You may have heard the term 'The Paleo Diet' be thrown around in wellness culture and wondered what that really entails. This is a topic I'm hugely passionate about and want to help people get a holistic and digestible understanding of all things paleo. I adopted the paleo eating philosophy back in 2018 and started following the very strict outline. Over time, I learned what my body can tolerate and utilized the heaps of research in the field to tailor the diet to my unique needs while optimizing health. If you're considering following a paleo diet, I strongly encourage experimentation and using the below outline as a template. Please have graciousness for your experience in your body!
Do's:
Whole Foods
Fruits
Vegetables
Nuts
Seeds
Meat
Active Lifestyle
Don'ts:
Gluten
Grains
Dairy
Soy
Legumes
Refined Oils & Sugars
To start, it gets its name from the Paleolithic era, aka the Stone Age. A big misconception people have is that the paleo diet is replicating cave men. Truth be told, evolution has outpaced that diet. We're Humans, not Neanderthals. A head of broccoli nowadays definitely doesn't resemble anything close to the broccoli relative that existed in the paleolithic era. However, we can trace the evolutionary branches and see how we've co-evolved and kept the flora in our diets.
The modern paleo diet is based on the principle that we should be eating the foods that our bodies have evolved alongside. Remember, evolution is a ~ s l o w w w w w ~ process. Humans have been eating a certain way for over 300,000 years, very close to nature using the resources that were available to them. It wasn't until about 10,000 years ago that we developed modern agriculture, giving way to what we now call "ancient grains". In an evolutionary perspective, that's barely a blip! Certainly not long enough for us to evolve to be able to properly digest and extract nutrients from this new food group (this is why one of the pillars of the paleo diet is the avoidance of grains). It wasn't until super recently that we've had the modernization and industrialization of food. It's important to point out that there is variation among populations that effect the tolerance, as well as variation among individuals. One thing is for certain across the board though; the human body definitely has not evolved to harmoniously process Pop-Tarts and Doritos.
Wellness culture and the scientific community are now pretty well aware of the various food sensitivities that exist, encouraging the avoidance of gluten and dairy - two more pillars of the paleo diet. To really simplify things, if we think back over the evolutionary timeline of humanity, for the overwhelming majority of our history we were not milking cows or crafting recipes using grains to develop gluten structures while making bread, and thus did not have the opportunity to evolve in a way that would really nurture the handling of these food types.
With modern science, scientists were able to isolate the exact reason why dairy causes digestive discomfort - attributed to a protein in casein called A1 protein. To my absolute delight, goat and sheep's milk products have very low levels of this protein and instead are A2 protein dominant, decreasing intenstinal and systemic sensitization! So, on spicythyme you'll be seeing recipes that may include goat/sheep product but you can always choose to omit based on what feels good in your body.
You may be asking yourself, "Really? No beans?". I know it sounds counterintuitive, as many nutritionists and dieticians recommend legumes as part of a healthy diet. Sure, you can probably get on board with cutting out refined sugars and oils, but beans?
Similar to grains, humans didn't start cultivating legumes until around 8,000 years ago when humans started growing peanuts and beans in Peru. For the case of soy beans, it wasn't until around 4,500 years ago in China. Legumes contain phytic acid which binds to nutrients in your food, preventing the body from being able to absorb them. Because legumes are typically consumed in high volumes, and treated as a nutritional staple, reliance on this food group drastically limits your nutritional intake. That being said, I choose to incorporate chickpeas in small quantities on occasion because it makes me happy!
Additionally, this food group contains high levels of toxic lectins which cause damage to the intestinal wall. These guys can really pack a punch to your digestive system! Legumes are also FODMAPS, which can cause digestive issues including uncomfortable bloating and gas. On top of all of this, soy is special in that it contains phytoestrogen which mimics the estrogen hormone in the body and causes hormonal imbalance.
Okay, we're getting into the weeds here and I could go on and on! I'll link a bunch of helpful resources below if you'd like to read up some more on the basics but the resounding message should be this: The paleo diet focuses on an evolutionary perspective into how humans have evolved to eat, and honoring that eating philosophy in the modern world.
Paleo Resources:
Books
The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
Going Paleo by Pete Evans
The Paleo Manifesto by John Durant
The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat by Loren Cordain
The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (a personal favorite)
It Starts With Food by Melissa Hartwig (super informative)
The Paleovedic Diet by Akil Palanisamy
Articles
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQoS2OBElCEhEXFK2OlmtFA (The Paleo Way youtube channel, tons of interviews, recipes, and resources)
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