An Etymological Defense of 'Paleo'

'Paleo' has become a word. That much everyone can agree on.

It all went awry when it became a brand-philosophy. Suddenly, you had 'Ancestral'(?) thought leaders drawing arbitrary lines in the sands of progress. The movement that I had come to recognize as a loosely cohesive, diverse, and burgeoning discipline that was going to shed light on the true nature of our species and do the hard work of interpreting possible or even optimal manifestations of that truth, suddenly became a colleague-bashing, factional display of ego. There were all these people who wanted to interpret evolution in healthy debate about health -- yes, this is important -- but not wanting to participate in a cult brand or pseudo-philosophy.

So some of them disparage the word, avoid the word altogether, or even smite the logic of the word, all without offering a linguistic alternative. I'm not really here to judge the way that unfolded. I'm here to defend the simple use of the term 'paleo'. Not the brand, just the useful manipulation of an element of language.

Whether paleo-ancestral-primal-archevore-evolutionary-etc., the word 'paleo' has become a part of my vocabulary, and it will stay that way for one reason: it's useful.

When I look at my girlfriend and ask, "Is this paleo?" She knows exactly what I mean. I don't need to go into the intricacies of ratios and toxins and cooking methods and packaging. She knows exactly what I mean, and it has little to do with Cordain's Paleo Diet.

When I ask, "Is this paleo?" what I mean is, "Is this food natural to the human diet in evolutionary terms and healthful according to the general standards of ancestral health experts?"

There really is no other word that can accomplish that. It is a word rife with meaning and subtlety and complexity -- dare I say beauty -- and cannot be replaced. It has become the cutting edge of health language. The words before it, words like "organic" and "whole" and "natural" have been rendered obsolete in my eyes, because they have been captured in a word's simple evolutionary perspective. Phrases like 'all-natural feedlot beef' and 'organic whole wheat pasta' are an ancient useless language.

'Paleo' is a word that emerged from the ashes of ideological fragmentation, stronger and more comprehensive than before, and should be regarded as such.