The diet typically consists of fish, grass-fed pasture-raised meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes what are perceived to be agricultural products: grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. It is argued that human populations subsisting today on diets thought to be similar to that of our Paleolithic ancestors are largely free of diseases of affluence.
The Paleolithic diet is also known as the "caveman diet", "Stone Age diet", and "hunter-gatherer diet".
The Paleolithic diet seeks to mimic the diet of preagricultural foragers; it generally corresponds to what was available in any of the ecological niches of Paleolithic humans. Based on commonly available modern foods, it includes cultivated plants and domesticated animal meat as an alternative to the wild sources of the original preagricultural diet. The ancestral human diet is inferred from historical and ethnographic studies of modern-day forages, as well as from archaeological finds, anthropological evidence, and application of optimal foraging theory.
The Paleolithic diet consists of foods that can be fished and hunted, such as seafood and meat (including offal), and foods that can be gathered, such as eggs, fruits, herbs, insects, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, spices, and vegetables. The meats recommended for consumption are preferably free of food additives, such as wild game meats and grass-fed beef, since they contain higher levels of omega-3 fats compared with grain-produced domestic meats.[82] Food groups that advocates claim were rarely or never consumed by humans before the Neolithic agricultural revolution are excluded from the diet, mainly dairy products, grains, legumes (e.g., beans and peanuts), processed oils, refined sugar, and salt. Many of these foods would have been available at certain times of the year and may or may not have been consumed. Some advocates consider the use of oils with low omega-6/omega-3 ratios, such as olive oil, to be healthy and advisable.
On the Paleolithic diet, practitioners are permitted to drink mainly water, and some advocates recommend tea as a healthy drink. Eating a wide variety of plant foods is recommended to avoid high intakes of potentially harmful bioactive substances, such as goitrogens, which are present in some roots, seeds, and vegetables. Unlike raw food diets, all foods may be cooked, without restrictions.[83] However, there are Paleolithic dieters who believe that humans have not adapted to cooked foods since the invention of fire by Homo erectus, and so they eat only foods that are both raw and Paleolithic.
