The Paleo Diet: good, bad, or ugly?

The Paleo Diet: good, bad, or ugly?

According to Google Trends, since 2010 there has been a rise in the interest for the new Paleo Diet, but what is it really about?

Paleo Diet books are available in most bookstores.

The goal of the Paleo Diet is to imitate types of foods that people would eat before the Agricultural Revolution, that is when we changed from hunting and gathering and settled to grow some of our own foods. The first agricultural revolution occurred around 10,000 BC, therefore the name Paleo Diet. 

For more information visit: http://thepaleodiet.com/paleo-diet-faq/

Human Evolution

The good:

Fruits and vegetables are important for a healthy diet

The Paleo Diet proposes eating fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood, and avoiding refined sugars and grains, trans fats, salt, high-glycemic carbohydrates, and processed foods.
This is a great aspect of the diet, according to the United States Department of Agriculture visual guide for healthy eating, half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies have the advantage of being high in nutrient and low in calories. The Paleo Diet also recommends grass-produced meats, which has less overall fat, and more of the “good” fats. Additionally, the Paleo Diet recommends avoiding refined sugars, refined grains, and high-glycemic carbohydrates. These high glycemic index foods cause a more rapid rise in blood glucose, which is not always bad, particularly if you need energy recovery after exercise or are a diabetic person going through a hypoglycemic event. The lower glycemic index foods proposed by the Paleo Diet will rise blood sugar more slowly and steadily, leading to more suitable after meal blood glucose readings.

The bad:

The Paleo Diet encourages vegetables instead of dairy

The Paleo Diet encourages dieters to replace dairy and grain products with fresh fruits and vegetables. As mentioned before, eating fruits and vegetables is important but it is also important to eat a varied diet. Milk, yogurt, and cheese are rich natural sources of calcium and are the major food contributors of this nutrient to people in the United States. Non dairy sources include vegetables like broccoli, unfortunately other sources like spinach have low bioavailability (how easy is the calcium for the body to use it). Foods prohibited by the Paleo Diet like cereals, or fruit juices, are calcium fortified and can also be good sources of calcium. The Paleo Diet proposes that a diet high in salted processed foods leads to a higher acid load that the kidneys have to deal with, and that in turns it uses the calcium in our body to balance it out therefore excreting more than it has to, although this is true, it is unclear if consuming more fruits and vegetables affects bone mineral density. These foods could also affect calcium absorption and therefore have no net effect on calcium balance. 

If you want to read more about it, visit the National Institutes of Health Fact Sheet on Calcium: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-HealthProfessional/

The ugly:

The Paleo Diet proposes that this is the unique diet to which our species is genetically adapted. However, scientists believe that wild grasses providing seeds and grains emerged 65 to 55 million years ago, and since early man ate everything that crossed his path it is likely that seeds and grains were part of his diet. Additionally, Europeans have had 400-500 generations to adapt to a grain-based diet, and lets not forget that while the Paleo Diet proposes high use of animal protein, some of the more successful diets (in terms of health benefits) are whole plant foods (including whole grains) and sparing the use of meat, like the Mediterranean diet.

A diet full of fruits and vegetables as proposed by the Paleo Diet is good, but don't forget that variety and balance are also important concepts to keep in mind when choosing a diet.