About Paleo Paisan
Paleo – a term used to describe a diet of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds. It is based off of the diet of our ancestors from the paleolithic era. Paisan – an informal word used among Italians/ Italian Americans to address someone… it’s like calling someone, “buddy” or “dude”. For example, “‘Ey, paisan! How you doin’?” Being that I am 100% Italian and interested in the Paleo diet, Paleo Paisan fit.
About Me
I’m a 100% Italian who loves food, nutrition and wellness. I received a B.S. majoring in dietetics and loved my food science classes and labs more than anything. I love cooking and hope to share delicious cooking ideas with you! Raised on mac and cheese, pasta, cereal, and bagels, I never planned to abandon my comfort foods, but as I got older my body started to not respond to them as well. This lead me to dairy free and gluten free at different times, but eventually grain free as well.
About Paleo
As stated above, the Paleo diet consists of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds. It is based on the research of Dr. Loren Cordain and made wildly popular by his student Robb Wolf‘s book The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet. Because the Paleo diet consists of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds (and their products i.e. walnut oil or coconut milk), it does not include some large groups of food you may be used to eating on the modern American diet like dairy, grains, and legumes. The simplest explanation as to why these are not part of the diet is because they have an anti inflammatory effect on the gut that are linked to a host of other health issues from lethargy and depression to MS and diabetes. Obviously some people are more sensitive than others, so we all need to assess and do what we feel is best for ourselves. The idea that this is based on the diet of those from the paleolithic era is because humans didn’t used to consume dairy, grains, and legumes (whether in large quantities, high frequency, or at all). From an anthropological perspective, humans shifted to an agricultural based culture about 10,000 years ago during the Agricultural Revolution. Before that, which is 99.5% of human existence, humans did not have grains in their diet. The theory is that some people’s systems, like mine, have maybe not adapted to the introduction of grains.