April 28, 2010 -- The Paleo Diet is growing globally in popularity with more and more people realizing that modern day illnesses and ailments are better cured by a switch to natural eating than by prescription medicine. As a society we are facing the reality that eating organically like our forefathers did is a sure path to better health and longer living. Yet there are still a number of questions surrounding the Paleo Diet and its place in modern day cuisine. Author of the Paleo Cookbooks Nikki Young enlists the knowledge of qualified CrossFit trainer and dietetics student Greg Battaglia to explore the Paleo Diet deeper than ever before.
Nikki and Greg analyze the early human diet against geographical location, and it becomes instantly obvious that our ancestors, no matter where there were located and no matter how different their diets were, ate their foods exactly as nature intended without any tampering or adding of artificially created ingredients.
A number of skeptics argue that the human body has since evolved and adapted to cope with an increase in carbohydrates, dairy and wheat products. And considering our ancestors ate differently depending on their location, surely there is some truth in this debate. No, says Greg Battaglia; “the fact that many people are gluten intolerant can be explained using the Paleo model. If gluten didn't cause any problems we wouldn't tell people to not eat grains simply because our ancestors didn’t.” It would seem any hopes of the human body using high levels of processed sugar in a positive way are in vain, no matter where you live.
Greg explains that not all of our ancestors were healthy. They were often required to go without food for extended periods of time and some foods were only seasonally available. This caused dietary deficiencies, something many people in the modern day are experiencing due to not eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. The food our ancestors did eat was extremely healthy and they certainly weren’t suffering from obesity or dairy intolerance. In the modern era the majority of us have constant access to food; therefore we should be obtaining all the nutrients we can and simply avoiding foods that are known to cause physiological problems. We have the ability to live even healthier than our ancestors. We can design our own Paleo diet without the restriction of geographical location.
Interestingly, Greg goes on to discuss not just the neglect of natural diet but the neglect of Paleolithic living in general. He points out society’s obsession with television, material belongings and the equating of money with happiness. Our ancestors owned little and lived nomadically, but we have become obsessed with evolutionary fitness and completely neglected the primal mind. We are basically abandoning our health in the pursuit of money and materialism. Greg suggests a range of simple meditation techniques to improve our primal state of mind and increase conscious awareness of our primal roots. He also offers practical recommendations for fat loss, anti-aging, better digestion and performance goal achievements.
What makes this discussion such compelling reading is the obvious but little known concept that Paleo is a lifestyle not just a diet. It is a way of living that replicates that of our healthy predecessors. Undoubtedly none of us are going to swap our home for a place in the woods, but as Greg states; “the take-home message of this is that our mental perspectives should, ideally, be focused on the things that really matter in life, like health, family, friends, and what we’re passionate about.”
Eating unhealthily and replacing our primal mind with temporary gratification through material aspiration is making us increasingly unhealthy. This comprehensive interview and researched discussion provides solid advice, actionable recommendations and the answers needed to achieve healthy living today. The study of our ancestors proves that Paleolithic living is the way to thrive and live longer, just like the Australian Aboriginals, the Inuit, and the Kalahari Bushmen did and still do.
To read the interview with Greg Battaglia, and for further information on Nikki Young’s Paleo Cookbooks, go to http://tinyurl.com/2fr8gcg
