The Stone Age Diet has many names: the Paleolithic Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Prehistoric Diet, the Caveman diet, or the Hunter-Gatherer Diet.
It traces the problem of obesity back to 10,000 years ago, with the advent of farming and cereal planting. During the Paleolithic period of the Stone Age (before the advent of agriculture), for over two million years, our ancestors were hunters and gatherers with a staple diet of lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables and nuts.
These were then replaced by the modern-day staple diet of cereals, pulses, dairy products, refined fat and sugar.
These changes are associated as risk factors for so-called “diseases of civilization”: obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune-related diseases, certain cancers, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
The theory goes that today’s human genes have evolved through 2.5 million years of the Paleolithic era but the last 10,000 years have not been enough for genetic changes to adapt to our relatively new farm-based diet.
It claims that we are nearly genetically identical to the Stone-age humans!
Our genetic make-up is of a hunter-gather: ‘designed’ for the consumption of plants, animals and seafood. Not designed for farming foods: grains, legumes and dairy products. Even less suited to modern processed foods such as sugar and refined fat.
To cut a long story short, an ‘ideal’ diet is the Stone-age diet!
Is this scientifically true? Lets take a look!
DIET PROTOCOL
In 1975, gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin was one of the first to suggest the meat-based Paleolithic diet of chiefly fats and protein, with only small amounts of carbohydrates – arguing that humans are carnivorous animals.
The Stone-age diet claims:
We are ‘designed’ to consume ‘hunter-gatherer’ foods:
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