Debunking the Paleo Fad

The theory behind the "paleo" diet is that since our paleolithic ancestors ate a diet heavily oriented toward meat and supplemented by whatever plant foods they could find, we are designed to eat that way and will be healthier today if we do. The digestive abilities of anatomically modern humans, however, are different from those of Paleolithic humans, which undermines the diet's core premise. In addition to that, meat today is not what it was then. Even if we accept that we are genetically adapted to eat meat - for the sake of argument, not because it is true, what kind of meat are we adapted to eat? There was no paleolithic grain-fed beef or pepperoni.

According to Dr David Katz, a preventive medicine specialist at the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in a recent interview in Bottom Line Personal, a typical cut from a grain-fed steer gets about 35% of its calories from fat, much of which is saturated fat. That same cut has almost none of the healthy polyunsaturated fat - omega-3 fatty acid - that reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

In contrast, steak from wild game contains almost no saturated fat and a significant amount of omega-3s.

Conventional grain-fed beef and wild game are both technically "red meat" but are radically different nutritionally. Wild game is free ranging, lives off a wide variety of wild plants and gets the exercise that it needs. The next best thing to truly wild game would be bison, which is nearly always grass feed and free range.

Most of the world's longest living people live in areas - the so-called "blue zones" - where the typical diet includes meat as an occasional part but consists primarily of beans, lentils and fish as their primary protein source. How many of our paleolithic ancestors lived to be 100 years old?