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The Paleolithic diet is a dietary system which concerns itself primarily with health (as opposed to ethical or economic) issues. Advocates of paleolithic nutrition believe that the best food for the human body is that food which it was designed to eat, and that dietary related diseases are caused by straying from that path.
Their argument goes that since human genetics have scarcely changed since the stone age an ideal (for health) diet would be a reconstructed stone age diet. Therefore through studying archeology and modern hunter gatherers we can learn what a healthy diet looks like.
Foods which are not edible raw and unprocessed are excluded from the diet. These include
grains, beans and potatoes. Foods which are included in the diet are meat, fish,
fruit, vegetables, nuts and eggs. The single exception to this rule is dairy. Dairy products are excluded despite being edible raw since it is nevertheless a post agricultural food. Some closely related diets such as that recommended by the Weston A. Price Foundation are more lenient: They mainly exclude the inventions of the last few centuries and improve upon the Paleo-diet by studying the specific factors that contribute to health and longevity. Dairy, whole grains, legumes, and potatoes are therefore encouraged insofar as one's specific ancestry allows them to be tolerated, and culturing of foods is encouraged.
The non-animal foods available on the diet are the same as those available in raw veganism. However, there are two fundamental differences between raw veganism and the paleodiet. Firstly, paleodieters consume meat and other animal products (in fact usually more is consumed than on a standard modern diet, in some cases substantially more). Secondly, any and all food can be cooked if desired.
Normally the diet is what would be considered low carb though not to the extent of say the
Atkins Diet. Unlike Atkins fruit and vegetables are consumed in large amounts. The vitamin and mineral content of the diet is very high compared to a standard
diet.
List
of diets: Atkins Diet | South
Beach Diet | Macrobiotic
Diet | Vegetarian
Diet | Fruitarian diet
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