Posted on Wednesday, 25th November 2009 by admin


Paleo diets have been increasingly popular over the last few years.  The idea is that, for optimal health, we should be eating the things that we are evolutionarily adapted to eat.  Those foods pre-date the onset of large-scale agriculture 10-12,000 years ago.  So grains and modern fruits and vegetables play little or no role in someone who has “gone paleo.”

My recollection from college courses years ago is that average lifespan in paleolithic times was perhaps 25-30 years, or less.  If you’re going to die at 25, it may not matter if you eat a lot of  wooly mammath, berries, insects, cholesterol, saturated fats, Doritos, Ding Dongs, or Cheetos.  The diseases of civilization we worry about today—coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, etc.—don’t usually appear until after age 30.  Paleolithic Man worried more about starvation.

Jenny Ruhl, at her Diabetes Update blog, recently put much more critical thought than I into the concept of paleo diets.  Recommended reading.    

 

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