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Salmon: king of the icy Alaskan waters, sweeping majestically through impossibly clear glacial runoff and leaping up waterfalls in the self-sacrificing quest to ensure the survival of its young – or genetically modified Frankenfish, packed into squalid farms that stain those beautiful waters with a torrent of toxic waste, and injected with dye after harvest to mimic a natural pink color?

Both.

Statistically, salmon is America’s third-favorite fish (after shrimp and tuna), and for good reason. Not only is it delicious, but it’s also much more nutrient-dense than white fish like tilapia, and completely deserves all its good press. On the other hand, it also has the dubious distinction of being the first genetically modified animal intended for human consumption, and the actual conditions of salmon farms are often very different from the idealized Alaskan scenery most of us like to picture.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid salmon altogether. It just means that choosing your salmon wisely is important. This isn’t just an issue of environmental justice or animal rights – although that would be reason enough to avoid farmed salmon – it’s also a question of health. Wild salmon is just so much more nutritious that it’s hard to even justify paying for the farmed version.

Salmon: The Good

There's a whole lot of "good" to a piece of salmon. The first benefit everyone thinks of is the Omega-3 fats: like other seafood, salmon actually has more Omega-3s than Omega-6s, which makes it extremely anti-inflammatory and a delicious corrective for the high levels of Omega-6 typically found in the modern American diet. Omega-3s are also important for mood, brain health and cognitive performance, muscle growth, and overall reducing inflammation and oxidative stress: they’re just good news in general, and most of us don’t get enough of them.

Salmon, like other fatty cold-water fish is also one of the few food sources of Vitamin D. As the winter nights start to get longer, Vitamin D is a nutrient all of us could stand to get a little more of – especially people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or any other kind of “winter blues.”

On top of that, salmon is high in B vitamins, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and selenium, with smaller amounts of other nutrients as well. The selenium is particularly important, because it helps protect against any mercury that may be present in the fish: as long as the selenium is there, there’s nothing to fear from mercury poisoning.

If you get the canned kind with bones included, salmon also provides you with a hefty dose of calcium: almost ⅓ of what you need for the day in just one serving of fish. And don’t forget the iodine content, either – iodine, a mineral found in anything from the sea, is important for thyroid health and especially beneficial for pregnant women, who need a lot of it to support the growing baby’s brain development.

Overall, a big piece of salmon is one of the healthiest things you could eat – it’s on par with grass-fed meat for nutritional value. And unlike beef, salmon is a food that almost everyone perceives as “healthy,” so if you’re cooking for a crowd of non-Paleo friends, it’s a choice the whole group can agree on.

Salmon: The Bad

The downside to all the nutritional benefits above? They aren’t just in any old package of fish labeled “salmon.” To actually get the health benefits you’re looking for, you’ll need to find a wild-caught fish. Most (roughly 80%) salmon sold in the United States today is farmed salmon, which means it was raised in the fish equivalent of a factory farm. The ethical issues would be bad enough, but farmed salmon just doesn’t hold a candle nutritionally to the real deal.

First up are the fats. Remember how the high levels of Omega-3 fats are one of the great benefits of salmon (and seafood in general)? That’s all true, but if you want to take advantage of them, you’d better find a wild fish to eat.

In this study, the average wild-caught salmon had 12.4 times as many Omega-3s as Omega-6s, while the average farmed fish had only 2.9 times as many. By weight, wild salmon is just 2.1% fat, while farmed salmon is 12.3% fat. If you do the math here, you’ll realize that farmed salmon has a more or less equivalent amount of Omega-3 fats (thanks to its higher overall fat content), but a much higher dose of inflammatory Omega-6’s along for the ride. So from a fatty acid perspective, wild-caught fish is unquestionably, and relevantly, superior.

Then there’s the micronutrient content. According to one set of experiments, farmed salmon only had 25% of the Vitamin D as wild. Per ounce, wild-caught salmon had 988 IU, while farmed salmon had only 240 IU. Like the Omega-3 content of the fish, this is an especially important point because fish is one of the few foods that naturally provides Vitamin D. So another unique benefit of seafood is seriously reduced if you’re eating farmed salmon.

Another problem with factory-farmed salmon is the higher rate of toxic contamination. According to this study, farmed salmon had higher levels of 14 organic contaminants, including PCBs, dioxins, and DDT. These toxins were so alarming to the researchers that they recommended no more than 1 (and sometimes less) meal per month of farmed salmon, even though the typical recommendation for wild salmon was 4-8 meals per month.

On top of all that, there’s also the GMO issue. Salmon are actually the first genetically modified animal intended for human consumption, a development that carries with it a whole raft of concerns about food safety, ethics, local ecosystems, and biodiversity. These new genetically modified fish (called AquAdvantage salmon, because they grow faster than their traditional cousins) aren’t on the market yet, but keep an eye out for them in the future.

Salmon: The Options

So how can you get hold of wild-caught salmon that has all the good stuff with less of the bad stuff? It’s actually pretty simple. Most salmon you eat comes from one of three places:

• The Atlantic Ocean (mostly farmed)
• The Pacific Ocean (mostly wild-caught, but usually unsustainable)
• Alaska (mostly wild-caught and reasonably sustainable)

Of these, Alaska is your best bet, for the combination of nutrition and sustainability. A hint for finding wild-caught fish: if you get salmon in a can, it’s almost always wild. This is because farmed fish doesn’t stand up very well to the canning process, so wild-caught is really the only option. It’s convenient for budget-conscious consumers, though, because canned salmon is typically cheaper per pound than even the cheapest fresh fish. For most people, canned salmon is the most affordable way to get all these health benefits, and the convenience is a great additional bonus. If you do have to go with a farmed fish, definitely go with one from the Americas: they’re not fantastic, but they’re a lot better than farmed salmon from Europe.

It’s true that wild-caught fish is more expensive than farmed. But considering the remarkable health benefits of the wild fish, it’s worth your money here to eat salmon less often and make sure to get the good stuff when you do. Remember: you’re voting with your dollars here. If producers see an increased demand for wild salmon, they’ll have an incentive to develop more humane and natural ways of getting the fish from the ocean to your table, but if they see everyone willing to accept an inferior farmed product, they’ll have no reason to change what they’re already doing.

Cooking with Salmon

Once you’ve found the perfect wild salmon, cooking it becomes a choice among so many delicious options that it’s hard to pick just one! For a whole fillet, try lomi lomi salmon, cook it up with cherry tomato salsa and asparagus, or make some salmon tartare if you’re feeling daring. For an interesting change, smoked salmon makes a delicious addition to this “sandwich.”

If you’re going with canned, try your fish on top of a salad like this one. Alternately, you can buy the half-size cans and just bring the whole can to work for a simple but tasty lunch option. Top it off with a little balsamic vinegar and add some vegetables or a piece of fruit to go with it, and you’re all set with a mid-day boost of protein, healthy fat, and nutrients to keep you going through the afternoon. Canned salmon also makes a delicious pantry staple to have waiting in the back of your cupboard just in case you need a quick dinner on the run. No time to cook? No problem; dinner is right there at your fingertips, even faster than a takeout pizza would have gotten there.

The moral of the story: don't waste your time or your money on farmed fish. It's just not the same, and it's also sending a message of support to a cruel and unsustainable fish farming system. But between the nutrition, the convenience, and the delicious taste, wild-caught salmon is one Paleo staple that should definitely be making a regular appearance on your dinner table.

Last week’s article on whether calories count took on the problem of calories in general. The short version: yes, technically, they “count,” but that doesn’t make counting calories a useful plan for weight loss. This week, take a look at the top 10 reasons why calorie-counting doesn’t help, and what to do instead.

10. You’re probably off. Way off.

It’s a very well-known problem for diet researchers that people are absolutely terrible at estimating how many calories they eat – and the more overweight they are, the worse they’re likely to be at it. The typical underestimation is 10-45%, with an average of 30%. So if the average person thinks she’s eating 1500 calories, she’s probably closer to 2100. The more overweight you are, the worse you’re likely to be at calorie reporting: in this study, obese subjects underreported calories by 47% on average (on top of overreporting physical activity).

This study is even more telling. Researchers took women who claimed they couldn’t lose weight on a 1,200 calorie diet, and trained them how to track their calorie intake. They had all the women keep food logs, but also used very accurate metabolic techniques to measure how many calories they were really eating.

Almost all the women were severely overestimating their energy intake – one of them thought she was eating 1100 calories and was actually eating over 3000! On average, they were underestimating by around 50%. And these were women who were trained by experts and knew they were being evaluated based on how accurate their records were. So chances are very good that even if you think this doesn’t apply to you, it does (this study isn’t free full-text, but there’s a great detailed analysis here if you want the details).

To put it very simply, very few people are accurate calorie-counters. We tend to tell researchers – and Cronometer, and FitDay, and SparkPeople – what we think we should be eating, not what we actually eat. But unfortunately, our bodies keep an accurate log whether or not we write it down, so the end result is frustration: people honestly believe that they’re eating only 1200 calories per day, and get angry and discouraged when they still can’t lose weight, not realizing that they’re actually eating 2500+!

9. Calorie labels are inaccurate.

Even assuming that you’re in the very small minority of people who can accurately keep track of your portion sizes and write down everything you eat, all your efforts are still being undermined by the incredible inaccuracy of labeling laws. Just to give a few examples:

• In this report, 19% of restaurant meals tested varied by at least 100 calories from the calorie count on the menu. Foods with the lowest stated calorie content (the foods you’re most likely to order if you’re dieting) were the most likely to actually contain more calories.
• By USDA labeling laws, the calorie content of processed foods can vary up to 20% from the amount listed on the label. To put some numbers on that, think of an apple pie larabar. The label says 190 calories, but by law that could be as low as 152 or as high as 228 – and there’s no way for you to know.
• If you think you can get around this by only eating whole foods, think again. For one thing, grass-fed meat is likely to have a different calorie value than the typical number in the USDA database: pasture-raised beef and chicken will be leaner, while pasture-raised pork is often fattier. Wild-caught salmon is substantially different from farm-raised. And even among fruits and vegetables, one “medium apple” could vary substantially. Calorie databases can only give you a rough idea.

8. It makes you hungry.

Calorie restriction is a deliberate attempt to eat less than your body needs to maintain its current weight, forcing it to use up its fat stores for energy instead. It’s basically a very mild form of self-starvation. Given that fact, it’s completely natural to expect feelings of hunger. Unfortunately, when you’re expecting to feel hungry, chances are pretty good that you will!

Take a look at this study. The researchers tested restrained (dieting) and nonrestrained normal-weight women with either a high-calorie or low-calorie drink before a meal. Some of the drinks were labeled correctly, but on others, the labels were switched (so a high-calorie drink got a low-calorie label and vice versa). The dieters – but not the normal eaters – felt hungrier after a drink labeled as low-calorie regardless of how many calories it actually contained.

This one makes it even clearer. Study subjects who got either a high or low-calorie liquid meal “reported hunger more in accordance with belief about caloric value than actual value.” And in this study, just calling a food “healthy” made subjects feel less satisfied afterward (as opposed to calling it “tasty”).

So let’s take a look at what this says about a typical calorie-counting dieter:

• She tries to cut calories to 1500, but considering how inaccurate we all are at counting, she’s actually eating more like 2000.
• But she believes she’s eating 1500, so she feels hungry, because she expects to feel hungry on 1500.
• The end result: all pain, no gain. She gets all the hunger of a diet, without the benefit of the weight loss. And because she feels so hungry, she’s more likely to give up in frustration and overeat later.

It’s easy to see that this is a terrible weight loss strategy! Most people can do this for 3 or 4 months, but you’d have to have absolutely iron discipline to make it work in the long term.

7. Your baseline is probably skewed.

Everyone’s heard of the 2000-calorie diet. That’s supposed to be what healthy people need to eat – despite the obvious silliness of having just one standard for everyone. Since it’s an average, men tend to assume they need a little more, and women tend to assume they need a little less. So for weight loss, most people take 2000 and subtract a more or less arbitrary number of calories to come up with 1500 or 1800 or something in that range.

But did you know that the 2000 calorie number is actually totally imaginary? You can read about this here: the short version is that it’s an estimation based on guesswork and surveys, and then rounded down in order to deliberately underestimate everyone’s calorie needs. The committee actually thought that giving an accurate number would somehow give us all permission to overeat, so they decided to lie instead.

So how many calories to weight-stable people actually need? Normal, healthy adult men need roughly 2700, and healthy adult women need around 2400. Those numbers are based on accurate measurement of how much people actually eat (using a technique called doubly-labeled water), not just surveys that give people the opportunity to lie and underestimate.

If you don’t believe this, or don’t believe it applies to you, you can use the equation from this study (free full-text) to figure out your personal requirements. All you need to plug in is your height (in centimeters),  your weight (in kilograms), your age, and your sex.

The upshot: if you’re basing your calorie restriction on anything like a 2000-calorie baseline, you’re probably severely underestimating your body’s actual needs. That’s called starvation, and it isn’t healthy – so don’t do it.

6. It encourages you to see “low-calorie” as a synonym for “healthy.”

Another insidious danger of calorie-counting isn’t obvious at first. It only shows up later, in the tendency to start conflating “low-calorie” with “healthy,” as if calories were the only aspect of a food that mattered. This is called the “health halo” effect: whatever particular aspect of food you’re looking at, whether it’s calories, fat, nutrients, or anything else, you’re likely to make snap judgments about food based entirely on that one number, and miss out on the bigger picture.

This has been documented extensively with “low-fat” claims, but it’s just as true for “low-calorie.” And “restrained eaters” (research-speak for “dieters”) are more sensitive to external cues than normal eaters, so if you’re trying to restrict calories, you’re at a very high risk of falling into this trap.

Say for example that you start out intending to have some olive oil and vinegar on your salad. But after looking up the nutrition facts, you realize that just 2 tablespoons of that will cost you 200 calories: ouch! On the other hand, if you take the lite dressing from the grocery store, you’re only out 50 calories, so you can “afford” an afternoon snack later. That makes the grocery-store dressing look really tempting, but take a look at the ingredients:

Water, balsamic vinegar, soybean oil and extra virgin olive oil, sugar, salt. Contains 2% or less of each of the following: spices, garlic powder, caramel color, xanthan gum, sodium benzoate and sorbic acid and calcium disodium edta (used to protect quality), propylene glycol alginate, gum arabic, natural flavor, sulfur dioxide

The only reason why you’d think that dressing was better for you than oil and vinegar is that you’re focused on calories to the exclusion of everything else. But calorie-counting is like that: it tends to keep you zoomed in so tightly on calories that you start eating processed junk because not only is it lower in calories, but it’s also easier to count those calories when it’s right there on the label for you.

5. It makes you stressed.

In this study, researchers assigned healthy women to one of four groups:

• Monitoring only: these women tracked, but did not restrict, calories.
• Restricting only: these women got 1200 calories per day delivered to them as prepackaged meals. They didn’t have to count anything.
• Monitoring + restricting: these women had to stick to 1200 calories, but had to plan their own menus.
• Control: no monitoring or restricting.

The researchers found that monitoring increased psychological stress, but restricting increased physiological stress (cortisol levels) even when the subjects felt no psychological stress. So in other words, your body is still stressed out by dieting even if you don’t feel unhappy about it.

Chronic stress is bad news. It deranges everything from your gut flora to your skin to your immune system. If you’re stressing over your diet, it’s undoing at least some (if not all) of the health benefits of the diet itself.

4. It’s a risk factor for compulsive exercise.

The natural companion of calorie restriction is cardio. After all, the catchphrase is “Eat less, move more,” not “Eat less, and sit on the couch.” So when most people start a diet, they also start trying to increase their calories out, by virtuously spending hours on the treadmill or elliptical trainer, or some other form of calorie-burning activity.

None of these things are bad in themselves – exercise is generally good for you and even the much-demonized cardio isn’t anything to be afraid of if you know your limits and don’t let it turn into a chronic addiction. But if you start exercising exclusively for the purpose of burning calories, you’re likely to cross the line into overdoing it very fast.

This study says it best: “Exercise and food regulation were often ‘traded off’ against one another, with increased exercise used to compensate for decreased dietary restraint.” This is the familiar pattern of exercising to “burn off” the calories in dessert. Unfortunately, it also meant that the subjects had some pretty disturbing answers when asked about their exercise habits. They showed symptoms both of addiction and of compulsion. To quote one of them:

“I often think that if I…became ill or I had an injury that would prevent me from exercising, would be just the worst possible thing that could happen in my life!”

This is a married woman with two children. And the “worst possible thing” that could happen to her is not a divorce, not a child becoming ill, but having to skip the gym.

This is not healthy. Compulsive overexercise is a serious health problem – it can cause all kinds of metabolic issues, not to mention overuse injuries (if you “can’t” take a day off from running to nurse a sore knee, that sore knee is going to get a lot worse very quickly). And that excessive exercise in turn cycles back to disordered eating: in this study, young women who exercised for the primary reason of “working off food, losing weight, or changing their appearance” had much higher levels of eating disordered symptoms than women who exercised for other reasons.

The upshot: exercise to feel healthy and strong, to build muscle, or to enjoy time with your friends. Do not exercise to “burn calories,” to “make up for” eating something you regret, or to “earn” your food. If you don’t care about calories in the first place, it’s a lot easier to take a healthy attitude toward the gym.

3. It doesn’t address the reasons why you overeat.

Nobody woke up sometime in the 1980s and just decided that obesity sounded fun. For any given overweight person, there is a reason why he or she is overeating relative to his or her body’s requirements, and chances are it’s not “because I want to be fat.”

That reason might be personal trauma (eating for comfort after the death of a loved one); it might be a twisted protection mechanism (“if I’m fat, nobody will want to date me and I won’t have to fear the heartbreak of a breakup”); it might be habit (“I’ve always eaten this way and change is too hard”). It might also be hormonal derangement or deregulated hunger cues caused by years of junk food and a sedentary lifestyle. It could be anything.

This has actually been studied, and the results are nothing but supportive of the commonsense idea that people tend to overeat for very compelling emotional reasons – reasons that aren’t addressed at all by calorie-counting. For example:

• This study looked at the role of stress in overeating. The conclusion: “high levels of stress alter the biology of stress and appetite/energy regulation, with both components directly affecting…risk of weight gain and obesity.” In other words, stress creates a biological drive to overeat, and overeating does actually reduce stress in the short term.
• In this study, the worse subjects felt before a test meal, the more junk food they consumed. They were eating for comfort – and it worked.
• In this study and this one, young people who had lived through the death of a parent were more likely to be obese and suffer from metabolic syndrome, respectively. This suggests the logical conclusion that grieving children might turn to food for comfort.

If someone is overweight, it means that these reasons (the need for comfort, the need for stress reduction, etc.) have already come up against willpower and the desire to be thin, and they’ve already won. Comfort is a basic human need. People eat for comfort because it works. You cannot just take away that comfort without changing the problem. A better strategy would be to find the reasons why you overeat, and address those: you might just find that the calories take care of themselves.

2. It doesn’t account for nutrient partitioning.

“Nutrient partitioning” just means whether a given calorie is used for fuel or stored as fat. This is the big premise of the low-carb idea. In people who are severely insulin resistant, carbohydrate calories are preferentially stored as fat, even though the person’s organs are actually starving. This person doesn’t need to reduce total calories; he needs to get those calories to where they’re so desperately needed (his liver, brain, and other organs) and stop storing them as fat.

If you embark on a 1200 calorie diet in this state, you’ll probably lose some weight (or at least, gain it more slowly). After all, you can’t store calories as fat if they aren’t coming into your mouth in the first place. But that doesn’t heal your metabolism; now you’re just starving your muscles as well as your organs. Thinking about what kind of calories you’re eating, rather than just how many, is a much better way to tackle the real issue.

1. It doesn’t work in the long term.

This review of diet studies said it best: “Dieters who gain back more weight than they lost may very well be the norm, rather than an unlucky minority.” Calorie-counting can take off pounds in the short term, but in the long term those pounds come right back, usually with some friends along for the ride.

Even if you’re willing to weigh and measure everything to ensure accurate portion sizes, and deal with the hunger, the deprivation, the stress, and everything else, this should give you a reason not to do it: all that sacrifice ultimately won’t get you what you want.

The exceptions

For every rule, there’s at least one exception. And the advice against calorie counting is no different.

Exception: Ex-Dieters

If you have starved yourself in the past, you may have to count calories to make sure you’re getting enough. It’s very well-documented in eating disorder treatment programs that chronic restrictors have a skewed idea of how many calories are in their food, and counting for a little while may help you re-set. This should be temporary, but sometimes it helps in the short term.

Exception: Athletes

Athletes who want to compete at a very high level (especially strength athletes) may also have to count calories to make sure their food intake is adequate to support their training.

What to Do Instead

At this point, hopefully you’re convinced that counting calories is not the way to go. What you really need for sustainable weight loss isn’t calorie counting; it’s a diet that…

• Addresses hormonal and metabolic problems (if they exist), thus making sure food is used for energy rather than being stored as fat.
• Does not make you hungry, stressed, or miserable.
• Encourages a holistic view of health, rather than nudging you towards unhealthy food choices just because they’re low in one “bad” category (e.g. carbs, fat, calories, etc.).
• You can see yourself following in the long term.

Nobody’s claiming that Paleo is perfect, but it certainly works a lot better than calorie-counting to hit these key needs. A few tips to help you really tweak the diet for weight loss without counting calories:

• Go easy on the nuts. They aren’t all that great for you anyway, and they’re easy to overeat without realizing it.
• Eat sitting down, in a quiet place, without distraction. Turn off the TV; get away from your desk. You can’t tell when you’re full if you aren’t paying attention to your body.
• Think long term, and be prepared for a temporary weight gain. You may have a learning curve as you re-learn how to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness signals. Don’t panic. It may be a good idea to weigh yourself only once a month (remember: long term!) to avoid getting hung up on day-to-day fluctuations.
• Fill at least half your plate with vegetables, and don’t be afraid of the starchy ones. It’s fine to eat carbs, even if you want to lose weight.
• On the other hand, also consider ketosis. This is not necessary for everyone, but may be helpful if you have metabolic issues with carbs (Type 2 Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or a similar condition).

And most importantly, find a way of eating that you think you could keep up for good. This avoids the #1 problem with calorie restriction: weight regain after the diet ends. Losing 35 pounds and keeping it off beats losing 50 pounds and regaining 60! Figure out how to make Paleo work for you in the long term, and you’ll thank yourself 5 years down the line when the weight is still off.

One of the biggest reasons why people try Paleo in the first place is to get more energy. They read the testimonials from people who went from constantly-exhausted couch potatoes to vibrant, joyful CrossFit athletes, and they want that transformation for themselves. It’s perfectly understandable to expect that a healthier diet will give you more energy – which is why it’s such a betrayal when sometimes, it doesn’t. If Paleo means spending all day in a haze of exhaustion and brain fog, something’s gotta give.

So what could cause this sudden dip in energy when eating healthier foods is supposed to make you feel better? First off, start with the obvious. If you’ve just quit caffeine, if you’re not getting enough sleep regularly, or if you’ve just made another drastic life change, your diet should not be the first place to look for answers. But assuming that nothing else is responsible, it’s reasonable to start troubleshooting your food to make sure you’re not accidentally shooting yourself in the foot with your efforts to eat better.

Fatigue Culprit #1: Transition

For the first 3 weeks or so of your new Paleo lifestyle, the most likely culprit is simply the transition period. Changes, especially big changes like your entire diet, are exhausting. That’s one of the reasons why habit has such a strong power over us: it takes less energy just to do whatever we’re used to doing. Until you get into a routine, you have to use willpower, and that’s draining, both mentally and physically. Your brain is working a lot harder than it usually has to, so it’s no surprise that you’re tired.

On top of that, Paleo tends to be lower in carbs, with most of your calories coming from fat. If you’re switching from a high-carb diet, there’s usually a week or two of adjustment (commonly known as the “low-carb flu”).

The solution: be patient, and give yourself a break. When you’re in the middle of this, it’s easy to worry that it’s going to go on forever, but remember: this is a transition period. It will pass. Your body is working very hard to get used to your new diet: be kind to it. Once you make new habits, you won’t be putting such a heavy toll on your mental resources all the time, and once you get used to running on fat, you’ll wonder why you ever thought a bowl of Rice Krispies was a decent breakfast. You just have to give it time.

Fatigue Culprit #2: Not Enough Carbs

But what if you’ve been through the transition period and you’re still tired? It’s possible that you’re just not eating enough carbs.

Not enough carbs? Wasn’t the first section about switching away from carbs? Carbs definitely shouldn’t be your staple source of calories, but that doesn’t mean you need to eliminate them completely from your diet. Even with fat providing most of your energy, carbohydrates are still very important, especially for women, children, and athletes. They’re nutrients just like every other nutrient: you don’t want too much, but you don’t want too little, either.

Figuring out where that “sweet spot” is can be a little tricky. Most of us are familiar with the problems of eating too many carbs. The classic “sugar rush” is an extreme example of “energy overdose” from carbohydrates. Eaten to excess, this energy gets stored as fat, not to mention sending you on a crazy sugar high/sugar crash rollercoaster all day long. Heaps of refined carbohydrates are nobody’s friend.

But entirely eliminating carbs swings the pendulum too far the other way. It’s a problem to get more carbohydrate energy than you need, but it’s also a problem to not get enough. Athletes, for example, often really struggle with a low-carb diet because carbs are your muscles’ favorite fuel. When they’re not being fueled adequately, those muscles just don’t work as well. For high-intensity work like sprinting or Crossfit, some safe starches in your diet will help you feel and perform better, and recover faster after a workout.

Some other people also just feel better when they eat a little more starch. Their energy goes up; they stop having cold hands and feet all the time; they get to sleep better and wake up more refreshed. Women in particular (especially pregnant women) tend to do better with more carbs in their diet. There are exceptions, of course, but a ketogenic diet is not generally ideal for fertility and pregnancy – or even for overall good health.

The solution: eat more carbs. Good Paleo carb sources include potatoes, sweet potatoes, chestnuts, bananas (the only fruit with more starch than sugar), and plantains. Other root vegetables (like carrots and winter squash) have some but not a lot; they’re fine to eat, but you’d have to eat a big pile to get enough.

Fatigue Culprit #3: Not Enough Calories (even if you don’t feel hungry!)

Two boiled eggs and a side of vegetables is not enough for breakfast. Half a chicken breast with some salad greens is not enough for lunch. One cup of soup and some roasted squash doesn’t even deserve to be called dinner: that’s a snack. Even if you’re trying to lose weight with Paleo, you need to eat enough food to supply your body’s essential needs. Food is energy; if you aren’t getting enough of it, you will feel exhausted and run-down all the time, because exhaustion is a symptom of starvation.

This could be true for you even if you think you “eat a lot of food.” A big pile of vegetables is very healthy, but it simply doesn’t have a lot of calories. If you’re using that broccoli to replace a bunch of bread, you’d better also be increasing your servings of meat and fat. The 3-ounce “portion” of meat (the size of a deck of cards) is set by diet authorities who assume that you will be accompanying it with a huge pile of rice, wheat, or corn. If you’re replacing all those things with non-starchy vegetables, you need to eat more of the meat!

How much more? More than you probably think. Most of us – men and women – are conditioned to distrust our bodies and our hunger. Whether we intend to or not, we tend to ignore our hunger signals and instead take cues from our environment about how much we “should” be eating – but those portions are often way too small. According to the World Health Organization, a starvation diet is defined as less than 1800 calories a day for women or 2100 for men (now compare that to the 1400-calorie diets regularly recommended for weight loss). If you plug your data into the calorie calculator here, you might be surprised at how much you actually need.

At this point, you might be thinking something like “but this can’t be me! I don’t count or restrict calories! I don’t feel hungry at all, just exhausted.” But it’s not that simple. For some complicated hormonal reasons (see this article for all the science), the hunger of long-term energy restriction doesn’t always produce any empty feeling in your stomach. That goes double for people with a history of calorie-restricted or “portion-controlled” dieting. If your body has been living through a “famine” for a while now, you might be starving without realizing it.

The upshot: you need more food than you think you do. When you switch to Paleo, you’ll need to change your mental picture of how much meat and fat should be on your plate, or risk a serious energy deficiency. If your daily energy expenditure is 2300 calories but you’re only eating 1400, it’s absolutely no surprise that you’re feeling tired.

The solution: eat more. Just to give you an idea, this is what 2000 calories (about enough for a sedentary man or an active woman) of Paleo food looks like:

• Breakfast: 4-egg omelet (with whatever non-starchy vegetables you like), cooked in 1 tbsp. coconut oil; 2 slices of pan-fried bacon.
• Lunch: 1 whole avocado; salad with 6 ounces of salmon (about half a can) and whatever non-starchy vegetables you like plus 1 tbsp. olive oil in the dressing.
• Dinner: 1 serving of barbecued sirloin with Dijon; 1 large sweet potato with 1 tbsp. butter; 1 cup spinach sautéed in 1 tbsp. coconut oil.
• Dessert: 1 cup strawberries drizzled with 2 tbsp. coconut milk.

If one of these meals looks a lot like your total daily food intake, it’s time to start eating some more. You may have to count calories at first to make sure you’re getting enough food, but as your body recovers, it will start to give you accurate hunger and fullness signals. This is true even if you want to lose weight: you don’t need to create a massive calorie deficit for weight loss. It’s actually better to take it slow and steady, and feel amazing and energetic during the process.

Fatigue Culprit #4: Not Enough Fat

If carbs are your best friend when it comes to energy, fat is your second-best. The number one reason why people fall prey to the “not enough calories” problem above is that they’re still afraid of fat. So they take out a lot of energy-dense carbohydrate foods, but they refuse to replace those carbohydrates with healthy fats, and they end up exhausted and hungry all the time. But there’s absolutely no reason to fear fat. There is no such thing as “low-fat Paleo.” “Low-fat” should not even be a word in your Paleo vocabulary.

The solution: eat more fat. Butter, animal fats, and fatty cuts of meat are all good for you; enjoy them!

One fat that’s particularly good for energy is coconut oil. Coconut oil is high in a special type of saturated fat called medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs).  MCTs are digested and absorbed very fast, so they’re like an instant energy boost. So the next time you’re feeling down in the afternoon and craving an energy hit, try a spoonful of coconut oil instead of a caffeine boost or a sugary snack: it’s the same quick energy, but without the crash afterwards. For even more MCT goodness, you can also buy specially-formulated MCT oil (although this is more expensive).

Fatigue Culprit #5: Not Enough Salt

“Not enough salt” (like “not enough fat” and “not enough calories”) is one of those problems only Paleo dieters seem to have. Common knowledge is that salt is dangerous and unhealthy, but in reality that’s just not so. In fact, a salt deficiency can be unhealthy, and it’s easy to get too little if you stop eating high-salt processed foods and start cooking everything at home without salt.

So how does inadequate salt cause fatigue? For one thing, restricting your salt intake can leave you deficient in a mineral called iodine. Iodine isn’t found naturally in salt, but most table salt in the United States is fortified with it, and salt is a significant source of iodine in the American diet. So when you stop eating salt, you’re also drastically cutting back on your iodine intake.

This is dangerous, because you need iodine to keep your thyroid healthy, and the thyroid is like the central control mechanism for every hormone in your body. Constant, wearing fatigue (among other side effects like weight gain and menstrual abnormalities) is a classic sign of thyroid problems. If you suddenly feel tired on Paleo when you never did before, you might want to add some salt back into your diet or look up another source of iodine like seaweed.

There’s also a second reason why a low-salt diet can make you feel tired. Salt is an electrolyte – one of the important minerals that most of us recognize as “things we’re supposed to eat after exercising.” Your body needs a certain balance of salt and water to function properly. If you drink a lot of water and don’t eat enough salt (especially if you’re also losing salt through sweat when you work out), you’re at risk for a medical condition called hyponatremia, which causes muscle cramps, confusion, and (you guessed it!) fatigue. When sports medicine experts advise you to drink electrolytes after a workout, this is what they’re trying to prevent.

Hyponatremia is most commonly a problem for elite athletes, but even the conservative, conventional-wisdom Mayo Clinic admits that “A low-sodium, high-water diet can sometimes disturb the proper balance between sodium and fluids in your blood.”

The solution: eat more salt. Sea salt is fine, but if you want to fix an iodine deficiency, either choose an iodized salt or get another source of iodine as well. Eat as much salt as you crave; when you’re not filling up your plate with sodium-packed processed foods, you can rely on your taste buds as the ultimate judge of how much your body needs.

Fatigue Culprit #6: Nutrient Deficiencies

Iodine is covered above, but a wide range of other nutrient deficiencies can also be expressed as chronic low energy. In fact, almost any kind of nutrient deficiency can cause fatigue, but there are a few that are especially important with respect to Paleo:

• Iron and/or Vitamin B12: this one is rare among Paleo dieters because meat is an excellent source of both iron and Vitamin B12. But here’s the catch: iron is absorbed in the gut. If you have underlying gut problems (like Celiac Disease), you might not be absorbing all the iron in your diet, so anemia is still a possibility no matter how much iron you eat. If you suspect you might have some gut issues, it might be worthwhile to get a blood test for iron and see whether anemia might be an issue.
• Vitamin D: It’s possible to be deficient in Vitamin D even on Paleo, because most of your body’s supply comes from the sun, not from food. Most milk is fortified with Vitamin D, so if you stop drinking milk and don’t make a special effort to get enough other Vitamin D-rich foods, you might start seeing deficiency symptoms on Paleo. Good food sources include salmon, sardines, and eggs, or get out in the sun!
• Choline: Choline isn’t as famous as some other minerals, but it’s one of your brain’s favorite nutrients. Choline is necessary for building the membranes of cells in your brain, so deficiency can cause fatigue (as well as all kinds of other brain problems). If you’re trying to do a “low-fat” version of Paleo, you might be deficient in choline, because the best sources are delicious, fat-rich animal foods like egg yolks.
• Selenium: Like iodine, selenium is important for thyroid health. So a deficiency of selenium can cause fatigue and other symptoms of thyroid dysfunction. You might be deficient if you don’t eat fish and seafood regularly, as most food sources come from the ocean (the big exception is Brazil nuts).

Paleo “Energy Foods.”

Having a hard time trying to mentally juggle all 6 of these “culprits”? To help you integrate all this into your regular diet, here are eight delicious and nutritious energy-boosting Paleo foods:

• Liver: Liver is famous for its “energizing” effect – you can almost feel the astonishing amount of nutrition rushing straight into your body as you eat it. Possibly this is the placebo effect (eating liver doesn’t happen by accident; if it’s on your plate, you know it’s good for you), but it might also have to do with the truly amazing amounts of fatigue-fighting vitamins it contains. One ounce of raw liver already has 277% of your RDA of B12, and very few people eat just one ounce at a time. Liver is also high in selenium and choline, not to mention pretty much everything else: if you have any kind of nutrient deficiency at all, liver is a good bet for solving it.
• Eggs:  Egg yolks are palm-sized nutritional gems. They’re rich in choline and selenium (two of the potential nutrient deficiencies that might cause fatigue), and they’re full of healthy fat. Don’t eat just the whites; the yolks are where all the nutrients are!
• Potatoes or sweet potatoes: both are delicious sources of starchy carbs, and easy to prepare: just throw them in the microwave for 5 minutes, and top with some butter and cinnamon.
• Chestnuts: another tasty source of starch, perfect if you’re getting a little bored with potatoes.
• Avocado: avocados are a healthy and delicious way to fix a deficiency of fat and calories.  They give you all the energy of a healthy fat source, but with all the vitamins and minerals of a vegetable. If you’re struggling to find enough “stomach space” for all the calories you know you should be eating, start here!
• Salmon: salmon will hit 3 of the 4 important nutrients listed above (iron/B vitamins, Vitamin D, and selenium); it’s also full of many other vitamins and minerals, healthy fats, and high-quality protein.
• Grass-fed butter: there’s a reason why the famous “Bulletproof coffee” insists on grass-fed butter and not just any old stick you can pick up at the grocery store. Butter has the same medium-chain triglycerides as coconut oil, and the grass-fed variety is also a source of iodine and selenium.
• Pemmican: pemmican was the original “energy bar” for Native American groups, made from a mixture of tallow and dehydrated meat (sometimes with berries added). Like liver, it’s another one of those foods that makes you feel almost superhuman when you eat it. Make your own, or buy it online.

These are just suggestions; you don’t have to eat any of them if you don’t want to. But these are the kinds of foods that will help you treat your fatigue symptoms: nutrient-rich, energy-dense whole foods. Unsurprisingly, they’re also just generally healthy: fatigue is really a sign of an overall health problem, so anything that produces an overall health improvement will help fight it.

Conclusion

Don’t settle for a Paleo diet that leaves you constantly exhausted. For one thing, you’re not likely to stick to it – if your choices are feeling energetic while eating pizza or feeling lousy while eating a salad, at some point you’re going to crack and go for the pizza. To really make Paleo stick, you need to find a way to keep your energy levels up while you’re at it.

To summarize very briefly, the main reasons why you might feel tired on Paleo are:

• Transition (for the first 2-3 weeks)
• Not enough carbs
• Not enough calories
• Not enough fat
• Not enough salt
• Nutrient deficiencies

Note that this is all different from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a disorder that makes you constantly exhausted all the time, whether you’re eating Paleo or not. CFS is a very complicated disease, and it’s very real, but it’s not caused by anything as simple as a change in diet. This article is about a totally different problem: the sudden, confusing drop in energy that otherwise healthy and energetic people notice when they switch to Paleo.

In that situation, the culprit is most likely to be one of the problems above. But just because you fell into one of these traps the first time around doesn’t mean you can’t change that now. Experiment with one – or more – of the solutions, and see how you feel; you might be surprised at how simple the answer actually is!

When Paleo dieters talk about eating according to evolutionary design, a huge elephant in the room is the evolutionary changes that have affected our food itself. We’ve bred animals to be fattier with milder-tasting meat: compare a chicken to a pheasant or another wild game bird, and the pheasant will taste extremely dry and gamey in comparison. We’ve bred vegetables to be less bitter and produce more edible parts. And we’ve bred fruit to be bigger, sweeter, seedless, and more uniform in appearance, so it looks nicer on a grocery-store shelf.

This long process of selective breeding has removed the fruit so far from its original state that most fruits need to be raised in highly artificial conditions because they can’t even survive without human assistance. In handcrafting our apples and pears to suit our taste buds, we’ve stripped them of their natural defenses against pests and predators, and transformed them into completely domesticated species dependent on human intervention from start to finish.

So with all these incredible transformations, is fruit still a healthy food that deserves to be lumped together in the “fruits and vegetables” category, or is it basically just whole food candy? We know that the genetic changes to modern dwarf wheat have made it even worse for us than it originally was; could the same disadvantages be true for fruit? Does modern fruit even still belong in the category of a “natural food,” or is it more like a sort of processed food that we’ve engineered to grow ready-made from a tree?

A Brief History of Fruit

Fruit picked off a tree is available to the most nomadic hunters and gatherers, and fruit was definitely eaten well before the advent of agriculture, although theorizing about precisely what fruits were available during the Paleolithic is an exercise in wild speculation. All we can really tell is that we definitely didn’t evolve to eat a fruit-based diet like apes and chimpanzees, but probably ate at least some fruit as it was seasonally available.

These wild fruits would have been small, difficult to get, and comparatively less juicy than their modern equivalents. To get some idea, take a camping trip somewhere in late summer, and go hunting for wild blueberries. If you’re lucky enough to find a patch, you’ll notice that they’re much smaller than the grocery-store equivalents, more acidic, and quite laborious to pick – tasty, but you’d have to scrabble around on your hands and knees all morning to get a fruit salad out of them.

When humans started settling down and growing crops, we also started cultivating fruits. The earliest pictorial record of fruit cultivation comes from Iraq, around 3,000 BC (for reference, this is well after the agricultural revolution, which took place around 10,000 BC). Ancient cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia grew fruits including dates, olives, and grapes, and later apples and pears. By the time the Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean world (around 200 BC), fruit culture was widespread, and the Romans enjoyed apples, dates, and other fruits as desserts. When European explorers discovered the New World, American fruits like pineapples and tomatoes were added to the European plate.

Cultivating fruit deliberately would have given us the first opportunity to breed the fruit for specifically desirable qualities. Fruits are usually grown not from scratch (by planting a seed in the ground), but by a process called vegetative propagation. In vegetative propagation, a gardener or scientist grows an entirely new plant from a piece of the old one, producing a “child” plant that’s genetically identical to the “parent.” It’s basically a way of cloning plants. At least one of these methods, called grafting, is an ancient technology, attested as early as 1800 BC in Mesopotamia.

In some cases, only vegetative propagation allowed an edible variety of the fruit to be developed at all. For example, take bananas. In the wild, bananas are pretty much inedible, because there are so many seeds relative to the amount of fruit. But every now and then, an evolutionary accident produced a sterile banana, one without seeds. With just the flesh of the fruit left, these sterile bananas were actually quite tasty. To get more of them, ancient banana-lovers bred them using cuttings (since without seeds, the banana couldn’t reproduce itself). This process started around 10,000 years ago, and today we’re still eating the genetically identical “descendants” of these early experiments in plant breeding.

The same kind of effort with other fruits has created the apples, grapes, and other fruits we enjoy today from their less palatable wild equivalents. Humans can selectively breed fruits for our favorite traits (or wait until those traits occur by chance), and then “freeze” the evolutionary process and produce fields of genetically identical fruits. The result is fruits that look good on supermarket shelves, but aren’t very hardy in the wild – many domestic fruits, like apples and pears, have to be pollinated by bees (insects they didn’t evolve to need) in order to be fertile.

On the one hand, this means that we are eating technically “Paleo” food, but on the other hand, we’re taking the Paleo oddballs and freaks as our “normal.” All our technology for assisting the reproduction of sterile or extremely fragile plant species has basically given us an unnaturally widespread access to mutations that used to be isolated “freaks of nature” and die off after one generation. Predictably, we’ve so far selected fruits for size, seedlessness or relatively few seeds, sweetness, and aesthetic appeal (for an interesting summary of cultivation-related changes in fruit, see the chart on page 56 of this article.)

Wild vs. Cultivated Fruit: Sugar Content

So how have all these human-induced variations changed the nutritional content of our fruit? One of the most obvious differences is the sugar content (most of which is fructose). Wild apples are small and bitter, nothing like a Red Delicious or Macintosh from a modern orchard. Compare a crabapple to the gleaming, polished fruits in the grocery store, and the difference is obvious. We like our fruit sweet, and we know how to keep it that way.

On the other hand, it’s very important not to let the changes of selective breeding blind us to the fact that many wild (non-cultivated) fruits are actually quite sweet naturally. Fruits are under evolutionary pressure to be sweet completely independent of human breeding, because that’s how they spread as a species. Their pleasant taste is how they attract animals (including humans, but also apes, monkeys, birds, and other fruit-eating species) to come and eat them, and then spread their seeds around through defecation. The sweeter the fruit, the more we’ll seek it out, and the better for the species. In other words, it’s in the fruit’s evolutionary advantage to be sweet, so it’s reasonable to expect that fruits should have been continually evolving to become sweeter regardless of what genetic experiments humans are carrying out in research institutions.

Evidence from uncultivated fruits bears this theory out. Some wild fruits are just as high in sugar as anything you can get at the grocery store, although others are smaller and less palatable. These sweet fruits are roughly equivalent to cultivated fruits in carb content, glucose and fructose ratios, and caloric value (some of them are even more calorie dense than our cultivated fruits).

Clearly, even though wild apples might not be naturally as sweet as a Red Delicious, it’s not impossible that Paleolithic humans would have had access to some other varieties of fruit that were just as sweet and just as high in fructose as modern cultivars. This similarity casts some serious doubt on the theory that modern fruits are just “natural candy” compared to some theoretical bitter, small, and fiber-rich ancient counterpart. But comparison to very sweet tropical fruits only tells half the story: it doesn’t account for how we grow and treat our fruits before we eat them.

Wild vs. Cultivated Fruit: Seasonality

Another argument against fruit is that before the advent of modern nutritional engineering, it was rare and available only in season. Before refrigeration became widely available, you couldn’t get blueberries in February or peaches in April unless you found some way to preserve them. Since most of these fruits ripen in the fall, this argument claims that fruit is a temporary sugar burst that helped us fatten up a little in preparation for possible starvation during the winter. Just look at bears gorging themselves on blueberries before they hibernate.

If this argument holds water, fruit starts to look like a food that might have been helpful in the Paleolithic, but isn’t so great for modern humans. After all, more fattening up is the last thing we need!

There’s one big problem with this argument, though: plenty of healthy hunter-gatherer groups live around the equator, where the weather is so warm that fruit grows year-round. And people in these groups simply are not getting fat from their fruit intake. If we’re talking about human evolution, this is likely the climate in which we spent a lot of our time, and observations of modern-day humans living this way hardly provide evidence for fruit as insulation for the coming winter.

Wild vs. Cultivated Fruit: Processing

A better critique of modern fruit rests on the amount of processing it takes to go from orchard to plate. Before refrigerated trucks existed, fruit was largely a local commodity – only the very rich could afford to ship it long distances, which required crates of ice and a high degree of expensive labor.

Spend 5 minutes watching trucks on the interstate and it’s easy to realize how much that's changed. It’s now easy to store and transport fruit across the continent in refrigerated trailers, if you pick it when it’s still green and let it ripen on the way. To keep that perfect row of shiny green apples, the fruit is then colored with wax or given other cosmetic treatments.

Unfortunately, this has detrimental effects on the nutritional value and taste of the food (a notable exception is avocados, which don’t ripen at all on the tree and need to be picked several days before consumption). Picking fruit while it’s still green means that it has less time to absorb nutrients from the soil. Many fruits are chemical-treated to control the ripening process, but this only causes cosmetic ripening, not an increase in nutrition. This study in grapefruit found that the artificial ripening process doesn’t do any more damage besides what’s already been done by picking the fruit too early, but it still doesn’t make up for cutting short the fruit’s time on the plant.

On top of this, fruits are still alive after being picked, so the living fruit still needs energy and nutrients. Without a connection to the soil or the environment, it has to get those nutrients from its own internal stores, meaning that the fruit itself is “eating” the nutrients you would otherwise get.

The effects of this can be quite significant. For example, red and orange fruits like tomatoes, apricots, and peaches are natural sources of Vitamin C, but the Vitamin C content of these foods is lower for fruits picked green and allowed to ripen in a refrigerated truck than for fruits picked ripe from the plant. Bruising and rough treatment of the fruit during processing can further reduce the nutrient content. One United Nations study even found that “little [Vitamin C] may remain after two or three days.” Another study on blackberries found that berries harvested when ripe had a significantly higher level of antioxidant compounds than berries picked earlier and allowed to ripen in coolers.

Before the fruit is even packed into a truck, modern fruit processing methods also involve several dangerous chemicals, because the artificially bred fruits are too weak to survive on their own. Because they’re genetically identical, for example, apple orchards require an astonishing amount of pesticidal sprays to protect the evolutionarily stagnant crop from the evolutionarily vibrant molds, fungi, and insects that continue trying to find ways around the apple’s defenses.

Even organic apples aren’t safe from this: organic doesn’t mean “no pesticides;” it just means “different pesticides,” and since the organic pesticides are often less effective, organic farmers have to spray on even more of them to get the same benefit. This is the price we pay for the predictability of cloning our fruit: tweaking Mother Nature’s creations to our tastes means we also have to take care of the results.

If we’re comparing ancient and modern fruit, we can’t ignore this aspect of the question. The sugar content of modern fruits might not be so much of an issue, but compared to the fruits eaten in traditional cultures, ours are delivering a lot less nutrition (and potentially some toxic hangers-on) in exchange.

Is Cultivated Fruit Paleo?

Ultimately, the question when it comes to fruit shouldn’t be, “did cavemen have access to ____________?” but “will eating _______________ make me healthier?” Most prehistoric people didn’t have access to coconut oil, many of the vegetable species we eat now, or meats from the same animals as we eat, but we still enjoy these foods because they’re healthy, nutrient-dense, and non-toxic. Does modern cultivated fruit still pass this test?

Integrated into an overall nutrient-dense diet, in reasonable quantities, it absolutely does. Yes, it’s “unnatural” to be eating bananas in December, but it’s equally “unnatural” to be eating coconut oil anywhere outside the tropics. Yes, cultivated fruit has more fructose, but naturally occurring sugar in whole foods is simply not a demon to fear. Even in studies done on modern fruits, there’s no sign that sugar from whole fruits has any negative effect on health – and remember that early humans may have been eating fruits equal in sugar to our modern apples and bananas anyway. There’s no real reason to avoid a moderate amount of fruit because of fructose, unless you have a metabolic disorder, or problems with fructose malabsorption or FODMAPs intolerance.

On the nutritional front, grocery-store fruits do contain fewer nutrients than their wild equivalents, but that just highlights how to integrate them into your diet: as an addition to vegetables, not a replacement for them. Think of fruit as less of a nutrient-dense staple, and more of a harmless “treat food” that doesn’t really contribute much to your diet, but also doesn’t do you any harm.

Wild Fruit, Modern World

One way to avoid many of the problems with modern fruit is to satisfy your taste for sweetness with fruits that humans have changed very little since we started breeding things. Berries are the best option for this; of all the fruits in the grocery store, they’ve been changed the least by human breeding efforts. Many grocery stores carry frozen packages of wild blueberries and strawberries, so you can even get berries grown under relatively “natural” conditions.

Other wild fruits aren’t in the grocery store at all; they’re actually waiting for free all around you, ready to be picked. Crabapples, for example, are like small, tart apples; they cook up into a delicious relish to spread over pork chops or chicken. Just go out in the fall with a big tub and pick them straight off the tree!

Another way to avoid the nutrient loss of shipping is to eat produce that hasn’t been shipped to you. Find a local farm or orchard – many will actually even let you pick your own. It’s prime time for apple harvesting right now: an afternoon spent in a local orchard can be a great way to appreciate where your food comes from and spend some family time away from all your screens.

Conclusion

The major problem with modern fruit isn’t what grows on the tree (or the vine, or the bush). It’s what happens to that fruit after it leaves the plant, starting the pesticide sprays, and moving on to being harvested before it’s ripe, so it has fewer nutrients. After losing even more of those nutrients in transit and storage, it’s buffed up with wax and other chemicals for the supermarket shelf, and the result is just not comparable in nutritional value to what anyone would have been eating before the industrial food system.

Modern fruit is also often processed into forms that make it very easy to get too much of it. Fruit juice and fruit smoothies (the “large” size cup at Smoothie King could probably hold a newborn baby!) make fruit very easy to overeat. Dried fruit is an ancient food, but one that’s now available in massive quantities: nobody in the Fertile Crescent in 2,000 BC could walk into a grocery store and pick up a 5-lb jar of raisins or dates. These processed forms of fruit make it very easy to replace more nutritious foods with a “meal” of blended berries, or simply take in too much concentrated sugar at one sitting.

But whole, fresh fruit is nothing to fear, no matter how modern it is. Enjoy it as a whole food, and treat it as an addition to your diet instead of a substitute for other foods. Local produce is always better for nutrition (and usually tastier as well). If you’d rather get the fruit that humans have modified least, your best options are berries, and any wild-growing fruits you can find, like crabapples.

That said, it’s also a perfectly healthy choice to avoid fruit if you don’t like it, or if you have a fructose malabsorption problem that makes it uncomfortable to consume. There’s nothing in fruit that you can’t also get from vegetables and meat, so don’t feel obligated to consume it either. Enjoy it as a treat if you like it; ignore it if you don’t; there’s no need to worry either way.

Conventional spinach - $2.99 || Organic spinach - $4.99

How many times have you seen a sign like this and groaned a little on the inside? Nobody likes paying so much more for something that seems the same on the surface, even if they believe that it’s actually healthier, fresher, or better for the environment. And for many people – maybe even most people – the hefty price tag means puts organic vegetables completely out of reach no matter what benefits they may or may not have.

But the sticker shock does raise an important question: what really are those benefits, and are they worth it? If you’re going to pay twice as much or more for the “organic” certification on your tomatoes, it’s important to understand what you’re really getting out of it, and whether or not it really is worth your money.

“Organic” Produce is Not All the Same

In the end, it’s impossible to give a blanket answer to that dilemma, because “organic” farming isn’t just one thing. According to the USDA’s definition, the “organic” label means that the food “enhance[s] the ecological balance of natural systems and that integrate[s] the parts of the farming system into an ecological whole.” This being the federal government, though, the real definition lies in the miles of regulations attached. To get the USDA sticker, organic produce must be grown without:

• Synthetic pesticides or fertilizers
• Ionizing radiation (used to kill bacteria and parasites)
• Sewage sludge (sometimes used as a fertilizer in conventional farms; unlike the manure used in organic farms, sewage sludge is from human sewer waste and also includes all the chemicals and pathogens we flush down the toilet.)
• Genetic engineering (GMOs)

Food that actually adheres to the spirit of the law (like Martha’s farm) is the mental image most of us conjure up at the word “organic,” but there just isn’t a direct connection between the official seal of approval and this kind of farm. First of all, many farms like Martha’s grow produce that goes above and beyond organic regulations but can’t afford to get the sticker. The USDA’s regulatory apparatus can make it prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for smaller farms to get certified, so many of them aren’t – even though they grow organic food.

On the other hand, many certified organic farms might not actually produce vegetables that are better for you, or for the planet. We tend to think of organic farms as small family affairs, but the reality is very different. According to 2008 USDA statistics, out of 13,776 certified organic farms, 11,682 (about 85%) were classified as “small family farms.” These are the farmers who sell their produce at local markets and CSAs.

So it looks like most organic farms are small family farms, but the money tells a different story. The amount of sales for this group was just 17% of the total organic market. There are a lot of them, but even collectively, they don’t have a lot of market share.

The biggest 8% percent of organic farms (annual sales of $500,000 or more) earned approximately 72% of the total money. So if you’re buying something with an “organic” sticker in a store, it probably came from a huge commercial farm somewhere in California (just like conventional produce), and got shipped across the continent to you in a freezer truck (just like conventional produce), losing nutrients and burning fossil fuels along the way.

What does this mean? The vast majority of vegetables labeled organic are not produced on small family farms. Conversely, many of those small family farms aren’t officially “organic” at all. So if you’re hunting for local, planet-friendly vegetables, the “organic” label is a starting point at best. If you’re buying something off the shelf in Whole Foods, it probably comes from a megafarm, not a cozy family business.

Organic Produce and Nutrition

Bearing in mind the limitations of the “organic” certification, does it still have benefits? One of the biggest reasons that people cite for choosing organic produce is that it’s more nutritious. With respect to vitamin and mineral content, a 2012 meta-analysis from Stanford University suggests that this is completely unfounded. Conventional produce was just as nutritious as organic.

On the other hand, though, such a broad overview only looked at vitamins and minerals. The study didn’t touch on antioxidants, plant compounds that can help reduce oxidative stress. Since antioxidants are the plant’s home-grown herbicides and sunscreen, it makes sense that organic plants, which have less outside help from pesticides and fertilizers, would produce more of them. One study found that organic tomatoes had higher levels of polyphenols (a type of antioxidant), although the researchers stressed that very little research has been done in this field.

It’s still not looking so great for the organic produce, but again, a huge problem with simply comparing “organic” and “conventional” is the variation among organic farms. If the organic broccoli you buy comes from a family farm 20 miles away, chances are good that it is actually more nutritious, because it’s also local (and food loses a significant amount of nutritional value in storage). If it’s been shipped in from California in a freezer truck, that advantage doesn’t necessarily apply.

The bottom line: organic produce may have some very small health benefits, but for nutrition, local produce wins, whether or not it’s technically USDA-certified “organic.”

Organic Produce and Pesticides

Many supporters of organic food criticize the Stanford meta-analysis for setting up a strawman by focusing on vitamin and mineral content. Nobody actually buys organic foods because of what is in them, they argue; it’s about what isn’t in them, namely all kinds of pesticides and toxic residues.

Here again, the question isn’t simple by any means. Organic produce is not grown without pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. It’s just grown with organic versions of all these things, meaning that they’re made from natural substances. But as snake venom, hemlock, and poison ivy all prove, “natural” is not a synonym for “harmless.” Assuming that since they’re “natural” they must be safe, very few studies have actually tested organic pesticides, so we don’t really know whether they’re more or less dangerous than the synthetic versions.

Bearing in mind that organic pesticides may or may not be safer than the conventional chemicals, how much of these pesticides actually gets onto the food you buy? The same Stanford meta-analysis above showed an overall 30%  lower level of pesticide residues in organic produce when compared to conventional. At first glance, this seems like a huge advantage, but as one prominent anti-organic researcher points out, all the pesticides were discovered at vanishingly minute concentrations. And remember, we barely even know what the organic ones do! This just isn’t evidence to claim a significant or obvious health benefit for the organic produce.

On the topic of pesticides, one of the most publicized resources is the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list, which details the 12 worst and the 15 best conventional vegetables for pesticide residue. If you have to cut corners, the guide suggests, you should do it on avocados, not apples. Unfortunately, this list may not be particularly useful. Conventional apples are at the top of the list for conventional pesticides, but organic apples are at the top of the list for organic pesticides: it’s just a question of picking your poison.

The bottom line: When it comes to pesticide residues, it’s really impossible to tell which is safer, because the pesticides allowed on organic food have barely been studied. For all we know, they might be more toxic, so the pesticide residue on organic produce might be just as dangerous even though there’s a little less of it. Again, the best solution is to wash all your produce thoroughly before it hits your plate, or better yet, get to know a farmer and ask for yourself about what’s being used on your food.

Organic Produce and Sustainability

Another key reason to go organic is for environmental health. Many people who choose organic foods pay for them because they’re a step away from the industrial agriculture that’s wreaking such incredible havoc on our planet.

In this regard, it seems like some kinds of organic farming truly do have an edge. Judging organic pesticides against conventional versions is just as difficult in terms of environmental impact as it is in terms of human health: we haven’t studied the organic chemicals enough to know. But we do know that organic farms tend to have about 30% greater biodiversity, indicating that the organic farming methods aren’t as harsh on the surrounding life.

One thing we can measure is nitrogen pollution – and there, organic farming definitely wins. One of the biggest problems with conventional agriculture is the overuse of nitrogen as a fertilizer. In natural ecosystems, nitrogen is taken up by plants and restored through animal manure, but the human-designed ecosystem of a massive vegetable field needs a steady supply of nitrogen from somewhere else. Most conventional farmers get it through synthetic fertilizer, but the fertilizer runoff is poisoning water around the world, creating “dead zones” where nothing can survive.

Organic farming doesn’t have all the answers to this problem, but organic farmers (especially the small farms) are intensively experimenting with solutions, from planting “nitrogen fixing” crops like legumes to integrating animal and vegetable production on the same farm (the animals then supply nitrogen-rich manure for the crops). It’s not perfect, but at least it’s getting there.

Another problem of sustainability is the question of whether organic crops are more or less productive than their conventional competitors. In other words, does it take more or less energy to produce a calorie of organic food compared to a calorie of conventional food? Can we feed the world on organic food, or is it just a luxury for rich consumers?

Every study on this issue seems to contradict the one before it – results vary depending on the method of comparison, the place, the specific crops being compared, and the length of the study. Just to give two examples, a 2012 meta-analysis from Nature found that organic yields are lower than those of conventional farms, but a 30-year experiment from the Rodale Institute grew organic and conventional crops side by side, and concluded that the organic fields yielded more food with lower energy inputs.

The diversity of study outcomes is completely unsurprising if you consider the diversity of organic farming practices. Just the difference between a local CSA (produce comes from 20 miles away) and a national company (produce comes from 2,000 miles away) could make the difference between an environmental benefit and a wash. So again, the technicality of the “organic” certification takes a back seat to the way the produce was actually farmed.

The bottom line: On the whole, organic produce is probably more sustainable than conventional. If your organic vegetables come from a local farm that makes a serious effort to address problems like nitrogen pollution, that “probably” goes up to “definitely.” It’s going to take some creative farm management techniques to make organic produce feed the world, but again, the small family farms are part of the solution here, whether or not they’re technically “organic.”

Conclusion

The real problem with agriculture in the United States isn’t that we’re using synthetic pesticides instead of naturally-derived ones. We can’t just switch everyone over to copper fungicides instead of Roundup and call it a day. The problem is the entire system, which cuts people off from their food, lets us disconnect from the damage we’re inflicting on the environment, and wrecks our natural resources for the sake of cheap, convenient junk food. Farms that comply with the true ideal of the “organic” movement are working to fix this system, but the USDA certification is only an indication that the farm complies with the letter of the law, not the spirit.

So should you spring for organic produce? If you can get it from a local source, definitely. In this case, it’s actually likely to be as cheap or cheaper than what you get from the grocery store (there’s less packaging, and buying straight from the farmer cuts out the middleman).

If you’re looking at two packages in the grocery aisle, both of them trucked in from across the country, the organic is probably slightly better environmentally, so if you can afford it, the planet thanks you. But realistically, the difference just isn’t that big, so don’t be afraid to enjoy whatever fruits and vegetables can fit into your budget.

If you were elected president tomorrow, what food would you ban from the White House? Would it be bread? Pizza? Cookie dough?

For George H. W. Bush, it was broccoli. In 1990, after years of suffering through his greens, he finally used his new powers to declare an all-out prohibition: “I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.” By executive order, the White House became a broccoli-free zone, and America’s highest elected official was left to enjoy his meals to the resounding cheers of 5-year-olds everywhere.

The rest of us don’t usually make headlines with our food aversions, but if you sympathize with the anti-broccoli sentiments, you’re not alone. Not everyone loves their vegetables, and it’s not just an issue for parents raising Paleo kids. Plenty of adults also struggle with the Paleo advice to eat a pile of vegetables at every meal, and it’s often harder for the adults because all the advice for learning to love them is aimed at picky toddlers.  When you’ve hated carrots and spinach for 20 years, it’s just not as simple as using fun utensils or cutting them into star shapes!

You can still make a Paleo diet work for you, though, and it doesn’t have to mean forcing yourself to gag through a plate of kale. Overcoming the distaste of vegetables is a little tougher for adults, but there are plenty of options for the vegetable-averse, from learning to love your plant foods to simply hiding them in other recipes and moving on with your life.

Why Don’t You Like Vegetables?

If you’ve hated vegetables ever since you were a kid, it’s very possible that you’ve just been a victim of terrible vegetables. Canned vegetables are some of the most unhealthy “healthy” foods out there, because they’ve traumatized huge numbers of children into believing that they hate vegetables and always will. With memories of mealy peas, limp green beans, and tasteless cauliflower mush running through your head, it’s hard to even imagine that vegetables could be anything but a cruel and unusual punishment you endured to earn your dessert.

But vegetables don’t have to be like that. Canned vegetables are to fresh as roadkill is to a gourmet steak! So don’t judge the fresh produce by these lifeless imitations. Sometimes, curing a lifelong hatred of anything green is as simple as going out to a great restaurant and trying some vegetables that haven’t been boiled to death.

If you still can’t stand fresh (or frozen) vegetables, it’s time to figure out what you really don’t like about them. Is it the texture? The flavor? Are they bland, bitter, or just strangely “icky”? Write it down, and then use the troubleshooting guide below to help you fix the problem.

Troubleshooting a Vegetable Aversion

They’re Mushy

Assuming you’re not using canned vegetables (see above), this means you’re overcooking them. Vegetables taste best (and they’re also most nutritious) when they’re lightly cooked, not boiled to death. Try gently steaming them, and stopping just when they change color. Or fry them in your favorite cooking fat, again, stopping when they change color. This will leave them crunchy but tender.

Alternately, pick vegetables that you can enjoy raw. Carrot or celery sticks have a very pleasant “snap” to them, or if you like a stronger taste, try thin slices of red onion in your salads.

They’re Bland/Boring

Add seasonings! Salt is nothing to be afraid of; sprinkle on as much as you need to make your vegetables taste good. Spruce them up with a dash of lemon juice, pepper, ginger, garlic, or balsamic vinegar. And of course, fat makes just about anything taste better: try lard, butter, bacon fat, duck fat, or olive oil. Add as much as you like; it actually helps you absorb the fat-soluble vitamins in the vegetables.

Also try incorporating your vegetables into another dish, instead of just piling them all on one side of your plate. Stir-fries are great for this; so is Paleo spaghetti. Without that daunting heap of green stuff all by itself, you might not even notice how many vegetables you’re actually eating.

They’re Bitter

This is actually a very interesting problem from an evolutionary point of view, because it’s actually a genetic difference between individuals, not just a sign that you’re being “picky” or “childish.” Humans evolved a kind of instinctive dislike of bitter foods, because the bitter taste usually signifies something toxic. This aversion to bitterness is strongest in children, and generally fades as we get older, but about 25% of adults are “supertasters:” they taste various bitter compounds in vegetables that others never notice. Back in the Paleolithic, this was an evolutionary advantage, because it steered us away from toxic plants; today, it’s not so great, because it makes vegetables (especially crucifers like broccoli and kale) taste disgusting.

So it’s not just you being weird. You actually do taste the vegetables differently from your friends who swear they’re delicious. You’re seeing broccoli, but your lizard brain is tasting cyanide: it’s no surprise if you feel an overpowering urge to spit it out! Fortunately, there are a couple quick fixes to try:

• Cook them thoroughly. This really cuts down on the bitterness. Hardier vegetables like beets can even be boiled for 30-45 minutes without getting gross. For more tender vegetables like asparagus, try blanching them first, and then frying them, so they stay crispy but loose some of that bitter taste.
• Add other flavors. Salty, sour, or fatty dressings really help. One study found that bitter-sensitive children voluntarily ate 80% more broccoli when they had ranch dressing to go with it. Try red pepper dip or guacamole.
• Avoid crucifers. Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, cauliflower, turnips, and Brussels sprouts) are some of the worst offenders when it comes to bitterness. Carrots, summer squash (zucchini and yellow squash), beets, mushrooms, and other non-cruciferous vegetables might go down better.

I Troubleshot but They’re Still Gross.

If you (or your kids) still aren't crazy about vegetables even when they're cooked right, it might be time to brush up on your vegetable-hiding skills. This method gets a bad rap as an “easy way out” or a way of “cheating,” but that’s mostly because people hide zucchini in chocolate-chip cookie dough and think they’ve made something healthy. If you’re hiding vegetables in other healthy foods, instead of making excuses to eat junk there’s really nothing to worry about.

To make healthy Paleo meals even healthier, try sneaking some vegetables into these easily adaptable foods:

• Chili or curry: a pound of frozen spinach will disappear into a curry like it never existed, and chili is perfect for pureed carrots or beets.
• Ground beef dishes (meatballs, meatloaf, stuffed peppers…): anything made with ground beef can disguise an astonishing amount of vegetables with barely a trace. Chop it very fine or puree it in a food processor, and toss it in! For bonus points, wrap it in bacon.
• Smoothies: smoothies aren’t the ideal meal replacement because they tend to have a lot of sugar, but they do make a great “transition food” for the vegetable haters. Adding a cup or so of spinach to a smoothie will change the color, but not the taste: yes, it turns green, but it doesn’t taste like spinach at all.

Also remember that your taste buds may change as you continue eating Paleo. Eating sugary processed foods just makes you crave more and more sugary processed foods, and trains your taste buds to expect that instead of the natural taste of real food. Once you’re off the junk, your brain needs a little time to adjust, but in a few weeks you might notice that everything tastes a little different. Maybe even those puke-inducing Brussels sprouts aren’t so bad, after all?

A good strategy is to revisit the vegetables you “hate” every month or two, just to see whether you still hate them. If you still can’t choke them down, no pressure: spit them out and have done with it. But don’t assume that just because you hated something once, that you’ll hate it forever after!

Conclusion

Theoretically, you can survive on meat alone (if you eat some of it raw to get the Vitamin C). But this is Paleo: “surviving” is not the goal! It’s about optimal health, and that’s a lot easier to achieve when you include a broad spectrum of plant foods in your diet. There are just a lot more opportunities to get the nutrients you need, and a much lower chance that you'll be deficient in something.

That doesn’t mean you have to choke down a huge bowl of salad if you hate lettuce. Try a variety of vegetables to see what you like – ask your friends for recipes, or recruit someone to help you learn to cook them properly. You might prefer to get your greens in stir-fries or mixed dishes, instead of piled all together on one side of your plate. You might even need to hide them in meatloaf or smoothies, so you won’t have to think about them at dinnertime. That’s all OK. Just don’t let a fear of vegetables hold you back from feeling all the amazing health benefits of Paleo!

For aspiring Paleo chefs, one big way to keep the cost of dinner down is to use all your leftovers, but reheating the same food again and again can get unappetizing pretty quickly, and it’s all too common to see a forest of Tupperware multiplying in the fridge, each half-full of a different leftover vegetable and none of them looking particularly appetizing. This is especially true for people who live alone and try to save money by cooking in bulk, only to realize that they don’t actually want to eat the same pork shoulder for five dinners in a row. Many people just end up throwing them all out in despair, which is a waste of good food and also good money!

To help save you from this trap, here are 17 quick and easy tips to save your leftovers from the trash can in easy, family-friendly, and appetizing ways.

Freezer meals

This is such a convenient way to use your leftovers that you might find yourself cooking extra on purpose so you can take advantage of it. If you have enough leftovers for an entire meal (or several) but don’t want to eat the same thing two days in a row, just freeze a meal-sized serving of everything in a separate container to take out later when you’re in a rush. It’s like a Paleo freezer dinner! You can also do this just with the meat portion of a meal, if you’ll have time to quickly throw together a salad but not enough time to cook the meat.

For homemade condiments, this is also a useful way of preserving a large batch you made for a recipe but never used up. Freeze extra ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise in an ice cube tray, so when you want some more, you can just pop out and defrost as many cubes as you need.

Soup or broth

Soup is one of the most incredibly versatile options in any chef’s recipe book, and it can take just about any kind of leftovers you like. Some ideas:

• Leftover vegetables: just toss them all in, with or without meat. There are very few vegetables that don’t go well in soup (lettuce might not be the best choice), but it’s very hard to go wrong here. Another alternative is to puree harder vegetables (like squash or broccoli) for a creamier, richer soup on a cold winter afternoon.
• Leftover bones: perfect for making a delicious and nourishing bone broth. Chicken carcasses are just the right size for a pot of broth, but also use the leftover bones from ribs, drumsticks, or any other bone-in meat.
• Leftover meat: Save it in a separate container, and add it to a pot of soup at the very end of cooking to warm it up – if you cook it twice, it will get tough and unappetizing.

Stuffed peppers

Throw your leftover meat and vegetables inside a big bell pepper for an attractive fresh take on last night’s dinner. If you’re serving a crowd, get several different colors: peppers come in red, green, yellow, white, and even purple, so you can put together a whole rainbow on the table. They’re easy, too: just spoon in the filling, balance the peppers on a baking sheet, and bake in the oven until the flesh of the peppers is soft and the filling is warm all the way through. Some ideas:

• Thanksgiving peppers: leftover turkey, cauliflower “mashed potatoes,” and cranberry sauce to surprise your family with a new twist on holiday leftovers.
• Stuffed peppers, Italian-style: ground beef seasoned with basil and oregano, with tomato sauce and any leftover vegetables.
• Hawaiian pizza pepper: the rest of your chicken pineapple stir-fry, stuffed into a pepper – add ham or tomato sauce if you like.
• Breakfast in a pepper: your favorite pork or chicken sausage, with any leftover sweet potato or butternut squash.
• Ham “sandwich:” Leftover ham (or Dijon pork roast) with any vegetables you have; top with a smear of mustard when you pull it out of the oven.

Omelets or Frittatas

If you only have a little bit of something, an easy way to use it up is to just throw it into an egg dish. Get creative here: below are just a few ideas for how to transform some lunch or dinner leftovers into a mouthwatering omelet the next morning:

• Leftover meat from bulgogi: try an Asian-inspired omelet with the meat, some ginger, red pepper flakes, and green onions.
• Leftover lamb cutlets: slice the meat very thin, and add some olives and extra thyme if you have those left over as well.
• Leftover chicken masala or chicken curry: Southeast Asian flavors are perfect with eggs, especially if you beat the eggs for the omelet with a little leftover sauce.
• Leftover cream of tomato soup, pesto, or salsa verde: beat it into the eggs before you cook them, and add whatever vegetables you like.

Salad toppers

Salads can stretch to accommodate almost any kind of addition, so don’t be shy about experimenting. Lettuce is traditional, but you could also use cucumbers or spinach as the base, and add whatever other vegetables you want to use up. Throw in some olive oil and vinegar, and call it lunch! This is the perfect “five-minute meal” for those busy days when you don’t have time to cook anything, and it’s so endlessly variable that it’s hard to get bored.

Stir-Fries

Stir-fries are the king of leftovers because they’re so incredibly easy. They’re traditionally Asian dishes, but can adapt just as well to almost anything. This post gives you some quick and easy recipes; just remember that if your meat is already cooked, you don’t want to cook it again. Just cook the vegetables and then add the meat at the end to warm up. Also take a look at the ideas below for some examples of how you could transform dinner into stir-fry at the drop of a hat:

• Jerk Chicken: Caribbean-style stir-fry with peppers and onions. Add some pineapple if you have some, and serve with fried plantains.
• Lemon chicken kebabs: Fry with sugar snap peas, thinly sliced carrots, and whatever else you have to hand, plus an extra squeeze of lemon juice.
• Pork chops: Fry with onions and as many leafy green vegetables as you can cram into the pan – add in any extra sauce from the recipe for flavor.

Meatloaf

Most famous for hiding liver, meatloaf can be used to disguise almost anything you feel like putting into it. Vast amounts of spinach or other green leafy vegetables will disappear into a meatloaf as though they never existed (this is also perfect for getting picky eaters to finish their vegetables). Leftover roast vegetables of any kind will only add to the dish, and many sauces will add a surprisingly delicious twist – try some BBQ sauce in your meatloaf if you’re getting a little bored of the same old recipe.

The traditional meatloaf is made with beef and pork, but don’t be shy about experimenting with turkey or chicken meatloaf if that’s what you have. The taste will be a little different, but you might just find yourself discovering a new family favorite.

Salsa

Have you ever bought a bunch of parsley, basil, or other herbs for a recipe, and then been stuck with most of the bunch still sitting in your fridge the next day, threatening to go bad? Chop up a quick batch of salsa to give this problem a delicious and useful solution. Salsa is endlessly flexible; you can make it hearty with avocados, fruity with pineapple, or lighter with citrus. Then eat it plain as a snack, or top a simple grilled meat dish with it for an elegant, colorful dinner centerpiece.

Spaghetti squash pasta

Spaghetti squash “pasta” tossed with olive oil makes a blank slate that you can dress up with any leftover cooked meat and vegetables You can find the recipe for cooking the squash here if you’re not already familiar with this delicious substitute for unhealthy wheat noodles. Sure, it’s easy to add any vegetables you like to a basic marinara sauce, but there’s no need to stop there. Some recipes that lend themselves perfectly to tossing with pasta include:

• Spiced duck breast: this recipe has both meat and vegetables, so if you save a little of each, you’ll have a colorful and rich-flavored “pasta” recipe the next day for lunch.
• Mussels in white wine sauce: pasta with seafood is a classic; make it even better by saving a little of the sauce to drizzle over the finished product (if you’re out of sauce, you can just use butter).
• Roasted bell peppers with any meat you have handy: spaghetti squash can be a little bland on its own, but these peppers give it a very pleasant tang.
• Ratatouille: give your “pasta” side some color with this vibrant and full-bodied stew tossed in.

Chili

Chili is essentially a thicker, heartier version of soup; it’s usually made with beans but doesn’t have to be. The main difference between chili and soup is all in the spices – the heart of any chili is the deep heat of peppers permeating the meat. Any kind of leftover beef is perfect for making a hearty Paleo chili – just add some tomatoes or cans of tomato paste, peppers, onions, and seasonings, and heat it all up. Some chili recipes also call for turkey or chicken, if that’s what you have.

Of course, you can get more complicated than that if you like, and don’t be afraid to throw in whatever other vegetables you have to hand. Some adventurous cooks play around with ingredients as far out as pumpkin, shrimp, goat cheese, and eggplant in their chili, so do a quick search for whatever your ingredient is and you might be pleasantly surprised to find a recipe already waiting for you.

Loaded Baked Potatoes

Despite the entire article dedicated to explaining why white potatoes are nothing to fear, they’re still a controversial food, so if you’d rather use sweet potatoes for this recipe, they’ll do just as well. But there’s absolutely no reason to shun either type of potato from your diet, and they make a perfect vehicle for dressing up leftovers with this quick tip.

Making loaded baked potatoes is simple – just bake the potatoes, then scoop out the flesh, mix it with whatever fillings you’re using, and pop the potatoes back into the oven until everything is warm. Some ideas to get you started:

• Any meat seasoned with BBQ sauce would make for delicious Southwest-style sweet potatoes. Add Jalapeno peppers if you like it spicy.
• Another Thanksgiving leftover trick is turkey and cranberry sauce inside a baked potato.
• For a Polish twist, stuff your potatoes with bigos, and top them with more sauerkraut when you’re done.
• Vegetable-stuffed potatoes or sweet potatoes without any meat at all make an interesting side dish for your next main meal.
• Greek baked potatoes with tuna (or lamb) and olives would probably work best with white potatoes.

Meatballs

Got just a few bites of vegetables hanging around in the door of your fridge? Blend them up, and toss them into a batch of meatballs for a little extra nutrition. A few extra vitamins never hurt anyone’s meal, and like meatloaf, this is a fantastic vehicle for hiding vegetables in case you need to.

If you like, you can also add the extra ingredient to change the flavor of the meatballs on purpose. Try adding leftover mayonnaise to turkey meatballs for a fantastic creamy flavor, or make beef or pork even richer with extra tomato sauce. Or use spicy chili or curry sauce to dress up the meatballs with some extra flavor.

Appetizers

Not all of us have a need for appetizers on a regular basis, but if you do, try transforming your leftovers into a quick and simple first course. The point of an appetizer is to look pretty and taste good, but not be filling, so you don’t need a lot of food. Some suggestions:

• Spinach leaf mini-wraps with one slice of red pepper and one thin sliver of leftover steak inside each.
• Your favorite Paleo-friendly crackers (or thinly-sliced cucumbers), topped with homemade mayo and a bite of leftover salmon or tuna.
• Toothpick “skewers” with a cube of leftover chicken sandwiched between two olives.

Deviled Eggs

Dressed eggs, or deviled eggs, are as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. Since you only need a little of each ingredient, they’re perfect for that last little bit of food that won’t even make one serving. These BLT dressed eggs are one idea, but why stop there? What about using salad shrimp? Or spicy Cajun dressed eggs? Thai dressed eggs with coconut milk and leftover curry sauce? The possibilities are endless, and the results make for easy and popular snacks and appetizers anytime.

Cottage Pie

Cottage pie began as a way to use leftover meat, so using it this way is really just a return to tradition. This recipe gives you instructions for a cottage pie with lamb and sweet potatoes, but you can plug pretty much anything into the basic template of meat and spices covered with a crispy crust. You don’t even have to use potatoes – a puree of cauliflower, turnips, or another root vegetable would also be delicious. Some ideas to get the creative gears turning:

• Got extra eggplant cannelloni? Try an Italian-style filling, maybe with a cauliflower crust.
• Any kind of basic chicken and vegetable recipe (like this braised chicken with fennel) provides a perfect filling.
• A pork roast is also easy to work in, and delicious with just about any crust you care to spread over it.

Paleo Pizza

While re-creating your old favorite foods with Paleo ingredients isn’t always the best strategy for long-term success, sometimes a pizza is just what you want for dinner, and the toppings provide endless opportunities to make use of the odds and ends hanging around the fridge. This recipe gives you the crust; after that, it’s up to you to add any toppings that sound good to you. Look past the pepperoni and try something new – maybe a Greek-themed pizza with lamb and olives, or a BBQ pizza with leftover ribs and fried onions.

Curry

If you have any relatively plain meat, you can make a quick curry by sautéing some vegetables, adding coconut milk and spices, and heating it all up, and then tossing in the leftover meat at the end. This won’t work with any kind of meat, but if the seasoning already there doesn’t clash with curry powder, this simple trick can give last a pork shoulder or a chuck roast some new life.

For a double whammy, serve the curry over a “bed” of other vegetable leftovers (broccoli or cauliflower would be perfect for this). The spicy sauce will make the vegetables more interesting and help cover up any dry texture that may have developed from sitting in the fridge.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are almost infinite ways to use those leftovers, including any extra sauce you poured over the main event. So instead of just throwing them away or pouring them down the sink, see how you can use the extras to add something special to another meal further down the line. It doesn’t just save money and help keep your fridge cleaner; it might also help you discover a new favorite recipe that you never would have considered!

It might be a little heretical to question the place of bacon on the Paleo menu, but unfortunately, everyone’s favorite “meat candy” really does raise some important health issues. Cured meats in general (not only bacon, but also ham, salami, prosciutto, salami, sausage, and other cured meats) have been a traditional way of preserving animal foods for hundreds of years, but they’re also featured in study after study about how all the additives and preservatives in processed meat are dangerous carcinogens.

So are all these foods just another victim of fat-phobic nutritional dogma, or is there actually something to all the accusations?

What Is Cured Meat?

Bearing in mind that there’s a difference between mysterious “lunch meat” and high-quality prosciutto or salami, all cured meats have some points in common. No matter how they’re made, many of these products contain organ meats, less-desirable cuts, and various scraps that aren’t popular enough to sell in stores. This is actually a benefit, since it reduces waste, and these parts of the animal are often the most nutritious! If a sausage helps you get some more liver into your diet, so much the better.

Whatever part of the animal they’re from, cured meats are then seasoned with spices and sugar, and treated with some kind of preservative agent like special curing salt or sodium nitrite. The salt helps prevent the growth of dangerous bacteria, pulls moisture out of the meat (making it more flavorful), and helps to “cook” the meat via controlled fermentation while it’s left alone to cure for weeks or even months. The sugar also aids in the fermentation process, because it provides food for the probiotic bacteria.

There are two main methods of curing: dry curing produces a stronger flavor and it worked better as a preservation method before refrigerators were available; traditional wet curing takes longer, and produces a milder flavor because it allows water to soak into the meat. After curing, some meats (most famously bacon) are then smoked at a low temperature to add even more flavor before making their way onto your plate.

Processed vs. Traditionally Cured

Even though the process sounds similar enough for all kinds of cured meat, there are still substantial differences between the hyper-processed “luncheon meat” you can get in plastic packages and traditionally cured products like salami and prosciutto.

First off are the ingredients. Many kinds of sausage use every part of the animal, but makers of cheap supermarket bologna often also add soy protein, and inject the product with brine or other additives to plump it up. The same goes for ham. Traditional sausages use animal intestines as the casing, but low-quality brands will often use a variety of artificial “skins,” up to and including a kind of edible plastic wrap.

Just to showcase the difference, take a product familiar to anyone who’s put together a school lunchbox: Oscar Mayer bologna. The ingredients list reads:

Mechanically Separated Chicken, Pork, Water, Corn Syrup, Contains Less Than 2% Of Salt, Sodium Lactate, Flavor, Sodium Phosphates, Autolyzed Yeast, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Erythorbate (Made From Sugar), Sodium Nitrite, Dextrose, Extractives Of Paprika, Potassium Phosphate, Sugar, Potassium Chloride.

“Flavor” could be just about anything, “Autolyzed Yeast” is another name for MSG, and “Dextrose” is a kind of sugar. Yum! Other common additives include food starch (made from potatoes, corn, or other ingredients), various preservatives, and texture enhancers like carrageenan. Oscar Mayer “bacon bologna” even includes barley, which could be a nasty and unexpected shock for the gluten-intolerant who weren’t expecting to find grains in their sausage.

Just for reference, compare that to the ingredients list for making your own bacon:

Pork belly, sea salt, black pepper, rosemary, thyme, fennel seed, bay leaves, garlic, raw honey (optional).

The next difference is the method. Instead of using the time-consuming traditional processes, most cheap cured meat is finished using an accelerated wet-cure method: water is injected under the skin with tiny needles, and then the meat bounced around in a kind of tumbler to distribute the water evenly throughout. The resulting product has a very high water content (more profitable for the manufacturers, since they can buy 4 pounds of pork and sell it as 5 pounds of ham), but it doesn’t have the rich, concentrated flavor that come from a real curing process.

That’s no problem for the food industry, though. To make up for the bland flavor of the watery meat, food chemists add artificial flavors like liquid smoke, or just assume that since so few people have ever tasted the real thing, they’ll simply accept soggy, tasteless ham.

Clearly, there’s a massive difference in the health benefits and the taste of supermarket cured meat compared to traditional versions. They’re barely even the same food. For the health-conscious, all the cheap processed versions are completely off the table, but what about the real deal: high-quality cured meat with ingredients you recognize, preferably made from grass-fed or pastured animals. Does this kind of “processed meat” really deserve to be tarred with the same brush as the rest?

Cured Meat: Salt

One of the most common arguments against cured meat is its salt content. Salt is a fundamental part of the curing process – it preserves the meat from infection with dangerous bacteria, assists in the fermentation by good bacteria, and helps dehydrate the meat so that it’s safe to store and eat at room temperature. Without salt, the meat might be spiced and aged, but it isn’t cured.

Common “knowledge” about salt would have you believe that a sideways glance at the shaker will send your blood pressure skyrocketing through the roof and put you at risk for a whole host of evils, but this simply isn’t true. Even the established medical authorities admit this now, with a study from the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year that reported no significant link between salt intake and high blood pressure or anything else.

So the fear that bacon will strike you dead because of its salt content is completely unfounded, and in fact, the high salt content of cured meats can even be a virtue on a Paleo diet, because sometimes it’s hard to get enough salt when you cut out processed junk food. The best way to regulate your salt intake is to eat it exactly to your taste, so if salty cured meat is what you’re craving, enjoy it completely without guilt.

Cured Meat: Nitrates and Nitrites

A trickier issue is the nitrate/nitrite content of cured meat – and yes, even high-quality meat with real ingredients is often cured with them (usually nitrites, since they’re more predictable and work faster). Meat labeled “no added nitrates or nitrites” is usually just made with celery juice, which contains naturally-occurring versions of the exact same chemicals.

A point that’s often missing in this discussion is that these chemicals are not there just for fun. They’re added to prevent the growth of bacteria that produce botulinum toxin. By weight, botulinum toxin is the most poisonous chemical compound that we know of: it’s 100,000 times more dangerous than Sarin, a chemical weapon banned under international law. Just a tiny dose causes botulism, a progressive failure in the muscles and nervous system leading to paralysis and death.

Clearly, this is not a danger to mess around with. But how much of a risk does it really pose? In the United States, a CDC report found 263 cases of foodborne botulism between 1990 and 2000. Judging from this, you might think that foodborne botulism is so vanishingly rare that it’s not worth worrying about. And if you just look at the lower 49 states (160 cases), you’ll see a long list of culprits, only 3 of which involved homemade sausage. So at first glance, it seems that the risk from botulism poisoning is absolutely tiny, and not significantly associated with cured meat.

But a glance at Alaska tells a different story. Of the 263 cases, 103 occurred in Alaska. So 39% of the cases occurred among 1.5% of the population. What were Alaskans doing differently? Eating traditional home-cured foods. Of those 103 cases:

• 20 involved seal oil
• 18 involved fish eggs
• 21 involved “fermented sea mammals”
• 28 involved fermented fish
• The others involved unknown or mixed ingredients.

So where home-curing and home-fermentation is common (among Alaska natives), botulism is also common. The only reason why it’s so rare in the other 49 states is that so few people cure their own food, and the vast majority of cured meat is treated with nitrites to prevent it. The bottom line: botulism is a serious danger from cured meat, and nitrites are an effective way to prevent it.

So bearing in mind that nitrates and nitrites are not just being thrown into your bacon for no good reason, do they have dangers as well as benefits? These chemicals are most infamous as carcinogens: they’ve been blamed for cancer of the stomach, colon, and pancreas, and they’re occasionally even implicated in brain tumors, cardiovascular diseases, and all kinds of other problems.

However, the risks of nitrates and nitrites may have been vastly overstated. This article and this one are good places to start your research, and here’s a free full-text from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition outlining the issue. A quick summary: in your body, nitrates get converted to nitrites, so whether you’re eating meat cured with nitrates or nitrites really doesn’t matter, because they all get metabolized into nitrites anyway. And there’s just no evidence that nitrites are dangerous – not to mention that cured meat provides a relatively tiny proportion of our total nitrite intake. Most of your body’s nitrite supply comes from your own saliva, and among foods, vegetables are by far the richest source. So if bacon is deadly because of the nitrites, then spinach must be even deadlier! There are even some attested benefits for blood pressure, and ability to use energy during exercise.

That said, it’s also true that for certain groups of people, eating nitrates and nitrites can be bad news for non-cancer reasons. Some of us just have a nitrate/nitrite sensitivity, for some individual reason. And they’re also commonly known as migraine triggers. But for people who don’t react to them, there isn’t convincing evidence suggesting that they’re dangerous.

Cured Meat: Nitrosamines

Then there’s the nitrosamine issue. Nitrates and nitrites don’t stick around in that form for long – all the nitrates become nitrites, and then the nitrites are either converted into nitric oxide (harmless, and even has some health benefits) or nitrosamines (dangerous carcinogens). This conversion can either take place in the food itself, or in your body as you’re digesting the food. The difference is clearly important, so how do you wind up with one or the other?

Enter the antioxidants. Remember that vegetables (not meat) are actually the biggest source of nitrites in most people’s diets – the nitrites from vegetables are actually one of their health benefits, because the naturally-occurring antioxidants (Vitamins C and E) convert them into nitric oxide instead of toxic nitrosamines.

For this reason, all commercial bacon is required to be processed with antioxidants. If you see “sodium ascorbate” or something similar on the package, don’t roll your eyes at another useless additive, because that’s just another name for Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), and it’s actually making the bacon safer to eat. The same goes for “sodium erythorbate,” another antioxidant (if you look back up at the Oscar Mayer ingredients list, you'll see this one). So even in cheap grocery-store bacon, there’s not much danger of the nitrites being metabolized into nitrosamines.

In traditionally cured meats, you can tell that the nitrates and nitrites are forming nitric oxide during the curing process, because that’s what gives cured meat its darker pink color relative to the uncured meat (it’s also how you can tell truly nitrite-free bacon: it will be darker brown to black on the outside rather than pink or red).

Ultimately, you’re not getting any appreciable amount of nitrosamines from processed meat, even if it is cured with nitrites. What about the potential to form them in your own body? That’s why you have your own endogenous antioxidants. These antioxidants promote the conversion of all ingested nitrates and nitrites (including the ones in your saliva and in vegetables) to nitric oxide, rather than nitrosamines.

Nitrates, Nitrites, and Nitrosamines: The Bottom Line

If all this is true, then why do so many authorities warn against the carcinogenic dangers of nitrates and nitrites? There certainly are plenty of epidemiological studies proving an association between processed meat consumption and all different kinds of cancers, but considering that most people are eating junk food supermarket bacon (full of all kinds of other nasty things), this doesn’t provide any evidence that the nitrites themselves are dangerous.

Then there’s the healthy user bias: if you tell people for years that bacon will kill them, the people who take care of themselves in other ways (exercising, not smoking, etc.) will all stop eating bacon. In the bacon-eating group, you’ll be left with the people who just don’t care about their health at all – again, this does nothing to prove that the bacon specifically is a problem.

As well as epidemiological studies in humans, there are also plenty of animal studies where researchers dosed rats with absurd amounts of nitrates and nitrites, but even in those concentrations, the chemicals didn’t cause cancer unless they were also accompanied by another carcinogen. So avoid bacon-flavored cigarettes and you should be fine.

Ultimately, there just isn’t much to stress over from the nitrate/nitrite/nitrosamine issue. Avoid them if they cause problems for you personally; don’t worry about them if they don’t.

Getting Quality Cured Meat

In the supermarket, your chances of finding high-quality sausages and ham is pretty slim. If you have a specialty foods store, you might be able to find brands with recognizable ingredients, but your best bet is to either buy directly from a butcher, or make your own.

Curing your own meat is surprisingly easy, and actually a pretty entertaining hobby. For starters, check out our recipe for making your own home-cured bacon. If you’re eager for more, recipes for other kinds of charcuterie are available all over the internet; you can find some great ones here at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. That site is run by a man who does a lot of his own hunting and gathering, and uses charcuterie as a functional way to keep the meat safe.

Another word about nitrites: some people still aren’t persuaded that nitrites are harmless, and seize the chance to cure their own meat because it lets them create a nitrite-free product. To accomplish this, simply avoid the pink curing salt recommended by most home-cured bacon recipes, and use kosher salt or regular table salt in its place. But if you go this route, it’s just important to be very careful. Remember that the nitrites are there for a reason; if you’re doing without, you’ll want to make sure to take the appropriate precautions to prevent botulism.

The bacteria that carry botulinum toxin grow best at room temperature, so make very sure to keep the meat refrigerated for the entire time. Also take care to cook the final result thoroughly at a high temperature: the botulism toxin can be destroyed by very high temperatures, so if there’s any lurking in your final product, you can destroy it this way. Do not use nitrite-free curing on any meat you don’t plan to cook, like bologna or salami. There is no way to test for it outside a lab, so the meat may still be dangerous even if it looks, smells, and tastes fine. Unless you have a well-documented sensitivity, it really is safer and easier to just use curing salt.

Cooking With Cured Meat

Once you have your cured meat, the fun part starts. While ham, sausages, and bacon are traditional as main dishes, it’s also interesting to think of cured meat like a condiment or snack, rather than a main course. Used creatively, it can add its flavor to all kinds of dishes, making a little bit of meat stretch out into a lot of taste. Some ideas:

• Add it to soup for a rich, smoky flavor: a ham bone is traditional, but you could also use a few strips of bacon or some chopped sausage.
• Crumble bacon over a soup or salad as a garnish – or add it to the salad for its own sake.
• Crisp up a few slices of bacon and make some BLT dressed eggs.
• Flavor mayonnaise with bacon.
• Stuff a steak (or anything else) with prosciutto or another cured meat.
• Fill ham slices with eggs for Paleo Eggs Benedict.

Slices of sausage or other cured meats are also a handy portable snack food: they’ll keep all day in a lunchbox or another container at room temperature, although for long-term storage you’ll need to either take the entire sausage, or refrigerate the slices.

Conclusion

Is cured meat healthy? That really depends. Low-quality cured meat should absolutely be avoided, even if your choice is low-quality bacon or low-quality chicken breast. In this case, your best bet is to buy lean grocery-store meat and add healthy fats at home.

If you’re making your own, and you know exactly what’s going into it, charcuterie can be just as healthy as any other meat. After all, pork belly is a perfectly healthy food to start with; there’s nothing about rubbing it with spices and salt, letting it sit in the fridge, smoking it, or cooking it that magically transforms it into a nutritional demon.

In the end, cured meat falls into the category of foods that are perfectly healthy, delicious, and nutritious in reasonable amounts and as long as they don’t replace other staples. If you eat nothing but salami, you’ll get sick (although you’ll probably get sick of salami first). But that applies to pretty much any food. Eating some cured meat in the context of a varied and nutritious diet is perfectly fine – and if it helps you get excited about where your food is coming from and how it’s made, so much the better.

Picture this: you’re standing at the kitchen counter, gazing fondly at the bright red stems and rich green-purple leaves of a fresh bunch of Swiss chard straight from the farmer’s market. You can practically still feel the warmth of the sunshine radiating up from your cutting board. You smile, thinking of all that nutritional goodness wrapped up in such a beautiful and tasty package.

But then the thought occurs to you: how shall I cook it? Will boiling or frying destroy the valuable phytonutrients? What about the microwave – am I irradiating my food into toxic nuclear goop? But on the other hand, if I eat it raw, what about the goitrogens? And juicing just concentrates the sugar! Help!

It’s tempting to rush to Google Scholar and drive yourself even crazier with the conflicting results of 20 different studies, but here’s the most important truth about cooking vegetables: the best way to cook them is the way you’ll actually eat them. If you want some new ideas for changing up your side dishes, or if you tend to rely exclusively on one cooking method only, read on for an analysis of all the different ways of getting your greens ready for your dinner plate. But at the end of the day, vegetables cooked using any method are better than no vegetables at all. And there’s a lot to be said for the method you find tastiest, whatever it might be.

Skip to a Cooking Method:

• Raw vs. Cooked
• Boiling
• Frying/sautéing
• Roasting/baking
• Slow-Cooking
• Steaming
• Microwaving
• Fermenting

Raw vs. Cooked

Before even getting into the topic of how to cook vegetables, it’s important to touch on the subject of whether you should be cooking them at all. If any kind of cooking method destroys some of the nutrients, wouldn’t it be better to eat everything raw?

Cooking does destroy some nutrients, but it makes others much more bioavailable. For example, cooking reduces the levels of some antioxidants in broccoli, but increases others. It reduces the antioxidant content of kale, but increases it in tomatoes. A 2009 study of antioxidants found that each of the cooking methods tested decreased antioxidant levels in some vegetables but increased it in others.

Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) tend to hold up better than their water-soluble cousins (C and some B vitamins). Vitamin C tends to be the most unstable of all, and minerals are largely unaffected, since heating doesn’t affect mineral levels.

Notably, cooking also reduces the water content of a food, decreasing its overall volume. Fill a 2-cup measuring cup with spinach, then boil the spinach and measure it again: you can fit a lot more of the cooked version onto the same “plate space.” This means that even if the nutrient content is slightly less per gram of food, the number of total grams in your meal will probably be higher. So cooking your vegetables might actually help you consume more nutrients overall.

Cooking is also an effective way to destroy some antinutrients that might otherwise prevent the absorption of vitamins and minerals. For example, one study found that blanching (briefly dropping vegetables into boiling water and pulling them out as soon as they change color) significantly reduced the tannic acid and phytic acid of vegetables. And cooked vegetables can also be easier on the stomach, since the fiber content of raw vegetables sometimes makes them more difficult to digest, especially for high-FODMAPs foods.

Clearly, it’s a little more complicated than “cooking destroys nutrients; raw food is best.” It’s better to think of cooked vegetables and raw vegetables as two different but equally valuable additions to your plate, and eat a mix of both every day. As a general rule, cooking methods that minimize temperature, time, and liquid will maximize the nutrients in the vegetables themselves. But as the detailed breakdown of cooking methods shows, each method has its pros and cons.

Boiling

Overall, boiling is the most intensive cooking method around. It results in the greatest loss of everything, but that’s not actually all bad. For one thing, not all chemical compounds in plants are nutritious, and boiling is just as destructive to antinutrients as it is to everything else. Boiling is the best way to reduce the goitrogen content of cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli and kale. Goitrogens are a group of chemicals that aren’t dangerous at all for most people, but can make an existing thyroid disorder worse, so many people with thyroid symptoms try to avoid them. When you boil cruciferous vegetables, the goitrogens are not only destroyed by the heat, but also leached out into the water, a double whammy of antinutrient removal. Similarly, boiling is also most effective at reducing oxalates, a vegetable antinutrient that can contribute to kidney stones.

In some foods, boiling can even increase the nutrient content. In one 2008 study, carrots had higher concentrations of antioxidants after boiling than before, and boiling did a better job of preserving the nutrients than frying or steaming. Boiling also preserves Vitamin A better than frying, fermenting, or sun-drying.

Even though some nutrients are preserved, the downside of boiling vegetables is that if you drain the water, many of the vitamins (on average 10-25%) are lost along with the antinutrients. Unlike other cooking methods, boiling also reduces mineral content, not because the minerals are destroyed by the heat, but because they’re lost to the water. So for soups and stews, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you routinely boil vegetables you don’t intend to use in soup (like cauliflower for Paleo “rice”), you could be losing out.

Frying/sautéing

On the plus side, frying is an excellent way to get some fat in with your vegetables, making the fat-soluble vitamins more absorbable. There isn’t any water to drain off, so all you really have to worry about is the vitamins that can break down from the heat (C and B Vitamins). One study found that, since frying takes such a short time, it might actually be quite effective at retaining these vitamins: potatoes, for example, didn’t seem to lose any Vitamin C in the process of making them into French fries, and the fiber content actually increased thanks to the production of resistant starch.

One big drawback to frying is that unhealthy oils (like commercial deep-frying) turn an otherwise innocent vegetable into a vehicle for inflammatory junk fats and oxidative stress, especially if the oil has been re-used several times, as it always is in commercial foodservice operations. This is easily avoided, though; just use a Paleo cooking fat.

Roasting/baking

The good news about roasting is that it doesn’t require any added water, so the mineral content of the vegetables is entirely safe. And roasting also appears to be easy on the vitamins. One study found that roasting was a good way to preserve the B vitamins in various types of vegetables.

On the flip side, even though roasting is fairly gentle, some vitamins will inevitably be destroyed in the process. Critics of oven-roasting also point to the increased formation of AGEs (Advanced Glycation End-products, infamous for creating oxidative stress and accelerating the aging process), but since the AGEs your own body produces are far and away more significant than anything you get from your diet, it’s not clear how important this really is.

Slow-Cooking

Slow-cooking is a very gentle method, since it uses low temperatures compared to frying or boiling. There haven’t been a lot of studies on the nutrient content of vegetables prepared in a slow-cooker, but since the temperature is typically below the boiling point of water, it’s reasonable to assume that nutrient losses would be slightly less than for boiling.

On the other hand, like boiling, slow-cooking can leach minerals from the food if you don’t also eat the water. Realistically, soups and stews are what most people use slow-cookers for anyway (nobody makes a quick spinach side dish in a slow-cooker!), so it shouldn’t be a big problem. The other problem with slow cookers is that they expose the food to heat for a very long time, but this can usually be prevented by adding the vegetables in right at the end of the process: leave the meat in all day, come home at 5, add the vegetables, and sit down to dinner at 6.

Steaming

The favorite of the low-fat crowd, steaming is a very gentle cooking method, and doesn’t involve any water loss, which in general tends to maximize nutrient content. In one study, even the notoriously fragile Vitamin C in broccoli wasn’t degraded by steaming – and the total antioxidant content of the broccoli actually increased. For this reason, steaming is the method recommended by the World’s Healthiest Foods database as the best way to retain nutrients overall.

On the other hand, Paleo dieters know that low-fat food isn’t actually a benefit. Steaming doesn’t use any fat, so the fat-soluble vitamins in steamed vegetables won’t be as bioavailable. So toss your steamed vegetables with olive or coconut oil, or eat them alongside a big plate of fatty meat.

Microwaving

Microwaves allow for shorter cooking times, with less water than many other methods, maximizing nutrient content. For example, one study found that microwaving peppers did not reduce their polyphenol or Vitamin C content, while boiling did. Another study compared turnip greens blanched either in boiling water or in the microwave; the microwaved greens kept much more of their Vitamin C and various B vitamins. In the 2009 antioxidant study, microwaving was one of the best methods for consistently preserving antioxidant levels across all the vegetables tested. Levels of one kind of cancer-fighting chemical in red cabbage were actually increased after microwaving.

It’s also worth mentioning that frozen vegetables (the kind most people cook in microwaves) are usually picked at the peak of their freshness, so they may have more nutrients to begin with.

Interestingly, the vegetable that seems to be most negatively affected by microwave cooking is cauliflower, which loses over 50% of its antioxidant capacity. Another downside of microwaves is that they don’t always cook food evenly, they can get your vegetables unpleasantly dry, rubbery, or soggy, and they make it hard to cook meat and vegetables in the same pan. But as for the myth that microwave radiation somehow poisons your food or gives you cancer, there’s nothing to it.

Fermenting

It’s not technically a cooking method, since fermented food hasn’t been exposed to heat, but since it still changes the health profile of the vegetables, it’s worth a mention. The biggest upside to fermentation is the probiotic bacteria. These friendly additions to your kimchi or sauerkraut can help repopulate your gut flora and keep your entire digestive system humming along smoothly.

The probiotic benefits are great, but on the negative side, fermentation can dramatically raise the levels of histamines in a dish. If you’re not sensitive to histamines, this makes no difference whatsoever, but if you are sensitive, foods with high concentrations of histamines can cause the symptoms of an allergic reaction. And even the probiotic benefits might not be so great for someone suffering from a bacterial overgrowth (rather than a scarcity of bacteria), so fermented vegetables aren’t necessarily great for everyone.

Conclusion

You can go on forever dredging up different studies that prove one cooking method to be slightly superior to another regarding one specific antioxidant in one specific vegetable. But what this article should really show is that you can “prove” anything this way, and then “disprove” it by cherry-picking different studies. The moral of the story is that there is no “healthiest” cooking method; all of them have their upsides and downsides. Eat plenty of vegetables of every color; cook some of them, and have a salad once in a while. There are more important ways to improve your diet and health than stressing over whether or not you should boil your spinach.

Is vinegar Paleo? Strictly speaking, it was introduced to the human diet after the Agricultural Revolution, so it wasn't around in the Paleolithic. But that doesn’t justify an automatic rejection it just gives us reason to be cautious. A better question would be, "bearing in mind our evolutionary ancestry, is vinegar healthy?" And on close inspection, it just doesn’t seem like there’s much reason to worry about it.

First of all, vinegar isn't very far removed from a whole food. It's really just another product of fermentation, like kimchi or sauerkraut. Unlike these other foods, vinegar can be made from anything rich in carbohydrates: grapes, apples, rice, oats, or barley, to name a few. So while it’s probably better to avoid oat and malt vinegar just to be on the safe side (although most of the gluten gets destroyed during fermentation), there are plenty of Paleo “base foods” to choose from.

To make the vinegar itself, the “base food” is fermented into alcohol, and then the alcohol is fermented again into vinegar. The traditional recipe calls for several weeks to several years of fermentation at a low temperature, producing a liquid rich in cloudy wisps of probiotic bacteria, with one main cluster at the bottom called the “mother.”

If you start with a food that’s Paleo-friendly and then reduce its sugar content while adding probiotic benefits through fermentation, you’ll end up with a food that’s more beneficial, not less. The research we have backs this up: although there haven’t been a lot of studies, the ones that exist are mostly positive and point to some exciting and interesting health benefits.

Health Benefits of Vinegar

Vinegar contains significant amounts of polyphenols, antioxidant plant chemicals responsible for many of the anti-cancer and anti-aging benefits of vegetables, but most of its virtues come from acetic acid, which is formed as a by-product of the fermentation process. The best-studied benefit of this acid is its effect on glucose metabolism, or the ability to digest starch. In one human study, approximately 4 teaspoons of white vinegar decreased glycemic response to 50 grams of carbohydrate by over 30%. Other studies with various different types of vinegar found similar effects, especially in diabetic subjects.

Contrary to these findings, one 2012 study found that 4.5 teaspoons of vinegar did not alter insulin secretion or blood glucose in response to a milkshake containing 75 grams of pure glucose. Comparing their negative results to the benefits shown in previous studies, the researchers speculated that taking vinegar with a mixed meal, or with complex carbohydrates instead of pure glucose, might make the difference. Since most people eat their carbs as foods, rather than glucose shakes, this shouldn’t present a serious concern.

A helping hand with carbohydrate metabolism is already good news for diabetics, but it gets even better. One study found that taking vinegar with meals improved HbA1c (a long-term measurement of average blood glucose) in diabetic patients. And a study in diabetic rats showed that balsamic vinegar improved the expression of beta-cell ABCa1, an important cholesterol transporter that also affects the insulin response.

Relatedly, vinegar seems to have benefits for weight loss. One study assigned obese Japanese subjects to drink 0, 15, or 30 mL of vinegar a day, and found that in the vinegar groups, all the markers of obesity (body weight, BMI, fat area, waist circumference, and triglyceride levels) were lower than in the placebo group. Since obesity is so closely related to impaired glucose metabolism, it’s possible that this is just another effect of vinegar’s ability to increase glucose tolerance, but it may also be a separate benefit.

The other potential upsides of vinegar consumption are less well documented. In hypertensive rats, either vinegar supplements or straight acetic acid supplements reduced systolic blood pressure, although these results have never been duplicated in humans. Other rat studies found improvements in blood cholesterol (higher HDL and lower triglycerides and LDL) from daily vinegar consumption.

Vinegar also seems to have some anticancer properties, although laboratory tests have only been performed in rodents. The epidemiologic data for humans is conflicting: one study associated vinegar with a decrease in cancer risk, while another associated it with an increase.

Another study noticed that women who ate more oil and vinegar salad dressing had better heart health, even after controlling for the obvious fact that more salad dressing implies a higher vegetable intake.

Vinegar is also an old folk remedy for heartburn and acid reflux, although this has never actually been examined in a lab. However, the amount of anecdotal evidence is intriguing, and you’d definitely be hard-pressed to come up with a cheaper therapy to try.

Traditional vs. Industrial Vinegar

Unfortunately for people who have to live in the modern food system, the question of “is food X healthy?” also has an essential corollary: “does the food X in my supermarket even remotely resemble its original form?”

Instead of the traditional fermentation methods, industrial vinegars usually use mechanical oxygenation to speed up the fermentation process. After being allowed to ferment, they’re usually pasteurized to kill those beneficial probiotic bacteria, because they look unattractive in the bottle. Supermarket vinegars may also contain one or more additives, like caramel coloring, or sulfates and sulfites as preservatives.

Fortunately, the damage isn’t as bad as it looks. Industrial processing slightly reduces the polyphenol content (less than 15% reduction). If you get pasteurized vinegar, it will also not have any probiotic benefits. On the other hand, industrial and traditional vinegars have equal amounts of acetic acid, so the most important health benefits shouldn’t be affected. Bear in mind that most of the experiments on blood sugar and other biomarkers above were done using either processed industrial vinegar or pure acetic acid, suggesting that the off-the-shelf brands are probably fine. And a comparative rat study found no real differences between traditionally and industrially produced vinegar in terms of weight control, blood lipid improvements, or prevention of fatty liver disease.

The only other area of concern with grocery-store vinegar is the additives: check the additives list to make sure your brand doesn’t contain anything nasty.

Potential Drawbacks

Few studies have examined the potential drawbacks of vinegar as a therapy, since it’s so common in food that it’s assumed to be safe. One trial in diabetic patients reported that roughly 50% of patients randomly assigned to 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (1.4 grams of acetic acid) per day reported at least one negative symptom at 6 weeks; that number dropped to 10% at 12 weeks. The most common drawbacks were acid reflux events, burping, flatulence, and changes in bowel movements. The study also noted slight potential effects on urinary pH and kidney function, but concluded that further research was necessary.

Another thing to note is that even when sulfates and sulfites are not added as preservatives, vinegar naturally contains these chemicals as fermentation by-products. This is why you’ll sometimes see “contains: sulfites” on the bottle even though sulfites aren’t on the ingredients label. For this reason, people who are sensitive to sulfites may do better avoiding vinegar.

Other than sulfite complications, there are few documented risks of vinegar when consumed in reasonable amounts. One study recorded a woman who drank 250mL (50 teaspoons) of apple cider vinegar daily for 6 years and ended up with hypokalemia, but that just isn’t a problem relevant to most of us.

The one way not to get your vinegar is from supplements. The supplement industry is so poorly regulated that it’s impossible to know how much of the active ingredient you’re really getting – or if you’re getting any at all. Stick with the real product, whether you take it dissolved in water as a kind of medicine, sprinkled over a salad, or as part of a recipe.

Choosing a Vinegar

Just like red wine is different from white whine, the various different kinds of vinegars all have slightly different tastes and uses. Here's a brief guide to the  kinds you're most likely to encounter in a typical Western supermarket:

Apple cider vinegar. This is the type of vinegar most likely to get promoted for its health benefits, because it’s the type that’s easiest to get in its traditional, unpasteurized, probiotic form. For the benefits of acetic acid, you can use any vinegar, but for the probiotics, this is your best bet. Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar is available at most supermarkets (the Bragg’s brand is the most common). Pour it on salad or coleslaw as a dressing, or sprinkle a few drops over some salted home fries: yum. Alternately, you can just add a teaspoon to a glass of water, and sweeten it with honey or whatever else you like.

Balsamic vinegar. There are really two types of balsamic. The first is the traditional recipe aged for 12 years in oak casks in Italy, which most of us are unlikely to ever taste unless we can afford $100 for a bottle. The second is aged for just 3 years, which is still longer than most other types of vinegar, and probably accounts for the price difference between a $10 bottle of balsamic and a $1 bottle of white vinegar. Both are healthy, so need to panic if you can't take out a second mortgage to buy your salad dressing.

Balsamic is most popular on top of salad with some olive oil; you can also use it to perk up a bland sauce or sprinkle a little on top of some fruit for a unique twist on dessert.

Red or white wine vinegar. Red vinegar is usually used to cook with. The kind you buy at the store will be processed and pasteurized, but you can also make your own, if you have a couple months before you’ll need it. White vinegar isn’t as popular for human consumption (since apple cider vinegar and balsamic both taste better to most people), but it’s a powerful antimicrobial and makes a cheap and non-toxic household cleaner for everything from windows to the kitchen sink.

Macerated vinegar. If you like going a little fancier, you can buy specialty vinegars that have been infused with fruit (a process known as maceration) for extra flavor and a higher antioxidant content.

Conclusion

Don’t be afraid of vinegar! There’s no reason to miss out on the flavor it adds to your cooking and salads, and a fair amount of evidence that it’s actually beneficial, especially for carbohydrate metabolism. Sure, it wasn’t around for Paleolithic tribesmen to sprinkle on their wild greens, but that just isn’t a compelling reason to avoid an otherwise healthy food.

Maybe you’re just starting out and craving pizza something fierce, or maybe you’ve been Paleo for six months and you’re ready to shoot yourself before you eat another bowl of spinach. Either way, it’s a common complaint: a lot of people feel bored on Paleo. And even people who don’t feel bored themselves have to deal with everyone else in their life constantly pestering them: “aren’t you bored with just meat and vegetables? Don’t you want some real food?” – as though meat and vegetables somehow weren’t “real”!

For those of us who love the diet, this complaint is downright confusing. There’s such an incredible variety of flavors, textures, and recipes to be had in Paleo cooking. In fact, Robb Wolf even created a food matrix calculating the number of different Paleo meals at 81,000, not even counting different cooking methods. How could anyone possibly get bored with that?

The answer is pretty counterintuitive. Paleo itself isn’t boring, but that’s not the point, because feeling “bored with Paleo” isn’t really about the food. It’s still a big problem, but it says more about the person who’s bored than the food they’re bored with. So if it’s not actually about the diet itself, what is it about, and how can you change it?

Culprit #1: Withdrawal from Processed Junk

If you’re new to Paleo, this is a likely suspect. Processed junk foods are designed in labs by teams of crack nutritional scientists who know exactly how to tweak their products to make them maximally addictive. They put together chips and candy that overwhelm your taste buds, so you become desensitized to the natural flavors of ordinary foods.

These foods also encourage you to eat for entertainment, instead of for hunger. Processed junk food is hyperstimulating enough that it tastes good even when you aren’t actually hungry, so eating becomes a way of dealing with other kinds of boredom, like feeling stuck in a bad job, or having nothing to do on Sunday afternoon. The food isn’t a solution, but it does a pretty good job of hiding the problem.

Paleo meals can be a jarring change from this kind of modern food environment. Instead of being designed in a lab to get you to eat more, they activate your body’s natural hunger and satiety mechanisms, but if those natural systems are used to the extreme intensity of lab products, they might not pick up on the more subtle flavors and textures of real food. Since they don’t override your body’s built-in systems for regulating hunger and fullness, these foods also don’t work as entertainment to distract you from other kinds of boredom – the boredom isn’t caused by the Paleo food, but you notice it again now that you don’t have junk food to disguise it with.

This doesn’t mean that real food is boring. It just takes a little time to re-set your taste buds, and it requires you to find another way of coping with stress or boredom in the rest of your life. After a month or so without all the processed junk, you’ll be able to appreciate the richness of roasted broccoli, the sweetness of butternut squash, and the spicy crunch that raw onions bring to a salad. Commercial chocolate will start to taste waxy and overwhelmingly chemical in comparison. Just give your taste buds a few weeks to detox, and Paleo food will stop tasting bland or monotonous.

As for the inability to hide other kinds of emotions with food, think of it as a blessing. Drowning your feelings of dissatisfaction or incompleteness in chocolate cake might work as a Band-Aid, but in the long run, food is not the answer to those problems. Now that you’ve freed yourself of the addiction to chips and candy, you can see the problem for what it really is, and get to work on fixing it for good.

Culprit #2: Artificial Limits

After the first couple weeks, this is the most common reason for the complaint that Paleo is monotonous and has no variety. For whatever reason, a lot of people take “Paleo” to mean “whatever Paleo meals I happen to already know how to cook,” or “whatever Paleo meals I’ve already tried and know I like.” So their version of Paleo is artificially restricted to a tiny group of foods, and they never venture out into the wide variety of choices that Paleo actually offers. In other words, Paleo becomes a net loss of variety, because they cut out a bunch of foods they used to eat, without adding in any that they’ve never tried.

This is incredibly tedious! Who in their right mind would want meatloaf for dinner every single day? But there’s absolutely no reason that Paleo has to be like this. The cure is simple: expand your horizons. Try different vegetables, new spices, or strange cuts of meat. Experiment with organ meats. Maybe set yourself a challenge: each week you’ll learn to cook one new recipe, or use one new ingredient. If you’re eating only spinach and chicken breast day in and day out, it’s because you choose to eat that way, not because you have no other options.

Breakfast also deserves a special mention in this section, because this is one meal where people tend to limit themselves the most. Breakfast does not have to be bacon and eggs. It doesn’t have to be “breakfast food” at all. You can eat anything you like for breakfast: steak, soup, leftovers from last night’s dinner…or skip it altogether. There’s nothing wrong with eggs if you like them, but you have alternatives.

Culprit #3: Social Challenges

Sometimes, when people say they’re “tired of Paleo food,” what they really mean is that they’re tired of the social limits Paleo food puts on them. They would go out to eat with their friends, but there’s nothing Paleo at the restaurant. They would go out on Saturday night, but clubbing isn’t fun unless you’re drinking too. They would enjoy the office birthday parties, but they’re too busy feeling irritated that they can’t have any cake, so they end up staying at their desk instead of enjoying the celebration.

In this case, it’s not actually the food that’s the problem. It’s the loneliness. It’s feeling cut off from your friends and family. So focus on that issue, instead of blaming it on the food itself being bland or boring. It can take a little planning to integrate your new diet into your social life, but it’s not impossible. If you miss restaurant dinners, try taking everyone to a steakhouse (where you can usually request just a steak and potatoes), or over to your place for a home-cooked meal. Or just do the best you can at a restaurant, think of it as an occasional “cheat meal,” and move on: sometimes, spending time with your loved ones is more important than avoiding canola oil.

At parties where there’s a lot of cake and other junk food, you can try bringing your own Paleo-friendly treats, or just joining in the celebratory spirit without a piece of cake in your hand. After all, it’s really about the social connection and the event that’s being celebrated, not some cheap grocery-store sheet cake. If anyone comments on your cake-free socializing, the best way to answer is “no, thank you,” and then just change the subject: don’t try to justify your diet, just get their mind off it and move on.

With respect to drinking, it’s always possible to join in the social time with a glass of sparkling water, or just enjoy a moderate amount of alcohol and leave it at that. But if you’re still feeling isolated because you aren’t getting blackout drunk, it might be time to re-consider your social life. Do you really want to hang around with people who aren’t interested in you unless you’re totally wasted? Is that the way to respect yourself? Maybe it’s time to find a different hobby, and get to know people who share more of your values.

Culprit #4: Other Emotional Reasons

Sometimes, other emotional rough spots in your relationship with food can feel like boredom, even though they aren’t. Cravings or feelings of deprivation can make you feel like Paleo is the most boring diet in the world: “I just want some Fritos. God, I’m so sick of Paleo. I can’t have anything I like.” In this case, it’s not that Paleo doesn’t have enough variety overall; it’s that Paleo doesn’t include the specific food that you want. There could be an infinite variety of Paleo foods and it would still feel boring, because it’s not a bag of Fritos. There are many ways of dealing with cravings, from just white-knuckling it to making a Paleo version of whatever you’re jonesing for. But again, the problem is really the craving, not Paleo.

Then there’s that irritating aspect of human nature, that the grass is always greener on the other side. Maybe you remember having so much variety back in the old days – but did you really? Think about the way most people eat: a bagel or a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch. Does anyone complain about being “tired of grains?” Not usually, because they don’t see it as restrictive. They’re fine with eating the same thing day in and day out, because from their point of view, they’re eating what they want.

The trick to having this attitude yourself is to focus on all the things you love about Paleo, and make sure to find and cook some recipes that you really enjoy. Don’t think about what you “can’t” have; think about what you can have, and all the ways to make it delicious. Dream up the most mouthwatering Paleo meal you possibly can and cook it up in style, even if it’s just for yourself.

It also helps to remember all the ways the standard American diet and lifestyle are tedious and restrictive. Chronic illness is boring. Living in a hospital room is boring. Missing time with the people you love because you’re tired and sick is boring. Spending hours of your life waiting around for doctors and driving back and forth for tests is boring. Paleo is sparing you that – there might be some restrictions on your diet, but in the end your life overall will be so much more interesting because you’ll be able to enjoy it to the fullest.

Conclusion

Paleo isn’t a penitential “diet” that restricts you to dull and bland food, unless you make it that way. Sometimes it does force you to confront uncomfortable issues surrounding your relationship with food, your relationships with other people, or your own mental health – but that’s not the same thing as the diet itself being boring. If you’re “bored of Paleo,” it’s probably about you, not about Paleo. Harsh, yes, but it also gives you the chance to really address the cause of the boredom in a constructive way. Whatever the real problem is, you can have better physical and mental health by focusing on that, not blaming your diet and giving up on your efforts to enjoy healthy food.

Vegetables get a lot of good press in healthy eating circles because they’re one of the few things everyone agrees on. From strict USDA adherents to radical vegans to Paleo dieters, everyone can rally ‘round the broccoli. There’s nothing wrong with this – and it’s definitely true that most people in the modern world need to replace a lot of the processed junk on their plate with vegetables (ketchup doesn’t count!). But that doesn’t make veggies the final word on a healthy diet. As a food group, they have some drawbacks as well as benefits, and they’re healthiest when eaten as part of a balanced diet, in conjunction with nutrient-dense animal foods.

Vegetables and the Perfect Food Syndrome

Maybe it’s just part of human nature to constantly be searching for the One True Solution to all our problems. The monthly rotation of new “miracle foods” certainly takes advantage of that urge (acai berries? Green tea? Chia seeds? Resveratrol?). But even if you don’t succumb to each new fad, it’s definitely possible to get too fixated on one specific food or food group as the ultimate in nutrition: the Perfect Food Syndrome.

Vegetables are one example of this. Run a Google image search for “healthy food” and you’ll turn up picture after picture of lovingly arranged carrots and broccoli. The individual emotional response to this is huge - digging into a huge bowl of spinach just feels virtuous. It’s very easy to get stuck in the mindset that all vegetables are healthy for all people at all times, that there’s no such thing as too many veggies. Some people take it to an incredible extreme by going on vegetable juice cleanses, drinking only vegetable juice for days at a time to “detox” or lose weight faster.

Paleo isn’t a crazy juicing cleanse, but even on Paleo it’s possible to get caught up in eating too many vegetables, or eating them for the wrong reasons. Even after reading all about how fat won’t make them fat, some people are still nervous about all the calories, saturated fat, and cholesterol in red meat. They don’t want to go back to grains, but they’re not quite willing to take the leap of faith and enjoy their steak, so they substitute endless piles of salad. Other people are afraid of the carnal pleasure of eating meat, and eating vegetables gives them that ascetic pleasure of doing their nutritional duty. They “fill up” with vegetables because they’re afraid of their own appetites.

In both of these cases, vegetables are “safe” foods because they’re Paleo-approved but don’t stray away from conventional nutritional advice either. But eating a diet with too many vegetables relative to the amount of meat and eggs deprives your body of the energy and nutrients it needs to thrive. Paleo isn’t just about getting rid of grains; it’s about substituting animal products (not vegetables!) as a staple source of calories.

This article takes on some of the dangers of eating too many vegetables relative to meat and animal products. It can seem pretty discouraging to learn about the downsides of all those leafy greens, but bear in mind the big picture: it’s not that vegetables are unhealthy; it’s that all foods have their benefits and drawbacks. Nothing is beneficial if you eat it to excess, or if it crowds out other foods that you also need. Vegetables don’t provide all the micronutrients a human body needs, and the benefits aren’t limitless: there comes a point where eating more isn’t better. As part of a balanced diet, they’re indispensable. As a “miracle cure” on their own, or as an answer to emotional needs, they’re ineffective at best.

Vegetables and Micronutrients

Vegetables’ main claim to fame is their content of vitamins and minerals, considered relative to their caloric content. But how micronutrient-rich are they, really?

Vegetables are nutritious, but there isn’t some magical dichotomy in the human diet where animal foods provide calories and vegetable foods provide nutrients. There are plenty of vitamins and minerals in animal products that you can’t get from vegetables:

• Vitamin B12, which is critical for mood and mental health, is found only in animal products.
• Iron is available in plant foods, but the non-heme iron in vegetables like spinach and broccoli isn’t as easily absorbed as the heme iron found in meat, so animal sources of iron are better.
• Vitamin A is the same as iron: there’s a form of pre-Vitamin A in plants called beta-carotene, but this has to be converted in your body, and the conversion process isn’t very nutritious. It’s much more effective to get animal forms of Vitamin A (called preformed Vitamin A, or retinol).
• Zinc is found predominantly in animal foods, especially oysters.
• Vitamin D is rare in all foods, but the only foods that contain even a little are animal products like eggs and fish.

Also, some of the fat-soluble vitamins in the veggies themselves aren’t available to you unless you also eat the vegetables accompanied by some fat. For example, you can’t really absorb Vitamins A and K without fat, no matter how much of them you eat in carrots or cauliflower. If your dinner is steak and asparagus, the steak is at least as important to your health!

Another reason why vegetables aren’t as nutrient-dense as you might think has nothing to do with the plants themselves. It’s simply the way we grow them. Think of the differences between a traditional family farm (the way we grew our produce for thousands of years) and a huge industrial agriculture operation. The family farm would have had animals in addition to vegetables, and would have grown many different kinds of plants – after all, if a farmer just grew kale, his family would starve.

This system was ideal because it constantly replenished the soil with the nutrients that the plants needed to grow. Vegetables are high in vitamins and minerals because they take them from the ground, so planting a field of vegetables is actually very hard on the soil. The most nutritious veggies – especially the brassica family, which includes broccoli and kale – take the most out of the land (by contrast, legumes actually add nitrogen to the soil).

Home gardeners know this, and rotate the plants in their gardens accordingly to give the soil a chance to rest. A small family farmer who raised animals in addition to plants had a ready-made solution to this problem: plenty of fresh manure. But modern agriculture separates animals and plants, and crams the animals into factory farms where their waste products get dumped out into rivers and streams to pollute the local ecosystem. Meanwhile, the vegetables in the fields are deprived of all these vital nutrients. Modern farmers do use fertilizers, but the fertilizers only contain three minerals: nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous (abbreviated NPK). Meanwhile, the soil is becoming steadily more and more depleted, and the vegetables that grow in it are becoming less and less nutritious.

Not only are the vegetables lower in nutrients when they come out of the ground, but they’re also often trucked long distances in freezer trucks – this can result in significant nutrient degradation. For example, green beans lost 77% of their Vitamin C after just 7 days in storage. So the amounts listed on the Nutrition Facts panel might not actually be what you get from your salad, and there’s no real way to tell.

The upshot is that vegetables contain a lot of good stuff, but they just don’t provide everything a healthy human needs. Instead of thinking that vegetables provide nutrients while animal foods provide calories, think of the two as working together. A diet can be unhealthy if it has too few vegetables, but also if it has too many vegetables at the expense of necessary animal foods. In our diet and in our food production system, plants and animals naturally work together, and when humans try to destroy this symbiosis, we see the negative effects both on our bodies and on the planet.

Juicing and Juice Fasting

The nutritional incompleteness of vegetable foods is most obvious when you prepare them in a way that allows you to consume more vegetables than you would ever eat in solid form, and especially when you eat those super-concentrated vegetables as your only source of nutrition. In the same way that a piece of fruit and a glass of fruit juice are completely different to your body, a head of broccoli and a glass of veggie juice are also different, Juice fasting (drinking only juice for extended periods of time) really highlights the nutritional drawbacks of vegetable overload, even though the vegetables themselves are perfectly healthy when eaten as one part of a normal diet.

First of all, juice fasting provides very imbalanced nutrition, since you aren’t getting the vital nutrients only found in animal products, and you aren’t even getting all the nutrition from the veggies without any accompanying fat. As well as getting too few of some nutrients (like iron and B vitamins), it’s also possible to get too many of others; for example, some juice fasters see their skin take on an orange color from drinking too much beta-carotene in carrot juice.

Long-term juicing is also a risk for mineral imbalances. Vegetables are rich in potassium (which your body needs), but poor in sodium (which your body also needs). Fasting on vegetable juice can actually lead to a sodium-potassium imbalance, which is hard on your mood, your energy levels, and your thyroid.

Another disadvantage of vegetable juice is that it’s quite high in sugar. This seems surprising because un-juiced vegetables have almost no sugar relative to their bulk, but the juicing process presses all the fiber out, and fiber is what gives vegetables most of their size. Fiber-less vegetable juice is much higher in carbohydrate by weight, so vegetable juice has a significant sugar hit overall, especially if you use a lot of sweeter vegetables like beets or carrots.

A lot of people claim they feel amazing whey they “detox” with juice fasting, but most of these people eat a diet full of toxins the rest of the time – of course they feel better when they take away the gluten and the soybean oil! But you can get that fantastic feeling and have a diet that’s sustainable and healthy in the long term by avoiding these toxins in your foods all the time. No juice fasting required.

Again, this isn’t to say that vegetables themselves are bad for you. Fasting on vegetable juice for weeks on end is very different from eating some zucchini noodles with your meatballs. It just points out that no single food group is a perfect source of all nutrients. Vegetables are healthy food, but they shouldn’t be your only food.

Vegetable Sensitivity

Vegetables aren’t only incomplete sources of nutrients; for some people they can be downright harmful. First of all, vegetables are like grains and legumes in that they need to develop natural pesticides to survive. They can’t run away from insects, fungi, or other predators, so they rely on chemical defenses.

Many common vegetables (like zucchini, rhubarb, and bamboo shoots) contain a variety of toxins for this reason. The famous antioxidants that make vegetables so healthy are actually part of the plant’s natural defenses against predators. If you’re eating the plant, that predator is you. That isn’t to say that the antioxidants are actually dangerous – they are healthy, but they’re healthy as a hormetic stress: your body reacts to the challenge by bouncing back stronger than it was before. Hormetic stress is valuable in small amounts, but too much of it is just as dangerous as any other kind of stress.

As well as containing hormetic stressors, some vegetables cause an unpleasant reaction because of the type of carbohydrate they contain: these carbohydrates are called FODMAPs. FODMAPs vegetables are so numerous and sensitivity to them is so common that these vegetables get their own article. Essentially, FODMAPs carbohydrates aren’t completely broken down and absorbed in the intestinal system. All people have the same inability to completely digest them, but most of us aren’t sensitive to the low amounts in a normal quantity of vegetables. In FODMAPs-sensitive people, though, even a normal serving can cause bloating, digestive upset, and gut bacteria overgrowth. Common FODMAPs vegetables include onions, garlic, cabbage, and asparagus.

Nightshades are another class of vegetables that can be less than ideal. The nightshade family includes potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplant; these veggies contain lectins that can exacerbate autoimmune issues and trigger joint pain. Again, most people aren’t sensitive at all, but people who are sometimes see dramatic results from getting the nightshades out of their diet.

Hypothyroid symptoms are an additional reason to watch your vegetable intake. Some vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, contain a type of chemicals called goitrogens. Goitrogens aren’t dangerous at all for healthy people, but an excess of goitrogenic foods can be dangerous for people who have poor thyroid function.

Some of these substances can be destroyed or reduced by cooking – nightshade lectins and goitrogens, for example, are both decreased during the cooking process. On the other hand, fermentation actually increases the goitrogen content of a food, so skip the sauerkraut if you have hypothyroid problems.

If none of these potential gut irritants give you any problems, that’s great. Dietary restrictions that are useful for sick people aren’t necessarily warranted for healthy people, so there’s absolutely no reason to limit any class of vegetables that doesn’t upset your stomach. But the number of potential vegetable intolerances should point out that not all plant foods are automatically healthy for everyone, especially eaten in excess.

Veggies, the Environment, and the Modern Farm System

Another reason why vegetables aren’t flawless angels of nutrition is their cost to environmental and human health. Most of us in Paleo circles are aware of the problems of factory farming and the need to develop a more wholesome and sustainable food system, but we don’t usually think of vegetables as raising the same issues. Unfortunately, plant foods aren’t as ecologically friendly as the vegan crowd would have us believe. Vegetable farming can be just as polluting and also just as cruel as factory farming.

First of all, the toxic pesticides and herbicides that we spray on the fields are dangerous not only to the people who eat the vegetables, but also to the land surrounding vegetable farms. These chemicals leach into the air and water, and become environmental toxins that damage local ecosystems and human health.

Organic food isn't necessarily much better  here – yes, organic farmers use more natural chemicals, but because these chemicals are less effective, they have to use more of them. A better alternative is to join a CSA or find another local source or produce – not only is this often cheaper, but you can ask the farmer directly about how the food was grown and what was or wasn’t sprayed on it. As a bonus, local food also doesn’t lose as many nutrients in transit from the field to your fork.

Another strike against the modern farm system is not really about the health of the vegetables themselves, but about the human cost of food production. Vegetarians and vegans who avoid animal products out of fears about cruelty would be horrified to learn the actual working conditions on many vegetable farms. Many farmworkers are recent immigrants (often living in the country illegally) and subject to terrible working conditions. They handle dangerous tools (sometimes without the proper safety gear and training), they’re constantly in contact with toxic pesticides at much higher levels than anything you get from eating the produce, and they’re stuck in such an exploitative cycle of poverty that they frequently can’t afford to take a day off if they get sick, for fear they’ll be fired.

Many victims of these terrible working conditions children, because a loophole in US law allows children under 16 to do agricultural labor. Farmworkers don’t receive overtime pay and are not allowed to unionize. Conditions are so bad that a group of farmworkers in Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, has launched a campaign against “modern-day slavery,” citing farmworkers’ average yearly wage as less than $12,000.

This isn’t to say that vegetable farming is inherently abusive, or that people who buy and enjoy vegetables are evil. Refusing to eat vegetables is not the answer: these foods are healthy parts of our diet, and one person’s boycott won’t do anything to stop the abuses of powerful corporations. But understanding the abuses of vegetable farming strips off the automatic halo of virtue that surrounds anything green and leafy. In Paleo circles, we spend a lot of time criticizing factory farms and the horrible conditions that animals have to endure. We should also be aware of the environmental and human cost of our vegetables, and work to make all our food as cruelty-free as possible.

The Bright Sight of Veggies

This article points out a lot of potential downsides of vegetables, but it’s important to keep it all in perspective: nobody is suggesting that you never touch green plant matter again. Vegetables are wonderful! They’re delicious and add variety to your meals, and they’re rich in several important nutrients. The real danger lies in seeing vegetables as the ultimate goal of a healthy diet, because no one food group by itself is perfect. Veggies aren’t the “holy grail;” neither is meat. Neither are eggs. Neither is liver, fermented cod liver oil, butter, water, or anything else. Searching for the “one true food” is dangerous and futile because humans are naturally omnivores.

The perception of vegetables as flawless vehicles for nutritional salvation also ignores the steep environmental and human costs of our agricultural system. Eating vegetables carries the same weight of ethical responsibility as eating meat – if we’re going to make healthy food sustainable for everyone on the planet, we have to address these problems.

Instead of exulting vegetables as the final word on nutrition, think of your diet as an archway. If you build an archway without mortar, each stone is critical to holding up the whole construction. Take out any one stone, and the whole arch will collapse. Vegetables are one, and only one, stone. They’re necessary but not sufficient – eat them and enjoy them, but don’t expect kale, or anything else, to be a miracle cure.

What’s in a can of olives? Most people expect just one ingredient: olives. Maybe some water or salt at the very most. But pick up an actual can, and you’ll probably find other things like ferrous gluconate or citric acid on the label as well. It's nothing compared to the huge list of tongue-twisters on the back of a TV dinner, but even some Paleo-friendly foods like coconut milk or canned broth can raise a few eyebrows with unfamiliar ingredients. What are these things, and can they really be safe?

If you Google pretty much any common food additive + cancer, you’ll come up with at least one person who claims to have found a link, but all the recent hype about red meat and cancer proves that it’s very important to analyze these connections carefully, and determine whether they’re actually based on science, or on scare tactics. If the only sources for claiming something is dangerous are studies on rats and mice, make sure to check the concentrations used in the studies. As discussed in the article on salt, feeding a rat an extreme amount of anything will make it sick.

Also, make sure to distinguish between preservatives and the foods they’re in. A high intake of preservatives usually indicates a high intake of nutrient-poor processed foods, so if the connection is as vague as “people who eat more X get more cancer,” there are probably a lot of other factors at work besides that one particular additive. In these cases, an overall malnourishing diet is likely to be doing much of the damage, so it’s not a serious concern for Paleo dieters.

The list below is an alphabetical guide to some of the most common eyebrow-raising ingredients in minimally processed Paleo foods. It completely ignores additives used only in non-Paleo foods, and it shouldn’t even be an issue for most of your shopping cart. If everything you buy has at least one of these ingredients, you’re probably not eating Paleo to begin with.

On the list, if something is marked as “probably” safe, it means "probably safe for a healthy person eating a nutrient-dense Paleo diet, without any special allergies or intolerances." Plenty of people have individual sensitivities to these chemicals, so if you feel better or healthier avoiding even the “safe” additives, by all means do it. Even if it’s just the placebo effect, feeling good about your food can have a huge impact on digestion and health. The best diet is the one that works for you, so take the list as a guide and do your own experiments from there.

Annatto

Found in: Butter and cheese

What does it do? Annatto gives butter and cheese an attractive yellow color.

Is it safe? Probably, unless you have an allergy. Annatto is a derived from the fruit of a tropical tree called the achiote; it doesn’t add anything nutritionally but it’s also not a major gut irritant. Even in rat studies, where the rats were fed absurd concentrations of annatto, researchers couldn’t find much of an effect. Some people have severe allergies to annatto (as with any other substance), so those people should go for products without it, which aren’t hard to find. Just make sure you aren’t fooled by the color of your butter into thinking it has more nutrients than it does: annatto only imitates the deep yellow color of real grass-fed butter; it doesn’t contain any of the Vitamin K that makes pastured butter so nutritious.

Ascorbic Acid, Ascorbyl palmitate

Found in: Cured meats

What does it do? It’s an antioxidant.

Is it safe? Yes; it’s just Vitamin C. In fact, it’s even beneficial, because it helps inhibit the conversion of nitrites to nitrosamines (see nitrites, below).

Autolyzed Yeast Extract

Found in: Store-bought broth

What does it do? It brings out savory flavors.

Is it safe? Nobody knows! The biggest health concern regarding autolyzed yeast extract is that it contains MSG. Some food manufacturers claim that the MSG in autolyzed yeast extract is “naturally occurring,” but it’s basically the same thing – see MSG.

Benzoate (sodium benzoate)

Found in: Fruit juice, carbonated drinks, pickles

What does it do? It’s an antimicrobial agent to prevent bacteria from growing in the foods.

Is it safe? Probably not. Sodium benzoate by itself is not dangerous, but when it combines with Vitamin C, it can form benzene, which is a recognized carcinogen. The food industry likes to point out that we also get benzene from breathing polluted air and drinking polluted water, but this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eliminate it where we can! Fortunately, there’s not a lot to worry about for the Paleo crowd, since by far the largest source in the modern diet is soft drinks.

BHA (Butylated Hydroxyanisole) and BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene)

Found in: Fatty foods like nuts and lard

What do they do? BHA and BHT are antioxidants.

Is it safe? Possibly. Some studies show that very high amounts of these chemicals cause tumors in rodents, but others failed to establish the same correlation at normal levels in humans. Other studies even suggest potential health benefits. But the major concern with BHT from a Paleo standpoint isn’t that it’s harmful in itself, it’s that it indicates a processed, low-quality source of fats. Avoid it as a marker for unhealthy fats like trans fats, or fats that have been poorly treated, not on its own.

Calcium Chloride

Found in: Pickles, canned tomatoes

What does it do? It’s a preservative – it’s basically salt (one of our oldest known preservatives) but a kind of salt that doesn’t contain sodium, which pleases the USDA and everyone who buys into their misguided recommendation to reduce dietary salt at all costs.

Is it safe? Yes. It’s just salt. It’s also used on roads as a de-icer, but so is regular salt. If you inhale it, it’s toxic (just like regular salt), but using it as a preservative is fine.

Carrageenan

Found in: Dairy products, non-dairy alternatives (coconut milk, rice milk, soy milk, etc.), processed lunch meats, and some supplements

What does it do? It’s a thickener, and especially used to replace fat.

Is it safe? Probably not.

Just from rat studies, you might think there's nothing to worry about. The WHO has established an Acceptable Daily Intake of carrageenan as 0-75 mg/kg bw. Average daily intake is approximately 250mg/person/day, which falls well toward the low end of the “safe” spectrum.  In order to show any risk to humans, the studies supposedly showing a high risk would have to approximate this level. The animal studies linking carrageenan to intestinal inflammation and leaky gut don’t pass this sniff test. For example, in rats, an administration of either 9,690 mg/kg bw or 3876 mg/kg bw made colon tumors worse: no kidding! This paper  gives a useful overview of the problems with the rodent studies. But that doesn’t mean the stuff is good for you.

In human studies, some evidence shows that carrageenan increases intestinal permeability.  A study on isolated human intestinal cells found that carrageenan was inflammatory, and suggested it as a factor in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. In another study on isolated intestinal tissue, researchers found that carrageenan had a significant effect on the cells, although they didn’t link it to any specific disease.

Studies in real live humans would be better, but since these are obviously out for reasons of medical ethics, isolated human tissue is a lot more convincing as an experimental subject than rats. It’s probably safest to avoid carrageenan, at least until we have more research.

Caramel Color

Found in: Balsamic vinegar

What does it do? Caramel color is nothing but dye – it doesn’t change the taste of the vinegar at all.

Is it safe? Probably. Caramel color is produced by an extreme form of the same browning reaction that gives you the crispy golden skin on a roasted chicken or grill marks on a steak (the same process that creates AGEs). As well as heat, the process usually also uses various forms of ammonia and sulfites. One study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that the resulting coloring agents were carcinogenic in mice, but this study used extremely high amounts that no normal human would ever ingest. Another study also using enormous amounts found that the worst problem the treated rats studied was diarrhea.

On a Paleo diet, caramel color just isn’t a big concern, because the dose is far too small. You’d have to drink a thousand cans of soda a day to get the level of caramel color fed to the mice. In a splash of balsamic vinegar, there’s really nothing to worry about.

Citric Acid

Found in: Canned products

What does it do? It’s an antioxidant, it preserves the color of the product, and it keeps the pH low.

Is it safe? Maybe. Citric acid is a naturally-occurring substance that your body needs and produces on its own, but that doesn’t necessarily safe as an industrial additive. Some citric acid is made from corn, and some isn’t – and there’s no way to know unless you call the manufacturer. Corn-based citric acid contains some  MSG (see the entry on MSG). Unless you have a severe corn allergy or MSG sensitivity, it’s probably safe.

Diacetyl

Found in: Unsalted butter

What does it do? Butter flavoring.

Is it safe? Probably. Diacetyl is most famous for causing “popcorn lung” in people who eat a lot of microwaved popcorn and other foods with artificial butter flavoring. But it’s only really dangerous if you inhale it. So microwaving a bag of Orville Redenbacher and then taking a deep breath of the air out of the bag is a bad idea, but popcorn isn’t Paleo anyway. It’s very unlikely that a normal use of unsalted butter would cause you to inhale enough to cause any problems.

That said, if you do want to avoid diacetyl, beware: manufacturers aren’t required to list it on the label, so they often hide it under very vague terms like “natural flavors.” Check for a butter that contains only ingredients you recognize.

EDTA

Found in: Canned foods

What does it do? EDTA is a chelating agent. It binds to heavy metals to remove them from the food – for example, if the food has picked up any heavy metals during processing.

Is it safe? Probably. The real risk with EDTA is of creating mineral deficiencies by preventing your own body from absorbing those minerals, especially zinc. However, as far as we can tell from rat studies, this doesn’t appear to be a significant risk if you’re eating an adequate amounts of minerals. Rats fed a nutrient-deficient diet suffered from EDTA consumption, but rats fed an adequate diet did not, even at large doses. In the context of a nutrient-dense diet, there’s nothing to worry about.

Ferrous gluconate

Found in: Olives

What does it do? It's a black coloring.

Is it safe? Yes. It’s basically an iron supplement. Unless you have another reason not to be taking iron supplements, it’s fine.

Grape Must

Found in: Vinegar

What does it do? It’s a flavoring.

Is it safe? Yes – it’s just concentrated grape juice.

Guar Gum

Found in: Coconut milk

What does it do? It’s a thickening agent. It prevents the milk from separating, which isn’t necessary to keep the food fresh, but it’s more attractive from a marketing perspective.

Is it safe? For most people. Guar gum is made from guar beans, and many people have trouble digesting the insoluble fiber from the beans. If you have IBS or FODMAPs sensitivity, try an elimination diet for 30 days to see if it helps. Otherwise, it’s safe.

Hydrolized Vegetable Protein

Found in: Soup mixes

What does it do? It’s there as a flavor enhancer.

Is it safe? No. First, it’s usually made of soy. Second, it contains MSG (see the entry on MSG for more details).

Inosinic Acid (disodium inosinate, dipotassium inosinate, calcium inosinate)

Found in: Savory protein foods (broth, sausages, cheese, and canned soup)

What does it do? It’s a flavor enhancer; it does basically the same thing as MSG (doesn’t provide any flavor of its own but increases the flavors of other things).

Is it safe? Probably. There haven’t been a lot of studies on this one, since MSG steals all its thunder on the flavor-enhancing front. It seems to be pretty harmless, but it’s often used in conjunction with MSG, so be careful when you see it on the label.

Inulin

Found in: Salad dressings

What does it do? It’s a bulking agent; basically, it’s just fiber.

Is it safe? Yes, unless you have trouble digesting FODMAPs.

Lactic Acid

Found in: Olives, cheese, butter

What does it do? It’s a preservative that helps regulate the pH of a food.

Is it safe? Yes. Lactic acid is a byproduct of the digestion of lactose by bacteria. It’s what gives kefir its typical tangy taste – all the lactose has been fermented into lactic acid.

Soy Lecithin (not to be confused with soy lectins)

Found in: Chocolate

What does it do? It’s an emulsifier (keeps the fat and the non-fat in a food from separating).

Is it safe? Lecithin that’s not from soy is a perfectly safe and even necessary as a vital source of choline. It’s in all kinds of natural plant and animal foods. But most of the lecithin you’ll see on grocery store packages isn’t from egg yolks, it’s from soy (because soy is very cheap).  Soy lecithin isn’t healthy, but the tiny amounts found in chocolate as an occasional indulgence also aren’t likely to cause any serious harm, unless you’re extremely sensitive to soy.

Liquid Smoke

Found in: Meat products, especially bacon and canned fish.

What does it do? It’s an artificial barbecue flavor.

Is it safe? Probably not, and it’s not clear why anyone would want to eat a vegan bacon flavoring when you could have real bacon. Liquid smoke is basically the result of trapping smoke from woodchips in a liquid. Studies on rats, mice, and pigs found no ill effects on the weight or organs of the animals, but a recent study from the European Food Safety Authority raised concerns about the genotoxicity of one type of liquid smoke at levels that actually come close to normal human consumption.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

Found in: Salad dressings, canned soup, Asian food

What does it do? MSG is a form of the naturally occurring chemical glutamate, which doesn’t taste like anything by itself, but enhances other flavors, especially savory flavors like meat. Glutamate in its natural form is the source of the flavor umami, found in vegetables like mushrooms and tomatoes.

Is it safe? Nobody knows! The evidence on MSG is one huge mass of conflicting studies, scare tactics, anecdotal evidence, food industry dishonesty, and unconvincing government reassurances. Many people claim to have a serious sensitivity to MSG in foods (the “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”), but clinical studies have failed to find a clear or consistent link. Giving human subjects enormous amounts of MSG by itself frequently produces mild symptoms, but a normal amount of MSG in food does not. Similarly, injecting rodents with MSG causes all kinds of problems, but humans don’t shoot it into our veins, so these studies are of very limited utility (just because something doesn’t belong in a rat’s bloodstream doesn’t mean humans shouldn’t eat it).

Another frequent condemnation of MSG is the link to obesity, but here the evidence is conflicting here too. Researchers in rural China (where people eat few modern processed foods but frequently cook with plain MSG) found that MSG intake was a strong predictor of obesity, even when controlling for other variables like total calorie intake. But another study found no relationship. A further study found that MSG reduced satiety in the short term, but increased it in the longer term. Yet another study found that obese women tasted MSG differently than normal weight women, and the obese women needed more of the MSG to get the same flavor hit. It’s possible that the overweight people in the first study ate more MSG because they were overweight, not the other way around.

Even among natural foods/Paleo advocates, the consensus isn't solid. A Paleo diet eliminates almost all sources of MSG anyway, since it’s mostly found in Asian restaurant food and pre-made packaged meals. You might find it in store-bought broth or canned soup. Until further research can actually confirm or deny the relationship, avoiding MSG can’t do any harm, but small amounts in Paleo-friendly processed foods aren’t likely to have huge consequences for non-sensitive people, either. Try a 30-day elimination test and re-introduction to see if you react to it.

Note that many people have strong negative associations with MSG, so food manufacturers try to hide it. If you are interested in avoiding it, also avoid: anything “glutamate,” anything “hydrolyzed,” protein isolates or concentrates, and autolyzed yeast. Also beware anything with “chicken broth” or “vegetable broth” as an ingredient; these often contain one or more of the other forms of MSG.

Natamycin

Found in: Cheese and sausages

What does it do? It’s an antifungal preservative.

Is it safe? Probably. Natamycin isn’t absorbed from the gut, and doesn’t seem to affect the gut flora at normal levels from food. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea were observed in human subjects at levels approximately equivalent to 10kg of cheese or 20kg of sausages in one sitting – not exactly a realistic intake.

Nisin

Found in: Dairy, meat, and egg products, canned foods, salad dressings

What does it do? It’s an antibacterial that prevents food from spoiling.

Is it safe? Probably. It doesn't seem to affect gut flora or produce antibiotic-resistant germs at the concentrations used in food.

Nitrates and Nitrites: see Sodium Nitrate

“Natural flavor”

Found in: All kinds of products – canned foods, spice mixes, condiments like mustard and vinegar, and anything else that comes in a box or carton can have natural flavor.

What does it do? It adds flavor, any kind of flavor. Anything derived from something naturally occurring is a “natural flavor,” and “natural flavors” can actually be chemically identical to “artificial flavors;” the only difference is that the chemicals in the “natural” version came from a plant or animal, and the chemicals in the “artificial” version came from a lab.

Is it safe? It depends. MSG is a “natural flavor,” and so are other disgusting additives like castoreum (a vanilla flavor made from the anal sacs of beavers). Then again, “natural flavor” could be as simple as salt and pepper. Without calling the manufacturer of the food, there’s no way to actually tell what “natural flavor” is, so unless you’re willing to do some research, it’s a safe bet to avoid it.

Papain

Found in: Meat

What does it do? It’s a meat tenderizer

Is it safe? Yes; it’s just an enzyme that comes from papaya. Unless you’re allergic to it (as some people are), there’s no danger.

Phosphates, Phosphoric acid

Found in: Meat (especially cured meat), cheese, dairy products, and egg products

What do they do? They’re meat tenderizers and make products more attractive (for example, they help cheese keep its shape).

Are they safe? Probably not. Unlike naturally occurring phosphorous, artificial phosphate is very absorbable in the gut, and has dangerous consequences for cardiovascular and kidney health.  One study found that these additives significantly increased the phosphorous content of the food, which is problematic for kidney dialysis patients, who often struggle with serious complications from too much phosphorous. Too much phosphorous also contributes to vascular calcification (plaque in the arteries), so it’s a serious heart risk.

Potassium Chloride

Found in: Anything with a salty flavor (broths, soups, etc.)

What does it do? It’s a salt substitute.

Is it safe? Probably. Like calcium chloride (see above), it’s basically a salt flavoring without sodium; it’s very dehydrating and toxic if overdosed, but small amounts found in food are safe.

Sodium Benzoate: see Benzoates

Sodium Lactate

Found in:  Meat and meat products

What does it do? It’s a preservative and helps regulate the pH of foods.

Is it safe? Yes – if injected it can cause serious problems, but that’s not a concern for food additives.

Sodium Metabisulfite

Found in: Lemon juice, canned tomatoes, fruit juices

What does it do? It’s a preservative and an antioxidant.

Is it safe? Maybe. See Sulfites.

Sodium Nitrate or Sodium Nitrate

Found in: Processed meats (bacon, hot dogs)

What does it do? Nitrates and nitrites are coloring chemicals and antibacterial agents.

Is it safe? Probably. This might come as a surprise to people used to scouring the bacon selections to find ones cured without nitrates, but in fact the hype about nitrates and nitrites is probably overblown. First of all, it’s important to understand that nitrates and nitrites aren’t the same thing. Nitrates are found in plants – in fact, 80% of our total nitrate intake comes from vegetables. Some plants provide nitrites as well, and the human body can also produce them internally.

The real danger isn’t in the nitrates or nitrites themselves, but comes when they’re heated up, producing nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are carcinogens, but there’s a quick and easy way to prevent them from forming in the first place: antioxidants like Vitamin C. This is why you’ll see “ascorbic acid” (Vitamin C) on packages of cured meats. Processed meats have been linked to cancer in epidemiologic studies, but this is more likely because processed meat is a marker for an unhealthy lifestyle in general (even these studies note that it’s correlated with lower income and higher rates of smoking, for example). Bacon isn’t an ideal staple food in general, but as a treat or a luxury food, it’s not going to give you cancer.

On the topic of nitrates and nitrates, it’s worth noticing that even products with “no added nitrates or nitrates” aren’t free of these chemicals. Instead, these products use celery, which is a natural source of sodium nitrate.

Sodium Phosphate: See Phosphates

Sorbates (sorbic acid, sodium sorbate, potassium sorbate, calcium sorbate)

Found in: Pickles, cheese, wine, dried fruit

What does it do? It’s an antimicrobial preservative.

Is it safe? Probably. Some people who are very sensitive to sorbates have allergic reactions to them, but this is fairly rare and the anecdotal evidence is not backed up by research.

Soy Lecithin: See Lecithin

“Spices”

Found in: Condiments, store-bought canned foods and broths

What does it do? “Spices” could mean any kind of spice.

Is it safe? Yes, unless you have an allergy to a specific type of spice.  If you’re allergic, call the manufacturer first to check.

Sulfites (sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfate, sodium and potassium bisulfite, metabisulfites)

Found in: Dried fruit, vinegar, and wine

What does it do? Sulfites are color preservatives (for example, to stop cut fruit from going brown) and antioxidants.

Is it safe? That depends. Some people have extremely severe sensitivities to sulfites, including anaphylactic reactions as dangerous as the most extreme peanut allergies. Sulfites occur naturally in several kinds of food (including wine), and people who are sensitive to added sulfites are generally sensitive to these natural ones as well. This is a particularly sneaky food allergy, because naturally occurring sulfites are often unlabeled, so it requires a lot of research to maintain a sulfite-free diet.

The best way to determine if you have a sulfite sensitivity is an elimination diet. Cut out sulfites (including dried fruit and wine) for 30 days, and then try reintroducing them. If you don’t react to them, they’re probably fine.

Textured Vegetable Protein

Found in: Processed meat products.

What does it do? It’s a meat extender (it gives manufacturers a less expensive way to bulk up a meat product)

Is it safe? No; it’s usually made from soy, but can also be from wheat or oats – eat real meat instead!

Transglutaminase

Found in: Meat and seafood, especially the meat in restaurants

What does it do? It’s glue for meat; it’s used to do things like stick several pieces of meat together into “one” steak.

Is it safe? No, but not because of the transglutaminase itself. Gluing scraps of meat together poses a serious risk of bacterial contamination, especially if you like your Frankensteak anything less than well-done. In a real steak, the inside is sterile (it’s the outside that harbors bacteria), so a rare steak isn’t dangerous. But if the “steak” is actually a conglomeration of random meat scraps, the uncooked inside could be full of bacteria like E. coli – not a great condiment to your dinner.

Xanthan Gum

Found in:Coconut milk, sauces, salad dressings

What does it do? It's a thickening agent and an emulsifier (stops ingredients from separating)

Is it safe? Maybe. Xanthan gum is a by-product of fermentation. When a certain species of bacteria ferment simple sugars, they produce a kind of sticky, gooey gunk that's  dehydrated into a powder and then re-hydrated into a gum. This is a little gross to think about but nothing alarming in itself. However, the "simple sugars" often take the form of corn, wheat, and soy (and you won't know unless you actually get in touch with the manufacturer and ask). Allergies to these substances can be triggered by xanthan gum. If you don't have a severe allergy or gluten intolerance, a little bit of xanthan gum isn't going to destroy your health, but guar gum is a better alternative.

FODMAPs are a frequently discussed group of foods that many people are confused about – learn what they are and whether you need to worry about them.

Introduction; FOD-what?

“FODMAPs:” it sounds like a bizarre military acronym, or maybe the name of some incredibly specialized and complicated exercise that only the most dedicated of Crossfitters ever attempt. But FODMAPs actually stands for a list of several types of carbohydrates that can be difficult for many people to digest properly. Some people transition to a Paleo diet and immediately start to feel wonderful, but if you’re dutifully eating according to Paleo guidelines and still struggling with gas, bloating, constipation, or diarrhea, FODMAPs might be the culprit.

FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, And Polyols. These are all types of carbohydrates found in many different types of fruits, vegetables and grains. The most common Paleo foods high in FODMAPs are:

• Fruits: apples, avocados, cherries, mangos, peaches, pears, watermelons, fruit juice and dried fruit
• Vegetables: onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichoke, mushrooms, cauliflower
• Dairy products: milk, yogurt, soft cheeses
• Other: sugar alcohols (any sweetener that ends in –ol), honey, agave

Here is a FODMAPs infographic that might helpful. And this isn’t a complete list (a full list of FODMAPs commonly eaten on Paleo is here), but it does give you an idea of what kinds of foods contain FODMAPs, especially the variety of fruits and vegetables that can be problematic. Other foods, like beans, wheat, and rye, also contain high levels of FODMAPs, but since these foods are also harmful in so many other ways, they aren’t a good idea for anyone to eat, FODMAPs-sensitive or not.

Because they’re so difficult to digest and absorb, FODMAPs are strongly correlated with symptoms of all kinds of functional gastrointestinal disorders (digestive problems that aren’t caused by a physical abnormality, like IBS). In one study, a FODMAPs-restricted diet showed a 75% success rate for treating patients with IBS – the FODMAPs didn’t cause IBS to develop, but removing them from the diet was very helpful in controlling symptoms. This makes FODMAPs prime suspects for inexplicable digestive symptoms on a strict Paleo diet: not only are they very common in the diet, but restricting them also has a high likelihood of doing some good.

FODMAPs, in Detail

Doing any kind of research into FODMAPs can be very confusing because the words in the abbreviation refer to very large groups of carbohydrates, and each of those groups has several subgroups. To make it all even more complicated, not all members of every group are actually problematic, only the fermentable ones (remember that Fermentable is the “F” in FODMAPs). For example, “monosaccharides” is just a chemical name for simple sugars, but only one type of monosaccharide is actually a FODMAP, because only one kind is fermentable. For reference, the list below details all the different types of carbohydrates that commonly pop up in the discussion about FODMAPs, and their relationships to each other.

Letter in FODMAPs abbreviation	Sub-groups that are FODMAPs	Commonly found in...
Oligosaccharides	raffinose, fructans (fructo-oligosaccharides) galactans (galacto-oligosaccharides)	onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichoke, eggplant
Disaccharides	Only lactose, the sugar found in milk (other disaccharides are fine)	milk and dairy products
Monosaccharides	Only fructose (other monosaccharides are fine)	apples, mango, fruit juice, watermelon, added fructose, dried fruit, honey, agave
Polyols	sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, maltitol	apples, apricots, avocados, cherries, peaches, pears, watermelons, cauliflower, green peppers, mushrooms, sugar alcohols (any sweetener that end sin –ol)

Almost everyone is sensitive to oligosaccharides and polyols to some extent, but many people don’t show any reaction to the amount of them in a normal diet – the dose is just too low for them to notice. But other people (especially people with IBS or other functional digestive disorders) do react even to the amount of these carbohydrates in a bowl of coleslaw or a stick of sugar-free gum sweetened with sorbitol.

FODMAPs sensitive individuals also react to some carbohydrates that healthy people have no problems with: the disaccharides and monosaccharides (D and M in FODMAPs). This doesn’t mean that they’re sensitive to all disaccharides and monosaccharides: only two types of these sugars commonly cause problems. Lactose (the sugar found in milk) is the only disaccharide in this category, and fructose (the sugar found in fruit) is the only monosaccharide.

FODMAPs and Digestion

One of the reasons all these different types of carbohydrates are so irritating is that they aren’t completely digested by the time they reach the large intestine. Chemically, anything you eat is broken down by one or more enzymes: these are chemicals that digest foods into energy that your cells can actually use. The main enzyme responsible for carbohydrate digestion is amylase, which is first produced in your mouth as you chew, and continues to work on the carbohydrates as they travel through the digestive system. As the carbohydrates travel from your mouth through your stomach and into the gut, amylase breaks them down into their individual sugars. Then, the cells lining your gut can absorb them and distribute them to other parts of your body for energy.

The problem with FODMAPs is that, unlike other carbs, they aren’t completely digested in the small intestine, and pass through to the large intestine intact, instead of being absorbed in the gut and used for energy. Depending on the specific type of carbohydrate, this can be for one of two reasons.

• We can’t break it down. Amylase is the main enzyme responsible for starch digestion, but not the only one. Some FODMAPs reach the large intestine intact because we don’t have the enzymes necessary to digest them. People who react to lactose (the disaccharide “D”) have a deficiency of the enzyme lactase, which breaks the lactose down into simple sugars. Everyone reacts to raffinose (one of the oligosaccharides, the “O” in FODMAPs), because humans lack the enzyme to completely break it down.
• We can’t absorb it in the small intestine. Fructose (the monosaccharide “M” in the abbreviation) doesn’t need to be broken down any further – it’s already a simple sugar. But fructose can still cause the same symptoms because it’s difficult to absorb, so it stays in the intestine instead of getting transported through the intestinal wall into the body.

Whatever the reason, FODMAPs carbohydrates all cause problems because they stay in your gut when they should be digested, passed through the intestinal wall, and absorbed into your bloodstream.

In the large intestine, the gut flora couldn’t be happier about getting these carbohydrates – carbs are their favorite food. Unfortunately, bacteria chow down on their carbohydrate feast by fermenting the sugar molecules (this is why the F in FODMAPs stands for Fermentable). Think of a loaf of bread rising: it changes from a flat, dense lump of flour and water to a light, fluffy mound with plenty of air inside because it’s being fermented by the yeast. Now imagine that happening in your gut, and you’ll understand why FODMAPs can cause so many intestinal symptoms!

Another reason why FODMAPs carbohydrates can cause digestive symptoms is that they draw water into the intestine (technically, this is known as osmosis). Osmosis can cause both bloating and diarrhea, because it causes the intestinal wall to swell. This exacerbates the problems already caused by the bacterial overgrowth.

FODMAPs, Gut Flora, and SIBO

Since FODMAPs have so much to do with the gut flora, and since they cause overgrowth problems very similar to SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, also known as SBBO, for Small Bowel Bacterial Overgrowth), it’s worth taking the time to distinguish between these two problems – they’re similar, but they aren’t the same. For a FODMAPs-sensitive person, these carbohydrates affect not only the bacteria in the small intestine (where they aren’t supposed to be at all) but also in the large intestine (where they are supposed to be, just not in such large numbers). Thus, it’s perfectly possible to react to FODMAPs without having SIBO.

Even though these are two different conditions, though, they are actually related. FODMAPs foods have to pass through the small intestine, so if a person has pre-existing SIBO, eating FODMAPs can aggravate the problem by feeding the bacteria there. On the other hand, reducing FODMAPs in the diet can also help treat SIBO, and reducing bacterial overgrowth in other ways can help improve FODMAPs tolerance.

FODMAPs and Fructose Malabsorption

On the list of FODMAPs, the one most familiar to most Paleo dieters is probably fructose (the monosaccharide “M”). “Fructose malabsorption,” or the inability to properly digest fructose, is a familiar term to anyone who’s spent much time researching Paleo, but many people don’t recognize that since fructose is a FODMAP, fructose malabsorption is really one kind of FODMAP sensitivity.

Not recognizing the relationship between fructose and other FODMAPs can make fructose malabsorption unnecessarily hard to treat because the effects of FODMAPs in the body are cumulative. In other words, eating a second kind of FODMAPs can make your reaction to the first one worse. For example, someone sensitive to fructose who also eats a lot of onions (a major source of oligosaccharides) will have a worse reaction to fructose because of the onions. If you know you have trouble absorbing fructose, but don’t feel entirely better even when you strictly avoid all high-fructose foods, other FODMAPs may be the key to your symptoms.

Testing for FODMAPs Intolerance

If that uncomfortable feeling of having a beach ball trapped in your stomach (often accompanied by cramps, diarrhea, constipation, or other gut symptoms) sounds like you, and a Paleo diet alone isn’t helping, restricting FODMAPs is a logical next step to try. This doesn’t have to mean cutting out all FODMAPs completely forever, but a strict elimination period can be a very useful diagnostic tool to work out exactly what you do and don’t tolerate well, and in what quantities.

This is where it gets painful: a FODMAPs elimination diet can be very difficult to follow because it cuts out so many vegetables, which are one of the main sources of Paleo variety. Trying to plan even one meal, much less a week of food, without any onions or garlic is a tall order. But since the symptoms of FODMAPs intolerance are cumulative, it’s most helpful to eliminate everything for a trial period, so you can be sure you’ve covered all your bases. If the low FODMAP diet is helpful, try re-introducing foods from each category a little at a time (see the next section), to see if there are any categories you don’t react to.

There’s no point putting yourself to all the trouble of a special restrictive diet if it doesn’t help, so make sure to plan thoroughly beforehand so your efforts will be worth it. Don’t let your efforts get sabotaged by accidentally eating something you’re trying to eliminate! Print out the full list of whatever foods you’re trying to avoid, tape it to the fridge, and leave a copy with your shopping list (even if you’re shopping for more than one person, you want to make sure you have enough safe foods for you to eat). If you aren’t the primary grocery shopper and cook for your household, make sure to talk about FODMAPs with whoever that person is.

During the initial elimination period, stick to a low-FODMAPs diet and take whatever steps necessary to restore the health of your gut flora (remember that FODMAPs foods cause gas and bloating by overfeeding the gut flora, so if you react poorly to FODMAPs, chances are you have a gut flora overgrowth to treat). It’s helpful to keep a journal of how you feel every day, so you have an accurate record to examine at the end of your experiment.

After 5-6 weeks of strictly avoiding FODMAPs, try re-introducing these foods into your diet a little bit at a time. A good strategy would be to re-introduce FODMAPs one by one, monitoring symptoms at every step. Fortunately, many people who initially suffer from FODMAPs intolerance can start to reintroduce these foods, at least in small quantities, once their guts have healed and their digestion has improved.

Living with FODMAPs Intolerance

After you’re finished with the elimination diet and re-introduction period, you’ll have a pretty good idea of which FODMAPs you tolerate and which ones you don’t. Finding out that you’re intolerant to FODMAPs (either to all of them or to one specific category) is a blessing and a curse. It’s wonderful to finally be in control of IBS symptoms, but it can also be discouraging to think of limiting your diet so much for the long term, especially if you’re new to Paleo and struggling just to cut out grains and seed oils.

After the initial elimination period is done, you might find that with a healthy gut, you can handle these carbohydrates much more easily. Remember that almost everyone who doesn’t notice any FODMAPs sensitivity is actually sensitive to oligosaccharides and polyols; they just never eat enough of them to notice symptoms. It’s also possible for people with FODMAPs sensitivity to find an amount of these carbohydrates that they can tolerate without a problem. Then they can plan their meals accordingly to maximize the variety and interest of their diet by including smaller amounts of FODMAPs foods alongside other safe foods.

It’s also important to note that even a low-FODMAPs diet isn’t as restricted as it seems at first. For example, fructose is technically a FODMAP, but most people don’t have trouble with it unless they either eat a very large amount, or they eat more fructose than glucose at the same meal. Remember that fructose causes intestinal symptoms because it’s hard to absorb, but most people can handle small doses, and eating glucose alongside a serving of fructose can make it easier to absorb. Thus, it’s perfectly possible to enjoy fructose-containing foods even if you’re sensitive to FODMAPs, as long as those foods also contain at least as much glucose as they do fructose.

Also, not all dairy products contain enough lactose for most people to notice. Butter, for example, has almost none, so even on a lactose-free diet it’s usually fine to cook with butter. If you’re very sensitive, you could also try making clarified butter, or ghee. Yogurt or kefir that you make yourself and ferment for 24 hours or longer is also usually fine.

Cooking and soaking also helps break down the FODMAPs carbohydrates before they get to your mouth at all – this is why so many people in traditional cultures soak and ferment their grains and legumes. If you’re sensitive to more than one category of FODMAPs, it’s also usually easier to eat them only separately: the effects build on themselves, so chewing gum sweetened with sugar alcohols (polyols) and then enjoying a huge bowl of yogurt (lactose) with honey (fructose) is likely to be much more difficult to digest than having these three things spread out over the course of the day.

FODMAPs-free cooking gets much easier with time, as you learn to adapt your favorite recipes or discover new ones that don’t set off your digestive symptoms. For FODMAPs-free meals, try some simple recipes like steak stuffed with herbs and prosciutto, or a whole grilled fish with beet salad or a simple plate of greens like spinach or arugula (both low in FODMAPs) drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You might even find that you enjoy the challenge of cooking without FODMAPs and learning to use new flavors and vegetables.

Conclusion

Not everyone is FODMAPs intolerant. If your digestive system is working just fine and you don’t notice any symptoms from eating these foods, there’s nothing unhealthy about restricting them and no reason to artificially limit your diet – enjoy your tomato sauce, avocados, and cauliflower without guilt. But if you’re stuck wondering why your guts are still rebelling against you even on a strict Paleo diet, a test diet for FODMAPs intolerance is certainly worth trying. At worst, it’s one more potential reason to cross off your list, and at best, you’ll find out how to manage your symptoms without needing to rely on drugs or more invasive solutions.

What is fiber, why do you need it, and how can you get it on a Paleo diet?

If you’ve spent any amount of time reading conventional weight-loss blogs and magazines, “filling fiber” is probably right up there with “heart-healthy whole grains” or “artery-clogging saturated fat.” You’re probably familiar with the advice to eat more fiber, or even take a fiber supplement if you’re constipated. Like other conventional wisdom, all of this advice ought to be analyzed with a healthy amount of skepticism, but in this case, it’s not all wrong.

Mainstream nutritionists aren’t as mistaken about fiber as they are about grains and fat – there is a lot of truth to the “filling fiber” catchphrase, and fiber certainly isn’t dangerous if it’s eaten in moderate quantities from non-toxic food sources. But there’s a limit to the benefit; more is not necessarily better, especially more of the wrong kind. As this article explains, fiber is definitely not a one-size-fits-all positive, and there’s a healthy and an unhealthy way to go about including it in your diet.

What is Fiber?

Most basically, fiber is a kind of carbohydrate found in the cell walls of plants, but it’s a carbohydrate that you can’t digest. The diet-magazine claim is that you don’t get any nutrients from it, but you also don’t get any calories (although as seen below, this is only actually true for one kind of fiber). This is why the diet industry loves it – fiber adds “free” volume, so you can eat larger portions without eating more calories.

This analysis of fiber as a miracle food is great for selling products, but for good health it’s useful to have a more comprehensive idea of what fiber actually is. First of all, talking about “fiber” is imprecise, because fiber actually has two varieties: soluble and insoluble. When you eat soluble fiber, it reacts with water and turns into a gel during the digestive process. Insoluble fiber, on the other hand, absorbs the water and swells up to many times its own size. Soluble fiber slows digestion, while insoluble fiber speeds it up. If you’re getting them in reasonable quantities from healthy foods, both types of fiber are healthy for the gut, but they behave in very different ways. Soluble fiber nourishes the gut flora, and insoluble fiber helps add bulk to your stool, which can help prevent or treat constipation.

Since fiber is a major component of plant cells, almost all fruits and vegetables are good source, and most of them contain both soluble and insoluble varieties. Whole grains are also fiber-rich (if you ask a conventional nutritionist how to get more fiber in your diet, you’ll probably get “whole grains” as the first response), but since this benefit doesn’t cancel out all the other ways grains are bad for you, whole grains aren’t recommended on a Paleo diet.

Soluble Fiber and Gut Flora

One of the main benefits of soluble fiber doesn’t actually directly affect you – it’s a bonus for the gut flora that live in your large intestine and support everything from mental health to your immune system. Soluble fiber is these bacteria’s favorite food – eating plenty of fiber gives them all the nourishment they need to live long and prosper. This is one reason why fiber is so effective for constipation: healthy bowel movements are largely made up of dead gut flora, so supporting the growth of these bacteria is the best way to keep your digestive system functioning properly.

Unfortunately, there’s a darker side of this as well. Many people have too few bacteria in their digestive system, but some people also have too many. This condition is called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, and it’s a major factor behind IBS symptoms and several food intolerances. Feeding an already overgrown population of bacteria can make the problem even worse. Thus, if you have SIBO or other bacterial overgrowth problems, it might be wise to go easy on the soluble fiber until your gut heals. Many people with IBS or SIBO find relief by restricting their intake of certain vegetables (most notably FODMAPs); this is in part because these vegetables are high in soluble fiber, and restricting them reduces the food available to the overgrown gut flora.

Benefits of Fiber

As well as nourishing your gut flora, fiber is also beneficial in several other ways. As noted above, insoluble fiber can help alleviate constipation by increasing the amount of matter in your colon; this is why getting more “roughage” helps many people have regular bowel movements.

Both soluble and insoluble fiber are also excellent for weight loss because (unlike “heart-healthy whole grains”) fiber actually lives up to its epithet. Fiber is very filling, partly because it requires a lot of chewing, so it slows down the meal. Think of eating six oranges in one meal (which nobody but the most ardent of raw vegans does on a regular basis) vs. drinking one glass of orange juice (which thousands of perfectly normal people do every day at breakfast). The difference is the fiber: orange juice has had all the fiber removed by the juicing process, so it’s not nearly as filling as the whole fruit.

The high fiber content of fruit is actually one reason why the fructose in fruit is not as damaging as the fructose in artificial sweeteners like sugar or corn syrup: the difference is that almost nobody eats enough fruit to feel the detrimental effects of fructose toxicity, because the fiber in the real fruit makes it much more filling than a soft drink or candy bar. Fiber also helps make carbohydrate safer to eat by controlling blood sugar spikes, making very important for anyone with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or other difficulties in digesting carbohydrates.

Soluble fiber also increases the production of butyrate in the colon. Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid that helps control appetite and metabolism; it also has anti-inflammatory properties and has been suggested as helpful in inflammatory gut disorders. It even seems to offer some protection against colon and breast cancer, although this is still being studied. Butyrate (also found in butter) is absorbed and used for energy by the colon. This is why soluble fiber doesn’t actually have 0 calories: the fiber itself has none, but it is converted to butyrate, which does. Thus, the soluble fiber from many plant foods actually provides a significant number of calories from fat. In Paleo terms, this can be seen as yet another benefit: fiber adds a significant source of healthy fats to the diet in addition to all its other properties.

On the whole, soluble fiber is slightly more beneficial, because it nourishes the gut flora and provides an excellent source of butyrate. Both kinds of fiber are useful, though, as long as you’re getting them from whole foods rather than from supplements.

Fiber and Cholesterol

One of the most commonly touted benefits of fiber according to conventional medical advice is its ability to lower cholesterol. But as anyone within 10 miles of a Paleo dieter knows by now, “lowering cholesterol” is not always a benefit and may actually be negative – it all depends on which kind of cholesterol we’re talking about. There’s no reason to be afraid of fiber because it lowers cholesterol, but it’s also not a ringing endorsement.

Fiber and Paleo

Even though Paleo dieters know better than to spend much time worrying about their cholesterol levels, getting plenty of dietary fiber is clearly beneficial. Luckily, Paleo includes plenty of fiber, even if it doesn’t always seem that way to the outside world. “But where do you get your fiber?” might very well be the Paleo equivalent of every vegan’s least favorite question, “but where do you get your protein?” Since fiber is so strongly equated with whole grains in most people’s minds, a grain-free Paleo diet seems at first glance to be sorely deficient.

But this is ignoring that Paleo dieters eat more vegetables than some vegetarians! All vegetables are rich in fiber, and if you’re eating only real foods it’s both simple and easy to get plenty of fiber in your diet without even worrying about it. For example, look at the menu below:

• Breakfast: frittata with peppers and onions (2g fiber from sweet potato, 3g from zucchini, 1g from red pepper), with half an avocado (7g fiber)
• Lunch: Paleo Spaghetti (4g fiber) with a salad on the side (4g fiber)
• Snack: celery sticks with almond butter (3g fiber)
• Dinner: Portobello burgers with 1 cup roasted summer squash (4g fiber)
• Dessert: 1 cup frozen strawberries (5g fiber)

This is a fairly standard day of Paleo meals – it’s certainly not a diet that goes to any extremes to include huge amounts of fiber. There aren’t any “fiber-rich whole grains,” and all the vegetable portions are modest. But even this diet includes 33 grams of fiber – well within the standard recommendations of 20-40 grams. It’s clearly perfectly possible to get plenty of fiber on Paleo without resorting to any kind of dietary extreme or even making a special effort to do it.

Fiber Supplements vs. Real Food

Even though it’s so easy to get enough fiber from food alone, many people feel that they ought to take fiber supplements, or worry that they might be missing out on something if they don’t. Fiber supplements aren’t necessarily as beneficial as fiber-rich foods, though – not only do they lack the other nutrients found in foods, but they can also be overwhelming to the gut.

It’s important to note that many foods praised for being high in fiber are also high in several other potentially beneficial nutrients. One cup of blueberries, for example, has 3.6 grams of fiber, but also high levels of Vitamins C and K, and several beneficial antioxidants. It’s just not possible to judge whole foods entirely on the basis of their fiber content, since “a diet rich in fiber” is also a diet rich in all the vitamins and minerals packaged with that fiber. The fiber itself is also beneficial, but it’s far from the only factor at play. Unlike blueberries, Metamucil doesn’t have much in the way of nutrition, so it won’t deliver the same benefit as an actual food source of fiber.

The benefits and drawbacks of supplementation also depend on whether you’re supplementing with soluble or insoluble fiber. Supplementing with moderate amounts of soluble fiber (also known as prebiotics) is generally not problematic – it nourishes your gut flora and can help keep your bowel movements regular, especially if you’re suffering from a FODMAPS intolerance or some other food condition that prevents you from eating as many vegetables as you’d like.

Supplementing with insoluble fiber, on the other hand, is not nearly as useful. In such large doses, insoluble fiber (the kind found in fiber supplements) is actually a gut irritant. The additional bulk of the fiber scrapes against the lining of the gut, which can rub away the mucous lining the digestive tract and cause inflammation and irritation in the intestine.

To make things worse, relying on these megadoses of fiber for regular bowel movements can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: rather than moving properly on its own, your gut becomes dependent on high doses of fiber to force everything through your system.

The upshot of all this is that fiber-rich foods are healthy and nutritious, but the benefit doesn’t necessarily extend to fiber as a processed, purified supplement taken on its own. Soluble fiber supplements are fine for most people (although anyone with bacterial overgrowth problems should be cautious with them), but insoluble fiber is unnecessary and even harmful to supplement. This should be unsurprising: humans were designed to eat food, not Metamucil. That kind of concentrated dose of insoluble fiber isn’t available anywhere in nature, and for good reason: it’s just too much for our digestive systems to process regularly.

With that said, there is one case in which a temporary boost of insoluble fiber can be helpful. In the case of transient constipation (namely, constipation brought on by travelling, a sudden change in diet, or some other one-time reason), a fiber supplement can be a helpful band-aid to get everything moving again. For long-term health though, insoluble fiber supplements aren’t advisable.

Conclusion

Overall, fiber is everyone’s favorite kind of important nutrient: one that’s easy to get plenty of without thinking of, comes in so many different forms that everyone can find something they like, and doesn’t require a lot of laborious preparation or processing. Both soluble and insoluble fiber have benefits, although soluble is probably slightly better for you unless you’re struggling with SIBO or another bacterial overgrowth condition. Just eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables will give you as much fiber as your body can use, so grab a bowl of fresh strawberries and celebrate having one less diet problem to worry about.

Ketosis is a word that gets tossed around a lot within the Paleo community – to some, it’s a magical weight-loss formula, to others, it’s a way of life, and to others it’s just asking for adrenal fatigue. But understanding what ketosis really is (not just what it does), and the physical causes and consequences of a fat-fueled metabolism can help you make an informed decision about the best diet for your particular lifestyle, ketogenic or not.

Ketosis is essentially a metabolic state in which the body primarily relies on fat for energy. Biologically, the human body is a very adaptable machine that can run on a variety of different fuels, but on a carb-heavy Western diet, the primary source of energy is glucose. If glucose is available, the body will use it first, since it’s the quickest to metabolize. So on the standard American diet, your metabolism will be primarily geared towards burning carbohydrates (glucose) for fuel.

In ketosis, it's just the opposite: the body primarily relies on ketones, rather than glucose. To understand how this works, it’s important to understand that some organs in the body (especially the brain) require a base amount of glucose to keep functioning. If your brain doesn’t get any glucose, you’ll die. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need glucose in the diet – your body is perfectly capable of meeting its glucose needs during an extended fast, a period of famine, or a long stretch of very minimal carbohydrate intake.

There are two different ways to make this happen. First, you could break down the protein in your muscles and use that as fuel for your brain and liver. This isn’t ideal from an evolutionary standpoint though – when you’re experiencing a period of food shortage, you need to be strong and fast, not getting continually weaker. Fortunately, you also have another source of glucose manufacture: ketone bodies.

Ketone bodies are a type of fatty acid – they’re basically byproducts of the process that converts protein to glucose in the liver. Ketone bodies fill part of your brain’s need for glucose (so you don’t have to break down as much of your muscle mass), and they also power all your other major organs. If you eat a diet very low in carbohydrates and protein (which forces your body to look elsewhere for glucose), your entire metabolism will switch over to using ketones as fuel instead – this is called ketosis.

Ketosis and Ketoacidosis

In any discussion of ketosis it’s important not to confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis. Confusion over the similar names is one reason why many people think a ketogenic diet is dangerous, but in reality, they're two lookalike words for two completely different things. Ketosis is when everything's going fine; you're just running on fat rather than glucose. But ketoacidosis is a very dangerous metabolic state that most commonly occurs in Type 1 diabetics. In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, so even if a Type 1 diabetic eats a whole plate of pasta, he won’t be able to digest and use the glucose for energy. He’s eating enough food, but his body is starving. As an alternative, his body starts to burn fat to meet its basic fuel needs.

This would be perfectly fine, except that one of the most important hormones for regulating ketone production is insulin. Since Type 1 diabetics don’t produce enough insulin to regulate the production of ketone bodies, burning fat for fuel involves the uncontrolled production of far too many ketone bodies. Remember that ketone bodies are fatty acids (and thus acidic); producing an uncontrolled amount of ketones upsets the balance between acid and base substances in the body and causes inflammation, dehydration, and swelling in the brain tissue, which can be fatal if left untreated.

Obviously, ketoacidosis is not a condition anyone wants to deal with, no matter what the potential benefits might be. But it simply isn’t a concern for most people, because when anyone but a diabetic relies on fat for fuel, they can count on insulin to keep ketone production to healthy levels. Even if you find that ketosis is not quite right for you for other reasons, there’s no need to avoid it for fear of going into ketoacidosis instead.

Why Ketosis?

Understanding the difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis is one thing, but that still doesn’t explain why anyone would actually want to be in ketosis. If it’s is so metabolically similar to starvation, can it really be beneficial?

For some people, yes. The most common reason for attempting to go into ketosis is to lose weight. In several studies, a ketogenic diet has outperformed either a typical low-carb diet or a calorie-restricted diet for weight loss. When the body is already running on fat for fuel, it’s metabolically easy to burn the stored fat already on the body as well as the fat obtained through the diet. Ketosis can even help heal some of the longer-term damage brought on by the Western diet: in obese people who are insulin resistant, a ketogenic diet can help restore insulin sensitivity and restore regular metabolic function.

In one particularly interesting study, a group of 31 obese subjects ate a diet very similar to Paleo. Nicknamed the “Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet,” it consisted of fish as the main dietary protein, olive oil as the main fat, and lots of non-starchy vegetables. Subjects also drank a moderate amount of red wine daily. In contrast to most Atkins-type diets (which rely on processed low-carb meal replacements), this is a diet extremely high in healthy fats and micronutrients, and low in toxins. The results were impressive: as well as losing weight, the subjects also enjoyed improved blood pressure numbers, fasting glucose levels, and cholesterol profiles. In 12 weeks, a diet that could easily be described as “Paleo” had dramatically improved several important health markers.

As an added weight loss benefit, ketosis also has a well-documented appetite suppressing effect, due in part to its effect on blood sugar levels. A ketogenic diet minimizes swings in blood sugar, so you don’t get exhausted and cranky when you haven’t eaten for a few hours. This makes it easier to stay within a reasonable amount of food every day, even without conscious calorie restriction (which is generally a bad idea).

As well as an effective weight-loss diet, ketosis also shows promise as a therapeutic diet for various neurological disorders. Since the 1920s, it's been a scientifically acknowledged treatment for at least one health condition: epilepsy. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes repeated seizures; some people are born epileptic, and others develop the disorder due to injury, infections, or other trauma to the brain. Scientists aren't sure why ketosis is so beneficial for epileptic patients – a variety of explanations have been suggested but none have ever been proven. However, the undeniable fact is that ketosis is safe and effective therapy for epilepsy, especially in children.

Building on the work of doctors treating epileptic patients, some studies have indicated potential benefits of ketosis for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Some patients have successfully used a ketogenic diet to treat migraines, and researchers found that it may also be of some help in treating brain tumors. In general, ketosis seems to be potentially therapeutic for a wide range of brain and neurological disorders. This probably has something to do with the metabolic shift from glucose to ketones in the brain, although the specific reasons are still under investigation. But it’s a very interesting avenue of research, and definitely worth investigating if you or someone close to you is suffering from neurological symptoms.

To sum up the documented health benefits of a ketogenic diet, it seems that ketosis is most clearly useful for people with severe health problems like obesity or epilepsy. For these conditions, ketosis is a relatively safe and effective treatment – certainly better than spending the rest of your life on a cocktail of seizure medications or suffering all the side effects of uncontrolled diabetes. But healthy people who aren’t at risk from one of these conditions might want to think twice about adopting a ketogenic diet, because ketosis doesn’t come without its own set of risks.

Risks and Drawbacks of Ketosis

The benefits of ketosis are undeniable, but on the other hand, it also has certain risks. For a few people, it's not even an option – anyone with Pyruvate Carboxylase Deficiency, porphyria, and some other metabolic disorders (especially disorders that prevent the person from metabolizing fat properly) should steer well clear of ketosis. These diseases are rare, though– more common are conditions that don’t rule out the use of a ketogenic diet but do require extra care and attention to make it safe.

Type 1 diabetics, for example, need to be very careful when attempting a ketogenic diet. At first it might seem obvious that Type 1 diabetics should avoid ketosis entirely, for fear of slipping into ketoacidosis instead, but in fact a ketogenic diet can be safe for Type 1 diabetics who are also taking insulin replacement. The triggering factor for ketoacidosis is a lack of insulin, so insulin replacement hormones can make ketosis workable, even if it's not entirely risk-free. In children with both epilepsy and diabetes, doctors experimenting with a ketogenic diet for epilepsy have had significant success in balancing both conditions: ketosis to eliminate epilepsy symptoms, and insulin replacement to control the production of ketone bodies. But this is still somewhat of an experimental therapy, and there are risks involved that non diabetics don’t have to consider. If you have Type 1 Diabetes and you’re interested in ketosis for any reason, the safest way to proceed is to talk to your doctor first.

Even for people who aren’t diabetic, a ketogenic diet can have certain drawbacks. Remember that ketosis is metabolically very similar to starvation. If you’re trying to increase your fertility or if you’re currently pregnant, ketosis can actually be counterproductive. Fertility is greatest when the body feels well-nourished (which makes perfect sense: evolutionarily, conceiving a child during a time of food scarcity could be very dangerous), so a very low carbohydrate diet that imitates starvation is not ideal for conception. Similarly, the healthiest nutritional state during pregnancy is being consistently well-nourished; ketosis can be dangerous for both mother and baby.

People who do a lot of high-intensity metabolic conditioning should also avoid ketosis. This kind of activity demands glucose for fuel. Your body can make its own glucose from fat and protein, but not at the rate that you need it for regular sprint workouts or Crossfit metcons. If you regularly try to push yourself through this kind of workout on a low-carb diet, you’ll burn through all your stored muscle glycogen right away, and then see your performance start to decrease. Instead of injuring your body and your metabolism by forcing yourself to keep going, match your carbs to your workouts and enjoy some sweet potato fries or another source of Paleo-friendly starches.

As well as risks that apply only to certain groups of people, some risks can also affect anyone on a ketogenic diet. Kidney stones are a well-known example: long periods of ketosis are a serious risk factor. Some studies also indicate a risk of bone density loss, a problem that could lead to osteoporosis or further complications down the road. Children on a ketogenic diet grow more slowly than their peers – not surprisingly, given that ketosis is so similar to starvation. A less serious but irritating side effect is constipation (possibly caused by the reduction of fiber-rich grains and carbohydrates in the diet). Other risks of very low carbohydrate diets in general include thyroid problems, Vitamin C deficiency, low energy, and mood disorders.

All of these side effects mean that it’s important to consider both sides of the issue if you’re thinking about a ketogenic diet. It might seem like a weight loss miracle diet, but it’s not without some attendant downsides.

How to Achieve Ketosis

If you do decide that a ketogenic diet might be useful for you, the good news is that it’s not very difficult to achieve. Sending your body into ketosis is actually quite simple – eat fat to supply most of your calories, limited protein, and no starchy carbohydrates (your carbohydrates should only come from non-starchy vegetables like salad greens). Most people will be able to achieve ketosis on a net carbohydrate intake (not counting fiber) of 50 grams or less per day – that’s the carbohydrates in 2.5 cups of blueberries, or 4 cups of chopped carrots. It’s also important to keep protein fairly low, because if your body has enough protein to turn into glucose, it won’t start producing ketones instead. Basically, the goal is to give your body no alternative but to burn ketones for fuel, so you need to severely restrict all energy sources other than fat.

To test for ketosis, you can actually buy commercial ketostix. These strips measure the ketones in your urine and change color accordingly. As you first enter ketosis, the strips will become quite a dark purple, indicating a high level of ketones in the urine. What confuses some people is that after a few weeks, the ketostix fade to a lighter shade of purple (fewer ketones in the urine) even though they haven’t altered their ketogenic diet.

This is actually normal and doesn’t indicate that you’ve gone out of ketosis. When you first enter ketosis, the sticks will be dark purple because you’re making too many ketones and excreting the ones you don’t need. As your body gets used to a ketogenic diet, it learns how to make only as many ketones as it needs. At this point, there aren’t a lot of extra ketones to be excreted, so there are fewer in your urine, and the strips don’t turn as dark of a color. If you kept flooding your body with unusable ketones for too long, you’d go into ketoacidosis, so it’s actually very healthy that you stop producing so many. As long as you keep up your ketogenic diet, you’ll stay in ketosis – there’s no need to worry that you’ve somehow done something wrong.

Minimizing the Risks of Ketosis

Even if you decide that the possible benefits of a ketogenic diet outweigh the risks, most people aren’t terribly thrilled at the thought of developing kidney stones or even a less severe problem like chronic constipation. Since any kind of ketogenic diet is really just a means to an end (ketosis), it follows that the best ketogenic diet is one that minimizes these risks – the diet that induces ketosis in the gentlest, least harmful way possible.

Certain dietary supplements can help give you a little more leeway on a ketogenic diet. The amino acids lysine and leucine support ketosis and allow a diet to include more protein without compromising ketosis. Short-chain fats like coconut oil are also very ketogenic because they signal the liver to make more ketones. These supplements are very useful because they make for more flexibility in the diet: achieving ketosis by carbohydrate and protein restriction alone is possible, but a slightly higher level of protein and carb intake, supplemented with these ketogenic foods, can help reduce side effects and make the diet safer for the long term. Supplementing with Vitamin D (which most of us should be doing anyway) can also help minimize the risk of bone density loss.

It’s also possible to choose a more moderate approach called a cyclic ketogenic diet. On this kind of plan, the goal is not to be in ketosis all the time, but rather to support a very flexible metabolism that can easily dip into and out of ketosis day by day. Cyclic ketogenic diets usually involve a few days of ketogenic eating, followed by a high-carbohydrate day or two approximately once a week. This lets you benefit from ketosis most of the time, while maintaining a much higher level of athletic performance and also enjoying much more dietary flexibility and variety. This kind of cyclic ketogenic diet is probably preferable to constant ketosis for most people, since it delivers the benefits of insulin sensitivity and weight management while minimizing many of the risks of long-term ketogenic dieting.

Conclusion: Is Ketosis for You?

The answer to that question is, of course, “it depends.” Since we have evidence of hunter-gatherer tribes eating such a wide variety of macronutrient ratios, it seems clear that human beings are not evolutionarily designed to be in ketosis all the time; it’s more likely that we have a very flexible metabolic structure that can function quite well burning either ketones or glucose for fuel.

Thus, if you’re pregnant, extremely athletic, or have another contraindicating factor, or if you do just fine on a moderate-carb diet and see no reason to change, then there’s no reason to try for ketosis. If you're interested in the potential benefits but don’t want to go all the way, a cyclic ketogenic diet might be a better choice – it lets you experiment with ketosis without risking the side effects of a long-term very low carb diet. On the other hand, if you feel better on a fat-burning metabolism, want to lose weight, or you’re trying to manage a neurological disease, there’s no reason to worry that ketosis is somehow harmful or unnatural.

Realistically, a long-term ketogenic diet can be thought of more as a therapeutic intervention than a goal that everyone should be attempting to reach. For patients who suffer from obesity or neurological disorders like epilepsy, it can be a safe and effective treatment, but that doesn’t mean that perfectly healthy people should necessarily adopt it. Glasses are also a safe and effective treatment for poor vision, but that doesn’t mean that people who can see perfectly well already should all go out and get them. Think of a ketogenic diet as one of several equally legitimate options, and choose the way of eating that works best for you.

Want a more visual glance about ketosis and the keto diet? Have a look at our infographic here.

The following is geared towards people who want to try out a Paleo diet and who just want to quickly know what they should and shouldn't do.

No background science here or lengthy explanations, only 15 easy guidelines to follow to kick-start your Paleo journey. It's up to you to decide to what extent you want to follow those guidelines, but if you follow them 100% you can be assured that you are eating the best food for your body and greatly investing in your long term health and well-being.

You may also be interested in having a look at our list of Paleo-approved foods.

15 Paleo Diet Guidelines

1. Fat, protein and carbs

A Paleo diet should be high in fat, moderate in animal protein and low to moderate in carbohydrates. Calorie counting is not encouraged, neither is portion control.

2. The good fats

Eat generous amounts of saturated fats like coconut oil and butter or clarified butter. Beef tallow, lard and duck fat are also good, but only if they come from healthy and well-treated animals. Beef or lamb tallow is a better choice than lamb or duck fat. Olive, avocado and macadamia oil are also good fats to use in salads and to drizzle over food, but not for cooking. For more information, have a look at our beginner's guide to Paleo and fat.

3. Good proteins

Eat good amounts of animal protein. This includes red meat, poultry, pork, eggs, organs (liver, kidney, heart...), wild caught fish and shellfish. Don't be scared to eat the fatty cuts and all meals with proteins should contain fat as well. Learn to cook with bones in the form of stocks and broths.

4. Good carbs

Eat generous amounts of fresh or frozen vegetables either cooked or raw and served with fat. Starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes and yams are also great as a source of non-toxic carbohydrates.

5. Fruits and nuts

Eat low to moderate amounts of fruits and nuts. Try to eat mostly fruits low in sugar and high in antioxidants like berries as well as nuts high in omega-3, low in omega-6 and low in total polyunsaturated fat like macadamia nuts. Consider cutting off fruits and nuts altogether if you have an autoimmune disease, digestive problems or are trying to lose weight faster.

6. Grass-fed beef, pastured animals

Preferably choose pasture-raised and grass-fed meat from local, environmentally conscious farms. If not possible, choose lean cuts of meat and supplement your fat with coconut oil, butter or clarified butter. Also preferably choose organic, local and/or seasonal fruits and vegetables.

7. No grains and no legumes

Cut out all cereal grains and legumes from your diet. This includes, but is not limited to, wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, brown rice, soy, peanuts, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans and black eyed peas.

8. No vegetable seed oils

Cut out all vegetable, hydrogenated and partly-hydrogenated oils including, but not limited to, margarine, soybean oil, corn oil, peanut oil, canola oil, safflower oil and sunflower oil. Olive oil and avocado oil are fine, but don't cook with them, use them in salad dressings and to drizzle over food.

9. No sugar or fruit juices

Eliminate added sugar, soft drinks, all packaged sweets and juices (including fruit juices). As a rule of thumb, if it's in a box, don't eat it. At the grocery store, visit primarily the meat, fish and produce sections.

10. No dairy, in most cases

Eliminate dairy products other than butter and maybe heavy cream. You don't need dairy, but if you can't live without it, read this article and consider raw, full-fat and/or fermented dairy.

11. Intermittent fasting

Eat when you're hungry and don't stress if you skip a meal or even two. You don't have to eat three square meals a day, do what feels most natural.

12. Better sleep and reduce stress

Eliminate external stressors in your life as much as possible and sleep at least 8 hours per night. Try to wake up without an alarm and to go to bed when it gets dark.

13. Healthy exercise

Don't over-exercise, keep your training sessions short and intense and do them only a few times per week. Take some extra time off if you feel tired. Consider short and intense sprinting sessions instead of very long cardio sessions.

14. Supplementing

Consider supplementing with vitamin D and probiotics. Levels of magnesium, iodine and vitamin K2 should also be optimized. Iodine can be obtained from seaweeds. You probably don't need a multivitamin or other supplements.

15. Having a fun and active lifestyle

Play in the sun, have fun, laugh, smile, relax, discover, travel, learn and enjoy life like a daring adventure!