Paleo Diet, What is That? Looking Into It.

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. SomeThe Paleo diet comes with many names, some are interesting: Paleolithic diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet, etc. It is a modern diet comprising foods thought to be those consumed during the Paleolithic era, thus the name 🙂 Paleolithic period (roughly 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 B.C.)

Well, drop your high-tech toys and let’s dig into it.

The Paleo diet is quite modern and recent – the concept started in the 1890s 🙂 Two writers, Emmet Densmore and John Harvey Kellogg, declared that “bread is the staff of death.” Kellogg supported a diet of starchy and grain-based foods like “the ways and likings of our primitive ancestors.”

As our ancestors didn’t write, it’s all about figuring out what they ate – some parts are easy to list:

• • No processed foods, even simple ones like bread – earliest yeast bread: 1350 BC.
  • No dairy. Cows were domesticated during the Neolithic (around 8500 BC) and milk was harvested around 4000 BC due to early evidence of milking cattle in Brittain.
  • Sugar, as the first probable domestication of sugarcane by the indigenous people of New Guinea, who chewed it raw, was 8000 BC.
  • Salt, as the salt production, dating to approximately 6000 BC, in Poiana Slatinei-Lunca, Romania.
  • No Oils, alcohol, and coffee int he Paleo diet as they were also used much later than the Paleolithic period.
  • Etc.

What is ok to consume:

• • Vegetables
  • Fruits
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Roots
  • Meat and organ meats
  • Fish

The Paleo Diet

Several clinical trials have compared the regimen to other eating diets, such as the Vegetarian Diet or the Diabetes Diet. The trials suggest that a Paleo diet may provide some benefits when compared with diets of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, legumes and low-fat dairy products. These benefits may/can/could include:

• • More weight loss
  • Better glucose tolerance
  • Better blood pressure management
  • Lower triglycerides (fat found in our blood)
  • Appetite management

Yet, trials with large groups of people assigned to different diets and for much longer time are needed to understand the long-term, overall health benefits and risks of a Paleo diet. To resume and to shorten, the medical corp doesn’t want to make any official statement. I feel they stick to the food pyramid diet.

A modern Paleo diet recipe I like – Garlic Butter Baked Salmon, with an interesting list of ingredients:

Modern ingredient list	What could have been available in Paleolithic era
2 lemons, thinly sliced 1 large salmon fillet (about 3 lb.) Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 6 tbsp. butter, melted 2 tbsp. honey 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp. chopped thyme leaves 1 tsp. dried oregano Chopped fresh parsley for garnish	2 lemons, thinly sliced 1 large salmon fillet (about 3 lb.) Kosher salt Not until 6000 BC Freshly ground black pepper 6 tbsp. butter, melted Not until 4000 BC 2 tbsp. honey Not until 8000 BC 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp. chopped thyme leaves 1 tsp. dried oregano Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish In italic are ingredient that Paleolithic people might not have used

Meaning that Paleo recipes are a bit adapted, which is normal – I think that our Paleolithic ancestors would catch a fish and somehow cooked it before eating it.

Our neighbors and friends are on a strict Paleo diet and they like it as it keeps their weight stable and overall keep their numbers on check, bad cholesterol, glucose, etc. They lost weight at first, but it stabilized quickly. Quarterly doctor check-up helps keeping sure it’s not negatively affecting their health. They have to take calcium supplement as they do not consume any dairy.

I tried to find other people’s reviews, but it’s very difficult to get honest reviews. I saw a few in a women’s magazine and it sounded like “doesn’t work, instead try WW, or NOOM, or, etc.”

I found a funny one “I am a nurse and tried Pelo for 2 days. It made me sick, sitting on the toilet for hours,” she went on and on for pages but no idea why she got sick.

I found another one claims trying for months, gaining a pound a week. She recommends a diet plan mentoring program at $900 a month that really works – digging a bit I realized she was the founder of that mentoring program 🙂

Other are 100% positive, no issue. One guy claims constantly losing 4 pounds per week for the last 4 years – NO way that guy lost over 800 lbs 🙂

We didn’t try Paleo because of the lack of dairy, olive oil and finally coffee 🙂 but if interested, I recommend the book by Sarah Ballantyne and Robb Wolf “The Paleo Approach: Reverse Autoimmune Disease and Heal Your Body” – $20 on Amazon. I do not agree with everything, but it’s an interesting book.

One thing that is scaring me and I now realize it – some claim that Paleo diet is mostly used by right-wing partisans while vegetarian is used by liberal people. I’m still wow… making diets a political statement… It’s time we get a life 🙂 The mistake comes from Paleo conservatism, which is NOT linked to the diet 🙂 Paleo comes the Greek word παλαιός, meaning “ancient” or “old”…

Continue reading about our journey to weight loss

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