(From Handbook For Humans)
The most significant stresses on our body are self-imposed, that is to say, they come from our own lifestyle. Such stresses as overeating, drugs, alcohol, eating denatured foods, overwork and so on don’t come from an external agent, or some malevolence somewhere, but from ourselves.
Of these self-imposed stresses, the most important is non-optimal nutrition. That is, the single greatest factor in our health is our diet.
Does that sound too strong? Well, let’s look at some interesting evidence:
Several decades ago Robert McCarrison performed a series of fascinating studies. He began by dividing laboratory rats into three groups. The first group was given a typical British diet, the second a typical East Indian diet, and the third a Hunza diet—the Hunzas being usually considered the healthiest people on earth. But everything else about the three groups was kept exactly the same.
At the equivalent age of 50 years in a human being, the rats were killed and autopsied. What McCarrison found then was completely astonishing:
Each group of rats showed those diseases characteristic of the equivalent human society, and in the same proportions as found in that human society.
For instance, those rats fed a typical British diet developed diseases characteristic of British society. Approximately the same proportion of “British” rats developed heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. as is found among the British population itself. The other groups displayed a similar phenomenon.
This pioneer experiment, since replicated in a variety of ways, reveals the paramount importance of diet upon our health and well-being.
This notion, that our daily diet profoundly influences our health, is often disregarded in practice. Many of us don’t —in practice—see a real connection between the diet we eat and the body’s gradual loss of balance. Why is this?
Part of the reason, perhaps, is our views about our own diet. Historically, when I asked someone how their diet was, almost invariably their response was “pretty good.” Yet when we actually looked into it, this rarely proved to be true. For many of us, perhaps the biggest obstacle to improving our diet is that we already think it’s reasonably good.
A second important factor is the hidden power of long-term practices. What we eat at the next meal may not seem to matter all that much; and in one sense it doesn’t because it’s only one meal. Yet that meal and its cousins, multiplied many thousands of times over decades, have a processional effect; that is, the effect cumulates.
A third difficulty is the paradigm, seen in many other areas of life, that we’re not responsible. It’s so much easier if somebody can just do a quick-fix for us, if somebody else can be responsible for our health. Often we seem to look upon our body as a kind of car or washing machine, to be poked and prodded and fixed with new parts.
But in the chronic conditions so prevalent these days, we ourselves are mostly responsible; and such conditions often don’t yield to a quick-fix very well if at all. A bodily problem that has developed over a long period of time may also take a period of time to reverse.
This way of looking at our body, as a whole self-healing organism, has the potential to be very effective. Once again, as Epictetus said, we reap as we sow. To be primarily responsible for our own health may feel like a burden at first, but in the end it liberates. It doesn’t mean that we’re guilty if we’re ill, or all-powerful if we’re not, but rather that we have much more influence over our health than we might imagine.
If we’re primarily responsible for our own health, and if diet is a paramount consideration, how can we make the best use of this notion? How can we eat in a way that supports us? Unfortunately, in looking at this question, there are hundreds if not thousands of competing theories about what constitutes a good diet. How to choose?
When faced with such an environment, in my opinion the best approach is a very empirical one. First, let’s just ask: Who are the healthiest and longest-lived peoples on earth? And second: What do they do?
Scientists are generally agreed that the longest-lived, healthiest peoples on earth are, first, the Hunzas of northern Pakistan; second, the Vilcambans of Ecuador; and third, the Abkasians of Georgian Russia. Dr. Alexander Leaf and many other researchers have studied these societies and noted a “striking similarity” in their diets.
The Hunzas are particularly notable, being universally considered to be the most robust people on the planet. Let’s look at them now:
According to researchers, the Hunza’s lifespan almost routinely exceeds 100 years and often 110 years, with a few even reaching beyond 120 or even 130. Particularly striking is the fact that not only do they live so long, but that they enjoy full, active lives even when elderly, and show no signs of the many degenerative diseases of “modern” cultures.
Now these are the same Hunzas considered in the McCarrison diet experiments. So we might want to inquire: When the “Hunza” rats were autopsied at an equivalent age of fifty years, what diseases and pathologies were found?
The answer is: None.
Incredible as it may seem, the scientists could find no evidence among the “Hunza” rats for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, obesity, intestinal and kidney and liver diseases, and on and on. In fact, they couldn’t find any pathology at all.
This is similar to the experience reported by physicians who have visited the Hunzas. They record their astonishment at finding that their services are unneeded except for minor things such as setting broken bones. They as well could find virtually no evidence of disease or pathology.
As the Hunzas receive increasing contact with modern cultures and their industrialized foods, this is becoming less true. But here’s how it was a few decades ago, and to some extent, still is today:
The Hunzas resided in the valleys of the Himalayan mountains. Most worked tilling the fields. Indeed, it was not uncommon for a Hunzakut to work until the day of death. Because the elderly retained their mental faculties, wisdom accumulated and the elderly were revered. Men sired children into their 90’s.
The diet was almost exclusively vegetarian. Fruit was either eaten raw, or dried and rehydrated. Vegetables were often eaten as a kind of salad. Harvesting and consumption of food frequently occured on the same day.
Often a vegetable stew was made. Every few weeks the stew might include a little meat, if available; usually it wasn’t. An egg, or yogurt from unpasteurized milk, was consumed once or twice a month, if at all.
Every meal included a kind of bread called a chapatti, which was cooked on a grill like a pancake, though it had no milk or eggs. The flour for this chapatti was normally ground a short time before, and the cooked product was immediately consumed.
A little wine was made from apricots, and sometimes consumed on a festive night. Oil for cooking was made from apricot kernels, and used sparingly. In the spring the Hunzas sometimes ran out of food and went on a fast for a month or so until the new harvest came in.
Their diet was about 85% carbohydrates, measured by calories. It was about 7% fat, and about the same for protein. All animal food, including dairy, accounted for less than two percent of the calories consumed.
In sum, the diet of the Hunzas was almost exclusively fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and fresh whole grains.
Now let’s ask:
Was there any sort of common theme running through all aspects of their diet, something that might help guide us today in making good dietary choices?
I believe there was, and it can perhaps be best summed up in this simple way:
They ate very close to nature.
Our bodies evolved over tens of millions of years to be in harmony with the diet our ancient ancestors ate. So if we eat now about what we ate then, in about the same condition we ate it then, our bodies will automatically tend to resume the health and harmony of their natural state.
In other words, our body will automatically tend to rise to its peak harmony if we give it only those foods, in those forms, that it optimized for over so many millions of years.
Let’s examine this principle by looking at the different aspects of it as embodied by the Hunzas. Let’s ask:
What exactly are the characteristics of the diet of the healthiest people on earth?
© 1997 by James Sloman
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