The Caveat

Confession: I’m not on board with the Paleo diet. 

Yes, I’m following it (mostly). But I don’t buy the premise.

The foundational premise of the Paleo diet is that we need to live like our evolutionary ancestors did. We aren’t biologically ready to eat the things that we’ve been shoving down our gullets for the last few centuries, and now we’re paying the price in obesity, heart disease, etc. We should eat whatever we would have been able to hunt and gather thousands of years ago: no milk, no honey, no bread, no wine.

But those are specifically the things that the Bible promises us as blessings (Exodus 3:8, Luke 22:19ff). And if bread was bad for us, then God would not give it to us in Communion as nourishment for our souls and bodies (Matt. 7:11).

On top of that, the Paleo diet assumes that Darwinian evolution is true. It denies the existence of Adam. And Marilynne Robinson has convincingly argued that denying Adam undermines civilization as we know it.

On the other hand, here I am: fighting genetics and my own corrupted body. Matter is good (no neo-Platonism for me!), but creation still groans (Romans 8:22). And so, while I have serious reservations about the premises of the thing it seems like - given my background - it’s a good set of recommendations for my health.