What is a paleolithic diet? Does it make sense to follow one?

Question

If you google on “Paleolithic diet”, you will find many sites where people recommend that we should eat like our Paleolithic (i.e., stone age, before farming) ancestors did. They argue that our bodies are adapted to a Paleolithic diet and proceed to recommend kinds and quantities of foods that we should eat . To Homo heidelbergensis what would a Paleolithic diet be? What about Homo neanderthalensis what would it be? Does the advice to follow a Paleolithic diet make sense to you?

Answer 1

I personally would not care to eat bugs,rodents or grass roots.

Also, scientist believe they were canibals,for servival and religiouse ceremonies,they found human bones in caves ect and examined them and claim they had human teeth marks on them.

Answer 2

I'm supposed to eat the Paleolithic diet, as I am insulin resistant as h**l, and need a high protein and purine intake, and I can't eat dairy. I cant' stick to it though.

Yes, it makes sense.

No grains, dairy or processed foods. Hunter gatherers eat mostly flesh calories, but not from farmed meat. They have very low rates of cancer and heart disease, thus proving that 'meat gives you cancer/heart attacks' only applies to steriod pumped farmed meat.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

It's a pet subject of mine.

A proper paleo diet is about 65% calories from wild flesh (fish mostly now). The rest being veg, nuts, roots, tubers, seeds, mushrooms, a little honey. Edible insects would have been eaten too. No overly sugary fruit, things like blueberries and blackberries. The fat percentage would have been pretty high, with very little carbohydrate.

The Neanderthals seemed to eat a very meat heavy diet, but then so did early modern humans. The Paleo diet is probably no different for each group of Homos.

Answer 3

I can't guarantee that our bodies would be "adapted" to a paleolithic diet however what it consists of is usually fairly healthy for us. A lot of fish, poultry, meat in general. Greens and unprocessed grains. No sugar. Etc. The sugar thing might have some "adaptive" merit as through bioarchaeology its been determined that cavities weren't very prevalent before corn and later processed sugar became a staple of diets.

Answer 4

If you're the Hunter/Gatherer Blood Type "O", like I am, it does...

This would include red meats, fish, tubers, roots, nuts, some vegetation, fruits in season, seeds, fungi, honey and eggs!

These foods are what Blood Type "O" humans (46% of the world population today) evolved on....

Foods NOT to eat, are:

bread

dairy products

processed foods

white flour, in any form

excessive sugar

excessive alcohol