The Coastal paleolithic diet.

[Ripped Barbarian]

Is the most nutritious diet in my opinion, it might sound restrictive but as a base to your diet it provides a very strong base of nutrition.
Some 80-90% of european fossil record of modern **** sapiens is of a coastal nature, the foods found in this area are simply the best and often man would not have had to travel far in land to reap the benefits of inland delicacies, those living in grassy plains or mountainous areas would have had a much poorer diet, many people seem to base a paleolithic diet on a forest environment i.e game and nuts.

Those who eat many coastal foods are generally the most healthy people in the world.

-Coastal plants were generally the most edible, you'd be suprised what modern veg is of a coastal nature.
-Coastal protein sources were easier to catch than land, if you have ever been rockpooling you'll soon realise how easy the pickings are if you like crabs, small fish and other delights.
-Rivers are often slower and wider near the coast, dumping fertile silt leading to the most fertile soils, much greater than that of inland.
-Due to higher winds tall trees cannot develop in the coastal environment, this allows fruit bearing bushes such as blackberries, sloes, hawthorn to develop, these would have been easy pickings.

There are many health advantages to coastal foods.
-Fruits/plants higher in antioxidants, due to more exposed environment.
-Foods from the sea very high in trace minerals and efa's
-Highly bioavailable calcium in seafoods offsets acidic calcium leaching due to higher protein diets.
-The nutrients in the diet are VERY sex hormone friendly, should support testosterone production very well.

The only disadvantage with this diet type is today humans have done ecological damage to the coastal environment meaning pollution in foods but at the end of the day most of the land based food we eat is just as bad, without the nutrition.

Most of the best foods in the world are coastal in nature.

-Seabuckthorn, the best fruit in my opinion, extremely high in vit C, minerals, the oil within the seed is increadibly healthy, along with seabuckthorn species such as blackberries and the like do very well in rich coastal areas.

-Seabeet, or beetroot, as we know and have selectively grown it today, one of the best veg there is, minerals to support testosterone.

-Brassicae, that is kale, brocolli, cabbage etc etc, all decendants of coastal varieties and no doubt some of the best green leafy veg there is, I3C supports testosterone.

-Seaweed, highest trace mineral content of any veg, many other health properties, saccharides within support testosterone.

-Fish, omega 3.....you've prob heard enough about it, it is my belief that fish is superior to land based animal meat in many ways, but on a coastal diet you will no doubt have land meat due to the natural hunting trap of coastal cliffs, i.e chasing something off them.

-Shellfish, contains protein, special antioxidants and minerals such as zinc, which combined with their cholesterol supports, yep you guessed it, testosterone.

-Roots, edible roots of bullrush, seakale roots etc provie starchy carbs and minerals.

So how does this translate to today, without spending hours on the beach collecting stuff?

The diet you have is expensive, but as they say you get what you pay for.

-Seafoods, fish, shellfish, should form most of your protein intake, which is high, needn't be expensive with tesco value white fish on the menu.
-Plenty of seaweed, this can be got from asian foodstores or japancentre.com
-Plenty of cruciferous vegetables, brocolli etc.
-Berries and similar 'hardy fruit' that are suited to the coastal environment, high in antioxidants and not full of more or less empty sugar like in a banana.
-Some starchy carbs in the form of sweet potato, taro or whatever but not potatoes or grains.
-Some amounts of 'inland' foods such as nuts, and game/ offal.
-Coconuts, well they are coastal and fantastic!

There is an 'aquatic ape theory' about our evolution, but i wont go into that here.

Sorry for the monotony of the post.

[average-37]

Excellent post.

Got me interested in seaweed now. Except it all looks like drydrated noodles?

http://www.japancentre.com/?sno=10&c...name&q=seaweed

What do you recommend? For the coastal Paleo experience?

[Ripped Barbarian]

Their wholesale wakame is the best value http://www.japancentre.com/?cmd=itm&cid=412&id=1661

There are some awesome seaweed based snacks there, but the japanese are well known of their MSG usage in such things.

[hailtotheking]

RC, the diet sounds great, and i've been sold on the paleo approach for a while now, which has worked wonders for my particular issues. However, i find that i can only handle about 2 portions of fish a day before i cant handle any more. I find that if i eat any particular kind of fish for any length of time, i get sick of it. This however, never seems to happen with meat for me.

Also, i find shellfish to buy in bulk quite expensive. I've been trying to find whelks to buy in bulk, as they are amongs the highest in protien and lowest in cholesterol of all shellfish, but they dont seem that popular these days. Any sources?

Also, i remember Ray Mears saying seabuckthorn is pretty grim tasting

[mxd]

Excellent post RC!
This diet sounds so appealing as soon as I buy my food independently I'm going 100% paleo and will be bloody glad to do it!

[Ripped Barbarian]

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RC, the diet sounds great, and i've been sold on the paleo approach for a while now, which has worked wonders for my particular issues. However, i find that i can only handle about 2 portions of fish a day before i cant handle any more. I find that if i eat any particular kind of fish for any length of time, i get sick of it. This however, never seems to happen with meat for me.

Also, i find shellfish to buy in bulk quite expensive. I've been trying to find whelks to buy in bulk, as they are amongs the highest in protien and lowest in cholesterol of all shellfish, but they dont seem that popular these days. Any sources?

Best way is to incorporate fish/shellfish into recipes.
Also why would you want the lowest cholesterol shellfish?
I'd personally choose prawns/shrimp over whelks, but if you are after eating molluscs i can recomend new zealand mussels and the like (pollution low)

A selection can be found here http://www.frozenfishdirect.co.uk/shellfish.html

A chest freezer is an almost vital piece of equipment on this diet due to perishable nature of seafoods.

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Also, i remember Ray Mears saying seabuckthorn is pretty grim tasting

Well mabye he eats too much sweet sugar when he's not out in the forest and his taste theshold for sweetness is higher, i think the taste is fantastic, i make a 'slush puppy' using frozen seabuckthorn and a little organic orange juice, the seabuckthorn has a much lower freezing point than the orange juice so you end up with a thick texture, the fact it has about 400mg vit C /100ml and stacked with bioflavanoids is also great, when i drink these postworkout DOMS are aggressively reduced.

[hailtotheking]

Where do you get your sea buckthorn berries from? When i google it, all i can see are poncy health shop companies trying to seel overpriced sea buckthorn supplements. I cant seem to find anywhere that just sells the berries.

[Ripped Barbarian]

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Where do you get your sea buckthorn berries from? When i google it, all i can see are poncy health shop companies trying to seel overpriced sea buckthorn supplements. I cant seem to find anywhere that just sells the berries.

I collect them, kilos and kilos of them, there are a couple of tons worth within a few minutes walk of my house.

I filled a 10lb MP tub up with them a few weeks back and froze them down, it's a lot of effort collecting them tho, i might just lop the branches off, freeze and shake.

[Dtlv74]

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I collect them, kilos and kilos of them, there are a couple of tons worth within a few minutes walk of my house.

I filled a 10lb MP tub up with them a few weeks back and froze them down, it's a lot of effort collecting them tho, i might just lop the branches off, freeze and shake.

This might be useful (a bit pricey but the stuff on the site is good quality);

http://www.raymears.com/shop_item_de...c=Berry_Picker

In reference to the paleolithic diet, it's something I'm quite interested in as I'm a bit of a trekker and a wilderness survival person - and I love the idea of going back to roots (no pun) and living off/and in harmony with the land. The paleolithic diet fits well with that.

Thanks for posting the info

[Ripped Barbarian]

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This might be useful (a bit pricey but the stuff on the site is good quality);

http://www.raymears.com/shop_item_de...c=Berry_Picker

In reference to the paleolithic diet, it's something I'm quite interested in as I'm a bit of a trekker and a wilderness survival person - and I love the idea of going back to roots (no pun) and living off/and in harmony with the land. The paleolithic diet fits well with that.

Thanks for posting the info

That berry picker looks awesome, i might have to get one although i'd be more inclined to build my own. The problem with seabuckthorn is they tend to pop easily and are very closely mounted to the branch like this http://rxwildlife.org.uk/images/seabuckthorn.jpg

It literally took me all day to fill an MP tub up.
The cutting and freezing branches works well but is obiously very destructive to the plant.