I've been eating a healthy, clean diet for quite some time, consisting of organic, whole foods while avoiding pesticide- and GMO-laden foods as well as most processed foods with chemical additives. I kept hearing about the Paleo Diet, but I didn't know much about it. The funny thing is that it turns out I was eating the Paleo Diet without even knowing it. The purpose of this article is to explain the diet, why it makes sense, and apply some tweaks to avoid minor pitfalls.
The purpose of the Paleo Diet is to take eaters back to the natural diet of our ancestors before grains, added sugar, artificial preservatives and sweeteners, pesticides, genetically-modified organisms were loaded into or onto our foods, and gluten and dairy intolerances were nonexistent.
On the Paleo Diet, processed foods are eliminated for two reasons. First, they are typically loaded with salt, sugar, white flour, and fat, which are known for their negative affects on good health. Second, the chemical content of these foods can be very dangerous, and certainly unnatural. Eating a whole foods diet by itself would change most people's health, but there are additional factors in the Paleo Diet, some that are not as simple to understand.
The Paleo Diet avoids all grains and legumes. They both contain phytic acid, which binds to nutrients in food and prevents absorption, meaning you are not getting the nutrients that are labeled on the food package. In addition, potentially toxic lectins are highest in grains, legumes, and dairy, which can cause digestive and autoimmune problems. Our bodies are not designed to digest these types of food.
Dairy is to be avoided, although not all Paleo followers adhere to this. I don't eat dairy, because it is not natural for a human being to drink the milk of another animal, particularly into adulthood. No animal species on earth drinks milk past infancy. If you are going to drink milk, I suggest raw milk or low-pasteurized and non-homogonized varieties, if you can find them.
The main staples in the Paleo diet are organic fruits and vegetables, including sweet potatoes along with wild-caught fish, pasture-raised eggs, and organic meats and poultry. Vegetables are extremely low in calories, so to avoid low energy, I suggest getting a significant amount of your carbohydrate needs from fruit.
The Paleo Diet is sometimes criticized as an all-meat or low-carb diet like Atkins, but it is not. It specifies certain carbs to avoid, but fruit or veggies are recommended at every meal. Most people don't like to count calories, but I find that a great balance exists when 40% of calories come from both protein and carbs (it's going to be a healthy proportion of fruit bc veggies are so low in calories), and the remaining 20% from fat, which will consist of the fats from the protein you eat and any nuts, seeds, oils, or avocados that you eat.
The Paleo Diet is clean and healthy. Many have experienced improvements in health, energy, and weight loss as a result of adopting the Paleo Diet. It is energizing and given the considerable amount of chemicals and dangerous food additives in our food supply, it is worth trying.
The purpose of the Paleo Diet is to take eaters back to the natural diet of our ancestors before grains, added sugar, artificial preservatives and sweeteners, pesticides, genetically-modified organisms were loaded into or onto our foods, and gluten and dairy intolerances were nonexistent.
On the Paleo Diet, processed foods are eliminated for two reasons. First, they are typically loaded with salt, sugar, white flour, and fat, which are known for their negative affects on good health. Second, the chemical content of these foods can be very dangerous, and certainly unnatural. Eating a whole foods diet by itself would change most people's health, but there are additional factors in the Paleo Diet, some that are not as simple to understand.
The Paleo Diet avoids all grains and legumes. They both contain phytic acid, which binds to nutrients in food and prevents absorption, meaning you are not getting the nutrients that are labeled on the food package. In addition, potentially toxic lectins are highest in grains, legumes, and dairy, which can cause digestive and autoimmune problems. Our bodies are not designed to digest these types of food.
Dairy is to be avoided, although not all Paleo followers adhere to this. I don't eat dairy, because it is not natural for a human being to drink the milk of another animal, particularly into adulthood. No animal species on earth drinks milk past infancy. If you are going to drink milk, I suggest raw milk or low-pasteurized and non-homogonized varieties, if you can find them.
The main staples in the Paleo diet are organic fruits and vegetables, including sweet potatoes along with wild-caught fish, pasture-raised eggs, and organic meats and poultry. Vegetables are extremely low in calories, so to avoid low energy, I suggest getting a significant amount of your carbohydrate needs from fruit.
The Paleo Diet is sometimes criticized as an all-meat or low-carb diet like Atkins, but it is not. It specifies certain carbs to avoid, but fruit or veggies are recommended at every meal. Most people don't like to count calories, but I find that a great balance exists when 40% of calories come from both protein and carbs (it's going to be a healthy proportion of fruit bc veggies are so low in calories), and the remaining 20% from fat, which will consist of the fats from the protein you eat and any nuts, seeds, oils, or avocados that you eat.
The Paleo Diet is clean and healthy. Many have experienced improvements in health, energy, and weight loss as a result of adopting the Paleo Diet. It is energizing and given the considerable amount of chemicals and dangerous food additives in our food supply, it is worth trying.
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