The Paleo Diet While cavemen might not have been very fashion-forward, they apparently knew how to be skinny motherfuckers. The Museum of Natural History really needs to slim down the mannequins in the exhibit to reflect this, don’t you think? So inaccurate. Anyway, this hunter-gatherer-centric Diet is very simple in that it has one rule—only eat shit that Betty Flinstone would have prepared. For those of you who are unfamiliar with history, this means that Kettle Chips and peanut butter are no-goes. Anything processed, such as Lean Cuisines, or foods that require relatively modern technology to produce, such as grains, are not allowed. Neither are dairy products, refined sugars, legumes, potatoes, processed oils or alcohol. Yup, even alcohol. No, they did not have “Stone Age” liquor back then. Yes, I am positive. Anyway, you’re basically allowed to have wild seafood, organic eggs, grass-fed game, vegetables, fruits and some nuts. The idea behind this style of eating is that humans, as a species, have not greatly evolved since the era of our cave-dwelling ancestors. That is, our digestive systems are largely genetically similar to those of dinosaurs and are still not fully adapted to the vast changes in Diet that have occured since the dawn of the agricultural age. Simply put, we’re not that great at digesting the majority of the shit foods that line supermarket shelves today. Yes, even the shelves at Whole Foods. By following a paleolithic diet, however, we would be providing our bodies with ideal foods to which our digestive systems are genetically adapted. When we are better able to process and absorb nutrients from these easily digested foods, we would be more capable of achieving optimal health. But who really cares about primal strength and surly shit like that? Not me or any of my friends, despite the fact that everyone I know has “gone Paleo”. What we love about this Diet is the amount of control and restriction that it provides the user. You can basically reject most foods so long as you can come up with some inane reason as to why. “I’m only channeling cavewomen who lived in the Northern Hemisphere, and I don’t think those were native to that region,” you can say with a dismissive sniff as you swat away a platter of seasonal stone fruit. Um, apricots have a lot of carbs, didn’t you know? Plus, the Diet itself is just really trendy. It’s like the new Dukan Diet, which was originally the new Atkins. You’ll basically be consuming the same meals that you normally ate, but can now affix the hip label of “Paleo” to your dietary habits. But don’t do that shit where you put goat’s milk butter in your coffee or inhale bushels of avocados in one sitting—no-carb calories are still calories, after all.
If you want the read about more insane dieting tactics, check out The Chic Diet, out now on
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