So the other day I was talking with my friend whose significant other eats only a Paleo diet (i.e., eating as the cavemen did).  I have many friends on a strictly Paleo diet, and am genuinely amazed at their commitment to, and endurance of it.  For example, check out my awesome friend Allison who recently started eating Paleo and is blogging about her adventures on the way!  Allison is a breath of fresh air, both generally and when it comes to her Paleo adventures; many other Internet articles/bloggers tend to leave bad taste with their slightly condescending attitude about non-Paleo eaters who are somehow “less informed.” 

This evening I was perusing the Internet - as I am often want to do when important studying is pending.  To be clear, I’m not trying to hate; I am truly impressed when someone can follow a strict Paleo diet.  Buuuuut… I stumbled upon this article that touts Paleo dieting as clearly superior, and -likely becuase of the stress of bar-prep- it really rubbed me the wrong way.  In just one paragraph, the author effectively demonstrates the irony behind a strictly Paleo diet:

“It’s easy to make fun of the Paleo diet. Right away, everyone says, ‘Sure, and how long did your basic caveman live?’ About 20 to 25 years, it turns out. But primitive hunter-gatherers didn’t die from heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure like we do. They died from germs, viruses, and traumas. We live longer today, in large part, because we have sewers, inoculations, and amazing (if expensive) health-care systems.”  (Full article here.)

So what he’s arguing is that cavemen would have participated in improvements in science and medicine, but not technological advances in cooking/food?  Cavemen didn’t die of cancer resulting from cell-phones/wireless devices either…  I guess it’s time to stop using our iPhones and lap-tops!

Don’t get me wrong, I think the fastest way towards a healthy diet is to cut back on, if not entirely eliminate, processed foods.  But there is an actual, tangible difference between eliminating processed foods and going 100% caveman.  To me, the latter seems unnecessarily restrictive - almost to the point that it’s hard just for the sake of being hard.  I’m willing to bet that if cavemen had rice cookers (or stove-tops on which to cook rice), they would have eaten rice!  And loved it…