The Paleolithic Diet - Have you tried it?

[Piatchi]

I haven't seen much about this diet on these forums, so I'll briefly explain the diet (which unfortunately wont cover the nitty gritty of the diet). Have any of you heard about, or even better yet, tried this diet on Crohns? Im wanting to give it a try myself. I have not given this diet a shot yet. Please tell me what you think of it. Theres more detailed information on the web about this diet.


The Paleolithic Diet basically uses anthropological research to find out what pre-Agricultural Revolution humans ate and supposedly is what the body is designed to eat.

A few things the diet emphasizes:

Grains are forbidden. The first humans used little to no grains in their diet until the Agricultural Revolution

Eliminate processed foods and sweets. Also greatly reduce carbohydrate intake.

Milk is forbidden. Because of the "lactose window", humans over 2 years old should not consume lactose.

Supermarket red meat is forbidden. Because of the manner that we now grossly overfeed our cattle with corn and fatten them up, the very makeup of their meat is far more fatty than the lean wild animals that humans originally ate. If we're to eat critters, increase the consumption of poultry, and try to find deer/elk meats (can be ordered off the internet or bought from a hunter if you live in the south!)

Grasses (or more practically for us, grass juices)

Eat tons of seafood. Try your best to find wild-caught to minimize on mercury consumption.

Chew well. Dont drink a lot of water WITH your meal, but drink water between meals to prevent hydrochloric acid dilution in the stomach and impeding digestion



There's plenty more to the diet, and in fact the book dishes out more of the nitty gritty and Paleo recipes.
My sister-in-law bought this book and I was wanting to give it a try if other Crohnies had tried it with success.


Thanks!

-Trevor

 

[endibd]

That's close to what I used to get off medication initially, pre-juicing days.

Though I was eating quite a few leafy greens and vegetables, the quantity I consume with juicing is head over heels more.

Many mornings I'll juice a mountain of vegetables weighing several pounds. It's hard to hold down a job and find time to eat and shit that much.

I ate a lot of fish, and fish lower on the food chain. Tons of sardines. Steamed mussels. Salads. Fruit. I did and do eat some grains for calories, though I went through a year or so where I was mostly fruit for calories. It's just so hard to find good fresh fruit in quantity, and I've found juicing vegetables + eating grains like oatmeal = pretty damn close to eating just fresh fruit and vegetables.

It's about enzymes and macro nutrients that are in the food to begin with that usually get stripped out through processing. Eating some dead grains with a pile of living juice is a pretty good practical compromise i've found. Your body has to go through the added stress of converting the starch to sugars, but with the juice providing nourishment I believe it helps the body to clean up that mess after itself, as opposed to just eating the grains, or the grains and meat together.

I think the 80 10 10 diet with some fish thrown in is ideal for humans, but it's hard to find that much fruit so I supplement with grains and drink excess vegetable juice and I don't shy away from fish or the occasional bit of meat in addition, though not meat in excess.

 

[Fog Ducker]

I try to stick to a paleo diet the best I can. No dairy, no grains (that ones had some times, I like oatmeal in the am occasionally) and organic everything. So far so good. I have actually noticed a difference in my health, it has been a lot better. I actually think it makes sense, out of the 10's of thousands of years of our existence only in the last few hundred we have changed out diet. And that's when all kinds of new diseases arose and the obesity epidemic started!

 

[Fog Ducker]

I heard one thing about a true paleo diet, that fruits are not needed, only occasionally and ones that are in season, because that's how it would have been back then.

 

[endibd]

I heard one thing about a true paleo diet, that fruits are not needed, only occasionally and ones that are in season, because that's how it would have been back then.

That fruit thing I'm not convinced of. There's a book called the 80 10 10 diet, and it's pretty damn convincing in its argument.

Right down to the proportions of fat, protein, mineral and calorie ratios in fruit in general when compared to the human body's requirements, and when adequate calories of it are consumed the quantities of each compared to the human body's requirements.

The trick is on any of those diets to eat enough calories. To eat 3000 calories on fruit you're eating pounds of it a day. To eat 3000 calories on vegetables alone I think is impossible.

Personally I think those people are a little nuts in the extremes they go to to be healthy, which I don't think is healthy in and of itself. If you read their message boards online they argue about things like is carrot juice a refined sugar and as bad as white sugar. A bit of an insane conversation to even be having when you step back and realize they're talking about eating vegetables, like why discourage that! Talking someone out of consuming a vegetable.

Even more un-necessary when you see many of the diet conversations on this board seem to go something like, well it hurts me when I eat this food, but I like eating it, what can I take to make me feel better?

 

[Piatchi]

Fog Ducker, I read about the ripened fruits in the Paleo diet too. I kinda found it interesting, but sometimes every good diet has its radical points that you should discard.

About the juicing... I'll definately have to try it. Ive read several posters on these forums that juice. I would say it's worth a try.