The Standard American Diet Is Only 29% Paleo

In my paleo diet definition post, I mentioned that what used to make up 100% of our evolutionary diet now only makes up 29% of it.

In other words: only 29% of our calories come from animals, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds, and the other 71% comes from grains, legumes, sweeteners, dairy, and industrial vegetables oils.

That’s a dramatic change! That’s why we recommend a paleo diet: it mirrors the quantity and variety of foods that nature evolved us to eat. It’s our “species-appropriate diet”.

But then I wondered… how many of my calories come from these paleo food groups? Is it really 100%? Am I at least following the 80/20 rule?

Well, there was only one way to find out. I wrote some code to analyze my PaleoTrack food journals. I’m a data nerd, so I really geeked out on seeing how many of my calories came from animal, vegetables, fruit, and nuts. And I was pleasantly surprised how well I was doing.

Since it was so eye opening, I decided to release it as a new feature so everyone can analyze their own journals.

Simply continue to log your foods on PaleoTrack like you used to, and you’ll find a new pie chart on your journal that displays the sources of your calories.

How well do you think you’re doing?

Example of one of my good days on PaleoTrack :)