Hillary Turner said when her family gave up dairy products, many of their digestive problems went away. And when they cut out grains, many more of their issues disappeared. That naturally led her, her parents, and four siblings to the paleo diet, which they have been faithfully following for the past year.
“Paleo,” which is short for the Paleolithic period of about 2.5 million years that ended about 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture, consists of a diet of meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruits and nuts.
“The idea is about using evolutionary thinking to become healthy, and thinking about what we are best adapted to eat,” she said.
Hillary said her family has progressed from a basic paleo diet to “Paleo 2.0,” where they are now choosing grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, raw nuts and organic foods.
She believes her family also feels better because they have eliminated “a ton of sugar from our diets. Once you eliminate the sugar, really common complaints and health problems that people have go away.”
This fall, Hillary, who completed three years at Missouri Western, started medical school at the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. She was admitted to KCUMB when she was a sophomore as part of a partnership program between Missouri Western and KCUMB.
The St. Joseph native said she chose Missouri Western because “I knew I had a good shot of getting into medical school if I came here. I knew they had a really solid biology and chemistry program.” She said that the university exceeded her expectations. “I was very impressed with all the programs, and the opportunities for independent research.”
Hillary said since her family went paleo, her grandparents have started on the plan, along with many of her friends and her friends’ families. She said she doesn’t push the diet on people, but just tries to provide them with information. One book she recommends is “The Paleo Answer,” by Loren Cordain.
“It’s great. All of us are feeling better than we ever have,” Hillary says.
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