#ancestraleating

Ancestral Eating, where one is encourage to follow the diet of our ancestors. This could range from the Paleo Diet, modeled off our paleolithic ancestors which has come under fire for being 1. impractical 2. ignoring the evolution that now allows us to consume things such as dairy, to diets that encourage us to eat a like our grandparents did- before globalization made the typical American diet available everywhere and processed foods were rare/nonexistent.

I first really heard of this idea last summer while interning for Long Beach Fresh and exploring ways to get across to a variety of ethnic communities. At first, it struck me as interesting but parts of it seemed misguided. Namely, the parts that After all, aren’t we taught that human bodies work in x, y, and z fashion? College physiology books explain how bodies process different proteins, how saturated vs unsaturated fat is processed, and how our nutritional inputs end up affecting how our body builds itself. To take a more philosophical angle- we, humans, are all the same biological living, thinking species and though we might appear different on the outside, and come from different places, we have the same genome and naturally, should react to foods in a similar way. The idea of advising people to adopt different diets according to their ethnic background (which would be complicated for the multitude of mixed race people) made me uncomfortable. 

Stephen Le, ancestral eating advocate and author of 100 Million Years of Food: What our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today claims that we should follow our ancestral way of eating after seeing multiple cases where a traditional diet was influenced by an outside force (in all cases, American) and was promptly followed by a spike in chronic disease and shorter life spans. However, what if those issues weren’t caused by simply a change in diet but rather a change for a worse diet? I’m skeptical of the idea that it is the change in itself that causes bad impacts. In response to this idea, Gary Nabhan, author of Food, Genes and Culture: Eating Right for Your Origins, claims that our genes have evolved to respond the food we eat (e.g. Cretans can handle more unsaturated fats like olive oil than Northern Europeans). However, he states that the incredible rate that technology has evolved in recent history has allowed humans to move more quickly than the biological system adaptation process can handle.  For that, we are better off eating like our grandparents and giving our bodies a break. 

However, I find this advice troubling on multiple levels. 1. Assumption of gene homogeneity. The broad assumption that an ethnic group of people will have a specific type of reaction to a food (due to their ancestral origins) runs into the same problems that arise when putting too much weight on race in the medical field. Doctors sometimes take gene frequency and make it a categorical difference, to the detriment of their patients. That is, when a large percentage of an ethnic population shows greater frequency of a gene (e.g. one that puts them at particular risk for a disease or makes them more suitable for one type of medication), some take that information and assume that all members of the population have that trait. This crude and risky behavior puts many individuals at risk. A major example is that cystic fibrosis in black patients is largely under-diagnosed because it is assumed to be a “white disease.” If we apply the same thinking to diet, and assume that those of Mediterranean descent can handle oils and Northern Europeans cannot, we are being careless in the face of clear scientific evidence that ethnic origin does not determine important distinctions in DNA makeup.

2. Mixed raced people.  Genetic variability aside, how are mixed race people supposed to follow an ancestral diet? The percentage of mixed race Americans is rising quickly and we need to provide better diet advice than eat-like-your-grandma.

3. Availability. The foods our ancestors ate are very likely unavailable to us depending on where we live. Maybe fish was readily available for our great grandparents but if one lives in a landlocked region, procuring fish on a regular basis might be a challenge. Some culturally specific dietary pyramids

Of course, this is not to completely discredit the idea of ancestral eating. there are many good results that could come out of following ancestral diets, including the consumption of less added sugar, less processed foods, less mat, and generally more fruits and vegetables. Maybe therein lies the key. And if choosing to follow an ancestral diet helps you, then go with it! Oldways offers models of different ethnic food pyramids, though many end up promoting the same dietary advice as I mentioned above. I just wouldn’t feel too limited to remain boxed into your assigned ethnic pyramid ;)