The "Ancestors" Diet - How the Food Your Ancestors Ate Can Make You Healthy and Young Again!

Did you know that the body you were born with influences how you digest and process certain foods? And because of these genetic differences, a certain food can be healthy for one person, but unhealthy for another?

While a link between genetics and nutrition was first discovered over 70 years ago, it has been confirmed today through cutting-edge research. Geneticists, biochemists, anatomists, and endocrinologists have certified that our genetic heritage – what passed down to us from our ancestors – affects our nutritional needs.

Do you know who your ancestors are? Today, few of us are “purebreds”. If we were, it would be easy to determine what foods would make us healthy. We would just need to know what was grown and available in the part of the world that our ancestors came from.

However, even if we come from parents who were from the same country, their parents, or their parent’s parents, or even farther back may have had mixed ancestry. We may be mixtures of a variety of genetic material from all over the globe. As such, we may need food from the traditional nature-based diets of several different cultures.

And even if we do know our genetic heritage, our technology regarding food processing and delivery has changed down through the ages, making it harder to get these foods in their traditional form. And since our internal systems primarily remain the same as our ancestors, improvements in “food technology” have had both positive and negative effects.

For example, at one time, scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) was a serious problem. Between 1556 and 1857, more than 100 scurvy epidemics spread through Europe, devastating large populations. Today, almost no one experiences scurvy, thanks to improvements in food availability.

But for all the advances, our modern technology has caused serious problems. For example, modern technology has given us “trans fat” – the result of vegetables oils that have been treated to extend shelf life. Unfortunately though, no one has the right genetics for trans-fat, since trans-fats aren’t in nature. Though we have many of the same dietary requirements as our forbearers, we eat food they didn’t eat.

To be our healthiest, we need to take what we’ve learned about the genetics of eating and our ancestors’ health, and combine it with the modern technological discoveries that have made food plentiful and available.

By combining the research of our past and with the healthiest of today’s technology, we can enjoy the best of both worlds. By eating with our inherited genetic type, and not against it, we can help ourselves to lose weight and feel great, without feeling as if we are depriving ourselves.