My thoughts on the Paleo Diet.

A friend of mine asked me what I thought about the Paleo Diet so I decided to share my thoughts with you.  And as always, please remember, I’m not yet an RD, just on the road and in school to become one.  This information is from my personal experience, research, and learning!

Well…my thoughts.  As far as just the idea of the Paleo diet, I like it.  I like that it focuses on eating real, whole foods, and avoiding processed foods as much as possible.  However, I don’t like the fact that it pushes followers to eat so much animal protein and orders them to avoid legumes and grains, both two great sources of protein.

Currently, heart disease is the number one killer among Americans, which is closely linked to our saturated fat intake.  Saturated fat is so high in animal protein (not only the visible fat, but the marbling too), and is absolutely inexistent in legumes and grains, so this diet will really increase one’s saturated fat intake.   Legumes and grains are packed full of nutrients, as well as fiber, which is absent in animal protein.  Because of this, our bodies digest animal protein much slower than plant based foods so what does that food do in our 98.6 degree bodies? Sits, heats and rots.  Gross.

Animal protein is nothing today like it was 10,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic era.  Back in that time, I think this diet would have probably been pretty humane and a well rounded diet to follow.  Back then, there was no such thing as feed farms with bolt pistols (stunners) and the cattle weren’t horrified as they were walking to their death; the people did things as God intended, man was to hunt and gather his food, not the factory farms. Today however, unfortunately, our animals are raised in completely different conditions.  Today, animals carry so many diseases because of the conditions they are forced to live in, so they then have to be pumped full of antibiotics to even live long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse.  The animal is also injected with hormones that are then passed directly to us, confusing our bodies even more.

As I understand, the Paleo diet states that because most grains contain gluten, this is why they should be avoided.  Yes, gluten is a pro-inflammatory so in people with Celiac Disease or Rheumatoid Arthritis, this should be avoided, but meat is also a pro-inflammatory so how does this make sense?  Eat one pro-inflammatory but avoid another? I’ll agree, that as Americans, we do eat too much wheat and that we should probably lower our intake of wheat based products, but again, not all grains contain gluten: quinoa, buckwheat, rice, etc., are all free of it.

Also, the fuel for our brain is carbohydrates.  If we don’t have enough carbohydrates in our diets our brains will not function properly.  Our bodies rely on carbs for energy, if we are eating so much protein and so little carbs, eventually our bodies will enter a state of ketosis and will begin feeding on our muscle, causing muscle wasting.  Protein is made up of nitrogen compounds, so with an excess of protein in our diets, in our bodies we turn this nitrogen into uric acid.  An excess of uric acid in our bodies can damage our liver and kidneys as well as lead to gout.

I don’t mind that the diet encourages followers to avoid dairy, research shows and supports that dairy is by no means a “health food.”

And lastly, I do really like that the diet pushes fruits and vegetables because as Americans, we really don’t get enough, so that is a plus.

I know that many people see great results on the Paleo diet (appearance wise), but as far as health goes, and that’s my main concern, no, I don’t think it is among one of the healthier diets.