Traditonal Diets III: Why Change How I Eat?

If you pay any attention to healthcare trends you know that as a culture we are becoming more and more sick. This is the first generation of Americans who’s children are not expected to surpass their parents in life expectancy. Further according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the national public health institute of the United States): In 1900 less than 5% of Americans were chronically ill. Today 67% of Americans are considered chronically ill. Meaning 67% of all Americans are in a constant state of dis-ease and many are trying to manage symptoms with pharmaceutical medications which often compound the issue of the root cause of the disease. I believe that there are multiple reasons for the rapid decline in our health but one of the biggest has to be the changes made to our food supply in the last century.

One of the most powerful and beneficial things you can do for your health is to improve your diet.

Think about it, your body uses food for fuel (with fats and carbohydrates) and to build or rebuild structures (with proteins). What you eat has everything to do with your body’s chemistry which dictates your health. That’s why the saying “You are what you eat” is so true. Modern science is mostly focused on how and why things work. For example I can’t tell you how many times in my Nutritional Therapy practice I’ve had a client say “Every time I eat wheat my symptoms get worse but I’ve been allergy tested and the results are negative for wheat so I haven't stopped eating it.”  Sound familiar? But in ancient times most cultures were more concerned with results. If an herb was discovered that would help cure a disease it wouldn’t occur to the medicine man or healer to figure out why or how it worked he would just use it when that disease came up again and look on it as a gift from the gods.

Because of this basic difference in thinking, modern science has accumulated an incredible amount of great information on the how and why of the chemistry/nutrients in our food. Unfortunately this hasn’t brought us any closer to health. All the “experts” disagree on what makes a healthy diet based on this mountain of information. So it makes logical sense to go back to when we enjoyed a higher level of health (just 100 years ago!!) and look at what our ancestors were eating.

Food for thought: We have thousands of years of empirical evidence that the Traditional diets of our ancestors have kept us healthy and thriving otherwise we wouldn’t be here now.

In good health-
Shawn Kinsella CNT, LMT