The Paleo diet is the best way to lose weight

The argument

Essentially, a paleo diet doesn't allow foods that the human body has not been able to genetically adapt to over the centuries. How we eat can shape our genetics, but the modern human body does not really know how to react to the recent innovations of things like refined sugars and processed foods because evolution is so slow. For example, many people are still unable to process lactose after the invention of dairy farming--and that happened 5000 years ago. Our bodies' inability to process more recently derived foods is indicative of a genetic "mismatch," and this is the cause of conditions like obesity and heart disease. Thus, it is essential to have a diet that relies on foods that the human body understands. Because a Paleo diet is more genetically appropriate, there are a number of benefits that its practitioners can gain. Compared to other diets, studies show that eating paleo can allow for more weight loss, improved blood sugar, and lower triglyceride levels, among other benefits. A paleo diet is also incredibly nutrient-dense because it emphasizes foods full of essential vitamins and minerals in place of processed foods that not only are nutrient-poor but also inhibit the absorption of nutrients. Lastly, those who eat a paleo diet can see improvements in general health, such as a boosted immune system, as well as lowered risk of conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.A paleo diet is not just the best way to lose weight but also the healthiest way to eat in general.

Context

The paleo diet is based on what humans may have eaten during the Paleolithic era about 10,000 years ago. It is therefore comprised of foods that would have been available to hunter-gatherer-type peoples, such as vegetables, fruits, lean meats, nuts, and seeds, and it prohibits highly processed foods, grains, dairy, and refined sugars.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The rationale behind the paleo diet oversimplifies both evolution and human history. For example, the idea that there was ever a single diet that every paleolithic person ate is completely false: human diets would have been based on geographically available foods, leading to not just a variation in what people ate but also differences in the evolution in nutritional needs. Additionally, paleo followers outlaw grains and some plants based on the logic that paleolithic peoples would not have eaten these types of food before farming was invented 10,000 years ago, but archaeological evidence shows that humans consumed grains as early as 30,000 years ago and plants like tubers and water chestnuts fairly regularly. In addition to its flawed logic, another problem with the paleo diet is that it can be too restrictive. Prohibiting dairy, beans, legumes, and grains can be difficult for people to maintain, not to mention flour and sugar; the former of these foods are rich in nutrients like fiber, calcium, and vitamin D as well, so it seems counterproductive to cut them out. This diet may be good for short-term weight loss, but it can prove unsustainable in the long run.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The evolutionary rationale is the argument's weakest element and is not needed by its conclusion. There was no single paleolithic diet — what people ate varied by region and season — and the archaeological record includes processed grains and tubers well before farming, so the list of excluded foods does not follow from the premise's own logic. Lactose tolerance is a poor illustration too, since it is a case of relatively rapid adaptation to a post-agricultural food, which cuts against the mismatch claim rather than supporting it. [Rejecting P2] "More genetically appropriate" is not a mechanism, and the results have a simpler explanation: removing refined sugar, processed food, grains and dairy at once reduces energy intake, which accounts for the weight loss and much of the metabolic improvement without any appeal to genetics. The trials in this area are also mostly small and short, and generally compare the diet against habitual eating rather than against another controlled diet of matched energy content. [Rejecting C] The conclusion equates the paleo diet with eliminating carbohydrates, which it is not: it permits fruit, honey, tubers and squash while excluding dairy and legumes on grounds unrelated to carbohydrate. Even at its strongest the evidence would support "as effective as the comparison" rather than "best", a superlative that requires weighing every alternative the position is set against.