this is a beautifully-photographed, informative post. While i'm not going paleo anytime soon, i am inspired by these lovely meals!

That sounds wonderful.. I will have to look at the Paleo diet

I agree with the comment about photography! Beautiful!

I did have a problem with Philips comment: "Also, be careful where you get your information. If you want informed answers you can contact me."

Er, what qualifies him as the be-all end-all of Paleo diet and lifestyle information? 2 years experience? Was anyone else rubbed the wrong way by that comment?

Other than that - very informative post! Thanks!

It would be great if Philip could recommend a few websites or books that he feels are trustworthy.

I eat this way, too, although I eat small amounts of dairy, as well, as in the Primal Blueprint. Cutting out grains and legumes has made room on the plate for more vegetables. I was never much of a bread-eater, but I do miss my homemade split pea soup. Other than that, not much of a sacrifice. The Paleo/Primal community is huge and there are hundreds of excellent blogs that provide recipes and food porn.

By the way, The Kitchn did a feature on the kitchen of someone who follows a Paleo diet. I think it was last year.

I eat this way too, and I highly suggest Robb Wolf's site at http://robbwolf.com/ and Mark's Daily Apple: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I'm a paleo-dieter, and I can recommend "The Paleo Diet" by Dr. Cordain (I can't remember his first name - Barnes and Nobles carries it), and also the website "Mark's Daily Apple": www.marksdailyapple.com

Dr. Cordain also has a website at: http://thepaleodiet.com/ and a cookbook. There are gobs of paleo-diet cooking websites, if you just google them, and they vary from super-strict to a little lax, but still successful (Mark's Daily Apple allows cottage cheese, for instance, and some dieters cut out ALL dairy).

As a home-cook vegetarian (few foods-in-boxes, lots of raw eating, simple prep, no preservatives) who thinks the dinner above sounds delicious - even the meat, for them what eats it - I really fail to see how a paleo diet "is pretty much in direct opposition to vegetarian and vegan diets and in many more ways than just eating meat" as Philip says. I don't see how their method of eating - mindful, historical, home-cooked, real food ingredients, includes eggs - is in opposition with mine: mindful, historical, home-cooked, real food ingredients, includes eggs, but lacks meat and adds dairy. When I think of diets paleo is "in oppostion to" I'd be more likely to suggest a raw diet (with its low- or no-heat and vegan nature) or maybe even the "typical" American diet (cans, bags, out-of-season, processed, fast, under-fibered, and way way oversweetened).

Maybe I'm hearing "opposition" differently than it is meant, but I see a place for myself at this delectable table and I don't feel opposed at all! Avocado "dressed" spinach, raw honey, fruit, grilled veggies? YUM!

I third the recommendation of Mark's Daily Apple. You can download two free cookbooks of reader-submitted recipes, as well as a free fitness guide. (No, I was not paid to say that)

I love how many commenters - though maybe it's self-selecting? - are also eating Paleo or Primal. I found my way in through Mark's Daily Apple which, as other have mentioned, makes more allowances for the modern world - some dairy and dark chocolate.

I think the key-- well, there are two of them. First is cutting out grains, which is sure to be more controversial. But from what I've read - and this includes science reading! - they're really unnecessary and probably harmful. But second, the idea of not eating processed foods. It just seems like the most obviously healthful choice I can make. And - look at these pictures - totally delicious.

This is interesting and yay lots of veggies with some meat, but good GOD would I miss homemade white bread!

Robb Wolf is huge in the Paleo world, he has a book called 'The Paleo Solution' and a weekly podcast and is well educated in why the paleo diet is efficient for us as human's. It's very interesting and of course controversial.

http://robbwolf.com/

I started on Paleo just a month ago - and I was a huge skeptic - and I can report a dramatic difference in many areas:
I fall to sleep faster and sleep deeper than I have in a long time.
I have more energy and focus.
I feel satisfied after eating but not bloated.

The biggest difference, and probably the hardest to adhere to, was cutting out all grains and gluten. I had a slice of bread for the first time in 35 days and it was like a swallowed a brick. I'm hooked now!

Welcome to the diet that most of the rest of the world eats. And totally cutting out grain? Utterly ridiculous. The loaf of bread has been a staple of the kitchen table for thousands of years. To think that it somehow needs to go in order to control blood sugar, etc. is ridiculous and only a properly conducted, double blind scientific study would prove to me otherwise (and not some pseudo-scientific article in a nutritional magazine). One's entire diet needs to be geared towards eating products that aren't packaged, refined or processed. I am continuously shocked by the stuff that gets passed off as "revolutionary diet news" in the States. This "diet" is the product of a culture with too much choice and not enough self-control. You'd never see a family in the Third World saying they were "doing Paleo". Honestly.

i am very intrigued by the paleo diet, but the prospect of no spices, no salt and no baking doesn't appeal to me... and how could i ever give up cheese? oh precious cheese.

This is the first I've heard of the Paleo Diet and I'm interested to try it out! My one concern is that I'm hypoglycemic and I rely heavily on grains to get enough sugar in my diet. Should I even bother trying?

Zoeroth, Third World families aren't visiting cooking blogs, or planning Mothers' Day brunches, either. It's true that we (all of us here, Paleo or not) enjoy the privilege of being able to choose what we want to eat, and can consider macro- and micronutrients over calories. It's not fair, that's true. But many people have trouble digesting grains and attribute their discomfort to having eaten too much or too quickly. Personally, I did not realize just how lousy I had been feeling until I no longer had a bellyache after every meal -- and I had been eating all homemade, whole grain, etc., and no processed foods. I am not advocating that anyone else eat this way as I am not a qualified nutrition expert, but the fact is that it can't hurt you. All of the nutrients in grains and legumes are also available in other foods.

I've been taught to never argue religion, politics, nor nutrition -- those 3 seem to hit the average person too close to home to ever have a respectful, non-escalating, debate (note: the average person -- not all people)

But Zoeroth is speaking the truth. My mother grew up in rural Trinidad. It's not a "third world" country, but they lived humble lives. They ate what was available to them which consisted of whatever grew from the trees in the back yard (mango, avocado etc) , curried vegetables, tea/water/milk, rice or homemade bread, and occasionally a (very) small piece of meat because meat was, and still is, expensive comparatively.

This whole idea of processed foods is largely an American occurrence. Most people around the world don't eat like Americans. They eat MUCH closer to the earth. They don't seem to need "diets" to regulate their systems because they don't eat all types of BS pseudo-foods...its pretty simple, and doesn't require a name to turn it into a fad...

oh yes -- and I agree about Philip claiming to be some sort of authority on the topic having been eating this way for a whopping 2 years...

but -- I'm sure he didn't actually mean it in that manner

To take this on another tangent -- barbequeing with open flame on an asphalt roof is illegal and really very dangerous. Doing it without anything on one's foot is just plain stupid.

BUT, I agree re photography -- beautifully shot.

Not gonna get into the diet quagmire . . .

I'm with Zoeroth on this one. Bread, cheese, dairy have all been in the human diet for millennia so I'm going to keep eating them. I have to wonder how those meringue tarts are "paleo" since I'm assuming early man did not have cream of tartar or a mixer. But on a larger note Philip says they eat nothing canned or preserved because that's not Paleo. That's awesome for people who live in California or a tropical climate where fruits and veggies can be grown all year. But for the rest of us it would mean eating only root vegetables for about 4 months. Also he says they eat anything you could eat raw. I challenge him to eat some raw pork or raw chicken. Since he's the expert, I'm just saying.

To the commenters saying that humans have been eating grains for millenia - grain as a significant staple is, in evolutionary terms, a new innovation. Our bodies haven't adapted to them, or, more specifically, didn't evolve with them. So they are completely unnecessary, nutritionally, and there are strong arguments that they are harmful.

There is also the question of the high-carbohydrate diet of which grains are a major component. Although cutting processed foods helps majorly, grains lead us too much toward a carbohydrate load that can trigger too much insulin, leading to all sorts of problems.

That's part of what I like about Paleo/Primal eating - there's a strong holistic sense to it, and also specific scientific evidence backing it up.

So no alcohol to drink ever? A glass of wine? vodka?

I have been primal/paleo for a year now and LOVE it. I will never go back! If you are looking for more energy and the end to many digestive problems, I really encourage you to give it a try.

As far as books go:
If you really want the hardcore science behind it ( this is not really a fun read, but you learn a lot) then get
Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

For primal (which allows some dairy and a few minor changes from paleo) then get
Primal Blueprint (and definitely check out marksdailyapple.com, some of the best nutrition advice on the internet).

Others that have been recommended but I haven't had the chance to read yet: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Why We Get Fat, Going Against the Grain, The Vegetarian Myth, The Paleo Solution, and Primal Body, Primal Mind

And there are some awesome paleo/primal cooking blogs out there! I love to cook and have never felt like I was giving up anything by giving up grains. My favorites:
health-bent.com
primal-palate.com
ciocco.wordpress.com
lifeasaplate.com
elanaspantry.com
foodrenegade.com

@whatyousay: giving up grains and sugar makes your body adapt to burning fat for energy instead of needing a glucose hit every few hours. I used to get horrible headaches if I missed a meal, but after the transition (which wasn't fun), I no longer get headaches or blood sugar spikes.

I'm not seeing too many fresh herbs in these recipes. I would think that fresh dill, thyme, sage, etc. would be okay.

@bkg0712 No, you can drink. Both red wine & vodka are considered low carb.

I love food. I collect cookbooks, I read dozens of food blogs, I cook all meals for my family of six. But I have never had a good relationship with food. Food allergies throughout my life and a sudden dramatic lactose intolerance as an adult. Two weeks ago I began the Primal Diet (Based on The Primal Blueprint). My health only two weeks later is amazingly better. My skin is gorgeous, clear and smooth and my body fat has dropped fairly dramatically. (I am in excellent shape already but dropped 2-3% body fat in the first week.) I really loved seeing this article today here. Thanks for sharing.

'Paleo' is an abbreviation for 'paleolithic', which refers to a pre-agricultural time period that ended over 10,000 years ago. For most of that time humans did not even exist, and while we know very little for certain about what human ancestors or the earliest humans ate during that time period, what we can be relatively sure of is that very little if ANY of it is available today, and odds are you won't be able to find it at your grocery store.

The most IMPORTANT aspect of paleolithic eating would have been the fact that it was SUPER-LOCAL. Humans and the hominins that preceded them ate what they came upon, what grew near them or what grazed near them. None of the modern hunter-gatherers or nomadic peoples adhere to a comparable diet and we have very little info on the dietary health of the earliest humans so an attempt to genuinely reconstruct that kind of diet would be ill-advised. Luckily, that isn't what these people are doing, they are just avoiding highly processed foods, and appear to be making the error of associating 'grain' with 'agriculture' and forgetting that those cherry tomatoes are just as much a product of modern agriculture as the grain that goes into your flour is.

Eat this way if you like, but have some respect for history and evolution and call it something other than 'paleo'.

And FYI, the most recent data on diet in Paranthropus bosei, one of those paleolithic human ancestors, indicates they were eating a LOT of C4 grasses - modern correlates would include corn and millet.

There's a lot of picking and choosing from an unclear prehistorical record involved in defining this "paleo" thing.

First of all, how far back are we going here? Is 10,000 years enough to be considered paleo? Or are you not truly paleo if you're not ignoring developments since 500,000 BCE? There seems to be some significant fuzziness there.

Secondly, evolutionary arguments are pretty sketchy. People have been eating grains for at least 15,000 years, with rice, today, being the most important staple on the planet. I think we've adapted. Similarly, cow's milk has been cultivated agriculturally for at least 7,000 years, and Europeans, at least, have relied on it so heavily that a vast majority of people of European descent have adapted to it. The first settlers of Japan had a rough time adapting to the local foliage, which is why many of them are uniquely able to metabolize seaweed today.

As slowly as evolution occurs, animals adapt pretty quickly to food shortages. Those individuals that don't figure out a way to find nourishment during a famine die and fail to reproduce. Those that do live and procreate. Easy as that. Arguments that we weren't meant to eat certain foods are all well and good until every other source of food vanishes, and then you may need to expand your options.

I'm on board with eating only naturally derived foods and avoiding dairy and generally taking care of oneself, but claiming some kind of justification based on an unknowable historical record is as douchey as a pin-striped blazer on an athletic gray tee shirt.

evolutionarily speaking, 15,000 years is peanuts.... which, by the way, are not included on the diet either. Thanks for the comment about my blazer, way to keep it high brow. Just kidding, you seem like a very nice, intelligent person!

Thank you for all the wonderful comments! And thanks again Bethany. The photos look great!

There is one more paragraph I wanted to squeeze into the interview but I understand why it wasn't included. You can read more on my site:

http://sumnerand.com/Interviews.html

Diet is a very personal and polarizing subject... still, I enjoy talking about it very much. I feel Progress is rarely made without a bit of argument and I am interested in progressing everyday.

As far as the "questionable information" out there.. there is a food list online by Cordain which includes red wine, beer, vinegar and diet soda???? as things to be used in moderation. It's my opinion that none of these things have any place in a primal diet... or a modern diet. Cordain put a lot of information out early and he is certainly considered an authority... but some of his conclusions are logically wrong. We try to eat as organic and natural as we can.

You can find his list here:

http://desertcrossfit.typepad.com/Paleo_Food_List.pdf

Here are some informative sites for anyone interested:

http://www.earth360.com/diet_paleodiet_balzer.html

http://paleodiet.com/

I am an ultra marathon level runner and Free diver. My performance has changed so dramatically since moving to this diet It is difficult to fathom. The clarity as well is very special. The reason I eat the way I do is to live as long as I can as healthy as I can. Thank you!!

Also, Please don't infer that I lead a cult. That is untrue and unnecessary.

@Nora Rocket--

I'm with you on the lacto-ovo/vegan thing. Unless you're talking about someone who replaces all their meat and dairy with overly-processed soy substitutes or other processed food, a vegetarian or vegan diet is very similar to a paleo diet. It's a focus on wholefoods rather than the very modern, very chemical-laden and nutrient-deficient food available in grocery stores and at fast food chains. Just swap grains and legumes for meat, and there you go.

I just love when people trot out the 'we haven't evolved for that' rationale. Evolution can be genetic drift that occurs over a period of time (isn't necessarily thousands of years, folks) or if it can be a sudden shift (doesn't have to be the result of a catastrophic event). So, unless you have compared the metabolic capabilities of modern man and man before grains became a normal part of the diet at an enzymatic level, you have no idea whether we've evolved to better digest grains or not. And, neither do I.

Whether grains are good for us or not - that's a separate issue. Obviously, they're not good for some. I don't think we know whether or not we can generalize that they're harmful for all.

Philip -- Thanks for the classy response to my uncalled for but still mildly humorous blazer comment. I hereby withdraw the point. Internet handshake.

Hey! Thanks very much portlandy. I appreciate it. Hope all is well!

@whatyousay:
When you eat paleo, you dramatically cut the sugars in your diet, replacing them with fats and proteins. It's actually ideal for hypoglycemic people because your body no longer gets those sugar swings.

FTR there are many different ways of doing this and many of us do eat dairy products, in varying amounts. The main things I eliminated were sugar and grains. Once you get your head wrapped around the concept, you realize how many other delicious combinations of food there are.

I write about the nutritional controversy & how to do it in www.carboholicsanonymous.com

I would miss olive oil, which I use to dress vegetables. Otherwise, this sounds good.

pearmelon, paleo and primal dieters use lots of olive oil. spices as well. i eat primally (basically a version of paleo that believes dairy is fine to eat for people who handle it well) and i'm not very satisfied with this post. everything seems a little bland. no spices, oils, or GARLIC. wtf. this post actually does a disservice to the way of eating.

*sigh* I am trying to be open minded because this is a food blog. But we need fermented foods just as much as other foods.

Considering that we can't culture even half of the bacteria that resides in human gut, let alone understand their interactions, it would be safe to assume that eating everything in moderation is best. You love fresh veggies? Great. You love meat? Great, get a leaner cut and season it if you really want to. You want fresh baked bread that gives you that high when you crack it? Sure, just don't eat the whole loaf in one sitting ;). Cheese? Yes please. Assuming that Paleolithic people never consumed grains, or non human milk products is a bit silly in my opinion.

Point being is that we need out bifidobacterium and lactococcus, and fermentation process of coccoa (which is natural) won't hurt us.

Just try to avoid preservatives, and most importantly keep a positive outlook on life! If anything really cuts our years short is depression and lack of social interaction (the latter is why I am typing here).

@whatyousay- I'm also hypoglycemic, and I've found that moving away from carbs to control my sugar and eating a protein/fat snack helps SO much. An apple with peanut butter will really get me through the afternoon, but a granola bar would kick my butt after an hour. I don't eat paleo right now, but I'm certainly intrigued by the possibility of better avoiding the blood sugar lows.

It is also kind of hard for me to embrace a, let's call it, scientifically based diet, that so unscientifically groups its foods.

Link given
http://desertcrossfit.typepad.com/Paleo_Food_List.pdf

The distinction between fruits and vegetables is so poor. Peppers, eggplant, squash, tomato, and cucumbers are all fruit. Mushrooms don't even fall into a plant category. The rest are mainly flowers, greens, or modified roots and leaves.

It is also interesting that organ meats are on the recommended list, but if Paleolithic people did not have cooking tools to break down toxins in potatoes and etc., how would they destroy bacteria of organ meats. I could play with the idea of eating plain muscle raw if needed, as technically it is sterile in the body, so if it was consumed fast (who's hungry?) that shouldn't really be a problem (but then we could be venturing into the prion arguement). But during the harvest of internal organs there is a high risk of contamination from the GI tract. Therefore kidneys, liver, udders (yum!), and whatever else has to be properly cooked. If there were no tools to cook it, I doubt Paleolithic people would have lived long and healthy lives (assuming that we are talking just nutrition and possible diseases we could get from improper cooking. Cutaneous and respiratory infections, viruses, and feral animals aside)

have* to be properly cooked.

The Inuit traditional diet includes raw liver. Food poisoning from raw organ meat surely happens, but it likely wouldn't be the death of any humans (or animals) that ate raw organs.

Where I live the fruits and vegetables are either extremely low quality or overly expensive. also, i dont like the bad light it puts human creativity in. Obviously if humans didnt develop a need to do more than just survive, they wouldnt have made all these "evil" chocolates and breads and cakes. I'm one of those people that believes you wont die if you cave and have 3 cookies once every 2 weeks. My brother is on a diet where he eats low calorie, healthy meals through the week, and then splurges a bit more on the weekend. He's lost a good ammount of weight and is quite healthy.

Mariyaodessa,

Recent archaeological evidence has started putting the date for earliest cooking fires back pretty far, and it is getting more and more likely that at least paleolithic humans had fire, and perhaps even earlier Homo species. What's more, despite the 'raw food' craze, humans really aren't best adapted for a primarily raw diet - the pre-digestive role that cooking plays is essential to allow for the proper digestion and absorption of most foods. The reason so many people have claimed fantastic weight loss with a raw diet is because they have essentially found a way to starve themselves while still filling their stomachs and therefore not feeling 'hungry'.

When it comes to reconstructing an actual paleolithic diet, especially re: organ meats, the question of acquisition is also really important. The 'Man the Hunter' idea was proven as terribly false many years ago, human ancestors were scavengers, so those that were 'pre-fire' probably did NOT eat organ meat, except perhaps as a display-type ritual, 'look how fit I am come mate with me' kind of thing. If fire came before hunting, and it looks like it may have, organ meats are back 'on the table', but the issue is one of what was available to scavenge. Odds are, pre-agricultural (especially pre-hunting) humans ate what was available.

Ny2midmo,

I completely agree with you. I was just going by the information provided in the links to us by Philip, one of which said that fire was not available, which in their opinion supports their decision not to eat legumes and grains. So my argument was if the fire is not available, how do you eat the suggested foods anyways?

It all sounds to me very much like pseudo science.

Love the comments posted ny2midmo.

Me, I'm going on the Pleistocene diet. Lots of snow. Maybe some scavenged mammoth tendon. Who wants to race me across the land bridge? And dang, where did I put that flint knife? I need it to prepare my amuse-bouche of rhyolitic loess. You know. For the fiber.

This diet is also good for diabetics. Many dietitians have recommended around 130 grams/day of carbs and that for me at least is horribly high. So I tried this Paleo diet, now I have cheese but only eat turnips, califlower and quinoa for "starch" sides. Works beautifully for me. Best glucose numbers ever. Glucose monitors don't lie and that my yardstick for comparison. There's a website called diabetic warrior out there as well, he's also Paleo

I've been eating primal (which allows some dairy)/paleo for one year and I've never felt better. My meals are a bit more varied than this one though--I definitely use lots of herbs, spices and coconut milk/oil for flavoring. Additionally, I eat a lot of fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut that are healthy.

The reason why people who eat this way think grains and legumes are bad is that they contain substances that damage the lining of our intestines and allow large protein molecules into the blood stream. Our immune system produces antibodies against these foreign proteins that resemble proteins on some of our cell walls, so the immune system ends up attacking some of our own cells, creating auto-immune disease and inflammation. I highly recommend that anyone with chronic health problems try this way of eating for a month.

When someone says you need grains to be healthy, I say what am I missing? I get all the fiber I need from veg and fruit, and all the vitamins and minerals I need from meat, vegetables and sunlight. There's a reason grains are typically fortified to make them more nutrient dense; they don't have much going for them to begin with. As Robb Wolf says, you can live on grains/legumes, but you can't really thrive on them. They're cheap fuel.

I'm with Zoeroth and Chinatown on this one. You know cutting anything 100% out of your diet unless you have an allergy i think is not smart. all food that is eating with it reason add to a balanced diet. and i also have hypoglycemia and have found that a nice slice of artasan bread always does the trick when i´m about to have a low. Much better than if i ate just an apple...

@philipsumner - I apologize if my comment implied cultish associations. I definitely did NOT intend for that sentiment to come across! I just wished that, in the interview, you'd provided more sources rather than positioning yourself as an apparent sole source of information. Thank you for replying and giving us more info - I'm extremely intrigued by the Paleo lifestyle and appreciate your information!

I’m enjoying the logic of the way humans used to do it, back in paleo time, is the right way to do things! Let me switch to this diet, and after that, I’m giving up shoes, clothes made out of cotton, running water, and medication for illnesses!
Barf.
I just can’t get behind super elitist movements.

Eat less, move more. Does it REALLY have to be more complicated than that?

Nice pictures! I will share that I've been eating much more whole food, and gradually becoming more raw. I noticed that my body reacts well when I limit dairy and gluten, but the big surprise was discovering a "mill your own flour" bin in the grocery store. We started milling- grinding up the entire wheat pieces- and have had zero bread related tummy problems. Of course,w e are still working on the recipe, but it's been an amazing change.

I definitely understand the appeal of the paleo/primal diet. I've read "Primal Body, Primal Mind", "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" (highly recommend that book btw), and visit Mark's Daily Apple from time to time. I started cutting out a lot of grains after I had gestational diabetes with my first pregnancy, with very positive results. The one issue that keeps nagging me about this way of eating is the sustainability factor (like someone else said, only people living in warm climates could eat that kind of meal on a regular basis). I'd like to someday be able to grow a large percentage of my own food, and buy why I can't grow/raise from neighbors. I'm close to that now with an awesome CSA that provides us with dairy, meat and veggies all year long. (We're in the midwest, and we pretty much do eat root vegetables all winter long, much to the chagrin of my mother who thinks we need fresh greens at all times.) I now buy bulk dry beans and bulk whole corn, which I grind myself, to supplement the food from the CSA. I'm also growing these in the garden this year.
Sorry this is so rambling, but my point in saying all this is: yes, I understand the benefits of eating just meat and veggies and berries, but locality and self-sustainability is more of a priority for me. If I can grow it my backyard, I'm happy to feed it to myself and my family.

I like the ideas around the Paleo diet, but the anthropology presented with it is often wrong: for example, there's plenty of evidence of humans gathering grains well before the advent of agriculture. Not refined white flour sort of grains, but boiling and eating gathered grains like millet and spelt and probably even some species of wheat. The idea that cereal grains are something "unnatural" we only started eating after the advent of agriculture is completely unsupported and probably not heathy. We can reduce our cereal intake, but it's probably not optimal to eliminate, especially for anyone getting regular intense exercise.

Pseudo science at its worst. Attributing one's physical changes to diet can be problematic since you do not actually know if it was correlation or causation.
The idea that these foods are at all "natural" or the "best" is laughable. Most likely these individuals' ancestors would never have eaten avocado, dates, habaneros, lemongrass, coconut milk, or - cream of tartar. They never would have eaten the domesticated breeds of fruits and vegetables that they do. Spinach for example, is the battery hen of the greens world - our ancestors would have been eating plants like watercress, pigweed, and cattail shoots, since spinach as we know it wouldn't have existed for quite a while.
It's this kind of pseudoscience like this that makes me upset, since people are misinforming others. This diet is not any better than the South Beach, Atkin's or the others we've seen over the years, and is using incorrect inferential information to support their theory.

for all the people bitching about this dietary lifestyle, for every fat paleo practicing person you show me, i'll show you ten fat vegans/vegetarians and one hundred fat people with regular western diets. Point is, you'll be hard pressed to find any people avoiding grains and sugars to be unhealthy. I know lot's of overweight vegetarians and vegans, too many grains in their diets.

All I have to say is that when I eat (for a significant period of time) whole veggies, fruits, nuts, lean meats and spice it up however I like, I can't deny it's the best I have ever felt! Digestion becomes regular, energy is up, performance is up, etc. You just can't deny that eating this way is a healthy lifestyle! Who cares what it is called...as long as you feel good. I don't know the science of it, but I know when I cheat and add a little dairy or bread back into my diet that it disrupts the great feeling (this could be b/c I had gone without it for so many days...). When I started eating this way, I realized just how many "bad" carbohydrates were in my daily diet...toast, oatmeal, sandwich bread, rolls, rice, pasta. I was overdoing the carbs! I get that you can eat them in moderation...but I prefer the feeling I have when NOT eating that many carbs! It's very tough to let go of bread, pinto beans and cheese...(OH Chipotle!), but it's totally worth the way I feel!

Hi Leona,
I like this topic "Paleo diet plan". Could you please suggest me good paleo diet recipe. I Would like to make a good post on that. Thank you...keep posting