Paleo! What is Paleo? Benefits of Paleo Diet? 

What is Paleo?

The meals look delicious, the ingredients are usually responsibly sourced, but what's the theory behind it and why do people eat like that?

 

 

I'm going to explain that to you here.

The principle of the Paleo diet (rather Paleo lifestyle) is based on the way of life of the primeval man; in the days when people were still hunting and gathering. Scientists have investigated how humans lived and what they ate. Human genes are believed to be tuned to this primordial food, as we have lived this way for many thousands of years.

When humans began to develop and learn how to grow certain crops and keep animals themselves (the agricultural revolution), we also started to eat differently. We started eating grains, milking cows, and over time we developed more and more methods of processing these foods. If you plot this event on a timeline of human existence, the agricultural revolution was actually not that long ago.

 

-Prehistoric times

Hunters and gatherers actually already ate Paleo. They mainly ate vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, fruits and sometimes some nuts and seeds.

-Agricultural Revolution

A big change in our diet. We started growing foodstuffs and started processing them more and more. 

-Food from a factory?

Today, much of our food is produced in factories, with a lot of artificial additives and especially a lot of sugar. And our body does not respond well to that. We feel tired and get all kinds of unpleasant complaints.

-Back to basic

Back to our great-great-grandparents, back to our genes. Eating healthy as nature intended. By eating only those things that make us feel great, we feel fit and healthy again. 

The premise: our genes are not modified in this way of eating. The consequence of this is the increasing occurrence of all kinds of diseases; diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, and so on. In addition, more and more people are overweight and vitamin and mineral deficiencies have become normal. Medical science often has no answer for this and the "treatment" is aimed at combating symptoms.

Moreover, everything is being produced more and more massively, as a result of which foods contain less and less nutritional value (fewer vitamins and minerals) and animals are sprayed with hormones and antibiotics; We also get these substances in and they ensure that our body gets increasingly difficult to excrete (detoxify) these substances.

The Paleo lifestyle has a different solution to this: treat and prevent disease, and promote health by eating the way prehistoric man ate. In short, this primal nutrition consists of:

-Vegetables

-Fish

-Meat

-Eggs

-Fruit

-Nuts and seeds

As you can see, it contains no grains, no dairy products, no legumes and no sugar. In addition, it also contains no chemical additives.

 

Why not sugar?

Sugar is highly addictive and can seriously disrupt our blood sugar levels. Whenever we eat sugar (or many carbohydrates in another form, such as bread or pasta), our body makes insulin to keep blood sugar levels constant. The problem, however, is that people often eat a lot of these blood sugar-raising foods, which makes the body more and more difficult to regulate and eventually even become insensitive to the changes in the sugar levels of the blood and can no longer regulate them. . That is the origin of diabetes.

In addition, a strongly fluctuating blood sugar level means that we are increasingly hungry: we eat more and more often. This reinforces the initial problem.

Our body has almost no storage options for the large amounts of carbohydrates / sugars that we eat, the only solution is to store them as fat.

Why not grains?

Most grains contain gluten; these can cause a so-called "leaky gut", which means that the intestinal wall is damaged so that all kinds of undigested substances can enter our body via the bloodstream. Our body is not sure what to do with those substances, so the immune system starts attacking them. The consequence of this is the development of chronic inflammation throughout the body and an overactive immune system; we are at the root of autoimmune diseases.

 

Why not dairy products?

When a child is born, it is perfectly capable of digesting milk: mother's milk. A child produces enzymes that allow the components of milk (lactose, milk protein) to be broken down properly. After a few years, the child loses this possibility; he will have to eat solid food.

For adults, digesting milk products is difficult, especially when it concerns milk from another animal (such as a cow). This also ensures that the intestinal wall is damaged and cannot do its job optimally.

Why not legumes?

Legumes do occur naturally in nature; yet they contain so-called anti-nutrients. These are substances that a plant produces to protect its seeds (which are actually legumes) against animals. These substances can again damage the intestinal wall.

 

How do I get enough energy if I eat no grains or low carbohydrates?

Humans were not actually made to have carbohydrates as their primary fuel. The thing we as humans can burn most efficiently is fat. So you need fat. Fat serves as fuel, it does not make you fat, and it also gives a satiated feeling and constant energy flow.

But not every fat is equally suitable for eating; The Paleo lifestyle mainly uses stable, saturated fats for cooking, such as coconut oil. A stable fat is a fat that does not oxidize at high temperatures; Oxidation of fat means that the fat is "burned", when you ingest it it will cause damage in the body.

Less stable fats, such as olive oil, are suitable for eating cold, but only if such a fat has a healthy composition of fatty acids. Sunflower oil, soybean oil, margarine, etc. are all not suitable for eating cold or hot; they have been processed so far and contain a lot of omega-6 fatty acids, this causes damage in the body cells and also causes acidification. This does not benefit the daily routine in the body, such as cell division and resistance to pathogens.

Fatty fish is also a very good and healthy source of fat with a good composition.

 

Paleo Diet Chart? 

Where do I get calcium if I don't eat dairy products?

 

That is very simple: you get calcium mainly from green vegetables. Although milk contains a lot of calcium, it is very difficult for humans to absorb it. So difficult, in fact, that digesting milk can cause the body to draw calcium from our bones; eventually it costs more calcium than it yields.

The calcium that you find in (green) vegetables is very easy for us to absorb.