THE PALEO DIET® MARKS 20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

The Paleo Diet is the most influential diet of the past two decades, accelerating related nutrition movements and the rise of food certification programs.

BOULDER, Colo., May 20, 2022  /PRNewswire/ -- Twenty years ago, after more than a decade of peer-reviewed, university research, Dr. Loren Cordain introduced the world to the benefits of eating a Paleolithic diet with the release of his New York Times best-selling guide to healthy nutrition, The Paleo Diet. By redefining what healthy eating means, Dr. Cordain accelerated numerous related nutrition movements like gluten free, grain free, low-carb, anti-inflammatory, auto-immune diets, and even helped spark movements like the Paleo Ketogenic diet. The Paleo Diet^® has inspired millions of people to closely examine where their food comes from, what it contains, and to be aware of the direct impact that food choices have on health. The Paleo Diet itself became a foundational part of healthy eating that is now supported by thousands of peer-reviewed research papers.

Dr. Cordain's team at The Paleo Diet, including his first and last graduate students, Dr. Mark J. Smith and Trevor Connor, M.S., is celebrating the 20-year anniversary of The Paleo Diet by reinventing the company that founded the most influential nutrition movement in America. The Paleo Diet Team has been busy in 2022 with a new brand identity, the introduction of two new food certification programs, a strategic brand licensing program, and many new downloadable guides including How to Go Paleo, the Official Paleo Grocery List, and the 7-Day Paleo Meal Plan. The company plans a reintroduction of The Paleo Diet to consumers in late 2022.

"After creating The Paleo Diet on the foundation of his research, Dr. Cordain has entrusted us to promote his science and to help people more easily practice eating for better health," said The Paleo Diet CEO Trevor Connor. "We are happy to celebrate our first 20 years, and we are thrilled to share the benefits of living a healthy Paleo lifestyle with more people in the coming years."

The Paleo Diet is a flexible way of eating that mimics the human evolutionary diet. This science-based diet includes foods that humans ate during our long evolution over millions of years: lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, natural meats, seafood, and some nuts and seeds. The program excludes foods adopted since the rise of agriculture about 12,000 years ago like dairy, grains, and legumes. Peer-reviewed nutrition science shows that many of today's food allergies, food sensitivities, autoimmune conditions, inflammatory responses, and widespread health conditions and diseases can be tied to a diet too heavy in non-Paleo foods because humans have not yet fully adapted to eating them.

The Paleo Diet raised the awareness of millions of consumers suffering from the unhealthy consequences of highly processed, unnatural diets. As shoppers began to examine where food comes from, how it is made, what it contains, and how foods make them feel, this renewed awareness of the connections between food and health primed the public for an explosion of food certifications and package labeling including:

• the rapid adoption of the USDA Organic program (released in late 2002)
• new food certifications like Non-GMO Project (founded in 2007)
• Gluten-free, grain-free, and celiac: Public awareness of celiac disease and gluten-free diets boomed in the years immediately following the publication of The Paleo Diet, growing to over $10 billion in revenue in the U.S. by 2013.
• Low-carb diets, popularized originally by the Atkins Diet in the 1970s, culminated with the peak of the ketogenic diet in 2019.

All these nutrition movements share some common ancestry with Dr. Cordain's Paleo Diet, which is gluten-free, grain-free, diary-free, legume free, anti-inflammatory, and generally lower in carbs than the typical Western diet.

With Dr. Cordain's retirement in 2019, Trevor Connor became CEO. Connor has assembled a team of experts to make The Paleo Diet even more accessible to anyone seeking help with healthy nutrition, including the introduction of a certification program for Paleo foods and a brand licensing program.

The Paleo Diet recently announced two new third-party verified food certification programs called TRUEPALEO™ and PaleoFLEX™. These new certifications distill decades of nutrition research by Dr. Cordain and his colleagues into two eye-catching certifications that identify foods as healthy, based on Paleolithic nutrition science. These industry-leading food certifications include criteria that carefully regulate GMO/bioengineered foods, organic production practices, environmental sustainability, animal welfare and feeding, and more.

"One of the easiest ways to help people make healthier food choices is to simply show them that the food has been scientifically verified as healthier," said Connor. "Seeing The Paleo Diet food certification on a product label will clearly identify foods that are better for you."

The Paleo Diet is working to make healthy eating easier in other ways, too. Dr. Mark J. Smith has developed new guidelines for how to practice The Paleo Diet based on nearly 30 years of nutrition coaching practice. These new guidelines offer a newcomer-friendly, stepping-stone approach to trying The Paleo Diet for the first time as well as easier-to-follow guides for those committed to The Paleo Diet. The company has also recently released many free, downloadable guides including How to Go Paleo, the Official Paleo Grocery List, and the 7-Day Paleo Meal Plan—all available from thepaleodiet.com.

To become a partner or for more information about The Paleo Diet Food Certification Program and Brand Licensing, please visit thepaleodiet.com/partnerships.

The Paleo Diet^® is a registered trademark of The Paleo Diet, LLC.

MEDIA CONTACT
Trevor Connor
Chief Executive Officer
The Paleo Diet | 1320 Pearl St., Ste 310 | Boulder, Colorado USA | (720) 350-4089

SOURCE The Paleo Diet LLC