What is Paleo?

"He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician" 
(Chinese Proverb)

In my Chinese herbal medicine class, we were taught that Food is Medicine and Medicine is Food. I've come to find that this is also the basis of the Palo diet. Your medicine cabinet can be your kitchen.

Lets start with finding things about our bodies that we'd like to fix (and I don't mean bigger boobs and a smaller butt). Take a look at this list.

Did you know that Paleo can help with:
Depression
Bad skin
Appetite
Mood swings
Fat to Muscle ratio
Irregular bowel movements
Poor vision
Fluctuating energy level
Autoimmune Conditions (Alzheimers, asthma, type 1 diabetes, psoriasis, Parkinsons, eczema, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, etc)
Blood sugar regulation
Leaky gut
Irritable bowel syndrome
Chronic fatigue
Cancer recovery

WOW...that was just a FEW things I picked off a loooooooong long list!
Can you relate to one or more of these issues? I definitely can.
Right away you can see that this is not a diet it's an alternative approach to eating to help your overall health and well being.

The main points of paleo:
Going back to the way that our ancestors ate before the agricultural revolution.
Loren Cordain (author of The Paleo Diet) argues that modern day diabetes and obesity are directly related to changes in our food system that occurred during the industrial/agricultural revolution.
All you are changing in your diet is:
Avoiding factory foods, processed foods, refined foods.
Only eating whole foods which are the best providers of fuel for your body

A few other names for the paleo diet:
Whole Food
Grain-Free
Primal
Ancestral

I would reccomend trying to pick up one of these books:
The Paleo Diet - Dr. Loren Cordain
The Paleo Solution - Robb Wolf
Food and Western Disease: Health and Nutrition From an Evolutionary Perspective - Dr. Alessio Fasano
Practical Paleo  - Diane Sanfilippo (contains recipes!)

Again, my blog posts are pretty brief compared to how in-depth I'd like to go. But I'm just trying to provide you with the basic facts of Paleo for now. If you're intrigued and want to go balls-to-the-wall Paleo then you should definitely check out one of those books. My favorite was Practical Paleo. The recipes are AMAZING. 

My next entry will be about what the government has been telling us to eat and why its WRONG and why they know it but don't change it.