The EssentiaList

by Catherine Haug, December 17, 2011

The Paleo, or Hunter-Gatherer eating plan is gaining popularity, especially amongst people who want to live more sustainably. It is not a diet in the sense of weight loss, but rather a diet to optimize health for you, your family, and the planet.

While it relies on foods that are native to the area in which you live, including wild fruits, berries, roots, leaves/stems, and game, as the primary source of food, in a modern society, these native foods can be supplemented with non-native foods that are locally-grown/raised, and in-season. Such a diet requires minimal energy input and is not toxic to the body or environment.

See also my earlier post: Preparing for, and Surviving our Future.

The Diet of Traditional or Hunter-Gather Peoples

Back in 2009 I wrote about The Diet of Traditional Peoples: the Work of Weston Price & Frances Pottenger, which is based on what people in traditional (not modern) societies eat. These dietary recommendations are discussed to great lengths in Sally Fallon’s cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.

While this diet is not quite the same as the Hunter-Gatherer or Paleo diet that is currently popular, they have a lot in common, and promise to improve your health if you follow their recommendations.

What is included in these diets

Both promote a diet rich in:

• Wild or organically-grown fresh veggies, especially dark leafy greens such as kale, cabbage family, onion family and colorful veggies like beets and carrots;
• Wild or organically-grown fresh berries and some fruits;
• Wild or pasture raised meats (no grain or soy feed), and mineral-rich stocks made from the marrow-bones of these animals;
• Wild-caught fish from pristine waters, especially those fish rich in Omega-3 fats;
• Organ meats (liver, heart, sweetbreads, gizzards, kidneys, etc.) from wild or pasture-raised animals; and
• Sea veggies (seaweed) from clean waters.

Both also emphasize selection of foods that are native to the area in which you live, and are in-season.

However, the diet of traditional peoples, as expounded by Weston Price and Frances Pottenger, also includes the following foods not included in the paleo diet:

• Fermented or sprouted organically-grown grains (sourdough, etc.)
• Fermented or sprouted organically-grownnuts and legumes, and some sprouted seeds
• Eggs from pasture-raised or wild poultry.

Why this difference? The Paleo diet is constructed on the premise that agriculture had not yet been discovered by the nomadic hunter-gatherers, so cultivated grains and legumes were not part of the diet of paleo-people. The human body as we now know it, had evolved over millennia of the nomadic paleo-type diet, and so had not developed a digestive system that could handle the grains and legumes that we eat today.

However, early agrarian peoples quickly learned how to treat the grains and legumes so that they could properly digest them. That method involved either sprouting the seed or fermenting the whole or ground seed (as in sourdough or 24-hour soaks). Thus traditional societes all follow this method and have for over 4000 years, with little to no negative impact upon their health.

It is only in modern times, when we have gone astray from these ancient traditions and learned to rely on highly processed foods, that our health has been negatively impacted by what we eat.

Excellent video

A return to a traditional or paleo diet can restore health, as told by Dr. Terry Wahls in the 17 minute YouTube video: Minding Your Mitochondria, on TEDxIowaCity. Dr. Wahls was a victim of MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and confined to a special wheel chair, until she discovered the Hunter-Gatherer diet. She is now free of MS symptoms. Please watch this video; it may change your life.

The first part is an introduction to the idea of hunter-gatherers compared with modern processed food consumers. The middle part looks at the nutritional damage our modern diet has wrought, and gives detail about what we should be eating if we follow the hunter-gatherer diet. The last part shows photos and descriptions of her health before and after her dietary changes. [NOTE, I’ve embedded the video below, but if it doesn’t appear, you can view it on YouTube: Minding Your Mitochondria.]

 

The main premise of her dietary recommendations, apart from that given for the Paleo diet in general, is that this diet supports the whole body and especially the mitochondria in all your cells. Mitochondria are membrane-enclosed organelles within the cells. Their function is to produce energy in the form of ATP (from ADP) through respiration, and to regulate cellular metabolism.

Many nutrients are required in order for the mitochondria to do what they do – nutrients in which our modern diet is sorely deficient, but the paleo diet has in abundance. These nutrients include, but are not limited to: vitamins, minerals (including calcium, magnesium, zinc, sulfur, selenium, iodine and more), flavonoids and polyphenols, vital protein, and omega-3/omega-6 fatty acids in proper balance.

Thus Dr. Wahls says, “Eat for your mitochondria.”

A summary of the daily hunter-gatherer diet:

This summary is according to Dr. Terry Walls, from her video (above).

[Note: 3 cups fills a dinner plate.]

• 3 cups per day of green leaves, especially dark green leafy veggies like kale;
• 3 cups per day of sulfur-rich vegetables, including cabbage family, onion family, mushrooms and asparagus;
• 3 cups per day of colorful veggies and berries, including beets, carrots, blueberries, raspberries, etc.;
• daily animal protein– and Omega-3 fat- rich meat from wild fish and pasture-fed animals;
• once a week: organ meats such as liver, heart, gizzards, kidneys and sweetbreads; also eyes;
• once a week: seaweed.

Her diet does not include any grains or legumes, but green peas and green beans could be included. Dairy and eggs are also excluded.

[NOTE: It’s not clear to me why eggs are not included in Dr. Wahl’s diet, because hunter-gartherer people would surely have encountered eggs and been tempted to eat them. Drs Jaminet do include eggs as well as dairy in their version of the Paleo diet – see below.]

Another proponent of a hunter-gatherer diet is Drs. Jaminet. From their book, The Perfect Health Diet, they recommend:

• 20-30 percent of daily calories: carbs, mainly from “safe starches” such as rice or potatoes, partly from fruits, berries, and vegetables;
• 15 percent of daily calories: animal protein (or about 200-600 calories a day), including meat, organ meats, dairy and eggs;
• 55-65 percent: healthy fats, especially low-omega-6 fats such as beef tallow and other animal fats (from grass-fed/pasture raised animals only), butter, fish oil, coconut oil, palm oil, and olive oil.

You will note that is a lot of oil, but remember this is by calories; fats/oils have twice as many calories per gram as carb and protein foods.

Traditional diet:

While these foods are not part of the hunter-gatherer diet, they can be included in a traditional diet as espoused in Nourishing Traditions, provided they are prepared properly, as indicated:

• Sprouted or fermented grains, nuts and legumes;
• Raw or fermented (cultured) dairy from grass or pasture-fed animals. Pasteurized dairy products are not considered healthful, though they can be improved by fermentation;
• raw or lightly cooked eggs from pasture-raised poultry.

In Conclusion

Making the transition to such a healthful diet can be difficult; vegetarians and vegans especially will find it difficult to add meat and other animal products. But as millennia of history have shown, this is the most healthful diet we can consume, and it is also the only diet that is sustainable for our planet.

For more information

• What is the Paleo Diet
• Paleo Diet Food List
• Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF)
• Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (PPNF)
• Dr. Terry Wahls’ website
• The Wahls Foundation: Diet (videos), including Food as Medicine (6 parts)
• Minding Your Mitochondria (video by Dr. Wahls)
• Wikipedia on Mitochondria
• The Perfect Health Diet by Paul Jaminet PhD. and Sour-Ching Jaminet PhD.; see Amazon for a peak inside
• The EssentiaList: Preparing for, and Surviving our Future

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 at 11:44 am and is filed under Food-Nutrition-Health, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.