Snacks: ½ orange, ¾ cup carrots, 1 cup celery.

With so many vegetables and fruits, the diet does contain plenty of fiber and most essential vitamins and minerals. Despite a few serious nutritional deficiencies like calcium and vitamin D from the lack of dairy foods spurned by Paleo enthusiasts, it sounds healthy enough, as long as your kidneys can handle so much protein.

But is it practical? How many people trying to get the kids off to school in the morning and themselves ready for work will take the time to broil salmon? What will they do when they dine out, especially in someone else’s home? And most important of all, can they stay on the diet indefinitely and live happily without a piece of bread, cracker or, heaven forfend, a serving of ice cream?

And not all Paleolithic diets are equally nourishing. Those who choose the ancestors of the Inuits as their guide would be eating mostly meats and seafood and few if any fruits and vegetables, which grow poorly in the Arctic. As Marlene Zuk, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota and author of “Paleofantasy,” told Nutrition Action three years ago, the fact that people like the Inuits can adapt to a diet with little plant food “doesn’t mean they should live that way if they have a choice.”

I also wonder whether Paleo diners faced with currently available choices will stick to lean animal foods (grass-fed meats, skinless poultry, etc.), or would they be tempted to choose more succulent, fattier, more caloric cuts like brisket, burgers and pork ribs. Even worse, they might select processed meats like bacon (allowed on some Paleo diet lists) and sausages that have been linked to an increased risk of cancer and heart disease. Would they succumb to using butter and salt to enhance the flavor of steamed vegetables?

As I see it, a Mediterranean-style diet, now promoted by most dietitians and researchers who study the effects of what we eat, is far easier to incorporate into modern lives with minimal risk to lasting health. It is also better balanced nutritionally and a whole lot tastier.

The Mediterranean diet features only small portions of animal foods and depends more on plant proteins like beans and peas. It includes olive oil and other monounsaturated fats. It is more varied, less expensive, less taxing on the environment, and easier to fit into the demands of life as it is lived today.

Several short-term studies among small groups of people (often with no control groups) suggest that the Paleo diet is more effective than the Mediterranean approach at promoting weight loss and reducing risk factors for Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. Still, my vote goes for the more flexible and far more thoroughly researched Mediterranean diet.