The Way Our Ancsetors Used to Eat
craftylatvian
Posts: 599 Member
I am trying to eat more un-processed foods and wondered if our ancestors were healthier than we are because they did not have chemicals, hormones, etc. added to their food. I read somewhere that diabetes was non-existent in some cutlures until processed sugars and grains were introduced. I also read that our bodies are not meant to have certain things like processed grains (leave them in their natural state) and no milk or dairy.
Personally, my mom was always concious about what we ate. No white bread, no Twinkies, only natural peanut butter, no sugar cereal, no chips or pop. My family is really healty with no heart or cholrestol problems. Anyone have any thoughts or insights on what the average modern person eats compared to their ancestors from 50-100 years ago and the impact on health?
One theory of mine: a lot of disorders like autisim and ADHD were nowhere near as prevalent years ago as they are now, and your girls are developing at a fast rate, maybe it is the chemicals and hormones in our foods. I am not an "earth nut" by any means, but if I can be more concsioius of what I eat I feel I will be better off in the long run.
Personally, my mom was always concious about what we ate. No white bread, no Twinkies, only natural peanut butter, no sugar cereal, no chips or pop. My family is really healty with no heart or cholrestol problems. Anyone have any thoughts or insights on what the average modern person eats compared to their ancestors from 50-100 years ago and the impact on health?
One theory of mine: a lot of disorders like autisim and ADHD were nowhere near as prevalent years ago as they are now, and your girls are developing at a fast rate, maybe it is the chemicals and hormones in our foods. I am not an "earth nut" by any means, but if I can be more concsioius of what I eat I feel I will be better off in the long run.
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yes. our bodies aren't meant to eat all the preservatives & meat all the time.0
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I agree with you on a lot of things like ADHD and other health problems, but we also need to realise that 100 or so years ago in a lot of places someone with Autism would be labelled as insane and locked away, never to be spoken about again. Also we didn't live as long, so alot of health issues would just not have developed, or we died of things that didn't have a name! They also had a massive salt content on most foods because thats how it was preserved, so i'd figure they had other issues too.
I definately agree with you about too much processed food though! We shouldn't put all these chemicals into our bodies, the rubbish in food that most people feed their families is awful, if only more people realised.0 -
I am certainly no expert on how our ansetors used to eat, although I think you have an excellent point.
On thing I can comment on is the fact our girls are developing at a faster rate. This is not the case of hormones or chemicals in our foods; this is the case of the foods we eat and the lack of healthy choices we make. A young girls develops based on her body fat; therefore, if she has a higher body fat due to food choices, she will develop faster than other girls. My neice is 11 and still not developed due to her doctor, nutritionist, and mother ensuring she eats the proper foods like no processed foods.
Definitely an excellent point and I look forward to reading the other posts.0 -
I agree with everything you stated, especially with the comment about diseases and other health problems. One of my docs is always pushing me to quit dairy...because he said it's chocked full of hormones and such. And it's just the dairy industry that has convinced us we "need" it...especially when we are kids. And I tend to believe what he says and the research he's shown me. Because at the end of a day....a baby cow isn't fed milk...an adult cow doesn't need milk....so why would "we" need milk?
Eating clean and whole foods is the best way to go....the problem usually is that we all have families, lives, jobs etc and sometimes it's more convenient to go the processed food route...I know for me personally that's what has contributed to my weight gain.0 -
I agree with the natural foods approach. It makes a lot of sense, afterall you are what you eat. Our bodies aren't made to process man-made chemicals efficiently. Therefore, we end up backed up, unable to process the real food that we do eat, and we feel sluggish because our organs are inundated with crud. I don't know about the link between diet causing disorders, but I believe it definitely has an impact on the way we function whether we have disorders or not. I could go more into it, but in an effort to keep it simple, I digress.
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I am certainly no expert on how our ansetors used to eat, although I think you have an excellent point.
On thing I can comment on is the fact our girls are developing at a faster rate. This is not the case of hormones or chemicals in our foods; this is the case of the foods we eat and the lack of healthy choices we make. A young girls develops based on her body fat; therefore, if she has a higher body fat due to food choices, she will develop faster than other girls. My neice is 11 and still not developed due to her doctor, nutritionist, and mother ensuring she eats the proper foods like no processed foods.
Definitely an excellent point and I look forward to reading the other posts.
Interesting point. Though I'd imagine it can be different person to person as I was brought up in a pretty healthy home and I started my cycle and developing at 10..0 -
I don't really eat much processed food anyway, but have had to be more careful about food since having children as my oldest son reacts very badly to food colourings (he goes psycho), so I aim for as natural as possible.0
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And it's just the dairy industry that has convinced us we "need" it...especially when we are kids. And I tend to believe what he says and the research he's shown me. Because at the end of a day....a baby cow isn't fed milk...an adult cow doesn't need milk....so why would "we" need milk?
I think most people need dairy, and the human race was drinking cow's milk long before the dairy industry existed. As I see it, cows were put here for a reason, just as chickens, turkeys, fish, tomatoes, potatoes, you name it. We need all the food that's been provided for us, in milk, meats, beans, fruits, and vegetables. The more varied the diet, the better.
Every year, there is a new fad that promotes cutting out a major food group in order to be healthy, live forever, and master telekinesis. First it was fat, then it was carbs, then it was processed foods, and now it's dairy.
Take each of these new ideas with a grain of salt (but not too much, sodium panic going on!) and do what works for you. We're not a delicate as we think. We can adapt quite nicely when the need presents itself. Otherwise, we would have died out long ago.0 -
Man has evolved since then. we went from plants and raw meat to plants and cooked meat we have been thru many many generations of change not only in the way we lived and the things we ate but now the progress is happening so fast with technology, of foods and grains. Monsanto has made the largest changes to our crops, they created crops especially corn to be pest and weed resistant and as the winds blows the pollen, it incorporates itself into the seeds of new crops. Monsanto buys all seeds as the patents expire. So basically say the seeds that the farmers used for generations in Mexico are grown next to farms of genetically altered crops when the wind, birds and bees carry the pollen to the other crops they also become genetically engineered and the seeds for the next crop are ruined and then the farmers can.not use the seeds because now the are owned by Monsanto. This is why we are loosing so many farmers if seeds are tested and they find just one plant in the crop that has been pollinated buy Monsanto crops the farmer can not sell his crop and has to destroy them. One of the he reasons we process foods was for shipping. We do not raise enough meat, fruit, vegetables etc in our own states to feed our- selves. If we did not preserve our foods the would spoil before they even made it to our country. It would be nice if we could all grow our fruits and vegetables ourselves but most do not live where they can. I very lucky i grow most of my own veggies and between my neighbors and my self we do no have to buy fruit all season, We have 5 kinks of apples, 3 kinds of pears , 3 types of peaches, lemons limes,oranges, tangerines, apricots, grapes, grapefruit, strawberries, and plums and that's only 5 of us neighbors. So if your planting trees make them count and there organic.0
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And it's just the dairy industry that has convinced us we "need" it...especially when we are kids. And I tend to believe what he says and the research he's shown me. Because at the end of a day....a baby cow isn't fed milk...an adult cow doesn't need milk....so why would "we" need milk?
I think most people need dairy, and the human race was drinking cow's milk long before the dairy industry existed. As I see it, cows were put here for a reason, just as chickens, turkeys, fish, tomatoes, potatoes, you name it. We need all the food that's been provided for us, in milk, meats, beans, fruits, and vegetables. The more varied the diet, the better.
Every year, there is a new fad that promotes cutting out a major food group in order to be healthy, live forever, and master telekinesis. First it was fat, then it was carbs, then it was processed foods, and now it's dairy.
Take each of these new ideas with a grain of salt (but not too much, sodium panic going on!) and do what works for you. We're not a delicate as we think. We can adapt quite nicely when the need presents itself. Otherwise, we would have died out long ago.
Calves do drink milk. You are right that adult cows do not need milk because their bodies do not require it after they are weaned just like dogs, horses besides where would they get it from.The calfs are hand feed because most male calf's are sold as veal or to be used as meat or stud. And that way its mom is back in the building to be milked And some of the females are are kept for breeding and milk. My mom was raised on goats milk.. And dairy does not just consist of milk. The milk of camels and horses are also used and I'm sure other mammals as well.0 -
I actually have a theory that the xenoestrogens in plastics are to blame for some of the aforementioned issues. I have yet to bother to follow up with this, though.0
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I agree with you on a lot of things like ADHD and other health problems, but we also need to realise that 100 or so years ago in a lot of places someone with Autism would be labelled as insane and locked away, never to be spoken about again. <snip>
Well said! Spot-on.0 -
When we drink milk, we make every effort to drink skim milk. The research that I've seen says that the hormone levels in skim are equivalent to the milk in more primitive times.0
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And it's just the dairy industry that has convinced us we "need" it...especially when we are kids. And I tend to believe what he says and the research he's shown me. Because at the end of a day....a baby cow isn't fed milk...an adult cow doesn't need milk....so why would "we" need milk?
I think most people need dairy, and the human race was drinking cow's milk long before the dairy industry existed. As I see it, cows were put here for a reason, just as chickens, turkeys, fish, tomatoes, potatoes, you name it. We need all the food that's been provided for us, in milk, meats, beans, fruits, and vegetables. The more varied the diet, the better.
Every year, there is a new fad that promotes cutting out a major food group in order to be healthy, live forever, and master telekinesis. First it was fat, then it was carbs, then it was processed foods, and now it's dairy.
Take each of these new ideas with a grain of salt (but not too much, sodium panic going on!) and do what works for you. We're not a delicate as we think. We can adapt quite nicely when the need presents itself. Otherwise, we would have died out long ago.
Calves do drink milk. You are right that adult cows do not need milk because their bodies do not require it after they are weaned just like dogs, horses besides where would they get it from.The calfs are hand feed because most male calf's are sold as veal or to be used as meat or stud. And that way its mom is back in the building to be milked And some of the females are are kept for breeding and milk. My mom was raised on goats milk.. And dairy does not just consist of milk. The milk of camels and horses are also used and I'm sure other mammals as well.
You are right, I typed that wrong (about the calves drinking milk). Of course back before the industry boom, everything was much more pure and didn't have loads of hormones and other things pumped into the animals...that's more of what I was getting that. When my parents and grandparents were younger, they were never told by docs that they NEEDED milk. As babies, yeah sure they were given it to help them grow...but after that they rarely had it. There isn't a whole lot in milk that can't be derived from better sources with less or no negative additives.0 -
I think ADHD and autism have always been around, but ADHD kids were just seen as naughty and would probably have most of it beaten out of them into submission, and Autistic children would just have been seen as weirdos or stupid.0
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Cancers, autoimmune disease, and autism are definitely on the rise. Some of it is diagnostic accuracy, but I believe a lot of it s our diet. I think eating more old school is the way to go. I don't know about the paleo movement, it seems like a great way to eat but I don't know that we have to banish rice and beans, and the caveman didn't live so long.
However, I strongly encourage you to read Michael Pollan, he has fantastic books about food, especially "In Defense of Food" http://michaelpollan.com/books/in-defense-of-food/. Check it out!0 -
I'd be cautious about the whole "eating what our ancestors ate." Which ancestors? At which point in history? Medieval nobles had serious problems with gout and other fatty diseases because they ate too much meat. They considered vegetables to be peasant food and stuck to their bread and meat and cheese. The peasants, on the other hand, suffered from broken teeth and anemia because their bread was full of "pulse" (peas, lentils and other fillers) because wheat was too expensive to eat alone and because they almost never got meat.
The only medieval people who ate what modern nutritionists would consider a balanced diet, or close to it, were monks. Their cloister rules prescribed a semi-vegetarian diet with fish on Fridays and some meat on occasion (which they could afford because they were generally better off than the poorest of the poor.) And they still drank beer at 2-3 meals a day.
As for ADHD and autism, as recently as the last generation, children with these disorders were either labeled mentally retarded and put in institutions or labeled as discipline problems and punished for being bad kids. We didn't have those diagnoses until recently, so it's really hard to tell if they are more or less prevalent than they were. Who knows, ADHD might have been a social advantage to an early hunter gatherer. Super high energy and hyper alertness could be really useful if you were hunting game.0 -
Michael Pollan Food Rules List
1. Eat food
2. Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry
4. Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup
5. Avoid food products that have some form of sugar (or sweetener listed among) the top three ingredients
6. Avoid food products that have more than 5 ingredients
7. Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce
8. Avoid food products that make health claims
9. Avoid food products with the wordoid “lite” or the terms “low fat” or “nonfat” in their names
10. Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not
11. Avoid foods you see advertised on television
12. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle
13. Eat only foods that will eventually rot
14. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature
15. Get out of the supermarket whenever you can
16. Buy your snacks at the farmers market
17. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans
18. Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap
19. If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
20. It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car
21. It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language (Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles)
22. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves
23. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food
24. Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs and other mammals].
25. Eat your colors
26. Drink the spinach water
27. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well
28. If you have space, buy a freezer
29. Eat like an omnivore
30. Eat well-grown food from healthy soil
31. Eat wild foods when you can
32. Don’t overlook the oily little fishes
33. Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacterial or fungi
34. Sweeten and salt your food yourself
35. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature
36. Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk
37. The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead
38. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone-ground
39. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself
40. Be the kind of person who takes supplements – then skip the supplements
41. Eat more lie the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.
42. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism
43. Have a glass of wine with dinner
44. Pay more, eat less
45. Eat less
46. Stop eating before you’re full
47. Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored
48. Consult your gut
49. Eat slowly
50. The banquet is in the first bite
51. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it
52. Buy smaller plates and glasses
53. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds
54. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like pauper
55. Eat meals
56. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods
57. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does
58. Do all your eating at a table
59. Try not to eat alone
60. Treat treats as treats
61. Leave something on your plate
62. Plant a vegetable garden if you have space, a window box if you don’t
63. Cook
64. Break the rules once in a while0 -
I'm sure every society has experienced broad transformations in diet and eating habits over the centuries. New technologies allow us to harvest mother nature in ways that we couldn't before. Better methods of farming and raising livestock have allowed us to settle down and not have to hunt for every meal. With that said, we also consume natural products that have been "processed" which usually means high amounts of sugary substances or refined grain filler have been added to it to expand how much product can be made from the same amount of original material. I don't think our bodies (much like the poor cows we feed processed CORN, instead of the natural grass and grain they've been grazing on for centuries!) were really meant to run off of processed foods. However, I do know that our bodies crave two things that are essential for survival: sugar and fat. However, since we are not as active as we used to be and most of us eat rapidly and on the go, we over consume those things. Some of us have even developed coping mechanisms for stress that involve eating those things when we aren't hungry. I, for one, am a huge proponent for trying to stay away from highly processed foods. Not all processed foods are bad, and some even come in the form of Lean Cuisines (which are only partially processed. they just have more preservatives, really) which make losing weight and counting calories a WHOLE lot easier! But you see, it's when people don't know what they're eating that they begin to form really unhealthy eating habits. Most people don't realize (especially folks in lower socioeconomic statuses) that in a Big Mac Meal (including fries and a non-diet soft drink) are about 1,200-1,500 calories. That's in JUST ONE MEAL!!!!! Most of us here in MFP are trying to keep our DAILY intake at 1,500-1,700 cal! But those fast food meals are SOO incredibly attractive because of 1) the price and 2) because they contain those two things our bodies need: sugar and fat. Are those the right kinds of sugars (in this case, sugars and mostly refined carbohydrates) or fats (lots of saturated fats here, which are incredibly difficult for our bodies to break down)?? Absolutely not. So, it's really not about eliminating sugars or fats from your diet, it's about eating the right kinds that will make you feel SATISFIED (and not spike your insulin so damn high!!! that's how we develop insulin resistance i.e. diabetes) and actually meet your body's NEEDS, not your taste buds' WANTS. Processed foods aren't the real enemy, but rather our lack of knowledge about what's in those processed foods and how much of them we really need. What we really need is a better understanding of how our body works and how it uses the different types of fuels we give it. If we can understand (accurately.... not just some hype that these trend diet developers put out there to confuse you...) how our body metabolizes food and how exercise is important to helping us maintain healthy bodies, I think our society could actually reverse the impact that the dawn of processed/packaged/fast foods has made on our (American) society.0
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They did preserve things with *lots* of salt. They also didn't refrigerate foods, so a lot of rotting or rotted foods were eaten (due to lack of anything else). Food wasn't as clean - large intestines are still a main part of the menu in many places in the world, and they just try to squeeze out any fecal matter before tossing it on the fire for a bit before eating it.
Obviously our bodies are supposed to have dairy - that's all we can eat for a while. Most people have no problems with dairy if they continuously eat or drink it. If it drops below a certain level, the body will produce enough digestive enzymes for a small amount of dairy before it gives up; at that point, that's when the digestive issues come in that many people have with dairy.
Diabetes was difficult to come by due to lack of sugar. The most people got was if they lived in an area that could easily grow sugar cane or if they were lucky enough to live around some fruit trees.
That's why humans love sugar and fat - it packs a lot of calories per bite. This was extremely important for millions of years as we scavenged for food. It's not important that we get as many calories as we can these days, but our taste buds don't know any better.
There were some things that were okay for our ancestors, but a lot of what we can do with food today is a huge benefit to our species. That's why we're on the verge of 7 billion people with almost the same amount of farmland as we had at 2 billion. Some things we do today might not be worth the risks, but overall, huge improvement.
Also, as for the health side effects you mentioned, ADHD is very likely misdiagnosed in multiple cases and probably wasn't even thought about decades ago when it was chalked up to "kids being kids." Autism was probably seen as a mental illness worthy of a mental institute, or the child would simply be abandoned. Girls have reached puberty fairly early on for a loooooong time. For instance, Mohammed married a 9 or 10 year old girl and consummated the marriage after being engaged to her since she was around six years old. Marriages were only consummated if the wife was, for all that was known, capable of producing babies - that is, she had hit puberty.0 -
I think ADHD and autism have always been around, but ADHD kids were just seen as naughty and would probably have most of it beaten out of them into submission, and Autistic children would just have been seen as weirdos or stupid.
THIS THIS THIS0 -
I have been reading a lot on nutrition lately, because my sister was diagnosed with MS, which some link to diet. Because of this research, I have given up all meat but fish, and started to cut down on my already limited dairy.
I'm not quite sure on the paleo theory that beans, brown rice, are bad. There's really no evidence that cavemen lived long lives.
But - I do think that a lot of people are killing themselves with their diet, and I was one of them. I am still not 100% eating clean, but it's better. And as I keep throwing more and more veggies into foods, it will keep getting better. So far no one has complained about the lack of meat on the dinner table here, they're still getting healthy, filling food. I just keep forgetting to add the meat
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Personally, I don't drink milk, I do (or did) cook with it occasionally), I do eat cheese and yogurt, lesser amounts than I used to. I would rather eat real butter than a substitute, but I prefer using olive oil. I don't use canola oil, I don't eat soy. I try to eat 50% leafy vegetables, and eat the rainbow every day. I eat a piece of fruit a day, and I only eat brown rice, whole grains etc. Of course, there is a piece of birthday cake once in awhile. It's all just a matter of balance...0
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