An authentic human diet, what do we know?

[Ayla]

I want a good discussion about what an optimal diet for a human should be. I'm going around in circles about what's healthy, what's normal, what's been normalised in a modern diet that shouldn't be, etc. I also want to balance it with personal ethics relating to animal & earth treatment and sustainability.

I guess my questions mainly pertain to meat & dairy consumption. I already eat mostly organic fruit & vegetables, organic yogurt, and some organic meat (mainly chicken) but a few weeks ago I decided to start scaling down meat consumption with an eye to becoming a vegetarian. Then I thought perhaps pescatarianism might be a more authentic human diet. But I've just returned from a holiday where I visited a native village in Vanuatu and while their diet is largely plant- and fish-based, they also eat wild chickens and wild pigs. I don't know what to think. I want a framework/set of principles I can work within and then not worry about it too much. I want to pick a path and then walk it, yk?

And just to clarify, I'm not talking about fat, fatness, fads or fitness. All I want to know is what is the closest I can get to an authentic human diet that I can fit in with being a modern woman (eg I don't live off the land (yet ;)), but I source organic/ethically produced products).

Is there a final word on dairy regarding health? I read recently that most adult humans worldwide are naturally physiologically inclined to be lactose intolerant, however Nourishing Traditions fans believe the inclusion of dairy is needed for health. I've cut down a lot on dairy consumption over the past year, preferring fermented dairy like yogurt and occasionally fetta cheese. Recently I've come to learn that butter and some hard cheeses fall into the fermented dairy category. From a dietary perspective I don't mind their re-inclusion back into my diet but the reason I began to cut back on dairy was my aversion to it ethically. It began when I had my son and was breastfeeding him. It felt wrong to take milk from another infant (albeit an animal infant), and it felt wrong as an adult to be consuming something that is designed for an infant. I don't view milk as a food or a drink, I see it in a whole other category on its own. It's a special food for a special purpose, and that purpose is not for the consumption by an adult of a different species.

So... what's the story? What do we know about authentic human diets that is optimal for proper health?

[Lexie]

I was considering the 80/10/10 diet (http://www.amazon.com/80-10-Diet/dp/1893831248)... I briefly tried it while I was pregnant and I really knew what it was like to have an insatiable appetite. I decided to try again at a later date. You can find videos from the author about it I think. I stumbled upon one and that was what sparked my interest.

[Spy]

Frankly, I don't think there is such thing as 'human diet', just as there is no such thing as 'universal human'. :D Way too diverse, with lots and lots of variations for lots and lots of ethnic communities. Even dairy intolerance (which is not all lactose intolerance, it is combined dairy intolerance, altogether) is not universal, it is ethnically based. Some cultures do very well on mostly vegetables and grains, some do just as well on fish and meat mostly. Many did (and do) successfully use animal milk, but few featured specifically the cow (only these few somehow happened to rule the world in the last few hundred years :)).

Which is probably a good thing as it means all variations can be optimal, as long as you know your roots and are able to get it right for yourself. What's not optimal is industrial processing which turns food (any) into junk. :rolleyes:

[3monkeys]

For our family I try and keep our diet as organic as possible. For me its not so much what I eat - in terms of dairy, grains, fruit, veg, meat etc, but more what is in what we eat, ie pesticide residues, preservative, how the meat is grown, how sustainalbe is the fishery, is my food really food or a collection of numbers.

I have an elderly friend who is an SDA and she follows "Gods diet". Thats pretty much a sugar free Vegan diet as God intented.

I dont know much about food and different ethnicities, but I guess if a ethnic group has evolved with a certain diet and then that diet is "westernised" then I suppose that will effect them negatively for sure.

I suppose when I think of food and our perfect diet I think of what our ancestors would ahve eaten before we had fridges and freezers and the huge variety of processed food we have now. And I think of good whole foods.

[Serephina]

I'm with Spy. I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to diet. Obviously organic is better than non-organic (for us as well as the planet) and wholefoods are preferable.

I think you need to work out what your body responds to and balance that with any ethical considerations.

I've tried going vego, but given that I don't tolerate grains very well it wasn't the ideal diet for me. I feel best when following a GAPS style diet with lots of leafy greens.

[Janet]

I too fall into the wholefoods category and I see animal proteins as part of a balanced diet for most humans. I find it interesting to read the comparisons between the condition of Egyptian mummies and Neanderthals. Must dig those up again for this thread...

[Ayla]

Yep, I take your point about the universal human :LMAO:My heritage as far back as we can trace it is all the British Isles - England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales. It's boring. I was hoping for maybe something more exotic in there somewhere, but alas, no :giggle:I live in the subtropics though so not really a typical UK fare. I'll ponder some more on it. I think I'm leaning towards largely pescatarian but with the occasional chicken or red meat ie not making any foods taboo per se, just not usual.

[Seaweed]

I think there isn't a simple definitive answer either. Even knowing your ethnicity can sometimes be confusing as not everyone is descended from ancestors with the same ethnicity. Luckily for us, I can find common threads as we are from various parts of europe vs different continents.

If you read WAP's book, the people he studied ate what was available around them. All, bar the Swiss, I am sure were hunter gatherers. The Swiss grazed their cattle on glacial slopes so I doubt we could compare their diet to the equivalent food we can get here. We also ( in the "civilised" world ) don't eat much lactofermented foods anymore. We get fruit & vegetables that are completely out of season. We rarely eat organ meats anymore or make bone broths. Has anyone noticed btw that organ meats & broths are associated with poverty? Modern farming methods have raped the soil. Grass fed animals are no longer fed grass. Even our water is often full of all sorts of chemicals like flouride.

Dairy I think is tricky too. Even reading studies, you would need to ascertain what type of dairy they were using as pateurised, homogonised milk is different from raw milk. Milk from grain fed cows is different. Not to mention umm poultry litter fed cattle :eek: The dairy industry too is evil when it comes to animal rights. Even the oh so nice little biodynamic farm I get my milk from which does not truck their animals to the meat works, separates the calves from the cows. They probably kill 13 animals a year from a 20 something cow herd. I still maintain from a pure animal rights point of view you are better off eating lamb than dairy.

Ethics is definitely even more tricky. Where we live all meat that is legally allowed to be sold ie you can buy has to have gone thru a registered MAF processing plant. So, no matter how nicely it was raised, it has been trucked to the meat works & bumped off there. I still struggle with this & do my best to acquire home killed or wild caught meat. Not that I haven't heard a good few stories about homekills gone wrong. They very definitely don't get them all with the first bullet. Another thing is just coz it is organic is not any guarantee it has been raised mindfully & well. I know conventional farmers whose animal husbandry is wonderful & compasionate - but they have a chemical regime. I have heard of organic farmers who are not so great too. Then you have the environmental impact of the production method. eg the fishing industry. All that said, we do eat dairy but only raw & we still eat fish & shellfish. In fact, we had clams, home made taramasalata, potato wedges fried in lard & salad for lunch today. All the food came from where we live, except an avocado I put in the salad which needed using up that came from the north island.

btw I avoid organic poultry like the plague. We may get one organic chicken at xmas if we haven't any roos to bump off. From being a vegan for all those years I refuse to touch conventional poultry at all. I'd rather eat the possums out the back if it came to that ;) It wierds me out big time that the organic chickens are literally just the frankenchickens without drugs. So what you are buying is about 9 weeks old. I also figured when I stopped being a vegan that we could take a year to eat thru a cow but we'd easily eat 52 chickens in that time. I do have chooks for eggs & we do eat our excess roos but we maybe get 4 a year at the most. The old hens I let retire & become compost machines altho if I catch that Indian Game hen eating another egg, I may just have to break that rule :Whip:

Finally :giggle:I would say exercise is crucial. I know you said you were not talking about that but I think we seem now to think of exercise as some sort of weight loss thing. I think daily exposure to the outdoors & physical exercise are critical to our health.

[Lexie]

I'm vegan and avoid grains. They make me bloated and sleepy.

I'm lactose intolerant but I know no one else all the way back to my grandparents and their siblings is. My cousin is, but her mom is as well, and I'm not related to her, so she doesn't count.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Just in case Seaweed above has confused you, roos are not kangaroos, but roosters. She's just being lazy :p :nana:

The most unhealthy people I know, are the fanatics, who beat themselves up everytime they eat something they shouldn't.

I agree that there is no one size fits all.


Yep, I take your point about the universal human :LMAO:My heritage as far back as we can trace it is all the British Isles - England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales. It's boring. I was hoping for maybe something more exotic in there somewhere, but alas, no :giggle:I live in the subtropics though so not really a typical UK fare. I'll ponder some more on it. I think I'm leaning towards largely pescatarian but with the occasional chicken or red meat ie not making any foods taboo per se, just not usual.ayla, how do you make out that our culture is nutritionally boring??? It's not at all. There is a huge variety of incredibly interesting foods which are UK culinary based, but they "got lost".

I have a copy of James Sholto Douglas's old book called "Alternative Foods" published in London. What people dont' realise is that "back then" people world-wide, ate a HUGE variety of plants we just don't know about now.

There are over 200 varieties of cocoa, of all colours.
There are huge numbers of varieties of corn, rice, vegetables, tubers and fruit, that young people world wide have no idea about today, because the large plant producers narrowed everything down, and then started "improving" on things.

Seaweed can tell you about lots of intersting fruits etc, well known by indigenous people. Spy probably can too.

Try to find some of the really traditional cookery books from Ireland, Scotland and Wales and you might be surprised...

HOWEVER, that is irrelevant, because your "problem" is what is available where you live now in Australia.

I know a doctor who worked with the Aborigines, and gained their trust, and learned about their diet before the ships arrived from overseas. In terms of vegetation... Australia has red and yellow finger limes, Tasmanian pepper, brush cherry, muntries, and molucca raspberry. Kakadu plums and Burdekin plums, both contain five times more antioxidants than blueberries. The kakadu plum as the second-highest vitramin C level of any fruit in the world. The riberry grows in parks and gardens in Sydney, and the Burdekin plum is used for revegetation in Queensland.

These are what you could call super-fruits. They grow in the wild, are subjected to drought and heat and it's that stress on the plant which produces such high levels of antioxidants. Illawarra plums, riberry and finger limes can be easily grown, and are resistant to disease, and require little irrigation. Find yourself a muntry miniature apple. It's fantastic. What about your kangaroo apple? You even have a native australian amaranth..

There is so much that Australians could be utilizing if the Aboriginal knowledge of plants which naturally do well in Australia, was taken note of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To me, I have no problems eating eggs, and they are the ideal food. My hens are named; they are my pets, and my compost additive machines. They are my girls, and if they die, they get buried. I can't even bring myself to do an autopsy...

Eggs are an ideal food in terms of amino acid balance.

I prefer raw dairy when I can. I eat very little meat because it's so expensive, but...I'm probably about to squick everyone out, when I do, I eat my meat and fish raw. I find raw beef does NOT sit heavy at all, whereas cooked meat is like carting a brick around. The fish is made into a seviche type dish, using the pickling liquid left over from my gherkins...:o waste not want not.

To me, the ideal way to work it out is write down the foods you like, and find out what is in them. Do a protein list first, and do an amino acid profile on them. Work out whether you can get complete amino acids. Be prepared for the fact that to "do it right" in terms of vegetarians is, in my opinion, very time consuming. Then do a vegetable and plant list and do a mineral analysis of them.

Remember that as a "human" your tissue is 80% collagen, therefore ... whether you get your amino acids from vegetarian combinations, or animal sources, you MUST get it right either way, otherwise your bones, teeth and cell membranes will be like a leaky colander, leaving you creaking your way through life.

If you get your vitamin C sources right, your mineral sources right, and water without aluminium flocculant, chlorine of flouride, you're doing okay.

IMO, ideally, as much as you can, eat stuff as it came.

having said that, I make a lot of relishes and chutneys, so that in those dismal wet winters, my potatoes remind me of summer. :D

[Seaweed]

I'm probably about to squick everyone out, when I do, I eat my meat and fish raw. I love raw steak! I used raw salmon roe in the taramasalata I had for lunch. I couldn't have it with pita bread so I dipped my potatoes in it. Can't you make raw lactofermented chutneys?

[Ayla]

ayla, how do you make out that our culture is nutritionally boring???

Ah no that's not what I meant :) I'm actually 7th generation Australian, but my heritage as far back the late 1600s is all British Isles, my ancestors didn't get out much ;) It was meant to be a flippant remark but obviously it came off wrong, sorry!

Thanks for the rest of your post MT! Very interesting and I do intend to include bush foods in the urban farm I'm developing but my knowledge of natives isn't as rounded as I'd like.

[Janet]

Mmmmm raw fish!! I prefer it that way. Cooked fish is overrated IMO although I love seafood.

The "roos" did confuse me for a while there. :rofl