WHAT SHOULD I EAT? - LOCAL AND MAYBE ANCESTRAL. part 3
So far, we have discussed how food is a basic need and an aspect of your nourishment that may benefit from some attention. Most people are most nourished by eating mostly plants and some fungi, and eating organically grown food wherever possible- ideally grown in good quality soils. But what exactly should one’s plate or bowl look like? At Nourish that, I am rarely prescriptive, other than the above guidelines, and a few more we will outline. I don’t believe in a MIRACLE DIET or that any kind of eating plan or diet will suit all people, or even one person all the time. This includes keto, paleo, low carb etc etc.
There are a few things that you can consider:
1. Eating seasonally
2. Eating ancestrally
3. Eating hormonally
Let’s dig in.
eating seasonally
As the name suggests, eating seasonally refers to eating foods which are naturally able to be harvested locally at that time. Fruits, herbs, and vegetables (as well as meat, fish, eggs and dairy actually) grow best at certain times of the year. For example, berries and stone fruits in summer, squashes and pumpkins in autumn/fall and winter, lettuces in spring. With big ag, greenhouses, cold storage, ethylene oxide and other preservatives, and international exportation of food, it is possible to eat any food at any time of the year. But this is not nourishing for you, or for the planet (carbon emissions!).
Plants have adapted to grow best at certain light levels, rainfall, and develop optimal sugar/starch levels (for us and other animals) at certain times of the year. So, the bounty is more plentiful, and the food tastes better. Absolutely we can naturally select for varieties that grow at different times of the year, but not usually widely out of the growing season. Food in cold storage and transport rapidly loses nutrients, especially vitamins, so is less nourishing for us to eat. In fact, snap frozen food is likely to have more nutrients than long distance-transported food. Transported food also loses prana, lifeforce energy, according to yogic wisdom.
The foods in season are usually a match for the overall vibe of the season and requirement for energy. In temperate climates, the warmer months of course have longer daylight hours so more time (theoretically) for movement/physical activity (yang). Ancestrally this would have been a time for more foraging and gathering, hunting/fishing, exploring or travelling. These activities need more energy so sugars in fruits and some vegetables are a perfect match. In the modern day, many of us spend summertime swimming, hiking, fishing, biking etc. Often these seasonal foods are energetically cooling too as a natural way of balancing the energy: think cold watermelon in summer.
The colder months with fewer daylight hours and weather not conducive to being outside as much, we are more sedentary so we are burning less energy (yin). Since we don’t actually hibernate (technically speaking, though metaphorically we may) we still need energy for basic functions, but less. Roots and tubers, maybe some nuts and seeds, and meat and fish, offal and fat would have been more sustaining type foods. Often these are energetically warming foods: think warm mashed potato in winter. There were historically probably some times of fasting, especially end of winter/early spring when stored supplies are low and few forage and fewer animals are left.
Tropical folks, you are not forgotten! In tropical climates there is still seasonality depending on the amount of rain and what may grow, but less drastic than in temperate climates.
Check out Dallas Hartwig’s book The 4 Season Solution for more on seasonal eating, exercise, and activity. Remember to buy your books from local BIPOC booksellers if possible, not Amazon.
eating ancestrally
Our DNA evolved over tens of thousands of years in the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. About 10,000 years ago in some areas of the world, people stopped this nomadic lifestyle and began farming. We don’t know why. Long distance trading of spices and seeds has been going on for at least 4000 years. Only within the last 70 or so years have we been eating things in packets created in a factory.
There are 2 ways our DNA can change, which then changes the way our bodies work:
Genetics- changes to the DNA code itself (through mutations, viruses)
Epigenetics- changes to the proteins that surround the DNA which effects the way DNA is read to make the proteins
Changes to the DNA itself usually takes thousands of years (though-watch this space), but epigenetic changes can be inherited, or acquired (i.e. they happen during our lifetime and may or may not get passed on). There are both genetic and epigenetic influences on the ways our bodies process food. Genetically, only our ancestors who could survive on the food around them would stay alive long enough to reproduce and carry on their genes. So we still have the adaptations to our ancestral foods. We may feel nourished by eating the foods our ancestors ate.
BUT. AND.
For almost all of us, ancestral eating looks like eating plants, fungi +/- meat/fish/insects etc. My ancestors are from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia. These places have a temperate climate and the plants and animals native to that area include brassicas like cabbage and root vegetables like parsnips and turnips, poultry like ducks, quail, pheasant, pigs, and in coastal areas fish and other seafoods. As far as I can tell, no grains are native to Northern or Western Europe. Barley, spelt/wheat, and later oats were cultivated in Europe starting around 5000 years ago but were originally from the Fertile Crescent following the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile rivers which run through southern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, and parts of Turkey and Iran.
The Ancient Fertile Crescent in red. Wiki Commons.
By User:NormanEinstein - Own work. This image was based on a similar map from the 1994 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica., CC BY-SA 3.0,
The present-day region of the Fertile Crescent
Google maps
Is 5000 years long enough for DNA to adapt to eating these grains? Absolutely. So why am I gluten intolerant? Am I a dud genetically? Well as we know, the foods we eat today are radically genetically different to those our ancestors ate- mostly by our selection for faster growing, higher nutritive and more hardy varieties. The gluten and other proteins in the wheat grown in the US now is not the same my ancestors would have eaten in England 4000 years ago. I do feel most nourished when I eat mostly vegetables, some fruits and meats. I gain weight if I eat non-gluten-containing grains like rice and less so for oats. Conversely, my ex who was of Japanese and Filipino descent was much more nourished by eating rice, fish and vegetables than the food I was eating which made him feel bloated and lethargic.
If you know your ancestry or are curious as to different ancestral foods, you can ask your relatives, or check out this Wikipedia article.
Ancestral eating is something to consider when looking at what may be most nourishing for you, but with genetic and epigenetic changes to both your body and our food since that time, it may not be applicable. There are many folks who do not know their ancestry, and there could be trauma to investigate it. Also, many of us do not live in our ancestral lands due to colonisation, immigration, enslavement, so access to heirloom or traditional cultivars of ancestral foods may not be available. With the power of epigenetics and adaptability, eating locally and seasonally is more important than trying to fly over heirloom parsnips from England or avocados from Mexico.
That is a lot of information to digest 😉 so we will discuss Eating hormonally and the Nourishing plate in the next article.
If you have any questions or comments, please add them below!