Quantifying the "Pastoral Diet"

For years I have been unhappy with the method of describing my personal diet. I had been a vegetarian, a whole food, organic, locally grown vegetarian who had tried fruitarianism, veganism, macrobiotic, etc for 30 years. But that's what gave me metabolic syndrome and obesity. I had to try something else.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes someone told me about the link to sugar (not my doctor, damn her to Hell). I was "Atkins" for about a year at first but soon found that I needed to stay on "induction" or I rapidly fell back into high carb but "healthy" foods like fruit and rice. Obvious carb addiction.

Then I became "Low Carb" trying to keep it at 20 grams. But I knew enough to avoid the "low carb" franken foods that were being pushed in those years. So my diet naturally trended towards what we called Neanderthal (NOT "NeanderThin" which is trademarked). That gradually switched to what is now called Paleo, but I don't consider Paleo a diet as such but more of a way to source your foods no matter what your diet.

For a while I consorted with the Zero Carb people, but since I recognized that it wasn't actually ZERO carbs, I started calling it "Carnivore" before that term was popular. I felt it was edgy and confrontational. As a past Vegan, I know how important confrontation is.

For a long time I went along with the word "Ketogenic", because that was the biochemical basis of my dietary choices. I still use it when talking to people who don't think about diet very much, because it's a word they are used to hearing. It's been in the news for about 10 years or so. I usually precede it with "Paleo" because it's also becoming well known. And that's an accurate enough description for most people. I flirted with the term "Ancestral" but few people care that my personal ancestors were migrant reindeer herders who occasionally ate a few greens and berries.

What it turns out that I actually eat (except those two bad years which left me obese again) is not really paleo at all. If you had to peg it, it is probably the diet of peoples who lived on the edge of the neolithic age. They knew how to plant gardens, and they had fenced in herds, but they didn't depend on stoneground or cooked grains for the bulk of their calories. They had fermented foods, some dairy, spices, but their main food was ungulates. Cows, sheep, and pigs.

They were pastoral. I eat a Pastoral diet.