School’s of Paleo Thought

Paleo, Primal, Ancestral Eating, AIP, Vegan, what the -?

There is a multitude of diets and ways of eating out there but the ‘it’ diet of the moment is definitely Paleo. While the media has mutilated the Paleo framework to appear dangerous, experts in the field of nutrition have also tweaked the diet and created a number of different schools of Paleo, making the diet all the more confusing. With all of this confusion abound, I have decided to simply it for you, explaining each School of Paleo Thought, their curriculum and whether I’d be willing to pay any tuition…

Schools Of Paleo Thought Explained:

My Thoughts Towards the Paleo Diet

I guess the closest to my curriculum is a combination of the Primal Diet mixed with Blood Type/Ancestral Eating, Mark Sisson and I are probably the two naughty kids sitting at the back of the class talking too much. Like myself though, Mark speaks about the importance of making a diet sustainable; encouraging his followers to ‘see what you can get away with’. Peter D’Adamo illustrates our evolutionary success and the unique adaptability that humans display. Our ability to genetically adapt to our environment is unique across the many species on the planet.

When followed obsessively I have seen the Paleo diet, the Vegan diet and even the Blood Type diet lead to disordered and isolating relationships with food and unless it is absolutely necessary, like in the case of an auto-immune disease for example, I would not recommend anyone follow any diet 100% of the time. However, as a step towards healing and detoxifying the body, I by all means endorse the Paleo style diet, but following this elimination diet, I usually encourage my patients to reintroduce ‘non-paleo’ wholefoods such as dairy, legumes and ancient grains and see how they feel.

If you find that you do well on dairy, then by all means serve your morning Forage with a high quality full-fat yoghurt, or if you’re a high performing athlete that thrives on meal preps with rice then by all means, meal prep away. You might even find that you tolerate some amount of chocolate, or alcohol each week.

I’m a huge advocate for the 80/20 rule: eating nutritionally dense wholefoods 80% of the time and leaving myself a little ‘play room’ of 20% that equates to 3 ‘muck around meals’ a week.

So all in all, you might want to enroll in one of these schools to get you started, but unless absolutely necessary, there is no need to be a lifetime student; you might just find that those best parts of university might still be able to be a part of a balanced 80/20 diet and lifestyle approach.