You have probably already heard about the paleo diet, and it’s equally popular alternative, the keto diet. But what sets these two diets apart? And what’s the difference between paelo and keto? Today we will take a closer look at both so that you understand what each of these diets is all about. So, if you are curious to know the differences between these two diets, you are at the right place.
What Is the Paleo Diet and How Did It Start?
Paleo is short for Paleolithic. According to Wikipedia, the diet has many nicknames such as the stone mans diet or the caveman’s diet and that’s because it’s basic premise calls for you to eat the way cavemen ate. The diet gained popularity in 1975 when gastroenterologist Walter Voegtlin, wrote a book about it called the Stone Age Diet.
A paleo diet is simply an eating plan whereby you eat whatever our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. The suggestion being that what they ate was healthier than the diets humans decided to use after this period in human history. As a result of eating Paleo style, diseases like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes were unheard of among these people; and the idea is to enjoy the same health benefits today when unhealthy foods are all around us.
What You Can Eat on the Paleo Diet
Foods that are allowed include healthy fats and oils, nuts, fish, herbs, fish, vegetables, meat, and even spices. Foods to avoid while on a paleo diet include processed foods, artificial sweeteners, trans fats, soft drinks, vegetable oils, a majority of dairy products, margarine, and even grains.
What is the Keto Diet and When Did It Start?
The keto diet began about a century ago in the 1920s, when doctors were recommending it for epilepsy patients based on its ability to reduce seizures. This way of eating came about strictly to impact and cure a disease. The diet makes the body use fats as an energy source, rather than carbs. Today, there are many variants of this diet, and with varying levels of effectiveness.
The keto diet has many proven weight loss benefits, but it has also been proven to offer many other health benefits besides weight loss. For instance, it can help against cancer, diabetes, epilepsy and even degenerative mental illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease.
What Foods Can You Eat On the Keto Diet?
While on this diet, you are supposed to reduce your intake of carbohydrates considerably while replacing them with fats in order to make your body enter ketosis. The ketogenic state makes the body burn fat much faster in addition to improving your health in other great ways.
Some of the things you can eat while on this diet include fish and seafoods, vegetables that grow above the ground, meat, natural fats, cheese, and even eggs. You can also have coffee and tea. Keto also allows you to have some dairy foods including heavy cream, butter and unsweetened yogurt.
You should also avoid foods like cooked rice, bread, cooked pasta, soda, chocolate bars, beer, donuts, candy, and even potatoes.
Click here to get a Full Printable Keto Foods List.
What’s the Difference between Paleo and Keto Diet?
There are a lot of things about these two programs that are similar. They’re both low carb programs and they both promote reduced calorie consumption. Also, both programs notably recommend the consumption of natural and healthy foods and the avoidance of processed foods, especially processed carbs.
But the keto diet places its greatest focus on controlling three macro nutrients, primarily – fats, carbs, and proteins. It focuses more on high fats and low carbs. Whereas, the paleo diet is more about simply reducing carbs like grains, so you can have a lot more protein and carbs on Paleo than you would on Keto. So, you can get away with eating more carbs while on a paleo diet, but you cannot do that with a keto diet since your body needs to depend on fats as its food source.
An Idea vs Macro-nutrients
The main difference between the two programs is that Paleo is based upon an idea that is based on a period in time. During the stone man age people didn’t have access to all of the foods that are available today. The concept that you can go back to eat the way they man did many years ago is unrealistic, especially when they’re so many other options. Keto is based upon re-arranging the way you distribute your daily macro-nutrients.
Why Use Any of These Programs?
Both of these programs are effective. You can use any of these programs if you want to have a healthier life; especially when that involves losing excess weight. Generally, these diet programs will be an improvement to the sort of foods people eat today as they recommend taking less sugars and processed foods that are making people less energetic and more prone to lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes and even cancer.
Which is the Healthier of the Two?
In general, these two diets are both very healthy; as they can help alleviate the symptoms of chronic illnesses like diabetes and obesity. However, the keto diet has an upper hand as it can also improve brain health and even put some conditions like epilepsy under check. It has also been shown to help reduce the risk of cancer.
The Final Verdict
Granted, both the keto and the paleo diet have immense health benefits to offer you, especially if you are trying to lose some weight. However, if you want health benefits that extend beyond weight loss, you are better off using the keto diet.
This diet has plenty of proven health benefits, which is why it even helps epileptics keep their conditions under check. So, while the paleo diet is a good way to eat healthier and lose some pounds, you would gain more health benefits from following a keto diet.
Those interested in learning more about the Keto diet can start with the 7 Day Keto Challenge. You will feel more energetic, lose weight and feel great about yourself after only a few days or weeks on the diet. You will also get meal plans, a guide on how to shop for groceries, a recipe book, and even learn how to plan your keto meals for maximum health benefits.
