The Paleo Manifesto

Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health

by John Durant

I'm not entirely sure what to think of this book. I was excited to read it and I'm definitely still excited to discuss it with some of my paleo buddies. All in all, though, it wasn't entirely what I was expecting.

The middle part of this book was definitely my favorite. The very beginning covered a lot of information about how the first hunter-gatherer societies lived (and how some modern hunter-gatherer societies live), much of which I already knew and all of which I was expecting. Then he got into some of the intricacies of what happened when we started building civilizations. Not least among these is religion and religious laws. While this was fascinating, and I certainly learned a lot in this section, my attention kept wandering as I wondered where he was going with this.

Then he brought it all together. While elaborating on things like barefoot running and exposure to extreme temperatures, he kept referring to Part 1 throughout the book, and it all made sense. At no point did it seem to be irrelevant or like he was going off on a random tangent. It was actually a very well-thought out, well-organized book.

As I said, the middle part of the book was my favorite and it has convinced me to do things I was otherwise unwilling to try. Running barefoot, for example, is something I've been wanting to do for awhile, but given peoples' tendency to injure themselves when they first start running barefoot, I was hesitant. Durant, on the other hand, gave very good tips for starting slow and how to get into the habit without injury. Now I just need to find myself a pair of Vibrams.

Cold showers were something I had heard other people tout as beneficial but I was unconvinced. Most of what I had heard was merely anecdotal evidence. Durant, however, links the practice to thousands of years worth of tradition in countries all over the world, from Russia to Rome, that regularly submit themselves to either extreme hot or extreme cold, and then immediately immerse themselves in the other extreme. The way Durant told it actually had me convinced to try cold showers, although when the moment of truth came this morning, I chickened out. Maybe tomorrow ...

The ending of the book was a very interesting analysis of where our food comes from and where our food should come from. Turns out, he's not worried about the environment, which I, personally, don't agree with. But he did have some very intriguing theories on balancing the whole local/organic movement with modern industrial food. He acknowledges the need for both in order to feed the world, which makes sense to me, given that I have never been entirely convinced by claims that eating organic is actually more sustainable than industrial food.

All in all, an excellent book with a lot of information and some great food for thought. It is all well-written and engaging and I definitely recommend it.