This week, I thought I would try my hand at editing some of the information found on the Paleolithic diet entry on Wikipedia. This is an actively edited page so I was confident that if someone did take issue with my editing, any edits would be swiftly removed and restored to its previous content. Admittedly, I am out of my depth scientifically and the definition of Paleo feels murky at times but I wanted to improve the clarity of a few sentences in the Practices section.
Practices (the original text)
The Paleolithic diet consists of foods that can be hunted and fished, such as meat, offal, and seafood, and foods that can be gathered, such as eggs, insects, fruit, nuts, seeds, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, and spices.[2] The meats that are recommended to consume are preferred to be free of food additives, preferably wild game meats and grass-fed beef since they contain higher levels of omega-3 fats compared with grain-produced domestic meats.[2][53][57] Food groups that advocates claim were rarely or never consumed by humans before the Neolithic (agricultural) revolution are excluded from the diet, mainly grains, legumes (e.g. beans and peanuts), dairy products, salt, refined sugar and processed oils.[2] Some advocates consider the use of oils with low omega-6/omega-3 ratios, such as olive and canola oils, to be healthy and advisable.[53]
I primarily focused on the first sentence, rewording it so that the relationship between meat and offal was more clear [“… such as meat (including offal) and seafood”] and re-ordered the “gathered” foods in order of most likely common consumpution (specifally moving insects towards the end of the list as that is not a primary food source for most Westerners following the Paleolithic diet) [“… such as eggs, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, insects, herbs and spices”]. Through these small changes, I hope to make the concept of Paleo slightly more realistic (and therefore accessible to anyone seeking information on the diet). I also learned about the difference between herbs and spices (herbs are considered the leafy green parts of plants, whereas spices are commonly dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetable substances). And here I thought I knew much about food! “The more you know… “*rainbow comet*
I hope this will serve as encouragement for those wanting to contribute to Wikipedia. I still have much to learn about the Paleodiet and while I continue to diversify my research resources, Wikipedia will remain as one of my top sources.
Oh, Twinkle. 