Paleo Diet: What Is It & Foods You Can Eat

Many fad diets have come and gone over the years, but one way of eating that’s stuck around for a while is the paleo diet. If you’re trying to lose weight or just live a healthier lifestyle, you may have heard of it, and you may be wondering if this embarking on this new diet is just the lifestyle change you need. We’re quite familiar with the diet here at Organic Restaurants, so let’s take a closer look at it and see just what it entails.

Origins of the Paleo Diet

The idea of the paleo diet is simple. It’s supposed to be a return to how early humans ate, before the rise of processed foods and sugary, unhealthy snacks. Some people liken this diet to eating like a caveman or a hunter-gatherer.

Some people believe that this diet is a good idea because they think that our current diet is simply mismatched with human biology. Their take is that we’re not meant to eat some of the foods that we’re eating, and that our ability to produce different types of food and create a different kind of diet has evolved faster than our body’s ability to adapt to it. The hypothesis, then, is that getting back to a paleo diet can help us live a healthier life and lose weight.

What You Can Eat

The goal of a paleo diet is to eat things that hunter-gatherers would have consumed. This means that most fruits and vegetables are okay. Nuts and seeds, like almonds, can make for excellent snacks when you’re on the paleo diet. You also need to think about what kind of cooking ingredients you’re using. When you use oils, you want to know where they came from. Oils from fruits and nuts, like olive oil, grapeseed oil, and walnut oil, are all fine.

Of course, if you plan to eat like a caveman, meat is going to be a critical part of this diet. Lean meats are preferred, especially if it’s from grass-fed animals or wild game. Plenty of organic food stores and restaurants offer more meat options these days, so it’s not too hard to vary up the beef, pork, and poultry dinners by opting for venison or bison meat instead. Fish that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon and tuna, are also good options.

What You Need to Avoid

You end up avoiding food that a hunter-gatherer generally wouldn’t have been able to find. Most dairy products, potatoes, and highly processed foods in general are not allowed under a paleo diet. You also want to avoid most types of grains. It’s also probably not a surprise that refined sugars and snacks that contain them are off of the list of acceptable foods as well.

If you’re already sticking mostly to organic foods and healthy options, a paleo diet can certainly tie into that. So it may be worth a try if you’re trying to lose weight or get the other potential benefits of a paleo diet, which include better blood pressure control, lower triglycerides, and more.

For More Diet and Organic Food Ideas

If you’re curious about how you can stick to a paleo diet or you want to learn more about places that offer organic options, Organic Restaurants can help. Visit our website for more organic and healthy food ideas!