Paleo Foods: Impact on Your Health, Environment & Budget

If you are wondering what is this paleo diet, then you have to go back in the day when cavemen used to hunt and gather their foods. Yes! It means anything that you can hunt and find for your diet. This includes fish, meats, leafy greens, nuts, seeds and regional veggies. So, you have to say bye to candies, cereals and pastas. Instead, opt for chicken or veggies stir fry. Undoubtedly, this is one of the healthiest ways to eat because of many reasons. Research shows that today’s refined or processed foods is the root cause of the heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, cancer, infertility and many other dangerous diseases.

Impact on Health

Paleo foods have a positive impact on health and wellbeing. Here are some of the benefits that you get from these foods:

Healthy Cells: The cells of your body are made from both unsaturated fats and saturated fats. Thus, these cells completely depend on a proper balance of these two in order to send messages properly to every part of the body. The omega-3 fatty acids or polyunsaturated fatty acids play a very important role in functioning of the brain. A proper paleo diet contains the right amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

Healthy brain: In this diet, the best source of protein comes from cold water fish, especially salmon. Salmon fat is full of omega-3 fatty acids. And this omega-3 fatty acid is good for heart, eyes as well as development of brain. Other sources for this fatty acid is pasture raised eggs and meats.

Lose fat, gain muscles: This diet heavily depends on the flesh of animals which can be a healthy protein if avoiding factory farmed animal products. Protein helps building new cells as well as muscle mass. Metabolism works better with more muscle in your body. A good metabolism is better for losing fats faster.

Vitamins & minerals: Paleo foods are consist of a large amount of green and leafy vegetables. This is a great source of high nutrition including much needed vitamins and minerals. If you are having this type of diet, then you will get all the essential nutrition needed including dietary fiber, potassium, vitamin C and vitamin A.

Impact on Environment

Many say that this diet is not sustainable and it is destroying the planet. People who are on paleo a diet often face this problem. But what is the truth behind it? The actual fact is factory-farmed meats are absolutely unsustainable. But that does not mean you have to become all-vegan to save the planet. No! All you need to do is look for pasture-raised or grass-fed animals. Factory farmed animals consume 7 times more grains than that of humans. So, opt for the grass-fed animals which is sustainable for the planet.

Impact on Budget

This is often considered when buying meat, as it is generally more expensive than that of grains. Well, it might be true in terms of money. But look at the nutrition value. 5lbs of wheat can be cheaper than the meat of course but will it provide the same nutrition value? It’s a balance you’ll need to assess for yourself when considering typical Paleo foods.