Paleo Diet Background Info and Modern Day Challenges to the Paleo Diet

Oct. 6, 2012 - PRLog -- If you're like me, you want a diet that will not only help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight, but also help you look and feel strong and fit. The paleo diet is the perfect diet for this type of goal, but the toughest question to answer is what are foods for the paleo diet?

It is often difficult to discover what foods are appropriate for the paleo diet, since the whole concept of the diet is based on eating foods that our ancestors would have eaten thousands of years ago during the paleolithic era. Obviously, just as humans have evolved, so have the foods we eat. So how can you find appropriate foods for the paleo diet?

You may find it interesting to learn that while our foods have changed and we have indeed evolved as humans over time, our basic genetics are largely unchanged. This is the motivation for the paleo diet. The thought process is that since our ancestors did not have to deal with so-called "diseases of affluence" of the modern era like diabetes and obesity, there must be some link with these and our diets-- if we were to take in fewer sugars, high fructose corn syrup, and other similar modern day food additives, we could help reduce the risk for obesity and other modern illnesses.

The paleo diet consists of more natural foods like unpreserved meats and vegetables. However, a lot of modern day foods do not mimic these unpreserved foods of our ancestors. Many foods today have lots of sodium and other preservatives which are unhealthy in the quantities we consume them and lead to these diseases of affluence.

It can be very difficult to determine which foods are acceptable on the paleo diet. One solution is to find yourself a good paleo diet cookbook, which will not only tell you what kinds of foods to cook in order to adhere to the diet, but it will also tell you what ingredients to purchase at the grocery store so you can be sure that you are eating the most naturally occurring items.

There are a lot of paleo cookbooks out there, but on my website http://www.foodsforpaleodiet.com there is some more information on the diet as well as a detailed review of a good paleo cookbook that I found after trying several out. Feel free to check it out, with a good paleo cookbook you should be on the right track to losing weight and feeling healthier.