Cavemen did not do this. But they wanted to. |
This piece refutes one of the central claims of Paleo-purveyors, which is that the reason Paleo dieting is good for you is that our bodies haven't had time to adapt to the grains that are now in our diets but weren't when we were cavemen. The article points out a number of examples in which adaptation happened extremely rapidly- much more rapidly than the 30,000 years or so that have elapsed since grains were cultivated agriculturally, ground up, and used to make delicious carb-y bread. Further, some foods, like tomatoes, weren't available to cavemen either, and Paleo diets don't outlaw those.
The author points out that this fact isn't to say that the Paleo diet won't help you lose weight. It's just that any restrictive eating plan where you cut out whole food groups and think intensively about what you're putting in your pie hole probably would.
I would only add to that that while we may have been eating grains for the last 30,000 years, it's really only in the last 30 years or so that we have started eating so many crazy, super-processed grain products. Because they are delicious, of course, but they are completely devoid of nutritional purpose, and they are making us fat. So while cutting out grains entirely probably isn't necessary (or even a good idea), getting rid of the junk carbs almost certainly is.
Happy weekend all!
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