What is the Paleo Diet?

Can you imagine yourself eating like a hunter gatherer or caveman? The Paleo Diet, better known as the “hunter-gatherer diet” has recently caused excitement around weight loss, diabetes management and general wellbeing. (Andrikopoulos, 2016). The fundamental beliefs behind the diet are developed from a nomadic lifestyle and practices of foods prior to the establishment of the current modern and industrial agriculture. 

The diet advocates consuming grass‐fed meat, wild fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts and healthy saturated fats, while avoiding processed food, refined sugars, legumes, dairy, grains and cereals. (Andrikopoulos, 2016). A typical day Paleo diet according to Gunners (2018) may consist of, “Bacon and eggs, with a piece of fruit” for breakfast, “Chicken salad with olive oil. Handful of nuts.” for lunch and for dinner, “Steak with vegetables and sweet potatoes.” 

(Green Healthy Cooking, 2017). 

 The Paleo diet can promote the avoidance of refined and added sugars and processed energy dense food, which clearly is health benefiting. However, it is difficult to make strong conclusions about the long term benefits of the Paleo diet such as improvements in type 2 diabetes or other health conditions as there are insufficient studies. (Andrikopoulos, 2016).