100% PlantBased Diet Is Nutritionally Closer To A True Paleolithic Diet Than What People Are Calling

[Music] so now let’s dig a little deeper into paleo diets so the claims are this came from a paleo website when people start eating paleo they often lose weight feel less hungry and have fewer cravings for sugar their skin clears up they have more energy and they find that muscles start appearing where there had been flagged for years this way of eating can literally reverse diabetes reduce your chances of getting cancer and reduce inflammation in your joints it can help you avoid heart disease the theory of course is what humans aid in pre-agricultural times is really what’s best suited to our genetic makeup and as with on other animals the diet we would eat in the wild is really the diet we were intended to eat and so you know what what we know is that our native diet supported early humans through a two to four decade life people lived an average of twenty to forty years regardless of that let’s assume that it is a good idea to eat like our ancestors what’s the first question you would want to ask what did our ancestors eat right that’s the first question we need to ask pre-agricultural people ate wild plants animals fish and insects the balance of those foods varied with the time frame during the Paleolithic period with the location on the planet these people were at with the season with gathering and hunting skills with tool with with with tools and culture and there were changes over time during the first 80% of the Paleolithic period humans were vegetarian because we didn’t have any ability to hunt we might might have eaten some insects but that was about it during the last 20 years humans started to hunt and and so some meat was added to the diet so what didn’t people in the Paleolithic period eat well they didn’t eat any packaged foods there was nothing from a box or bag there were no deep-fried foods there were no fast foods there were no find fats oil sugar salt there were there was no added salt I should say there were there was no milk of other mammals or products that were made from the milk of other mammals there was certainly no bacon ham salami sausage or any other processed meat and there was no alcohol so do new paleo diets equal true Paleolithic diet and this is a question I asked myself and I’ll tell you what what really got me interested in looking at this question I went to the nutritional anthropology research and I found two studies one from 1997 and one from 2010 and these studies are the best studies we have that estimate the intakes of Paleolithic man so they did a the first study in 97 and then 25 years later their second study came out and basically what they said his early ancestral diets were overwhelmingly plant-based with some insects and very small amounts of animal flesh reliance on meat increased in later ancestral diets as hunting skills improved however much proof points to continued significant if not predominant dependence on plant foods so here we have this is the DRI so this is our recommended intake for macronutrients this is the Paleolithic estimates of what people actually ate in Paleolithic times from 97 and this is their revised estimates from 2010 and so what we know is people probably ate about 3000 calories they got close to 30% of their calories from protein and this is the later part of the Paleolithic that lasts 20% of the Paleolithic period carbohydrates range from probably about 35 to 65 percent of calories 35% for the hunters very far north who had limited plants 65% for people closer to the equator that range from probably 20 to 35% of calories saturated fat somewhere six to 12 percent of calories depending on how much meat they were having cholesterol around the 500 milligrams omega-6 to omega-3 around the two-to-one and fiber around the hundred to a hundred round 70 to 150 grams so when you look at all of that is there anything there that just pops out at the page at you the fiber it’s absolutely crazy a hundred and four that was the original estimate and then they you know they increased the range from 70 for the hunters way far north to a hundred and fifty to two hundred in the people near the equator so where does fiber come from plants exactly so when I saw this I thought to myself holy smokes these people were eating a truckload of plant so I don’t see people eating a paleo so-called Paleo diet today that are eating anywhere close to 70 to 150 grams of fiber even vegans don’t eat you know often a you know they might get 70 if they’re eating a really good vegan diet but even most vegans don’t get that so then I looked at the micronutrients and again the estimates really were shocking so vitamin C to five to six hundred milligrams most vegans probably get two or three hundred where does vitamin C come from yeah fruits vegetables exactly that’s where vitamin C comes from what about calcium one to two thousand milligrams they weren’t drinking any milk where did they get their calcium leafy greens you know plants potassium seven to ten thousand milligrams what’s the recommended intake of potassium 4700 does anybody need it probably ninety ninety-five percent of the population doesn’t get that but potassium and vegans do the best but even vegans often don’t get the 4700 these guys were eating close to 10,000 where does potassium come from plants right so then I thought to myself I wonder what is closer to a true Paleolithic diet a paleo diet or a vegan diet so I thought I’m just gonna do some math here so I went to a paleo the probably the most popular paleo website and took three days of recommended menus and analyzed them to see what they were actually eating then I did the same with a recommended plant-based menu which is a hundred percent plant-based or vegan and then I compared the amount of nutrients this is the macronutrients in the true Paleo diet with those of what people who are calling themselves paleo are actually eating with those people on a plant-based diet we’re eating to look at I wonder what comes closer the vegan diet or the hundred percent plant-based or this thing they call a paleo diet and here’s what I found out and and of course when I did the analysis I adjusted the menus so they all provided the same number of calories so it was a fair comparison so they all provided 3000 calories so the protein was actually closer on the new paleo diet about 30% 32% of calories on this what they call the Paleo diet very close whereas vegan diets only about 15% but carbohydrates were much closer on the plant-based diet a fat was closer on the plant-based diet saturated fat was closer on the plant-based diet cholesterol was closer on the new paleo diet the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 was actually closer on the plant-based diet and of course the fiber intake was closer on the plant-based diet and and the you know you see the 31 grams of fiber in the new Paleo diet but that’s at 3,000 calories so at 2,000 calories like most people would be eating they might get 20 if they’re doing a good diet so then let’s look at the micronutrients who comes closer well for riboflavin thiamine vitamin C and E the plant-based diet came closer vitamin A and zinc the Paleo diet came closer iron calcium sodium and potassium the plant-based diet came closer and here’s the summary the Paleo diet comes closer to a true Paleolithic diet for for nutrients protein cholesterol zinc and vitamin A the plant-based diet comes closer to a true Paleolithic diet 413 nutrients and you can see them listed there in other words a plant-based 100% plant-based diet is actually nutritionally closer to a true Paleolithic diet than what people are calling a Paleolithic die are a paleo diet today so why the macronutrient discrepancies if you think to yourself the Paleo people are eating meat and plants like vegetables and and that’s what people ate in Paleolithic times why aren’t the numbers matching better for nutrient intakes well let’s look at what the differences were first of all total fat they eat twice as much fat as people during the Paleolithic period they two to three times more saturated fat and two and a half times more cholesterol they eat only about 1/4 to 1/2 the carbohydrates and they eat only about 1/3 of the fiber so what’s going on well why the discrepancy well a paleo today the people trying to do paleo are focused on achieving the protein intakes of the Paleolithic period 30% protein that’s what their focus is getting that protein they’re less concerned about getting the same amount of fiber vitamin C or potassium as people during the Paleolithic period did so their emphasis is on meat as opposed to plant foods and we have to recognize that wild foods do not equal farmed foods meat and vegetables consumed today were you know we’re not available in Paleolithic times and they bear little resemblance to those eaten by pre agricultural populations if we compare wild meat to domestic meat what we see is meat from wild animals is much lower in fat about 6 to 16 percent of calories from fat compared to 30 to 60 percent of calories from fat in farmed animals it was much lower in saturated fat higher in omega-3s it was free of antibiotics of added hormones and in Paleolithic times of environmental contaminants and even the wild versus domestic plants cultivated vegetables and fruits have been bred for appearance palatability transport ability digestibility and yield wild plants deliver over three times the fiber of commercial plants and are more concentrated in vitamins and minerals and protein so there were big differences so the Paleo diet of today does not equal the true Paleolithic diet [Music]