The statistics are clear. Sixty-five percent of Americans are overweight or obese. The health risks associated with obesity are more related to our lack of cardiovascular and metabolic fitness than the number on the scale. Nonetheless, our future as a nation is in jeopardy because of how much we eat and what we eat. We can also see this trend moving to other countries. When other nations eat as we do, they too become fat and unhealthy. In just one generation, Asia has gone from one of the lowest to the highest rate of chronic disease. In Africa, cardiovascular disease deaths now equal those for HIV/AIDS. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the US and in most other countries and is almost completely preventable. Studies show that you can prevent or reverse heart disease and prostate cancer by diet alone. While we spend billions of dollars on expensive heart surgeries, little emphasis is placed on changing diet to treat heart disease. Even Bill Clinton, a notorious junk food eater, has announced that he is following a vegan (plant-based) diet without dairy, little oil, no meat. http://www.modernmom.com/hottopic/2011/aug/19/bill-clinton-goes-vegan
An Asian diet can reverse heart disease, the ANCESTRAL Asian diet. The same goes for the ANCESTRAL diets of most other countries. When you compare our modern diet with what we were eating in the 1950's, there are some significant differences. The ANCESTRAL diet:
- was lower in sugar and processed foods
- rarely contained soft drinks / sodas
- was lower in overall calories
- less reliant on animal sources of protein
- involved 3 meals and not much between meal snacking
- food was eaten seasonally
In a study of children's lunches in the 1950's compared to today in the UK, it was found that despite post-war shortages, lunch box meals for children in the 1950's had:
- more bread and milk --> more fiber and calcium
- fewer soft drinks therefore less sugar
- had more vegetables
- had more red meat giving them more iron
- had more fat in their diet
Although the fat and caloric intake was higher in the 1950's, children were generally more active at that time and so there was less obesity.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/542205.stm
While I can't assert that the 1950's diet or lifestyle was perfect or that there were no obese people then, either, I do feel that we should consider returning to some of the basic principles that kept us healthy then. I'm proposing that the ANCESTRAL way of eating would include:
- a ban on soft drinks which have become a major causative factor in the current obesity epidemic
- eating more plants - vegetables especially as Michael Pollan has suggested
- eat fewer animal sources of protein and more plant sources such as lentils, beans, peas, tofu, tempeh
- markedly reduce the use of processed, convenience or prepared foods
- increase the variety of whole grains eaten - add barley to soups, eat quinoa, millet, brown or colored rices.
- eat meals rather than grazing throughout the day
- decrease portion sizes
- go back to having a treat be a treat defined as: "an item that is out of the ordinary and gives pleasure." This includes desserts, candy, chips and other non-nutritive foods that we eat just because we like them. It's not a treat if you eat it every day!
- Increase physical activity.
There are many advantages to living in our modern age, but good eating habits are apparently not one of these - at least for over 65% of Americans. We need to retrain our taste buds to be less enamored of sugary foods, learn that eating more than our bodies need is not healthy and take Michelle Obama's suggestion to "get moving." Going back to the future could improve our health and well-being with very small changes that over time will seem like second nature.
