According to the book ‘The Paleo Diet’ by Dr. Loren Cordain, the diet has the potential to improve health. What people ate before the inception of agriculture is it suitable today? Let’s observe some facts to get clarity on the subject.
Understanding what you can eat in a Paleo diet
The paleo diet or the diet of the cave dweller usually includes eggs, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and nuts. The diet also includes fats like coconut oil, avocado and butter. The cave man required more energy, keeping in view their activities as compared to the modern man. That is the reason their diet had more of proteins, fiber, unsaturated fat, more vitamins and essential minerals, omega-3 components and less sodium.
Today diseases of the heart, diabetes, insomnia, anxiety, obesity has increased many folds. The major reasons being the eating habits and stress. The paleo diet suggests elimination of processed food and inclusion of protein and nutrient rich diet. Legumes and dairy products were not included in the cave man diet.
You can include chicken, eggs, pork, lamb, turkey, meat, shrimp and fish in your diet. The veggies list is quite a bit, to name a few that you can include are beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, celery, cucumber, eggplant, onions, parsley, pumpkin, radish, seaweed, spinach, tomato, turnips and zucchini.
The fruits like apple, apricot, banana, avocado, blackberries, cherries, cranberries, figs, grapes, guava, honeydew, kiwi, lemon, lychee, mango, orange, passion fruit, peaches, pears, watermelon, strawberries, plums and pomegranate.
There are a host of benefits that you can receive, by including the nuts and seeds of the paleo world in your diet. Some of them are almonds, cashew, hazelnut, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and walnuts.
What a Paleo diet lacks?
Legumes, grains and dairy products that are not a part of the paleo diet shouldn’t be shunned all together. Legumes have said to have anti-nutrients like lectins and phytates. Latest research shows that consumption of legumes is actually beneficial for health. When the legumes are cooked, the anti-nutrients are destroyed.
The bottom line of a research on grains, suggests that including whole grains in our diet improve our health substantially.
Alternately, you can have the best of both the worlds. You can include herbs, whole grains, legumes, butter, and milk in your paleo diet. Even foods like tofu and sea veggies can be included to gain more health benefits.
By making some changes to the paleo-diet, as suggested above, you can actually develop a healthier diet more suitable for the proper functioning of your body.