For over a few years, the Paleo-style diet has already established a lot of supporters. You can see a large number of people online, posting comments and speaking about Paleo articles. Since Paleo has been endorsed by famous bloggers, it has become one gigantic movement. Have you heard of the Paleo flaw?
Much like many fad diets lately, the opinions are divided by people who see Paleo from a more objective angle, and those who will shield it into the wee hours of the night; quite a few so loyal that they no doubt would be offended that I even talk about the Paleo Diet in the same paragraph as the words fad diet.
Paleo began during mid 70’s and was introduced by Walter L Voegtlin, a gastroenterologist. In reality, Paleo Diet and other low-carb diets haven’t any significant differences. The only difference is that, Paleo do not support eating grains-regardless of its variety.
The Paleo Viewpoint
Paleo will be based upon the simple belief that the food from stone age is far more healthier than the ones we have nowadays. This is because there were no health issues during those times. In fact, people from stone age were even healthier and stringer than us. In Paleo, people must not eat what the cavemen did not feed on.
Here’s a good article: Paleo Diet.
Palaeolithic nutrition is based around the fact that in the 10,000 years that humans have been eating a diet framed by the agricultural revolution, we haven’t had the time to genetically adapt to the modern way of eating; that our bodies are better suited to eating in the way that our ancestors did for thousands and thousands of years.
Undoubtedly, its a pretty cool idea. It is nice to believe that we should follow the method in which we are ‘meant’ to eat. When I first heard of Paleo and considered it, it made a good bit of sense, at least at first. Being the research-based guy that I am; I had to look into it further.
Paleo Diet has been in the background to other famous celebrity diets. The Atkins diet, the Hollywood diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean diet, and the like. It wasn’t until 2005 where Loren Cordain introduced her book “The Paleo Diet for Athletes: A Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance” that it really came into the spotlight. I don’t know why it turned popular but I think it is due to the fact during that time, other movement against gluten were establishing.
The situation about the two diets is not completely something out of the blue. The two both think that gluten is against the rules - that it is responsible for a host of common medical problems, from autism to migraines. But im getting a bit ahead of myself here. Continuing on.
Loopholes in paleo Diet
In paleo, followers will be exposed to the fact that human diet went wrong when agricultural revolution kicked in about 10, 000 years ago. Ever since farming was brought in, the human diet centered around it. And, according to Paleo, this is the reason why were so obese today. Keep in mind, if the cavemen didnt eat it - then you shouldnt either.
How Many Calories Should I Eat?
Particularly, this means grains of all types, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, and dairy are out of the issue completely for the strict Paleo Dieter. Now, if you’re believing that it doesn’t make much sense that tubers like sweet potatoes and yams have been crossed off the list - you’re right. This is already in the agricultural industry for as long as you can remember. Even by a Paleo gurus own logic, these tubers should be green-listed. After all, yams are an African crop which has been eaten by humans since the beginning of time. Why arent you in a position to eat them?
Potatoes have been around for 35,000 years, but apparently this is way too short a time span for the hardcore Paleo(er). This is quite confusing because Turkey is included in the diet however, it was just brought in in Europe during the 16th century.
Maybe the most shocking inconsistency that I discovered was on the topic of grains. In the article, People, Plants, and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity , written by Oxford University Press, it was discovered that cereal grain was already available 200,000 years ago. This is contradicting to the statements of Paleo Diets.
This truly throws the “haven’t had lots of time to get accustomed to grains theory out the window.
Some of the inconsistencies must be more important than the others, but they all tend to discredit the logic of the Paleo phenomenon. Naturally, I wanted to check more about Paleo after studying the above.
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