You can breathe easy, this new fashionable diet does not force us to wear fur clothing, or to hunt again, or to live in a cave with cave paintings. The Paleolithic diet is not temporary, but rather a lifestyle. Find out in this post what it is and its pros and cons.

In the US it is all the rage and there are already many famous people, including athletes, who follow it and defend it tooth and nail. Among them we can count names like Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Biel, Megan Fox, Uma Thurman … Even the super model Adriana Lima or the tennis player Novak Djokovic are faithful to this nutritional plan. Let’s see what it consists of and if all that glitters is gold.

The paleo diet, also known as the Paleolithic, cave or Stone Age diet, tries to create a food system with which to re-synchronize with our genetics and evolutionary reality. It is based on the consumption of foods available in nature before the Neolithic Revolution, agriculture and the beginning of sedentarism, when our ancestors hunted and gathered. It is presented as a diet to regain health, lose weight and combat degenerative diseases of today’s civilization, such as cardiovascular, autoimmune, obesity or diabetes.

The Paleolithic diet has become popular thanks to the books and writings of Loren Cordain, an American scientist who is an expert in nutrition and exercise physiology. His followers defend that our ancestors obtained 55% of their daily calories from animal protein, 15% from fruits, vegetables and seeds, and the remaining 30% from fats, especially saturated ones.

Basically the typical Paleolithic diet includes: vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, roots, algae, honey, meat and fish, eggs and animal entrails. They are excluded: all refined products, dairy products, cereals and pseudo-cereals, legumes, sugars, molasses and syrups, salt, alcohol and coffee.

Apart from food, the paleo philosophy has its own exercise program, closely linked to its health proposal. An exercise with more contact with nature is recommended, leaving the gym and forgetting treadmills and ellipticals to practice strength and agility exercises more in line with our physiology. in turn, specific sprints are encouraged, but not chronic cardiovascular exercise, which would deplete the adrenals and the thyroid, and accelerate aging.

Strengths of the Paleo Diet:

• It promotes the consumption of unrefined foods. This theory is supported by the scientific community.
• It promotes the consumption of local and seasonal foods.
• Reduces total energy consumption: limiting food groups commonly consumed in the Western population and with high energy value such as cereals and their derivatives, legumes or dairy products, usually leads to an unconscious reduction in daily energy intake. Given the serious problem of overweight and obesity that plagues the most developed countries (more than 50% of the Spanish adult population suffers from overweight or obesity), any strategy that is capable of limiting energy intake can help alleviate this serious problem.
• The body, not having enough glucose, uses stored fat to produce energy, thus reducing the percentage of stored body fat.
• It does not contain gluten, so it is suitable for coeliacs.

Weaknesses of the Paleo Diet:

• Excess animal protein, since it recommends including it in all meals, between 3 and 5 a day. The evolutionary logic of the proposal itself does not justify this consumption (our ancestors did not hunt so easily).
• He advocates long-term unsustainable meat consumption. By not being able to consume cereals and legumes, and therefore leaving the protein intake at the mercy of meat and fish, the ecological and water footprint of this food system is not at all acceptable or advisable to be carried out by all people on the planet .
• Demonizes foods: the idea that certain foods are good or bad is widespread in certain streams of nutrition. However, for the present case, we do not have objective data that indicates that dairy products, whole grains or legumes have negative effects on health.
• the paleolithic diet limits the range of possibilities; In addition to being very difficult to follow in our context: culturally in Spain, following a paleo diet would entail losing many possibilities and cultural nuances that are part of our gastronomy (paellas, crumbs, stews, stews …)
• It is not advisable to follow it for long periods, as it is not a balanced diet (carbohydrates are lacking) and it can lead to health problems due to nutritional deficiencies.