There are races of people who are all slim, who are stronger and faster than us. They all have straight teeth and perfect eyesight. Arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, depression, schizophrenia and cancer are absolute rarities for them. These people are the last 84 tribes of hunter-gatherers in the world. They share a secret that is over 2 million years old. Their secret is their diet- a diet that has changed little from that of the first humans 2 million years ago, and their predecessors up to 7 million years ago. Theirs is the diet that man evolved on, the diet that is coded for in our genes. It has some major differences to the diet of “civilization”. You are in for a few big surprises.
From INTRODUCTION TO THE PALEOLITHIC DIET, by by Dr. Ben Balzer, family physician
I’m reading a book on nutrition called “Protein Power” by Michael R Eades, M.D. and Mary Dan Eades, M.D. who referenced a study of the Aborigines of Australia.
The aborigines are an interesting group in that they develop a high incidence of hyperinsulinemia and type II diabetes when exposed to an urbanized, Western diet. Like a huge number of American’s they are genetically predisposed to the development of these disorders, they develop them much more quickly.
The study (conducted by Dr Kerin O’Dea) consisted of taking a group of urbanized aborigines who were suffering from hyperinsulinemia, type II diabetes, and obesity and removing them from their current Western diet (white flour, white sugar, white rice, carbonated drinks, alcoholic beverages (beer, port), powdered milk and cheap fatty meat.)
They were then asked to return to their previous “Hunter / Gatherer” lifestyle for 7 weeks, which consisted of considerable protein, not a lot of fat, and very little carbohydrate. The nutrient composition was “protein 70-75%, fat 20-25%, and carbohydrate <5%.”
The basic diet of a hunter-gatherer consists of the following:
Meat, chicken and fish
Eggs
Fruit
Vegetables (especially root vegetables, but definitely not including potatoes or sweet potatoes)
Nuts, eg. walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia, almond. Do not eat peanuts (a bean) or cashews (a family of their own)
Berries- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.
The effect of the study was astonishing. The aborigines blood glucose levels fell from an average of 210 mg/dl to 118 mg/dc. Insulin levels dropped by half, from 23 mU/ml to 12 mU/ml, near normal range. Triglycerides, which are storage fat molecules synthesized in the liver under the stimulus of insulin, fell by a factor of three, from 354 mg/dl all the way down to 106 mg/dl. All this improvement came in just seven weeks from a diet that was predominantly (64 percent) animal in origin.
Dr. O’Dea summed it up succinctly:
… All of the metabolic abnormalities were either greatly improved (glucose tolerance, insulin response to glucose) or completely normalized (plasma lipids) ina group of diabetic aborigines by a relatively short (7 week) reversion to traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
It’s no wonder that reverting to the diet we were following before the agricultural revolution would solve so many of today’s diseases.
Tags: Diet
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