Paleo Diet: Should We Really Be Eating Like Our Stone Age Ancestors?

What Is the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately, mammoth is off the menu—but Paleo is still a varied way of eating, where you "hunt and gather" what’s fresh from farmers' markets and supermarket counters. Just leave out grains, dairy, and sugar. What’s the point? The Paleo diet aims to address many of the problems caused by modern eating habits.

Before farming, humans lived as hunter-gatherers, relying on what they could find in nature. The Stone Age diet included anything that could be hunted, gathered, or eaten raw, cooked, or roasted. It varied throughout the year and featured a broad range of plant and animal foods. Notably absent were milk, sugar, grains, and legumes.

Milk, grains, and legumes only became part of our diet with the advent of agriculture, introducing substances like lactose, casein (milk protein), and gluten, which some people struggle to digest even today. Refined sugar is a more recent "innovation" of the 19th century, with disastrous effects on rates of heart disease and diabetes.

Paleo Meal Plan: What a Typical Day Looks Like

The Paleo diet draws inspiration from the eating habits of Stone Age hunter-gatherers but adapted for modern times. What we eat today has largely been shaped by agriculture, just like grains, dairy, and legumes. Our modern fruits, vegetables, and farmed animals look quite different from their wild ancestors, but the Paleo concept focuses on the fact that the nutrients are essentially the same as they were 15,000 years ago. The idea is that our digestive systems haven't changed much since then, and our bodies thrive on these natural, whole foods better than on today’s processed diet.

What’s allowed on Paleo:

• All types of vegetables
• All types of fruit, even exotic ones
• Mushrooms
• Seaweed
• Nuts and seeds (but no grains or peanuts)
• Eggs
• Meat
• Fish
• Seafood
• Bacon, lard, beef tallow
• Coconut oil, nut oils, sesame oil, olive oil, palm oil, avocado oil
• Ghee (clarified butter without lactose or casein)
• Honey, maple syrup
• Herbs and spices

What’s not allowed on Paleo:

• Grains and grain products
• Corn
• Legumes
• Peanuts
• Dairy products
• Sugar and artificial sweeteners
• Trans fats
• Salt
• Alcohol
• Highly processed foods like sausages, crisps, and ready meals

Highly processed foods differ greatly from natural foods, often containing additives like preservatives, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers, and artificial colours, which weren’t part of our ancestors' diets—and therefore aren’t Paleo-approved. If a food contains more than basic preservation techniques like drying or fermenting, it’s not Paleo.

Benefits of the Paleo Diet: Healthy Eating Like Our Ancestors

By going Paleo, you say goodbye to sugar, grains, potential allergens, and many chemicals that shouldn’t really be part of a human diet. In return, you fill up on healthy proteins and a rich variety of plant nutrients: vitamins, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory agents, immune boosters, cholesterol regulators, and fibre—nature’s own medicine cabinet.

Many people experience a surge of energy on the Paleo diet. They feel healthier and more vibrant overall; alertness, physical, and mental performance improve—and sleep quality gets better too.

The Paleo diet is also known for its positive impact on common lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes. These conditions are often caused by too much sugar, refined grains, and processed meats. Cutting them out of your diet can help improve blood sugar control and lower blood pressure.

Struggling with extra weight? Paleo can help here too. By eliminating grains and sugar, you cut so many calories that you might not even need to go on a formal diet.