Since June 2012 I have been cooking, creating and eating clean. My parents and brother introduced me to this new lifestyle. How grateful I am that they did! Paleo is about SO much more than "dieting". It's about health. It's about eating whole, clean, good foods that our bodies were designed for. It's about eating to LIVE so that our bodies perform to their optimal ability. It's about clearing our systems of toxicity that has come from years of bad habits and malnutrition. Our ancestry gives us the best clues about what we should eat. I promise you this ... there were no boxed goods, packages or preservatives in the beginning. There were no drive-throughs and no canned goods. There weren't pantries or cabinets with which to store food items for weeks, months or even years. Our ancestors of long ago, and even not-so-long ago (think back a couple of generations to great-grandparents gardening and having family farms) ate FRESH, WHOLE foods. They fished and they hunted. They raised a lot of what they ate with hard work and TLC. They harvested fresh vegetables and shared with everyone they knew. They picked fruits, berries and nuts when the time was right. They did all this because there weren't many choices. And they were healthier ... much healthier than we are today. Today we have WAY too many choices.