Neanderthin: Eat Like a Caveman to Achieve a Lean, Strong, Healthy Body

by Troy Gilchrist and Ray Audette

Book Overview

Discover the diet that's been worth for thousands of years In a revolutionary approach to weight loss and improved health, author Ray Audette presents his groundbreaking "caveman" diet--an eating program that stems from the notion that what we ate before agriculture and technology evolved is still what our bodies need to function effectively, stave off disease, and stay lean and healthy. Read NeaderThin and you'll discover: How to become a modern-day...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312975910
• ISBN13: 9780312975913
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Eat healthfully for the first time in your life

I'm a low-carb dieter who lost 47 lbs on the Atkins diet last year. During that time I felt great, slept better, skin cleared up, had wonderful energy and also experienced other little side benefits to the weight loss that are too numerous to get into here. However, after several months I plateaued at about 25 lbs above my ideal, and of course I wanted to jump-start my weight loss again. So, I did a little investigating, discovered the Neanderthin diet and decided to give it a try.A brief summary of the basics of this diet: eat no technology-dependant foods. By that, author Ray Audette meant that if a food needs technology beyond a sharp stick or stone to process it to become edible, or to exist in its present form, it was never a natural part of our human diet, which had its origins with hunter-gatherer societies. What foods absolutely must be processed and/or cooked are: grains, including wheat, rice and most others; starchy vegetables like potatoes and yams; legumes, including peanuts, beans and peas. Refined sugars and artificial sweeteners are absolutely unnatural, although a small bit of honey is fine. Modern fruits are okay but must be eaten sparingly due to the fact that they have been altered over thousands of years to barely resemble the wild originals that our ancestors snacked on, usually much larger and with a much higher sugar content. Fermented foods are of course absent without our technology, so that excludes cheeses, vinegars and alcohols. Dairy products are also absent from the lives of hunter gatherers for obvious reasons. That leaves us with meats, fish/seafood, eggs, nuts, most vegetables, greens, and small amounts of fruits and berries.I tried the hunter-gatherer diet for about one month. Just as with Atkins, I felt wonderful and had all of the other side benefits of the low-carb diet, but my weight loss was still stalled. You see, the allowance of fruits on this diet was too great a temptation and I overdid it there. Longtime dieters may be familiar with the term "trigger", which is anything that causes your cravings to resurface. Some people like me have carb triggers so sensitive that even fruits can activate them. So, reluctantly I concluded that I would have to replace the Neanderthin diet with a low-carb diet that forbid me to have any fruit, at least during the weight loss phase. When I am finished and at my goal weight, however, I will return to the Neanderthin diet to maintain my excellent health, as I can't imagine a life entirely without strawberries, peaches and melons!I should note here that the authors Audette and Gilchrist do not advocate this diet as an aid to weight loss per se, but for reversing health problems and improving overall fitness. They theorize that diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity and many other curses of civilization are the byproducts of an immune system response to unnatural foods like grains: they show how you can trace the origins and progression of these conditio

What's Old is New, and Works!

After seeing Ray Audette on 48 Hours I stepped on the scale and found myself at 180 lbs., 5 lbs. more than I had ever weighed. At 43 I was looking my age and felt it. The Neanderthin approach appealed to me. It made good, logical sense. I got the book and started on January 20th. My weight has steadily gone down yet I have not gone hungry nor felt deprived. The amazing side effect is that my energy level has gone through the roof. I have been on hyperdrive, feeling great and just plain happier with life! After ten weeks on this diet I have lost 13 lbs and now am just 2 lbs. over my college weight. At this rate I will be back to my high school weight in another ten weeks. I feel good enough to get back to pumping iron to help things along. Since my wife was doing the cooking she has been on it too and has lost 15 lbs. This is a plan I can and will stick with. It's so easy! The results are so good I can't imagine going back to my old eating habits. I just don't want many of the foods I subsisted on before. I would urge anyone to get this book and give it a try. Looking better and feeling better are a great way to go through life.

Health and Fitness the Paleo Way

I have always listened to nutritional advisors and medical experts with regards to my diet. I ate the recommended fat free diet and thought the weight gain, myopia, infections, recurring illnesses (like colds and flus) were a normal part of life. I felt like a failure as my weight went steadily up and my health decreased.I got the first edition of Ray Audette's book Neanderthin and every edition since then. This new edition is the best yet. It makes so much sense and explains in an easy to understand format for the average person why a diet similar to our ancestors is the best for us.This book definitely changed my life for the better, with improved vision, health, and weight loss. It also provides answers to common questions asked by skeptical family members and friends about the Paleo way of eating. I highly recommend this book and this way of life.

lost weight and feel great

I lost a lot of weight using the Neanderthin diet plan. But it is also a plan for life. I will stay on this diet forever. I feel so much better. My arthritis is gone, as a result of being on this diet. I had arthritis so bad I could hardly walk, it was even painful to stand...now the pain is gone. This book does a good job explaining why certain foods are paleo, and why others are not. This was very helpful to me. I now get very sick if I eat "foreign proteins" like gluten and dairy. This book has also helped my son who was severely injured by childhood immunizations. The book has helped me to put him on a diet that avoids foreign proteins and stresses on the immune system. My son is making great gains and recovering.This book would help almost anyone with an auto immune disease to recover and to get healthy again. I have lost weight and feel better. I highly recommend this book.

Neanderthin Diet: the Big Picture

I became interested in the Paleolithic Diet after starting Atkins. I lost weight quickly and easily by cutting carbohydrates. There really was something to this low-carb stuff!I began reading other diet books like Protein Power and scoured the Internet. There were a lot of online references to something called the Paleolithic Diet. One book was mentioned time and time again, Neanderthin, by Ray Audette. I got ahold of the new edition and became a convert. The book tells that while our diet has changed since the advent of agriculture, our genes have not had time to adapt. We still have the old hunter-gatherer DNA. The grains, refined sugars and carbohydrates in our diet today are making us sick. Our bodies can't handle this new stuff.The book tells you what foods to eat and what to avoid. Well written with an extensive bibliography.Very highly recommended. The book has changed my life.Bob Hodgen