Natural Human Diet

[G. Adams]

I was thinking what would be best for us to eat, to work to maximum efficiency, rather than survive. As I've said, grains not properly treated contain phytic acid, and mineral and vitamen uptake inhibiter. And soy products encourage the release of oestrogen, certainly not ideal for a man.

I'd like to add that I've been eating a majority fruit diet since September and have not had one cold, ache or pain at all, and I have been working out quite heavily, which used to mean ending up with a cold at the end of the regime (immune system running a little low. And when i said no aches i didn't mean those lovely next day work out aches, although they heal faster now).

[MerlinsByte]

Nutrition is a science, and while I know the basics, there is such a bewildering array of supplements vitamins and snake waters that I wouldn't know what would be the absolute best.

If one had the means to tailor make each diet for maximum efficiency, that might be the way to go. Something like a thoroughbred race horse or even our Olympic athletes measure intake output in fluids, body fat, etc....no fun but efficient.

I have been blessed with good health for many decades, try as I might by using toxic chemicals, breathing infected air, my body serves me well, remarkably well for the abuse I've heaped on it.

As for a normal diet, fish chicken, fresh fruits and veggies, fiber as in oats (soluble fiber) low fat including oils and refined sugar. No "artificial" sweeteners, very moderate alcohol intake, if any, and of course no smoking......


mb

[Starboy]

Quote by: G. Adams I was thinking what would be best for us to eat, to work to maximum efficiency, rather than survive. As I've said, grains not properly treated contain phytic acid, and mineral and vitamen uptake inhibiter. And soy products encourage the release of oestrogen, certainly not ideal for a man.

Check out this site.

http://www.walford.com

He [had] been doing research on longevity for some time. His book "120 year diet" is full of information. Also if you want to give your cells a boost look into alpha-lipoic-acid and acetyl-L-carnatine. There has been interesting work done on animals with those two substances. Anyone over fifty that wants to feel young again should look into it.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/alpha-lipoic-acid.html
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/4/1870
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/4/1876
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/4/2356

Starboy

I just discovered that Dr. Walford died on 4/2004 of ALS. He thought he had contracted it during his research in Biosphere 1.

[Samildanach]

Hell, Im 31 and I would like to feel young again.

[Pooeypants]

Quote by: Samildanach Hell, Im 31 and I would like to feel young again.

Define the feelings of being young as opposed to being 31.

[MerlinsByte]

Quote by: Pooeypants Define the feelings of being young as opposed to being 31.

Merlin writes......at age 19 I was in the best shape of my life, 6' 0 , 180 lb., ran at least 5 miles a day, hell most of the day WAS PT, why? (US Army) ...damn I felt bad! Too skinny.

I couldn't determine any difference at age 30, I was a skilled crafts person (ironworker supervisor) 190 lb. and felt very good. At age 40, not much different from age 20....185lbs and becoming lazy.....now at age ?? I am fat and lazy! School is bad for your health! I received my masters at 40. Now, years later , I am fat but feel great.

And Pooey, I agree, 31 is young and when one should (depending on environmental and genetic aspects, as well as basic exercise routine, if any, 31 is the best age for life in general).

[tman_ndsu08]

Personally I think all the Atkins, raw food, etc. is all nothing but fad diets. Really, it's all just clever marketing. Think of how much more you're spending to maintain such a diet. Just what the supermarkets want.

As far as diet goes: there are 7 things that the body needs to consume in order to function optimally: water, glucose, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

Water is the most important because it's required for virtually all chemical reactions in your body. If you don't get enough water, then everything goes to hell.

Glucose is what gives your muscle the energy needed to contract and when metabolized creates the heat that keeps your body around 98 degrees. You can get this in a wide variety of forms. Usually, glucose is consumed in some sort of polymer form (meaning many glucoses connected together). The bigger the polymer, the longer it takes to break down in your stomach. It shouldn't matter what form you get your glucose in so long as you get enough of it. Glucose needs to be about half of your daily calories. However, there is a theory that people who are genetically predisposed to getting adult onset diabeties should stay away from short polymer glucose as it tends to enter the blood stream much faster than longer polymers which in turn can be bad for the pancreas (not sure why exactly). Anyway, if you think you might be predisposed, check it out. I think it's called the Gl index or something.

Essential amino acids are amino acids that your body can't make itself. You can also get these from a wide variety of things. Animal flesh is a very good source as well as many beans (soy, peanut, etc.). Overall, amino acids combine to form proteins which are what all tissues in your body are made out of. So they're important for tissue repair and and new tissue creation. Try to get 20-30% of your calories from protein.

Essential fatty acids are very long polymers of carbon. These are, again, things the body can't make on it's own and have a variety of purposes. You can get these fats usually from animal fat and beans. Overall, you need to consume 20-30% of your calories from fat. There really isn't any good reason in our age to consume any fat other than essential fatty acids, BUT if you don't your body thinks it's starving (from caveman days when you might go a long time without food) and lots of bad things happen.

Vitamins and minerals are substances and earth elements that the body can't make on it's own. It's reccomended that you consume a certain amount of them each day. You won't die from not consuming them but there are a number of side effects. I think the easiest way is to simply take a multi vitamin/mineral pill once or twice a day. Then you don't have to worry about eating a certain amount of certain foods to get your daily need.

Fiber is anything you consume that can't be broken down. Most fruits and vegitables are mostly fiber. Again, you don't die if you don't get this but a theory is that this pushes the waste out of your colon faster. And since it leaves faster there is less chance that it will cause colon disease.


There is no such thing as a widesweeping miracle diet that works for everyone. All people are different enough so that some things work for some people while other people react to those things negatively. You need to experament with different forms of the above to order to find out what works for you. I've heard of people who swear by the atkins or the raw food diets and claim that they worked for them better than anything ever before. The problem is, they think that *everyone* should do them when the fact is that those diets are expensive and simply won't provide most people with the dramatic changes that they might be seeking.

[G. Adams]

I know most diets that are pushed are expensive fads, but mine is dirt cheap, of course it isn't widely pushed either. Fruit is cheap, having a little good meat is cheap, tuna is cheap. I don't eat all that much mind, I guess if you were a big eater the costs would rack up.

[tman_ndsu08]

Fresh fruit is neither cheap nor particularly fresh everwhere. Vegitarian or mostly vegitarian diets have been around for a long time. Some people absolutely love them and it is possible to get all essential nutrients from them. If you like it and it fits your checkbook, go for it.

[Catch 22]

G adams while certain diets may be “natural” they certainty aren’t healthy, evolution is a horribly inefficient process that takes millions of years to get much of anything done. To think simply because animals are too stupid not to cook their food doesn’t mean we should avail ourselves to the wonders of raw flesh. Evolution has made humans smart enough so that we can now bypass the ultra slow process and use our intellect to figure out what is most healthy for us. So far those diets seem to be those low in red meat, high in complex grains, vegetables, fruit and seafood.

However before we start eating any of these things we need to first get food that isn’t toxic. If we haven’t already noticed most of the world’s is polluted by vast quantities of some sort of chemical poison. Fish has mercury, pesticide, high concentrations of carcinogens and any number of water born impurities. Meat has growth hormones, enough antibiotics to sterilize a swap, and possibly deadly bacteriological infections. Fruit and vegetables have been genetically modified, and sprayed full of pesticide and herbicides. Bottom line is we need to clean up the aggregate toxicity of our basic food supply before we start talking about the right kind of diet.

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: Catch 22 G adams while certain diets may be “natural” they certainty aren’t healthy, evolution is a horribly inefficient process that takes millions of years to get much of anything done. To think simply because animals are too stupid not to cook their food doesn’t mean we should avail ourselves to the wonders of raw flesh. Evolution has made humans smart enough so that we can now bypass the ultra slow process and use our intellect to figure out what is most healthy for us. So far those diets seem to be those low in red meat, high in complex grains, vegetables, fruit and seafood. However before we start eating any of these things we need to first get food that isn’t toxic. If we haven’t already noticed most of the world’s is polluted by vast quantities of some sort of chemical poison. Fish has mercury, pesticide, high concentrations of carcinogens and any number of water born impurities. Meat has growth hormones, enough antibiotics to sterilize a swap, and possibly deadly bacteriological infections. Fruit and vegetables have been genetically modified, and sprayed full of pesticide and herbicides. Bottom line is we need to clean up the aggregate toxicity of our basic food supply before we start talking about the right kind of diet.

Meat had growth hormones before too. Perhaps you meant artificially high amounts of growth hormone.

[G. Adams]

Well my veg I get off the allotment that is next to my building (particularly cheap if I pick it up at 3 in the morning when drunk...just kidding...) if it's in season. I get my fruit from the market. I get my meat from the halal butchers down the road. All in all, I spend around £15 on food, and I consider that cheap.

C22, most of the food we eat is not because it's good for us, but because we can produce it in great amounts making it cheap. Grains arn't good for you if not prepared properly, the only creature that can digest them if not prepared right are birds.

A natural hunter/gatherer is healthy. if you look at the health of inuits, aussie aborigines, massai that still live in a traditional manner are particularly healthy.

As for the short life-span in those times, how do you know that is due to diet? The lives of humans back then were dangerous, and it is possible the low average life-span is due to the risky conditions they lived in, not their diet.

On raw food...Cooking food is for reasons of taste and making meat safe. There is no need to cook most foods, and doing so is often detrimental to their end-quality. If you boil veg and throw the water away you lose plenty of minerals and vitamens. Milk is ravaged in the pasteurisation and homogenisation process, and if skimmed it is hardly milk anymore.

[tman_ndsu08]

That's why they add the vitamins and minerals back in to processed foods.

Most vegtables are mostly fiber and water. They do have vitamins but it's a lot easier to get thouse through a supplement than eating a whole bushel of vegitables.

[Dadoo]

One large meal, midday.
Snacks throughout.
No risen breads.
Variety, based on environment.
Occasionally, inebriants.
Water, more than you currently consume.

That's me, anyway.
Dadoo

[jeffl]

Udo Erasmus has done some excellent work in the field of natural and essential oils, with the focus on a complete diet. Seems the oils must be treated delicately to maintain their efficacy, which makes sense when you considers that until recently our diet was exclusively raw. The placement of one or more cis-double bonds along the carbon chain of the fat molecule is important to how the oil is metabolized; heat or light can easily alter the structure of the molecule.

[Catch 22]

most of the food we eat is not because it's good for us, but because we can produce it in great amounts making it cheap. Grains arn't good for you if not prepared properly, the only creature that can digest them if not prepared right are birds.

Grains are considered quite healthy as long as they are complex whole grains and not basic starch carbohydrates, which accumulate into fat. No matter how natural or not it is really couldn’t matter, as it’s still very healthy.

A natural hunter/gatherer is healthy. if you look at the health of inuits, aussie aborigines, massai that still live in a traditional manner are particularly healthy.

Primitive Hunter gatherers died around age 35-40 g, there’s nothing incredibly healthy about it. They ate what they could find around them and that was what could be hunted and gathered. However the great evolutionary wheel has given humans intelligence enough to cultivate foods that normally wouldn’t grow in bountiful amounts. And thus we can eat stuff that may be just as if not more healthy, yet simply unavailable naturally. I mean really g; our bodies have so many defects and inefficiencies which modern medicine fixed. Should we abandon those things as well? As they’re surely not natural either!

As for the short life-span in those times, how do you know that is due to diet? The lives of humans back then were dangerous, and it is possible the low average life-span is due to the risky conditions they lived in, not their diet.

But g isn’t that “natural” as well, weren’t humans adapted to live out in the forest with the lions and tigers and bears? Well then, why not abandon modern medicine, modern shelter and modern technology? That sounds like that’ll really put us in sync with our primal selves.

On raw food...Cooking food is for reasons of taste and making meat safe. There is no need to cook most foods, and doing so is often detrimental to their end-quality. If you boil veg and throw the water away you lose plenty of minerals and vitamens. Milk is ravaged in the pasteurisation and homogenisation process, and if skimmed it is hardly milk anymore.

Yes but if you don’t cook it you get lovely bacterial, parasitic and fungal infections that have fun ravaging your body and your health. As tman said we could replace whatever lost nutrients we have with vitamin and mineral supplements. That seems like a much more intelligent and safe alternative rather than exposing our bodies to the wonderful world of ancient infection.

[tman_ndsu08]

Catch, whether you get your glucose in very long polymers or long polymers probably is not going to make a difference in how much is stored as fat.

[SVMc]

I don't think you will every be able to come up with a combination that is universally applicable to all humans, mainly due to different climates and what people have adjusted to. Castille did have a point about travelling and not being used to the bacteria in another region.

I'd be hesitant to dismiss the benefits of grains so quickly. Whole grains have many benefits when used properly in a healthy diet.

[Starboy]

Quote by: tman_ndsu08 Catch, whether you get your glucose in very long polymers or long polymers probably is not going to make a difference in how much is stored as fat.

I was reading an article in Science New on flavones. It appears that a diet rich in calories that is also rich in flavones will keep lab rats thin. Fat is a very tricky business. There was one article that linked obesity to cell damage. That the same mechanism involved in inflammation also encouraged fat cell growth.

Starboy

[tman_ndsu08]

Quote by: SVMc I don't think you will every be able to come up with a combination that is universally applicable to all humans, mainly due to different climates and what people have adjusted to. Castille did have a point about travelling and not being used to the bacteria in another region. I'd be hesitant to dismiss the benefits of grains so quickly. Whole grains have many benefits when used properly in a healthy diet.

Yes, and beans are usually very nutrious with high fiber but hard to eat without cooking them.