I never judge my friends for what they eat,' she says.

'I have a friend on the 5:2 diet, but really we just joke about it.'

That has not meant others have been quite so gracious; indeed, Stanton admits she has been a victim of food shaming herself.

'I will be eating in a restaurant and people will walk up to me and ask me outright what I am eating,' she says.

'When my children were little, I remember buying them ice creams one day and a woman commented that she never thought in a million years I would give my kids ice cream.

'I mean, it was just a treat!'

Stanton believes we all need to be a little more understanding about why people - ourselves included - eat certain foods.

'There is evidence to suggest that many people in stressful caring roles eat a lot of sweets to comfort themselves,' she says.

'I would rather they use food than cigarettes or alcohol, and, either way, it is not my place to judge them.'

Change the Way You Eat: The Psychology of Food, by Leanne Cooper, Exisle, rrp $30 Keep up with the diet police: Lifestyle diets explained

Paleo: Also known as the Caveman Diet, the eating plan promotes foods humans ate during the Paleolithic era: fish, lean meats, fruit, non-starchy vegetable and nuts.

Sugar-free: Seeks to reduce or eliminate the fructose component of sugar in the diet, often found in processed food.

Gluten-free: Excludes the protein gluten found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Often used to treat coeliac disease.

Fasting or 5:2: Involves eating normally five days a week and dieting for the remaining two days at a quarter of the usual calorie intake.

Wholefoods: Supporters of the movement eat unprocessed fruit and vegetables - wholegrains; beans and legumes, and nuts and seeds.

Raw food diet: Advocates believe cooking food leads to a loss in nutritional benefits, and adherents eat only raw vegetarian food.

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