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Go back in time
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Our ancient eating habits can save us from the modern pandemics
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Photo: AFP
You are what you eat Be watchful of the high-calorie diet
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael Pollana
We are 21st century folks, with the bodies of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, eating 21st century food. Even our 19th century ancestors would not recognise the food today: polished rice, white bread, corn flakes and wheat flakes, biscuits, chips, choc
olates, ice cream, sugar, lots of salt in everything... This is not the food evolution meant for us. Combined with a sedentary lifestyle, it is killing us with a pandemic of diabetes and atherosclerosis. Food was scarce during the age of hunter-gatherers. Being sedentary was not an option. There aren’t many fat hunter-gatherers in cave murals. You had to chase food down, climb trees for it or fish for it. The diet was mainly fresh fruit, leaves, nuts, meat and fish. There was no common salt or edible oil. Leftovers could not be stored: everything had to be fresh. There was simply not enough food for overeating. Besides, the high fibre/calorie ratio of fruit ensured satiety occurred long before an overdose of calories.
Because food was scarce, the body evolved to regard energy-rich fat as precious. The special feel of melting butter on the tongue kept your ancestors alive. Hanging on to excess calories by converting them to fat is a universal survival trait among animals. Because salt is vital for life, our brains are wired to seek its flavour. Eating to excess, if you could find the food, was a good thing back then. It kept you alive when food was scarce.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and it is easy to understand why those survival-traits are so lethal today. Our hunter-gatherer bodies continue to crave fat, except that fat is cheap and plentiful and our lifestyles prevent us from burning off excess calories. Modern life assaults us with flavours far more potent that our ancestors ever encountered- sometimes aided by addictive drugs like caffeine. For tongues and brains that evolved to recognise the mild sweet taste of fruit, the sweetness of chocolates is overwhelming and addictive. Potato chips exploit our primal salt hunger. Our hunter-gatherer brains simply cannot say “no” or even “enough” to these foods. Satiety sets in far too late.
Modern medicine recognises that a low salt, whole grain, fresh fruit and vegetable diet is what we were meant for. Our ancient eating habits can save us from the modern pandemics of diabetes and atherosclerosis.
RAJIV M.
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