The Paleo Diet: Could Eating Like a Caveman Work For You?

I really like the Paleo Diet as a concept, but not always how it's practiced. For those who don't know, the Paleo Diet describes a way of eating that most closely resembles how our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate for the vast majority of our evolution. It's not really a diet so much as a whole lifestyle. Many Paleo advocates also talk about a Paleo exercise style, mimicking the natural movements of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (or what one would imagine that would look like) at high intensity for short duration. This style of training is quite popular right now with the rise of Crossfit gyms that are dedicated to these short burst workouts. And really, the results speak for themselves.


The reasons I like the diet is that it eliminates processed foods and encourages the exclusive use of whole foods -- and organic is a must. I also like the elimination of grains. Because we've only been farming for the last 10,000 years or so (a blip in evolutionary terms) and it's highly unlikely any of our paleolithic ancestors would have spent the time tediously collecting wild grass seeds, grains are out. 


Grains in the modern age seem more and more to be coming up as a problem for most people, and in my experience, eliminating them from the diet leads to a positive turn around in health. (See this video by Dr. Peter Osborne of the Gluten Free Society for more information on this.)


For the most part, the diet also eliminates dairy products. Some Paleo people will do raw dairy, but many don't touch it. Whole foods, lots of protein, carbs and fats, no grains or dairy -- this is a diet I can get behind. It's basically the way I eat myself.


Where I see the Paleo Diet failing, however, is in how some people interpret it. I see a lot of Paleo Dieters eliminating everything but meat and vegetables. Essentially, this is a new gloss on the Atkins thing, although with less of an emphasis on high fat. Nonetheless, it is a ketogenic diet, ie. a diet that forces the body into a state of ketosis. This is a state the body enters when it is burning almost exclusively fat due to a lack of glucose (carbs) present. You lose weight like crazy, but there is a danger in staying in the state for too long. I'm not going to go too much into the dangers of ketosis here, but check out this post by independent health researcher Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health for his take on it.


Carbohydrates are a necessary part of the diet, boosting the satiation hormone leptin, strengthening the immune system, keeping sex hormones at peak function (good for muscle building) and increasing athletic performance. There's no reason to believe our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't eat roots, tubers, legumes, seeds and fruits. Plus the awesome benefits of resistant starch are being uncovered daily, and you're not going to reap any of these benefits if you're avoiding legumes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and grain-like seeds (like buckwheat, quinoa or amaranth). In my opinion, this whole carb backlash is as silly as the fat backlash that preceded it. I suppose the next big thing will be a protein backlash and then we'll have the full trilogy.


So while I do think there is solid logic to the idea behind eating what humans spent the vast majority of their evolution eating, I do think that gets misinterpreted. But if you keep the starch in there, I think Paleo makes for a pretty successful diet plan.


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