Here is a goofy article on a local Fredericksburg website titled, “Should You Eat Like A Caveman?” The author refers to “the controversial paleolithic or caveman diet,” and she has much to say that is unfavorable. I’d argue, however, that the paleo (or primal) “diet” is not a diet at all – it is a lifestyle, a choice about foods, or, what to eat and not eat. In fact, choosing to eat real food is a philosophy for achieving a higher quality of life by avoiding known toxins, processed foods, sugary foods and beverages, industrial processed oils, gluten, grains, and man-made atrocities such as high fructose corn syrup while choosing to eat pastured meats, vegetables, fruits, seeds, and roots.
Ignoring all of the varying dogma of the scattered “versions” of paleo – it’s just about eating real food. It need not be made more complicated than that, unless one is specifically trying to rid himself of particular health afflictions. If eating real food has become “controversial” in a society rife with obesity, disease, and the pharmaceutical treatment of symptoms, then the long road back to reality is going to be a tough one. This article caught my eye because of one very peculiar – though not unexpected – comment from the author. She states:
Still, I would encourage anyone with health problems to be monitored by a physician if he or she tries this diet, just to be sure, since it flies in the face of established medical advice to reduce meat and egg consumption.
Surely, we wouldn’t want to do anything that “flies in the face of established medical advice” and disobeys the federal diet dictocrats and their industrial food machine food pyramid! The author tends to ramble on about nothing, and she really is just expressing her bias toward vegetarianism. Of course, we real-food paleo-primal types have a lot in common with real-food vegetarians – that is, those folks who may deny meat and/or all animal products, but without replacing those foods with junk food and processed food.
Along these same lines, a most important video to watch is this TED lecture from Dr. Terry Wahls, an MS patient who endured years of getting sicker and sicker from the medical establishment treatment (drugs), until she switched to the paleolithic diet and cured herself. As Terry makes the point in her lecture, we make choices to be healthy, and we make choices that eventually doom us to illness and poor quality of life. She changed her choices and she began to live again. As Dr. Wahls says, ”We have a choice; what will yours be?”
