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An Introduction to Paleo Diet

We know that mass media continually spreads hysterical warnings on what to eat and what not to eat, what gives you cancer and what maybe doesn't. As these warnings seemingly change back and forth – one week meat gives you nasty tumours, the next week it is the healthiest food on the planet – it is not very surprising if people are confused and lash out in frustration: "What am I really supposed to eat?"

Include lots of fish and seafood in your dietary habits - your body will thank you. One way to solve the problem is to look for human populations that have never heard of things like cancer, diabetes, or heart failure. If they don't have these problems, their diets are plausibly designed to fit their natures enough to not give them any diseases of this sort - it's probably the most empirical evidence of healthy eating habits you'll ever get.

But are there any of these peoples around today? Short answer: Yes. Anthropologists have studied the dietary habits of recent hunter-gatherer populations who live in places where civilisation has not yet had an effect on their ways of living. In these places - e.g. the islands outside Papua New Guinea - people have indeed never encountered our kinds of national diseases. After thorough examinations, it was clear that these people had no indications of stroke, diabetes, dementia or congestive heart failure, no overweight, excellent blood pressure, no acne… The list could go on.

Their food is the same kind of food that human beings ate during the Paleolithic era, the kind of food our bodies are still made for. Since then, our dietary habits have changed radically. Not only when it comes to candybars and the like, but also ingredients that we today see as being "normal" or downright healthy, when in fact they are foods that we are not made to eat - we have not adapted to them.

Following the dietary advice suggested by these "Paleolithic" lifestyles are by some scientist called Paleo Diet. In short, this diet is based on the idea that since Paleolithic people didn't have our health problems, we should eat what they eat, and in the same way not eat what they didn't eat.

Based on this diet, here follows two rough lists of what we should eat and what we should avoid:

What to eat:

Lean meat (pork, chicken and beef)
Offal
Fish
Seafood
Eggs
Vegetables
Fruits
Nuts (not peanuts)
Spices

What not to eat:

Grains, seeds, beans
Dairy products
Refined sugar, fats and oils.

There are explanations as to why we should not eat the things mentioned in the latter list.

In most grains, seeds and beans there is phytic acid, an anti-nutritional component that binds important minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc, some proteins and starch, resulting in lower absorption of these elements in the body. Birds and rats and other animals have the ability to digest phytic acid in their bowel system, something which human beings and other monogastric animals do not. Thus, we are not made to eat grains and foods made from it (bread, cereals etc.). Phytic acid can also be found in nuts, which is why we shouldn't eat them uncontrollably even though they are on the "OK list." (There seems to be only a few companies and institutes (mainly in Europe) that admit the problems connected to phytic acid.)

Instead of eating candy, buy lots of fruits, it's an excellent alternative. The kind of fat in dairy products (milk, yoghurt, cheese etc.) is a very probable cause of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Also, lactose and casein are suspected as being the cause of diabetes and several allergies. In Paleo Diet, calcium is instead found in vegetables. This calcium is much easier to absorb in the body when grains and beans are excluded, which is why Paleolithic peoples never have had problems with osteoporosis (brittle-bone disease).

The diseases caused by grains and dairy products don't occur in humans until rather late in life. For this reason, people that couldn't fully handle the effects of milk and bread, weren't weeded out before they had children, thus evolution never adapted us to these kinds of food.

Paleo Diet contains more protein than your average Western intake. While protein is filling and for this reason prevents overweight, "high" protein intake is, however, also claimed to be a cause of osteoporosis and impaired kidney function. But scientists are successively abandoning these theories, as they start to realize that these conditions may just as well have been caused for other reasons entirely.

In any case, we also need to highlight the fact that these dietary habits went parallel with an athletic lifestyle, which may be why the high intake of protein particularly was of benefit and was also an important reason why these Paleolithic people were so healthy. Nevertheless, eating right is at least half of the way leading up to a healthier body, and maybe even a healthier mind.

The ideal is a minimum of three cooked meals (with lean meat, fish, or seafood) a day, with fruits and/or some nuts between the meals. Water to drink. From my own experience, one does indeed feel healthier when eating only the kind of food our distant ancestors ate. This was perhaps most evident when I went back to "normal" habits for about a month, and felt an extreme contrast. I had almost forgotten what it felt like being really hungry between meals, and had almost forgotten what it felt like eating lots but not gaining that much energy to the system.

Whether Paleo Diet is the "ultimate" dietary habit or not, it seems to be at the very least a much better alternative to the not entirely well thought out diets we meet in weekly magazines.