What do we really know about ancestral diet?

ancestral-health
ancestral-foods
ancestral-traditions
(Genn) #41

Well, show me the science, because that’s not what the research says :

(bulkbiker) #42

You could try that for starters…

And as for longevity try HK

(Genn) #43

I was referring to the traditional Okinawan diet, not the current iteration.

#44

are these your words spaceb? just wondering if it was from some article or something? wasn’t sure.

(Bunny) #45

They are from common sense? Irregardless of claimed said benefits of eating the other two calories only which could be placebo at best until we see some concrete long-term research i.e. evidence?

Although short term therapeutic evidence looks good!

I can sit their and watch a vegetarian on YouTube mixing three different type of starches together to eat and coming up with the same result as the carnivore?

That’s disturbing and makes me think something is not right about the solid conclusion that only eating animal proteins and fats is the only way to eat to heal metabolic dysregulation?

#46

We can actually know a lot by following the threads of oral traditions found in the indigenous & aboriginal communities and carried on by some lineages and reported on by anthropologists and other cultural critics like Weston A. Price DDS. The Ancestral Health Society, is a self-organizing and de-centralized collective of interdisciplinary inquiry (medical, legal, anthropological, etc) into evolutionary physiology, with a journal and symposiums that are rich in resources.

Anyone interested in DIVERSE pre-neolithic and even just pre-industrial perspectives would do well to read the books by Sally Fallon Morrell (president of the Weston A. Price foundation) - chock full of regional cultural traditions and ancestral foodways overviews, and the foundation’s website has tons of helpful journal articles of their own: https://www.westonaprice.org/

And the work of Nora Gelgaudus, who spent considerable time in the High Arctic. And physician and biochemist Cate Shanahan MD! All about how our genes need traditional whole foods - and how our hearts need meaningful food culture. Shanahan and Gedgaudus were featured in Pete Evans’ magnificent keto documentary The Magic Pill, which explores ancestral food traditions and the current global health crisis.

We can learn a lot by studying the cultures of land-based peoples - recent pre-colonizer and matrilineal/matriarchal societies (not merely a flip of dominant power, but rather a values-based egalitarian paradigm based in gift economies, community nurturing, celebration of the life-death-life cycles, intergenerational dialogue, female elders as ultimate authorities on critical decisions relied upon by the warriors, etc). Their oral traditions go back thousands of years before the written word - to ‘before the beginning of time’, meaning especially before linear time and thinking.

Ancestral living - throughout various regions - was a comprehensive intimacy with the web of life, the living land as first mother. Some people relied on cassava/tapioca as a primary food, others on heirloom maize/corn - boosted by hunting whenever possible - and others on raw seal or salmon or whale fat - etc. (Speaking of ancestral traditions related to “source” in general, the Kalahari !Kung San peoples literally were born into simple little warm sand dugouts made by the birth mothers’ own hands. After the full birth happened, the intact babe/cord/grandmother (placenta) was snuggled there within its first mother, and covered by a large leaf. Then the birth mother walked (probably slowly!) to call the aunties/community, who were waiting expectantly for her call across a distance of up to a mile - anthropologist Marjorie Shostak wrote a much-loved book about the time she spent living around and with them, called Nisa: The Life and Words of a ! Kung **Woman**).

Ancestors knew their region like the back of their hand - and regions varied wildly according to soil composition, climate, species - thus diets varied. Human consciousness was inherently tied to the many ways of knowing that come from cosmologicial earth-based culture and learning experiences passed down.

A core cultural value that ancient peoples had in common was the use of living clay/healing clay in their food traditions and healing practices, and/or the prizing of cave salt. Both clay and salt were valued much more than gold and silver and diamonds (and these cultures were exploited and often displaced and destroyed by the psychopathology of dominator empires, from mere trickery & lies to countless massacres).

Last but not least - for the serious student or practitioner - the work of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation - they also have a wonderful journal and their research archives contain all the articles of Weston A. Price, etc.

#47

That is a wonderfully written post.

(Windmill Tilter) #48

Seems like you’ve done a fair bit of research on the subject. Have you ever come across an indigenous people who ate something close to a ketogenic diet? In the small bit of research that I’ve done, it seems like all the disparate peoples throughout the world seem to rely heavily on carbohydrates. It would be fascinating to find a culture that ate something approximating a ketogenic ratio of fats and protein. We have hundreds of years of research documenting hundreds of indigenous cultures (albeit through a western lens) surely there are some examples out there.

(Polly) #49

I have heard recently that the “blue zones” where people are supposed to live healthy and very long lives are something of an illusion. Apparently, when better [as in more accurate] registration of births and deaths is introduced suddenly the statistics look different. The octogenarians, nonogenarians and centenarians have turned out to be sixty or seventy in reality and the underlying cause of the deception may well be pension fraud!

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/08/06/are-supercentenarians-mostly-superfrauds/

#50

yea like that is truth in any way cause you can’t truly compare the physical attributes between the 2. Think of it like this…you can paint a picture with watercolor or oil paint. Both pics are pretty and useful in the world and should last in general a long time on the wall to be admired. Now put that watercolor and oil paint pic under a test of longevity under severe weather conditions. The oil paint will do better in general obviously and the underlying canvas will hold stronger. A complete and stronger picture from a cellular point of view from the oil paint I guess you could call it. The oil paint is the better meat protein.

So if we put that in body terms, complete meat protein providing everything single thing the body needs to function best will always top plant protein. Sure mix away any and all vegans/veggietarians— to try to make something less than superior into that meat protein that is scientifically superior. So then about the antinutritent factors etc. and meat protein is far superior in that it won’t give any toxicity to the body like plant toxins will, and every single plant carries a toxin load.

But I do know, you will come back with an argument to this, and that is cool…but I am gonna bow out of the conversation now cause in all honesty, I can’t go here anymore debunking unintelligent conversations anymore. Can one survive on plant proteins and eat enough different things and try so hard to meet nutrient requirements that simple meat protein provides…sure they can try but in the end the less than superior plant protein won’t cut it because many people eating only plant based don’t have a clue and eat crappy alot of times also. That is why you read so many vegans jumping ship before the plan kills them.

and no, I don’t think only animal proteins can heal a metabolic dysregulation. I know it can give a stellar result of doing us that but I think the dive into any very low carb menu can handle that along with other lifestyle changes for many to heal and function…such as a keto plan etc.

I can throw tons of science and links and more at this but like I said I can’t do this anymore. Been doing this stuff too long to fight the stupidity of some stuff I read on forums, (not saying what you believe or write is stupid from you, I am talking about the science facts of the statements from that view). It is all cool spaceb! Keep doing your thing and I will do mine LOL

Plant proteins are inferior to meat protein. Fraud. Will it keep ya alive, yes, but it will never offer the superiority of meat proteins ever. Why does everyone try to re-invent what is the best? I have no clue but humans sure try to do it all the time :wink:

(bulkbiker) #51

Let’s face it no-one today has the faintest idea what the “traditional” Okinawan diet was…

(bulkbiker) #52

Why… simply put it is true although quite hard to achieve in the real world.

Well you can at least agree that we do need proteins and fats which can all be obtained from zero carb foods?

There is no “need” for any carbohydrates to survive (many would say to thrive even although you may disagree with that statement).

(Genn) #53

Wow, insane! Other than longevity, I wonder if health outcomes were also overstated?

(Genn) #54

The research I presented above was clear on what the traditional Okinawan diet was. If your main argument is that no healthy population can subsist on a (whole food based) high carb diet, and that evidence be damned, feel free to continue posting, but I will no longer reply, I don’t like arguing in circles.

(bulkbiker) #55

Not really… it was clear that the three authors in 2014 assumed that they knew what a “traditional Okinawan” diet was.

As they weren’t around 100 years earlier they in fact have no idea whatsoever.

Just because someone writes it down and publishes it doesn’t make it “true” or “correct”.

You have to look at some of these things with a degree of scepticism and logic.

(Windmill Tilter) #56

Lol. Apropos to the topic. We don’t have a clue what a traditional “Okinowan” diet was 100 years ago, so we can’t really attribute the famous “blue zone” longevity to it (which I agree with btw). The odds of us knowing what our ancestors were eating 100,000 years is exponentially lower.

(mole person) #57

I’ve been a year without carbohydrates (not counting those that are in meat). My health markers are better then in a decade and I have three serious medical conditions in remission and have been able to drop all of my drugs since dropping the plant carbs.

I have come across no solid evidence that a plantless diet in less healthy and see many extant carnivores of one to two decades who are thriving. The evidence seems to suggest that an all meat diet is just fine, and, for a decent subset of people, it’s far healthier than one with plants.

(bulkbiker) #58

Possibly… although we can be pretty damn sure that they weren’t eating most of the crap that surrounds us today… so we have a lot of negative proofs.

#59

a lot of their day, 100K yrs ago, was wondering what might eat them, not what they could eat that day HAHA

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #60

Total hogwash. @atomicspacebunny you are denying a brute scientific fact. There is no essential carbohydrate and neither a minimum daily requirement nor a deficiency disease. Therefore zero need to eat carbohydrates. If you eat carbohydrates it’s a choice, not a necessity. You can justify your choice however you please except denying the scientific facts.

No you don’t. There are, however, essential fatty and amino acids. If you do not eat these you will sicken and die. Animal proteins and fats provide all these in a very bioavailable form that over the course of hominid evolution we have adapted to consume and metabolize optimally. Some plants in combination can also provide the required fatty and amino acids. But overall more dilute and in a less bioavailable form, making them an inferior source.