Fuel
What foods are considered primal? In a nutshell: the foods that provide the true fuel our bodies need. We can get all of our nutritional needs from meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts and berries.
Numerous articles on this site discuss in detail the wonderful foods our ancestors ate to replenish their bodies. These are the foods we should still be eating, instead of the non-nutritional, empty “foods” we find in boxes at the grocery stores today.
Below are some basic primal fuel guidelines. You can also download our Live Primal Fuels and Recipe Book that includes these lists.
Good Fuel
| Meats | Fruit/Sweeteners | Vegetables | Nuts/Seeds/Oils/Eggs |
| Lean or organic cuts of: Chicken Turkey Duck Beef Pork Lamb Veal Venison Elk All other types of game meat All types of: Fish (avoid canned and smoked due to salt) |
Tomato Avocado Lemon/lime Apple Apricot Banana All berries All melons Fig Grapefruit Guava Mango Kiwi Nectarine Orange Peach Pear Pineapple Plum Pomegranate Tangerine Watermelon Dried fruits (in moderation due to sugar content) Raw honey (in moderation) |
Artichoke Asparagus Beets Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Collards Cucumber Eggplant Endive Kale Lettuce Mushroom Mustard greens Onions Parsley Parsnip All peppers Pumpkin Radish Seaweed Spinach Squash (all kinds) Watercress |
All eggs
Almonds Chia seeds Almond butter
Olive oil
|
Not So Good Fuel
| Grains | Beans/Legumes | Tubers/Starch | Dairy/Sugar/Additives/Fats |
| barleybran
bulgur hominy wheat wheat germ
grain-like seeds including amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa |
Alfalfabeans (string, kidney, garbanzo, black, etc.)
peas soybeans and all soy products, including tofu carob clover lupins mesquite |
potatoes and all potato products (french fries, potato chips, etc.) sweet potatoes tapioca pudding yamsarrowroot water chestnuts |
milk cheese butter yogurtcream all processed foods made with dairy
salt and all processed foods coated with salt (dressings, bacon, hot dogs, pickled foods, salted nuts, etc.)
sugar and all foods made with sugar (including soft drinks and “fruit” drinks) honey vegetable oils |
Live Primal | 
June 9, 2009 5:27 am
5 Comments
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By Girl Gone Primal, July 22, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
Only lean meat? Why? If your meat is organic, then the fats are pure and healthful. Fat should only be avoided if you are buying conventional supermarket meat, since the chemicals and hormones tend to be focussed in the fatty portions.
Animals fats are essential for nutrition, absorption of vitamins, and many other critical physiological functions, as well as satiety. Many of the diseases and instances of malnutrition in the past 50 years correlate with the suppression of dietary fat intake. Women in particular need to consume significant amounts of fat in order to thrive.
Lipophobia stems from a flawed study by Ancel Keys which suggested that saturated fat was the cause of heart disease. This study has been thoroughly debunked, and it has been shown repeatedly that trans fats and an imbalance of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fats are far more significant in scientific analysis of heart disease, cancer, and other contemporary lifestyle disorders and diseases.
Animal fat and meat is the foundation of the human diet. We can see in current tribal communities, and records or past and ancient tribes, that the fattiest parts of the kill were most highly prized. These foods are only linked to contemporary disease when combined with high levels of non-primal foods: refined sugars and grains, particularly.
It would be great to see from what studies you have drawn your conclusions, since some of your ideas do seem quite out of date. I would encourage you to examine the work of Dr. Michael R. Eades, Dr. Mary Enig, The Weston A. Price Foundation, Gary Taubes, and anthropological studies which objectively dissect the human physiological response to food, and the eating habits of paleolithic humans.
It would also be great to add ‘vegetable oils’, particularly trans fats and margarine etc, to your Do Not Eat section, and perhaps a note next to olive oil to state that it should not be heated as it because carcinogenic (and not to mention rancid!).
A very promising site! I look forward to seeing it develop
It is sort of broken in Firefox, by the way – there is not white background behind the text, it stops after the RSS button…
By Live Primal, July 23, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Thanks so much for your insightful comments, Girl Gone Primal!
You ask a great question, why “lean meat”? As we briefly touch on in The Primal/Paleo Controversy, Loren Cordain focused his 2002 book, The Paleo Diet, on lean meats. His theory is that the game meat cavemen ate was lean. As he states in the Alternative Medicine Magazine: “Lean game and fish were the staple foods in hunter-gatherer diets; consequently, the Paleolithic diet was much higher in protein than the typical U.S. diet. Because game is so lean on a calorie-by-calorie basis, it contains about two and a half times as much protein per serving as domestic meats. For instance, a 100-calorie serving of America’s favorite meat — hamburger — contains a paltry 7.8 grams of protein. Compare that with 19.9 grams in an identical 100-calorie serving of roasted buffalo.”
Cordain has gotten much flack for his lean meat ideas, as you so nicely point out.
Many believe that Cordain did not do enough research and take into account higher fat animals (mammoths, hippos, rhinos, bison, boar, elk, etc.). See Mark’s Daily Apple and The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.
The Weston A. Price Foundation also disagrees with Cordain: “Animal foods rich in fat were the basis of these diets. Animals were hunted selectively to procure those richest in fat. In good times, only the fattest parts were eaten, the lean meat was thrown away. In fact, the one thing Paleolithic Peter would never have eaten was a skinless chicken breast. He wanted the fat, the entrails, the bones, the contents of the stomach… the lean meat went to his dogs…[Cordain] says that there isn’t much fat in wild animals (did he check with any hunters while writing his book?) and that what fat these animals had was highly politically correct–low in lethal” saturated fat and rich in monounsaturates and omega-3 fatty acids. Did he look up the fatty acid profile of buffalo fat while researching his book? Obviously not. If he had, it would have ruined his whole theory because buffalo fat is more saturated than beef fat.”
Cordain may have fallen into lipophobia (“fear of fat” and yes, Dr. Michael R. Eades is a great source) for marketing or other reasons. Some primal folks may agree with Cordain and stick to lean meats. Others who have a different view don’t buy into the lean meat idea or they just go completely organic.
We here at Live Primal agree with your succinct statement: “If your meat is organic, then the fats are pure and healthful. Fat should only be avoided if you are buying conventional supermarket meat, since the chemicals and hormones tend to be focused in the fatty portions.” So, go lean or go organic. We know that many primal folks only buy organic. We also understand the point that buying organic all the time can get quite expensive, and some primals buy a mixture of both.
Again, these issues can be controversial and we want to hear all points and counterpoints. We also want to know how individuals like you actually live the lifestyle!
This site is developing and great input like yours is helping us grow. We will be updating our fuel lists (vegetable oils and margarine are great additions on the non-primal side) and posting many more details on living primal.
Thanks, again!
P.S. We just checked Firefox and the site seems to be working fine. We tried the latest version 3.5.1 and an older version 3.0.1. We’ll keep checking, though!