A Diet That’s Delicious

Sometimes I feel like I’m screaming and no one is listening.   What is with the never ending confusion about what the Paleo diet is and what it isn’t?

Look at it this way:  suppose we took the word “Paleo” out of the equation for a moment and just presented a meal.   Perhaps we’d serve wild salmon, pan seared in coconut oil over a bed of sauteed leafy greens, topped with a handful of blueberries.  Or, maybe a rare grass fed bison steak along with blanched asparagus drizzled with olive oil.

To me, those two meals sound like…food.  Food that would appeal to anyone interested in healthy eating or gluten free eating or non-GMO eating or unprocessed eating.   It would also appeal to those who classify themselves as foodies who might not even be that bothered about eating wisely but focus purely on taste.

So, it’s really just common sense.

My reference to feeling like screaming is when i read articles like that in the Dining Section of the Times the other day.  It recapped the article several days earlier on the Mediterranean Diet (pictured above), and described how (surprisingly?) following a Greek-specific version of Mediterranean also happened to be delicious.

Well, guess what?  So is Paleo.   And, if you really consider someone who eats a mostly Paleo diet -say, for example, they eat Paleo 90% of the time and occasionally eat a piece of whole grain bread or some lentils- they’re really not doing anything different from the Mediterranean Diet at all.

So why does Paleo keep getting torn to shreds in most publications?  Why must it always be presented in mainstream platforms as ‘extreme, radical and not something that is sustainable or healthy long term’?

My only guess is that what’s being represented as Paleo is not really Paleo.  

Paleo is not all about eating processed bacon at every meal, or only eating raw meat or only eating large doses of saturated fats and eliminating all fruits or keeping the veggie intake low.  All of the previous permutations are indeed, not healthy ways of eating so it makes sense that if this is what the masses believe Paleo to be, they’re going to discredit it.

Can we please try to set the record straight?  Any opportunity we all have to show how Paleo is actually very balanced, very healthy, very sustainable long term, very delicious and not really extreme after all is one we have to relish.

Just imagine how many more people would give it a try if it began to receive all the accolades that the Mediterranean Diet gets!