The Paleo diet in a nutshell!

 Have you ever heard of the “Paleo” diet? Let's discover together its origin, its principles, its possible advantages, and its limits. Let's go!

Origin and Principles of the Paleo Diet

This diet refers to the era of human history of the same name, the Paleolithic. This is the longest period of prehistory (from about - 800,000 to - 9,500) when agriculture and livestock were not yet part of human life. Referred to as “hunter-gatherers”, their food sources were limited to hunting, fishing, and gathering. Thus, meats of all kinds, especially raw, fish, fruits, berries, roots, and tubers constituted their main diet. Compared to our modern diet, this, therefore, excludes dairy products, sugary products, butter, cereals and cereal products, legumes, and all processed products.

But why and how did we become interested in this ancient way of eating today?

In 1985, an American medical anthropologist named Dr. S. Boyd Eaton made public his research on the potential benefits of this diet on human health, and even on weight loss. Our genes have changed little since that time, and we would be more adapted to this diet. This diet is similar to the ketogenic diet (“keto style” menu here, which takes up the principles of this diet by only removing carbohydrate intake in the evening) while being different in its execution.

Supposed benefits and drawbacks

The Paleo diet bases its success on enhancing the quality of the food and nutrients ingested. The absence of processed products or excessive cooking, which can sometimes alter certain micronutrients, helps preserve your body from “empty” calories (as in your favorite soda, for example), food additives, and other “curiosities” that you can find on industrial product packaging. Thus, the emphasis is placed on the consumption of so-called “nutrient dense” foods, that is to say, foods containing a lot of nutrients, for the same quantity as another food.

Like everything else, this diet also has its limits:

•     The constraints imposed by the dietary restrictions of the diet make it complicated to articulate a particular social life. The choices in the restaurant and the possibilities during meals with friends or family are thereby restricted and can further lead to specific isolation;
•     The significant presence of animal products represents a substantial financial cost for the continuation of the diet over a longer term;
•     From a purely nutritional point of view, the exclusion of certain whole food groups such as dairy products can lead to certain deficiencies;
•     The fact of not or little cooking food, although beneficial for the absorption of certain nutrients, is however harmful to others: take the example of proteins, or certain antioxidants such as beta-carotene for which the cooking improves bioavailability (the ability of a nutrient to be more or less well assimilated by our body). Eating raw or almost raw can be a hindrance to comfortable digestion because the fibers present in large quantities in plants can sometimes be irritating to our intestines;
•     Moreover, if we wanted to respect a strictly vegetarian version of this diet, it would be impossible not to cause deficiencies due to the absence of alternatives to animal products;
•     From a psychological point of view, the eviction of so many food groups constitutes a greater risk of becoming tired, of abandoning the diet for lack of essential "pleasure" foods to realize a loss of long-lasting weight.
•     Finally, this diet makes it very difficult to achieve a beneficial distribution of macronutrients overall. At LaSèche, we rely on precise monitoring of your macronutrients to allow you to best achieve your weight loss or muscle toning goals. This is why we have chosen to offer you the “keto style” diet, a version itself derived from the traditional ketogenic diet, adapting more generally to our current lifestyle and allowing us to hold on in the long term because preserving “pleasure” foods and meals while inducing a gradual and controlled improvement in your metabolism.

In conclusion, each diet has its advantages and disadvantages and will be more or less suitable for certain objectives, pathologies, or lifestyles. At LaSèche, we offer you menus that are balanced in macronutrients, healthy, and gourmet in which no food group is excluded, you can even eat and Have fun with chocolate, pasta, and cheese, while staying fit thanks to our dynamic and motivating sports sessions.