Paleo diets avoid foods that came with modern agriculture.
4 Does the Paleo Diet Eliminate Healthy Foods Like Brown Rice?
You might not be a caveman, but proponents claim it's advantageous to eat like one. This means sticking to foods that were available to your Paleolithic ancestors during a prehistoric era that ended about 15,000 years ago. While Loren Cordain, author of "The Paleo Diet," is perhaps one of the most well-known proponents of this way of eating, you can find slightly different types of paleo diets.
Loren Cordain recommends avoiding dairy, eggs, grains and legumes and focusing on lean meat, fruits, nonstarchy vegetables, nuts and seeds. Cordain claims the paleo people ate a relatively low-carbohydrate diet, so his approach places emphasis on lean meats above all. On the other hand, Arthur De Vany, author of "The New Evolution Diet," claims that your paleo ancestors mainly foraged for plants and hunted meat when they could. His paleo-style diet places emphasis on vegetables and fruit, not meat. He does not exclude starchy vegetables, and he recommends eating at least 25 percent of your vegetables raw.
If you cringe at the thought of avoiding dairy and eggs, perhaps Mark Sisson, author of "The Primal Blueprint," has the diet for you. Although he claims your paleo ancestors thrived on a plant-based diet, he doesn't exclude dairy and eggs. Sisson recommends choosing raw, grass-fed or fermented dairy products, but he recommends having fruits and vegetables make up the bulk of your diet. In addition, Sisson recommends wild-caught fish and grass-fed meat. He, too, recommends avoiding grains, legumes, processed oils and table sugar.
Robb Wolf, author of "The Paleo Solution," has similar recommendations to Loren Cordain. However, he takes a slightly different approach when it comes to meat. Wolf doesn't seem to think animal fat is a major problem and recommends meat such as pork chops, bacon and fatty cuts of steak that you'd normally avoid on other paleo-style diets. Wolf emphasizes grass-fed meat and wild game meat, which he says is naturally leaner than commercial meat. Wolf also recommends starchy vegetables, which Cordain places on the no-no list.
There's no one way to apply paleo principles to your eating habits. However, all approaches seem to agree that it's better to eat as naturally as possible and avoid junk food, processed food and table sugar. Researchers are finding that paleo diets may offer potential benefits. A small randomized study found that adhering to a paleo diet for three months improved blood sugar control and cardiovascular risk factors in participants with Type 2 diabetes. The results were published in the journal "Cardiovascular Diabetology" in July 2009.
Froek, Barbara. "Alternatives to Cordain's Paleo Diet." Healthy Eating | SF Gate, http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/alternatives-cordains-paleo-diet-11384.html. Accessed 22 April 2019.