John Durant - The Paleo Manifesto

Durants provocative manifesto is bound to inspire necessary discussion about the nature of our food and the role of evolution in determining a healthy diet.

GARY TAUBES , New York Times bestselling author of Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat

John Durant has a gift for relating complex and seemingly disparate ideas in an engaging and accessible way. His habitat-based approach on how to eat, exercise, and enjoy a healthy lifestyle invokes the same concept we use to promote animal health and welfare in zoos: the natural history of the species is paramount. This book should not only be in the hands of human and animal health experts but be required reading for anyone who isor takes care ofan omnivore, carnivore, or vegetarian.

KRISTEN E. LUKAS, Ph.D. , curator of Conservation & Science, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

In many respects we have become zoo humans, living unnatural livesand the cost of this disconnect from our wild origins is greater than we imagine. John Durant is a bright and original thinker, and here he makes a compelling case for the health benefits of a life rooted in evolutionary principles. Insightful and inspirational, The Paleo Manifestois a masterpiece.

ERWAN Le CORRE , founder of MovNat

The Paleo Manifestois the most up-to-date user manual for the human animal. A splendid synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern science, this book is essential reading.

BAREFOOT TED McDONALD , ultrarunner, primal athlete, and founder of Luna Sandals

The Paleo Manifesto is now the definitive guide to going paleo. Smart, compelling, entertaining, and accessibleits the book Ill be recommending to our members at CrossFit NYC, and to anyone interested in looking, feeling, and performing their best!

JOSHUA NEWMAN , cofounder of CrossFit NYC

The Paleo Manifesto explores a way of life that weve forgotten, and convincingly argues that we should rethink the way we live.

WILL DEAN , founder and CEO of Tough Mudder

John Durant offers a guided tour of our evolutionary heritage, showing how an ancestral lifestyle can improve our health and happiness. (And it works for animals, too!) Entertaining yet profound, The Paleo Manifesto is a book you wont want to stop readingbut you will, because youll be so eager to start living its advice!

PAUL JAMINET, Ph.D. , coauthor of Perfect Health Diet

Copyright 2013 by John Durant

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.
www.crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark of Random House LLC, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Durant, John.
The paleo manifesto : ancient wisdom for lifelong health / John Durant; with contributions by Michael Malice. First edition.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Health behaviorHistory. 2. Prehistoric peoplesHealth and hygiene. 3. High protein diet. 4. Nature and civilization.
I. Malice, Michael. II. Title.
RA776.9.D87 2013
613.2dc23 2013017890

eISBN: 978-0-307-88919-5

Jacket design by Michael Nagin
Jacket photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum
Author photograph: Gabrielle Revere

: President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, number 46-49-60/N7365.0 (digital file # 60743070)
with the permission of the National Security Archive.

v3.1

To my ancestors,
for my descendants

BECOMING THE CAVEMAN

What would it look like if a caveman were interviewed on TV? America was about to find out. On February 3, 2010, I was backstage at The Colbert Report, waiting to be interviewed by the razor-sharp comedian. Colberts interviews are among the most difficult on televisionand it was going to be my first ever TV appearance.

Colbert had invited me on because of my so-called caveman diet. Admittedly, my health regimen sounds unusual at first. I attempt to mimic aspects of life during the Stone Ageor, as many people jokingly refer to it, living like a caveman. Heck, I even look the part, with a shaggy mane and scruffy beard.

In popular culture the caveman in civilization is a reliable source of punch lines. In 2004 GEICO ran an award-winning series of commercials showing a pair of well-dressed cavemen offended at the insurance companys tagline, So easy a caveman can do it. On Saturday Night Live in the mid-nineties, Phil Hartman played Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, a thawed Neanderthal who enrolled in law school and won over juries by pretending to be a simpleton (Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Im just a caveman!) before delivering the clinching argument.

The jokes begin as soon as people find out about my lifestyle. Whenever I use a piece of modern technology (a cell phone, a Styrofoam cup, a spoon), someone reminds me, Cavemen didnt use those! People tease me about the caveman approach to dating: clubbing a girl over the head and dragging her by the hair back to my apartment. And if I ever eat anything other than raw meat straight off the bone, my co-workers kindly inform me that I am doing it all wrong. Apparently, watching reruns of The Flintstones turns anyone into an expert paleoanthropologist.

Given the widely held cartoonish perspective of Stone Age life, I had a pretty good idea of what kind of jokes to expect from Colbert. My job was to point out that our impression of how humans lived in the Stone Age is exactly that: a cartoon. In the same way that Mickey and Minnie Mouse tell us little about the lives of real mice, The Flintstones tells us little about the lives of real Stone Age humans. In fact, the terms caveman and Stone Age are inaccurate and outdated. Though some early humans lived in caves, particularly in cold or mountainous climates such as Europe, our Paleolithic ancestors lived for millions of years underneath the big open sky of the African savannah.

These early humans were hunter-gatherers who foraged for a variety of wild foods, and whose lifestyle was quite different from the lives people lead today. This ancient, ancestral lifestyle is more important than we realizeespecially when it comes to being healthy in the modern world.

Heres the simple truth: genetically speaking, were all hunter-gatherers.

Of course, were not just hunter-gatherers. We also carry the genes of primates; herders and farmers; factory workers and explorers; office workers and computer programmers. But at our biological core we are still largely hunters and gatherers.

My path to discovering my inner hunter-gatherer began during my junior year at college. Two important but seemingly unrelated events took place at the same time. First, I went through a long breakup with a girlfriend and watched my physical and mental health suffer. Second, I began studying under cognitive psychologist Dr. Steven Pinker, learning about the evolution of the human mind over millions of years and how that evolutionary history shapes the way our minds work today.