Rethinking the Whole Paleo Thing

No doubt I have learned a lot from the whole Paleo movement. With it's aid I think I may have sidestepped diabetes in my future because what it has taught me about carbohydrate metabolism. I know now that it is not likely the bacon and eggs that will do me in but the bagel with cream cheese. Even though I think the Paleo people are a lot less dogmatic than some of the other promoters of certain diets (veganism especially) they are still dogmatic and don't quite accept or understand the is/ought dichotomy (i.e. the way we as a species have eaten for the thousands of years before agriculture isn't necessarily the best/healthiest way we should eat). It a very common mistake that people make and I think I have made it.

The weakest link in the Paleo paradigm is our ignorance of what humans ate before the adoption of agriculture. It's called pre-history for a reason. There is no documentation. We have to use scant fossil evidence to determine what humans might have eaten. Even if we did know conclusively what we did eat, it doesn't mean we should eat it as I have stated above.

Another problem I have with Paleo is the fact that it tries to emulate eating the way we did in the 200,000 years (just a guesstimate) we were hunter-gatherers. I don't think it's necessarily bad to experiment with an approach like this, but you have to accept that that this is a random period of our history. It is a fact that we are descendants of apes that relied primarily on carbohydrates as a food source. I mention this because some Paleo's think that an "optimal" diet is very rich in meat. I'm thinking that this is wrong now. Not that I think it's bad to eat meat for your health in general, it's just probably bad in the copious amounts some Paleo's eat it.

Starches are another fear of the average Paleo. We handle starches quite well. Eat your potatoes. That's all I will say about that.

After years of self-experimentation, I discovered that the Paleo diet works quite well as a fat loss and hypoallergenic diet. The problem is that I don't think it is sustainable in the real world that we live in. It's hard to stay Paleo for a whole host of reasons. It's difficult to get enough calories in and let's face it: carbs are damn tasty.