Paleo Diet Foods

Following a Paleo diet is actually pretty simple. There’s a huge variety of health-promoting nutrient-dense foods to choose from, including:

• All meats (and all parts of the animal)
• All seafood (fish, shellfish, and sea vegetables)
• Eggs
• Vegetables of all kinds (and lots of them)
• Fruits of all kinds
• Edible fungi, like mushrooms
• Nuts and seeds
• Herbs and spices
• Healthy unrefined, unprocessed fats from both animals and plants
• Probiotic and fermented foods

As you dig into the Paleo diet foods lists below, you’ll see that the variety of foods that fall within these categories in vast—you won’t be bored eating a Paleo diet!!

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What is the Paleo Diet?

The Paleo diet is described thoroughly here, but to recap: Paleo is a nutrient-focused whole-foods diet, with the goal to maximize foods that heal and minimize foods that harm. It improves health by providing balanced and complete nutrition while avoiding most processed and refined foods and empty calories. It’s not a way to simply lose pounds quickly (even though it has that effect for many people!), and it’s not a fad that dissolves under scientific scrutiny; rather, every Paleo principle is solidly rooted in the latest research and data (for the most comprehensive resource, see Paleo Principles).

At its core, the Paleo diet is a plant-based diet, with two-thirds or more of your plate covered with plant foods and only one-third with animal foods. Of course, meat and seafood consumption is enthusiastically endorsed because it provides vital nutrients that are not obtainable from plant sources. Sourcing the highest-quality food you can buy is encouraged, meaning choosing grass-fed or pasture-raised meat, wild-caught seafood, and local in-season organic fruits and vegetables whenever possible. See also The Importance of Vegetables and The Importance of Nutrient Density

By focusing on the most nutrient-dense foods and eliminating foods that can contribute to hormone dysregulation, inflammation, and gut dysbiosis (where the bacteria in your gut are the wrong kinds, wrong diversity, or wrong numbers and/or are in the wrong part of the gastrointestinal tract), a Paleo diet can improve a vast array of health conditions. Clinical trials demonstrate that a Paleo diet improves cardiovascular disease risk factors, reduces inflammation, improves glucose tolerance, helps with weight loss, and can even improve autoimmune disease. The current status of scientific research on Paleo-style diets is summarized in Paleo Diet Clinical Trials and Studies.

There are no hard-and-fast rules about when to eat or how much protein versus fat versus carbohydrates to eat (beyond eating some of each with every meal), and there are even some foods (like high-quality dairy and potatoes) that some people choose to include in their diets whereas others do not. This means that there’s room to experiment, so you can figure out not just what makes you healthiest but also what makes you happiest and fits best into your schedule and budget. See also Carbs Vs. Protein Vs. Fat: Insight from Hunter-Gatherers, The Diet We’re Meant to Eat, Part 3: How Much Meat versus Veggies?, Is Breakfast The Most Important Meal of the Day? New Science Has Answers!.

Best of all, the Paleo diet is not a diet in the sense of being some hard thing that requires a great deal of willpower and self-deprivation until you reach a goal. It’s a way of life. Because the focus is long-term health, the Paleo template allows for imperfection but educates you so that you can make the best choices.

Foods to Eat

Now, let’s review the amazing variety of health-promoting Paleo diet foods that form the basis of an optimal human diet.

All the foods listed here are great to include in your diet. They are beneficial foods containing vital nutrients that will help you achieve and maintain optimal health. You don’t need to eat all of these foods (it’s okay if snails and crickets aren’t your thing, and it’s okay if you just can’t get kangaroo meat or mizuna), but the idea is both to give you a definitive “yes list” and to introduce you to some innovative ways to increase variety and nutrient density by exploring new foods.

The following food groups are divided not just by their taxonomy, but more importantly, by the nutrients they contain. This more granular way to look at foods helps to encourage eating a greater variety of foods. Variety is very important because different foods supply different nutrients. Focusing on as many different whole foods as possible makes it easier to achieve sufficient and synergistic quantities of all the nutrients, potentially including some that haven’t been discovered yet. Easy strategies to increase variety include “eating the rainbow,” meaning that you choose fruits and vegetables of different colors, and “eating snout to tail,” meaning that you eat every part of the animal, including offal (organ meat).

Red Meat

Poultry and Eggs

Other Animal Foods

• crocodile
• frog
• snake
• turtle

Fish

* may contain higher levels of methylmercury than selenium; consume in moderation and see The Mercury Content of Seafood: Should we worry?

Shellfish

Also see Oysters, Clams, and Mussels, Oh My! Nutrition Powerhouses or Toxic Danger?

Other Seafood

Offal

Edible Insects

Leafy Greens and Salad Veggies

Cruciferous Vegetables

Onions, Garlic, and Other Alliums

Root Vegetables and Winter Squash

High-Fat Fruits

• avocado
• coconut
• olives (green and black)

Sea Vegetables

See also Why Seaweed is Amazing!

Mushrooms and Other Edible Fungi

Berries

Citrus

Other Fruits and Veggies

Animal Fats*

*ideally grass-fed or pasture-raised

Plant Oils**

**ideally cold-pressed, unrefined, organic, and ethically sourced

Probiotic Foods

• beet and other vegetable kvasses
• coconut milk kefir or yogurt
• kombucha
• raw, unpasteurized, lactofermented vegetables (kimchi, beets, carrots, pickles)
• raw, unpasteurized, lactofermented fruits (green papaya, chutneys)
• raw, unpasteurized, lactofermented condiments (relishes, salsas)
• raw, unpasteurized sauerkraut
• water kefir

Nuts***

Seeds***

***limit nut and seed consumption to 1 ounce per day

Herbs

Spices

*frequently sold mixed with wheat starch

Minerals

• Celtic sea salt
• Himalayan pink salt
• sea vegetable powder (or salt)
• sel gris
• truffle salt

Beverages

Pantry Items and Flavoring Ingredients