Paleo Diet Food Plan: Is It for You?

The Paleo diet food plan is all the rage these days.  It’s adherents think it’s the greatest thing since before sliced bread.  That’s because they are going back to the way the caveman used to eat.  If your paleo buddy would eat it, you can too.  But if it wasn’t available for the cavemen in the Paleolithic period to munch up on…. you can’t eat it either when following the paleo diet.

The Paleo Diet Food Plan Explained

Barb Berggoetz at IndyStar.com wrote a great article about the paleo diet and the controversy surrounding it.  Many people have had great success with it, but not everyone agrees it is a good diet plan.

Local Paleo diet followers boast about the great success they’ve had — weight loss, leaner bodies, better athletic performance and overall good feeling. The diet’s growing and devoted following say it’s a lifestyle to follow permanently.

It’s likely one of the reasons the diet is so successful is giving up junk foods.

A big health benefit is the diet’s lack of junk food, processed food, alcohol and refined sugars — all of which are too big a part of most modern-day diets. We can all do without doughnuts, cookies and candy, right? Giving up canned soups, jarred pasta sauce and frozen diet meals may be tougher.

But it restricts more than just junk food.  It also excludes dairy, legumes and grains, since these are not foods the cavemen would have eaten.

Paleo followers eat a high-protein, low-carb diet rich in lean meat (ideally from grass-fed animals). Again, foods that could be hunted or gathered: seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.

This narrows down food choices and the ability to balance a diet.

A panel ranked the Paleo diet last among 25 evaluated for U.S. News & World Report magazine….

Some local dietitians say cutting out two major food groups — grains and dairy — from your diet isn’t a good idea and could lead to a lack of calcium and vitamin D. They also say risk for heart problems may increase if you’re not careful about making lean-meat choices.

“I would describe it as a very low-carb diet and low in a lot of nutrients, vitamins and minerals,” said Angie Scheetz, registered dietitian and wellness coordinator at the National Institute for Fitness and Sport. “It’s not something I would recommend.”    (Original story can be found here.)

Probably the biggest problem with the Paleo diet is lack of energy for some people.  However, this seems to be alleviated by being sure to replace the sugar you used to eat with healthy fats for sustained energy.

Every diet seems to have people who think it’s great, and others who didn’t do so well with it.  That makes sense, as people have different metabolisms, different preferences in foods to eat, and many other factors.  While limiting some food choices that are considered healthy to most people, what choices the Paleo diet food plan DOES offer are all healthy.

If you’d like to read more about the Paleo Diet, there are several books available that explain the diet fully and offer recipes for the paleo diet.

Wikipedia also has a section on the Paleolithic diet - abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet also a modern nutritional plan based on the Centered on commonly available modern foods.

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