What does a Paleo Diet look like?

You would be forgiven, in this day and age, to get lost in the huge swathes of health trends and diets that are constantly shoved in front of us without any actual understanding of what they look to serve or provide. Many promise ‘rapid weight loss’ or ‘incredible muscle gain’ without actually looking at why they do or how it all works.

‘Paleo’ is a term which has been around for a long, long time and many will have heard of it in terms of diet. The paleo diet itself is centred around what ‘hunter-gatherer’ (or ‘cavemen’ for want of a better word) consumed during their lives which, unsurprisingly, is exclusively focused on ‘whole foods’.

It is commonly found, through a vast range of studies, research and findings, that eating a diet consisting solely on these whole foods, coupled with exercise and activity, leads to a life scarce of obesity, weight related illnesses and even diabetes. The Paleo diet isn’t one that is necessarily focused on ‘calorie counting as so many diets are - the importance lands around what it is you are consuming.

OK, so, not every ‘hunter-gatherer’ ate exactly the same food, in the same way and in the same quantities - we can assume this much. However the focus on a diet based on whole foods (whichever whole foods these may be) is showing to significantly improve wellbeing and, in many cases, aid weight loss. Noticeably, as it’s highly questionable that the Palaeolithic had the ability to create processed foods (electricity and technology was a bit of a problem), removing processed foods from your diet is fundamental to the Paleo diet.

So what does it look like for me? To simplify the diets ideology further, here’s a number of ‘Paleo approved’ foods which you can (and can’t) have when taking the diet up:

 Time change... As with anything, the modernisation of the Paleo diet is constantly occurring and it is always being tweaked, adapted and modified. Grass-fed butter now being one of the foods which is now accepted as part of a Paleo Diet to many due to the studies finding it to have many associated benefits.

 The 'difficult' bits: As you have probably gathered from the above, the lack of processed food and drinks does mean that many of our treats and fancies have to, unfortunately, leave us at the gates of the Paleo diet which many find tricky. One of the biggest mistakes that people find when embarking upon a diet or any form of eating plan is that they do not find substitutes for the food they miss the most. If milk chocolate is your guilty pleasure, for example, it is imperative that you find something which, whilst nothing will beat the enjoyment you get from that cheeky bar of Belgian indulgence, you can snack on as part of the Paleo plan.

This is where we come in! We were sat twiddling our thumbs fighting cravings with a minimal range of options available to us which would fit into the paleo way - so we could snack guilt free and know we weren’t ruining all of our hard work dieting! 

We set about creating recipes and flavours which would fit perfectly into the guidelines of Paleo whilst satisfying those cravings. So out popped our Paleo Range! Packed with nuts and seeds, fruit and spices, we were ticking all of the Paleo boxes AND got it tasting fantastic!

There is some good news…

Whilst, sadly, the love filled relationship with milk chocolate must go, there are a few treats which are allowed in the diet. Over 70% cocoa content Dark Chocolate is great! Found to be super high in antioxidants and has actually been found to potentially lower blood pressure!

 For those of you amongst us that are partial to a high quality red wine, you’re in luck! Similar to dark chocolate, it is found that there are plenty of helpful antioxidants are packed into a good quality red wine. Very importantly, though, the quantity consumed of red wine must be kept low.