PART 1

AN ANCESTRY OF PRIMAL NUTRITION

Diets of Traditional Societies and a Legacy of Health

Every popular diet book presents different theories and opinions about the food we eat. What should we eat and how much? What are the effects of cooked and raw vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish, cholesterol, fats and oils, eggs, dairy foods, and grains? Is sugar really harmful? What about refined flour? Which “experts” are right—those who say cholesterol is killing us, or those who tell us it is not the real culprit in heart disease? And which foods help prevent chronic disease? Which foods will enable us to enjoy the robust good health we sense has been partly lost to modern living and a modern diet?

These questions have no simple answers. My approach is to seek answers by first asking several other relevant and related questions: What was the health of people in traditional and so-called primitive cultures existing into the early twentieth century—people eating only traditional natural food? What about the health of isolated cultures that still survive, and the health of the few remaining hunter-gatherers living and eating primitively today?

If the health of such people is superior to ours, could this be directly related to their diet? If so, which foods did and do such people eat? What differences exist between their food and modern food? How do their vegetables, grains, meats, dairy products, fish, and fruits differ from ours? And do the differences help explain the existence of our modern diseases—diseases that anthropologists and researchers agree by and large did not exist in traditional cultures?

Might the concept of “sacred food,” common in so many native cultures, provide important clues about what kinds of food are most important in maintaining physical and spiritual health? What about the effect of traditional, primal foods—seafood, for example—on people with chronic diseases? What evidence has been published in the medical literature? (Plenty, as we’ll see.)

Although people of our modern world may appear jovial despite poor health, this is often a mask used in attempting to hide underlying unhappiness or denial of the fact that a problem exists. Others who are very ill truly do adapt, and lead emotionally fulfilling lives in the face of great pain and suffering. Perhaps they think one must accept one’s lot in life, that they have no alternative. But such an attitude sadly relegates to fate a small part of the world you may control—your own body.

As we seek to understand what aspects of our health we can control and what aspects we cannot, we will, in this first part of Primal Nutrition, review the historical, anthropological, and evolutionary aspects of traditional primal foods. We will also detail the current and historical research into the health effects of these foods, and discuss my clinical experience relating to the use of these foods in the treatment of acute and chronic diseases.

Good health is your birthright and if you do not presently enjoy it, there is no better time than the present to set that aright.