Paleo diet: can you get healthier by eating like a caveman?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Once upon a time, we started with raw fruits and leaves, and ended up with shrimp pasta, burgers and smoothies. But now there are more and more people who want to go back hundreds of thousands of years and thus cleanse the body. It would seem logical, because there was definitely no "chemistry" in the ancient diet. But there are also pitfalls here.

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So can you get healthier by eating like cavemen? The answer is a nutritionist and anti-age specialist, a member of the Institute of Functional Medicine IFM USA and an expert at the international marketplace for natural beauty and health products iHerb Iolanta Langauer.

In fact, on the timeline, people cannot be divided into cave and non-cave. The caves were used only by those who lived in mountainous regions, and even then not as a permanent dwelling. They sheltered from the rain, set up sanctuaries, buried them, and the household part of life passed under the eaves at the entrance. Therefore, as such, the diet of cavemen does not exist. When we talk about their nutrition, we are talking about what our ancestors ate in the Paleolithic era, before the advent of agriculture.

Their menu directly depended on the living conditions. It could differ in populations living relatively close to each other. Archaeologist Keith Dobney of the University of Liverpool and his colleagues examined plaque samples from Neanderthals who lived in what is now Belgium and Spain 50,000 years ago.

The analysis showed that the "Belgians" ate mainly woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep, but the "Spaniards" surprised scientists. It turned out that there was no meat at all on their menu.

Archaeologists attribute this to the peculiarities of the environment. Ancient Belgium was covered in plains rich in food for herbivorous mammals, while the territory of Spain was dominated by dense forests, where massive rhinoceroses would find it difficult to get along.

Nevertheless, several common patterns can be found in the diets of ancient people from different regions. First, before the advent of agriculture, people obtained fiber primarily from fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and roots. Cereals and legumes were rare guests on their "table", because they did not yet know how to process them.

Secondly, there was no dairy products in the diet of our ancestors. The last Neanderthals disappeared about 40-28 thousand years ago, while people began to raise livestock and drink milk in the Middle East and India 10-15 thousand years ago. And Europeans, according to recent studies, could learn to assimilate lactose even later - 5-6 thousand years ago. Finally, no sugar, salt, vegetable oils, spices and alcohol, which the ancient people did not know about.

Supporters of the paleo diet (an approach to nutrition, consisting mainly of the consumption of products from plants and animals) believe: if our ancestors ate this way for two million years, then our body is better adapted to this particular diet, and it is the healthiest for us.

There is a deal of truth in it. The Paleo diet involves switching to farmed fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, grown without the use of alternative feed additives and antibiotics. It eliminates sugar, flour, fried foods that raise cholesterol, and manufactured foods that often contain artificial additives and trans fats. These are the basics of good nutrition that any nutritionist will name.

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But a lack of calcium can have a deplorable effect on the health of a modern person. Our body does not produce this macronutrient on its own, therefore, it needs constant nutrition. Its long-term deficiency leads to a weakening of the immune system, heart problems, impaired intestinal motility, and increases the risk of osteoporosis in the elderly.

For cave people, the latter was irrelevant - they did not live to old age. But now, supporters of the paleo diet are advised to include in the diet of calcium in the form of quality supplements, there are more greens, nuts and leafy vegetables.

Milk, one of the most popular sources of calcium, is not so simple, even for those who do not eat paleo and are lactose intolerant. Milk has a high insulin index.

When consumed, the blood sugar level rises sharply, the pancreas begins to intensively produce insulin, and lipase, an enzyme that catalyzes fat burning, is blocked. So the risks of developing diabetes and problems with the pancreas can be reduced by getting calcium from hard cheeses and dairy products. Moreover, the calcium content in them is higher than in milk.

When switching to a paleo diet, it is also recommended to take vitamins A, C, D, magnesium, iodine and selenium as part of high-quality vitamin complexes. They are found in licensed foods, but today they are produced with much poorer soil, water and air quality than in the Paleolithic, and are often stored for a long time, so a significant part of the nutrient is lost.

Fortunately, the modern paleo diet isn't always strict. Its adherents are not condemned for the use of salt and spices, canned fish and vegetables, nut, coconut and flax flour, honey and maple syrup. The main thing is the absence of chemical additives and minimal industrial processing. Especially if the diet is not used as a short course of recovery, but the diet is adjusted for it for life.