Your questions seem mostly to have been answered, but as Sara pointed out that they have problems with things like Soy that really don't have anything to do with "paleo" times. A lot of foods are recommended or rejected because of a few small studies done. For instance, with soy, it's "known" to increase estrogen levels. I believe there is conflicting science on how significant the change is and what the effects are. One article I read basically said we don't know if it's good, we don't know if it's bad, so we might as well just add it to the list of exclusions. Especially since a large portion of soy is GMO (and apparently the devil, but people spout off about GMOs without actually understanding them or the true problems with them).

Anyways. Sometimes it seems arbitrary, but there might be a small study or two that suggests something (there might also be other studies argue the opposite point). One of the big resources for the why of a food is Mark's Daily Apple. I think a lot of what he says is crap, but lots of people follow him and believe what he says. I have no idea if the reasons he'll give for or against a particular food is why *most* paleo people will or will not eat a food.

^^while I appreciate your very eloquent post, there are a couple of things I would like to address with it when more awake tomorrow.

1) corn does have nutrients and even if it did not I am not sure why that is a reason to make something a 'no-no'. There has to be something more to it otherwise it just does not make sense. Corn is not evil. Neither is soy, and in fact soy can be a good part of diet, assuming dosage is appropriate.

Yes, corn does have nutrients. In fact, each food on the paleo "no-no" list does to some degree. That doesn't mean it should be consumed regularly.

The regularity at which corn is consumed depends entirely on the nutrient content of the diet as a whole. One can have a diet that is relatively "high" in corn consumption and if nutrient needs are being met through the other food selections (ie corn isn't pushing other needed nutrients off the table) then I don't see any problem with it. Context.

Ultimately eating paleo has helped me transition from eating a previous diet of high-carb, high-grain, high-dairy, high-sugar to high-leafy greens, high-quality proteins and high-fruits and nuts. For that I am thankful. But you're probably talking to the wrong person: after weighing the caloric content of coconut cream this morning, I'm opting to switch to organic half and half and call it a sanity-treat. I'm not a "strict" paleo follower. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. I just prefer to stick to certain foods that give me the most bang for my buck, and corn and soy don't do that for me.

Nothing wrong with eating how you want to eat. I'm glad you found something that works. I would only point out that one could eat a high quality diet that is built around mostly whole and nutrient dense foods while still consuming every food item on the paleo no-no list and have a very healthy diet, and that's one of my main issues with it.

2) other animals in the wild do drink milk when they can get it. The fact that some people think it is super weird to drink milk does not make it so. I do not find it weird at all.

Really? That's news to me. What adult-sized animal naturally drinks milk from another species regularly as part of their staple diet? Please, I'm super interested. Grown zebras weaning on a buffalo? I can't picture it, and it's a weird image to me. Does that mean I HATE cheese, ice cream, yogurt? Absolutely not. But arguing that it is needed for a healthy diet is equally absurd.

The "when they can get it" part is the key part of the above. My cat will drink cows milk if I let her (I don't). Other animals will too, but since they don't have the two thumbs I'm using to type on this keyboard, they aren't going to go pull on a cow tit.

Regarding whether or not you "NEED" milk, nobody here (hopefully) would claim that any specific food item is necessary. No specific food item that I'm aware of, is a necessity.

3) What disease does sugar cause?

Sugar causes inflammation and suppresses your immune system. I am not a doctor nor a scientist, so to get a breakdown of the WHY in specific biological detail I suggest you pick up some books on the subject or read some studies that have been done. I don't avoid fruit however, but anything with added sugar: cakes, pies, puddings, candies, soda, processed foods with sugar, etc. I try to eat for special occasions only.

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If you're going to make the claim about sugar causing immune system suppression you might want to look at dosage and context before trying to apply that, or implicate it, as being problematic. These things matter a great deal.

4) Re inflammation - not in everyone and probably in less people than is touted by some.

Inflammation does happen, and most people I know personally (friends, family) have SOME issues, be it digestive, immune-system, skin response, etc. to various foods. My Dad gets deathly ill after drinking any dairy. My boyfriend get bloated after he eats too much tofu and soy milk. I get skin rashes after I eat too much cheese and dairy. My best friend can't eat gluten or rice, or she feels like dying. I on the other hand love rice and feel fine after eating gluten. So, if you investigate the people around you and become more attuned to your reactions to some foods, you'll be surprised. One of my clients actually has horrible reactions to nightshades and avoiding them helps her manage her arthritis.

Unfortunately, because of lobbyists and the highly political nature of the food industry, we are told that we "need" certain foods in our diets. People then often ignore the signs that their bodies are giving them regarding allergies to common foods. Does this mean you should NEVER eat them? No. Does this mean they are EVIL? No. But do you NEED them? No.

Again nobody here is claiming that any individual food item is necessary. Regarding inflammation from food items, as long as each individual is aware of his or her own intolerance he or she should be good to go. If a food causes you problems and you're sure it's that food doing it (key "if"), then don't eat it. Gluten being a good example of something to be avoided by Celiacs or people with gluten sensitivity/intolerance but it doesn't need to be eliminated by everyone.

You can get a well balanced diet without the arbitrary restrictions of paleo.

Yes, of course you can. Millions of people across the different continents have different diets and staples with their own positive and negative issues. I eat paleo though, because it helps me to feel my best and is a great outline. I am not crazy about it, but I like eating this way and maybe you would to if you tried it?

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My diet is predominantly whole foods and my caloric and nutrient intake is matched to my needs and goals. I select foods I enjoy and my blood work is great, I am in the best shape of my life, and my dietary adherence is sky-high. Based on these factors it would be foolish of me start eliminating foods.

Why on earth would I want to? Why would I exclude things that have no negative impact on me. I can tell you right now, I would not enjoy eating that way at all, on many levels.

To be clear, I have no issue with people who eat paleo (or paleo'ish as most actually do), I am just trying to limit unsupported claims.

I think this is the biggest problem between the paleo crowd and everyone else. Someone paleo will look at a food and say "it's not helping me, I shouldn't eat it" where as an IIFYM type will look at a food and say "if it's not hurting me, why should I cut it out". For that reason, I don't think most people who follow either dogma will see eye to eye. Just too inherently different.

ouiouilezizi--it's fine to eat what you like and avoid what you do not. It's also obviously fine to avoid foods that do not agree with you. But it's not fine to make up pseudoscientific reasons for doing so, or to bring in hyperbole that invalidates your own arguments.

Take, for example, the "other animals don't drink milk" claim. No other animal on this planet has the capability to create and eat the foods that humans cultivate. The foods you choose to eat are not eaten by any wild animals, either--although a few (such as bears, rats, and wolves/dogs) have found an adaptive niche to eat our scraps and garbage, which is tastier and more nutritious than what you can find by hunting and gathering. So the argument about wild animals not drinking milk extends to all of the foods that are on our tables. Wild animals do not imprison each other for later slaughter, and they do not grow crops. Okay, some ants do, but let's not get too far into nerdville here.

As for the inflammation issue, you cannot make a claim and fail to substantiate it and then ask the other people in the thread to do the research for you. Argumentation doesn't work that way. If you say X is true, it isn't my job to prove that it is or it isn't.

regards feeling much better on the paleo diet... this is quite common, and it's due to the fact that food allergies and intolerances are often undiagnosed, and the paleo diet eliminates a lot of food that people are commonly intolerant to. And it's great for that purpose. One thing I'd suggest though, is after going paleo, they try re-introducing the eliminated foods one by one, leaving at least 2 weeks, and seeing if they get any return of the symptoms that stopped when they went paleo. If the symptoms come back, they can stop eating that food again, and see if stopping eating it makes them go away again. And repeat for each eliminated food one at a time. It's very rare for someone to be allergic to *all* the food on the paleo diet banned list, and it is a very restrictive diet. For someone who's totally fine with that level of restriction and never wants to eat other foods and finds no difficulty resulting from the restriction, that's fine. But for a lot of people, restriction is troublesome, and they can in most cases get the same results from a much less restrictive diet, simply by being more systematic about finding exactly which foods are causing the allergy/intolerance symptoms and which don't, and then only eliminating the foods that are actually causing the problems. So basically you get the same benefit as the paleo diet, but with a lot less restriction and trouble.

Another thing, some commonly allergenic foods such as shellfish and some fruits are acceptable on the palaeo diet, some people with allergy symptoms will need to consider those foods as possible causes, not just the ones on the paleo diet banned list. (interestingly, it probably does fit in with the rationale behind the paleo diet, because seafood was possibly only exploited by humans from the upper palaeolithic era onwards (although this could be completely false, just that fish hooks and spears for catching fish were thought to be not invented until the late upper palaeolithic era and more sophisticated ways to catch fish wouldn't be palaeolithic at all), and the fruits in question could be modern cultivars that are quite different to wild varieties, or fruits that are naturally from the Americas (humans didn't reach the Americas until fairly recently in evolutionary terms) but I don't know for sure because i really haven't looked up to check every single fruit that's allergenic to see how different it is to wild varieties or what part of the world it originated from.

Regarding people who eat too many refined carbs... if you go from the standard American diet to any diet that emphasises eating nutrient dense foods and restricting nutrient poor foods, you'll see a big health benefit, this has been proven scientifically, and even just losing fat, no matter what actual diet you're eating, will cause some health benefit - although it is important to get all the nutrients your body needs otherwise you'll suffer from nutritional deficiencies and a tendency to binge (which is the body's survival instinct to prevent malnutrition). So anyone who goes from the standard American diet to the paleo diet will feel a lot better, but it's more to do with being properly nourished for a change, and the same results would happen if they included many of the foods on the paleo banned list within a sensible calorie goal and balanced macronutrients. The paleo diet does result in people eating healthy foods and balanced macros, but it's by far not the only way to achieve that and many people will see the same health benefits on any healthy, balanced diet that is a lot less restrictive.

Regarding dairy - it's not really relevant whether any other species drinks the milk of any other animals. Humans who are descended from enough generations of dairy farmers are adapted to drink milk. It really doesn't matter if no other species has undergone this adaptation. It's happened. Basically, when human populations started drinking animal milk, those that could digest milk as adults would have an additional source of food to help survive during food shortages, so more lactose tolerant people would survive and more lactose intolerant people would die. It's possible that milk drinking started in children, seeing as small children of any population can digest lactose and milk from animals would have supplemented their diet... those who could carry on drinking milk longer would get more to eat in food shortages, plus an additional source of protein, carbs, fat and vitamins, and be stronger and more likely to survive... childhood is quite a critical time, as you're more likely to die then and if you survive childhood you're likely to be a healthy adult, so anything that gives you a survival advantage in childhood is a big deal in evolutionary terms............ the result of this is that lactose intolerance genes were selected out of dairy farming and dairy herding populations due to natural selection, while genes that enable adults to tolerate lactose remained in the population. This is evolution and adaptation. What's interesting is this hasn't just happened once, it's happened independently in different human populations. The most obvious example is in modern Europeans, who are pretty much universally descended from dairy farming populations. However it's also happened in the Masai population in Africa, who have no genetic links to modern European (yes they share a common ancestor if you go back far enough, but the common ancestors would have been hunter gatherers and lactose intolerant), because they are dairy herders and drink a lot of milk. And you can find the same thing in a few other populations worldwide. these populations are adapted to drinking milk and dairy, through evolution by natural selection, the same way any animal is adapted to eating any diet.

I do think that the evolutionary approach to diet and lifestyle is a sensible one, but you have to be aware of just how quickly humans can adapt to changes in the diet when there's a significant selection pressure (i.e. the population is subjected to food shortages and people who can tolerate a new food get a significant survival advantage). So what you can take from that, is if you are lactose intolerant, it's because you've inherited the gene from a non-dairy-eating population, and you should avoid foods that contain significant amounts of lactose; and if you are not lactose intolerant, then you've inherited that gene from a dairy farming or herding population, and you should go ahead and enjoy whatever dairy products you like, as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

From the perspective of a palaeoanthropology nerd... there is no logic behind the majority of what gets touted as paleo on the internet. It doesn't bear any resemblance to actual palaeolithic diets, and most people peddling it don't seem to know very much about palaeoanthropology at all. (there may be some exceptions, there are people out there who take a much more informed approach to the paleo diet, but they tend to do it quietly and not mouth off about wheat being unfit for human consumption or whatever else)

the original concept it was based on is fairly sound, and in fact when I was at uni back in the late 90s, one of the palaeoanthropology lecturers actually taught us about the concept of the paleo diet, but what he said was very, very different to what gets touted on the internet nowadays. It's based on comparisons between modern hunter-gatherers and post-industrical cultures, and also the fact that a lot of foods that people are commonly allergic or intolerant to are those that have been introduced or significantly changed by selective breeding, since the start of the neolithic era (i.e. the start of farming, as opposed to hunter-gathering), e.g. dairy (only breastmilk for babies and small kids was available prior to dairy farming) and wheat (some varieties have been subjected to millenia of selective breeding).

The way we live our lives in modern times is very different to how our fairly recent ancestors lived, in fact the last 10,000 years or so has seen very rapid cultural and technological development that's happened more quickly than we've been able to adapt (for the most part, but there has been adaptation) - so we're on the whole better suited to hunter-gatherer life than sedentary post-industrial life.... but a lot of it is about being sedentary as opposed to walking for miles each day, carrying heavy things and exerting yourself for tasks like hunting. In terms of diet, lactose intolerance is more common in populations that have remained as hunter-gatherers until recent times (e.g. native Australians), but this proves that those who are cultures that have practiced dairy farming or herding for thousands of years actually have adapted to be able to digest lactose as adults. So while the principle that palaeo is based on is fairly sound, there is also evidence that many people have adapted to the post-neolithic diet. Additionally, humans' ecological niche is adaptability, we can adapt very well to a huge variety of cultures, diets, ways of living, so it doesn't stand to reason that we all have to imitate the diets of hunter-gatherers.

But I do think that there is a benefit to considering what our bodies are adapted for, and using this knowledge to improve our health. We are not adapted to be sedentary, we're adapted to be very active, and our ancestors didn't get to eat if they didn't exert themselves to obtain food. The modern obesity epidemic is mostly because it's too easy to get food. Even in the much more recent past people walked to the shops much more, they did more physical jobs, they did physical work in the home, e.g. washing clothes by hand, but now many people don't have to exert themselves for anything much. We're adapted to eat after exercising (as exercise was for the purpose of acquiring food), which is why good post-workout nutrition is very important. We're adapted to share food and enjoy eating as a social event (food sharing in humans seems to go back at least 2 million years according to the archaeological evidence, and probably a lot further seeing as chimpanzees occasionally do co-operative hunting and share the meat, which until recently was thought of as a purely human behaviour). Ignoring the social aspect of eating when trying to be healthy and lose fat can result in people being unable to stick to their eating plan, because they never eat out with friends, and they become miserable... because we didn't evolve to eat alone, we're not meeting our emotional needs if we always eat alone. So there is a lot that you can learn from viewing dieting and fat loss from an evolutionary perspective. But when you do that, what you end up with isn't the same as "The Paleo Diet" as you read about on the internet (though as I said before, there are paleo dieters who take a more intelligent approach.. but what you read most commonly online about it isn't that)

As for why (add food here) is included but (add another random food here) is not included, is because the people saying it don't know much about palaeoanthropology. Another example is why wheat is demonised but bananas are okay... they're both the same from an evolutionary perspective, i.e. both have been cultivated for around 10,000 years and due to selective breeding are very different to the wild varities... go take a look at a wild banana and you'll see what I mean!! Banana allergy is also pretty common, so it's like wheat in that respect too.

It does my head in how little people who promote "paleo" on the internet actually know about how "cavemen" actually lived (including the fact that most palaeolithic people probably didn't live in caves), it makes me cry sheldon tears ("I cry because people are stupid and that makes me sad") and you get them saying the most ridiculous things that make no sense whatsoever, which is a real shame because like i said approaching diet and fitness from an evolutionary perspective can be very beneficial. But in a lot of cases it's like they're getting their info on "paleo" by watching the Flintstones....

This, and all your other comments on this thread, are by far the most interesting I have ever read on MFP. I have no particular interest in fad "paleo" diets but am hugely interested in history and the evolutionary process. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge, you made my coffee break much more interesting today

One can have a diet that is relatively "high" in corn consumption and if nutrient needs are being met through the other food selections (ie corn isn't pushing other needed nutrients off the table) then I don't see any problem with it. Context.

There is that whole "speedbag" issue. Other than that.......

I started Paleo three weeks ago and I feel fab on it! I think that people should eat what they want to eat and diet how they want to diet. I don't go around preaching and I think that as long as its working then im happy!

I enjoy the fact that I am eating none (well certainly less) processed foods. Obviously I am not 100% paleo as that's difficult in this day and age!

I just think people need to appreciate different peoples approaches to life - you wouldn't go to a vegetarian you really should eat meat, or to someone on Paleo - you really should have some pasta and likewise people on paleo shouldn't be telling you what you should and shouldn't eat!

I don't have artificial sweetener anymore and my headaches and so on have gone.

I stick to meats, fish, fruits, veg, greek yogurt (am on tablets that mean I need calcium) and nuts and in this hot weather im really enjoying it!!

I think there may be a typo so just trying to clarify what you are saying in the bolded part.

Sorry - only just seen this - and I meant you wouldn't go to a vegatarin, you really should EAT meat! its a persons lifestyle choice, well mine is anyway! :-)

I started Paleo three weeks ago and I feel fab on it! I think that people should eat what they want to eat and diet how they want to diet. I don't go around preaching and I think that as long as its working then im happy!

I enjoy the fact that I am eating none (well certainly less) processed foods. Obviously I am not 100% paleo as that's difficult in this day and age!

I just think people need to appreciate different peoples approaches to life - you wouldn't go to a vegetarian you really should eat meat, or to someone on Paleo - you really should have some pasta and likewise people on paleo shouldn't be telling you what you should and shouldn't eat!

I don't have artificial sweetener anymore and my headaches and so on have gone.

I stick to meats, fish, fruits, veg, greek yogurt (am on tablets that mean I need calcium) and nuts and in this hot weather im really enjoying it!!

I think there may be a typo so just trying to clarify what you are saying in the bolded part.

Sorry - only just seen this - and I meant you wouldn't go to a vegatarin, you really should EAT meat! its a persons lifestyle choice, well mine is anyway! :-)

I am still confused. Are you saying people should eat meat? Or that they should not go to a vegetarian for advice if they ate meat?

She's saying that you wouldn't tell a vegetarian that they should eat meat and you shouldn't tell a paleo that they should eat a potato.

I eat about 80/20 Primal (which is Paleo with beans and a bit of dairy.) I tend to avoid all artificial sweeteners and anecdotally I've found that my rate of fat loss improved dramatically when I did. I don't know if that will work for you but it sure does for me.

It's essentially a low carb diet that is nowhere near as restrictive as Atkins and encourages eating a lot of non-starchy vegetables for their denser nutrient content.

Again, anecdotally, I just find that I feel better and stronger and have more energy for workouts if I eat that way. Gluten seems to do a number on me. Which is unfortunately because I have no real issues avoiding bread or pasta but beer is another story. And a solid drinking session after eating "clean" for a week leads to certain gastro-intestinal issues which I will not further detail but I just consider a necessary evil.

I also find that I just can't burn calories like I used to and avoiding high-starch vegetables and replacing them with lower starch ones is a great way to increase the volume of food you eat while drastically reducing the total calories you eat.

I'd say give it a try and see how you feel and go with what works.