Those who ascribe to a meat-heavy paleo diet because they think that’s what our ancestors ate may be in for a rude awakening: it seems that our relatives from the Pleistocene Era may have actually eaten a predominantly vegan diet.

This theory comes from recent findings described in the journal Nature, which examined the oldest examples of dental plaque in the world from Neanderthal individuals found in Belgium and Spain.

Yes, Neanderthals.

While for years, people believed that Neanderthals and modern humans were different species who never interbred, recent studies, specifically a 2010 study published in Science magazine, showed that Neanderthal and human DNA are very similar (99.7 percent as compared to chimpanzees’, at 99.8), and researchers of the Neanderthal Genome Project found that 2.5 percent of an average non-African human’s genome is made up of Neanderthal DNA, seeming to show that humans and Neanderthals could have interbred as recently as 37,000 years ago.

These archaic humans only began eating meat around 36,000 years ago, the findings show, as the Spanish Neanderthals examined in the study, who lived around 48,000 years ago, ate no detectable meat at all, preferring a diet rich in mushrooms, nuts, and moss.

“It really looks like meat is kind of a new idea for hominids,” lead author Laura Weyrich, a paleomicrobiologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told the Los Angeles Times.

But possibly even more interesting is that these vegetarian hominids were evidently “very capable and intelligent individuals that could pass down information from generation to generation,” according to Weyrich, including information about the specific health benefits of certain plants.

One of the hominids had both a painful dental abscess and a nasty gastrointestinal bug, and in his dental plaque, scientists discovered evidence of poplar, whose bark contains salicylic acid (the active ingredient in aspirin), as well as signs of a natural antibiotic mold, Penicillium rubens, that wasn’t found in the teeth of the other individuals found along with him. In other words, he knew how to self-medicate by choosing the right plants to eat.

“It suggests some elements of behavior in Neanderthals that they were familiar with, and were probably using, medicinal plants for particular health issues,” study author Keith Dobney told WIRED. “That’s the first time ever this has been seen.”

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You see the “meat is manly” message clearly in most steakhouse and fast food burger ads. Typically, some husky dude voice is all “you don’t want to be hungry in an hour, so eat our large, quadruple patty strangler meal.” So, by that logic, if meat is considered manly, then vegetables and salads are girly, yes?

Crisp greens typically get relegated to a few types of ads: 1) The mom who sneaks greens into her family’s meals, 2) the person who is really sad because they are eating rabbit food and they feel hungry all the time, and currently, the most popular one, 3) the woman who is really healthy and dedicated to eating clean.

“‘You’ve got to look at our societal trend of perfect eating–clean eating is somehow this desirable thing to do,’ says Rebecca Scritchfield, a D.C.-based dietician. ‘But that really supports the idea of good and bad food, and moral judgment around foods, and even moral judgment around the person for eating something,’” reports Grist.

All of the above selling points — good, bad, clean food, and manly and girly food — are totally dangerous, and honestly, quite lazy. In reality, there’s only healthy, sustainable food that has a low impact on the environment (this can be a vegetarian or vegan diet, or a meat diet that includes humanly raised animals), and unhealthy, over-processed food like your fast food burgers, and fat and calorie-packed cookies.

While the above clichés exist, there are an increasing number of people who are ignoring them, and intelligently chowing down on what they want — no matter what’s between their legs.

According to a recent Grist article, Camas Davis, owner and founder of the Portland Meat Collective, “was a vegetarian for about seven years, and then crossed back over to meat eating,” Grist reports. Now, Davis “teaches butchery and advocates for more sustainable ways of eating meat.” Her motto is to “eat better meat, and less of it.”

People like Davis are pressing the point that you don’t have to be a vegetarian to be a feminist, and you don’t have to eat meat to be considered a real man. You do, however, need to be honest with yourself about what foods you like, examine your personal moral code about animal products and where they came from because it’s the origin of the food and how it affects the planet – not its “gender” or “cleanliness” – that really matters.

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6 Tips to Clean Eating While Traveling: Bon Voyage!

Image of a woman buying vegetables via Shutterstock

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You eat healthy at home and then once you hit the road, it all goes out the window. Clean eating can be difficult when you’re traveling–you’re in a place where you don’t know the healthy hotspots and you’re off your routine. But with a few simple tips, you won’t fall off track.

6 Tips to Clean Eating While Traveling

1. Bring the essentials along.

Bring some clean eating essentials along like non-dairy milk and organic granola for breakfast. Bring snacks along as well like seaweed snacks, raw nuts, dried sulfite-free fruit, and raw granola bars.

2. Do your research.

When I travel I do my research ahead of time. First off, I contact my vegan and vegetarian friends that either live in a place or have been there and find out the details. And then I go to the Happy Cow website to find out the veggie havens in the area. Even if you’re not a vegan or vegetarian, finding plant-friendly places usually means finding the healthiest clean eating in town. Additionally, farm-to-table restaurants are clean options that please a meat lover’s palate as well.

3. Find a place with a kitchen.

Call ahead to find hotels with a kitchen. If your hotel room has a kitchen, then you can eat in at least a few meals during your trip. If it’s a bed and breakfast, you can stock the fridge with vegan and gluten free options that they may not offer. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much people want to accommodate you if possible.

4. Don’t get wasted.

Vacation and travel isn’t an excuse to drink too much. This leads to dehydration, disrupted sleep, and eating an unhealthy diet.

5. Have a salad.

That may seem obvious, but by enjoying a raw salad as either a side or an entree at least once a day, you’re going a long way to maintain your daily veggie allowance and you’ll feel better for it. Skip the cream based dressing and enjoy oil and vinegar instead.

6. Hit the farmers market.

I make it my mission to hit the farmers market nearly every time I visit a new place. It offers healthy, local options while  connecting you to the people of the place you’re visiting.

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When it comes to the Paleo diet, let’s agree to leave the cavemen out of it.

Desperate for a sustainable solution to my weight and health frustrations, I tried the Paleo diet for the firs time last fall. After 30 days, I had lost 10 pounds, my skin cleared up, and I had more energy than ever. I was hooked. I started buying Paleo cookbooks, engaging with the online Paleo community, and clicking on just about any headline that mentioned the Paleo diet. After four months, I was 25 pounds lighter and loving it.

Following the Paleo diet has reignited my love of whole foods–organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed, pastured meats, raw nuts and seeds, and occasionally some spectacular dark chocolate. I’ve also learned so much about how the foods that dominate our food system, namely highly processed grains, dairy, and sweeteners, affect us in a negative way. And I cook all the freaking time now! You’ve got to when processed foods are out of the question. I love serving friends delicious food, and not admitting it’s Paleo until AFTER they’ve told me how much they enjoyed it.

But I also learned something else. I don’t like self-identifying as a Paleo eater. Why? Because people always get hung up on the name, and I find myself repeatedly explaining that the “Paleo” part shouldn’t be taken literally.

See, the Paleo diet has been around since the 1970s, popularized by gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin and later Dr. Loren Cordain. I also learned that while early proponents suggested that Paleo eating is best because it “mimics the diets of our caveman ancestors” the nutritionists, fitness experts, and foodies that currently endorse it almost never push this aspect. And with good reason.

Suggesting that we can, with any decree of certainty, re-create the diets of our Paleolithic ancestors is ridiculous. And it’s the main reason why so many people feel comfortable saying the Paleo diet is stupid. Even though scientists say it’s nutritionally sound. That’s why, when talking about my own experience with Paleo, I leave the cavemen out of it.

My decision was recently validated by a widely-shared article written by Michael Pollan. The article listed all the things that, in Pollan’s opinion, are wrong with the Paleo diet. And just to be clear, Pollan and everyone else is entitled to their opinion. Because the Paleo diet is right for me doesn’t necessarily make it right for you. But the core argument was that cavemen most likely ate what they could find. Sometimes it was meat. Lots of the time it wasn’t. To me, the headline (and feisty comments) further proves that clinging to the “caveman” meme is hurting the basic message of the Paleo diet: eat real food. What Paleos really mean is “don’t eat something that wouldn’t have been recognized as food 200 years ago.” Which is almost identical to Pollan’s own ideology about food.

So let’s stop quibbling about what the cavemen ate. The Paleo diet includes lots of things that a caveman couldn’t possibly have had access to. But that’s not the point. The point is to eat real, whole foods, and eliminate the processed crap that’s only been considered food for the past 50 years. No matter what your anthropological perspective, that’s something we can all agree on.

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Image: Imamon

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ColumnPaleo, Clean Eating, raw foods: is our industrial, processed food system forcing us to eliminate?

I can’t go a day without seeing the words “Paleo“, “raw,” “egg-free,” “gluten-free” or “clean eating” show up somewhere. Look at any magazine rack with a couple of food titles and these healthy eating regimes are practically all that pops out at you.

As I am interested in food, I could be on hyper alert to these things, but there’s no denying that health foods and specific diets like Paleo are at an all time high. The question is: why?

First off, let’s address the word “diet.” As defined by Merriam-Webster, it does in fact mean “habitual nourishment,” but thanks to the low-fat and all-grapefruit-all-the-time trends of the ’90s, nowadays it is more commonly used in reference to losing weight. We hear “diet” and we think “weight loss.”

But many of these eating habits aren’t two-week diets that are used to kick start weight loss; they’re lifestyles. They are long-term commitments to eating a certain repertoire of foods.

If you do any reading on people that stick to eating raw food, Paleo, or any other variety of elimination diets, it usually comes down to health reasons; people stick to these food regimes because they make them feel better. I myself am mostly gluten-free, not because I am celiac or gluten intolerant, but because I have found that my body does better when I don’t have gluten as a regular part of my diet. I am not alone. Some people don’t do well with soy, others don’t do well with eggs. The list goes on.

But let’s think about the things that people tend to cut out: dairy, gluten, eggs, meat, etc. At their core, these are not things that are inherently bad for you. Certainly some people have severe, sometimes debilitating allergies, to some of these products, but overall these are standard foods that have been a part of our diets for quite some time. Which begs the question: is it because we live in such a processed society that the things that are supposed to be good for us are not? Are food restrictions the result of the fact that we live in a world where real food isn’t real food anymore?

Not only is there something terribly wrong with the Standard American Diet overall, but individual food items that are supposed to be good for us are so over-processed that ultimately, we don’t know what to choose. Our grains, even the whole ones, have been hybridized to infinity and while you may buy your produce directly from the hands of the farmer, you have no idea the history of the seeds that were used in the first place. So instead of choosing, we’re forced to eliminate.

In fact, there is an entire diet devoted to eliminating and simplifying – it’s called Clean Eating – and the premises are admirable. It’s devoted to food as should food be, “clean” from all the extra additives that have become so commonplace in today’s society. But think about that for a second: has the food industry completely changed how eat, so much so that we need an entire diet to remind us to look at the ingredient list and make sure that it’s short? There are Clean Eating Challenges where you are prompted to eat simple and whole foods. Shouldn’t we just have been doing that in the first place?

Let me break it down for you: all of these diets aren’t diets, they’re just what we should be eating all of the time, and that is a lifestyle. A lifestyles of living well. But when we live in a world of industrialized food production, eating what we should be eating, real food, becomes more and more difficult. It’s not that we’re diet-obsessed, it is that once our bodies have had a taste of what they should have been consuming all along, there’s no turning back.

Making certain eating choices isn’t about restrictions. It is about a celebration of real food. The kind of food that fuels your body and keeps you healthy. So, whether that’s Paleo, raw, vegan, non-dairy, gluten-free, no nightshades, or some combination of all of the above we have to remember that ultimately it’s about feeling good and eating well, no matter how we get there.

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Is the Paleo Diet Really the Solution for a Better Body?

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Steven Jackson

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