Our Natural Diet

Lean Meats, Fruits, and Vegetables, and little else compose our natural, original diet. What about bread and milk, you ask? They didn't exist five hundred generations ago. It's not that long, really. Evolutionarily speaking, it's not long at all. In fact, we're virtually the same genetically as our pre-agricultural ancestors.

The agricultural revolution brought processed foods to our ancestors' diets. But along with bread, beans, and milk, it also brought chronic diseases that had not previously existed. These diseases, collectively known as Syndrome X, include obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol... As our modern diet resembles our original diet less and less, even children are developing these diseases.

Now, only five hundred generations since the time when everyone on the planet ate our natural diet, our diet is based on a nutritionally deficient food we must process to eat--grains (six to eleven servings recommended daily.) We must mill it, cook it, and fortify it with vitamins. Grains (and legumes and tubers) actually contain anti-nutrients, toxins that act as natural preservatives and pesticides. These anti-nutrients prevent our bodies from absorbing some nutrients, and are implicated in the development of autoimmune disorders.

Our ancestors consumed just over half of their calories from lean meats, and the rest from fresh fruits and vegetables. They also ate nuts and seeds, and some eggs and honey. Their diet was nutritionally far superior to our modern, grain-based diet. The movement of meats to the top of the food pyramid is largely responsible for the epidemic of obesity among Western people, because consumption of protein improves metabolism allowing us to burn calories more efficiently. Besides our lack of protein, our modern diet promotes obesity and other diseases through it's inclusion of dairy products, salted foods, and refined sugars.

I'll take this opportunity to send vegetarians to the following website.
Beyond Vegetarianism: http://www.beyondveg.com

For more information on dairy products, visit this site.
Strong Bones: http://www.strongbones.org

We've strayed a long way from our original diet, and we're only just beginning to realize our error in reasoning that we could process inedible foods to access their nutrients. Our reason is catching up to the instincts of our ancestors, so we can expect to see changes to the recommendations of nutritional authorities.

For more information on our original diet, visit these sites.
The Paleolithic Diet: http://www.paleodiet.com
Second Opinions: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk
Health and Beyond: http://chetday.com/lowcarbdiet.htm

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