Everyone is talking about Paleo now. What does it really mean? Think about the cave-man. He speared the kangaroo for dinner whilst the women in the tribe collected berries, grasses and roots to eat. There were no crops and no refined sugar.
Genetically this is how our bodies are designed to live. Everyone has slightly different genes which makes them fatter, thinner, taller, dark skin, light skin and so on. Sometimes nature has a way of filtering out some genetic attributes. For example in times of famine, those with the gene to hold onto their fat for storage survived and those who released their energy easily didn’t survive. This leads onto a larger group of people today who hold onto their fat which is one reason for our growing (outwards) population.
Man has developed cropping and cultivation practices that give us plenty of food. The problem is that we just eat too much of it and our bodies are not genetically designed for it. It takes a lot longer for the evolution of man than it does for the progress in the manufacture and cultivation of our food. This results in inflammation, increased fat and inability to lose fat due to the inflammation.
The paleo diet indicates no grains, dairy, sugars, starches, alcohol and legumes. Legumes I personally have a problem with eliminating. If we are not eating the high fibre root vegetables and grasses our ancestors did, we are not nourishing out gut flora. Legumes are a great way for high fibre to be included in our diet.
Like most things it is what you do 90% of the time that matters. If you are a generally healthy person the odd dish of rice, oats or legumes is not going to hurt. However, if you have un-ease in your body then each case must be assessed individually on how much you can tolerate and what is the best solution for you.