Why I Eat Like a CaveMan

Caveman

From A Sweet Life:

No one would argue that actually living in conditions similar to a caveman’s would be beneficial for health, since lack of shelter, illness, injuries and predators led to relatively short life spans (approximately 30 years) for early man. What the cavemen ate, however, known today as the Paleolithic diet, was very beneficial for health.  It was, in fact, exactly what the human body was designed to eat.  The Paleolithic diet can provide anyone with a healthful eating plan, and holds special promise for diabetics.  I have type 1 diabetes, and for several years I’ve been experiencing its benefits.

What is the Paleolithic diet?

The Paleolithic diet categorizes food into two groups, in and out.

In foods are foods that humans ate prior to agriculture and animal husbandry (meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, tree nuts, vegetables, roots, fruit, berries, mushrooms, etc).  Out, or Neolithic Era foods, are foods that resulted from agriculture or animal husbandry.

This sweeping cut removes a vast quantity of the foods we eat on a daily basis, most notably grains (including pasta and bread), dairy and refined sugars.

The question you are probably asking is why would someone eat this way?

The answer is multi-fold. Many who eat in this manner extol the virtue of “removing the toxins” from their highly processed diets. Others speak of truly “getting back to their roots” in a way unlike any other. The most fundamental reason to consider eating a Paleolithic diet has to due with evolution.

Early man was limited in his ability to eat many of the items in the aforementioned out list because they are inedible in their raw state. Then a wondrous discovery took place – fire.  And with fire, previously inedible foods became palatable.  Then, about 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution took place.  At this juncture, our current grain-based diet came to be.  And with time came the modern staples such as flour, bread, noodles and pasta, but the human body was unprepared for such things.

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