How Far Have We Come?
The secrets of good nutrition are written in the lifestyle of our ancestors. They consumed more than 100 different foods, fresh, unprocessed and therefore rich in vitamins and minerals. Historically, the hunter-gatherers also consumed a much greater quantity of food to support their comparatively vigorous lifestyles. The industrial revolution drastically reduced man's energy requirements. Modern man eats much less food and the food he eats contains fewer nutrients.
Diseases associated with imbalanced lives and poor nutrition is among the leading cause of death in our country. Heart disease, cancer of the breast, colon, and prostate, are closely associated with nutritional risk factors in more than 140,000 deaths every year. Other examples of diseases associated with nutritional risk factors are obesity, diabetes, dental caries, and anemia.
Human genetics has not changed much over the past several thousand years; however, what we eat and how much activity we get has changed dramatically in recent years. Previous societies before the agricultural revolution ate foods much lower in sugar, higher in protein, and higher quality nutrient-dense foods in general. Foods were generally consumed within hours of being gathered, with minimal processing and were often uncooked so maximal amounts of nutrients were retained. Such fruits, vegetables, grains, and wild game were characterized by a high average content of vitamins and minerals relative to their available energy.
Today’s societies eat less nutritious foods. Much of the reason that some more affluent societies live longer today has to do with the advances in modern medicine and disease prevention. However, we have more sedentary, less active, lifestyles. Parents use machines to do much of the work previously done with human energy and children play computer games rather than play in the yard. Consequently, the less energy expended, the less the need for fuel in the form of calories. The less we eat, the fewer nutrients our bodies receive, and our bodies become less efficient at burning energy. To complicate matters, there are at any given time, millions of people having nutritionally incomplete diets. Having low activity on a poor diet further harms the body. This modern day problem with diet and activity has created a need to rely more on supplementing our diet with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
The trend of increased consumption of processed food, poorer quality of food, and less activity and physical work, in comparison to our ancestors, has created “The Perfect Storm.” Despite our progress over thousands of years of human development, in many ways, we are behind the times. The progress of our future relies on the encouragement of physical activity and the return of more natural ways of eating.