The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health

by John Durant

In The Paleo Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health , John Durant argues for an evolutionary – and revolutionary – approach to health. All animals, human or otherwise, thrive when they mimic key elements of life in their natural habitat. From diet to movement to sleep, this evolutionary perspective sheds light on some of our most pressing health concerns. What is causing the rise of chronic conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and depression? Is eating red meat going to kill you? Is avoiding the sun actually the best way to avoid skin cancer?
 
Durant takes readers on a thrilling ride to the Paleolithic and beyond, unlocking the health secrets of our ancient ancestors. What do obese gorillas teach us about weight loss? How can Paleolithic skulls contain beautiful sets of teeth? Why is the Bible so obsessed with hygiene? What do NASA astronauts teach us about getting a good night’s sleep? And how are Silicon Valley techies hacking the human body?
 
Blending science and culture, anthropology and philosophy, John Durant distills the lessons from his adventures and shows how to apply them to day-to-day life, teaching people how to construct their own personal “habitat” that will enable them to thrive. The book doesn’t just address what we eat, but why we eat it; not just how to exercise, but the purpose of functional movement; not just being healthy, but leading a purposeful life.
 
Combining the best of ancient wisdom with cutting edge science, Durant crafts a vision of health that is both fresh and futuristic.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Nutrition, Food, Self Help, Science, Cooking

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

John Durant is the New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Manifesto and Spartan Fit, with Joe De Sena, the founder of Spartan Race. He’s been interviewed on The Colbert Report and featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR Morning Edition, Der Spiegel, CBC, NHK, and more. John is also the founder of Wild Ventures, a top-performing venture fund in consumer health. He has a degree in History from Harvard and lives in Austin, Texas.

Reviews

[Ben Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book struck a chord with me on so many different levels. It debunks a lot of the absurd points of view that you hear in the popular press about the Paleo lifestyle. It's so much more than that;

Durant thoughtfully explores how we got to this societal construct - the industrial food complex, the price we pay for our absurd commutes and our sedentary work environments, sleep habits, and more.

He makes a strong case for simply testing assumptions that we've taken for granted growing up in a societal construct that has evolved more quickly than our evolutionary needs. Fasting, sleep habits, exercise, thermoregulation.

I have only been following the program, and not really even all of it, for a couple of months, but I have noticed a significant change in energy, and it's an extremely sustainable lifestyle.

Worth the read. Even if you choose not to try any of what he advocates.

[Jacki Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Wish I would have got it from the library instead of buying it. Nothing new, scattershot, packed with personal opinion and anecdotes and very little science. Annoying to downright offensive in tone.

[Lisa Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. The subject is very interesting and explains much of what is wrong in our modern fast-paced lifestyle. Durant compared our modern society to animals living in a zoo - they (and we) are living unnatural environments and eating unnatural diets. We are so out of our element and are suffering the consequences with insomnia, obesity and high blood pressure. The only part of the book I have a problem with was the attack on vegetarians. I don't think a vegetarian diet is unnatural or unhealthy as he seems to imply. I'm sure that in our paleo history there were long periods of time where we did without meat for many reasons. I choose to not eat meat, not because I don't think it's natural, but because I don't want to put drugged up factory farmed meat into my body and I don't like it enough to spend the time or money getting wild or grass-fed. I am not going to eat meat just because my ancestors did, any more then I'm going to eat bugs or other humans just because my ancestors did. We obviously can't follow a hunter/gather lifestyle (it's too late for that), but we can take some of what we learn and apply as much as we can to our lives. The easiest is getting up and moving throughout the day and getting better sleep (no eating bugs involved).

[Петър Стойков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Палеолит е епоха в развитието на човешкия вид която продължава горе долу от създаването на първите каменни сечива от австралопитеците преди 2.5 млн години, та чак до преди около 10 000 години, когато за пръв път Homo Sapiens започва да се занимава със земеделие.

През тези милиони години предците на човека и след това самият той живеят по горе-долу еднакъв начин - те са ловци и събирачи, живеещи в групи по 10-150 души. Този начин на живот именно оформя човека, какъвто го виждаме в момента - еволюцията ни е оформила така, че да сме максимално приспособени да живеем по този начин, да ядем храната, до която са имали достъп предците ни, да общуваме с толкова хора, колкото са познавали и те и т.н.

Откриването на земеделието и разпространението му коренно променя живота на хората, тяхната диета, начина им на живот... и не винаги към добро. Наистина, общата смъртност силно намалява поради намалелите конфликти, лов, нещастни случаи и т.н. но уседналият живот в градове и села и зърнената диета дава фрапиращо отражение върху човешката физика.

Наистина, само думата "фрапираща" може да се употреби за разликата в скелета на един ловец-събирач от палеолита и скелета на селянин-земеделец от след това - докато ловецът е с ръстта на днешен човек (175-180см), с прави, здрави кости, здрави зъби и белези на развита мускулатура, земеделецът е 15 см. по-нисък, с очевидни белези от костни и други заболявания, изтрити и развалени зъби.

Тази разлика се запазва чак до... началото на 20 в. когато небивалото икономическо развитие позволява на голямата част от населението да яде достатъчно и често месо и други животински храни. Индустриалната епоха обаче пък носи други здравословни неволи, невиждани до тогава - затлъстяване, диабет, сърдечносъдови заболявания и др.

Движението за палео-диета и палео-живот като цяло адвокатства за начин на хранене и живот, които са в хармония с тези на предците ни, защото еволюцията е оформила телата и психиката ни именно през палеолита и именно към храната и начина на живот, достъпни тогава, ние сме най-добре приспособени - естествени храни с наблягане на животински и избягване на зърнени, много движение, излизане сред природата и т.н.

Настоящата книга е, според мен, много добро описание на основите на този тип виждане за здравето и живота. Тя включва глави за еволюцията, развитието на човека и технологиите, храненето, спорта и живота като цяло.

[Constance · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a person with a host of health concerns (cancer, overweight, osteoarthritis) I was anxious to read this book. I admit to racing through the book because it was so captivating; it did not disappoint. I had heard little of Paleo and was quite curious about it. There is so much confusion on what's right and what's wrong to eat. Eat less meat, eat more meat, etc. How do you know what's right? Although the non-Paleo side have given their reasons and the Paleo have given theirs; Durant goes into the history behind it. It's not just a diet, it's a lifestyle. There were a few scientific bits that I found hard to absorb but understood the explantion was necessary. I am on a re-read of it now to fully take it in. Will I go Paleo? There are many thought provoking points that tell me yes (my body for one). Do I have the discipline to follow it forever? One day at a time, one day at a time. All in all a great, fascinating read.

Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband and I have been living Paleo/Primal for a couple of years now. It's improved our health and wellness and is definitely a lifestyle change that we plan on maintaining. That said, The Paleo Manifesto is NOT for anyone who is even basically familiar with the "movement" and its basic tenets, because nearly everything in here can be just as easily found online from any number of paleo/primal websites. This is why I resist the urge to buy any and all paleo/primal books and cookbooks because you can find basically all the information you really need from a half dozen websites.

As the apparently unofficial spokesman for Paleo, John Durant tries to get down into the science of it, which I respect, but he veers off in too many directions to really have a focused "manifesto" for Paleo devotees worldwide. It's clear he began as a blogger, but his style as an author tends towards the didactic and rambling. He also lets his evolutionary psychology freak flag fly with multiple mentions of admiring women in yoga pants in the Fitness chapter instead of actually making recommendations for fitness beyond he-man Crossfit and Tough Mudder runs and dismisses vegatarianism and veganism as inherently feminine and inspired by "radical anti-male" feminism. Which, what? The copy I received did not have the notes placed yet, so I'm sure there's some obscure paper to back that little gem up.

In fact, Durant's brand of paleo is pretty much exclusively focused on the care and keeping alpha males, while women are left back in the cave where we apparently belong. This is an endemic problem within the ancestral health movement in general, and Durant is far from the only community luminary who preaches evolutionary. If you get down to the basics of a paleo/primal lifestyle, it works pretty well for all genders: eat unprocessed, natural foods whenever possible, get plenty of sleep, do lots of low-impact movement, lift heavy stuff, get sunlight.

If you need an entire manifesto to tell you that, you might want to reconsider your priorities.

*I received an advance copy of The Paleo Manifesto as part of the First Reads program.*

[Robert Evert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to review this book. It's written in an easy-to-read voice that I enjoyed; however, I was already familiar with the topic. I saw the author on the Cobert Report and have read several articles on his theories. As a result, I was rather bored when reading it; but that's not the author's fault. Again, I really enjoyed how it was written.

I thought the theories of the book could have been strengthened by a more rigorous review of the scientific literature...but I'm guessing the publisher wanted to market it to people more interested in the general concepts rather than the science behind the theories.

Bottom line, if you don't know anything about Durant's theories and are interested in alternative diets, pick it up. If you want more technical scientific inquiry or already know something about the "caveman diet," this book probably isn't for you.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review of it.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if this book was great or not. For the most part, I found myself being swept up into a yeah, yeah, yeah vibe--the one you get, you know, when you are being marketed to. Timothy Ferris specializes in this kind of writing. As an introvert, I find being co-opted into others' schemes for living irritating and draining. It also makes me exert energy to find the flaws in the reasoning.

---

The Paleo Manifesto is a slick, information-rich, extremely appealing marketing ploy for an alternative lifestyle to counter our overfed, sedentary, post-agrarian existence. I suspect too many men feel like they've been over civilized and they want to say to hell with quiche, embrace raw meat, beards, grunting and aggression, without having to hang with Robert Bly's touchy-feely group of hairy poets. It appears to me that there has always been this group of energetic out-liers. These are the John Muirs, the Ernest Hemingways and Thom Hartmanns (it was he who renamed Attention Deficit Disorder the "hunter" profile and wrote several books offering suggestions that this is not in fact a disorder but a highly efficient biological selection. Excuse the sneering tone, in fact I agree with him.)

After introducing bio-hacking and epigenetics and just falling short of transhumanism, Mr. Durant talks about his own journey from doughy dumpee to lean, hairy caveman stud-muffin. I'm always interested in author's personal stories, because they are so Horatio Alger. No exception here.

That said, there's good meta analysis in this book, delivered in an easy, chatty and convincing tone of voice. Mr. Durant is a Harvard alumnus, and we're all aware of how much that influences our opinion of his brains even in the 21st century. Additionally, he's a good writer and sufficiently self-deprecating to be likeable. He makes great points--my favorite of which was a musing aside about the possible immune boosting effects of prolonged religious fasting. Lest we forget what his purpose is, he always returns to his theme: he touts standing desks, barefoot running, whole foods, and field work-outs. He counters the dubious wisdom of gyms and the non-nutrition of processed food, which to my mind is laudable and accurate.

However, the problem is he's aiming his writing to one of the richest groups of people the world has ever witnessed. His readership is the hyper-earners: men, usually, in their prime, who have more money than God. Their Cupertino treadmill desks and three thousand dollar bicycles mean that their offices need to be bigger, their bank accounts healthier than ever before. For every guy who can afford a many thousand dollar week-long retreat in Costa Rica and North Carolina, running barefoot and climbing trees--"to move, heal, and thrive. Naturally"--there have to be hundreds of menial laborers creating life's smooth transitions for them. These are sanitation workers, janitors, migrant vegetable pickers--all maintaining the high, clean, "paleo" way of living for these select few.

The way Mr. Durant spells out the paleo movement is, in fact, the opposite of the back-to-the-land movement. It does nothing to save the world in fact, the opposite: I fear it will bring us just that much closer to toxic plastic-stuffed landfills and empty aquifers.

A lot of writers these days are writing about the aging human population, because as the Baby Boom generation heads into senescence they struggle fiercely against senectitude. I would urge people to read this book back to back with Dan Buettner's The Blue Zones, which has epidemiology backing it up. The new science of bio-hacking has a lot of support in the number guys but these people are amongst the least likely to understand that life extension for some means imposing more inequities on others.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book from the Paleo community, where many prominent members used terms like "seminal" and "ultimate" in their reviews of The Paleo Manifesto. While I may not have learned anything that will change my actual lifestyle--I already do quite a lot of the things Durant advocates and I know about the rest--I found tons of brain candy to back up my interest in ancestral health.

Yes, I agree with the other reviewers that he doesn't give us a whole lot of scientific citations. But you know, I find a reproduction of a convo with a Harvard professor who specializes in bones much more relatable (and maybe even more convincing) than a summary of a study. The science is there, it's in most of the Paleo literature out there. Read Chris Kresser if you want to overdose on it.

Maybe "Manifesto" isn't the right word for the title: This book is a personal exploration of the lifestyle, with bigger implications, but I wouldn't describe it as a 'manifesto' for the entire movement.

What Durant does is connect the dots. He makes inferences and interesting observations. He sees a bigger picture. He's also horny and human and relatable and clever. I found the book refreshing and inspiring: a reminder of how exciting it is to tap into one's own vibrant health.

[Alex MacMillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bacon tastes good, porkchops taste good." - Vincent Vega, Pulp Fiction

This book is a guidebook for my ongoing experiments with cold showers, fasts, pound-of-bacon mornings and sugar-free Sundays. My periodic experiments with such shifts in behavior and diet, brought about by noticeable changes in both weightlifting capability and everyday energy, have a new focus and scientific underpinning. Ever since I lost fifty pounds five years ago by transforming my daily food and exercise regimen into a conscious choice, my decisions have slowly gravitated toward the Paleo Way without me even being aware of the process.

While my arduous journey allows me to recognize John Durant's book for the wisdom it contains, those with doubts about his contrarian diet advice, or just starting their trek to better health, will nonetheless enjoy the read and take much from it. Durant has the knack of his mentor, Steven Pinker, for invigorating his science and psychology citations with personal experiences and captivating narratives about why our cultural traditions and civilizations evolved in the manner they did. The chapter on the Torah's hidden role in preventing infectious diseases among 'God's chosen people' is unforgettable.

So go ahead, chomp on some steak, slather your salads with butter, and wash it all down with whole milk. It's what Moses would have wanted. - 12/15/13

[Tim Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a weird book for me to even pick up and read since I'd been a vegetarian, vegan or at most occasional pescatarian for the past 35 years. A recent bout with SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth) plus finding out I've become gluten and dairy intolerant led me to the SCD diet and ultimately interest in Paleo which is sort of SCD without the dairy. By switching to the SCD or Paleo diet my symptoms reduced drastically and I'm hoping that I'm turning the corner on my health after months of digestive issues.

I was instantly grabbed by the book from the first chapter and liked the fact it was not a "diet" book but a total lifestyle book. As I read I realized that while my diet may have been vegan/vegetarian for decades my lifestyle was pretty darn paleo. I spend a lot of time almost daily outdoors; have been an avid, albeit catch-and-release, fly fisherman for life; grew up hunting; and had been a barefoot runner for years. I had been struggling some with having to eat meat again and give up the grains and beans that had sustained me but am buying only local, organic meats and at least now see that this diet is not only healthy but is really the way we humans were built to eat. It is more natural than my diet has been for the last three plus decades. This book is one of those life altering reads that will impact my entire lifestyle moving forward.

[Kelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have never been inspired to write an actual review on Goodreads until now, and unfortunately it's not because this book blew my mind. I am fascinated by the topics addressed in this book, but I instantly started to despise the book itself upon reading (and I read it to the end somehow).

First, the author is blatantly sexist. Just because anyone reading shares the common interest in eating like a caveman doesn't mean we're content to witness another behave like one. Two parts come to mind:
1) He makes a comment about how the corner with the mats at the gym is useless, except for for checking out girls as they stretch.
2) I'll just let this quote speak for itself: "...These types of activities tend to be fairly high intensity and involve a lot of force-ideal ways to put on muscle bulk. (Don't worry, ladies-most women don't have the hormones to put on as much muscle as men. However, you may be at risk of developing a really nice butt.)"
Comments like these betray the author's lack of education, social awareness, and basic human respect.

Secondly, there's a lot of unsubstantiated opinion in this book. I found his ideas intriguing, but they weren't fully formed, necessarily contrasted with other interpretations, or accompanied by evidence so we can see for ourselves. All good non-fiction provides you what you need to learn for yourself, but not this one. As a result, I read this book more like a conversation with someone who's just an eager beaver now that they're on a new diet than regarding it as a source of actual knowledge. There are just way too many balls dropped, far too many to adequately cross-reference in my own time, which is what the author should have been doing if he wants to respect not only his readers but also the legitimate knowledge base from which he builds his ideas.

Third, there are a lot of half-baked ideas in here, better suited to a blog than an actual book. For instance, the author takes a stance that yoga is not a "purposeful movement" and returns to the topic on numerous occasions to mock the practice of yoga. It happens to not be a mere form of exercise at all actually...it fundamentally is a religious and spiritual practice, and critiquing the diluted, appropriated form of what we in the West call "yoga" for its "lack of purposeful movement" is absurdly ignorant. Even past that point, many of those that practice westernized yoga movements derive physical benefits such as flexibility and body awareness. So, people could all aspire to be balls of meat that can't touch their toes, or people could adopt a balanced view of the utility of all physical skills. Flexibility and perception of bodily signals both augment strength and prevent injury during the rigorous athleticism the author proposes. Again, I found his opinions to be uninformed and shortsighted.

Then, there's yet another unprofessional section in which he derides vegans with the belligerence of a teenage bully. There are ways to present ideas that highlight the shortcomings of a diet without outright stating that all vegans have diminished brain function on account of protein malnutrition and therefore cannot make sound dietary choices. I'm not and have never been a vegan, but I was appalled at his tone when discussing this topic.

One last note (and had I known this beforehand I never would have read this book): the author is rather impressed with himself and very clearly needs to be perceived and validated by others as some eccentric, "modern caveman" for the purposes of his own ego. He is more focused on making an off-beat celebrity of himself than he is on getting down to the meat of the topics that he touches on. I suppose this is an inherent risk when he has an expansive vision of so many aspects of human health without being an expert in any one of them. I wish he would had saved, for instance, the space used to talk about being on TV or being as privileged as to hold a museum skull that the public doesn't has access to, for actually evidencing the claims he makes. He wastes a significant section of "Fasting" talking about his own 3-day fast. Literally any high school wrestler has experience on par with what he presents. I myself have fasted for a week, and was really hoping to push my understanding by learning about those who go for multiple weeks or learning about research of fasting's effects on the body (healing, gut health, immunity, energy metabolism, circadian rhythms). In this section he does refer to a couple studies (reduced chemo side effects, and also maybe one on cancer cells themselves, if I remember correctly), but it's a totally wasted opportunity to look into body-wide effects on fasting. He really should have taken the subject seriously instead of just journaling about how he feels proud of himself for not eating for three days.

So, my main critique is stems from the fact that he failed to meet the reasonable (and rather low) bar I had for respecting this book: simply, for the author to use his questions and ideas as a springboard for formulating the basis for legitimate research on the topics and collaboration with true experts (regardless of the information gleaned through this process). However, this book fails on account of the fact that he is ignorant about his own lack of qualification. He truly doesn't seem aware that he himself is not an expert. This author is woefully limited by his own Kruger-Dunning effect. This is no Manifesto. This is a rambling blog post by someone who's definitely not driving the train...or at least sure as hell shouldn't be.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out this book because I read good things about it and because I had a visceral reaction against the idea of a paleo lifestyle based on my own opinions - and wanted something that would challenge my assumptions. Why would we benefit from a diet that died out over time - wouldn't natural selection kill us off as a result? Who has a real need in their daily lives - or time or ability - to mimic a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? What repeatable studies show the benefits of such a diet and lifestyle?

I didn't find convincing scientific evidence here, most likely because the movement is so new and lacks the kind of rigorous studies the author cites as evidence against his critics but doesn't employ in rigorous support of his ideas. I did find a lot of interesting tidbits of information. The parts about the health benefits of Mosaic laws was particularly interesting and convincing to me. Still, I feel like the author needed a really good, tough scientific editor to push him to cite (with footnotes, not endnotes!) studies to back up his claims, which were Gladwell-like in being mostly anecdotally interesting.

That said, I have also read scientific articles about the disconnect between how our bodies evolved and how we use and feed them today. I want to read more about all of this to make a more informed decision about whether or not to consider this book as a good starting point to understanding the paleo approach.

In the end, the book convinced me mostly that the author has chosen an excellent set of rules to live by for his own benefit.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are 4 reasons this book gets bad/mediocre reviews. First is the title. Paleo fad jumpers who only care about gathering information about their new lifestyle and convincing their friends would salivate at an actual "paleo manifesto" but throughout the book Durant continually dismisses that his book is paleo exclusive or about a lifestyle at all. It's more of a light reading and heavily entertaining book on evolutionary biology. I feel like if it had just been titled with the subtitle it would have gotten better reviews(but probably sold less copies). The second reason it gets bad reviews is it is not full of data and tables and some folks believe that without those two things it simply isn't scientific and can not be trusted. In fact Durant makes no claims that science has vindicated him and only makes great and insightful observations for observations sake(with plenty of "science" behind it I might add). The third and fourth reasons it gets not so good reviews are simple and self explainatory and very easily evident if you read the book and the reviews: The book is not a diet book in any way(nor claims to be) and, according to feminists, evolutionary biology is sexist. Having the opinion that those two factors are responsible for a lot of undeserved bad reviews by women(and even some "men") may make me a sexist pig, but so be it. I loved the book, but im not a paleo-nut, a science-nazi, a self-helper, nor a feminist, so take it for what it's worth.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is now my go-to book for people who are truly wondering what Paleo is all about.

John Durant takes all the major facets of living a Paleo lifestyle and picks them apart, one by one, throwing them up against the wall of human history and evolution to explain why they work. But even more importantly, it gives us the proper mindset of how we should think about these things - and it's not in a "cavemen didn't do that" point of view, as that's too simplistic. The mindset Durant correctly uses is "how does this fit into our evolutionary path?", and not only from a biological standpoint. It takes culture, knowledge, biology, and more and puts them into a simmering stew from which we should take bits occasionally as we're confronted with new ideas and new ways of attacking problem.

Even if you're not of a Paleo lifestyle persuasion, I think this book can teach you a lot about how to take a real great world view of life. I recommend it for EVERYONE.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

My doctor has been an advocate of integrating a hunter gatherer diet into your lifestyle for a long time, this book was an overview of a paleo lifestyle. The first section was a history of human societies including pure hunter gatherers, agricultural societies, the industrial age and up to the internet age. I found his discussion of the Bible's old testament hygiene requirements particularly interesting. This book also touched on everything from activity and exercise to sleep cycles with examples of different approaches from the life of the author and others. Written in a friendly style that is not too in your face (which some paleo or in the alternative vegan advice books can be) but with a passion behind the narrative that shows the author's belief in his healthy lifestyle philosophy. I received a free ARC of this book through Goodreads First Reads giveaways.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting concept...and I really enjoyed the history parts about our ancestors. As for going Paleo, I don't think that is a smart idea. Our bodies have adapted since hunting and gathering times to when we became agriculturalists, and I don't think eating potatoes and some other crops is going to damage our bodies. I think it has more to do with a sedentary lifestyle than specific foods. I had to skip some parts because it was tedious to read but other than that it gave a different perspective when I was curious about what Paleo is.

[Niffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

Fairly readable but sometimes the logic seemed to be a bit of a stretch. Generally I agree with the overall message that one should stay away from processed foods, but the underlying fanaticism and tone of "I'm right and everyone who doesn't agree with me is wrong" got a bit annoying.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really well written and way more interesting that I'd expect a diet book to be. I can't say I agree with 100% of the ideas brought up here, but it changed my perspective on a lot of aspects of the paleo lifestyle. This is a really good place to start if you're interested in starting to live paleo.

[Desiree · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good.
Well-structured, well-written, well-researched, and thoughtful.
An impressive feat!
Read this book! Probably the best recent tome on the subject matter, and certainly one of the best on any subject that I've read this year.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could've done without boilerplate right-wing political invective ("vegetarians are feminists/nazis") but mildly amusing.

[deleted d · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't eat things that have ingrediants you can't pronounce

[Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off very strong with great evidence and data, then slowly transitions to pseudoscience, anecdotes, and gut feelings. A polished turd.

[Sean Goh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Agricultural Revolution wasn’t simply a revolution in agriculture; it was a revolution in culture. Agriculture led to cities, and cities led to more ideas and infectious disease.

Early agricultural sex cults—of which there were more than a few—tended to die out. Religions that placed restrictions on our sexual impulses did not. Untreatable, virulent STDs were clearly a reason. It’s no coincidence that more permissive sexual practices began to emerge in the late 1950s, soon after the discovery of penicillin in 1943. Antibiotics allowed people to treat previously untreatable STDs, like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.

If a species evolved with a habitat feature that varied within certain bounds, members of that species probably thrive when that feature remains varied within similar bounds. (Variation can be healthy.)

There’s a saying among software developers: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” It’s said in situations when a user thinks the software is malfunctioning, when it’s actually working as designed.

the lesson of “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature” is to trust our evolved biology, the lesson of “garbage in, garbage out” is to not trust it too much. There are limits to computer technology, and there are also limits to our own biological technology. Send the wrong inputs to the body, and the body will still start to malfunction. Send the right inputs to the body, and everything works smoothly again.

Industrial foods appeared so recently in the human diet that the human metabolism hasn’t had the time to adapt to them. (Note that most health authorities accept this evolutionary shorthand when applied to industrial food but often fail to apply it to agricultural food [which was the first major shift in consumption sources].)

On the “calories out” side of the equation, most people focus exclusively on exercise, completely ignoring the body’s largest source of energy expenditure: heat. This happens to be something that few people, aside from a few Buddhist monks, have any conscious control over.

We Americans would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we had never discovered the (overly) simple fact that a gram of fat contains more calories than a gram of protein or carbohydrate, which seems to suggest that, all things equal, any overweight animal should eat more carbohydrate and less fat to lose weight. Yet carb-heavy grains are exactly what farmers feed to livestock to fatten them up as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

It’s a shame that dietary “fat” is referred to by the same word used to designate someone as being overweight. Encouraging modern women to eat more fat is about as easy as selling them a makeup called Ugly.

Killing an animal is hard; digesting one is easy. Killing a plant is easy; digesting one is hard.

Eating nose to tail (i.e. eat everything, including organs and marrow etc) is the ultimate nutritional supplement.


DO EATS
Traditional recipes and food pairings aren’t simply arbitrary combinations chosen on the basis of flavor. People who happened to find these recipes delicious ended up more successful (reproductively) than those who did not.e.g. wasabi (antimicrobial) with sushi (raw fish).

Small cold water fish such as mackerel, sardines, herring, and anchovies are amazing for just about everything except your breath.

Of all the cereal grains, white rice is the least toxic, largely consisting of pure carbohydrate.

choose roots, tubers, or rice over wheat, corn, or beans.

a seemingly odd but surprisingly delicious addition to coffee: grass-fed butter.

DON'T EATS
Fruit is best eaten whole (not as juice), in small quantities, and in the morning when the liver’s stores are more likely to be depleted. Those trying to lose weight may want to cut fruit out of their diet altogether.

The toxic proteins are more heavily concentrated in the outer shell (also known as the “bran”), but are found throughout the entire kernel. Grains that contain the heavily toxic bran are described as “whole grains,” and are often mistakenly viewed as entirely healthy.

Avoid anything that pretends to be milk, but isn’t, such as soy, almond, or rice “milk".


_______________
Both captive gorillas and lions suffered from the same issue: we forced them to accommodate our regimented workdays. They were being fed on a human schedule, not a schedule based on how their species naturally eats in the wild.

The most important meal of the day does not precede the day’s activities (breakfast), but follows their completion (lunch/dinner). Eating is often opportunistic—driven by spoilage (meat), seasons (harvest, migrations), and competition with other species (ripe berries). Hunter-gatherers experience low-level hunger on a fairly regular basis; they eat when they’re hungry, when food is ready to eat, and when social norms allow for it.

Fasting helps the body fight infection.
Like attacking the supply lines of an invading army, dietary restriction weakens pathogens while the immune system mounts a counteroffensive. Tiny pathogens don’t have large nutrient reserves and rely on the host for nutrition—therefore manipulating our nutrition is a way to manipulate their nutrition.

Not only does fasting sensitize malignant cells to chemo drugs; it also defends healthy cells against chemo toxicity.

The typical American breakfast is a sugar bomb. (juice, cereal, milk)

It was farmers who really had toil day in and day out; subsistence agriculture requires even higher levels of physical activity than foraging. Anyone who has grown up on a farm knows that the chores begin before sunrise and end after sunset.

Regarding exercise: The problem is that humans have lost the motivation to move.

CrossFit’s design showed a sophisticated understanding of human psychology—particularly masculine psychology. Workouts are competitive, team-oriented, hard, build a common culture and foster real human relationships.

The difference between just so many miles and a marathon is meaning.

Switching to a standing desk helped Zoe Piel, my research assistant, to mitigate the symptoms of Raynaud’s syndrome, a circulatory condition that caused her hands (and feet, ears, and nose) to be cold to the point of numbness, even when the rest of her body was warm. When she reverted to a sitting desk, her Raynaud’s got worse.

Shoes are a very useful tool, but a tool nonetheless. They are a tool in the same way that ice skates are a tool: both help humans deal with certain terrain more effectively. Wearing ice skates in all circumstances would be absurd. We should start thinking of shoes in the same way: using them when appropriate (rough terrain, cold weather), but not as the default option.

The people who stand to benefit the most from improved adaptation to the cold are the ones who most resist it, usually just because they “hate the cold.” That’s like someone complaining about being weak but refusing to lift weights.

Going to the sauna, banya, or baths has always been a great opportunity to socialize—whether among the thousands in the extravagant Roman thermae or with a handful of friends squeezed into a tiny Finnish sauna. According to Dr. Harald Teir, president of the Finnish Sauna Society, “The idea is not to have the best sauna on the block, but to get the entire block in the sauna.” The baths are one of the few remaining spaces that have resisted the incursion of TVs, computers, and cell phones; the wet and heat act as insulators against the Information Age. And unlike many other forms of socializing—holiday dinners, drinking alcohol, going to a sporting event—this one leaves you feeling more relaxed and healthier.

Treadmills that report “calories burned” contain a fatal deception: they include the calories burned by the body even by lying on the sofa. Subtract the basal metabolic rate and the number of calories burned on the treadmill is depressingly low.
Far more calories are used to heat the body than to move it.

(Of Vitamin D deficiency and sun lamps) This approach was typical of the Industrial Age: inadvertently removing something essential for human health, discovering it was essential for human health—and then developing an industrial method to add it back in.

by growing accustomed to comfort (softness, silence), we have made ourselves weaker and more dependent on those same conditions being present at all times.

(On hunting) a phenomenon called the Bambi Effect—people getting squeamish about killing animals that are cute (deer, rabbits) but not about killing animals that are considered repellent (rats, pigeons). There’s no reason to think that a rat values its life any less than a deer does, or feels less pain, yet most people instinctively treat them as separate cases.

At this point, the most ethical option is not to stop hunting animals, but to re-enter the food chain and replace the predators that we displaced. To be good stewards of such ecosystems, we have an ethical obligation to become surrogate predators.

Domesticated animals have always been inseparable from traditional farming at scale: it is possible to herd without domesticated plants, but it is next to impossible to farm without domesticated animals.
Animals bring a great deal of value to a farm: they provide food (turning inedible grasses into highly nutritious meat, milk, and eggs), produce fertilizer (manure), and generate horsepower (plowing, transportation).

it was the shift from an animal-based Paleolithic diet to a plant-based Agricultural diet that led to patriarchy. Wheat is a better symbol of oppression than meat.

The developing world is mostly just playing catch-up to a standard of living afforded by an Industrial paradigm. While this initially brings environmental degradation, the simple truth is that poor people can’t afford to care about the environment. Once countries reach a certain level of material prosperity, people start to pay attention to things like air quality, water quality, and wildlife conservation.

[Benjamin Parry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the last 50 years there has been something of a revolution in one area of human endeavor, this revolution however has not come from new technology or advanced engineering. The transformation has been happening in zoos and the change has been a dramatic but unsurprising one: The recreation of the animals natural habitats.

The call to return animals to the habitats that they are naturally adapted to is the basis of the Paleo Manifesto. The argument is an obvious one. For the vast majority of human history(almost two million years) we have been evolving to adapt to a specific environment. It was only in the last 10,000 years that we began to grow crops and broke from our traditional diets. It is even more recently then that, over the last 200 or so years, that we have become even more divorced through high tech running shoes, electric lighting, the information economy(sitting) and perhaps most interestingly a loss of religion.

This observation is not necessarily a new one but in recent years it seems to have taken off in popularity. The increase in popularity is coincident with the creation of the 'paleo' diet which has galvanised a large number of people into a sudden interest in evoloutionary biology. The diet, which comprises one of the pillars of Mr Durant's book is often offered as a panacea for all kinds of ailments produced by a modern diet, while at the same time providing the conditions that any good diet needs to produce weight loss. You can get a breakdown of the diet as well as some arguments for and against it here.

This work however has a lot more to it then a simple food diet. It prescribes a 'diet' for your entire life. It is about creating an environment for yourself that is the most beneficial for physical and emotional health and the basis for this environment is nature.

The book is split into three sections: the first provides an historical overview of human evolutionary history, the second gives the prescription that is arrived at based on this historical habitat and the last, entitled visions, essentially contains the authors miscellaneous thoughts on the future of our relationship with food, and pays a huge debt to Michael Pollon.

The first section is fascinating and well worth reading to give yourself a grounding in evolutionary biology/history however it is the section on what to take away from it that is certainly the most useful aspect of this book.

This paleo user manual is largely composed of a detailed examination of the paleo diet including how food should be prepared, what the best food is, what is absolutely forbidden etc. Though, it also discuss's five other elements of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that we could benefit from reincorporating into our environment and daily schedules: fasting, regular movement, standing/NOT sitting, better thermoregulation and a chapter entitled sunrise and sunset on making use of our biological rhythms.

Fasting

Each chapter is fascinating in it's own right. And I certainly learned a lot that I had never before thought of, particularly in the chapters on thermoregulation and circadian rhythm. I will here, however, only try to paraphrase the section about fasting as it alone is a huge topic and his insights were powerful to say the least.

First he notes that there is much historical evidence for hunter gatherers operating somewhere in between an irregular 'gorge and fast' model employed by large carnivores like Lions and a constant grazing one appropriate to cows and other larger herbivores. Instead, through regular foraging for nuts, berries, tubers there was a somewhat steady supply of food, at least when compared to those with a complete gorge and fast system. This base would then be supplemented with meat when an animal could be killed. It can be observed that among modern day hunter gatherers, although they have more then enough food overall they will often go days without eating when food is scarce, calorically made up for by gorging when food becomes available.

When food became plentiful following the introduction of agriculture it coincided with the creation of a cultural tradition of purposely abstaining from food, this culture was codified and can still be observed in almost every major world religion.

Beyond the obvious help that fasting could offer for such practices as meditation, the expression of gratitude and improved discipline the health benefits of fasting are numerous and currently compose a rapidly growing field of medical research.

The areas where the benefits are known and proven are thus:

Fasting helps the body fight infection. It promotes autophagy(cell digestion) and reduces the nutrients available to any infectious disease through reducing their level in the bloodstream.

Fasting is beneficial for chemotherapy patients, potentially 'sensitizing malignant cancer cells to chemo drugs'. While one study has shown it also reduces nausea and other issues associated with the treatment.

Fasting has been proven to improve metabolic health, leading to lower incidence of issues such as heart disease.

Fasting is obviously an easy way to put the body into a state of ketosis. This simply means is using its stored fat for fuel rather then basic sugars in the blood. There are many benefits to this but the most obvious is that many of the most successful diets(Atkins) are built around putting the body into ketosis for a protracted period of time.

Fasting is an easy way to create calorie restriction more generally which is proven to correlate with greater life expectancy, as Durant notes in his book "Hunter-gatherers experience low-level hunger on a fairly regular basis"

With such an impressive list of benefits and research in the field growing with discovery of new ways that regular fasting is beneficial. It is almost impossible to deny the ways that a cultural loss of regular fasting practices could or even has been negative for the human race.

If you want to start incorporating fasting into your life then a common way that many begin is intermittent fasting. Under this regimen you only eat from noon till 8pm, effectively skipping breakfast, or try a full day fast once a week. If you are looking for different fasting schedules a good place to start is a list of different religious traditions of fasting

The Paleo Manifesto is an incredible health book in its entirety, unlike most other books in the arena it does not aim to cure ailments through a reductionist approach, relegating all help to a diet, an exercise plan or some miracle cure. Instead it develops a system for looking at how we live in totality and gives you some of the first few steps that this system would recommend. If you want to start thinking critically about the way that you live and how it relates to your health, or you want to take the steps from simply surviving to thriving then this book will offer both a wonderful paradigm for you to apply as well as almost certainly providing you with at least a few new ideas of things to implement into your life.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Risen apes or fallen angels, we walk tall with eyes forward—one foot firmly planted on the ground of what we are, the other reaching into the future of what we can become,” John Durant rhapsodizes at the end of The Paleo Manifesto, his protracted tract on living life au naturale. Stylistically, Durant has a weakness for the glib turn of phrase and the easy cliché, unsurprisingly hamming up his call to carnivorous naturalism. By the time Durant’s best-selling guidebook hit the shelves in 2013, the Paleolithic mindset had already cemented itself solidly into the psyche of formerly niche fitness enclaves, most notably the Crossfit community. Ketogenic diets, fasting, and ‘functional exercise’ were gaining ground in the fitness biosphere. The movement was there—it just needed a mouthpiece.

Luckily for Durant and his acolytes, he had started his research during the early days of the movement and the Manifesto, part memoir and part polemic, chronicles the evolution of this new Paleo psychology. With famed Harvard professor Steven Pinker firmly in his corner, Durant sets off on a ramble through the woods of evolutionary history that covers caveman lifestyles, religious dieting, the agricultural revolution, and a dubious concept that he refers to as ‘biohacking.’ While these topics are tenuously held together by the theme of Paleolithic living, they often feel more like a collection of loosely related essays than a cohesive whole, and the quality from one to the next is uneven.

At his best—as in the essay/chapter entitled “Moses the Microbiologist”—Durant makes a convincing case for looking at dietary and cultural history from an epidemiological perspective. At his worst—especially in “Biohackers”— Durant secretes a cloying drivel of buzzword casserole, reaching a conclusion that is at odds with his statements on Mosaic hygiene. Similarly, in his essay on hunting, Durant spends most of his time recollecting his first hunting trip, during which he piggybacked on a friend’s yearly deer hunt. The account is full of snide clichés attacking ‘Bambi conservationism’ and humble-bragging quips—upon slaying his first doe, Durant opines that he has ‘killed Bambi.’

Despite the frequent violence that he does to his own language, Durant gets a lot right. Even when his commentary is not original, it does point to thoughtful, healthful solutions to many of modern man’s thornier problems. The Paleo diet he recommends is quite sensible, his objections to factory farming almost axiomatic at this point, and his thoughts on the evolution of the human diet generally interesting and informative. As a blueprint for living a healthy life, the book does its job and doesn’t shy away from critiquing certain sacred cows like veganism and the organic foods movement.

As a manifesto, though, Durant’s work does much more than inform. It is a call to action at both an individual and cultural level, advocating natural lifestyles and casting aspersion on, mainly, industrialized food and vegetarianism. The former of these two targets has a clear place in Durant’s narrative: industrialized agriculture and meat production are at the epicenter of the deteriorating health outcomes that Durant decries throughout the book. Durant’s outright vitriol toward vegetarianism, on the other hand, seems disproportionate to the harm he perceives, and the methods he uses to undermine vegetarianism’s credibility sap his own work of any objectivity in tone.

“In some cases,” Durant writes, “vegetarianism itself may be a sign of an underlying disorder.” This is only a prelude to his lengthy set of associations between mental illness and vegetarianism. Since there does seem to be an empirical correlation between the two, Durant is not entirely off base in making this connection, but in the context of a series of borderline bizarre non-sequiturs designed to undermine vegetarianism, his focus on mental illness reads like another attempt at ad hominem. The “ideological advocacy [of vegetarianism] is also hard to square,” Durant claims “with a tolerant and inclusive vision of female empowerment.” At one point Durant heavily implies that if vegetarians really care about caring for animals, then the first thing they should do—as good vegetarians—is to start eating meat.

An omnivore myself, I harp on this point not because I advocate vegetarianism but because Durant’s compulsive desire to take digs at the vegetarian movement demonstrates that his book is, in fact, a manifesto. That is, it is not just a book on diet or lifestyle. It is also a socio-political statement of values constituted by a mixture of data, logic, and sentimentalism. In few places is sentiment as apparent as it is in the chapter “Gatherer,” where Durant outlines his philosophy on factory farming:

"My opposition to the mistreatment of animals is honor-based. What we do to many factory farm animals is dishonorable in the same way that carelessly wounding an animal while hunting is dishonorable. In combat, respected adversaries have always merited a quick and painless death. There is every reason to extend that honor to the animals that give us our strength."

As much as Durant assures us that we have reasons to extend honor to animals, he doesn’t bother sharing those reasons with us. Instead, he opts to leave us with a warm and vaguely noble feeling of superiority as ‘honorable people.’

In a way, this works, because the manifesto is not catered to the skeptic. On the contrary, it seems designed to provide a boost for the converted, who don’t need to be bothered overmuch with excessive evidence and careful reasoning. The claim that honor is a guide for action in dietary consumption could easily take up its own book but here only warrants four sentences before the manifesto whisks the reader on. Towards the end of the manifesto, this sort of shorthand conclusion crops up repeatedly since Durant is comfortable that the first few chapters have lulled his readers into a sufficiently primal state that they will accept any appeal to nature as ironclad proof.

At the core of many of Durant’s missteps is the Naturalistic Fallacy. This fallacy reflects the confusion of is and ought. In other words, we fall into the naturalistic fallacy when we say that something should be the way that it is because that is how it already is. Statements like “Humans should eat meat because we are meat-eaters” fall into this category. It seems to be the unique privilege of human beings to consciously choose what ought to be not based on what is, but in contrast to what is. Durant’s failure to search out the points of divergence between the is and the ought restrict the scope of his investigation to the realm of pop psychology and fad-diet textbook.

Questions like, “is the hunter-gatherer’s diet sustainable given the worlds present and future population,” “can or should we tailor human evolution to modern patterns of work,” and “what sort of ecosystem do we want to create with our diets?” go not only unanswered but unasked as well. Beneath the books veneer of sociology and psychology, the manifesto represents a set of beliefs that do not touch on the philosophical and cultural implications of diet beyond a very narrow spectrum of readers. Those readers are already dieting and fitness enthusiasts who have the time and financial resources to tailor their diets to atavistic lifestyles.

In 1848, Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, a document that, for better or worse, articulated and refined the philosophy of a major socio-political movement and changed the course of history in a mere 60 pages. In The Paleo Manifesto, Durant managed to reformulate and articulate the slowly crystalizing Paleo movement as well. Given the amount of fluff that gets in the way of Durant’s often genuinely insightful commentary, he would have done well to imitate Marx’s brevity.

[Tim Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very very good book!

[Charlie St-St · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because it unites two of my major interests: health and history. However, 3 pages in I realised how much I was going to hate Durant's narrative of the "hunter lifestyle", because it ultimately involves so many things that I am morally against... I certainly should have had a flick through before I tried to read about Durant's dismissal of vegetarian values as a vegan (I squirmed a lot at the page titled "Hitler the Vegetarian" - I mean, come on), BUT but it also made me proud that I can stay strong in my personal values even after reading something that tried to totally challenge my current worldview.

On the other hand (again), there were a few chapter topics I found really interesting and want to pass on to others to read - especially those on Bipedalism, Thermoregulation and the chapter about circadian rhythms. I really want to look into investing in a standing desk now, AND get into the habit of going cold water swimming when I can.
I also really enjoyed Durant's conclusion which discussed the need to unite the various lifestyles of human history in order to move forward. His final words were intriguing: "The challenge may seem daunting, but we can do what our ancestors did: take one small step after another until we arrive in a very different place. Risen apes or fallen angels, we walk talk with eyes forward - one foot firmly planted on the ground of what we are, the other reaching into the future of what we can become."

I obviously don't agree with everything Durant says in this book, and at times I found it really difficult to read when he was clearly twisting the narrative to support his own perspective of "what should be" (the historian in me helped me work around this without throwing the book out of the window); but he is a brilliant communicator and I would love to be able to talk to him about his ideas for the future of the planet and humanity. I am certain this book will come into A LOT of conversations I have with my eco-conscious / health-conscious / veeg friends in the future!!!

[Sheela · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the time it took me to finish this book, I also read and finished no fewer than three other books. It was extremely slow, but started off as insightful and well researched. About half-way through, it shifted to a complete op-ed on how vegetarians and vegans are the devil and are completely misguided. That extreme shift completely turned me off. To denounce the views of those who don't meat as completely insane and akin to refusing to breathe or drink water is offensive. Also, the tangent on how vegetarians are all feminists who give up meat to get back at men and male-perpetuated ideals is insanity. I'm sure some vegetarians do feel this way, however I would venture that the majority do not take these views as their own. I went into the book wanting to learn more about what it was to eat a paleo diet, and to see what concepts or ideals I could incorporate into my own life. The middle section was a diatribe on how everything I eat is wrong and why I am wrong in eating said evil foods; it was so judgement filled and based on the author, paleolithic eating was based on availability of consumable foods - not judgement of their merit. Instead of empathizing or incorporating some ideals I find myself denouncing the entire premise of the paleo lifestyle.

[Joey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Almost. This was almost a decent book...until the last chapter. Mr. Durant, a former resident of one of America's most wealthy cities, a graduate of one of the nation's most exclusive high schools and universities is lecturing the country and the wonders of a Paleo life. I have no doubt that in some respects, beyond his cheeky and presumptuous suggestions, there is some decent science there. But using this book as a political platform is awful. The last chapter of his book is a diatribe against progressives (which he is not and is a proud Trump supporter) that borders on the insane. Progressives championed sterilization of children and eugenics?!? My good sir, Dr. Kellogg was a noted religious right winger. Conservative policies led to those activities. Write a book on Paleo living but don't you dare misrepresent the crap your own political party has pulled in this country. That said. I'm taking a maneuver out of a conservative's play book and burning this book.