{"id":5746,"date":"2013-01-23T09:26:16","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T17:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=5746"},"modified":"2013-01-28T14:33:56","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T22:33:56","slug":"the-modern-caveman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/01\/23\/the-modern-caveman\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Grapes<\/em>: The modern caveman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo by lord jim\/flickr creative commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019re all set. You\u2019ve scrounged the internet for recipes and braved the darkest corners of the health food store. You\u2019ve whipped up a gourmet meal, without meat, without dairy, without even a hint of gluten, that\u2019s sure to please every one of your guests. You\u2019ve got this dinner party under control.<\/p>\n

But wait. What you don\u2019t know is\u00c9 there\u2019s a caveman coming to dinner.<\/p>\n

Health nuts across North America are jumping on a new diet bandwagon: the Paleolithic Diet, otherwise known as the Caveman Diet, or\u0143if two names wasn\u2019t enough\u0143Paleo.<\/p>\n

Though the name may tempt your imagination to run wild with images of dread-heads hunting with homemade spears, the reality isn\u2019t as primitive as all that.<\/p>\n

The diet is based on the supposed eating habits of our paleolithic ancestors and, according to founder Dr. Loren Cordain, it\u2019s \u201cthe world\u2019s healthiest diet.\u201d It\u2019s become particularly popular among athletes and there are even plans for a Paleo-style fast food restaurant in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a modern caveman (caveperson?) chowing down on these days? Well, meat, of course, along with non-starchy vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and seafood.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not on the menu is anything that came into our diet at the advent of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago. This means no grains, dairy, legumes, salt, sugar, or processed oils.<\/p>\n

For anyone who\u2019s been trying desperately to navigate the realm of healthy-eating dos and don\u2019ts, this really throws a wrench in the works. For years we\u2019ve been told to cut down on meat and get our whole grains. Now, \u201cthe world\u2019s healthiest diet\u201d is telling us to toss that brown rice and quinoa in favour of a fatty strip loin.<\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t think India will be very happy when they find out chickpeas and lentils are actually bad for you. Did you hear that, India? To a Paleo-eater, your dahl is the devil.<\/p>\n

The strictest followers of the Caveman Diet actually insist that meats be grass-fed and much of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds be wild-foraged. It\u2019s no wonder that this diet is touted to be a great weight-loss tool. Just hunting down these hard-to-come-by items is sure to burn a bunch of calories.<\/p>\n

Most proponents of Paleo take a more modern approach, but the diet has still been met with a slew of criticism from the medical community.<\/p>\n

At best, the diet is written off as just another fad. At worst, it\u2019s said to pose serious health risks.<\/p>\n

A 2012 US News Magazine <\/i>survey, based on health benefits and easiness of following, ranked the Paleo diet dead last compared to 27 other diets.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s time to put down the club, take off the loin cloth, and go eat a falafel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re all set. You\u2019ve scrounged the internet for recipes and braved the darkest corners of the health food store. You\u2019ve whipped up a gourmet meal, without meat, without dairy, without even a hint of gluten, that\u2019s sure to please every one of your guests. You\u2019ve got this dinner party under control. But wait. What you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-january-23-1013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5948,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions\/5948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}