What is the Paleo Diet, Back Then vs. Now
Simply put, paleo diet is the consumption of food without preservatives and grains. It’s an effort to encourage similar to the diet our stone-age ancestors used to have. The food our ancestors consumed consisted of anything they could hunt and gather – leafy greens, nuts, meats, fishes, seeds, and regional veggies.
What is the Paleo Diet?
Processed food items have become a part of our regular diet and is a type of food that our bodies haven’t evolved to digest properly; foods such as rice, pasta, and bread. Thus, instead of these, we should eat foods that our bodies can digest easily; mostly those food items that occur and are available naturally.
To answer the question, “what is the paleo diet”; it is a big advocate of protein from natural sources – meat, eggs, and seafood. Vegetables and fresh fruits are even more highly encouraged. This gives paleo diet a crossover with veganism, making it a diet rich in both, protein and fiber content, the source of which are vegetables and not grains. You could even call it Paleo-vegan, the perfect combination of mostly plant based foods with the addition of protein and fat as needed.
Our genetics haven’t changed from older times
Tens of thousands of years ago, our stone-age ancestors survived and thrived as hunters and gatherers. Despite a millennia passing since then, our genetics haven’t changed all that much. An average human back then, used to be quite tall, very muscular, extremely agile, and athletic. On the other hand, an average human being now, is out of shape, obese, unhappy, stressed, and losing the battle against a horde of preventable diseases.
What happened?
Agriculture is what happened! Couple of thousand years ago, farming was discovered and soon after that, the agricultural revolution was set forth in full swing. Our species evolved from hunters and gatherers to being farmers. Tribes settled down and formed societies, progress took the fast track, and this is where we humans are today with the advent of industrialization making things even worse.
The underlying issue is that our bodies never really adjusted to the amount of grains we are now farming and consuming. From the beginning of our species to where we are today, 99.5% of the time we have spent on earth has been as hunters and gatherers. Considering this data, notice the significant amount of time our bodies have had to adapt to that lifestyle, with only 0.5% of the time spent as farmers with our diet pattern being abruptly shifted. Just imagine what we are putting our bodies through.
Rather than consuming meat, veggies, and fruits, we have become dependent on grains – rice, bread, corn, pasta, and so on. Moreover, our government recommends 6-11 servings per day, and you can witness for yourself how more and more people are succumbing to obesity.
Something definitely isn’t right; paleo diet is not an effort to go back in time, but a way to restore the natural process of our body; the way it was biologically designed to function. This will allow us to begin living a healthier life instantly.
Fortunately, now that you know what is the paleo diet all about; instead of going on a paleo diet completely, you can simply restrict the foods that aren’t included in the paleo diet. As a result, you may very well be able to stop counting calories forever. Other than stopping you from worrying about calories, this particular diet enables you to eat until you’re full. Additionally, it aids your body in building muscle and losing weight, and gets you in shape way faster than any other diet.
In conclusion, what is the paleo diet, really? It’s a step in the direction human beings were supposed to take well before agricultural revolution, without the presence of preservatives, chemicals, and modified grain content in our foods. Paleo Diet would not only would help in preventing obesity but protect you from all the modern diseases that are the direct result of unhealthy diet patterns that we have formed ever since the agricultural revolution.
Leave a Reply