8

CREATING A PRIMAL DIET FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY

This chapter is meant to be an aid to selecting foods for a modern primal diet, one that is suited to individual tastes, personality, and genetic background. These are guidelines for experimenting with diet. By studying reactions to various foods, one may create an optimal nutritional program. When medical problems are present or suspected, see a competent physician, preferably one familiar with the concepts presented in this book.

Effects of specific foods upon different conditions will be discussed in the next chapter. Particularly if any of these or other serious conditions exist, the services of a knowledgeable and understanding physician may be invaluable.

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF NUTRITIONAL IMBALANCE

The body’s needs constantly change, and an optimal diet is dynamic. To maintain balance, a sense of which foods are most needed now is required. Foods eaten at the last meal, and in the last day or two, strongly affect this. But there are longer cycles during which a need to emphasize certain foods may be experienced. Some cycles relate to seasonal availability of foods; others are internal and may last for a few days, months, or even years.

Several signals may be monitored as a guide in food selections. Difficult bowel movements with hard stools and straining may signal a need for better hydration and more fats and salt, raw vegetable salads, fermented vegetables, or cooked vegetables. Exercise—daily walks, jogging, running, resistance training, or vigorous exercise like tennis that is actually fun—aids regularity by stimulating both the intestines themselves and the consumption of more food. (Please see appendix 4 for more information on ways to enjoy exercise.) One reason traditional people took in large quantities of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients was that they led active lives, which included the playing of games. This required more food, which meant more nutrients.

Appearance of excessive mucous in the respiratory system—sinus or nasal congestion, postnasal drip, or early symptoms of a cold—is often a sign the body is reacting poorly to dairy products. Raw-milk products may cause these symptoms, too, when they are from grain-fed animals.

The skin is an organ of elimination and often is the first part of the body to reveal a nutritional imbalance. Abnormal redness of the skin—pimples, rashes, small blemishes—may result from eating sugar and sweets. Honey and other sweeteners, fruit juices, dried fruits, and even excessive amounts of fresh fruit may cause redness. The person eating no concentrated sweets for a time may have the quickest reaction when sweets are eaten—the body is well-balanced and immediately eliminates excesses.

Certain fruits may cause marked intestinal gas. Dried fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, and certain combinations of foods also often cause flatus, depending upon the amount eaten. Improperly prepared grains may similarly cause distress. Excessive gas, stomach or intestinal, is a sign the foods eaten have been improperly digested. When one eats correct proportions of properly prepared foods, digestion is smooth as silk.

BASIC FOOD GROUPS

I divide all foods into the following six groups, which inform us about what I call the Primal Principle:

1. Grass-fed animal foods and fats. This group includes wild fish, shellfish, and fish eggs; grass-fed meat, organs, bones, fat, and broth; pastured fowl and eggs; raw milk, yogurt, kefir, cheese, butter, lard, and ghee.
2. Salad greens, raw and cooked green and other vegetables, fermented vegetables, sprouts, fruits, and sea vegetables. These include lettuces and other leafy greens palatable raw in salads, parsley, celery, and sprouts. Cooked green vegetables include kale, broccoli, green beans, brussel sprouts, and others. Additional vegetables include carrots and cauliflower, both healthy and palatable whether raw or cooked. A wide variety of fruits eaten in moderation are both tasty and healthful. Sea vegetables include dulse, kelp, nori, and others. Fermented vegetables are wonderful traditional foods as well.
3. Properly prepared whole grains and foods made from whole grains, nuts, seeds, and beans. The key to a healthy use of these foods is proper preparation (typically involving soaking) and moderation. These foods may be part of a healthy diet, but they are not for all people at all times.
4. Healthy oils and vinegars, spices and seasonings, and alcoholic and other fermented beverages. One hundred percent extra-virgin olive oil and cold-pressed coconut oil are essential in daily food preparation. Other healthy and beneficial oils to use in moderation include macadamia nut, avocado, sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin oils. Raw apple cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar may be used in salad dressings. Sea salt—I prefer Celtic salt—may be used to taste. Freshly ground black pepper and other spices enhance the flavor of many foods. Wine is a traditional drink that enhances appetite and the flavor of food and is enjoyed the world over in its own right. Beer too may be enjoyable and generally presents no problems, though beer is grain-based and those avoiding grains may wish to avoid it. But handcrafted unpasteurized microbrew beers are a healthy complement to kombucha and other fermented beverages when used in moderation. There is an old question: “Do you eat to live, or live to eat?” The items in this fourth group quite simply help make the answer to that question a resounding “Both!”
5. Special foods, vitamins, minerals, and food supplements. This group will have its own chapter later in the book. Suffice it to say for now that when carefully selected for individual needs, these items may complement even the best primal diets to aid recovery from health problems, build optimal health, and enhance longevity. Examples relevant for most people include carefully crafted cod-liver oil, krill oil, organ and gland supplements, iodine supplements, and nutrient formulas that help protect vision and memory as we inevitably age. Other people may benefit from supplements that help to correct dietary deficiencies or deal with environmental stresses.
6. Everything else (refined and manufactured foods, particularly sugar and white flour). Foods not included in the above five groups are not natural foods and are, for the most part, best avoided. The degree to which one can tolerate their occasional use depends on the state of health of the individual. Recovery from most medical problems is greatly enhanced when “everything else” is studiously avoided. Sugar in particular is highly addictive and indeed poison for many people when even the smallest amounts lead to overconsumption, a common occurrence.

THE PRIMAL PRINCIPLES

1. Foods in groups 1 and 2 are the most primal, fundamental, basic foods, essential for prevention, healing, and recovery from disease. That is the most important sentence in this book. Most of your diet should consist of foods in groups 1 and 2.
2. Use the foods in groups 3 and 4 in moderation.
3. Take advantage of modern wisdom about primal diets and health to help correct medical problems and achieve optimal health by utilizing the items in group 5.
4. Avoid the foods in group 6 like the plague.

CONSIDERATIONS OF PROPORTION, FLEXIBILITY, AND HABITUATION

The proportions of different foods most appropriate for each person vary from individual to individual, depending on one’s genes, state of health, stage of life, tastes and inclinations, and health goals. Those ideal proportions will change as you go through life. I believe that by following the framework outlined in this chapter, you will find your way to utilizing the best proportions of the food you ingest. It helps to have an experienced guide, a mentor if you will. He or she might even be a physician. The word doctor is, after all, the Latin word for “teacher.”

The critical fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K₂, essential for immunity and mineral metabolism, are found together only in certain seafood (especially fish eggs, fish liver, fish-liver oils, fish heads, and shellfish), in meat and dairy fats from grass-fed animals (especially the organs), and eggs. These are the foods that Weston Price found richly supplied in the diets of immune groups. For raw-food nutrients, raw milk, butter, fresh raw greens and sprouts should be emphasized, especially if little raw meat and fish is consumed.

An example of a balanced regimen would be one-third animal food (fish and shellfish, meat and broth, organs, eggs, raw milk, kefir, yogurt, butter, and cheese); one-third raw salad greens and sprouts; and one-third mostly other vegetables and fruits, with some foods from groups 3 and 4. Cooked vegetable consumption increases in winter as raw vegetable consumption decreases. In late spring, summer, and early fall more fruit is consumed; consumption of grains may at such times decrease and even approach zero. Raw vegetable consumption too goes up in summer, when animal foods are usually eaten more infrequently. Again, these proportions may vary widely according to individual needs at different times and stages of life—but the principles apply to all of us throughout life.

I have spent weeks on the coast of Washington eating only salad and salmon—more than two pounds of the latter a day, cooked lightly with lots of butter. During my vegetarian days, late one Kansas summer, I ate little but muskmelons and watermelons for two weeks. Cross-country drives in younger times were spent eating brown rice, raw greens, and canned sardines for days at a time. The earth provides a wide variety of foods that will sustain us, at least for a while, though I certainly am not recommending any such regimens.

I’ve also fasted for up to seven days on springwater, though most uncomfortably. Literature about fasting describes how after a day or two, hunger disappears, and as cleansing proceeds, one does not experience hunger pangs until fat reserves are depleted and true hunger returns. Alas, by the third day, I experienced what felt like the excruciating pangs of advanced starvation. Seven days was eternity; the fast ended. That was many years ago; brief fasts of one or two days have since provided sufficient cleansing. (Fasting may cleanse, but it does not heal. Eating the right foods does.)

These are examples of variance; obviously none exemplifies a balanced diet. Balance in diet is best achieved by seeing one’s body and one’s health in the long term, while sensing how your needs may vary from day to day. Flexibility is essential. When principles are understood, nutrition may be approached in a creative way. People often complain they become tired of simple foods eaten daily and yearn for the variety of refined and prepared foods. But once one acquires a taste for whole and natural food (and it is an acquisition for those of us who grew up on refined foods), they never are boring or tiring when the primal principles embodied in our six food groups are carefully followed.

Experiences of Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson illustrate this point. Despite adherence to medical advice of the early 1900s about the prevention of scurvy, expeditions of early Arctic and Antarctic explorers suffered severely from the disease. Stefansson’s expeditions were a notable exception. Rather than carrying fruits and vegetables, lime juice, and other provisions of a “balanced diet,” he and his men lived much as Arctic Eskimos did, eating nothing but seal and some polar bear meat for months, much of it raw and the rest lightly cooked. Eighty percent of the diet was fat. They got no scurvy. The little vitamin C in raw meat and fish, normally destroyed in cooking, provided adequate protection from the disease.

Stefansson found his men always became accustomed to the all-meat diet and eventually enjoyed it. The first week was difficult; some men ate little or nothing. Gradually they ate more until soon they were eating heartily, though with many complaints. Stefansson guessed that if sometime during the first three months they had suddenly been rescued from the seal meat and given a diet of varied foods, most would have sworn never to taste seal again. If it had been three or four months, a man may or may not have been willing to go back to seal again. But if the period had been six months or more, Stefansson claimed, none would have been unwilling to go back to the all-meat diet. (Please see appendix 1 for more on Stefansson and the all-meat diet.)

This is consistent with the experience of many people I have introduced to simple natural-food diets. There may be considerable discomfort initially, followed by a period of grudging acquiescence. But if the individual stays with the diet for three to six months, he or she usually will never go back to refined foods. I have found that the key to success is that the diet contains adequate fats, as occurs when the primal principles are carefully followed.

NUTRITION DURING PREGNANCY

A remarkable discovery of Weston Price’s was that in cultures where little or no dental decay was found, physical abnormalities of any kind were almost nonexistent in children. Wisdom about special foods and spacing the birth of children by at least three years are the two factors most responsible for this.

This traditional wisdom about spacing childbirth is sound. Many psychologists believe that such spacing is also ideal for the emotional development of older siblings forced to compete at too early an age for the time and attention of the parents when siblings are born too soon after their own birth.

For at least six months before conception, the optimal nutritional program described earlier in this chapter should be followed. Most women particularly should place an emphasis on the foods in group 1. Iodine-rich sea vegetables such as dulse or kelp enhance fertility in women and an optimal development of the fetus. Their use as well by the prospective father before conception should ensure maximum viability of sperm and minimize chances of birth defects. During pregnancy (and lactation), a rich source of calcium such as raw milk or other quality dairy foods is important, particularly during the last trimester. Careful selection of special foods and food supplements in group 5 enhances fertility and helps ensure a healthy pregnancy. The diet itself should include foods such as organ meats, butter, egg yolks, fish eggs, raw milk, and cod-liver oil.

For more details, see the outstanding pregnancy diet section of the website of the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.westonaprice.org). Sally Fallon Morell’s book Nourishing Traditions is also a wonderful resource on pregnancy and motherhood, as is Weston Price’s work, and diets that follow the principles he discovered.

During pregnancy, exercise such as gardening, walking (or doubles tennis for a woman accustomed to it) continued on a regular, daily basis enables a fair volume of food to be eaten without exorbitant weight gain. Such volume and lots of animal fats should ensure freedom from the constipation that troubles many pregnancies. Avoidance of sugar and consumption of only the smallest amounts of alcohol and white flour—empty calories—further promotes the consumption of adequate animal foods and vegetables.

Price’s evidence that such a program produces maximally healthy and well-developed babies is overwhelming. Women following such a program of diet and exercise have, in my experience, invariably had healthy pregnancies, births, and babies.

Many of the same foods emphasized immediately prior to conception and during pregnancy and lactation are especially important when treating disease through the utilization of food. These and other considerations important in treating specific conditions are discussed in the next chapter, as we continue to define how each individual may best select foods most suited to them.