High levels of blood glucose are linked to memory impairments

I didn't mention Paleo in my post, but I do treat the Paleo approach as a diet of exclusion, rather than one of inclusion. There are so many Paleo gurus out there, and no two are the same in terms of approach, therefore there is no such thing as a Paleo guru.

It does seem logical to me that if you accept that 95-99% of our species existence took place during what scientists call the Paleolithic era, then it seems as though we should be better equipped to handle that diet, than we are to handle the modern day diet.

So, if you believe that, a trip to purchase groceries now becomes much more simple. Eliminate anything that would obviously not have existed 500,000 years ago, during an existence when there were no big food producers and farmers competing for our business by getting us addicted to their products.

After that, is when the grey areas emerge, and this is how the variation in Paleo diets has emerged. Since there's no recorded history regarding this period of time, we can only rely on information from archaeologists, climatologists, geologists, etc. To make an educated guess about how man outsurvived virtually every other species and emerged at the top of the food chain.

All that said, I believe that grains and starches that have been mass produced through agriculture, were not available in abundance as they are for us today. These would include potatoes, grains (wheat, flour, rice, oats, etc.), sugar, refined fats, dairy among others.

So, what's left, are plant and animal sources for food. Since wild changes in climate, for example, ice ages took place, and since clothing was necessary to keep warm, it's not unreasonable that man followed herds of animals congregating around water sources in order to get whatever they could from these animals. They likely ate bugs, reptiles, amphibians, small animals,birds, eggs and maybe fish, if they figured out how to catch them. Most certainly, plants and trees also provided food, leaves, fruit, roots, nuts, seeds, berries.

That's the reasoning that I follow. With regard to proportions of each, that had to depend on location, so I just keep it balanced.

With respect to the name "The Paleo Diet" there is only one owner of that as a trademark, and that's Dr Loren Cordain. We all use the Paleo reference, but probably shouldn't. I haven't read his specific diet recommendations, but may do so at some time. I'm far from a "cult" follower, because it's not a cult or even a fad. The fads are really the long list of diet programs that have been put forth in modern times, or in the last 1-5% of man's existence. Tweet