Hi y'all,

There's a local food co-op in my town, and they will have speakers come and give courses on various topics on health each month. I'm hoping to put together a seminar, and I'd like to share my rough outline and ask for help on how to organize it into a proposal for this co-op. I've talked with the manager once about it, and while there's a lot of vegans there, there are also a few people asking about Paleo and gluten-free, so she's interested in having someone speak to the customers on the topic.

This is the outline I have so far for topics. Let me know what you think and how I could spruce it up/which content you think would be good.

What is the Paleo Diet?

Seminar by [...]

Summary

What is the “Paleo Diet?” Speakers [...] will discuss the basic concepts behind this diet, its origins, and what sets it apart from the Standard American Diet (SAD), an from other popular alternative diets.

(suggested audience size ~15-25 people)

Biographies

[...]

Outline

Why consider the Paleo Diet?

One-minute story from [...] on how they discovered Paleo and why they've stuck with it

What is the Paleo Diet?

Basis

- Caveman basis
- We are genetically optimized to a lifestyle that is similar to our caveman ancestors, and the modern world is practically a Bizarro World from the perspective of our bodies
- Nutrient and Antinutrient food pyramids
- Macronutrient quality aka mesonutrients
- Omega-3/6 fats, glucose/fructose balance, glycemic index
- Relationship between hormones and health
- Example: Metabolic studies often show that some people overeat and don't gain weight, wheras others undereat and still gain weight
- Example: glycemic index, insulin, and their relationship to fat storage and diabetes

Origins

- Origin in Anthropology
- Discovery that humans tended to be shorter, fatter, and more prone to disease after the advent of civilization and particularly agriculture
- Historical findings that show an explosion in obesity rates and “diseases of civilization” over the last 100 years and especially over the last 30 years
- Example: CDC Obesity Chart

Types of Paleo diets
- Scale
- Primal
- Allows limited dairy, flaxseed, substitute flours like almond flour
- Otherwise follows Paleo
- Paleo
- No grains, legumes, or dairy
- Relatively high fat and low carb
- Close approximation: gluten-free, casein-free, lactose-free diet with more fat intake relative to carbs
- In addition to diet, a lifestyle that emphasizes less stress, enough sleep, and
- Raw Paleo
- Like Paleo, but everything is raw
- Debated areas
- Role of flaxseed
- Role of nuts
- Role of non-cereal grains, pseudo-grains
- Role of substitute flours

Quality sources of information
- Books
- Online forums
- Also, which forums are NOT quality
- Primal Tribes such as Ames Primal Tribe