he caveman diet is another term for the paleo diet. The paleo diet is commonly referred
to as the caveman diet due to the fact that, while on the paleo diet, you eat the same
foods as caveman did. The paleo diet is also so simple that “a caveman could do it.”
Regardless of the origin of the name, the caveman diet has many of the same principles
as the paleo diet. It’s focused primarily on the consumption of higher quantities of real,
unprocessed, non-packaged food that cavemen could have eaten thousands of years
ago, before Safeway, Walmart, and all of the other mega-super-duper-grocery stores
we have available in today’s world came into being. Here are the basics:
Eat
Meat, eggs, vegetables, and limited quantities of fruits and nuts. If it contains fewer than
five ingredients, it’s probably “real” food.
Don’t Eat
Grains, dairy, processed foods, and sugars.
A good rule of thumb to ask yourself is “could a caveman eat this?” If it’s packaged in a
bag or if it can sit on a shelf for more than a year, it’s probably not on the caveman diet.
Sorry!
Caveman Diet Recipes
Caveman Diet Food List
Caveman Diet Recipes
We’ve got hundreds of caveman recipes for you to try out here.
Caveman Diet Food List
The following is a list of the foods allowed on the caveman diet. You’ll find it’s very
similar to our very popular paleo diet food list.
Do you find yourself asking, “is it paleo?” often? Check out our app: Paleo.io – the
ultimate “Is It Paleo?” app
Meats
Steak
Beef
Ribs
Pork
Chicken breast
Chicken legs
Chicken wings
Lamb
Turkey
Salmon
Tilapia
Seafood
Crab
Clams
Bass
Goat
Rabbit
Bacon
Venison
Boar
Jerky
Vegetables
Brocolli
Kale
Cauliflower
Carrots
Peppers
Asparagus
Spinach
Parsley
Cabbage
Zuchhini
Eggs
All types of eggs
Fruits
Strawberries
Blueberries
Blackberries
Raspberries
Avocado
Watermelon
Apples
Nuts
Almonds
Pistachios
Walnuts
Brazil nuts
Macadamia nuts
Coconuts
Hazelnuts
he caveman diet is another term for the paleo diet. The paleo diet is commonly referred
to as the caveman diet due to the fact that, while on the paleo diet, you eat the same
foods as caveman did. The paleo diet is also so simple that “a caveman could do it.”
Regardless of the origin of the name, the caveman diet has many of the same principles
as the paleo diet. It’s focused primarily on the consumption of higher quantities of real,
unprocessed, non-packaged food that cavemen could have eaten thousands of years
ago, before Safeway, Walmart, and all of the other mega-super-duper-grocery stores
we have available in today’s world came into being. Here are the basics:
Eat
Meat, eggs, vegetables, and limited quantities of fruits and nuts. If it contains fewer than
five ingredients, it’s probably “real” food.
Don’t Eat
Grains, dairy, processed foods, and sugars.
A good rule of thumb to ask yourself is “could a caveman eat this?” If it’s packaged in a
bag or if it can sit on a shelf for more than a year, it’s probably not on the caveman diet.
Sorry!
Caveman Diet Recipes
Caveman Diet Food List
Caveman Diet Recipes
We’ve got hundreds of caveman recipes for you to try out here.
Caveman Diet Food List
The following is a list of the foods allowed on the caveman diet. You’ll find it’s very
similar to our very popular paleo diet food list.
Do you find yourself asking, “is it paleo?” often? Check out our app: Paleo.io – the
ultimate “Is It Paleo?” app
Meats
Steak
Beef
Ribs
Pork
Chicken breast
Chicken legs
Chicken wings
Lamb
Turkey
Salmon
Tilapia
Seafood
Crab
Clams
Bass
Goat
Rabbit
Bacon
Venison
Boar
Jerky
Vegetables
Brocolli
Kale
Cauliflower
Carrots
Peppers
Asparagus
Spinach
Parsley
Cabbage
Zuchhini
Eggs
All types of eggs
Fruits
Strawberries
Blueberries
Blackberries
Raspberries
Avocado
Watermelon
Apples
Nuts
Almonds
Pistachios
Walnuts
Brazil nuts
Macadamia nuts
Coconuts
Hazelnuts
ARTICLE
Acid Base
Balance in Health -
From Past to Present
Rachel Arthur I BHSc BNat (Hons)
Abstract
Much has been made of the
mismatch between our modern diet
and our stone age genes. However,
recurrent attempts to recreate the
Paleo Diet in a time and food context
which bears little resemblance to that
era appear fraught with problems
and potential unintended outcomes.
Perhaps there is an argument instead
to consume a diet that attempts to
align as closely as possible with the
actual nutritional composition and
subsequent physiological norms
characteristic of Paleolithic diets
generally. One of the most consistent
scientific findings in this regard is
uch has been made of the
mismatch between our modern
diet and our stone age genes
which has resulted in a significant
amount of attention being awarded
to recreating a modern version of the
Paleo Diet. Our current food, health
and environmental contexts, however,
bear little resemblance to the Paleolithic
era and therefore modern attempts at
imitation appear fraught with problems
and potential unintended outcomes.
Perhaps there is an argument instead
to consume a diet that aligns as closely
as possible with the actual nutritional
composition and subsequent physiological
norms characteristic of Paleolithic diets
generally. One of the most consistent
scientific findings in this regard is the
alkaline nature of most pre-agricultural
diets compared with the acid-producing
modern diet.
M
the alkaline nature of most preagricultural diets compared with the
acid-producing modern diet. The
eating behaviours and food choices
Personally I don't subscribe to the
currently popularised notion of the Paleo
Diet. The Paleo Diet purports to emulate
a diet eaten by our ancestors, in spite of
that produced an alkaline dietary
load historically have been clearly
articulated, and current research
in this area suggests that the cost
Pre-agricultural Diets
of a chronic dietary acid load is
85% Alkaline
bI
substantial and may be implicated in
the aetiology of many chronic health
Alkaline mineral rich plants:
conditions. Therefore it is arguable
t Potassium
t Magnesium
t Calcium
t HCO3
Moderate Protein
that a more meaningful objective of
modern dietary approaches would
be to ensure a net alkaline yield.
12 | vol22 noI | JATMS
Diet
Alkaline
Neutral
Acid
a complete lack of congruency in terms
of food availability, quantity and quality.
For example, wild boar that we had
to hunt ourselves can hardly compare
nutritionally with the highly preserved
slice of bacon picked up from the deli,
the result of high intensity farming and
synthetic feed, antibiotics etc. The Paleo
Diet is vulnerable to dangerous over
simplification and misinterpretation.1-2
Perhaps, given the differences between
the food choices, levels of physical
activity and environments of the two
eras, the initial error lies in the myth
that there was a ‘one size fits all’ diet
consumed during the Upper Paleolithic
period, which spanned approximately 2.6
million years. This of course has been
shown to be incorrect, the diets of Homo
Sapiens during this era being profoundly
influenced by geography, season and
specific features of the period.2-3
While I feel an attempt to turn back
dietary time to a bygone era is essentially
impossible for modern man and unlikely
to reap the benefits we anticipate, I am
compelled by the notion that instead
we should find a diet in the modern
food-setting that attempts to provide
as much as possible the nutritional
composition and subsequent physiological
norms characteristic of pre-agricultural
diets. On this topic, there has been
and continues to be extensive high
quality scientific research published.
I clearly recall the first paper I ever
read of this type over ten years ago,
Paleolithic vs. modern diets-selected
pathophysiological implications,4 which
Standard Australian Diet (SAD)
Primarily acid-forming
Low alkaline minerals:
1 Sodium
t Chloride
[ Vegetable intake
t Protein
T EDNP (energy-dense, nutrient-poor)
struck me most of all because of its bold
claim that what we consider ‘normal’ or
healthy’ in the contemporary medical
context, in terms of blood pressure, fasting
glucose etc., is in fact a distortion caused
by modern diet: its reversed sodium to
potassium intake ratio and other dramatic
nutritional disparities. While perhaps this
seems a very straightforward assertion, for
me it had a big impact and a light went on
somewhere in my brain that I haven't been
able to switch off since!
Many people have articulated this
argument eloquently: From an
evolutionary' nutritional perspective,
contemporary humans are Stone Agers
habitually ingesting a diet discordant with
their genetically determined metabolic
machinery and integrated organ
physiology’.3 One tangible example takes
the perspective of the kidneys, whose
function is thought to be adapted and
well suited to our traditional diet, which
was characterised by intermittent high
potassium intake along with other anions
(bicarbonate, magnesium, calcium),
thanks to the consumption of fruits and
berries with negligible intake of sodium
and chloride. As a result, our kidneys
are single-mindedly geared towards renal
conservation of sodium and elimination
of potassium.6 So what happens when
our diet has changed so radically but our
kidneys remain the same? This has been
coined the diet-kidney mismatch’ by
some.3
The physiological norms of preagricultural Homo Sapiens have been
determined by detailed analyses of
hundreds of documented Paleolithic
diets and have produced a surprising
level of consensus among researchers.
In particular the majority agree that the
net endogenous acid production (NEAP),
also referred to as the net acid dietary
load, of most pre-agricultural diets (85%)
was alkaline with an average NEAP of
82mEq/d.7 While the degree of alkalinity
varied significantly across the various
Paleolithic diets, this still contrasts
starkly with the standard American diet
(SAD), which has been consistently
shown to be net acid-producing.
ARTICLE
In simple terms this is thought to be
the result of: 1) reduced bicarbonate
consumption due to lower fruit and
vegetable intake2 3 5; 2) the reversed ratio of
sodium to potassium intake that has seen
our average daily sodium exposure increase
by a factor of ten and our potassium intake
reduced by 75%3'5,8; along with 3) the
enormous increase in chloride intake3; and
finally 4) the large dietary contribution
from energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods’
(e.g., separated fats, refined sugars, and
vegetable oils), which have no capacity
to buffer the net acid producing foods of
the modern diet, such as meat, dairy and
grains.7
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14
WHAT DO WE RISK IF WE DON'T SOLVE THIS MODERN DIET
MALADY OF ACIDITY? AT A POPULATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH
LEVEL,THERE IS INCREASING EVIDENCE OF A BROAD MULTI
SYSTEM BURDEN SECONDARY TO THE'CHRONIC MILD METABOLIC
ACIDOSIS' PRODUCED FROM A NET ACID-PRODUCING DIET,
Interestingly, one study found that those
few pre-agricultural diets that were
net acid-producing were consumed by
populations living at higher latitudes (e.g.
> 40 ).2 Ethnographic data tells us that
while the contribution of hunted animal
foods remains relatively constant across
latitudes, plant food intake notably declines
and fished animal food typically replaces
hunted animal food with increasing
latitude. Effectively, these diets had a higher
animal to plant food ratio.
Some advocates of the current Paleo Diet
acknowledge the need to be mindful
of acid-base balance in theory, yet the
example diets and actual execution of the
Paleo Diet principles appear do little to
ensure that a net alkaline diet is achieved
(http://thepaleodiet.com/what-to-eat-onthe-paleo-diet/). Even modern popularised
‘alkalising diets’ can unfortunately lead
us astray, with consumers exposed to
conflicting and inaccurate messages about
how to alkalise’, from simply drinking
alkaline water to removing all grains,
avoiding refined sugars and abstaining from
perfectly alkaline producing vegetables
such as the ‘deadly’ (sic) nightshades!
Some researchers have attempted to
scientifically answer the question of
how modern diet could be changed to
restore an alkaline NEAP and conclude
that the substitution of ‘greens for grains’,
as frequently put forward by Paleo and
alkaline proponents alike, would fail to
resolve the issue."
14 | vol22
noI
1JATMS
NEGATIVELY AFFECTING THE RENAL, IMMUNE, ADRENAL AND
MUSCULOSKELETAL SYSTEMS.
What do we risk if we don’t solve this
modern diet malady of acidity? At a
population and public health level,
there is increasing evidence of a broad
multi-system burden secondary to
the chronic mild metabolic acidosis'
produced from a net acid-producing diet,
negatively affecting the renal, immune,
adrenal and musculoskeletal systems.2
5-9" Consequently there is significant
speculation about the potential causative
role chronic mild metabolic acidosis
and an acid-producing diet may play in a
range of chronic diseases that dominate
our modern medical landscape, such as
diabetes type 2, renal impairment and
osteoporosis.1- M However, more research
is needed to establish causality and clarify
the full magnitude of its contribution.
Closer to home, working in integrative
nutrition for over 20 years, I know that
best patient outcomes typically are the
result of identifying and addressing
the underpinning determinants of
health and disease and, in particular, of
individuals’ nutritional imbalances. In
human nutrition we can draw parallels
with agriculture: the more we attend to
the overall health of the soil, the fewer
direct interventions (fertilisers, added
nutrients, pesticides) the plant will need.
Similarly, in nutritional practice, if we fail
to address the ‘soil’ of our clients, then
our prescriptions risk being superficial
and so tend to become longer and longer
lists of supplements and interventions, in
response to which the patient manages to
keep their head above water, but not to
swim unaided. A relatively simple analogy
I use with my clients is this: when we
consume an acid-producing diet long-term,
it’s like having a leaking tap in your house,
not just creating a constant drain on your
overall water levels but also on many of
your nutrients (all the alkaline minerals
K, Ca, Mg), your endocrine system, your
immune system and finally your wallet!)
We could run around and top you up
again with these nutrients, address each
consequence individually, or ... we could
fix the leaking tap!
Is acid base balance an important
determinant of the health of human
soil’, in addition to other well recognised
contributors such as adequate sleep,
emotional wellbeing, sufficient hydration,
eubiosis and adequate sun exposure?
It is my opinion, both from a research
and clinical perspective, that it is. That
light that I can’t switch off in my brain
since I read that Eaton & Eaton paper ten
years ago tells me that the physiological
norm s scientifically demonstrated to be
true of our ancestors do have something
essential to teach us about w hat w e should
aspire to in terms of our food choices and
nutritional intake today, and achieving an
alkaline NEAP is central to this.
5. Frassetto L, Morris RC, Jr., Sellmeyer DE,
Todd K, Sebastian A. Diet, evolution and
aging-the pathophysiologic effects o f the
humans. Swiss Med Wkly. 2001;131(9-10):12732.
to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the
REFERENCES
1. Turner BL, Thompson AL. Beyond the
Wiederkehr M, KrapfR. Metabolic and
endocrine effects o f metabolic acidosis in
post-agricultural inversion o f the potassium-
human diet. EurJ Nutr. 2001;40(5):200-13.
6.
9.
Kamel KS, Schreiber M, Halperin ML.
10. Bushinsky DA. Acid-base imbalance and the
skeleton. EurJ Nutr. 2001;40(5):238-44.
11. Chan R, Leung J, Woo J. Association Between
Integration o f the response to a dietary
Estimated Net Endogenous Acid Production
potassium load: a paleolithic perspective.
and Subsequent Decline in Muscle Mass
Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation: official
Over Four Years in Ambulatory Older
publication o f the European Dialysis and
Chinese People in Hong Kong: A Prospective
Paleolithic prescription: incorporating
Transplant Association - European Renal
Cohort Study. J Gerontol 4 Biol Sci Med Sci.
diversity and flexibility in the study o f human
Association. 2014;29(5):982-9.
2015;70(7):905-11.
diet evolution. NutrRev. 2013;7I(8):50T10.
7. Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE,
12. Jew S, AbuMweis SS, Jones PJ. Evolution o f
2. Strohle A, Hahn A, Sebastian A. Latitude, local
Merriam RL, Morris RC, Jr. Estimation o f
ecology, and hunter-gatherer dietary acid
the net acid load o f the diet o f ancestral
to modern functional foods as a means
load: implications from evolutionary ecology.
preagricultural Homo sapiens and
o f chronic disease prevention. Journal o f
Am J Clin Nutr. 20i0;92(4):940-5.
their hominid ancestors. Am J Clin Nutr.
3. Eaton SB, Konner MJ, Cordain L. Dietdependent acid load, Paleolithic [corrected]
2002;76(6):1308-16.
8. Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE, Morris
RC, Jr. The evolution-informed optimal dietary
Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;9t(2):295-7.
potassium intake o f human beings greatly
modern diets-selected pathophysiological
prevention and treatment o f Western disease.
Am J Hum Biol. 2012;24(2):1 W-5.
14. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Miller JB, Mann N, Hill K.
exceeds current and recommended intakes.
The paradoxical nature o f hunter-gatherer
Semin Nephrol. 2006;26(6):447-53.
diets: meat-based, yet non-atherogenic. EurJ
implications. EurJ Nutr. 2000;39(2):67-70.
Clin Nutr. 2002;56 Suppl T.S42-52.
Basica
Active
Comprehensive Alkalising Formula
lil B
medicinal food. 2009;12(5):925-34.
13. Lindeberg S. Paleolithic diets as a model for
nutrition, and evolutionary health promotion.
4. Eaton SB, Eaton SB, 3rd. Paleolithic vs.
the human diet: linking our ancestral diet
w
-Practica
www.biopractica.com.au
Based on the original formulations of the world renowned
Acid-alkaline nutritional expert, Dr Ragner Berg.
Basica® Active
O Acid-alkaline balance*
0 Improves stress response
Active
Alkalising Mineral Drink
© Bone mineral density
O Detoxification* and liver health
Berg 's vitality formula
Energy production
Food Supplement
300g
For m ore in fo rm a tio n on B a sica A c tiv e and A c id /
Base B a lance c o n ta c t B io -P ra c tic a 130 0 551 077.
Practitioner Only Product.
References available upon request
Copyright of Journal of the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society is the property of
Australian Traditional-Medicine Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment