The Paleo diet is very similar to what was reccommended by Dr. Weston Price. Dr. Price was a dentist in the late 1800's who noticed an alarming increase in the rate of cavities and studied cultures around the world to see what was the role of diet in this. He found that cultures that had adopted the Western diet (more grains and sugars) were suffering from more cavities as well as smaller dental arches and more crowding of teeth where cultures still on their native diets had much better teeth with very few cavities. He also found that dental health had a big correspondence to general health. Of the cultures he studied still on their indiginous diets, it seemed that the people could eat as much meat and fat as they could get and have no problems, whereas the vegetarian/vegan cultures were the least healthy. This is why I am suspicious of the vegetarian/vegan diet advocates. Also, eating more carbs and sugars seem to make my mood swings worse and make my husband gain weight. However, we cannot afford to eat only high-quality meats, fruits, and vegatables so I am still struggling to find a workable diet plan for my family.
One thing is that many of the cultures that Price studied would soak and sprout their grains to make them more nutritious. But that requires a lot of planning and organization and I'm not quite there yet...
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