Hello Carl,
No, you can't, not even a Schottky. That would require dropping the uC clock too much to allow for a deep enough battery depletion. The usual tricks are to split up VCC and run 'naturally protected stuff' such as LED directly so the heavy current hitters are taken care of. The (hopefully low current) remainder gets the resistor and diode to GND treatment. This will deplete a battery when it's left in the wrong way but that's a small price compared to a fried unit. As long as nothing gets hot and the electronics can stomach the reverse that the diode allows. Fuses are usually a no-go because that's nowadays considered a field failure by the discerning consumer.
Regards, Joerg