Real food, fake food, and the natural paleo

Real Paleo, what is it?


How I define real and fake foods.

This is a fuzzy area in parts. If you check my wife's blog for the homestead at Lemurs in the Homestead , you can see that she can get pretty creative with paleo ingredients. I wouldn't classify zucchini mint chocolate chip ice cream as anything but fake. Her coffee smoothies utilizing it are (except for the coffee) raw, whole, and complete. Can't fault that. Naturally, the most excellent and amazingly low carb Mock Split Pea Soup made with zucchini instead of peas is totally fine. And it's FINE, too!

More on this in a moment, first we need to look at what makes a food fake:


Processing versus conversion.

Processing is a fundamental change in the nature or purpose of a food. Processing in the commercial sense generally means mechanical, chemical, and heat changes to the food itself- along with additives.

When you take something that should be healthy- like pork fat (lard) and you hydrogenate it for shelf life, you destroy many of the benefits of the natural product.

Some processing is done by most of us- from grilling to canning to making jerky. But the difference in this realm of "fake paleo" is when processing is used for two purposes:

1: To convince someone they are eating something that wouldn't be considered paleo in any other context (cookies, crackers, the godsawful mess that is an atkins shake, etc)

2: To eliminate the whole and fresh aspects of the paleo diet. (healthy food has to be food, if your diet is 80% prepackaged and premade, it's just NOT going to work.)

Conversion, by contrast, is when a food is changed into a different food by a natural- most often living- process. Yogurt is an example, as is sauerkraut, kimchee, or real soy sauce. Or many types of cheese.

I have found that many converted food that would generally not be acceptable become so with conversion. In many to most cases, the specific issues a archevore or paleovore would have with a given food source become moot as the food is converted. (lactose, for example.) Many converted foods are living foods, as well.

Back to fake and real.

I've seen several reports of paleo not working for a specific individual- and atkins as well. In most of these cases where I've talked to people, there is a preponderance of fakery. If you eat 15 servings of "paleo cake" or "grok cookies" every week, things aren't going to go well.

It's best to keep it real, keep it simple as you grow into your lifestyle, and minimize the incidence of fakery.