Does a Paleo Diet Avoid Soy?

Hello! Welcome to Beyond Soy!

The Paleo diet has become popular over the last couple of years. It is based on the idea of eating the same foods that early (nomadic) humans would have eaten. In practical terms, this means eating a lot of plant and animal based foods (hunter-gatherer foods), and avoiding grains and other "cultivated foods". While we don't necessarily advocate for this diet specifically (for one, you'd have to give up tasty, tasty bread), a great byproduct of this way of eating is avoiding soy.

Since soy is usually found in the processed foods and food substitutes (here's looking at you margarine) that are outlawed in a Paleo diet, following a Paleo diet usually results in avoiding soy. (CAUTION: since the rules for a Paleo diet don't specifically mention soy, it is always a good idea to read the ingredients of everything to make sure it is soy-free.)

image via pixabay

Before we knew Ashley was soy intolerant, Ashley and I built our elimination diet around the paleo diet. We did a very strict Paleo diet for two weeks to eliminate all potential problem foods (gluten, soy, dairy, etc.) from what we were eating before adding the potential problem food types back in.

While this way of eating can make it pretty easy to avoid soy, we ultimately decided that the paleo diet isn't for us (again see the problem of giving up tasty, tasty bread). Even if you don't follow the Paleo diet exactly, Paleo recipes can be a great resource for finding soy-free meals since the Paleo diet is so well publicized. As a result, trying a Paleo diet can be a good option for testing out a soy-free lifestyle without needing to spend a lot of time ensuring each individual food you eat is soy-free.

For more information on Paleo diets, check out the following two websites:
Ultimate Paleo Guide
Balance Me Beautiful Paleo