The Paleolithic Diet: So Easy a Caveman Could Do It

It's no secret that many of the foods we consume nowadays aren't good for us, but why? The reason is that we were not evolved to eat them. For many thousands of years, humans hunted and gathered food from the wild. They ate meat and fish supplemented with plant foods. In season, they might have found fruits that are smaller and not as sweet as modern fruit and nuts, but mostly they ate leafy plants and herbs. On a really good day, they might have raided a bee hive for some honey.

These foods made hunter gatherers taller and healthier than the farmers who came after them. It is how humans were evolved to eat. Since humans evolve very slowly, it's also the diet that we are suited for too. Modern people who try to eat like our hunter-gatherer ancestors call this way of eating the Paleolithic Diet, aka the Caveman Diet.

What Is the Paleolthic Diet?

The most important thing is what you don't eat. Most people exclude the following foods:

• Cereals and grains
• Dairy products
• Legumes
• Potatoes
• Sugar
• Vegetable oils

There are different variations of the Paleo diet. Some people eat sweet potatoes. Others eat butter and cheese. Generally, those are the only "forbidden" foods that are debated among followers of the diet.

So, What Do You Eat?

• Meat, poultry, fish, seafood
• Vegetables,
• Berries
• Nuts and seeds
• Fruits
• Olive oil, coconut oil, lard

Most people who follow the Paleo diet do not eat much fruit because modern fruit is so sweet. The diet is relatively low in carbohydrates moderate in protein, and high in healthful fats.

What Are the Health Benefits of the Paleolithic Diet?

You will probably lose any excess weight without really trying, and you will become leaner and more muscular without changing your exercise routine. Studies have also found the following changes from following a Paleolithic diet:

• Lower body fat
• Lower blood pressure
• Lower insulin levels
• Lower levels of total cholesterol
• Lower levels of LDL cholesterol
• Lower triglyceride levels

These changes should result in a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The Paleolithic diet has become extremely popular, and along with popularity come the debunkers. They point out that hunter-gatherer diets varied according to geography and environment, and that some grains may have been eaten prior to the rise of agriculture. Both are certainly true. What they don't say is also important though. They don't say that cereals and grains made up a significant portion of the human diet prior to agriculture, nor do they say that the modern version of the hunter-gatherer diet is unhealthy.

The Paleo diet requires some adjustment, just as any lifestyle change does. There's nothing wrong with easing into it either by dropping the forbidden categories of food over the course of a month or two. Because the Paleolithic diet has become so popular, there is a lot of information about it. You should be able to find recipes and menu plans that will suit your tastes and fit your lifestyle.

Mark Sisson is the author of the most popular book on the Paleo diet.

A Beginner's Guide to the Paleo Diet

If you've heard of the Paleo diet, but are not sure what it is, this beginner's guide is a good place to begin your education.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to eat like we used to back in the day…WAY back in the day. If a caveman couldn’t eat it, neither can you.

This means anything we could hunt or find – meats, fish, nuts, leafy greens, regional veggies, and seeds. Sorry, the pasta, cereal, and candy will have to go! Instead, you’ll be making things like chicken stir fry and paleo spaghetti. Read more

8 Key Concepts of Living Primal

Live by the eight key concepts of living primal, and you’ll be on your way to a lifetime of health and wellness, says Mark Sisson.

With the Primal Blueprint 21-Day Challenge having just begun, it’s the perfect time to go over the Primal Blueprint 8 Key Concepts. I believe that fully grokking these powerful ideas is crucial to success during the challenge. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. Having a firm grasp of these key concepts will provide a framework for – and make you more resolute in – your daily decisions. Read them, commit them to memory, live by them, and you’ll be well on your way to a lifetime of health and wellness.

In the coming days and weeks, I will lay out the path to Primal health in greater detail, but for now, are you ready to learn the basics? Let’s get to it… Read more

5 Sensible Vices

Vices are things that are supposed to be bad for you, but Mark Sisson says there are five vices that are, well, sensible.

One issue I have with our modern lifestyle – of many – is the emphasis on perfection. Newer, slimmer, bigger, better, faster: the message of perfection screams out to us from glossy magazines, slick television ads and popup ad after popup ad. (Or purrs, cajoles, teases, and smothers.) While I do believe fundamentally in pursuing whatever your personal best happens to be, and I think we could generally be doing far better in terms of diet and exercise, I have a hard time with the constant barrage of images telling us that, in short, we suck.

Which brings me to vices. I’m a pretty disciplined guy – okay, very disciplined – but I stop short of attempting perfection. Sure, I suppose I could forever kiss ice cream good bye (yes, Sisson still occasionally indulges). I could angst over those missed workouts when I’m vacationing with my wife and kids. I could work on my flaws and vices. But…why? Read more

Enjoy Saturated Fats, They’re Good for You!

Cardiac surgeon Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD, discusses the heart=damaging effects of the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet pushed by the medical establishment, the federal government, and the mainstream media.

This article is taken from a talk I gave at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in Albuquerque last week, on the controversial subject of saturated fats. Some of the slides that I used for this talk are put in here.

The medical establishment and government health authorities say that consumption of saturated animal fats is bad for us and causes heart disease. According to the lipid hypothesis – the label used for the diet-cholesterol theory of heart disease – saturated fats raise serum cholesterol levels, and high blood cholesterol causes obstructive plaques to form in arteries, called atherosclerosis. This pathologic process causes coronary heart disease and the need for coronary artery bypass surgery, which is what I do. Read more