Taken from Nerdheaven
Paleo Life Style
The Paleolithic Diet is the diet that we humans are genetically adapted to eat. The paleolithic age is the same as the Stone Age – so this is a stone age diet or life style. This has been humanity’s preferred diet for something like 2.5 million years, and humans have only genetically changed 0.005% since the introduction of agriculture (the Neolithic). As a rule, agricultural (and technological) products are not healthy to eat, and we should predominantly try to eat only those whole foods that are healthy in their raw state (though almost all humans, including hunter-gatherers cook their food).
This is not a quick-fix diet but a way of life. You’re not supposed to starve when you eat only paleo foods. Eat when you’re hungry!
What to Eat?
Do eat:
- Meat (and fat, fish, eggs)
- Vegetables (and berries)
- Fruit (and nuts)
- Dairy (milk, cheese, butter, etc) (*)
Do not eat:
- Dairy (milk, cheese, butter, etc) (*)
- Grains or corn (maize, wheat, barley, rice, etc.)
- Starchy vegetables (potatoes, yams, jerusalem artichokes, etc.)
- Sugar (refined)
- Legumes (beans, soy products, peanuts, cashew, lentils, etc.)
- Chemical food additives
Go easy on:
- Salt (can cause overeating and hypertension and dull the senses)
- Processing of foods (nut flours/butters, pork rind flour, etc.) Eat simple foods instead
- Artificial sweeteners (don’t dull your senses, and they cause insulin responses simply by being sweet on the tastebuds)
(*) Read on for more about my stance on dairy
Basically: if our ancestors could pick it from a bush or catch it with a spear, you can eat it. The rule is that a food is healthy, if you could have eaten it in its raw state. This is a naturally occurring “low to medium carbohydrate” way of eating.
If you have to “cheat” the most forgiveable cheat is butter, full cream and cheese, and fermented milk products like yoghurt (as long as you’re not lactose intolerant, which incidentally a large percentage of the world’s population are). The Maasai, who are traditional hunter-gatherers, are reknowned for their vast consumption of milk and meat and preferably little else – they’re obviously not allergic to milk. Ray Audette doesn’t recommend eating dairy products, and he cured himself of some very severe arthritis by cutting this food out – the point is that you may be allergic to milk and not actually know it. So experiment! I can guarantee that you can live easily without dairy as I did for 7-8 months before trying out dairy again. In my case I’ve experienced no ill effects from this re-introduction of dairy – but that’s just my genes; your’s may differ. My stance on dairy is that obviously a lot of people DOES tolerate it quite well, but MOST do not (if you count the Chinese). So speaking in evolutionary terms the adaption to eating dairy may be relatively recent. Dairy can make a lot of meals easier to prepare and it extends the range of recipies you can use.
The big killers of modern civilization, cancer and cardiovascular disease, are not nearly as prevalent among hunter-gatherers. Also, another big problem is diabetes and other insulin-related illnesses – what used to be called “adult onset diabetes”, the disease striking older people at 50 or 60, is now rampant among young people too as lots of kids age 9 exhibit the very first signs of diabetes 2.
Consider something: the low-fat hysteria is at an all-time high, yet more and more people are getting fat. Something just doesn’t FIT. Generally speaking, foods high on carbohydrate will help make you fat, simply because high-carb foods doesn’t sate you before you’ve eaten more calories than you need and because high-carb foods make satiety last shorter than if you eat meat and veggies. Also, as Gary Taubes has pointed out recently, insulin seems to be driving obesity along with the break-down product alpha-glycerol-phosphate that comes from metabolized sugar. Stored fat are triglycerides, ie. three fats held together by an alpha-glycerol-phosphate molecule. Eating a diet that doesn’t provide tons of sugar/carb will reduce a-g-p, and since fat is actually metabolically active it frequently needs a-g-p to reintegrate dissolved triglycerides into the fat storage (using lipogenesis). Less a-g-p means easier access to fat and makes it harder for the body to store excess energy. Insulin gone and you body can enter ketosis, meaning you burn fat. If insulin is there your fat storage is locked down. This means you cannot burn fat and you cannot get to the energy, which is turn seems to increase appetive because the body thinks it’s hungry.
Carbohydrate is just a techical or generic word for what lay men call “sugar” or “starch”, nothing more, nothing less. It isn’t strictly necessary for humans, and it should only be eaten in the amounts present in vegetables and fruit. Protein can be converted to carbohydrate by the body on a need-to-have basis, but it doesn’t cause blood sugar spikes.
Eating the Paleo way doesn’t require you to buy all sorts of fancy get-slim-fast products or powerbars. You can get your food easily at the local super market.
