The first rule of the Paleo diet I want to stress before talking about anything else is eating mostly unprocessed and whole foods. People often times get distracted by other parts of the Paleo diet but I want to talk about food quality first because I think it is most important. For some reason, whenever talking about dieting there is alway so much discussion on quantity. It's always "eat less calories to lose weight" or "eat more protein if you want to gain muscle" or "go on a low carb diet, they're the enemy" or "go on a low fat diet, it's the enemy." Instead of talking about quantity there should be more discussion on food quality. I'm going to start talking like a food hippie here for a second but hang in there with me. Eating is actually quite an intimate process that should be respected, not abused. We should be grateful to the food for giving us life and energy, not fearing that it will make us fat or demanding simple pleasure from it. When you eat, you are taking that thing into your own body and it gives you life and actually quite literally becomes the new you. What do you want to become the new you? High quality foods that were prepared with care or processed foods made and packaged in factories that only exist to make money?
The Paleo diet was born out of the idea that humans should be eating foods that we are well adapted to eat and that our ancestors have been eating for well over 10,000 years. Many people get lost on this point and try to make Paleo more about a historical reenactment but the fact is this is just the starting point and a way to help make a roadmap for the diet. You don't needs to use anthropological data to justify eating something, if it's something that's good for you that you tolerate well, then go for it. Two examples of pleasure foods in the Paleo community that were not eaten by our ancestors are coffee and chocolate. Neither were eaten in the Paleolithic era but, if tolerated by the individual, they can have many benefits so they don't need to be excluded just on the basis that they're relatively new foods.
The food groups generally omitted from the Paleo diet are: grains, legumes and dairy. These foods may seem like they've been around for awhile but in actuality, not nearly as long as other foods like meat, nuts and berries. Now because of agricultural practices, processing, genetic modification and many other reasons these food groups (there are others, but these ones especially) seem to be even more troublesome and inflammatory to the human biology today. Cutting out grains, legumes and dairy is only a starting point and from there you can decide what works best for you and what doesn't. There will be some people who tolerate these different foods better than others but once you cut them out for a couple weeks to a month and then start reintroducing them into your diet, it will become clear which cause distress and which do not. Dairy can be very problematic to some that have allergic reactions to it, but very beneficial to others. Of course there is a spectrum and you ultimately have to be the judge of whether it's beneficial for you or not. In Paleo fashion, though, you should look for high quality, minimally processed dairy that will be the most beneficial and the least offensive. Many people respond better to goat's milk than cow's milk. The assumption is that we are more biologically similar to goats than cows in many ways so we tolerate their milk better. If dairy has bothered you in the past, switching to goat milk may have some positive benefits, but the only way to find out is to give it a try. Grains and legumes, unfortunately, have built in defense mechanisms in order to prevent animals from eating them so that they can continue to grow and survive. Some people, however, can benefit from grains and legumes as long as they are prepared correctly via fermentation, sprouting, soaking, cooking and other methods. It can often times be difficult to find properly prepared and handled grains and legumes that haven't been highly processed and modified, which is why many in the Paleo community just avoid them, but if you do the self experimenting and can find high quality grains and legumes that don't bother you it might not be a bad idea to include in your diet.
One of the reasons I like the Paleo diet is that health and self experimentation are at the heart of the diet. The Paleo diet doesn't need to be low carb or high fat or low fat or high meat, but it can be any of those things if you design it that way and decide that's the best model for you and your goals. It's just a starting point to finding out what is the diet that's going to help you feel, look and perform the best. It's about finding a diet that meets your needs and can help to correct: digestive distress, food cravings, blood sugar swings, autoimmune conditions, inflammatory diseases and many more. I'm not guaranteeing the Paleo diet will fix all of those conditions, but finding the ideal diet for YOU can have the potential to do many powerful things and greatly affect your health and well being. There's a program called Whole30 that's a great place to start with the Paleo diet that walks you through the month long challenge and gives you the rationale behind it and tips to succeed. If you're thinking of starting the Paleo diet I suggested visiting that site first.
I hope this was a good introduction/clarification and wasn't too long and confusing. In later posts I hope to give more tips and suggestions on how to make the Paleo diet work for you but for now this is just an overview. And seriously, check out Whole30 for more info and give their 30 day challenge a try.
Stay healthy San Diego,
-Devin
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