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The Evolution Of The Paleo Diet

8th April, 2012 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Paleo or the caveman diet has become popular in recent years. Based on a tenet that food should be all natural and healthy, the Paleo Diet has reached close to mainstream status. The only thing stopping it from being completely mainstream is the opinion of many websites that it is simply one of those many crazy diet fads and it will fade away after some time. It is bound on the principles that we all should eat only what our Paleolithic Era ancestors would have eaten. This generally involves meat, vegetables, some fruits and nuts.

Seeing how the diet has gained ground among dieters, many food manufacturers are finding ways to cater to this diet. Therefore, you will find ready-made foods such as paleo cereals, paleo jerky, and paleo cookies. Since honey is allowed in this diet, they are often used in the ingredients. However, most honey is processed, and strict paleo dieters restrict themselves to raw honey only. But using raw honey is found by many manufacturers to be quite expensive, thus they settle for regular honey instead. It is accepted in many health circles that processed honey is akin to sugar.

The paleo diet resembles a low carb diet in a lot of ways. The difference lies in the fact that paleo diet cut a lot of slack when it comes to dried fruits and honey while low carb diets totally cut them out. Popular writers of these diets explain that these foods should be consumed in small portions. Things go downhill when the dieters forget about this and end up eating more than they should. But that is exactly what attracts many people to take the plunge and start with this diet, seeing as it is easy to stick to. If you haven’t tried cereals low in sugar before, then you should definitely give it a go as you’ll find that it’s pretty tasty actually!

The Paleo diet, more than your typical diet, is now a way of life. There is a whole culture to the diet. People are supposed to have to deal with lesser stresses. After all, cavemen during prehistoric times only had to be concerned with hunting animals for food. They didn’t have to deal with overcrowded subways or work befalling you at all hours of the day. Exercise is also highly encouraged. Instead of heavy and intense workouts, however, they are more on the side of lifting and sprinting.

This also copies what cavemen might have down. The lifting is to mimic the lifting of boulders. The cavemen also used running or sprinting to get away from predators or to attack their prey. These types of exercises are supposedly what our bodies are more built for. Constant running and jogging are considered more detrimental than helpful. Some people acquire inflammation because of them and are later seen to suffer other long-term problems. Lifting and sprinting won’t cause these problems. Those who do not have ready access to a gym will also prefer these exercises. This makes the cheap as well as quick. A set of Paleo exercises can last for only 20 minutes and can be done twice or thrice in a week. These exercises are often called crossfit training.

There are no clear boundaries or guidelines when it comes to paleo foods except the principle of staying away from foods that only came in existence in recent years. These include food items made from various grains since they are quite toxic to our bodies. As time passes, perhaps the paleo diet will also evolve in a manner that will shed some light on the food that people during the Paleolithic period have been eating.