A Guide to a Paleo
Diet
There is no doubt that there is a huge disconnect between what we eat today and what our ancestors evolved to eat.
Eat less processed and more whole foods
The Paleo Diet advocates promote the idea that our diets have changed too quickly for our genes to keep up, and the result is a plethora of diet related health issues including elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar level, obesity and abnormal cholesterol levels caused by eating foods our bodies have not evolved to eat.
It’s a compelling argument given the current crisis in healthcare and it’s clear something has to change. At its core, the Paleo diet simply promotes a simpler, less processed, whole food diet so it’s no surprise that Paleo diets remain hugely popular.
A paleo diet typically includes meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and very little else – foods that in the past could be obtained by hunting and gathering.
Be flexible
A Paleo diet often excludes dairy products, legumes and grains on the basis that these foods only became common when farming emerged about 10,000 years ago and it’s easy to criticize the Paleo diet for this because dietary flexibility is a hallmark of humanity. From near-polar latitudes to the tropics our ancestors diet varied over millennia as the world changed around them and our ability to adapt to a remarkable variety of habitats and dietary versatility and find something to satiate us and it’s also the reason we have been able to transition from forager to farmer.
But if you use the idea behind the paleo diet to help you remove ultra processed foods from your diet many people experience significant health improvements, weight-loss and increase in energy compared to the typical Western diet or flawed national nutritional guidelines.
Using the paleo concept in this way is neither a fad or dangerous. Eating more whole / real foods and less ultra processed food is good for your health.
So if the paleo diet helps you navigate what you eat towards foods that have been grown or reared outside and can be eaten without the need for ultra processing then we say the Paleo diet and it’s namesakes are a powerful tool to help people transition to a healthier way of life.
Adopt the parts that suit your lifestyle
Following a paleo diet too strictly can lead to nutritional deficiencies such as inadequate calcium intake and there is no need to remove good quality dairy products or legumes from your diet.
Early humans were by necessity, and we remain, extremely nutritionally adaptable. We can eat anything.
The paleo diet is promoted as a way of improving health. There is some evidence that following this diet may lead to improvements in terms of body composition and metabolic effects compared with the typical Western diet or compared with diets recommended by national nutritional guidelines
Is Purition Paleo Friendly?
Over the 10 year couple of years more and more people have decided to switch to the paleo diet.
If followed strictly, this involves a diet consisting mainly of vegetables, fruit, nuts and meat whilst eliminating dairy, as well as sugar, grains, legumes and processed oils.
Essentially it is a diet based on what our early ancestors may have consumed, and there are of course some variations to it depending on what interpretation is used of early hunter-gatherers.
We believe the best foods you can eat are those that grow naturally above ground and can be eaten at source straight out of the field.
In fact, 70% of the ingredients which go into every pouch of Purition are nuts and seeds – the kind of food our hunter-gatherer ancestors thrived upon daily.
We’re fairly certain meat was probably a luxury back then and any hunting trip was most likely fuelled by a big handful of nuts, which are high in energy and minerals. Purition it seems is an almost perfect match for the paleo/primal dieter.
But what about the dairy content?
Well, firstly the dairy content of our shakes is extremely low compared to all the other natural ingredients so don’t dismiss it before you’ve taken a closer look.
Whilst the paleo diet advocates dairy free you can’t ignore the fact that every diet can be improved upon. Let’s face it if our ancestors had stumbled across a pint of milk we’re fairly sure they would have drunk it!
The Palaeolithic diet, paleo diet, primal diet, caveman diet or stone-age diet is a simple story or concept to help people remove ultra processed foods from their diet. We do not know for sure what Palaeolithic man ate other than he had no access to processed foods.
It is presumed early humans ate seeds, nuts, fruit, vegetables, eggs they could gather and meat and fish
Vegetables, and fruit and excluding dairy* or cereal products and processed food
What can you eat on a paleo diet?
There is no doubt that there is a huge disconnect between what we eat today and what our ancestors evolved to eat. Paleo diet advocates promote the idea that our diets have changed too quickly for our genes to keep up, and the result is diet related health issues including elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar level, obesity and abnormal cholesterol levels caused by eating foods our bodies have not adapted to eat.
It’s a compelling argument given the current crisis in healthcare so it’s no surprise that Paleo diets remain hugely popular. The idea is to eat more like our Stone Age ancestors which ultimately means less ultra processed food and more whole foods.
Here at Purition we think that Paleo can be a really helpful way for some people to think about food choices. It’s an idea I used to help me eat less processed food and despite the claims that such diets are fady and can be dangerous, rest assured there is no downside, nothing dangerous, odd or fady about eating less processed foods and more real whole foods!
The closer to nature with the least amount of processing and cooking means more natural nutrition just like the ingredients found in Purition. We use chopped or ground seeds and nuts instead of highly refined and ultra processed powders to deliver to our customers the best paleo and primal inspired blends.
The reality is that we can never replicate a precise stone age diet, least not because we know there is not one single diet to replicate. We also know that the foods available to our ancestors over hundreds of thousands of years .
Food choice today remains about what is available to be eaten, foods available to our ancestors varied over time as the world changed around them from warm and wet to cool and dry and back again. Those changes are what drove our evolution.
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Protein
Fibre
Sugar
Keto meal
Ever changing diet
Because our world was ever changing, so, too, was the diet of our ancestors. Focusing on a single point in our evolution would be futile as those living in the forest by the river surely had a different diet from their cousins on the lakeshore or the open savanna.
Recent hunter-gatherers who inspired Paleo diet enthusiasts such as the Tikiġaġmiut of the north Alaskan coast who lived almost entirely on the protein and fat of marine mammals and fish, whereas the Gwi San in Botswana’s Central Kalahari took something like 70 percent of their calories from carbohydrate-rich, sugary melons and starchy roots.
Traditional human foragers managed to thrive in a remarkable variety of habitats, from near-polar latitudes to the tropics. Few other mammalian species can make that claim, and there is little doubt that dietary versatility was key to this success
Dietary flexibility is a hallmark of humanity. Nature has made us a versatile species, which is why we can find something to satiate us. It’s also the reason we have been able to transition from forager to farmer.
