Sunday, February 14, 2010

Paleo - Modern Day Flintstones

"A modern-day Stone Age subculture is developing in the United States, where wannabe cavemen mimic their distant ancestors. They eat lots of meat, bathe in icy water and run around barefoot. Some researchers say people led healthier lives in pre-historic times."
 
In an article in Der Spiegel, Johnny Durant and the Paleolithic movement in the United States are described as - "A Stone Age Subculture Takes Shape in the US." Groups meet and eat exotic dishes like roasted boar and home made jerky. The underlying philosophy is that humans led healthier lives as hunter-gatherers. They grew taller, stronger and had perfect teeth with no signs of caries.

The different parts of the philosophy includes; spending time in the sun every day to get a healthy dose of vitamin D, sprinting short distances at max capacity to emulate the hunt for a prey, eating only what can be killed, picked of trees, plants or the ground,  lifting heavy things occasionally, playing a lot (after the hunt there was a lot of free time) and walking around either barefoot or with five-finger shoes to exercise the foot and legs the natural way (shoes are not an ideal environment for the foot).

The nomad life is likened to a never ending camping trip. Carbohydrates are avoided completely with few exceptions. A Paleo diet is high on protein, moderate on fat and extremely low on carbs.

"Muesli? An abomination in the eyes of this modern-day Fred Flintstone. Spaghetti? "A plate full of sugar," Arthur De Vany counters."

Full article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,677121,00.html

No comments:

Post a Comment