Is The Paleo Diet Healthy or Dangerous ?
The paleo diet, which consists of getting closer to the diet of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, is in vogue. Although it favors fruits and vegetables, it still raises questions, because of its richness in meats and the exclusion of cereals and legumes.
The paleo diet aims to replicate the diet of hunter-gatherers before the advent of agriculture , around 10,000 years ago.
Paleo diet foods
It therefore includes fruits, vegetables, lean meats (poultry …), fish , eggs, nuts, seeds. On the other hand, it excludes processed foods, sugar , dairy products, alcohol , cereals and legumes that appeared in the Neolithic period.
The proteins occupy a larger share (25 to 35%) than the official recommendations (10 to 27% of energy intake); the paleo diet provides fewer carbohydrates (35 to 45%) than the official recommendations (50 to 55%).
This diet is based on the idea that the body has not been able to adapt to the food upheaval following the appearance of agriculture. The followers of this diet hope to avoid diseases of civilization by returning to a diet of the Paleolithic.
Paleo diet: what danger ?
A paleo diet offers certain advantages: it promotes the intake of fruits and vegetables and avoids unsavory foods, such as sodas, candies or pastries. Several studies, often small in size, have found health benefits: for example, in a small 2015 study , the paleo diet improved blood sugar control in patients with diabetes .
But a strict paleo diet excludes whole grains and legumes ( lentils …), which however provide fiber, and are rather beneficial to health. The paleo diet also provides more meat, and therefore saturated fat; the farm products we eat today are very different from Paleolithic game .
