Book review: The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain

I’ve mentioned a few times that I try and follow the Paleo Diet as much as I can. The original reference book on this subject is The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain (affiliate links: UK, US). Here is my review of the great work.

Before you start: remind me, what is the Paleo Diet again?

*Sighs* The Paleo Diet is based on the principle that less than 10,000 years ago (and for the 2.5m years before that), every single human(-oid) on the planet ate the same diet. The diet is basically what we ate before the development of agriculture, which is what we could hunt or gather.

This meant that we ate mainly lean meat, fruits and vegetables.

And by inspecting their bony remains, scientists observed that these stone-age humans were almost entirely free from obesity, heart disease, tooth decay and many other ailments that best modern people. They therefore concluded that the diet could be the secret to health and longevity. Consequently, they hypothesised that we actually evolved to absorb these foods better and more efficiently than any other foods. It makes for a compelling thesis.

And why is this diet so radical if everyone used to eat it?

Well, notably absent from the list of foods eaten by ancient humans is the foundation of the modern food pyramid, all 6-11 servings of it:

The Food Pyramid: adopted by the US Department of Agriculture in 1992

This means that the Paleo Diet flies in the face of modern nutritional wisdom. If you’re interested in reading more about food groups according to the US Government, you can read about their selection of research papers on macronutrients here and you can read their recommendations here.

OK, I’m with you now. Hit me.

My pleasure. The Paleo Diet is the fundamental work on the diet of our ancient ancestors and the diet that our bodies are designed to eat. It’s set out in three main sections but it’s really not that strongly subdivided (which really bothers me as an anally-retentive, analytical type). I guess in order to appeal to a wider, less boring audience, it’s been written as more of a chatty sort of book that covers the material in a loose structure.

At it’s most basic, the Paleo Diet has six rules, which are laid out in chapter two:

All the lean meats, fish and seafood you can eat
All the fruits and vegetables you can eat
No cereals
No legumes
No diary products
No processed foods

Yeah, I’ve heard all that before. What’s new?

Well, you’re right. Not much is new. In fact, it’s about 2.5m years old. You can summarise the Paleo Diet down to a very simple formula. I mean, how complicated can it be if a caveman can understand it?

And, yes, having read the book from cover to cover, I think that 90% of the book is explained just by those six rules. So if you’re the laid-back type and you’re happy you’ve understood those rules then read no more.

However, Cordain makes a number of fundamental points that differentiate him from popular mainstream writers such as Mark’s Daily Apple (and I use Mark’s Daily Apple as an example simply because his site is great and it’s easy to navigate and find things).

Check out these examples:

The Paleo Diet isn’t the same as a low-carb, high-fat diet. Cheese, butter and bacon are not staples of the Paleo Diet (c.f. Mark’s Daily Apple on saturated fat)
Saturated fat is bad for you and causes high cholesterol (c.f. Mark’s Daily Apple on cholesterol)
Hunter-gatherer diets were rich in fruits and vegetables (but not starchy potatoes) and The Paleo Diet not therefore a low-carb diet (c.f. Mark’s Daily Apple on low-carb diets)
Stone-age humans ate very little salt (c.f Mark’s Daily Apple on salt, which is similar but less militant)
The Paleo Diet is based on lean meat (55% of total calories), which increases the metabolism and reduces the risk of heart disease (c.f Mark’s Daily Apple, which assumes 1g of protein per lb bodyweight (maybe 25% of total calories)

What else is interesting?

Well, if you enjoy getting under the skin of our ancient ancestral diets and the whys and the wherefores, Cordain goes into some of the scientific theories that have been constructed around the development of the human body in conjunction with its diet:

Lean meat is the reason that humans developed larger brains
Grains are what cause health problems: the fossil record shows that the early farmers were plagued with vitamin and mineral deficiences and they are the first to show tooth decay
Farming cultures lack Vitamin C because cereals have zero Vitamin C
Cereals are also poor sources of the B vitamins, despite what cereal packets will claim (I’ve always thought cereals had to be bad for you. I mean, why would they have to add so many extra vitamins to it if it were naturally good for you?)
Syndrome X diseases (type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity, myopia, acne and breast, prostate and colon cancers) are linked to elevated levels of insulin in the bloodstream

Why should I read it again?

This is the fundamental work on the diet of our ancestors. If you accept the theory that our bodies are designed to run on paleolithic foods, just like a petrol engine is designed to run on petrol and a diesel engine is designed to run on diesel, then you will want to read it. There are enough differences between this book and the mainstream to make you sit up and think.

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