Eating Paleo?

the diet works, but the suggestion that the foods she's eating are "paleo" is incorrect. Woolly rhino is paleo. Sheep, cow and pig are not. Also, most plants in the supermarket have been selectively bred and/or come from parts of the world that humans didn't reach until around 10,000 years ago. Additionally, the palaeolithic era spans the best part of 2 million years, during this time several different species of humans evolved and died out and each one had their own different hunting, gathering and scavenging strategies. I, for one, would not like to attempt to live off the diet of a Homo habilis.

If you're talking food groups rather than individual species, then palaoelithic people would have eaten whatever wild grains and legumes grew within their foraging range. The only truly post-neolithic food is dairy, because wild animals can't be milked, but many populations around the world have adapted to be able to digest dairy in adulthood (i.e. they possess the lactase persistance gene) and so there's no reason to give up dairy unless you're intolerant and/or allergic to it.

Giving up dairy, grains and legumes works for most people from a fat loss point of view because they are calorie dense foods and if they're replaced with lean proteins and low calorie density foods like vegetables, you'll inadvertently end up eating fewer calories and thus lose weight. Additionally, people with undiagnosed allergies/intolerances to any of the omitted foods will find that their health improves greatly from this diet, although a more systematic process for eliminating foods would be better, it's possible they were allergic to only one particular thing, but they gave up a lot of stuff together, they're not going to know which one it was that caused the allergy (for example).

I'm not against the principle of eating the way we evolved to eat, but a) our evolutionary niche is adaptability and b) there is so much pseudoscience surrounding the paleo diet that it makes me want to cry sheldon tears ("I cry because people are stupid and that makes me sad") and c) it's impossible in modern times to truly emulate a palaeolithic diet, so better advice would be "match the amount of carbs you eat to your activity level, and avoid foods that make you ill" and also d) the main reason why palaoelithic people had better body composition than modern people is because they had to catch their food before they could eat it, therefore they were very physically active. Modern people are way too sedentary, everyone should find ways to be more active.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1003387-let-s-be-serious-about-paleo