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The Caveman Diet

Modern diets are loaded with fried, processed, and

undernourishing food. Maybe it's time to get back to

nature and feed off the land, like cavemen did.

By Jeanie

WebMD Medical News

March 15, 2002 -- Hungry for a burger and fries? Take

a tip from your prehistoric ancestors and try a bison

burger instead. Paleolithic humans feasted on the

beasts and led a healthy life -- if a wild animal

didn't get them first.

The " caveman diet " could work for you, too, a handful

of researchers say. Why? Bison and such free-roaming

animals fed on grasses, not grain. A slab of grass-fed

bison meat has a healthier mix of fats than even the

leanest beef.

Check it out: Bison meat has already hit the

supermarket. Ted , that celebrity bison rancher,

is opening up a chain of bovine-based grills -- cow or

bison burgers, your choice. But if you're not into

meat, Europe's No. 1 meat substitute is coming soon:

quorn. It sounds like corn, is made from a fungus, and

tastes like meat. What, quorned beef?

Caveman Diet in a Nutshell

To get the scoop, WebMD turned to S. Boyd Eaton, MD,

who has been investigating the diet for nearly 25

years. He and several colleagues have reviewed what is

known about the diets of 229 Paleolithic

hunter-gatherer societies, taken from The Ethnographic

Atlas.

The caveman diet is based on what our ancestors

probably consumed 40,000 years ago. Eaton and others

believe it will help us ward off many modern ailments

such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Carbohydrates were big, but obviously not of the

donut-breakfast cereal-bread variety. Hunter-gatherers

had no choice but to forage for fruits and vegetables.

" Paleolithic man may not have had access to red bell

peppers or oranges, but they did have fruits that had

similar nutrients, " says Eaton, professor of radiology

and anthropology at Emory University. " They might not

have had potatoes, but they had roots and tubers. "

Only in arctic environs did hunter-gatherers have a

nutritionally limited diet, he says. " We know that

Eskimos had very little calcium, so they did have

osteoporosis. "

Protein was big in Paleolithic times, with up to 30%

of the diet being meat -- much more than is

recommended today, says Eaton. But there was a big,

big difference in the type of meat. It contained far

less saturated fat.

" The nature of fat in meat was quite different from

what we can obtain now, " Eaton tells WebMD. " There was

much less saturated fat in wild game. " There also was

less omega-6 fats in the meat and more omega-3 -- a

healthier form of fat.

Free-Roaming Meat Under the Microscope

A new study takes a closer look at meats people ate

10,000 years ago and compares them to garden-variety

beef found in supermarkets.

Bruce Watkins, PhD, director of the Center for

Enhancing Foods to Protect Health at Purdue

University, conducted a chemical analysis of both

types of meats. He's published his results in a book

called The Paleo Diet. In his analysis, he looked only

at animals from the Rocky Mountains, " where

free-roaming animals don't have access to corn or

soybeans like they do in the Midwest, " he tells WebMD.

Watkins found that wild game -- venison, elk, antelope

-- contains a mixture of fats that are healthy for

you, lowering cholesterol and reducing risk of heart

disease, diabetes, and cancer.

" The meat of wild [game] has more omega-3 fatty

acids, " he says. Also, wild beasts have a ratio of

omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids that mirrors what's

recommended today to lower risk of heart disease.

" If it's grass-fed bison, it will have a higher

omega-3 than if it's bison that's finished in the lot

with grains, " Watkins tells WebMD.

The American Heart Association advises eating sources

of food that have high levels of omega 3. That

includes oily fish, such as salmon, halibut,

swordfish, and tuna.

" The Paleolithic diet is sometimes misunderstood, "

Watkins says. " We're not saying eat a bunch of fat,

eat a bunch of meat. "

" It's a lean-meat diet, but with lots of fruits and

vegetables, " he says. " There weren't buckets of starch

in the Paleolithic age. Donuts, cakes, cookies, and

breakfast cereals were not part of the Paleolithic

diet. Even 150 years ago, people didn't eat a lot of

the refined carbohydrates that we eat today. There

were whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. "

But bison? He has analyzed bison meat from several

suppliers and found that it does have a higher omega-3

content -- but only if the animals were grass-fed.

Some bison are " finished in the lot with grains, "

which makes it less healthy, Watkins tells WebMD.

Generally, though, " bison is typically leaner than

premium cuts of beef. "

The Experts Weigh In

Hold on, says Randi Konikoff, MSRD, dietitian at Tufts

University in Boston. " Absolutely, lean cuts of meat

are fine. You need protein in your diet. But we

recommend a diet that is about 20% protein. We're

talking a few servings a day of not substantial size.

And protein doesn't have to be from meat -- there are

other food sources like milk, dairy foods, nuts, and

beans. "

But think about it. When you eat the animal, you're

eating toxins stored in its body fat, says a

, MD, a died-in-the-wool vegetarian and

vice-chairwoman of Family & Preventive Medicine at

Emory University.

She quotes the EPA: " The average American intake is

between 300 and 500 times the safe daily dose of

dioxin, " tells WebMD. Dioxin is a cancer-causing

substance and disrupts hormones and the immune system,

she says. Dioxin is stored in animal fat.

In fact, when you drink the animal's milk, you're also

getting the toxins, she adds. " People would be in

error if they think they're doing themselves a service

by eating bison. "

What About Quorn?

Quorn starts life as a mushroom -- specifically,

fusarium venenatum . It is then fermented in vats,

where it produces a byproduct called mycoprotein,

which is then mixed with egg whites, flavored, and

shaped into poultry-and-meat-like foods.

Quorn products have zero cholesterol and less

saturated fat than the real thing -- although some

products have more fat than others. Quorn was rated a

" Best Bites " citation in Nutrition Action, the

newsletter published by the Center for Science in the

Public Interest, a Washington-based nutrition watchdog

group.

" The new product is made from a fungus, but a darn

good-tasting one, " the citation notes. Quorn can be

sautéed, grilled, stir-fried, broiled, or used in

burgers, tacos, pot pies, spaghetti sauce, or lasagna.

Will quorn trigger a bad reaction, like an allergic

reaction? Konikoff says, " I can understand the concern

about these new products. But if the FDA approved it,

then it's good to go. They do enough testing to find

out if it's in high enough doses to have a negative

effect. "

But why eat food that's been grown in a vat? asks

. " I fail to see the point. From a health

perspective, and from an environmental perspective,

people need to be eating locally grown organic foods.

You can get enough protein from plants. The typical

American diet has too much protein. "

Watkins offers the tried-and-true advice: " Eat a

varied diet that gives you the nutrients you need, get

adequate exercise, and cut the visible fat from your

diet. You can read the label and see what's in the

product. You can look at a piece of meat and see if

it's fatty or not. The label will tell you if it's a

leaner cut of meat. "

Medically Reviewed

By , MD

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