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Not all diets are planned with weight-loss in mind. Some diets are followed to avoid a food your body reacts with, and others focus on eating a surplus of certain foods to increase your health benefits. Other diets are put in place simply to encourage a healthier lifestyle. The paleo diet is one of these diets.
The paleo diet is based on the presumed diet people may have eaten during the Paleolithic Era (2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.) It is sometimes called the cave man diet, Stone Age diet, or the hunter-gatherer diet (1). The diet consists of foods that were around before the age of farming, so grains and dairy are not included in the diet.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “The diet is based on the idea that our genes are not well adjusted for modern diets that grew out of farming” (1). Instead, people are turning back to the foods originally eaten by man, in a hope to help their bodies function optimally and reduce their risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Because the paleo diet reverts eating habits back to the Stone Age, it encourages an extremely natural, not processed diet.
Staples of the paleo diet include:
Fruits
Vegetables
Lean meat (grass-fed or game)
Fish
Nuts and seeds
Eggs
The diet avoids:
Grains
Legumes
Dairy
Refined/added sugar
Added salt
Highly processed foods
Starchy vegetables (corn, peas, and potatoes) (2)
The paleo diet is loaded with healthy foods, which comes with a plethora of positive health effects. For example, short-term studies of the paleo diet suggest it “might help manage: weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides” (1). The paleo diet might also improve glucose tolerance, which could help manage Type 2 diabetes (2).
Many people also believe the paleo diet can help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, but large-scale studies are yet to be conducted on the topic. Others believe the lowered risk of heart disease comes from avoiding processed foods and loading up on fruits and vegetables, rather than from the paleo diet itself (1). More research still needs to be conducted on the positive health effects of the paleo diet.
Not everyone is an advocate of the paleo diet, however, and some risks need to be taken into consideration before starting the diet. The most glaring risk of the paleo diet is that it avoids grains and dairy, which may deprive your body of certain nutrients. A balanced diet typically recommends all essential food groups–including grains and dairy–to ensure your body gets the calcium and fiber it needs to run properly (2).
Some fruits and vegetables, like fruits and Brussels sprouts, are high in fiber and can help supplement the loss of fiber from grain. To ensure your body gets enough calcium, increasing broccoli and spinach to your diet would allow you to continue on the paleo diet without jeopardizing your digestive health.
Before beginning any diet, consult a medical professional first.
The paleo diet is not explicitly a completely alkaline or completely acidic diet. Instead, it encourages eating both alkaline and acidic foods. By eating more alkaline foods, the paleo diet can be considered alkaline. However, by eating more protein in the paleo diet, the diet can quickly turn acidic.
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are all alkaline or alkaline-yielding foods, and they are all encouraged to be eaten on the paleo diet. By centering your meals around these foods in particular, you are far more likely to create a well-balanced alkaline diet.
That being said, most of your main protein sources allowed on the paleo diet are acidic when digested. Meat, fish, and eggs are all mildly acidic, but they have other beneficial health effects that make them a necessary part of the paleo diet.
To balance out the acidity brought about by the proteins of the diet, consider swapping out your regular drinking water for alkaline water. Alkaline water, while similar in taste to normal water, can help boost your body’s pH levels. Drinking more alkaline water can also help keep you hydrated for longer, more energized, and includes healthy minerals that regular drinking water may filter out. To easily change your tap water into filtered, mineral-packed alkaline water, try aSeychelle water pitcher.
The paleo diet is an eating plan that stems from the Paleolithic Era, and it focuses on eating foods that people would have eaten in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, before farming. The diet centers around lean meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits. Some critics of the paleo diet note that not eating any dairy or grains can deprive the body of crucial vitamins and minerals. The paleo diet includes a mix of alkaline and acidic foods, so it is not explicitly an alkaline diet. However, you can add more alkalinity to your diet by trading your regular drinking water for alkaline water.
What diet makes your body alkaline?
The alkaline diet is the only diet that is explicitly alkaline, encouraging an 80/20 split of alkaline to acidic foods.
What is the controversy with the paleo diet?
The paleo diet cuts out grains and dairy, which deprives the body of fiber, calcium, and other essential vitamins and minerals.
Can you eat eggs on the paleo diet?
Yes. Eggs are a staple protein of the paleo diet.
References
Mayo Clinic,https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/paleo-diet/art-20111182
Cleveland Clinic,https://health.clevelandclinic.org/paleo-diet
