What If It’s All a Big Conspiracy?

So conventional wisdom tells us that saturated fat is bad for us. We must only consume low-fat foods. We must eat 6 – 11 servings of healthy wholegrains every day. We must cook in healthy vegetable oils. We should avoid eating meat (especially red), especially on meatless Mondays. We should replace meat with soy instead. We need to make sure we have low cholesterol. We should take preventative statins.

And so what happens?

We eat processed low fat, high carb foods. The grain and junk food companies retain the power. They fund studies and lobby governments. We’re reminded to eat more of their products for the good of our health.

We get sick, but luckily there’s a drug to help us with that. It gives us side effects, but luckily there’s a drug to help us with that. It gives us side effects, but luckily there’s a drug to help us with that. The drug companies make lots of money and retain a lot of power. They fund studies and lobby governments. We’re reminded to take their drugs to save our ailing health.

Conventional Wisdom and Paleo: Time to Rethink the Narrative?

Let’s be honest – it’s hard not to feel a little suspicious when you start looking closely at what “conventional wisdom” tells us about health. Eat your fortified cereal. Avoid red meat. Swap butter for margarine. Take your statins. Count calories. Avoid saturated fat. And – whatever you do – make sure to never skip breakfast. This advice has been drilled into us for decades, often by government guidelines, food marketers, and even well-meaning professionals. But what if much of it is based on flawed science, outdated thinking, or worse – economic interests?

When you begin exploring the Paleo lifestyle, the cracks in mainstream health messaging start to show. Suddenly, it’s not so outrageous to ask: what if the real conspiracy is that we’ve been steered away from the very foods that keep us well?

The Rise of Conventional Dietary Advice: Where Did It Come From?

Most of what we think of as “conventional wisdom” around food was cemented during the second half of the 20th century. The now-infamous “lipid hypothesis” – which linked dietary saturated fat to heart disease – gained traction after Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study. This cherry-picked data, combined with heavy lobbying from grain and vegetable oil industries, led to decades of anti-fat messaging.

As a result, government guidelines shifted to promote:

• Low-fat, high-carb diets
• Grain-based meals as the foundation of a “healthy diet”
• Vegetable oils as the new “heart healthy” alternative to traditional fats like butter, ghee, or lard
• Processed, fortified foods as a solution to “nutrient gaps” caused by these very dietary shifts

And with that, an entire food system emerged – one reliant on low-cost grains, industrial processing, mass production, and global distribution. It’s convenient. It’s profitable. But is it really making us healthier?

Is It a Conspiracy – or Just a Convenient Coincidence?

Let’s be clear: not every misguided food guideline or pharmaceutical push is the result of a shadowy backroom deal. But when you follow the money, patterns emerge:

• Grain subsidies keep processed food cheap, while fresh whole foods often cost more.
• Food corporations fund nutrition research – and unsurprisingly, results tend to support their products.
• Pharmaceutical companies earn billions from managing lifestyle diseases, not preventing them.
• Lobbying groups influence dietary recommendations, school lunch policies, and labelling laws.

It’s not hard to imagine a system where maintaining the status quo benefits those in power. In fact, the idea that animal fat and cholesterol were bad for us allowed processed food companies to step in with low-fat alternatives filled with sugar, starch, gums, and industrial seed oils – all perfectly legal, highly profitable, and backed by slick marketing.

The Paleo Response: Going Back to What Works

While modern nutrition advice has often shifted like the wind, Paleo remains rooted in one core principle: eat the foods your body is biologically adapted to thrive on. That means:

• Pasture-raised meat and organs
• Wild-caught seafood
• Seasonal vegetables and fruits
• Natural fats like tallow, ghee, avocado, and olive oil
• Fermented foods and nutrient-rich broths

This isn’t a trend – it’s a return to ancestral eating patterns that supported human health for hundreds of thousands of years before breakfast cereals, margarine, and soy-based meat substitutes entered the chat.

The Soy Swap: Health Food or Industrial Filler?

One of the more telling signs that conventional dietary advice might be working against us is the rise of soy. Marketed as a “healthier” plant-based protein, soy has become a mainstay in everything from faux meat to baby formula. But here’s what most people don’t hear:

• Soy is one of the most genetically modified crops globally
• It’s often heavily sprayed with glyphosate and other chemicals
• Unfermented soy contains phytoestrogens that may disrupt hormonal balance
• It’s commonly used as a filler or cheap protein replacement in processed food

In the context of Paleo, soy is out. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary blueprint, and it’s rarely eaten in traditional societies unless it’s been fermented for long periods (like in miso or natto). Yet soy continues to be championed by mainstream nutrition messaging. Why? Because it’s cheap to grow, easy to process, and profitable.

The Statin Story: Are We Solving the Wrong Problem?

Another cornerstone of modern conventional wisdom is the idea that we need to lower our cholesterol – often with statin medications. The assumption is that high LDL equals high risk of heart disease. But the research is far more nuanced than that.

Cholesterol is essential to human life. It’s the building block of:

• Hormones
• Brain function
• Vitamin D
• Cell membranes

Instead of demonising cholesterol, the Paleo approach looks at context. Inflammation, insulin resistance, and oxidised LDL may be far more significant factors in heart disease risk than cholesterol numbers alone. And once again, a real food, low-inflammation diet – like Paleo – may do more to support heart health than any pill ever could.

So, Is It Really a Conspiracy?

Whether you believe the system is actively conspiring or simply benefiting from our continued sickness, one thing is clear: mainstream dietary advice hasn’t made us healthier. Rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, infertility, and mental health struggles have all exploded in the same decades that we were told to eat more grains, less fat, and replace butter with margarine.

The Paleo message doesn’t require a tinfoil hat. It just asks us to look at the results. What’s more trustworthy: advice that’s left generations overweight and undernourished, or the simple idea that our bodies thrive on the same foods that fuelled our ancestors?

How to Break Free from the Conventional Narrative

So, if you’re starting to question the mainstream message – welcome. Here are a few ways to begin reclaiming your health, one choice at a time:

• Question the source. Always ask who’s funding the study or writing the guidelines. Is there a vested interest involved?
• Eat real food. If it doesn’t come from a farm, forest, or the sea – think twice before putting it in your trolley.
• Learn from traditional cultures. Look at diets that sustained health across generations, without access to modern medicine.
• Listen to your body. The best nutrition advice comes from your own energy, mood, sleep, digestion, and wellbeing.
• Connect with others. Join Paleo Meetups, read widely, and share ideas with people who value real food over marketing hype.

Final Thoughts: You’re Allowed to Ask “What If?”

The beauty of the Paleo lifestyle is that it puts power back into your hands. It encourages you to question, to observe, and to choose based on evidence and lived experience – not marketing campaigns or decades-old dogma.

So yes – what if it is all a big conspiracy? What if we’ve been sold a low-fat, high-carb, soy-filled, statin-dependent lie? And what if the way out isn’t complicated, expensive, or extreme – but simply a return to the way humans have always eaten?

Have you had an “aha” moment that made you question the mainstream narrative? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below. The more we share, the more we empower each other to think critically, eat better, and live more vibrantly.