Paleolithic Diet Research Paper

Human existence has lasted over several million years and in that time there has been countless advances in the way we live. Human history has had many diverse periods of time, one being the Stone Age. During the Stone Age there were two major subdivisions, the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The Paleolithic, which lasted until about 10,000 years ago, had a significant separating factor from the Neolithic, ending in 2000 B.C.E. This factor was the way in which the people in these periods acquired food. The Paleolithic people hunted and gathered their food while the Neolithic people produced their own food by agriculture. These two different styles of obtaining food greatly affected the lifestyles of each period’s people. The

During the Paleolithic times, hunting and gathering remained the sole base of finding a food. Small alterations occurred that help start the change to a different way of life. During the end of the Paleolithic period, about 15,00 years ago, there was a climate change that allowed warmer locations to be formed which later help facilitate fertile lands. The climate became warmer and the glaciers retreated which allowed for wetter land to support the sedentary and those semi sedentary forger

For starters, “farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes” while hunter-gatherers got “more protein and a better balance of other nutrients” by eating a variety of wild animals and plants (3). The balance of nutrients that a hunter-gatherer obtained made their overall health better. For instance, the “average height of [Greek and Turkish] hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages” was five to six inches taller than the average height of people after the adoption of farming. Even today only “3 high-carbohydrate plants-wheat, rice and corn--provide the bulk of the calories that we eat” (pg__). The author makes a good argument when he says, “the farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition” because all that farming did in a health standpoint was provide an abundance of poor nutritious food when people already had a balanced diet as

To start with, meat is very important in a Paleolithic diet, yet most people today try to limit how much meat they eat. During caveman times, meat was a huge part of where the calories came from. In a typical Paleo diet plan, meat accounts for a large part of caloric intake. In addition, many Stone Age diet practitioners only eat grass-fed, free-range meat to get as close to paleo meat as they can.

Many of the farmers were less healthy than the hunter-gatherers, the farmers even died, on average, earlier than the hunter-gatherers. Many of the farmers had more serious diseases than the hunter-gatherers did too. Some people, including the northeastern Australian people even saw their neighbors practicing domestication and farming but did not take up what their neighbors did because they preferred the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Some hunter-gatherers did, in a way, produce food. For example some Australians burned the land they hunted on to encourage new seeds to grow so they could eat them. A reason why the hunter-gather way of living got less popular is simply because over the years less wild food was available. Over the past 13,000 years the amount of animals and edible plants has got less prevalent. The reason why many people still believe that food production was better than hunting and gathering is because food production led to more people and more technological advancements like guns and

The Paleo food list is mainly composed of organic and natural foods - unprocessed and unpackaged ones. You may find yourself double thinking

To begin with, a one-size-fits-all diet approach is unlikely to work for everyone (Berardi, 2014). More specifically, there may be no need to completely cut out things like dairy, cereal grains, and legumes. It is true that as a species we have not totally evolved to drink milk-but evolution did not stop millions of years ago. Some populations, particularly European Caucasians, are able to process lactose (Millar, Mann, & Cordain). Cereal grains, when processed, can and do cause health problems. However, whole grains, instead of refined, have many health benefits that the Paleo Diet ignores. Whole grains contain fiber, fatty acids, B vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients. They can also reduce risk of heart disease, control blood sugar, and promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. Whole grains do contain some anti-nutrients that may negatively affect the action of the nutrients, but correct preparation of the grains and recipes can counteract this (Jonnalagadda et al. 2011). While many people are allergic or sensitive to gluten (Millar, Mann, & Cordain, 38), if you are not and are careful about eating the right kind of whole grain, there is no need to completely cut cereal grains out of your diet. Legumes, likewise, do have costs and benefits to being a part of the modern human's diet. Studies have suggested, however, that these benefits outweigh the costs (Couchenak & Lamri-Senhadji,

Hunters and gathers were able to enjoy a variety of food for a healthy diet because they traveled for their food. However, whenever they started farming they were limited to what they could eat and make. They could only make what was available in their area. Most farmers only had crops like wheat, rice and corn available to them. With three similar foods in their diet, they were led to malnutrition for not getting the necessary vitamins they needed. Most of the vitamins you need in your daily diet are not in wheat, rice, and corn. Also, if one crop failed to grow they were at risk of starvation. ‘"Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was bout twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."’ Jared Diamond quotes Armelagos in his article The Worst Mistake in Human History (2). With a drastic seven year difference, beginning to farm was definitely harming the

Dieting is a major industry in the modern world, thanks to the many poorly chosen foods that agriculture and dairy products have inflicted on our metabolisms, and many of the diets which attempt to cure this swarm of ills - ranging from the mildly annoying to the seriously dangerous - advocate cutting back on meats and grains, focusing on vegetables and fruits, and other dietary measures that resemble the Paleo diet. When asking what is the Paleo diet, however, it is best to bear in mind that this unique approach mimics the diet that our Paleolithic ancestors lived on for millions of years.

Paleo diet is more commonly known as the "caveman diet", the "Blueprint diet," as well as the "Stone Age diet." The Paleolithic period, which is also known in history as the Stone Age, was the era where the cavemen ruled the earth. During their stay on this earth, before humans evolved and developed as to how they are today, the cavemen gathered and hunted for their food. They hunted animals down and gathered fruits and vegetables in order for them to survive. Their food sources were essentially limited to the most basic or "obvious" food produces. Most often than not, they would eat their foods raw

Paleo eating is eating the primal way, but the benefits of the Paleo diet are awesome. People get into the Paleo diet for different reasons, and it affects them in different ways. They experience different changes in their figures, their moods and their energy, but many of them agree that the Paleo diet made them feel good. Here is a list of the benefits of the Paleo diet.

It is not a way to quickly drop weight, rather, but is considered a way of life for indi-

Paleodeit is the food that our ancestors use to eat before the invention of agriculture and that includes vegetables, fruits, and meats to mention few. The website called” mypaleodietbook.com” they claim that our mind are modern, but our body still need the same food ours ancestors used to eat, and that our digestive system haven’t evolved as the reason to stick on ancient food rather than consuming many of modified food we have today. In the Ted talk Warinner contradict what is claimed to be as paleodiet today, which includes fruits and red meat. She argues that there is evidence showing that Paleolithic from dental plaque showing that paleo people ate grains and vegetable. in addition to her argument, people living today can’t rely on hunting

The man behind the current Paleo Diet craze is Dr. Loren Cordain. He has his Ph.D. in Health from the University of Utah in 1981. He also served as a professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University from 1982-2013. Dr. Cordain became interested in healthy eating from a very young age. He was also interested in reading about Stone Age people and how they lived off the land. While in college in the 60’s and 70’s he was involved in sports and became interested in improving his performance and began reading on vegetarian diets. Then while doing research during his time as a professor at Colorado State University he read “Paleolithic Nutrition” by Dr. Boyd Eaton and became increasingly interested. He contacted Dr. Eaton and the two ”hit if off” and began sharing ideas. From there Dr. Cordain began the road we know with his many published works. Dr. Cordain is an accomplished scientist with may awards and recognitions, the most recent being, “The American College for Advancement in Medicine’s annual “Denham Harmon Lecture,” May 2004. This lecture is awarded to a scientist whose research was judged to have the greatest national impact upon complementary medical care by the American College for Advancement in Medicine.” Dr. Cordain has also written and published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

There were no such things as obesity and autoimmune disease for the Paleolithic man. So what was it that they did different from what we do now? The most obvious answer is that they ate much different foods than we do. They ate nothing but meats (any kind of meat they could catch or kill with a sharp stick or rock), fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries. Modern man eats those things as we well as grains, legumes, and dairy. Hunter-gatherers did not, and could not, eat from these three extra categories because each of these foods must either be processed in some way to be edible to humans, or was initially intended to be consumed by an animal with a multi-chambered stomach (which man does not have; we have only one chamber). Some of these foods, like potatoes, are actually poisonous when not cooked. Even then, they still have traces of harmful toxins.