Paleo may or may not be a fad, but I'm not sure how cutting out refined carbohydrates, eating more vegetables, berries, lean-ish meats, and healthy fats would be a bad thing.

I think that perhaps people confuse it with Atkins.

dittybopper: TheYeti: Paleo may or may not be a fad, but I'm not sure how cutting out refined carbohydrates, eating more vegetables, berries, lean-ish meats, and healthy fats would be a bad thing.

I think that perhaps people confuse it with Atkins.

This.

Yup. People get really hung up on the "caveman" part of the name, but it's just not the point. Call it the rama-lama-ding-dong-diet for all I care, but the basics are sound: reducing complex carbohydrates and replacing them with whole foods and healthy fats has a sound nutritional basis.

My wife and I went paleo almost a year ago, and in that time I've dropped my cholesterol level substantially (even though I'm eating a lot of red meat and "fatty" food like nuts and avocados), lost 25 pounds, and dropped ~10% body fat.

/in before the inevitable "why would you want to eat like a caveman? didn't those guys die at age 30 hurr hurr"

Sybarite: Meh, I stopped eating meat close to two decades ago and I've never had a problem with weight since. Everything was golden on my last checkup, so I think I'll stick with what works for me.

Being a vegetarian and also healthy has only been a viable option for about 50, maybe 60 years (chemical synthesis of vitamins, fortification of foods, direct genetic alteration of food crops, mass production of bean kurd). In the larger sense, good for you for finding a diet that keeps you in shape, but if you're trying to imply something about anyone's diet pre-1950s then whatever your implication is it's probably wrong.

Vegetarianism before the British Empire, especially, was damn near the same thing as just fasting.

//Just because the vitamin-D fortification of milk is the only directly advertised fortification of foodstuffs doesn't mean it's actually the only one.

Humean_Nature: /in before the inevitable "why would you want to eat like a caveman? didn't those guys die at age 30 hurr hurr"

I fail to see how that isn't a legitimate concern.

We should continue to improve our diets, not regress back to the stone age, literally.

sweetmelissa31: RexTalionis: Well, aren't a good amount of the current population carriers of Neanderthal DNA?

I think Europeans are... so I guess I am.

Actually, the latest finding is that all non-Africans (that is, European, Asian and those who descend from Asians, including Native Americans) have between 3 and 7 % of their DNA from Neanderthal sources.

This is the second time around for this- my copy of "The Paleolithic Prescription" is probably from the 1980s. Overall, I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure if I could give up breads and cheeses, however.

My wife is from China, so we have rice with every meal (although it's a mix of white and brown with lentils added).

@Mattyb710: the idea is that only post-agricultural people suffer from the types of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabeetus that takes out such a large portion of our population. We're really not designed to eat what we do. Like a lot of stuff, people take it to the extreme. The smarter thing is to look at what we eat that isn't healthy for us and to reduce or excise it from our modern diet.

TheYeti: Paleo may or may not be a fad, but I'm not sure how cutting out refined carbohydrates, eating more vegetables, berries, lean-ish meats, and healthy fats would be a bad thing.

The end result can work through dumb luck even if the initial postulate is utterly retarded.

If you're taking your health advice from a group of people who were lucky to see 30, you're probably a complete moron.

Mattyb710: I fail to see how that isn't a legitimate concern.

We should continue to improve our diets, not regress back to the stone age, literally.

Splinshints: If you're taking your health advice from a group of people who were lucky to see 30, you're probably a complete moron.

It's not legitimate because of a couple of things.

1. Child mortality: when you look at the average lifespan of a population, you factor in total age of all people born. This includes infant death, which skews the average to the short end. Although child mortality was high in the days before medicine and civilization, what we know about prehistoric humans shows that once out of infancy, most humans were quite healthy.

2. Dangerous environment/no medication: the life of ancient humans was very dangerous, and in the event of some injury or illness there was often no getting better. If every modern human died from their first injury or major illness, most of us wouldn't live past our 20s.

When you take these two things into account and then say that cavemen died in their 30s so we shouldn't eat like them, you're ignoring a lot of factors that contributed to their relatively short lives. They didn't keel over at age 30 because they were just too fat and sickly and nutrient deprived to carry on - it's far more likely that they broke an ankle on a rock and could no longer find food, or took a wound during a fight that became infected.

So basically, if we can eat like they did and enjoy the medical and social advances made since then, we can capture their nutritional health without suffering their early sabre-tooth-tiger-assisted deaths.

RexTalionis: only post-agricultural people

RexTalionis: post-Industrial-age

You're confusing those too time frames. Any text that records anything is from an era after agriculture and civilization took hold. The paleo diet time frame is before this - before wheat, before corn, before domesticated animals. Before writing, before paper, before tools.

And, apparently, before heart disease and diabetes.

Did the caveman turn his nose at brains, stomach and the other offal bits?

I doubt it.

//Tell me how the spongiform encephalitis feels, for posterity's sake.

Mike Chewbacca: Splinshints: TheYeti: Paleo may or may not be a fad, but I'm not sure how cutting out refined carbohydrates, eating more vegetables, berries, lean-ish meats, and healthy fats would be a bad thing.

The end result can work through dumb luck even if the initial postulate is utterly retarded.

If you're taking your health advice from a group of people who were lucky to see 30, you're probably a complete moron.

They didn't die at 30 because of their diets. For one, lack of real medical care (such as, I don't know, antibiotics) is a major factor.

Lack of modern surgical techniques also played a significant role. As did the general lack of hygiene.

RexTalionis: If they want a real caveman diet, then they should go out and kill the animals they eat by long-distance tracking and with spears. The exercise that the cavemen got in the process of hunting was probably way more beneficial than anything they ate.

/Stupid fad diets are stupid.

I think they ate more mice & rabbits than large animals. IIRC, an anthropological study of hunter-gatherer societies claimed that most of their food calories came from gathering, and that the hunters tended to bring down a large game animal (10+ kg) only once every few months.

Oh goody, another consumer bandwagon to jump on. You farking people are more boring than the foodies.

Eat natural as often as you can, and always eat in moderation.

There. Pay me.

Splinshints: TheYeti: Paleo may or may not be a fad, but I'm not sure how cutting out refined carbohydrates, eating more vegetables, berries, lean-ish meats, and healthy fats would be a bad thing.

The end result can work through dumb luck even if the initial postulate is utterly retarded.

If you're taking your health advice from a group of people who were lucky to see 30, you're probably a complete moron.

No, I base my decisions, at least partially, on the results of clinical trials and the history of disease.

I'd link, but I'm not going to waste my time on someone that I have displayed in red as a troll. I'm sure that you can operate the Google.

I have heard people praise this "caveman diet" as a miracle of weightloss and an act of getting back to the basics, blah, blah, blah. Nothing wrong with the diet itself. Whatever "diet" a person engages in is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that you do not overeat. Period. Cutting out carbs under Atkins or wheat under Caveman is meaningless. As long as you eat nutritiously and relatively precisely, you'll go to a good weight and stay healthy. Eating nutritiously is actually difficult not to do in Western Societies as we tend to fortify much of our foots with the materials and nutrients we need. Yes, that means that people are able to eat nothing but red meat and be healthy. Yes, that means people can eat strictly vegan and be healthy.

I eat grains (baked bread, beans, cereals, rice, etc), meats (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc), dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt, ice creams, etc), and vegetables / fruits (oranges, apples, carrot, cabbage, turnip, asparagus, peas, corn, etc). My cholesterol is low, my immune system is strong, my weight is 2 - 3 pounds within optimum, and my health is good. I am not on any sort of special gimmick diets - I just eat. But I watch my calories - too much of anything can be bad. Food - any food - is no different. The point is that none of these fad diets are really that necessary for one to be healthy and lose weight. Eat what you need and nothing more.

Sybarite: Meh, I stopped eating meat close to two decades ago and I've never had a problem with weight since. Everything was golden on my last checkup, so I think I'll stick with what works for me.

I put on 40# on a strict vegetarian diet. (No meat, no gelatin, etc.)

dittybopper: draypresct: RexTalionis: If they want a real caveman diet, then they should go out and kill the animals they eat by long-distance tracking and with spears. The exercise that the cavemen got in the process of hunting was probably way more beneficial than anything they ate.

/Stupid fad diets are stupid.

I think they ate more mice & rabbits than large animals. IIRC, an anthropological study of hunter-gatherer societies claimed that most of their food calories came from gathering, and that the hunters tended to bring down a large game animal (10+ kg) only once every few months.

That's true enough, but you can preserve meat well enough for it to last a while by drying and/or smoking it, and from a dietary standpoint you don't need meat every day (just like you don't need vegetables every day). Killing a big animal once a month, and gathering up small ones (and their products, like eggs) is perfectly valid. You don't need to slay a mammoth a day.

Actually, they didn't dry and smoke an entire animal. It would take days and the predators would drop by for a quick bite.

Rather, they used meat caches. And fark you Google and Wikipedia, there's no article on it.

Azmodan Kijur: I have heard people praise this "caveman diet" as a miracle of weightloss and an act of getting back to the basics, blah, blah, blah. Nothing wrong with the diet itself. Whatever "diet" a person engages in is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that you do not overeat. Period. Cutting out carbs under Atkins or wheat under Caveman is meaningless. As long as you eat nutritiously and relatively precisely, you'll go to a good weight and stay healthy. Eating nutritiously is actually difficult not to do in Western Societies as we tend to fortify much of our foots with the materials and nutrients we need. Yes, that means that people are able to eat nothing but red meat and be healthy. Yes, that means people can eat strictly vegan and be healthy.

I eat grains (baked bread, beans, cereals, rice, etc), meats (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc), dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt, ice creams, etc), and vegetables / fruits (oranges, apples, carrot, cabbage, turnip, asparagus, peas, corn, etc). My cholesterol is low, my immune system is strong, my weight is 2 - 3 pounds within optimum, and my health is good. I am not on any sort of special gimmick diets - I just eat. But I watch my calories - too much of anything can be bad. Food - any food - is no different. The point is that none of these fad diets are really that necessary for one to be healthy and lose weight. Eat what you need and nothing more.

This bears repeating. I will say, though, that in my experience I've had better luck with eating in moderation while eating paleo-style. I love the hell out of french bread, but it usually encourages me to eat more. By contrast, a relatively small (6-oz) grass-fed steak will make me so full that I'll occasionally skip breakfast.

But if your diet works for you and you aren't prone to overeating, go for it.

It's another fad along with Crossfit. Here, do 20 pullups, 100 pushups, 5 sets of deadlifts, 100 jumping jacks, 4 sets of overhead presses and run two miles. Now eat this piece of grilled chicken and broccoli with a glass of water.

There. I've just taught you Crossfit and the Paleo diet. Now pay me $200.

Aha, here's NOVA's episode where they talk about meat caches. (new window)

verbaltoxin: It's another fad along with Crossfit. Here, do 20 pullups, 100 pushups, 5 sets of deadlifts, 100 jumping jacks, 4 sets of overhead presses and run two miles. Now eat this piece of grilled chicken and broccoli with a glass of water.

There. I've just taught you Crossfit and the Paleo diet. Now pay me $200.

I refuse to cave in to Crossfit, I still do the Old School stuff

TravisBickle62: verbaltoxin: It's another fad along with Crossfit. Here, do 20 pullups, 100 pushups, 5 sets of deadlifts, 100 jumping jacks, 4 sets of overhead presses and run two miles. Now eat this piece of grilled chicken and broccoli with a glass of water.

There. I've just taught you Crossfit and the Paleo diet. Now pay me $200.

I refuse to cave in to Crossfit, I still do the Old School stuff

You mean the stuff I just described or something like barbell weight training? Anywho, I'm not knocking high intensity circuit training if that's what gets somebody off. What's stupid is people are paying $100/mo. to do this in a converted garage so they can feel "elite."

Woolly Mammoth is very difficult to find in most grocery stores.

RexTalionis: sweetmelissa31: What's so good about Neanderthals anyway? They are extinct.

Well, aren't a good amount of the current population carriers of Neanderthal DNA?

What can I say? I'm like a modern day Genghis Khan.

Send your mother my regards.

The real caveman diet would involve scavenging whatever you could find (dandilions, berries, grubs, small animals, acorns etc) and then occasioning gorging on huge amounts of fat and meat. And the diet will depend on the region. Is this the African, Arctic, Coastal, Mountain, New World or Asian caveman diet?

Roast Duck with Mango Salsa

1 duckling
salt and pepper

Mango Salsa:

2 mangos, peeled, cored, and cubed
1 small red pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, minced
3 tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons lime juices
salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Season duck inside and out with salt and pepper. Truss the bird, prick the skin, pat dry. Place breast side down in baking dish. Roast for 15 min, then reduce temp to 350 degrees. Continue cooking for another 1 hour 15 minutes. Prick thickest part of thigh. Liquid should be reddish.

Place all salsa ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add salt to taste. Serve salsa on side.

Drag woman by hair to den.

Caveman diet: eat whatever they came across or can easily kill.

Was that so hard to understand?

I'm really amazed that there's a school of thought that seems to believe that evolution has prepared us for one single diet.