The Paleolithic Diet

The Paleolithic diet, named after the Paleolithic or old Stoneage which ended about 10,000 years ago is recommended by many authorities as the best diet for longevity. The thinking behind this is as follows: Humans have existed in their present form for about 150,000 years in the old Stoneage and up to a million years in other more primative forms. For all these years we subsisted on a hunter/gatherer diet consisting of meat, fish, roots, bark, vegetables, eggs, fruits and nuts. All the archaeological evidence points to humans being omnivores.

Sometime between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, a very short time compared to how long humans have lived on earth, our ancestors began raising and eating grains, and dairy products. Later we added legumes, refined sugars, and fats. All of these foods are alien to what our ancestors ate for a million or more years. These new foods in our diet and are the cause of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other disorders so prevalent today. You see we have not adapted to eating this kind of diet and yet Westerners obtain most of their calories from these foods.

Many plants contain lectins, designed to protect them from animals that seek to eat them. High concentrations of lectins are found in grains, peanuts, various legumes, and potatoes.Many authorities believe these plant lectins contribute to alot, if not most diet-related diseases. It is thought that eating a large variety of fruits and vegetables will help you to avoid high concentrations of any one lectin.Grains and legumes also contain substances that inhibit protein-degrading enzymes needed for optimal digestion. Phytic acid is also found in legumes and grains and prevents many minerals from being absorbed.

Milk contains casein, a protein, believed to contribute to atherosclerosis leading to heart disease so prevalent in our society. Today it is common for people to die of heart disease which was practically unheard of prior to the agricultural revolution which occured relatively recently. The truth is Humans are all adapted to some variation of the Paleolithic diet that our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate for more than a million years.

In my next blog I will discuss the variations of the Paleolithic diet.