Sarah Myhill - The PK Cookbook: Go Paleo-ketogenic and get the best of both worlds

The PK diet is a combination of the paleo diet (that which humans evolved into eating over a period of 2.5 million years) and the ketogenic diet.

In the Table on page we compare the pros and cons of nine different diets, including the PK diet, in order to demonstrate why this has the most significant health benefits.

The combination is more than the sum of its pieces

better known as:

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Aristotle, 384 322 BC

Of course, in Paleolithic, pre-agricultural times there was no single diet local conditions would have dictated what could be foraged and hunted. The constant factor would have been that no foods were cultivated. However, at the present time we use paleo diet to denote one that consists of natural, unprocessed foods and rejects grains and dairy. Proportions of macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fats) within this diet are not part of the definition.

The body is remarkably adept at obtaining its fuels from a variety of foods. Carbohydrates are not essential foods we can survive without them. The fuel which actually enters our mitochondria (the power houses of all our cells) is acetate. One can get to acetate from fat via ketones and from fermenting vegetable fibre in the gut via short-chain fatty acids as well as from carbohydrates and proteins via glucose. The ketogenic diet is one that results in the metabolic state whereby the majority of the bodys energy is derived from ketone bodies in the blood the state of ketosis. This is in contrast to the state of glycolysis where blood glucose provides the majority of the energy supply. A person who is keto-adapted is able to switch from burning sugar and carbs as a source of fuel to burning fat and fibre, which gives much longer lasting energy and stamina, of which more later. (Ketogenic diets have been shown to have remarkable benefits for a number of serious health problems, including epilepsy. The foods used in these medicinal diets tend to be highly processed.)

The addition of the ketogenic approach to the paleo diet has become necessary because modern paleo diets may be high in carbs and ignore the seasons. Whilst autumn paleo would have included fruits, honey, grains, nuts and pulses, these foods would have been absent for winter, spring and most of summer. During the winter, primitive man would have relied on meat, seafood and the accompanying fats as his staple foods in other words, a ketogenic diet. To make use of this, he would have needed the ability to burn fats as the bodys principal fuel.

To everything there is a season

Ecclesiastes 3, King James V version, The Bible

The PK diet reflects the importance of burning fats and short-chain fatty acids as well as, or instead of, sugars, and the ability to swap between these options. What this means in practice is that the occasional seasonal excursion into autumn delights will do little harm to our health. Constant autumn mode is fine in the short term, but damaging to health in the long term. Long-term autumn mode results in metabolic syndrome the loss of control of blood sugar that precedes the onset of type-2 diabetes. There is much more detail on this in our book Prevent and Cure Diabetes delicious diets not dangerous drugs which gives the why of the ketogenic diet. This PK Cookbook delivers the how.

What follows in this book is what we should all be doing for most of the time and as we age, we should spend more time in winter eating mode. This is because as we grow older, our internal metabolism becomes less efficient. Like an old car, we need the best possible fuel and regular servicing. So, for example, our ability to digest and absorb foods well and our ability to produce hormones (such as the adrenal and thyroid hormones) declines, so we must box clever and help our bodies as much as possible, not only to live long but also to stay healthy into our mature years, and so live well.