What for many is nothing more than one of the many ways to lose weight that become fashionable from time to time, the paleo diet is really a based on the way Paleolithic humans used to eat..
Controversial, with detractors based on strong ideas, but with real evidence based on the improvement of the health of the people who try it. Reason why some nutrition and health professionals dare to bet on it to treat autoimmune disorders in their patients.
Principles of the Paleo diet
If you would like to discover what are the fundamental ideas on which this type of diet is based, we explain them below:
1. Eliminate the consumption of gluten
And for those who believe that it is an attempt to demonize it, nothing of the sort. The reason behind this principle of the Paleo diet explained in simplified form is that the current gluten comes from a species of wheat that has evolved excessively fast (especially during the last century) compared to our digestive system, so that our species has not had time to adapt to it as a food..
The way in which our body reacts to its presence is more or less forceful depending on each person, but it is harmless to no one. There is increasing evidence of how it irritates the wall of our intestine, which is the gateway to the nutrients from ingested food to our organism.. If we damage it, we will not be able to guarantee neither a good assimilation nor a good health.
2. Vegetables, yes, but not as a herbivore.
Eat vegetables (mainly leafy vegetables) and vegetables to your liking.They are healthy and necessary, but do not forget that they are not the basis of the diet proposed by the Paleo diet, so do not exceed the quantities too much.
3. Incorporate viscera in your regular diet.
Did you know that one of the best sources of choline (essential for the proper functioning of the brain) is the liver?
If the taste is too strong for you, you can prepare gourmet hamburgers in which you combine offal products with red meat and season them with aromatic plants.
4. Reduce the number of meals to only 2 or 3 per day.
Without snacking, although you won’t need it either, you have to eat at each meal until you feel clearly satiated at each meal you eat.
The paleo diet contemplates the ingestion of red meat in its bases.
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5. Welcome red meat (and its fat).
They are one of the best sources of iron as it is present in a very assimilable form by our body and even omega 3 in animals raised outdoors such as deer meat, rabbit, wild boar.
But the paleo diet not only contemplates the intake of red meat in its bases; it also includes the consumption of eggs, seafood, fish (very advisable to consume it frequently) and fats of animal origin.
6. Forget about sugar and artificial sweeteners.
And that includes both sugary drinks and its light version, juices and pastries of any kind, which are excluded from the Paleo diet. Refined sugar causes unwanted alterations in our blood glucose levels and negatively affects both our health and the availability of energy available to our body.
As for artificial sweeteners, they are discarded because of their harmful effect on the intestinal flora. And if our intestine is damaged, which is where the body absorbs the nutrients of the ingested food, we will have problems of nutritional deficiencies.
7. Dairy products, only some and from small animals
The habit of continuing to consume milk in adulthood is as absurd as it is harmful to our organism, which far from assimilating the calcium that we try to obtain by this means, what its lactose does is to inflame the digestive mucous membranes and provoke intolerances.
Let’s forget about cow’s milk (with a high content of growth hormone and linked to tumor development) and turn to cured cheeses (the more the better, to ensure that the ripening process has eliminated all lactose) made with sheep’s or goat’s milk.
Forget about cow’s milk.
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8. Sun exposure to assimilate the calcium we consume.
If we want vitamin D to do its job well and ensure that the calcium we consume through the various foods we eat (for example, cabbage) adheres well to the bone, we must try to get some sun every day. A 30-minute walk in the open air may be enough if we do it regularly.
9. We discard seed oils
The fact that they are vegetable does not mean that they are so beneficial for our health. In fact, this type of fat contains a proportion of omega 6 that is too high to be healthy, in addition to the fact that this type of oil undergoes a refining process that alters its composition in an undesirable way.
10. Yes to vegetable fats from fruits
It is the case of the olive, the avocado or the coconut, as well as the direct consumption of these fruits without needing to separate the fat part from them.
11. Yes, the animal fat is healthy
The only requirement is that it comes from animals that are not fattened with cereal feed (and this is also valid for farmed fish, which are fed with products that favor rapid fattening and worsen the quality of their nutritional value), as is the case of game meat, free-grazing animals or those from organic livestock.
Therefore the paleo diet includes the consumption of fat from oily fish (rich in omega 3), butter, ghee (a purified version of butter from India with great anti-inflammatory action) and also the fat that accompanies the meat of land animals, which are rich in fat-soluble vitamins (i.e. those that are only found as part of the fatty matter).
12. Fruit, in moderation and little sweet
The ones that best represent the Paleo diet are the so-called fruits of the forest or red fruits, which are rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, while the type of sugars contained in them is mainly fructose, which helps to maintain stable blood glucose levels.
Thus we have strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries… that can be incorporated in moderation in our diet. It should be consumed on an empty stomach to take advantage of its healthy properties.
Fruit in moderation, and not too sweet.
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13. Carbohydrates, with starch
And for those people who, in addition to opting for this type of ancestral food for their health, already feel comfortable with their body weight and do not have diabetes problems, they can include some rice, corn, potato, sweet potato and cassava, all starchy vegetable products.
14. No legumes and their anti-nutrients
The high carbohydrate content and the amount of so-called antinutrients in legumes do not make them the best option to obtain the benefits of these foods.
15. Exercise, and it is not a topic
Rather it is the element that closes the virtuous circle that proposes the paleo diet to maintain our health at optimal levels.
In fact, a good advice is given by nutritionist Marc Vergés in relation to the energy expenditure that our Paleolithic ancestors had to make to get their food, “exercise and earn it! With this he invites us to keep the sense of eating in such an energetic way; to make use of that energy.
There is no point in eating a hearty breakfast if we will then spend hours and hours sitting and being inactive.