Whole, Unprocessed Foods: The fundamental principle of the Paleo Diet is centred on the consumption of whole, unprocessed foods. Of all the claims about paleo diets that are criticized, this one seems understandably unchallenged. Before the last 200 years, pesticides, additives, genetic modification, and various enzymatic and chemical food processing techniques did not exist.

Elimination of Grains: The Paleo Diet eschews grains completely, including wheat, oats, and rice. Proponents argue that the agricultural revolution introduced foods the human body has not fully adapted to, potentially leading to health issues.

Lean Proteins: A central diet component is emphasizing lean protein sources. Meats, poultry, and fish are encouraged, while processed meats with additives are discouraged. Cordain argues that our bodies are better adapted to proteins from wild game, such as lean meats from wild ruminant animals like bison, deer, horses, elk and even mammoth.

Healthy Fats: Paleo encourages the consumption of healthy fats, primarily from sources like avocados, nuts, seeds, and olive oil. According to Cordain, wild games of the premodern era were not marbled like relatively stationary beefsteaks of today but sinewy, tough, lean, and predominating in omega 3 fats over saturated. Though Eaton points out that records of seafood consumption in premodern peoples were remarkably sparse until 20,000 years ago, placing them in a grey area, Cordain embraces them wholeheartedly as a great source of protein and healthy fats.

Elimination of Dairy: Dairy products are excluded from the Paleo Diet due to the argument that the ability to digest lactose through adulthood via the lactase enzyme in the intestine evolved relatively recently in human history and is not universally present.

Elimination of Legumes: Contemporary paleo enthusiasts usually find reasons to avoid legumes that aren't strictly predicated on the diets of the Paleolithic era, such as antinutrients like phytates and saponins. Eaton and Cordain tend to eschew them because they didn't make a significant proportion of what pre-agrarian people ate.

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