The Paleolithic Diet

You won't believe this but among us there are races of people who are all slim, stronger and faster than us. They have perfect vision and perfectly straight teeth. Diabetes, heart disease, depression, cancer and arthritis are nonexistent for them. These people make up the last tribes of hunter-gatherers in our world. They share a commonality that is over two million years old – their diet.

This is a diet that has not changed from the very first humans some 2 million years ago. They live off a diet that man has evolved on, a diet coded for in our genes, a diet your body wants you to eat. This diet is known to as the Paleolithic Diet and refers to the Stone Age era of time.

The diet covers all major dietary components (vitamins, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, antioxidants etc.) for the simple reason that this diet is coded for in our genes. The diet contains only those foods that were 'on the plate' during our long evolution. It completely discards those which were not. Yes Mc Donald's comes to mind here.

The Basics

For millions of years, humans have eaten meat, fish, fowl and the leaves, roots and fruits of plants. An obstacle to getting more calories from the environment is the fact that many plants are inedible. Beans, grains and potatoes are full of energy but eating them raw WILL make you sick. They are toxic to the body.

About 10,000 years ago someone made a breakthrough. This breakthrough was to change the course of history and our diet forever. It was the discovery that cooking made the toxic plant foods edible. The heat killed the toxins and rendered the foods edible. Grains include wheat, corn, rice and oats. Grain based foods include flour, bread, noodles and pasta. These foods are not foods we are genetically coded for.

Why was the uptake in grains so substantial?

• Cooked grains yielded enormous amounts of quick energy

• Grains could be stored for long periods of time without refrigeration

• The food was also the seed of the plant and was ready for farming again

• Grains were calorie dense i.e. a small weight contains a lot of calories for easy transport

The above advantages made it much easier to store and transport food. Food could be stored easily for winter. Man was free to pursue other activities and not worry about eating e.g. building dwellings and fighting each other. This 'convenience' food then set course for our modern day civilisation. Today man has further improved on these advances by farming plants and animals albeit for monetary gains only. Now despite these advantages, our genes are not developed with beans, grains and potatoes of any sort. Our bodies are simply not in tune with them.

The dangers of grains

• They are toxic when raw causing sickness if ingested raw

• Cooking does not destroy all of the toxins but insufficient cooking still causes sickness

• They are rich sources of carbohydrate. On cooking they become rapidly digestible giving a high Glycemic Index – sugar spike

The essentials of the Paleolithic Diet

Eat NONE of the following:

• Grains- including bread, pasta, noodles

• Beans- including string beans, kidney beans, lentils, peanuts, snow-peas and peas

• Potatoes

• Dairy products

• Sugar

• Salt

Eat the following:

• Meat, chicken and fish

• Eggs

• Fruit

• Vegetables (especially root vegetables, but definitely not including potatoes or sweet potatoes)

• Nuts, eg. walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia, almond. Do not eat peanuts (a bean) or cashews (a family of their own)

• Berries- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.

Try to increase your intake of:

• Root vegetables- carrots, turnips, parsnips, swedes

• Organ meats- liver and kidneys (I personally won't eat them couldn't stomach it)