True Paleo Diet: Gimme Calories!

The idea that natural foods are best is deeply implanted in us. It embodies our love for nature, and then rolls right off a cliff because of our love for story-telling. Is everything in nature good? I think we want to believe that. I blame Walt Disney with his Lion King dancing in the sunshine with a meerkat and a warthog in bohemian splendor, singing Hakuna Matata!

I pointed out to a girl friend that the lion would rip out the throat of a baby gazelle for breakfast, meerkats murder their own infants and the warthog would slurp up the scraps of intestines from these slaughters like spaghetti. She held her hands over ears and ran away, yelling, “Leave me my illusions!” She likes the Disney version better. Can’t blame her.

I was a vegetarian by preference of seven years. My first two children are made of vegetables; they turned out just fine. Now we have extreme vegetarians, that is vegans, who are so passionate about their own moral superiority, their biggest health risk is terminal self-righteousness.

Much heat and little light passes between Baconator fans and vegans. Supposedly we are BY NATURE meat eaters or vegans. Supposedly we can look to our ancestors for guidance. Look, our ancestors needed calories; they needed to take in energy to sustain life, as all living things do. Being clever little buggers, they did so on this basis: How can I take in more calories than I expend obtaining those calories? What’s easy? This was a life and death decision.

It’s easy to eat fruit and nuts. They don’t run away or bite back. Grain may need to be ground up for digestion, but yields quite a few calories and can be stored in dry form for tomorrow. Hunter gatherers did not tote refrigerators around on their backs.

Who ate the first oyster? What’s that snotty substance inside the shell? Is it good to eat? You try it, Bruce, and we’ll see if you die. Thus was born the harvesting of shellfish, which also does not run away or bite back.

What did our ancestors eat? Any darn thing they could find that was edible. Fruit and nuts and grain and grubs and eggs and yes, meat. Each human is different and has different needs and preferences. But one of our brilliant survival strategies is the ability to eat whatever is handy, which for traveling bands meant a wide variety of foods, the true all natural Paleo Diet.

One pound of food. Remember they needed calories, so…hmmm… something with fat, nuts, honey and enough wheat to hold it together would be awesome.

Admit it, deep down, we still think that’s awesome.