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YouTubeStandard American Diet (SAD) has 'lots of animal products' and 'lots of processed foods'. In contrast, WFPB encourages 'no animal products' + 'no processed foods' guidelines. Paleo Diet lies somewhere in between. Let's see how.
- No processed foods: Paleo Diet coincides with WFPB in terms of 'no processed foods' guideline.
- No dairy: Paleo Diet coincides with WFPB in terms of 'no dairy' guideline. Why no dairy in Paleo Diet? Because dairy was introduced into our food system only about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, with the domestication of animals like cows and goat.
- High quality meat / wild meat: Paleo Diet advocates wild game — meat produced by animals in their natural surroundings, not factory farmed. In reality, this guideline is difficult to follow because wild game meat is not readily available, but on the whole, the quality of meat consumed in Paleo Diet improves.
On the whole, WFPB advocates see these diets as a sequence of 'progressively better food systems': Standard American Diet (SAD) → Paleo Diet → Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB).
Was Paleo Diet Actually WFPB? An interesting twist in the story! Paleo people lived as far back as 2 million years ago. What were they actually eating?
Dr Christina Warinner is an archaeological geneticist who also featured in the documentary The Game Changers (2019, 85 mins). In her talks below, she explains that "Paleo" is a marketing term without any scientific backing — a meat-centric diet is not backed by archaeological or genetic evidence. The Paleo folks were actually eating lots of unprocessed plants!
(22 mins)
Was the Paleo Diet actually a High Fiber Diet? When archaeological genetists study the food habits of paleo folks, what do they find? That they were consuming a high fiber diet! This point is highlighted by all of these: Dr Greger (a Whole Food Plant-Based advocate), Dr Sonnenburg (she studies the microbiome in a lab at Stanford) and Dr Christina Warinner (an archaeological geneticist). Fiber is found exclusively in plants; animal products — meat, fish, eggs, dairy — have no fiber. Paleolithic people are said to have consumed upwards of 100 grams of fiber daily! Dr Greger and Dr Sonnenburg explain that such high fiber intake would be beneficial to us in modern times as well!
Sonnenburg Lab: Dr Erica Sonnenburg and Dr Justin Sonnenburg lead the Sonnenburg Lab at Stanford whose objective is research in gut microbiota. The couple has two children. They have consciously adopted multiple lifestyle habits in their quest to have the 'best gut microbiome'! In her talk (see below), Dr Sonnenburg explains that contemporary primitive communities and ancient Paleolithic communities had a rich and diverse gut microbiome populated with many different species of bacteria, and that this diversity is related to the amount of fiber they consumed.
At offset 1:04:09 in the talk below, Dr Sonnenburg explains that contemporary primitive communities and ancient Paleolithic communities consumed an extraordinarily large amounts of fiber! At offset 1:06:30, Dr Sonnenburg mentions that she and her husband have contemplated chalking out this diet:
The One-Rule Diet: Eat As Much Dietary Fiber As Possible!
Dr Sonnenburg explains that by following this rule, all of these go down: saturated fats, sugar, total calories! Now fiber is found exclusively in plants (animal products don't have fiber). So by adopting this One-Rule Diet, we naturally gravitate towards a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet.
For further information, watch the talk below and browse through videos referenced here: Microbiome and Fiber.
(92-min, Jan 2018): 60-min talk by Dr Sonnenburg followed by 30-min Q&A. At offset 1:04:09, she mentions high fiber intake among contemporary primitive communities and ancient Paleolithic communities.
A slide from Dr Sonnenburg's talk at offset 18:12. It explains that contemporary Americans consume <15 g fiber on average. RDA for adults is somewhere around 25g - 35g. Dr Greger will cite researchers who recommend 50g and even higher! Primitive societies extant today eat far more: >100g of fiber.
Articles by Dr Greger:
- (2014) Will The Real Paleo Diet Please Stand Up? at NutritionFacts. A good article with a table comparing the nutrition profile of 'true paleo diet' (as practiced by our ancestors) with a 'modern paleo diet' and 'modern vegan diet'.
- (2019) The Healthiest Way to Eat Paleo
- (2016) Paleo Diet May Undermine Benefit of CrossFit Exercise
- (2013) The Real Paleo Diet
- (2019) The Diet We Were Designed to Eat
- (2019) Eating the Way Nature Intended
- (2018) How to Activate Appetite-Suppressing Hormones
- (2022) The Natural Human Diet
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In the comment section of this video by Dr Greger, he points to two resources:
- (2012, Scientific American) Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians
- (2011) Primitive Nutrition Series Playlist (70+ videos). Transcript and citations of every video are available at this website: Plant Positive. This video series and website is recommended by Dr John McDougall too. See Dr McDougall Recommends Plant Positive's Video Series.
Videos by Dr Greger:
(6 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "The Paleolithic period represents just the last two million years of human evolution. What did our bodies evolve to eat during the first 90% of our time on Earth?"
Dr Greger argues that Paleolithic times extend back to about 2 million years. But we (humans) have been evolving even prior to that — all the way to about 25 million years ago (and even earlier) from great apes. From that standpoint, we spent about 23 million years evolving as ape-like life forms, then 2 million years evolving as human-like life forms. Is our overall structure and function, as far as food goes, more like our ancestors for those first 23 million years, or more like our ancestors during the last 2 million years?
Dr Greger then argues that cholesterol intake poses an interesting problem: human bodies are designed to store some cholesterol and remove excess cholesterol via intestines. But when we start consuming modern, cholesterol-rich foods like {bacon, eggs, cheese, chicken, pork, pastry}, our body is not able to expel all that extra cholesterol; cholesterol starts accumulating, leading to several chronic diseases.
(5 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "What can our nutrient requirements, metabolism, and physiology tell us about what we should be eating?"
(2 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "An evolutionary argument for a plant-based diet is presented, in contrast to 'Paleo' fad diet."
(5 mins) Transcript. Analysis of ancient poo (paleolithic poop fossils) demonstrates that we were eating a lot of fiber (a lot of plants) back then. The same points are made by Dr Sonnenberg (see her video in this article) and Dr Christina Warinner, an archaeological geneticist (see her videos in this article).
(5 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger explains that Miecenic diet (food intake during the Miocene period in prehistoric times) was high in fiber: upwards of 100 grams of fiber daily! Dr Greger showcases an experiment in which participants experienced 33% drop in LDL cholesterol within 2 weeks by switching to a high fiber diet (150 grams a day). They had to consume large quantities of food (11 lbs a day) and they had large bowel movements too!
(5 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "What happens when Paleolithic-type diets are put to the test?"
(6 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "The deleterious effects of a Paleolithic diet appear to undermine the positive effects of a Crossfit-based high-intensity circuit training exercise program."
(2 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Since chronic inflammation underlines many disease processes, and saturated fat appears to facilitate the endotoxic inflammatory reaction to animal products, researchers have looked to wild animals for less unhealthy meat options."
A fast-paced, information rich video by Dr Peter Rogers summarizes what we may infer from anatomy, physiology and evolutionary history about human nutrition.
(2022) "Meat Made Us Human" Evolutionary Narrative Starts To Unravel summarizes this research paper: No sustained increase in zooarchaeological evidence for carnivory after the appearance of Homo erectus by Andrew Barr et al, PNAS Feb 1, 2022, 119(5).
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