Friday 29 May 2009

The Caveman Diet

...or Paleolithic Diet. The first time I heard this term was on SBS's "Food Investigators" two weeks ago. It had me intrigued. The Paleolithic period started about 2.5 million years ago. Or so I read. So what would you eat? Red meat, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables and nuts. No dairy, no grains.

How long did the cavemen live? 25-30 years? Just guessing here. So how healthy would a diet like this be in the long run? Let's say for 70-80 years?

Would YOU be able to eat like this? What would you miss most?
Me? Grains. Potatoes - seriously!

There are tons of articles and websites to be found. Here is one article to give you an overview of what the diet is all about.

5 comments:

Pip said...

There are a fair amount of fitness oriented people that are doing the Paleo diet or a variant of and seem to be doing well. I love my potatoes and grains as well, there would be no sugar either. I saw pine mushrooms at the Central Market today, $30 a kilo, had a little chuckle to myself.
Pip

Kelly said...

i reckon it would be ok , for a week or two! Id miss past and rice for sure. But its a bit like the no/low carb diet...protein and simple carbs only...good for weight reduction! and as for osteoporosis and calcium..well havent they shown that oestoporosis can be reversed with weight bearing exercise...probably something to it!

Chloe m said...

I would miss bread! And sugar! But you still get to eat a lot of great stuff, so it would probably keep ya satisfied.

Veggie Gnome said...

Interesting comments. Thank you.

Have you read Nourishing Traditions? (I am probably the last person on the planet to read it.) I have just started and it put everything upside-down that I was made to believe.

Jane Manby said...

There is no evidence to support your idea that cavemen died young.
IF you take out all the danger related deaths there have been many cavemen bones that are aged and show little of the culture related deceases we know today.
It was when we began to be settlers that we began to change and the lowest life expectancy came later/
Tribal people who had a caveman roaming existence were described by western missionaries as fit lean and muscular even well into old age.