Could We Just Call it Something Else? There’s Room for All of It!

I had a really nice chat yesterday, with Heath and Gary of Paleo, Inc.   We recorded our chat in which we covered a nice range of topics, including my own journey to Paleo and how I’m often regarded as being “Paleo Police” or Paleo dogmatic. I get it. There are a lot of different viewpoints in the Paleosphere.   There are those who are experts and know their stuff and have been doing what they do for a long time and there are others who…don’t, so much. Whatever the case, my feeling is that there’s room for every varying degree of Paleo and Faux-Paleo; I just wish some of the versions that are so far off could be called something else. An approach which uses a heavy reliance of baked goods using nut flours, daily treats made using honey, raw chocolate, dates and cashews and doesn’t incorporate the primary focus being on local, fresh vegetables, wild proteins and natural fats isn’t Paleo. Nor is an approach which includes grass fed ghee, sprouted beans and ancient grains. This is not to say that there aren’t people who eat these foods and don’t feel sick; and by all means I am in favor of trying different eating approaches on for size to see what fits as part of each of our journeys.  I certainly did, being vegan for two years! And while I do believe from the bottom of my heart that most of us would thrive on True Paleo (and I say ‘most’ only because there are always exceptions), I also think that even making small changes to shift in that direction are still steps down the path toward health. Further, I do think that having a ‘treat’ now and then on occasion makes sense; for example, I make and serve my Paleoista Truffles as a parting gift for holiday dinner parties I host. The big issues, I feel are:

• Overdoing the treats to the point where they’re being consumed on a daily basis, resulting in people not achieving their health goals and then announcing that Paleo doesn’t work (but they never really tried Paleo)
• Adding foods that are just not Paleo and still calling the particular approach Paleo.  If, for example, when I was vegan and began adding fish to my diet, I still called what I was doing vegan, it just wouldn’t be accurate.  Same thing goes for adding foods that are just not Paleo to Paleo yet still calling it Paleo. I came across a protein powder by Designs for Health called Paleo that used peas and rice as protein sources.    Just call it something else.  If that protein powder had been called ‘Bob’s protein’, there wouldn’t be anything to discuss.

Paleo isn’t my approach; in other words, I didn’t ‘invent’ it (but gosh, I sure wish I had!).   I had the opportunity to learn about Dr. Cordain’s research which prompted me to go Paleo in 2005 and now I simply want to share the knowledge with others in order to help empower them to be heal themselves, too, just like I did. That’s it. Not about being right or having every single person agree with me…just to educate. Period! Click here to watch our chat!