What is a Paleolithic Diet?

The Paleolithic diet advocates eating wild game, such as deer.

A Paleolithic diet is designed after the ancestral diet of humankind. This diet consists of the types of foods our primitive ancestors ate before the inception of agricultural technology and animal husbandry.

Optimal Foraging Theory

The Paleolithic diet makes use of the optimal foraging theory, which states that prehistoric people were nomads who ate as much of the most nutrient-dense foods they could hunt and gather in their current location.

Benefits

Proponents of the Paleolithic diet claim that eating this way leads to a decrease in disease and increased longevity. According to Dr. Loren Cordain, an expert on the Paleolithic diet approach, the human genome has not changed in the last 40,000 years, so humans must mimic the eating patterns of people who lived on Earth before that time.

Allowed Foods

The mainstay of the Paleolithic diet is meat and eggs, preferably from grain-fed animals. Fish should only be wild-caught. Vegetables that are not considered legumes or starchy are allowed, as are low sugar fruits, nuts and seeds. Only oils from fruits and tree nuts are permissible on this early ancestral diet.

References

• PaleoDiet.com: What is the Paleo Diet?
• Chet Day's Health and Beyond: The Paleolithic Diet and Its Modern Implications--An Interview with Loren Cordain, PhD