Paleo or Vegan: Which Should You Choose?

When it comes to healthy diet, you have mainly two choices to follow, the Paleo or vegan diet. Many advocates of these diets fight hard to defend their choices, while there are also some who have willingly switched to the other side for personal reasons. If you are one who currently has no restrictions whatsoever with your choice of food but is now committed to living a healthy lifestyle, knowing more about the two can help you make a decision.

The Paleo Diet

This diet is not a new thing, although many think that it is. In fact, it is designed to imitate to a high degree how cavemen used to eat thousands of years ago. Before agriculture was developed, the human diet consisted mainly of meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Experts believe that these foods work in conjunction with the body’s functions. They are nutrient-filled and thus provide what the body needs for optimum cell health. This is why people during that age did not suffer from modern diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, heart problems, and even obesity. When agriculture was developed about 10,000 years ago, everything changed. Grains and legumes were added to the diet and eventually all other foods were processed and have come to where the current diet is at now. The human body, however, has not adapted to this new diet, even until now. This is why you can see people becoming ill of diseases that are caused by the foods you eat. Too much refined sugar has resulted to people developing diabetes, gluten created allergic reactions that eventually caused the cells of the body to mutate and the immune system to weaken, bad fats have resulted to cardiovascular diseases, and so on and so forth. This is why experts suggested that people come back to the original diet that works harmoniously with the body.

As mentioned, the foods you can eat on the Paleo diet consists of meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. There should be no processed or junk foods, no grains, no preservatives, and many others. Hence, Paleo living is also coined as healthy living. However, although the foods included in this diet are by themselves already nutritious, there are still some other nutrients that the body need, which is why those following this diet must take Paleo diet supplements.

The Vegetarian Diet

This diet has one rule: no meat or animal products. You can eat all types of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, or any food that does not come from animals. This type of diet eliminates a major source of protein and so they get it instead from nuts, legumes, seeds, soy, and whole grains. Strict vegetarians avoid eggs, honey, and dairy products too because they came from animals, although there are those who allow themselves to eat these. The biggest benefit of the vegan diet is that it eliminates saturated fats from animals, which can elevate cholesterol levels and cause cardiovascular disease. Since most vegetarians are thin, they are also less at risk to develop diabetes. The only problem with this type of diet is that it allows people to eat processed foods as long as they do not contain animal products, like potato chips, artificial sweeteners, and some processed foods, which contain unhealthy fats. Grain also is not generally healthy for the body because they are high in carbohydrates that turn to glucose and spike up the blood sugar levels.

Being a vegetarian, unlike the Paleo diet, has an ethical and spiritual component to it. People who are against the cruel treatment of animals or those who believe in karma normally follow this diet. This is why it is wrong to convince a person who has this belief system to switch to a diet that goes against that.

The Paleo Vegan Diet

Now, since the Paleo advocates are very convincing in asserting the health benefits of this type of diet, it is hard to totally just ignore that. Hence, there is the so-called Paleo vegan or Pegan. Basically, it is a compromise between the two. It allows the consumption of meat but only in very minimal serving, unlike if you are in a Paleo diet where you can eat as much meat as you can. It, however, limits the consumption of grains, legumes, and sugar. Dairy should be avoided as well as processed foods. It is said that this type of diet can result to weight loss, reduce risk for heart disease, and even reverse diabetes.

Whether you choose the Paleo or vegetarian diet is really up to you. As mentioned, the latter has an ethical component so that plays a huge role in your decision-making. Both diets are known to be healthy, but it depends on you which one will work well with your lifestyle and which one you can commit to long term. Certain things are for sure, the Paleo or vegan diet are far more better than the current standard American diet and they are a better approach to acquiring better health than resorting to drugs.