Get Healthy And Stay Healthy With Ancient Nutrition

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Whenever I observe the modern world I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. We’ve come up with a chemical for nearly every problem, haven’t we? Whether it’s your lawn, skin, health, food, or even making it rain there’s a chemical “solution”. Working in the wellness arena there are countless pills, powders, supplements, shakes, bars, and recipes that promise a health transformation. The thing is, these things never last long term. If you want to get healthy and stay healthy it’s as simple as looking at the ancient origins of nutrition.

Why are all of these modern health creations still available? People have been taught to expect failure when it comes to improving their health. Sure the things I mentioned might work for a bit but honestly, no one REALLY expects them to work until their dying day. So people hop from one thing to the next. They have results for a bit and then when they slide backward, (weight is the indicator everyone seems to be focused on), they try something new. As it turns out, if you want to improve your health long term the answer lies in our ancient origins of nutrition. You don’t need another gimmick, you need to think about the ancient secrets. Humans were healthier without all the gimmicks than they are today.

What Is The Ancient Secret to Nutrition?

I didn’t have to unearth ancient texts or consult an archaeologist. (although I do recommend this book written by an evolutionary biologist) When it comes to health the answer is so incredibly simple that all dietary approaches agree on it. Do you want to know what it is? Eat Real Food

Everyone agrees that humans shouldn’t eat fast food or processed food. Of course, the corporations that make such nonsense will tell you that it’s all about calories and personal responsibility. Ha! Like 100 calories of broccoli is the same as 100 calories of french fries…

The simplest thing you can do to get healthy and stay healthy is to eat real food. What is real food? Food that doesn’t have an ingredient list because by itself it is an ingredient. I see so many people who get caught up in nutrition facts. Who cares if it has x grams of ______ if it contains Folic Acid (hinders methylation), Colors (banned in other countries), and was doused with Glyphosate (probable carcinogen)? My clean eating journey began in my 20’s when I worked as an analytical chemist. If you’re not sure about an ingredient search for its MSDS (material safety data sheet) online. Our ancient origins of health didn’t rely on all these modern chemicals. The food was real, as real as it gets.

What Do The Ancient Origins of Health Look Like?

Imagine you suddenly had to live in the forest and the modern world no longer existed. What would you eat? You’d eat whatever you could hunt or gather: meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, edible roots & leaves, and berries (in season). That is the ancient origin of the human diet. Of course, I’ve seen people throw shade at paleo because the average lifespan wasn’t that high. They had a high infant mortality rate but they also had people who lived into their 70’s and beyond.

Back then people died from injuries and infections. They didn’t suffer from the poor health epidemic that currently plagues Americans. Injuries and infection are both largely treatable today. Imagine if those were our only health concerns! I’d be happy to see those take the place of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and the huge melting pot of things that ail us. Think how simple and inexpensive healthcare would be.

Grains And Legumes Are Not Part of Ancient Nutrition

I imagine if the world has just ended, your first thought isn’t going to be plowing a field for a crop. That’s a lot of energy, resources, and time for food sources with minimal nutritional value. If you read the book I mentioned above you’ll learn that our bones became weaker, or brains shrunk, and we no longer have room for wisdom teeth since we adopted agriculture.

Why are grains and legumes omitted from the paleo diet? They contain phytates and lectins. The universal ancestral nutrition rule is that food either makes you more healthy or less healthy. If it doesn’t make you healthier why are you eating it? I know, I know…what about “healthy whole grains?” I’ll send you over to this blog post where I list 12 Reasons To Stop Eating Grains.

What Are Phytates?

Phytates are anti-nutrients. They bind to minerals and prevent your body from absorbing them. How many people do you know who take a supplement for Iron, Magnesium, Selenium, Calcium, Zinc, & Copper? These are the minerals that phytates can bind to.

What Are Lectins?

You’ve most certainly heard of Gluten. Gluten is a lectin. The simplified definition is that lectins are plant compounds that damage the cells that line the small intestine. If you’ve been following the latest health news you know that they’re linking lectins to leaky gut and consequently a wide range of chronic diseases. For those who suffer from autoimmunity, lectins are one of the top foods you want to remove. Leaky gut comes before autoimmunity develops, so improving your gut health can help reduce/eliminate autoimmune disease symptoms.

What Are The Challenges To Following Ancient Nutrition?

Cooking

People don’t know how to cook anymore. Scrolling through a Facebook group one day a gal mentioned that she tried helping a friend eat better. While shopping at the store together she handed her friend a bag of carrots. Her friend replied, “What do I do with these? There aren’t any instructions.” That’s where we are. People are so conditioned to heating and eating or just adding water that they’ve lost the skill of cooking. Learning to cook is one of the most rebellious acts you can take to turn your health around.

Rule #1 for successfully dialing in the ancient origins of nutrition is: don’t overcomplicate it. I’m a pretty good cook and even I don’t believe in cooking up a Thanksgiving-style dinner every night. You don’t need a load of side dishes. That’s why I’m a fan of sheet pan dinners, the Instant pot, and what my son calls a picnic. This blog post contains my meal prep tips.

How did I learn to cook? T.V. When you watch great chefs in the kitchen they’ll teach you how it’s done. Sure it might not always be paleo, heck I’m not always paleo, but at least you’re learning what to do with actual ingredients. When you learn the basic techniques it makes it easier to translate those into a paleo dish. Emeril Lagasse, Gordon Ramsay, Jacques Pepin, Jamie Oliver, Alton Brown, & America’s Test Kitchen Team have all been my guides. Of course, there are many others but these are the ones I’ve watched the most. We’re so lucky that we can walk into a store and buy a variety of produce and animal products. I’m a bowhunter and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate being able to walk into a store to buy various seasonings.

Food Deserts

I saw a video yesterday talking about food deserts. We blame people for not making better choices yet whenever an area is developed it’s usually with fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. For some, finding real food without long ingredient lists is a challenge. There are some tumbleweed towns here in Idaho where the closest store for miles is a gas station.

If you have a yard or a patio you can start a garden. Even if you don’t have a yard you can grow some plants indoors if you don’t have a window with a lot of sunlight. Plants that don’t bear fruit such as greens and herbs don’t require a lot of light. When deciding what to plant consider your location, consider what you like to eat, and also consider what you can store. If you have a freezer think about produce that freezes well. Consider canning produce you don’t have freezer space for.

Economics

Then there are the economic barriers to food. Our government subsidizes the unhealthy crops that make cheap food. That’s why 2 liters of soda is cheaper than broccoli or meat. The minimum wage hasn’t increased since 2009! Yet everything around us has gotten more expensive. Even if you genuinely wanted to eat better our current food system makes it unreachable for some people. If you’re in this situation I urge you to start planting. Even if you’re limited on space and sunlight, leafy plants will grow in low light conditions. As you cut off the tops and watch the plants re-grow you’ll see how it’s like printing money.

The good news is that the more real food you eat you’ll find that you’ll eat less often. Your body will remember how to burn stored body fat for fuel and you’ll find intermittent fasting is simple. This is one of the keys to getting healthy and staying healthy. When you eat all day long it accelerates the aging process.

Don’t get discouraged by your economics though. Our paleolithic ancestors didn’t have any money either. It’s always seemed odd to me that humans are the only species that have to pay to survive. We created the system so it’s on us to work towards a better one. Food forests, small farmers, and home/community gardens will connect us to our ancient origins of nutrition.

Mindset

I see it all the time. People want to improve their health but they don’t want to give up their sweetener, drink their coffee black, forego bread, or other pastries. Initially, they believe they can’t go without these modern-day “necessities” and so they look for a substitute. In some corners of the paleo world this is known as:

Sex With Your Pants On

You want the real thing but you’re really trying to do this paleo thing so you swap out one cupcake for a paleo cupcake. Do you know where this inevitably leads? Back to the original cupcake. The original cupcake is easy to find, significantly cheaper, and you don’t have to make it yourself.

[mailerlite_form form_id=7] If you want to get clear on your mindset then I highly recommend downloading my mindfulness workbook. You can’t know where you’re going unless you get clear on the past and present.

Bottom Line

You can’t supplement or smoothie your way out of poor eating decisions. If you want to get healthy and stay healthy you have to eat real food. That’s it. It’s that simple.