The Caveman Diet
The makers of the Caveman Diet, who first emerged some time in the 1970’s seem to believe that they have discovered the secret to a 40,000 year old diet used by the cavemen, who must have been healthy, powerful, and virile. I’m not sure how I feel about that. We know little to nothing about the cavemen. But when a diet works, the advertising is just entertainment and doesn’t necessarily matter.
The concept is simple. If the cavemen didn’t eat it, you don’t eat it. This obviously cuts out processed foods. But it also cuts out grains (because cavemen didn’t make bread or noodles!), and it cuts out any dried out or sugared fruits or vegetables. I think cured meats are okay, because who knows, maybe cavemen at their meat raw. But I don’t know anybody who is going to do that. What do Caveman dieters eat?
The Caveman Diet
Now that we’ve gone over all of the restrictions, here’s what it comes down to. Caveman dieters are allowed to eat plenty of meat. Now, guidance counselors say that you should stick to lean meat, I would say gamey meat considering Cavemen probably did not have the fatty cows and other domesticated farm animals we do now. But the people behind Caveman Diet say that you just need to stick to lean meats of any kind. And yes, you can cook it.
Outside of that, the Caveman Diet encourages dieters to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and other potentially healthy foods such as that. Maybe you should stick to wild berries and test it out to see which ones are poisonous and which ones are not. That’s what the cavemen would have done, technically.
The Controversy
I make fun. But the Caveman Diet has actually met with some controversy. Some believe that it’s basically healthy, because it focuses on lean proteins, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, much like a low carb diet. But then again, a lot of nutritionists don’t actually like the low carb diet. Most experts say that the “evolutionary logic” is crap and the creators have no idea what Cavemen really did. And it’s true. Most nutritionists also do not believe in eliminating an entire food group. You can cut carbs down, but carbs and grains are necessary to a healthy diet.
Conclusion
A typical day for a cavemen might look like this: find meat, fail to find meat, roll rock up hill, find berries, maybe find rabbit, roast it over fire (if the caveman had fire at that point), watch out for predators that might eat rabbit and me, eat, go to bed. Does that sound like an exciting life to you? It sounds downright scary to me. And frankly, the societies with “bigger brains” seemed to evolve out of that stage of life. Were the cavemen strong? I’m sure. Running from or watching out for predators all day as you hunt must be exhausting. But that doesn’t make the caveman lifestyle or in this case a diet that cuts out an entire food group particularly healthy.
