Paleo Diet Losing Ground to Scavenger Diet
A new diet craze is sweeping the nation – and sweeping away the so-called “Paleo Diet”. The paleo diet, modeled on the eponymous 2002 book by Loren Cordain, admonishes us to eat like our paleolithic ancestors who roamed the earth between 2.6 million and ten thousand years ago. This has led people to a diet of fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, lean meats and, oddly, bacon.
But new research has shown that our ancient ancestors, as they spread out over the globe like toenail fungus in a men’s locker room, were willing to eat anything they could scavenge from the local environment including roots, nuts, fruits, bugs, rodents and animal carcasas, and that much of this was consumed raw. This has led to an exciting new wave of diet books including “Scavenge Your Way Thin”, “The Efficient Scavenger”, and “Lift that Rock! And Other Scavenger Diet Tips.”
“The vegetables found in the wild are often almost 100% fiber” points out author Samuel Fenkel, author of “The Efficient Scavenger”. “Eating fruit only in-season limits your sugar intake to true paleo levels and, although many people frown on the consumption of carrion, you can’t beat the thrill of finding fresh roadkill or that tangy sensation you get with every scrape of the carcass.”
Author Erika Jackson, MD of “Scavenge Your Way Thin” also points to the near-starvation conditions often faced by our ancestors. “In the paleolithic, you spent 10-14 hours a day digging up roots, climbing trees for fruit and nuts, and picking flecks of meat off dead animal carcasas. Imagine the amount of energy you’re expending doing that compared to the paltry nutritional value of what you find. You’ll never meet an overweight scavenger.”
Asked if the diet was appropriate for children, Dr. Jackson said that after a period of breastfeeding, “children should be brought on family scavenger outings in local parks. It’s important to teach children early on the joy of finding a dead bird before the foxes do or the fresh taste of leeches sourced from a local stream.”
Dr. Jackson also strongly recommends homeschooling which “allows for 8 or 10 hours a day of foraging. Children who attend public schools will have little time to scavenge and also be constantly tempted with foods like chicken-fried-steak, chili-cheese-fries, and diet cherry coke that were never available to our ancestors. The last thing we want to do is raise children who may be book smart but couldn’t remove the viscera from a dead rat if their life depended on it.”
The few remaining adherents of the Paleo Diet continue to trot out tired accusations that scavengers waste tremendous amounts of time that could be more productively spent in art museums, pirate-themed parties, or law school. But the clear benefits of scavenging are winning over ever more adherents and those that are not being won over are slowly dying off due to their stubborn adherence to a diet that is far out of step with our culinary and genetic heritage.