Personally I find most people (paleohackers and athletes excluded) only supplement because they feel bad... hence the need for whole aisles at Vitamin Shoppes directed towards "Colon Health" and "Energy". PH'ers only supplement when needed. The vitamin/supplement industry would take a massive hit due to the lack of people needing sleep aids, energy drinks and pills, and not having cafo dairy to procure protein supplements, would no longer get the massive margins on selling/marketing a protein powder that costs fractions of a penny to produce.

What would I like to see? A government that isn't involved in our food sources, farmers not being motivated to grow anything besides what the market dictates and what the need is. Food safety taken care of by advocacy groups like UL or an organization similar, where the producer has to pay to receive a certification perhaps... with watchdog groups on all sides keeping everyone honest.

A government that isn't in the business of "health" and minds it's own effing business - doesn't give us a bogus food pyramid or attempt to sell us on the latest CW, based on lobbyists and state reps that need the agricultural business. A government that doesn't hand over our healthcare interests to the ones that sh*t in the bed and got us into this mess in the first place (insurance and pharma).

A world where soy is grown abundantly, and only used for biofuel.

A world where food technology is spent using combinations of soil, hydroponics, and technique (crop rotation, soil/water/nitrogen nutritive analysis) to make our plant food sources even more nutritive without pesticides/fungicides/etc., not just easier to transport.

A world where sustainable hunting is maintained through open re-breeding/re-stocking, instead of just shortening the hunting seasons when reproduction is down, measures should be taken to re-stock meat game (similar to fish restocking in lakes and streams), by re-introducing farmed game back into the wild during reproductive seasons.

A return to "open ranging" lifestock raising (ala Early Scotland and Early US/Mexico sheep/cattle driving) where more animals can be sustained without destroying the environment. Where this isn't possible, improved research and efforts towards optimizing cattle field rotations with other livestock to allow better grass and more variety in meats.

Most important to this locavore - a return to a "local market" economy. I'd give up my Hass avocados to have better access to the food grown locally that isn't a local speciality like oranges or strawberries (Florida here).

Sorry this is kinda long, with a Hippy/Libertarian bent, but hey - I've given this question thought before...

Seriously? Okay, not seriously but still. Forget about shortages of grassfed beef, ALL beef would be snatched up and I'm not sure everyone would get any. Eggs, poultry, produce--everything would be cleaned out since the current supply chain assume most people are eating SAD.

That doesn't even consider the fact that most restaurants would have to re-tool immediately and many would still go bankrupt due to difficulty obtaining paleo ingredients, having the wrong food prep equipment, employees with obsolete training, etc., etc., etc.

Fortunately, even if ancestral eating continues to grow in popularity the transition should be slow enough to avoid the total collapse of our civilization.

it would be harder to eat bacon since all the pigs would be FLYING!

Monsanto, Big Pharma, and Mitt Romney would send out ninja squads to silence all Paleo bloggers and Gurus. Don't underestimate human greed and the propensity to pick money over morality by a lot of these assholes!

only kind of kidding... ;)

I think that big industry would turn on a dime if such things actually passed, and within a few months you'd see every CAFO turned into pasture land. Then, all the special interest and kickbacks would come in to take a slice, mostly politicians, and all sorts of laws and subsidies would be passed. Then, the corruption would set in, and you'll see things like GMO faster growing grass and all sorts of other cruft.

Whenever there's any new law, the corporate lawyers get together with the C-level execs to figure out all the loopholes to take advantage of -- that is if they weren't the ones to put the loopholes in the first place so as to kill their competition and get advantages for themselves.

It'll never get there since the lobbyists that big Pharma, big Agra and the GMO pushers would prevent the politicians from doing this.

What's needed is a pro-consumer protection lobby company that has more money than the big corporations, but sadly, the SAD eaters are easily swayed by commercials, flavored crap in a box that lasts on a shelf for years, and low costs. MSM isn't going to help here, because they're the ones running the advertisements for these industries, so they've a vested interest to not expose the health damage that crap in a box cause.

The thing is the only way to support a vast population is through a carbohydrate based diet... lots of grain. The whole country could not go Paleo, it would be impossible. There would not be enough "Paleo" food to go around.

Think about the decline of the medical-industrial complex. America would get enough of their health-care dollar back to pay for the increased prices on meat! Many, many fewer kids would be diagnosed with ADHD and hyperactivity once we got them on an even keel nutritionally. America's vast mental health problem would be greatly improved. We'd regain our lost cooking and gardening skills. Imagine the resurgence in the variety of produce available! When people start eating more veggies, they'll want greater variety and better flavor and texture in supermarket veggies and fruits. Big plus for all of us. Regional food systems would come back on line.

But it wouldn't all be positive, folks.

At first, the prices on paleo ingredients would skyrocket due to increased demand. Prices would come down somewhat over time, but not back to previous levels. Once business owners get used to fat profits, they're loath to give them up. Think about what increased coconut production would do to tropical rainforests. We'd soon find paleo foods being marketed to death, with increasing levels of processing sold to the public as still being paleo. The public, of course, would buy it. Companies with vast reserves of seed oils sitting in tanks would come out with studies on how this oil or that grain really isn't bad for you, and people would believe them. Laws and regulations concerning national health initiatives would be slow to change, especially things like the national school lunch program. We'd soon find corporate interests chipping away at the country's new lifestyle via marketing and behind the scenes legal and judicial maneuvers.

Even if the whole country went paleo tomorrow, it would still be an epic battle to keep the nation paleo.

Fantasy is fun....but I see alien landings and them passing on their technology so that we have the perfect food source gel that is both nutritious and tasty happening first.

my naturopathic doctor is not paleo friendly.

absolutly nothing bad would happen. the money we save on health care could pay the retirement benefits. its better than falling over dead at age 67 after all half do that today and never see a dime. the grain would find its way into fuels. as the demand for fuel increases all beef will be grain free by next year anyway.

Zombie Apocolypse, obviously.

There would be a lot less disease and obesity, but aslo probably less population and corn, soy, and wheat farmers might lose their livelihoods

I would like to see a decrease in obesity worldwide and no more "first world" diseases such as diabetes.

Healthy eating would grow GNP in size and in rate of increase. More productive people, less waste. Tax revenues would increase accordingly. As to "Big Business", it depends on which big business.