The Diet of the Ancestors

27 Pages·2017·1.06 MB·English

The Diet of the Ancestors
By Grattan Woodson, M.D., FACP
Table of Contents
An Introduction to Our Ancestor’s Traditional Dietary Habits ....................................... 3
The Real Food Diet .................................................................................................. 4
Fresh Foods are the Best Foods ....................................................................... 4
Caloric Guideline for Healthy People ................................................................ 4
A Cautionary Tale About Dairy .......................................................................... 5
Carbohydrates.......................................................................................................... 5
Hypoglycemia a Preventable Cause of Obesity ................................................ 5
Whole Grains .................................................................................................... 7
The Problem with Carbohydrates ...................................................................... 7
Legumes ......................................................................................................... 10
Dietary Fiber; a Non-nutritional Dietary Necessity .......................................... 10
Carbohydrate Guidelines ................................................................................ 11
Good Fats .............................................................................................................. 12
Examples of Good Fats .................................................................................. 12
Coconut Oil ..................................................................................................... 13
Fatty acid content of coconut oil ...................................................................... 14
Essential Fatty Acids: Omega 6, 3 Short and Long Chain .............................. 15
Mercury and Long Chain Omega-3 levels in Ocean Fish ................................ 16
The Mediterranean Diet .................................................................................. 16
Turning Good Oil into Bad............................................................................... 17
Nuts and Seeds .............................................................................................. 17
Polyunsaturated Fat Sources .......................................................................... 18
Animal Fat ....................................................................................................... 18
Is It Really Okay to Eat Butter? ....................................................................... 20
Fat Guidelines ................................................................................................. 20
Protein .................................................................................................................... 21
How Much Meat Does a Real Man Need Everyday? ...................................... 21
High Protein Foods ......................................................................................... 24
Animal Protein ................................................................................................. 24
Fish ................................................................................................................. 24
Eggs ................................................................................................................ 24
Poultry ............................................................................................................. 24
Beef ................................................................................................................ 25
Pork ................................................................................................................ 25
Dietary Sources of Protein .............................................................................. 25
Protein Guidelines ........................................................................................... 26

2
An Introduction to Our Ancestor’s
Traditional Dietary Habits

Humans evolved to eat, process, and digest specific
foods. This evolution took place gradually over
hundreds of thousands of years among multiple pre-
sapien Homo species. The foods our ancestors ate
were pretty simple by comparison to what is
commonplace today and much lower in caloric
density and higher in fiber. Nutrition and diet are
popular topics since diet-related diseases have
become epidemic. However, diseases of calorie
excess are a new development in human history
whose ancestors were hunted relentlessly by
starvation and famine since life emerged. The only
choice our ancestors could choose was real food.

That was the traditional diet of all our ancestors until very recently. They all ate real food
and our bodies are designed expressly for this form of nutrition. The foods we eat today
bear little resemblance to the diet our ancestors ate while evolving. The gap between
that diet and our current diet provides insight into the etiology of many of the common
chronic diseases that plague modern societies today. The principal differences between
the cuisine our ancestors enjoyed and that followed by the everyman of Metropolis
today can be defined in terms of its caloric density, proportion of fats, carbohydrates,
and proteins, caloric budget, time spent fasting, and feeding periodicity.

Probably the greatest irony so far in the
short history of humanity is the
unintended consequence we have
wrought upon ourselves by virtue of the
progress made in the green revolution.
While upending Malthusian predictions
of human extinction due to
overpopulation and famine, we have
instead created the absurd conditions
where we are feeding ourselves to slow
miserable death.

In addition to building meals around real
foods, our ancestors also ate less
frequently and only when prompted by
Sir Thomas Robert Malthus 1780
the feeling of true hunger. Being hungry
was simply a message from the body saying that the meal most recently eaten had
been fully digested and now the body’s energy demands were being met by stored fat.
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Chronic over-consumption of food too rich in calories, when one is not truly hungry,
results in a host of maladies including weight gain and poor sleep, which lead to other
medical problems. Our bodies were evolved to fast most of the time rather than eating
frequently and feeling sated often. It is important to space out meals and eat only when
truly hungry.

My purpose in writing about this is to suggest how modern people can make healthier
nutrition choices and adapt to our current environment of food and calorie
overabundance. In nature the dictum is adaptation to a new adverse environmental
circumstance or become extinct. This is true whether the adverse condition is of our
own making or not. For instance, human overpopulation and the current cycle of global
warming are other new environmental adverse conditions that humans face today that
we must learn to adapt to or face the consequences. In the long run none of these three
are sufficient to cause extinction directly, they are all very disruptive and are potent
enough to bring down worldwide civilization. Such atmospheric views of the issue are of
little use to us in the here and now. We can do little or nothing to affect the big picture.
What is true are plethora of ways to eat foods better suited to your body’s basic
chemistry and internal feeding/fasting clock. Doing so is its own reward and you will
recognize it right away. Everything in the following discussion and indeed on this and
my other websites has the same goal in mind. Helping you to understand that there are
better choices and why and that choosing them will have profoundly positive health and
wellness benefits.
The Real Food Diet
Fresh Foods are the Best Foods
This is the essence of the Diet of the Ancestors, and you will reach your milestones
sooner and easier with this approach.

Start off by choosing fresh real
Caloric Guideline for Healthy People foods to include in your diet. If
you do nothing else that will
profoundly affect your quality
Fat Protein
your of life. The quantity and
30% 30%
distribution of calories remains
the same but the nutritional
content, fiber, and inherent
goodness of the food are all
significantly enhanced by this
one change. When shopping
select fresh, unprocessed,
raw, and if possible organic
fruits and vegetables. Avoid all
processed foods to reduce
Cabohydrate
exposure to a variety of
40%
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chemicals. Processed foods are the primary source of trans fats in the diet today, often
containing high levels of sodium, and are a common source of refined carbohydrates.
A Cautionary Tale About Dairy
In my opinion dairy products are not a healthy choice for anyone needing to lose weight
or for someone at risk for cardiovascular disease or who has asthma or allergies. After a
review of the scientific literature, I have come to the conclusion that besides our own
mother’s milk during infancy the regular consumption of foods derived from cow’s milk
by Homo sapiens is unhealthy. On the other hand, there is very little harm from enjoying
these products in small quantities even on a regular basis for most people, especially
adults without the above health problems.

A Few Notes on Dairy Products
Milk can be viewed as type of sugar water. A
cup of skim milk (250 ml) has about 13 gm of
sugar or about a tablespoon. There are studies
that link milk consumption with insulin
resistance, type II diabetes, high blood
pressure, and coronary heart disease. Obesity
has now been linked to cancer as well as
cardiovascular disease.

The USDA estimates that dairy food
consumption is the second largest source of
trans fats in the American diet behind cookies
and baked goods. Cows are treated with rBGH,
which stimulates production of high levels of
Insulin-like Growth Factor (IFG-1) and it is passed into their milk. IGF-1 is a known
human cancer promoter. Thus it is important to purchase an organic or otherwise rBHP-
free product.
Carbohydrates
Hypoglycemia a Preventable Cause of Obesity
It was under primitive dietary conditions that our ancestors evolved and our metabolism
developed. Nature selected those of us best suited to the most nutritious food, who
could masticate, process, and digest those foods. Our present diet is too rich in refined
carbohydrates, unhealthy fats, and low in fiber. These characteristics are an anathema
to our nature and result in much sickness, chronic disease, and death among our
people.

When the body’s pancreas detects the high blood sugar that results from the ingestion
of a refined carbohydrate dish and by this I mean something as seemingly harmless as
two slices of bread with its high glucose load and index, it reacts by releasing excess
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insulin. Why would the pancreas over react like that when presented with the glucose
derived from the breakdown of 2 slices of bread? The reason is simply that when our
pancreas and all our other organs evolved over the last million years there was no
bread in the diet. Common place bread is a very high tech agricultural development that
is the result of 10,000 years of human endeavor. While 2 slices of bread has about 160
calories in it, pancreas’ internal glucose sensor that evolved along with the organ itself
miscalculates how much carbohydrate was consumed and responds by releasing an
overdose of insulin. The excessive insulin release drives the blood sugar down rapidly.
The brain is the only glucose dependent organ. It has to have sugar to function and
when the blood glucose drops below a certain level then unconsciousness occurs. As
the blood sugar approaches that level the sensors in the brain detect it and react. What
happens next is an urgent message passed through the sympathetic nervous system to
the adrenal gland instruction it to release of cortisone and adrenaline. These are the
body’s principle stress hormones. They have wide ranging effects. The pancreas
releases glucagon that promotes release of stored glucose in the liver in an attempt to
prevent unconsciousness from the blood glucose falling too low. The glucose goes up
rapidly in response and with again more insulin is released. It’s a vicious cycle. The
adrenal makes you feel shaky and jittery. Your blood pressure and pulse go up too.

This cycle makes one feel lightheaded when to glucose is peaking and tired, shaky,
anxious and often have a headache when it goes too low. The repeats itself daily for
millions of Americans, often resulting in progressive gradual weight can followed by
diabetes. These are the symptoms of hypoglycemia and this conditions is a risk factor
for type II diabetes not because it is a disease but because people with this condition
learn from experience than when they get these feelings all they need to do is eat
something sweet or starchy and they will be just fine. This learned behavior is self
reinforcing and establishes a behavior pattern that becomes very powerful and difficult
to break because of fear of hypoglycemia. The calories consumed in response to
hypoglycemia are not needed for your energy requirements so to the extent that they
are surplus our every efficient body as fat stores them. As the body fat percentage rises
your metabolism is adversely affected and diabetes is one of the consequences. This is
how hypoglycemia is related to diabetes.

A better nutritional choice is foods with a low glycemic index and load that are high in
fiber. Avoid foods with a high glucose index and load such as white bread, potatoes,
white rice, and simple sugars including table sugar (sucrose), honey, brown sugar, corn
syrup (used in soft drinks), and fruit juice (fructose). Temperate fruits and berries are
fine because they don’t have as much fructose, fruit sugar and the fiber in the fruit slows
the absorption of the sugar causing a steady more gradual rise in blood sugar. The
pancreas is designed to manage that properly and does not overshoot the insulin. This
means there is no high glucose or low glucose or all the symptoms and consequences
that are associated with those events.

The Glucose Index and Load Tables for a variety of sources are provided on this
website and elsewhere. Only carbohydrates have a glucose load and index worth
mentioning. The best strategy for overweight and obese people is to simply avoid the
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foods that are primary carbohydrates completely. This includes the grains, potato, and
topical fruits, table sugar and honey. The foods that have a carbohydrate content but
include fats, protein, or fiber like legumes and temperate fruits are good food choices.
They have low glucose loads and low glucose indexes. Fats and alcohol have no
glucose index or load, and proteins have a very low one. Beer and wine have
carbohydrates and some have quit a lot. Chardonnay is a white wine with a low glucose
load and index. While vodka has zero glucose load and index tonic water has a high
load and index. So be mindful of the beer, wine, and mixer choice you make. If the food
is a sweet, refined, or a processed carbohydrate, it is likely to have a high glucose index
and load. Avoid those foods and you can avoid the vicious cycle. When your are out at
a friend’s home, an event or restaurant try to make good food or beverage choices that
will be sugar free but you can never be sure until you taste it. Then you will know. If it is
sweet just don’t eat or drink it. Put it down and get something else.
Whole Grains
Whole grain products include brown rice and whole wheat bread. Processed grain
products (white rice and flour) are poor carbohydrate choices because of their high
glucose load. The added fiber in the whole grain products is not very substantial. It is
not enough to delay the absorption of the carbohydrate from modern wheat and rice
much at all. One way to delay the digestion of glucose from wheat is by using rougher
ground flour (stone ground). The larger starch granules are more difficult to digest
slowing it. You can slow glucose absorption by delaying gastric emptying and improving
satiety of the meal by adding oil like butter, coconut oil, or a polyunsaturated margarine.
The saturated fats increase satiety greater than the polyunsaturated.

I really enjoy eating all whole grain products. I have prepared them in many different
ways and find that they are a wonderful food except for one thing and that is they are
mostly carbohydrate. The grains of today are not the grains of our ancestors but more
importantly our lifestyles are so different today from our ancestors too. In essence the
grains are too rich and the physical demands of modern life do not require very many
calories to meet them. Do the math. If you consume more calories than you burn on a
regular basis over any given period of time your weight will rise. While I absolutely love
grains, I have to tightly restrict them or they will make me gain weight and they will do
the same to you.
The Problem with Carbohydrates
The problem has to do with their general scarcity during our ancestor’s biological
evolution. We were simply never designed to consume a diet so rich in carbohydrates,
especially simple sugars but even so-called high fiber complex carbohydrates are an
assault on our metabolism.

Brown rice, whole wheat, bulgur, steel cut oats, and wheat berries are examples of
whole grain foods that have been improved over generations through selective plant
breading that began 9000 years ago in the fertile crescent of the middle east in the most
innocent way on a causal basis.
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A herdsman noticed a
particular heaviness to a
tall stalk of grass that his
animals were grazing on
with gusto. He liked the
thickness of the cornels
on a particular stalk of
grass growing in the
verdant field where he
brought his animals to
graze. He picked the

head and planted the grass that fall and it grew. The next year he chose the best of
breed again and planted that. From father to son the practice was past and pretty soon
they had emmer wheat, something that could be dried, ground and baked into bread
and it was good said the herdsman come farmer. Then came horticultural science and
we have very rich wheat and corn cornels crammed full of carbohydrates.
When we ingest these modern
cultivars even with all the fiber they
have, they are broken down very
fast into glucose that is absorbed
quickly. This causes a bolus of
insulin to be released from the
pancreas into the blood and the
insulin shuts down release of
triglycerides from the fat cells by
inhibiting lipoprotein lipase. The
insulin drives some of the glucose
into cells where it is metabolized
by the mitochondria into energy if

Left: A modern “naked bread wheat” cultivar Triticum needed. The excess glucose is
aestivum that falls away from its hull making transformed into triglycerides by
processing easier. Right Einkorn wheat Triticum the liver and secreted into the
monococcum, a primitive early variant clings tightly
blood to be taken up by the fat
to its hull. Notice the grain size difference between to
cells and stored. Some of the
new and old cultivars.
hepatic triglyceride is converted
into cholesterol where it circulates in the blood on its carrier protein LDL.

This cascade of events places stress on the pancreas. Excess cholesterol made during
the process is stored in the walls of the artery for use in some future time of scarcity that
has these days been eliminated. The triglycerides not consumed for energy is stored as
fat, again to meet future energy needs that rarely come today. The result is weight gain,
arterial cholesterol plaque formation, followed by pre-diabetes. High blood pressure and
high cholesterol are next, a few years and a dozen lbs heavier then wham-o heart
attack #1.

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Fresh boiled green soybeans served chilled Modern bread wheat close
edamame approaching ready for harvest

Today’s carbohydrates are the problem. You do not get these same metabolic
consequences when you consume fat or protein, just carbohydrates. This is why I think
they need to be limited in the diet but not eliminated. Take green soybeans for instance.
A 100 g portion of boiled green soybeans is 68% water, 4.2 g fiber, 13 g of protein, 11 g
carbohydrates, and 6.8 g fats. The calorie count is 157 with 52 from protein, 44 from
carbohydrate, and 61 coming from fat. Lets compare that with 100 g of dry whole wheat.
It is 13% water, 12.2 g fiber, and 12.6 g of protein, 71 g carbohydrate, and 1.54 g fats.
The calorie count is 348, with 50 from protein, 284 from carbohydrates, and 14 from
fats.

In practical terms, a slice of whole wheat bread is about 30 g or 1 oz. That would
provide 80 calories because during bread making the water is added to the wheat flour
and the bread has higher water content that dry wheat and water has no calories. One
oz of chilled cooked green soybeans, edamame has 52 calories. The two food items
would be handled very differently by the body’s metabolic machinery. The gross amount
of carbohydrate found in 30 g of soybeans is slightly less than 4 g, which is not very
much. The small amount of fiber will not have much effect but the modest almost 3 g of
fat in the soybean is enough to significantly slow the absorption of the glucose from the
carbohydrate. The result will be a gradual increase in blood glucose from consumption
of the edamame that is so slight that there will be hardly more than the usual basal
insulin release to manage the glucose. This is especially the case if the person eating
the soybeans had excellent insulin sensitivity. On the other hand consider the bread
starch being rapidly digested by amylase, the enzyme released by the pancreas
specifically tasked for this purpose. Amylase is one of the most efficient enzymes ever
discovered. The level of fiber in whole wheat bread will slow the absorption of glucose a
little but the high level of carbohydrate in the bread will simply overcome that effect.
Those bread derived glucose molecules are going to hit the blood stream rapidly like a
ton of semi-sweet berries. The pancreas will do what it is designed to do. It has no
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choice. You on the other hand do have a choice. You can choose what, when, and how
much to eat. This is up to you and entirely within your control.

I suggest eating fresh meat from all sources. In my opinion it is ideal to consume
poultry, beef, pork, lamb, venison, goat, fresh and ocean fish, shellfish, and eggs in the
diet often. I suggest mixing it up and buying fresh meat and seafood rather than frozen.
Frozen is fine and a compromise not from the nutritional perspective but from the
culinary one. Fresh caught rather than farmed is amazing especially caught early that
morning by you with your son or grandson can not be beat. Have beef one day, poultry
the next. That said don’t eat too much meat. Our high quality protein requirements are
modest. I provide you with information about this at the end of this booklet. Go
vegetarian for a least day each week if not more then have fresh clams and shrimp the
next. Cook turkey thighs on the grill with corn on the cob and zucchini squash. The next
grill a 12oz filet medium rare and share it with your sweetie. Veggie night with a
Mexican theme of red beans, chili powder, cumin, garlic, onions, tomatoes, and cheese
then, well you get it. Variety is really important. I bet you are wondering why I cut the
12oz filet in half. Six oz for a grown man! REALLY. Yes, really. Read on and see why.
You just may live long and prosper Dr. Spock.

Legumes
Legumes are good sources of protein, healthy fats,
carbohydrate, and fiber with a low glycemic index, and
they are they a bargain. They are high in soluble fiber
which blocks the absorption of digestible carbohydrate
and cholesterol and results in a significant delay in the
ability of the body being able to extract the sugar
present within this food source.

Legumes contain polyunsaturated omega 6 fatty acids,
which is an essential fatty acid that also lowers
cholesterol. The regular consumption of beans
improves bowel function significantly and is one of the
best ways to manage constipation especially when
combined with foods rich in insoluble fiber found in
whole grains or seeds like flax, chia, or psyllium husk

and when used with adequate water intake and
Soybean Varieties
moderate regular exercise.

Dietary Fiber; a Non-nutritional Dietary Necessity
Constipation, hemorrhoids, diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and colon cancer are
just a few of the common medical problems that can be prevented in many people with
a diet high in fiber. Dietary fiber is defined as indigestible substances within fruits
vegetables, legumes, seeds, and whole grains. Soluble fiber helps improve
carbohydrate metabolism by slowing the absorption of sugars from the diet. It also
blocks absorption of some fats in the diet. In addition, fiber binds dietary fats and
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