Who Created The Paleo Diet?

Get to know a brief history of the diet that took the world by storm and changed the way people see the way diet should be.

For many, getting healthy can become a big struggle and can cost too much. This is why many people find alternative ways that can help them be healthy. One way that is known to be healthy is the way cavemen ate: the Paleolithic Diet or Paleo Diet. You must have heard this before, but do you know who started this?

Before we get to who started this diet, we’ll first tackle what the Paleo Diet is briefly. Paleo Diet includes many types of meat, nuts, and berries, that our ancestors would have eaten. But anything that results from agriculture or is a processed food is “not healthy”. Those unhealthy foods include bread, rice, cereals, and dairy products. The rationale behind this diet is that most of our health problems are caused by modern food, and we should avoid all these foods.

As the name implies, the Paleo Diet started with our ancestors. Yes, the cavemen that also used fire, make tools, clothing and all the necessities we know of. The Paleolithic Era was a turning point for humankind in terms of survival and how people lived. The people during these times were also very healthy and only ate what nature offered and what they can hunt.
After many decades, people improved their ways and agriculture set in, and as people developed more ways of making things easier, we produced food that was easier to cook and eat and became readily available in the market. These people became “lazier”, so to speak. This is where health problems and eating disorders grew.

Who Studied The Paleo Diet?

Because of this, many people seek ways to help them be healthier and create diet plans that would work for any individual. Enter the Paleolithic diet. The first known study made on how effective this diet is was carried out by Walter Voegtlin. Voegtlin is a gastroenterologist and came about with the “Stone Age Diet”, a book he wrote in 1975, pointing out the way humans are supposed to eat more protein. His book mainly argued on how and why humans are not fit to have plant-based diets.

They then used the study as a background to the original concept of the Paleo diet made by Stanley Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner. They called it Paleolithic nutrition and they published their article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985. Stanley Boyd Eaton is a radiologist while Melvin Konner is a professor of Anthropology and Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University.

The Paleolithic nutrition, however, became more popular when Loren Cordain introduced it commercially in his book “The Paleo Diet” in 2002. He made “Paleo Diet” a trademark to have ownership of the term. He is an American scientist who specialized in nutrition and exercise. He had published several books, but “The Paleo Diet” was one of his best works. From there, the Paleo diet slowly became popular amongst people who seek better health. In 2013, the Paleo diet even got to rank in Google search as one of the most searched modern diets.

The Paleo diet truly took the world to another level of dieting with its different take on the type of food it suggests. The proof of its effectiveness, however, is still getting higher as time goes by. So if you are looking for an alternative diet that won’t deprive you of meat, then this diet may fit you.