The Bear Diet

So, I'm thinking of going on the Bear Diet.

"What's the Bear Diet?" I hear you ask.

Well, it's complete and utter tosh that I've just made up myself based on the fact that the Paleo Diet is 3 parts "well duh" to 4 parts "stupid", but seems to be a huge commercial success.  Of course, if it does look like there might be some money in it, I'm totally changing this blog post to get rid of this paragraph.

Following roughly the same quota of 3 parts "anyone with a vague knowledge of nutrition could have figured out that would work" and 4 parts "this idea is ludicrous and full of logical flaws", the Bear Diet involves taking on a diet plan similar to a wild bear.

Why?  Because bears, like humans, are naturally omnivorous predators.  They occupy the same place in the food chain we do.  But that's not the only reason I'm picking on them.

In the wild, they forage for food and eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, augmented by protein that largely comes from small sources (like fish, snails and insects) and a bit of red meat every now and then.  They also eat seasonally, and in small portions scattered throughout the day.

Call me unspeakably naive and ill-informed (go ahead - it's entirely justified)... but doesn't this sound kind of like a) the diet our hunter-gatherer foremothers used to eat,* and b) the health advice we often get from dieticians writing for magazines?

It's gold!  It'll make a fortune!

Okay, so that's the 3 parts "well duh" - now for the 4 parts "stupid".

Bears only eat one thing at a time.  They don't eat big elaborate meals consisting of several ingredients, they have small "meals" consisting solely of berries, or honey, or ants, or salmon...  So, for the Bear Diet, we'll focus on simplicity.

There can be one multi-ingredient meal per day (because cooking is the high point of human achievement, after all),** but the rest of one's food consumption during the day will consist of "foraging" portions of of whole foods (preferably unprocessed, but not necessarily uncooked - food poisoning is taking the "stupid" bit too far).

Eat a piece of fruit.  Then a little later eat a handful of almonds.  Theoretically, this would also apply to sources of protein - you'd just eat a serve of meat or fish.  That sounds a bit unpalatable to me, but it would certainly make it easier to recognise when you've had enough of that thing, and you should stop eating.

When eating at a restaurant, or in non-ursine company, you can make a point of ordering the dishes with the least number of ingredients, and try to eat your meal one food-group at a time.  When you have had enough of eating any one thing, stop eating it and don't go back to finish it.  Yes,  on several levels this is daft - and I suspect this would lead to eating a meal like my dog used to (eating all her favourite bits first, and then leaving the least favourite bits in the bowl if she's had enough).

Additionally, bears do that whole "eat significantly less over winter" thing, otherwise known as hibernating.  Now, humans can't actually hibernate, and malnutrition (like food poisoning) is a little bit too stupid, so to minimise the risk of potential hibernation-attempting death we'll spread the period of reduced caloric intake throughout the year.  For two days out of every week, go a bit hungry.

That sounds kind of like the 5-2 fasting diet, but we'll recommend putting those two days consecutively, rather than spreading them between days of normal eating.  And, just to liven things up a bit, as well as having two days of sparse food, we'll throw in one day of abundance.  It will be just like the wild, where some days you get a boon while other days you don't find much to eat.

So, in summary, the Bear Diet involves

• Having a diet consisting of 60-65% fresh fruit and vegetables, 30% protein from fish and small critters, and 5-10% red meat.
• Eating whole, mostly unprocessed foods, and eating one item at a time over the course of the day, with only one (or maybe two) multi-ingredient meal(s) a day.
• Altering the amount of food you eat over the course of the week to include two low-consumption days and one high-consumption day.

And all of this can go with an exercise plan that involves hiking in the woods (or at least walking on uneven ground).

The only trouble with inventing a cockamamie diet that could make millions is that I'd have to actually follow it myself.  You can't just say "Eat like a bear!  It will do wonders for your health!" while you're still eating like a 21st Century human.  It would be frowned upon, I think.

I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to get the "small critters" part working, as I suspect I should by rights be upping my consumption of snails and insects (my consumption of both of these being currently zero).  I may have to get a bit seafood dependant.

But it will all be worth it once I sell the diet plan, cook book and T-shirts.


*Our forefathers wished they ate the Paleo Diet, but our foremothers probably actually did eat like a bear.  
** Especially cake.  Any and all cockamamie diets endorsed by me shall allow cake.