A Note on "Cheating"
If you read NeanderThin, you will see that Audette toes a very strict line, both in his food recommendations, and his insistence that a person change entirely and never look back. Cordain is more forgiving, advising three stages of easing into the diet, and also including what he calls "Open Meals" where a person can loosen the rules. He feels you can still get benefit by at least partially following the program. He recommends starting out with three Open Meals per week. See more about this in his book The Paleo Diet.The following categories of food are forbidden on Paleolithic-type diets, with a few caveats:
Refined Sugars
There is a long list of ingredients which are essentially "sugar". Some allow small amounts of honey or pure maple syrup - but this would have been a rare treat.Grains
Yes, there were wild grains, and a few roasted kernels have been found in ancient fires. But really - how much wild grain could have been collected at a time? Answer: not much. Corn is a grain.Starchy Tubers
No starchy tubers, including- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Yams
- Cassava
- Manioc
- Some say beets
Legumes (Beans, Peas, Peanuts)
These are usually outlawed on the premise that most of them can't be eaten without cooking. Much is made of the lectins in legumes, which some people may be sensitive to (research into lectins is in its infancy and not a lot is known about this with any certainty).Dairy Products
Early people did not eat dairy products before animals were domesticated. It has been pointed out that there has been adaptation to dairy products in some genetic lines, but no author of this type of diet endorses eating dairy including milk, butter, cream, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, etc.Some Meats
Most processed meats (made with nitrites and additives) are not allowed, including hot dogs, bacon, sausage, and lunch meats, although sometime more healthy forms of these can be found. Cordain does not allow fatty cuts of meat, including poultry skin and dark meat.Oils
Definitely avoid the following:- Corn oil
- Cottonseed oil
- Peanut oil
- Soybean oil
- Rice bran oil
- Wheat germ oil
Cordain has a long list of preferred oils in his book based on their ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids. He also is down on tropical plant oils (coconut and palm) which have high levels of saturated fats. Other writers definitely include these tropical fats as fine to eat.
Salt
Most authors of this type of diet advocate not adding salt to food or buying heavily salted food.Other
- Vinegar - Lemon or lime juice is preferred over vinegar; no pickled products.
- Yeast is not allowed
