The #1 Diet Lesson
The Most Important Diet Lesson to Learn for a Lean Body and Disease Prevention
What are you so overwhelmed when it comes to losing weight? Psychology research has shown that willpower isn’t enough—we need to make behavior change permanent. You are about to view nutrition in a new way. No longer will you be confused about proteins, carbs, fat, raw foods and low-whatever.
I will warn you though, this is very BIG PICTURE thinking, and it helps explain a lot about the human body when you think about things this way. I am talking about ARCHAEOLOGY – and anthropology!
You see, the human body has evolved through million years of food, exercise, environment and more. Healthy or not, your body has adapted – according to archaeological records.
If you study evidence about what our ancestors ate, it gives obvious clues about how the human digestive system evolved and what are the healthiest foods for us to eat in today’s world. This might help us to understand why our bodies don’t digest the new chemicals and food types that lead to so many modern day health problems. Can you imagine a native adding artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup or canola oil to their fresh grub?
Despite what extreme vegans, raw foodists and other proponents of dieters who eliminate entire selections of food from the human diet say, we have very capable bodies that include a digestive system that has survived years of change to very effectively digest both plants and foods, both raw and cooked.
This is quite a hot debate: meat vs. vegan. Or, the heat is on over cooked vs raw food. But get this fact straight: our current species in almost every culture around the world, ate at least some % of plant-animal food combination and raw food / cooked food combination. This is true even when historical ancestors ate at different times of the day or of the year.
Some cultures, such as the Inuit of the arctic and several tribes in Africa, thrived in stellar health on almost an entirely animal-based diet, and other cultures around the world thrived on almost an entirely plant-based diet… But all cultures generally had some mixture of plant and animal foods, even if the amount of animal food was small in some cultures, or the amount of plant food was small in other cultures.
Get this: there is no real evidence of societies thriving on 100% raw food diets.
Now, let me address the claim that animals eat 100% raw food, but we as humans are the only species that eats cooked food.
Duh….we can control fire! We really are geniuses that way! And since we’ve been cooking a portion of our foods for the entire existence of our species (200,000 years) as well as our ancestors back several million years, our digestive systems have adapted to eating a portion of our food cooked.
This also explains why some acrylamides are more harmful to animals than humans. Our digestive system has adapted to a partial cooked diet over thousands of years we’ve been on this planet, while animals have never historically adapted to a cooked food diet, and therefore, are more sensitive to acrylamides.
If you’ve never heard of acrylamides, these are carcinogenic compounds that form on outside of foods when cooked (browning on baked goods, deep fat
fried browning or charring on vegetables or meat over a flame). This is potentially dangerous to both humans and animals. However, using spices, cooking in water and adding antioxidant herbs will helps reduce the danger of acrylamides.
Here is your #1 lesson about nutrition… we were designed through evolution to eat a mixture of both plants and animals, as well as cooked and raw foods…
But let’s clarify about what type of omnivorous diet we should be eating: we were NEVER meant to eat is factory-farm raised animals, or eggs or milk from factory-farm raised animals. The products that come from factory farming have never been meant to be a part of the human diet. Why such a harsh claim? Because factory farming raises animals vastly different – chemically and nutritionally – then the way nature intended. Animals were meant to live and eat outside and in natural conditions.
Which is why you can clearly see and taste the difference in grass fed meat, free range chickens and wild fish versus the low nutrition profiles of factory farm met, factory eggs and farmed fish, etc. Nutritionally, the difference is in vitamins and minerals, omega-3s and omega-6s, as well as health fats – and so much more.
Although I point out that many historical cultures around the world thrived on vastly different percentages of animal products vs plant products in their diet, here is another type of food that we were NEVER meant to eat:
PROCESSED FOOD
Yes, I know it hurts to hear it, none of these were meant to be part of the human diet:
- Cakes
- Cookies
- Crackers
- Microwaved meals
- Chips
- Sodas
- Granola bars
- Sugary sports drinks or energy drinks,
This gets back to what I always say about trying to include as many “1-ingredient” foods as you can in your diet if you want to eat like we were meant to eat.
I might as well come out and say it: grain-based foods should probably be minimal in our diet, as well.
I know this is another controversial subject, but agriculture is also a relatively new
phenomenon in the big picture of the human diet when you expand far back in history a couple of million years. The mass production of grains through agriculture is only a few thousand years old… Compare that to our ancestors historical existence as hunter-gatherers as far back as a couple of million years, and our current species (homo sapiens) 200,000-year history as hunter-gatherers.
If you think about it, as hunter-gatherers, we would have had very limited access to grains, and they would have encompassed a very small % of our historical calorie intake, since they weren’t mass produced and processed.
By the way, one ingredient foods are a simple and nutritious way to live:
- Healthy meats
- Eggs
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Beans
- Fruits
- Veggies
I really love the simplicity of it all!
It also makes you think about how ridiculously wrong our “food pyramid” really is, which promotes the bulk of our food to be eaten from grains. Here is Barton Publishing’s lean, healthy food platter to follow that combines raw and cooked food – and our ancestors would approve!
A couple final thoughts on how to fit these suggestions into your healthy eating plan:
1. Try to become a “locavore” as much as possible… if you can get local farm-fresh produce, that is the most environmentally and socially responsible, as well as healthy way to get your produce. Research if you have farmers markets and farm stands that might be in your area, or deliver to your area.
2. Try to choose organic foods as much as possible… but local food will many times trump organic food that had to travel thousands of miles to make it to you.
3. When choosing meat and eggs, try to choose grass-fed meats as much as possible, free range chicken, turkey, and pork raised in a humane manner, and eggs from hens that truly roam free outside instead of being confined to “chicken factories”. Many times, this means making the effort to seek out local farms or co-ops that deliver to urban areas. This site is a great source of meats that were raised in the healthiest manner, and they deliver right to your doorstep: http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com
Remember that eating healthy and responsibly doesn’t mean eating bland boring food… there are tons of ways to eat in a healthy and socially/environmentally responsible manner, and we describe in depth how to do this in our Fat Burning Kitchen Program.
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
Author of best-seller: The Truth About Six Pack Abs
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