Paleolithic Health
Could we, as a society be healthier? There are many components that make up a healthy lifestyle and everyone has there own opinion. Looking back to Paleolithic times can help put “health” into perspective. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, Paleolithic is defined as, “Of or relating to the cultural period of ht Stone Age beginning with the earliest chipped stone tools, about 750,000 years ago, until the beginning of the Mesolithic Period, about 15,000 years ago.” Getting back to the roots of what man needs to survive can help pinpoint what the components of a healthy lifestyle are. We, as a society, aren’t as healthy as we could be because of poor food choices, lack of functional exercise and lack of adequate sleep. Examining Paleolithic man’s daily life could lend simple and effective guidelines that today’s man could greatly benefit from.
Growing up in today’s culture offers more convenience than ever before. This fast-paced lifestyle unfortunately leaves little time for most to shop, prepare and enjoy healthy food. Many people find it easier to buy packaged, pre-made or fast food in place of more sustaining foods. In Paleolithic times humans were required to hunt meat, gather and forage vegetables, roots, seeds and nuts to live. These skills served up fare that was full of nutrition and sustenance. Today’s processed and sugar-laden foods offer convenience but at the cost of some health problems. A February 2009 study done by the Department of Medicine in the University of California, San Francisco, shows a remarkable improvement in
metabolic and physiological functions when nine participants consumed a Paleolithic diet for ten days. “Even sh...
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...e the eyes and brain and can create even more difficulty sleeping efficiently. These lifestyle choices are vastly different from those in Paleolithic times. Turning in when the sun goes down may not be appealing but limiting stressors of all kinds may contribute to a better nights sleep and ultimately better health.
We, as a society could be healthier if we changed a few aspects of our lives. Looking back into Paleolithic times may help sharpen our awareness of what a healthy lifestyle means. Good food choices, functional exercise and a good sleep pattern are all required for long term survival. To early man it meant life or death. Today’s technology is vast and everyone has an opinion of what “healthy” means, but closely examining the lifestyle of those long ago may provide our society with the simple and effective guidelines to live as healthy as possible.
He claims that a better diet requires spending more time and resources on food, just like the people of the past did. Pollan attributes their surpassing health to this practice, but in his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman paints a different story. Freedman describes how examinations of ancient non-Western remains revealed “hardened arteries, suggesting that pre-industrial diets…may not have been the epitome of healthy eating” (514). This discovery seriously undermines Pollan’s assumption that we should follow the lead of our ancestors because even though they spent a greater amount of resources on food and ate absolutely no processed foods, they still suffered from some of the same diseases which Pollan claims his eating habits will curb. As an opponent of processed foods, or “foodlike products” (Pollan 426), Pollan advocates eating whole foods. As many people have a similar opinion, he is not alone in this, but he is misinformed. Freedman reveals that after examining the nutrition labels on various unprocessed, whole foods, he found that many contained more fat, sugar, and sodium than processed foods (512). If unprocessed foods underwent the same scrutiny as processed foods, perhaps this common misconception could be prevented. The basic premise of Pollan’s essay is that a better diet will lead to better health. While we could all benefit from a better diet, “findings linking food type and health are considered highly unreliable (Freedman 518). Freedman discusses the multitude of nondietary factors such as air quality and exercise that render such studies untrustworthy. Pollan might be a well-respected author of nutrition books, but this does not mean that his theories are free of
When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.
In recent studies, it was discovered that most of the foods that Americans consumed are foods which had gone through so many processes and thereby losing most of its nutritional values. Unhealthy nutrients are also been added to foods as additive during production to either preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. An individual cannot simply trust what he or she is consuming at a fast food restaurant or even a cheap prepared meal at a grocery store. Processed food or western diet needs to be replaced and totally taken out of the American life and diet; this will help the Americans to live a healthier life, and spend less on medical bills.
Thanks to many researchers, such as Loran Cordain, mankind has successfully developed the Paleo diet, a dietary plan modeled after the paleolithic age that consists of lean natural meats, vegetables, fruits and nuts. Unlike,the diets previously mentioned the Paleo diet has all the essential nutrients such as protein, Vitamin D and B-12, that make humans develop lean muscle, have more energy, lose weight, and be able to live a healthy lifestyle. For these reasons, the Paleo way should be the diet of choice in order to make America healthy again.
All in all, this book is a great read for those seeking to learn more about food and how it relates to all aspects of life and history as well as find that extra push in taking the initiative in improving one’s eating habits and lifestyle. It serves as an easy to follow introduction into a healthy relationship with food including with simple guidelines that are not too forceful or complex to understand.
Klonoff, D. C. (2009, November). The Beneficial Effects of a Paleolithic Diet on Type 2 Diabetes
Focused on available modern foods, the modern Paleolithic diet consist of mainly grass-fed meats and fish, eggs, vegetables and fruits, nuts and different types of mushrooms. This diet forbidden diary, potatoes, refined sugar, legumes, processed oils and salt, unless natural sea salt. So, as you can see, the Paleolithic diet includes all food that caveman could find and Paleolithic diet is not just some another diet with false promises. This particular diet excludes all bad food habits, like bad processed food, sweet and candies and much more that directly influence on our health, but in very dangerous and wrong way.
This diet is actually designed after people who lived in the Paleolithic era of Earth’s history. It’s also called the Caveman diet by some people. The general idea is that to be your healthiest, you should eat the way our earliest ancestors did.
Nutrition is a very controversial and confusing topic. One day coffee is bad for you, but the next day it is good. Alcohol is detrimental for our health one day, but the next day red wine is the elixir of life. There are dozens of diet plans and they promise a leaner and healthier body. There is the 3-Hour Diet that involves constantly eating small portions of anything we want to eat. The latest diet craze, the Paleo Diet, is based upon eating foods that our “hunter-gatherer ancestors” would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era. And there is the Blood Type Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Macrobiotic Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and the list goes on. But who and what should we believe? Well, there is an optimal diet for humans and the answer might surprise many.
In 1985, scholars S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin J. Konner published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled ‘Paleolithic Nutrition’ that provided insight to he evolution of human nutritional requirements. Although...
Paleo diet eating menu is containing all kinds of useful and healthy nutrients such as fresh vegetables, fruits, seafood, vitamins, minerals, lean proteins, healthy fatty acids and useful carbs only. It's also prevents eating the low quality food like processed or junk food, sugars, and unhealthy fats and carbohydrates. As a result for this, paleo diet is named the "healthy diet" and it has too many benefits. Firstly, it decreases chances of heart, arteries, brain and immunity diseases. Secondly, it improves a healthy eating life style and healthy eating habits. It also plays an important role in improving mental health and enhances the brain to function well. In addition, its results also include strengthens skin, hair and nails. However, opponents may have another point of view, as they think paleo diet is dangerous because it cause side effects to the body. They also object about its results, they believe that paleo diet don’t enhance weight loss process. Moreover, they say paleo diet is not inclusive and may deprive us from some useful nutrients. And by discussing and explaining all benefits of paleo diet as mentioned before, we can convince opponents of its
Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.
Many people in America, from toddlers to the elderly, have shown numerous signs of bad health. People have the desire to keep on eating due to more, new things being merchandised as “new and improved items” from the producers. For example, nowadays, people are eating pure junk that they find satisfying on the grocery food shelf. As, stated by Michael Pollan, in his article, “Eat Food: Food Defined” he affirmed that “real food is the type of things that our
So what exactly did cavemen eat, and why should you eat like them? Modern man has advanced significantly in food production, we have discovered ways to make food in all shapes and flavors. We have so many options on what to eat, and so many opinions on what’s good for us and what I not good for us. From the consumer view, nutrition is chaotic at best. One day something is good for you, the next it can cause disease. Eggs increase cholesterol, Eggs do not increase your cholesterol. Pizza is a healthy food, Pizza is junk-food. With so many different methods and practices it can get rather confusing. Take the USDA food pyramid for example, his poster can be found in school cafeterias and hospitals across the country. However an article from Scientific American magazine that was written by scientists from the Harvard school of public health was actually condemning the dietary recommendations of the food pyramid. (Cordain & Friel, 2005) At one point and time there were 30 million Americans following the Atkins diet by eating more fat and losing more weight. However in utter contrast Dean Ornish says that fat and meat cause cancer, heart disease and obesity, and that we would all be better off by converting to vegetarianism. (Cordain & Friel, 2005) In other more well-developed scientific disciplines, universal paradigms help guide researchers to informative end points while they design their respective experiments and theories. For example in Geology the continental drift model established that all current continents were at one time joined as one large continuous landmass that eventually drifted apart to form our current continents. These concepts are not theories but undisputed facts that serve as an orientation for other inquiries r...
The Paleolithic (Paleo) diet also known as (Caveman Diet) is one modeled after the perceived food consumption of early human ancestors of the Paleolithic Era, consisting of mainly meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, eggs, and nuts. The Paleo diet primarily consists of the types of foods available to hunter-gatherer people during this time in history. This would include food like fish, and other lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. What this diet doesn't include is bread, grains, starches, legumes, and refined sugars. Due to eating foods that exist outside of our evolutionary metabolic environment, people now deal with chronic “diseases of civilization” like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.