What is Ancestral Nutrition Really About?

The key concept of ancestral ("Paleo"/primal/evolutionary) nutrition is not to avoid foods that you thrive on just because they're on someone's list of "forbidden" foods, it's to eat what you thrive on--the foods your body is best adapted to within the context of your lifestyle, to maximize your overall health and fitness goals. Evidence from the archaeological record and observed hunter-gatherer and horticultural peoples are just clues in helping to form a basic template to start from, not final detailed answers for everyone.

It's not about blind nostalgic emulation for emulation's sake, nor is it about excessive reductionism or refusing to employ lessons from biomimicry because of rigid neomaniac ideology. Here are some terms used by proponents of various flavors of ancestral nutrition that give a sense of the basic overall concept:

> Weston Price: "living in accordance with inherited traditions" and "accumulated wisdom"

> Walter Voegtlin, MD: human ecology

> Boyd Eaton, MD: our ancient genome, biological discordance vs. adaptation, Paleolithic nutrition, evolutionary nutrition

> Loren Cordain, PhD: evolutionary template, Paleolithic nutrition, evolutionary nutrition
> Art DeVany: evolutionary fitness, new evolution diet

> Robb Wolf and Chris Kresser: Paleo template

> Mark Sisson: Primal Blueprint
> Kurt Harris, MD: evolutionary metabolic milieu (EM2)

Lex Rooker interviewed at Joanne Unleashed

Don't miss this excellent interview of a brilliant and honest man who has had great success with a raw carnivorous diet (for example, his migraines and precancerous lesions disappeared with this diet) but does not hide the problems he runs into.

Paleo Goes Mainstream

Well, it's happening. Both the Washington Post and New York Times have reported on Paleo diets in short order. The Paleo diet is making the radar, becoming known to the media elites and the masses. This could have both bad and good consequences. I'm hoping for more of the latter.

Below is a link and a couple of excerpts from the NYT article, which is much better than the Post article, though it unfortunately pokes a little fun at raw Paleo (but it's amazing that it even mentioned it):

The New Age Cavemen and the City

...."Several identify themselves as libertarians." [I noted this interesting connection in a post at the RawPaleoForum. Granted, the fact that prominent early adopters and near-adopters like Art De Vany, Michael Eades, Nassim Taleb and Kurt Harris appear to be libertarian-oriented probably skews the current, still-early numbers.]

An Upper East Side physician, Grant Macaulay, said he has recommended the diet to hundreds of his patients, and sends them to Barnes & Noble to buy a copy of Mr. Cordain’s “Paleo Diet.” [It's good to see more and more physicians recommending various versions of it.]

Carnivorous Raw Paleo Diet working for me

After experiencing some relapse of certain symptoms I re-investigated my health and diet and tried a stricter approach, which quickly generated positive benefits. A very restrictive diet seems to work best for me. This is unfortunate, because it means that healthy foods are even less available for me than I realized and my diet is much less socially acceptable. I'm hoping I'll be able to stick with it despite the obstacles, as my health benefits dramatically when I do.

I decided to eliminate all foods that are questionable from a Paleo perspective:

Nightshades: Nightshades (like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers, though not black pepper) are mostly New World foods. Even those available in the Old World were inedible during the Stone Age and had to be selected for reduced toxicity over time to be made edible. Recent research by Dr. Loren Cordain and others has implicated nightshades in diseases of civilization ("How to Treat Multiple Sclerosis with Diet;" multiple videos; covers the role of tomatoes in MS, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhkmDHLCUEs). Nightshades had also been linked in the past to arthritis and other diseases of civilization by many the anecdotal accounts of many patients. They were viewed as toxic for many centuries in Europe. I had been skeptical of these accounts, but not any more.

Foods inedible unless cooked: This mainly meant winter squashes for me (I got to the point of eating them nearly every day), but also some potatoes and occasional french fries. I had been eating increasing amounts of these starchy foods that are indigestible raw in a vain effort to gain weight and increase social acceptance of my diet. I know, stupid mistake on my part and I've actually gained more weight since going carnivorous, as it has improved my health and appetite.

Cheats: I decided to end all cheats. Once I started cheating by eating a "natural" corn-sweetener-free fruit juice popsicle or other cheat, I found myself eating more and more of them almost unconsciously. Such sweet treats are just too addictive for me.

I eliminated nightshades, foods inedible raw, and cheating first and the health benefits were fairly dramatic within a month.

Sugary foods: No more fruit juices or sweetened drinks, no matter how natural. No more dried fruits, or even fresh, sugary fruits like tropical fruits. Eliminating these helped immensely. I appear to be very sensitive to carbs.

Tree nuts: This one surprised me, as I thought that eating lots of walnuts was actually helping me. Yet, when I eliminated nuts I did even better. They do contain antinutrients, as do all plants, and tree nuts are a fairly common allergen. Being a Paleo dieter I had of course already eliminated non-tree "nuts" like peanuts that aren't actually nuts at all, but legumes.

The remaining plant foods: All plants contain antinutrients. They have to in order to survive, because these antinutrients are natural insecticides that fend off predators. Therefore, eating plants every day may theoretically build up toxic levels of antinutrients. Even primates that have been eating lots of plants for millions of years, such as chimps, have to consume clay and other detoxicants in order to offset the accumulated antinutrients they absorb by eating wild plants nearly every day.

Plus, I decided to try a carnivorous, raw Paleo diet, as that was where my experience and research were leading me, and that is what Lex Rooker was doing with tremendous success. I discovered his story here: http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/lex%27s-journal/.

All beverages other than water: I don't stick to this one 100%, occasionally having some black coffee or tea, and I greatly resisted trying it, but I'm glad I did. Water was the only beverage of our early ancestors. I found that by not drinking sweetened or flavored beverages, water tastes much better to me. Whenever I'm the slightest bit dehydrated, water actually tastes rather sweet to me. People more experienced with this than me claim that it's the body's natural mechanism to keep my body properly hydrated.

So far, so good. I started going purely zero carb as of 8/5/2009, with only occasional spring greens or tea. As of 8/12/2009 I gave up those things and reached pure carnivory, eating only raw meats and fish (mostly pasture-fed or wild), low-heated beef jerky, low-heated tallow, raw bone marrow, raw suet and water. I know, it sounds weird and I never expected I would be eating this, but experience and research have led me here and the benefits have been marvelous: all remaining acne gone (and I no longer need to take zinc supplements to keep it under control), potassium-deficiency cramps gone and only return if I eat carbs, dental health dramatically improved (I actually have a hole in a tooth that is remineralizing--i.e. filling in--and my loose teeth no longer move when wiggled nor require a retainer to keep them standing straight), etc., etc.

Eating a mostly-raw carnivorous diet sounded impossible, even to me, but it hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I especially love jerky with tallow, pemmican, and raw ground venison.

Paleo Nutrition explained in 5 minutes

This video is the best brief summary I've seen yet of Paleolithic nutrition. I can't imagine how it could be made any simpler, yet, astoundingly, some people still don't get it after viewing the vid.

Paleo/Primal in a Nutshell

Ancestral Way of Eating Basics

Here is some basic information about the ancestral way of eating, also called the Paleolithic diet, among other things (Paleolithic means "old stone," as in "Old Stone Age"):

The ancestral way of eating is not so much a weight loss program--although that is a positive common side effect--as it is a health optimizer. It's the only diet based upon a fundamental explanatory model--biological evolution (or intelligent design, depending on your perspective). It's the only diet that humans are designed to eat and the only one designed by nature (or nature's God). Rather than a single, narrow fad-diet, it's actually a whole category of diets that includes a wide range of indigenous diets that were consumed by all of humanity for the first two and half million years of human existence. It is the original and longest-lasting human diet.

Paleo-type Foods:
-Wild/Pastured Meats and Organs, Fat depots like bone marrow and perinephric fat (aka suet and pork leaf fat), Seafood and Eggs (eggs or egg whites can be a problem for sensitive individuals)
-Vegetables (especially leafy green veggies and those which can be eaten raw; [some Paleo dieters consider sweet potatoes and white potatoes Paleo, but most still don't, though even Dr. Cordain recommends sweet potatoes for elite athletes--as always, find out what works for you])
-Fruits (optional in limited quantities, focusing on the less sugary ones like berries and avoiding or minimizing fruit juices and dried fruits; some people apparently tolerate the sugars in fruits better than others)
-Teas, Spices and most Herbs

Controversial Foods (considered Paleo or near-Paleo by some, but not others, and may be problematic for some people): nuts, seeds, heated fats (tallow, lard, etc.), honey, [processed] commercial meats, African yams, sweet potatoes, beets, sea salt (added salt may be necessary for carnivorous-style dieters, according to Jay Wortman, MD), [low-lactose and low-casein fatty raw dairy products like raw butter and some raw cheeses, legume tubers that are edible raw, such as jicama, yacon, Jerusalem Artichoke and Chinese Artichoke], alcoholic beverages (like wine, champagne, mead, hard liquor)

Don’t Eat (or strictly minimize) the Agrarian/Processed Foods:
-Grains (wheat, rye, barley, corn, etc.)
-Dairy (bovine, goat, etc., especially pasteurized milk and pasteurized yogurt that has sugar/sweetener/jam added)
-Beans (a.k.a. legumes; includes soy, peas and peanuts)
-Starchy root vegetables that require thorough cooking, like [white] potatoes and tapioca [I learned that sweet potatoes MAY be edible raw if soaked--they certainly taste good that way anyway, though I'm not recommending it and don't know how healthy it is to eat them that way]
-Yeast ([grain] vinegar, foods pickled with [grain] vinegar, alcoholic beverages, etc. [note: natural fermenting without yeast or high heating is supposed to be superior to industrial fermenting])
-Artificial & processed additives like sweeteners, colorings, flavorings, preservatives, excessive salt, etc.
-Heavily processed oils
-Other foods you are sensitive to (at least not at first)

Some resources:
-http://www.paleodiet.com - includes many links
-http://www.paleonu.com - Kurt Harris, MD
-http://www.thepaleodiet.com - Loren Cordain, PhD (leading scientist in the field of Paleolithic nutrition)
-http://listserv.icors.org/ARCHIVES/PALEOFOOD.HTML - Paleofood email list archives (Paleo and near-Paleo dieters)
-http://www.beyondveg.com - includes many articles
-http://ancestrallifestyle.blogspot.com - My blog
-www.ctds.info - Sandy Simmons' Connective Tissue Disorder site--good info on diet, supplements, and some disorders that result from consumption of modern foods
-www.ms-diet.org - The Multiple Sclerosis Resource Center, with info on Ashton Embry's Best Bet Diet (very close to the Paleo Diet)
-http://gluten-free.org/hoggan/ - Ron Hoggan's articles on gluten intolerance and other subjects
-www.cup.org/books/kiple/introduction1.htm - The Cambridge World History of Food

For pets:
-http://dogtorj.com, website of a veterinarian who successfully treats dogs with a biologically appropriate diet
-http://www.barfworld.com, Dr. Billinghurst’s Biologically Appropriate Raw Food

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and studies on this and related subjects. If you have any special health issues, like diabetes or kidney dysfunction, make sure to check with your doctor to address your special needs.

Updates (Paleolithic nutrition is a new and evolving field and I incorporate new information into this summary post when warranted):

4.13.10 Divided controversial foods into a separate middle section; made fruits optional and emphasized less sugary fruits (some people seem to handle sugary fruits fine and others, like me, have difficulty handling any fruit); moved nuts and seeds into the controversial category (they contain mildly toxic compounds that plants use to discourage predation that may adversely affect some people); replaced "lean meats" with the better term "pastured meats"; added a link

[Note, 2009: it may seem strange that I didn't post a summary explanation of this diet until 2009, but the field was new and evolving, with controversies over what foods should be included, and I didn't feel it was sufficiently clear to me to post them until 2009. My views on what is Paleo have continued to evolve since as more information is provided by the field or my own experience. Maintain a healthy amount of skepticism and pay attention to what your own body tells you.

Update 6/20/11: I've moved mention of some foods up a level, such as sweet potatoes and raw fatty dairy products, because enough people do well on them to warrant it and the evidence against them is mixed, even though I don't tolerate some of them well myself]