The New Cavemen Lifestyle

This looks like nothing but BS to me, there's a reason this is in the NYT's Style section.<p>The most telling quote from the article is <i>“I didn’t want to do some faddish diet that my sister would do,” Mr. Durant said.</i> This just reeks of pathetic insecurity, I'm not surprised the conclusions he came to were ridiculous.<p>Apparently, there's not even much of a consensus about what people used to eat back then. According to Wikipedia: <i>However, there is little direct evidence of the relative proportions of plant and animal foods.[94] According to some anthropologists and advocates of the modern Paleolithic diet, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed a significant amount of meat and possibly obtained most of their food from hunting.[95] Competing hypotheses suggest that Paleolithic humans may have consumed a plant-based diet in general,[58] or that hunting and gathering possibly contributed equally to their diet.[96] One hypothesis is that carbohydrate tubers (plant underground storage organs) may have been eaten in high amounts by our pre-agricultural humans.[97][98][99][100] However, the relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic peoples probably varied between regions. For instance, hunter gatherers in tropical regions such as Africa probably consumed a plant-based diet, while populations in colder regions such as Northern Europe most likely obtained most of their food from meat.[101]</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic#Diet_and_nutrition" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic#Diet_and_nutrition</a><p>This whole thing smacks of a silly trend among a small group of NY hipsters to sound cool and eat a shit load of meat.

I'm sorry but there is no way I would subscribe to this diet. According to the article being "paleo" means excluding bread and I'm going to assume cheese, beer and wine as well. Well that's where I draw the line. I don't think they realize how amazing those creations are. Cheesemakers, winemakers and beer brewers are gods among men.

I find this type of a diet rather off-putting due to the high amount of meat you have to eat.<p>Now I'm not a vegeterian, nor am I a PETA campaigner, but I do believe in animal rights. And the idea of promoting a diet that makes people eat copious amounts of meat sounds .... unkind (for the lack of a better word). It creates a grown in the demand to rear and kill animals.<p>I'm not trying to draw on a vegeterian vs meat-eaters debate here, but does anyone else feel this way when they read about this diet?

People who are interested in upper Paleolithic lifestyles will be fascinated by the book The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie, my favorite read of 2008.<p><a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&#38;bookkey=3534406" rel="nofollow">http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=sy...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp/0226311260" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp...</a><p>The author is a paleozoologist who specializes in upper Paleolithic megafauna (which occasionally are found as frozen specimens with soft tissue preserved in the part of Alaska where he conducts his research) and is also an experience bow-hunter and expert visual artist. The book has an astounding bibliography listed literature in English and other languages about all aspects of human life in the Pleistocene epoch.

The topic is very important but the article was really bad. A few no-nonsense links for the interested:<p><a href="http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/" rel="nofollow">http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/</a><p><a href="http://www.paleonu.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.paleonu.com/</a><p><a href="http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/</a><p><a href="http://nephropal.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://nephropal.blogspot.com/</a><p>I very much like Dr Harris (PaNu blog) position: is not about blindly replicating cavemen lifestile, but studing their metabolism (which is ours) in the light of modern science.

So, I'm actually both a geek and a Paleo eater. And I did create a site called www.paleoplan.com because after eating this way for a while, I was amazed at how healthy I felt.<p>Could this be a fad diet? of course... to some people. Could this be a bunch of bullshit? sure. However, after 30 days of completely eliminating wheat, dairy, complex sugars, and starches, I was blown away by how good I felt. I'm still surprised at how I feel, and at my energy levels and general weight loss. So, as I said, I started a site (because that's what geeks do) and now this is how I eat. There's lots of people who follow Paleo eating for a variety of reasons. Some are purely performance driven, and have found Paleo to be a great diet plan to help their athletic performance. Some people are celiacs and have wheat allergies and/or lactose intollerant, so eating Paleo is a natural decision. I've also met people who are just interested in eating whole foods, versus processed foods, and have found this diet makes them feel better.<p>I have to leave it to people like Scott Hagnas, Robb Wolf, and Loren Cordain for the science of it, but for me, I feel great, look great, and am just in a better mood all the time after giving up a few things. Call it hocus pokus, call it a fad diet, I don't care, it works for me and I plan to stick with it. The actual article is what you'd expect; media grabbing on to the "story." It's not exactly a true representation of the people I know following this diet.

Has anyone heard if this has some proven health benefits? I wonder how much of the benefits can be attributed to a cut in processed foods and less sugar intake.<p>I was surprised to see Nassim Taleb show up in the article as well.

This article borders on tabloidesque shock-value, but the "Paleo diet" concept, at least, has a reasonably logical basis. But I would recommend this instead of googling "Paleo" immediately:<p><a href="http://www.performancemenu.com/articles/proteinDebate.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.performancemenu.com/articles/proteinDebate.pdf</a><p>The link is down at the moment, but the above is a 4-paper written debate between T. Colin Campbell (The China Study) and Loren Cordain(Paleo Diet). They each advocate widely different approaches to diet, but agree on a few things, most notably that dairy's nutritional benefits are suspect.

Lots of great info from Robb Wolf's site: <a href="http://robbwolf.com/" rel="nofollow">http://robbwolf.com/</a><p>And The Paleolithic Solution podcast by Robb Wolf and Andy Deis [iTunes Link]: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=340221970" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcas...</a><p>Robb Wolf runs Norcal Strength and Conditioning in Chico, California: <a href="http://www.crossfitnorcal.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.crossfitnorcal.com/</a> <a href="http://www.cathletics.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cathletics.com/</a>

Do these "cavemen" concern themselves with hygiene? Or practice safe sex? Or take medicine? Or live to see 40? Those should be among many decidedly non-Paleolithic habits which these "cavemen" should be very much against.

From the standup I've seen:<p>The reason the caveman were skinny is that before they could eat meat they had to chase it for few days and kill it with a stick.

"eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture..."<p>"...I didn’t want to do some faddish diet that my sister would do."<p>Well, he is almost doing Atkins/South Beach/Low Carb but just gave it another name.

&#62; Mr. Le Corre, 38, who once made soap for a living<p>Tyler Durden?

A friend of mine, influenced by CrossFit, just launched a startup of his own: <a href="http://www.paleoplan.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.paleoplan.com/</a><p>I love the concept, and want it expanded to other things (how many people have tried vegetarianism only to end up eating nothing but pasta?) but I don't eat enough meat to really consider Paleo.

They must be missing out on the amazing number of antioxidants founds in vegetables. I wonder if they replace them? Personally I think it's a bit silly to assume that the first nutritional habits of man were somehow the best but it definitely meets all the criteria for an interesting fad which is probably what they care about more than anything else.

This reads like an Onion article.

Damn. I thought this was going to be an article about programmers.

Once again, it seems someone has successfully trolled the lifestyle writers at the NYT with something so fringe that it could possibly be simply made-up. If this was on the front page of Reddit, we'd be calling the people trolls and saying that was fake.