Paleo Diet’s Origins

The paleo diet has been around for more than forty years, but recently, it has enjoyed resurgence in popularity. At present, it is one of the most popular diet trends in America.

This comeback in popularity is due in part to its new supporters, including the Crossfit movement and Hollywood celebrities like Megan Fox, Jessica Biel, Miley Cyrus, and Matthew McConaughey.

Dr. Loren Cordain is one of the original researchers and authors backing the Paleo diet. His work in evolutionary medicine led him to believe that our early ancestors, homo sapiens, ate diets consisting mostly of meat (55% or more) though this claim has little to no grounding in archaeological research.

The first book modeled after this concept was written in the1970s. These books popularized the movement.

• The Stone Age Diet
• The Paelo Diet “Lose weight…eating the food you were designed to eat”
• The Primal Blueprint “Reprogram your genes…maximum longevity”
• The New Evolution Diet “Evolution Diet”
• NeaderThin “Eat like a caveman”

Paleo Diet Recommendations – Eating Like a Caveman

The Paleo diet argues that modern diets make us very ill, and in order to improve our health, we need to eat a diet that more closely resembles the diet that our Paleolithic ancestors ate from 2 ½ million years ago to 10,000 years ago.

Paleo diets vary somewhat from book to book. The overall concept is the same, though there is some variation in what foods are to be avoided. Recommendations regarding meat consumption differ as well.

In many ways, the paleo diet is the exact opposite of the USDA’s food pyramid; the original government guidelines for a healthy diet. Paleo diets say fats are okay, but grains are not. In a paleo pyramid, meat makes up the base. Starchy vegetables and grains that make up the top of the pyramid are the foods to be avoided or minimized.

Many paleo followers hold to the belief that through the majority of human history we were primarily meat eaters. In truth, we ate more plants than meat.

Paleo Diets Recommendations

• Meats & eggs,
• Seafood & fish
• Seeds & nuts
• Leafy greens
• Regional produce
• Tubers such as sweet potatoes and yams (In moderation)

Only grass-fed or free-range meat and wild caught seafood are recommended due to the fact that grain-fed animals and farmed fish are less healthy than animals fed their natural diet.

Other Prohibited Foods

• All processed foods
• Dairy
• Grains (no wheat, no pasta, no cereals)
• No sugars, no fructose, or grain sweeteners
• No beans

Most of the paleo diets exclude oils that are extracted through the use of chemicals or other unnatural means.

Since grains and processed foods are forbidden, the diet is naturally gluten free. Paleo dieters strongly recommend that everyone avoid gluten. They argue that nearly everyone is gluten intolerant.

Paleo diets avoid calorie counting. Proponents claim that Paleo foods are more nutritious and filling, so people are less likely to overeat, thus there is no need to count calories.

Paleo proponents claim the paleo diet reduces inflammation, lowers blood pressure, reduces oxidative stress, and provides increased protection against neurodegenerative diseases. Paleo proponents also stand behind the Paleo diet as a treatment for diabetes. The diet is said to reduce glucose and insulin levels.

Paleo Diet’s Lack Of Authenticity

Although it is a great idea to emulate the diet of our ancestors to improve our health, it is not possible to eat exactly like our ancestors did even 20,000 years ago, much less 2 million years ago. The majority of plants and animals that made up early man’s diet are either long extinct or are so different as to be unrecognizable.

In many cases, harmful or undesirable characteristics have been bred out of our domesticated plants. Wild foods are often full of substances to deter predation. Some plants produce natural pesticides, others have thorns, and many produce toxic substances of all kinds. The process of domestication of plants minimizes or eliminates negative or undesirable traits. It also increases desirable traits. Domestication has increased nutrient levels, calories, and digestibility. It has also improved the efficiency of cultivating these plants both through increased practicality and productivity.

Though most of the changes in our food crops are beneficial, there are also plants and animals that have been declining in quality. GMO fruits, vegetables, and dairy; mercury laden, polluted, and radiated seafood; and factory raised livestock are far more toxic and less nutritious than their organic counterparts. All conventionally raised produce is less nutritious than organic produce.

The Real Paleo Diet

Human beings have been able to survive in a variety of climates. There are some indigenous populations, such as people living in arctic areas, who ate a lot of meat because they had limited access to plant resources. In areas where more plants were available, comparatively more plants were eaten. And many plants are unique to a region. People used the resources available to them to survive. These factors alone make it clear that there was not one paleo diet, but many. What they ate in common was a diet filled with whole, fresh, organic foods.

Also, a fact rarely emphasized in the paleo diet is that our ancestors ate organ meats and bone marrow. Bone marrow was a good source of easily assimilated calcium. Bone stock and bone marrow are not commonly eaten in modern day cuisine, though many health advocates have recently recommended them.

Foraging For Produce

In order to eat a true paleo diet, we would have to return to foraging for food. Unfortunately, time is not the only negative factor involved.

Some edible plants have poisonous look-alikes. One mistake with mushrooms, or berries, or some other type of wild plant could prove fatal. Some plants are only to be eaten in small amounts, because when consumed in large amounts, they can be harmful. Another serious obstacle to everyone adopting a foraging lifestyle is that the world’s ecosystems could not withstand 7 billion people abruptly switching over to hunting and gathering. There are simply too many of us for that to work. Our species still must utilize a more intensive guided approach to producing our food, such as gardening, farming, and aquaculture.

There are many truisms to the Paleo approach. We should attempt to emulate the diet of our ancestors, at least in regards to the big picture. A paleo diet had lower grain and carbohydrate consumption, more protein, and more fiber, than modern diets. Paleo diets were made up of fresh foods, many of them raw. On the downside, real paleo diets were actually less diverse, and less healthy than the best diet available to us today.

A diverse, fresh, organic, 80% raw, plant-based diet is the healthiest diet. A full 80% of your diet should consist of fresh, raw, organic produce – more vegetables than fruit. Your diet should also include omega 3 fatty acids (fish oil, flax seed oil, or an oil blend) as well as other healthy fats such as olive oil and coconut oil. Seeds and nuts should be soaked to release enzymes. All meat should be organic and beef should be grass fed. Remember, when you are eating at the top of the food chain, you are essentially eating whatever that animal ate. If you eat a diseased malnourish animal that was fed GMO grains and shot full of antibiotics and growth hormones, will it benefit you and your health?

To truly be healthy, avoid all processed foods. Do not eat artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. No BHA, BHT, MSG, or GMOs. No trans fats. No processed sugar. Limit caffeine.

There is a benefit to the paleo diet mindset. We do need to return to eating natural unadulterated foods. Just keep that 80% raw fresh produce in mind if your ultimate goal is true health and vitality. Check out the 80% Raw Food Diet and learn how to make your own Total Nutrition Powder for a nutritional boost of vitamins and minerals.

Recommended Supplements:

• Shillington’s Total Nutrition Formula

Further Reading:

• 80% Raw Food Diet
• The Way We Used To Eat – The Real Paleo Diet

Sources:

 

• Paleo Diet Explained – You Tube
• Paleo Diet Review by Doctor Oz – You Tube
• Debunking the Paleo Diet – The Singju Post

Without a doubt, our food used to be very different than the food we eat today. Our prehistoric diet consisted of fresh fruit, wild vegetables, roots, wild herbs, nuts, seeds, honey, some wild grains, seafood, and meat. We, as well as our primate antecedents that came before us, evolved to thrive on this plant based diet.

For literally millions of years, we consumed a diet rich in nutrients, low in toxins, high in fiber, and rich in fats. As good as that diet was, it wasn’t ideal. Many prehistoric foods had naturally occurring toxins in them and were lower in nutrients than the best foods available today. Plus, humans were restricted to the foods available in the area they foraged.

In modern times, we can improve upon our prehistoric diet, provided the core concept resembles the same ratios of macronutrients. These ratios of nutrients changed dramatically for the first time, ten thousand years ago when we adopted agriculture. It was then that our diet, and our society, changed forever.

Agriculture spread from one society to another, gradually becoming the dominant subsistence strategy. Farming further reduced variety and increased grains, a change that resulted in a significant decline in health. There is a lot of evidence to support the notion that a high carbohydrate diet, especially when compounded over generations, has a dramatically detrimental effect on human health and vitality. This decline in health can be seen across time and across many cultures.

The average Spanish conquistador was dwarfed in size by the average North American Native American. Spaniards ate a diet high in carbohydrates and low in protein, with limited fruits and vegetables. Native Americans of North America consumed many plants, some fruits and nuts, wild game, some carbohydrates (mostly from squash and corn), and for many tribes, plenty of seafood. The natives in North America could look down on the Spaniards by as much as a half a foot.

South American Natives and Mexican natives are and were significantly smaller in stature than their Northern counterparts. South American Natives relied on agriculture. With farming came a denser population whose diet focused on grains, leading to much higher carbohydrate consumption and less access to meat, nuts, herbs, and vegetables.

The effect that diet has on size is fascinating. Many people attribute genetics to differences in size. Among individuals with a similar diet, this is true. But between populations, like the American population and the Mexican population, diet, over generations, greatly contributes to the average difference in size. Although the effect diet has on size is very interesting, diet has many more profound effects on all aspects of health. Differences in diet lead to different diseases.

Many experts predict that our current population will not live as long as previous generations. Diabetes, heart disease, strokes, hypertension, kidney disease, and obesity are all on the rise, and these diseases are predicted to noticeably shorten the American lifespan. But the story of the American diet doesn’t end there. Our diet did not go from the best in the world to one of the worst overnight, and it won’t go back to the best quickly, either. To understand where we are going, and how diet affects us, it is helpful to understand where we have been and how our diet has affected us in the past.

Freedom has long been lauded as the reason why so many Europeans crossed the ocean. Though religious freedom was certainly a factor, food was probably the bigger incentive. During the time period when Europeans were first settling America, Europe was a very crowded continent. Farming opportunities for European settlers in America were the best in the world. Europeans came in droves to realize the American dream, the dream of being able to feed one’s family, to live in abundance, an abundance of food. It was a modest dream to be sure, but when you can’t feed your family or your family is fed in a substandard manner, it is a dream worth great risk and sacrifice to achieve.

Within generations, a profound difference in size and prosperity emerged between Americans and their European counterparts. This difference in size can still be seen today, but the size gap between Americans and Europeans during modern times is disappearing.

In the early 1800s, most Americans lived on or near farms. Foods were restricted by seasonal availability, and cooking was done on an open hearth, a labor-intensive method.

In 1820, the cast iron stove was introduced. For Americans living in the 1800s this was as timesaving as a microwave is versus a modern day oven. Unlike a microwave, a cast iron stove didn’t eradicate nutrients anymore than the previous cooking method did, it just saved time.

In 1892, the U.S. government collected height and weight data on a representative sample of U.S. men. In white males aged 40-69 years old, obesity was estimated to have been at 4%.

From that time to modern times, a number of changes happened to our food supply, including how food is prepared, how it is produced, its availability, and what foods we choose to eat.

These are some of the changes:

• 1910s – Hydrogenated (trans fats) were introduced into the food supply
• 1920s – Gas and electric stoves became common
• 1920s – Refrigerators became common
• 1920s – Canned foods and frozen foods were introduced

In the early 1900s, foods like Nathan’s Hot Dogs, Oreo Cookies, Wonder Bread, Yoo-Hoo, Wheaties, Kool-Aid, VanCamp’s Canned Pork and Beans, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were introduced into the American diet and became very popular.

Trans fats dramatically extend the shelf life of foods. Proctor & Gamble learned methods for hydrogenating cottonseed oil from a German scientist. This fat was originally intended for soap, but it resembled lard, so Proctor & Gamble successfully marketed it as Crisco. (The name comes from crystallized cottonseed oil.)

New technologies not only allowed for easy storage of food, they also allowed for a more diverse diet, a diet less beholden to seasonal availability. For the sake of convenience, many more ready- to-eat foods were developed. Refrigeration technology did not just change the foods in the home, it changed the foods available in stores and restaurants as well. And refrigerated train cars, in use since the 1840s, allowed for shipping foods long distances.

Refrigeration and electricity created a technological platform from which commercialized food became more commonplace. This change is important because it is not as profitable for commercially prepared food to be healthy as it is for it to simply taste good and have a long shelf life. It is easier and more profitable for food manufacturers to misrepresent their foods as healthy, than it is for them to actually be healthy.

Consider these ads:

This misrepresentation is achieved by focusing on a few upsides to commercially prepared foods while blatantly ignoring the numerous downsides. Food manufacturers don’t attempt to convince us how great sugar is anymore. Their methods have grown more sophisticated. For instance, “fat free” while loaded with sugar; zero trans fat, when high in other fats; “all natural,” when genetically modified; made with real blueberries, when everything else was made in a lab; and my personal favorite, “fortified with vitamins & minerals,” which means this Frankenfood is so dead that in order for it to have any nutrition at all, the manufacturer had to add the cheapest, most unnatural vitamins and minerals known to man.

A Changing Food Budget

In 1889, 93% of all food spending was for food consumed at home. In 2009, only 51% of all food spending was spent on food to be consumed at home. Of the food purchased to be consumed at home, much of it was highly processed and commercially prepared.

Changing Activity Levels

While the standard American diet drastically changed, so did the physical activity levels of the average American. Two hundred years ago, most professions were physically demanding and exercise was a way of life. Over time, this has dramatically changed. Some Americans exercise a few times a week, but it is common for many to never exercise at all.

Obviously, this has had profound effects on American health.

Trading one Disease for Another

The first alarms were sounded in the late 1970s. A senate committee pushed its “Dietary Goals for the United States” urging Americans to eat less fat. It was thought that red meat, eggs, and dairy were killing us.

By the 1980s, nearly a million Americans were dying of heart disease each year.

Again, Americans were told to eat less fat and eat more carbohydrates. These recommendations were built into a monument and lauded to the public as the salvation for American health: The Food Pyramid.

The Food Pyramid recommended carbohydrates as the staple of a healthy diet. Fat was a killer, or so we were led to believe, therefore recommendations for fat intake were drastically reduced. A $150 million dollar study, which pushed the same message, came fast on the heels of these recommendations. The study said to eat less fat and avoid foods high in cholesterol in order to reduce your risk of heart disease.

Americans followed this advice and consumption of grains and sugar rose. Americans are now sicker than before. Deaths from heart disease have dropped a bit, but obesity and diabetes rose dramatically.

Whole milk has been banned from most of our public schools, but strawberry milk, chocolate milk, and soda machines are usually available. Whole plain yogurt is usually difficult to find in a grocery store, but low fat, sugar filled, artificially flavored, artificially colored options are everywhere. The prevailing belief is that these low fat options are healthier, even when loaded with sweeteners, than whole milk.

Though deaths from heart disease have declined, cardiovascular disease remains the nation’s number # 1 killer. According to Time Magazine, diabetes has increased 166% from 1980 to 2012. The low-fat trend was directed toward lowering cholesterol. And yet, few realize that high fructose corn syrup, found in nearly every processed food, is today’s leading cause of high cholesterol.

A Downward Trend

In every measurable way, Americans are in worse health than ever before. It is widely predicted that our lifespan is shortening; the generations that came before us will outlive us, and we are likely to outlive the generations that succeed us.

Most Americans simply want to lose weight, but some aspire to be healthier as well. For either goal or both goals, many Americans have lost confidence in government guidelines and have begun to look for other diets to follow. In the absence of sound advice from the government, many have turned elsewhere for ways to lose weight or to improve their health.

This has led to waves of diet fads, diets that rise and fall in popularity. These are some of the more popular diets:

• The Pritikin diet
• The Atkins diet
• The Gluten Free diet
• The South Beach diet
• The Mediterranean diet
• Weight Watchers
• The Zone Diet
• Volumetrics
• Raw Food Diet
• NutriSystem
• Macrobiotic Diet
• The Paleo Diet

Many of the diets have been designed and championed by doctors.

The Pritikin diet basically echoes government recommendations, with less meat. The South Beach diet is very similar, with fewer carbs and more lean meats like fish and poultry. The Atkins diet is a protein-based weight loss plan that is low in nutrition and very unhealthy. It has been called a nutritionist’s nightmare. The gluten free diet works best if there is a reason for one to avoid gluten. Otherwise, unless one cuts back on carbs, it is unlikely to be beneficial to anyone trying to lose weight. Weight Watchers stresses eat what you want but in moderation and constantly count calories.

The Mediterranean diet is a seafood, wine, veggie, and whole grain weight loss plan similar to South Beach. The Zone diet suggests a rigid focus on macronutrients in regards to protein, carbs, and fat. Nutrisystem is the ultimate have someone else do it for you plan with all meals pre made and pre measured. Volumetrics promotes a focus on fruits and vegetables. Because of their fiber content, they make you feel more full. The raw food diet allows for unlimited raw vegan food.

These were among the most popular diets. Many diet fads were highly restrictive, absurd, dangerous, and downright scary like the grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet, the vinegar diet, and the liquid diet. Other approaches included the T.V. frozen dinner diet and even a Twinkie diet. The most dangerous and harmful diets were the diets that weren’t even based on food like the cigarette diet (whenever you’re hungry, just smoke), the eat sweets before a meal diet, or, even more crazy, the tapeworm diet, the baby food diet (substitute some of your meals with baby food), and worst of all the cotton ball diet, which recommended that you actually eat cotton balls dipped in juice. This is a choking hazard and can cause intestinal blockages, both of which can kill you. It was crazy, but these were all diets were practiced by some Americans.

Despite the variety of diets, popular and obscure, safe and dangerous, on average, Americans are fatter than ever before. Most Americans eat slightly less red meat and eat more lean meat, but they eat more sugar and more highly processed and refined foods. The CDC predicts that by 2030 up to 42% of the U.S. population will be obese, and 11% will be severely obese.

Experts do not agree on the health effect of grains and sweets. In Georgia, the only cereals WIC will pay for are cereals that contain some kind of sugar – corn sugar, sugar cane, or sugar from beets. Fruit juice sweetened and unsweetened cereals are considered health food and are not eligible for purchase under the program.

Over time, some foods have gone up in demand, while others have fallen in popularity. Sugar consumption from sugar cane has dropped 35% while corn based sweeteners (mostly high fructose corn syrup) consumption has risen by 8,853%. It’s not that Americans choose to eat corn syrup, they choose to eat processed foods, and high fructose corn syrup is added to nearly every processed food.

The current government guidelines are only a little different than the original food pyramid. The current recommendations are still high in grains, but the recommendation for fruits and vegetables is higher.

Conclusion

We recommend a diverse, whole food, plant-based diet. A full 80% of your diet should consist of raw, fresh, organic produce – more vegetables than fruits. Meats should be organic. Nuts and seeds should be soaked or sprouted. Grains should be limited and gluten should be avoided if any illness is present. Dairy should be organic and raw or limited. Omega 3 fatty acids from flaxseed oil, fish oil, or a blended oil and oily fish should be added to your diet. Clean water is also essential.

You should avoid all artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives; MSG; high fructose corn syrup; trans fats; and GMOs. Seriously limit or eliminate all processed sugar.

For more information about a truly healthy diet, read the 80% Raw Food Diet. Boost your nutrition with increased vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, learn how to make your own Total Nutrition Powder.

Recommended Supplements:

• Shillington’s Total Nutrition Formula

Further Reading:

• 80% Raw Food Diet
• Is the Paleo Diet a Fraudulent Fad or the Healthiest Diet To Hit Mainstream? Could It Be Both?

Sources:

• The Height Gap – The New Yorker
• The American Diet – Stephan Guyenet
• Debunking The Paleo Diet – Christina Warinner
• Processed Foods History – Modern Pioneer Mom
• The Rise and fall of trans fat: A history of partially hydrogenated oil – LA Times
• The Ten Most Famous Fad Diets of All Time – Everyday Health