Paleo Diet 101

Paleo Diet 101

Before we delve into the paleo diet basics, one might ask, WHY? Why try to emulate an ancestral way of eating? We can answer this in three ways:

1-Archeological and anthropological data indicate our pre-agricultural ancestors were largely free from modern afflictions of Westernized cultures including obesity, cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases.

2-Modern molecular biology, immunology and endocrinology offer mechanisms that support the observational data we have obtained from the above.

3-Modern interventions with a paleo diet and ancestral lifeway (restoration of sleep, exercise and micronutrient patterns) have proven successful in resolving a host of diseases and improving both subjective and objective indices of health. This has occurred in both controlled clinical settings and in crowd sourced N=1 experiments (folks try a paleo diet, get better, share observations).

Those are three small points that represent staggering sums of research. For the uninitiated (of which most of our medical and academic community unfortunately belong), common counter points such as hunter-gatherer lifespan, acid base balance, micronutrient sufficiency and other concerns seem to present obstacles to the adoption or recommendation of an evolutionary biology based approach to eating and living. Well, like I said, the research exists to answer these issues, it’s just a matter of getting people to read it! The purpose of this blog, the ancestral Health Foundation and many other blogs is to answer these questions by offering basic education in the pertinent topics.

So, for now we’ll operate from the assumption that there might be something to this whole idea. If folks want support material you have to try NOT to find it at this point.

In simple terms the paleo diet is built from modern foods that (to the best of our ability) emulate the foods available to our pre-agricultural ancestors: Meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruits, roots, tubers and nuts. On the flip-side we see an omission of grains, legumes and dairy. As this is directed to folks new to the paleo diet idea we need to address the “What Abouts.” This is the seemingly endless list of ingredients that folks ask: “What about artificial sweeteners, agave nectar, red wine…” In simple terms, if it’s not meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruits, roots tubers or nuts…it’s a “no-go.” At least initially. I like to see people go after paleo strictly in the beginning so we get the best possible results, then folks can tinker from there.

In addition to food we like to consider things like sleep, stress and vit-d levels (for a short list) as a move away from ancestral norms appears to be very important when we are concerned about performance, health and longevity.

Thank-You to Rob Wolff

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