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The paleo diet made simple...

With the current popularity of high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets, another eating plan — known by some as the paleo diet — has attracted a great deal of interest and attention.

Many of the books describing the paleo diet were published fairly recently. However, the idea that you should eat in much the same way as our ancestors gained some popularity in the 1980's with a book called The Paleolithic Prescription.

Paleo diet

Much of the research into the paleo diet has focused on hunter-gatherers. The hunter-gatherer way of life sustained humanity for most of the past 2.4 million years. Some believe that a paleo diet incorporating the eating habits of hunter-gatherers represents the proper mix of foods for modern man.

According to proponents of the paleo diet, the prevalence of many diseases — such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity — in Western societies is because we’ve strayed from this ideal diet.

One common criticism of the paleo diet is that hunter-gatherers didn't live long enough to contract many of the diseases (such as heart disease or diabetes) all too common in Western society.

While this argument may seem perfectly reasonable, young men in industrialized societies show early signs of many of these diseases. Men of the same age from technologically simple cultures do not. Even people aged 60, living a more traditional lifestyle, continue to avoid them. But does this mean that the paleo diet represents a single, optimal way of eating that's right for everyone?

Diversity

Although the world is vastly different than it was, even just 100 years ago, your body remains, for all intents and purposes, unchanged. And it's certainly true that the few remaining isolated hunter-gatherer societies — such as the Nanamiut of Alaska, the Aborigines of Australia and the !Kung of Africa — rarely suffer from heart disease, obesity...

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