I think chapter 2 of the Real Food Nutrition and Health Study was very interesting! It was about Dr. Weston A. Price’s research and what he found. Here’s one of the questions and my answer:

What do traditional diets have in common?

Well, first, the diets of traditional people had nothing refined or processed. They didn’t eat white sugar or pasteurized milk!

Second, everyone ate some sort of animal food. The whole animal was consumed — including the organs and fat. No one was vegan.

Third, indigenous people ate so many more vitamins, compared with the modern diet today. And that doesn’t mean they went to the grocery store and picked up a bottle with pills. They just ate the food that God made and got everything they needed! Awesome.

Fourth, raw food was common. Everyone ate some animal foods raw. Milk, eggs, even meat!

Fifth, the food traditional people were consuming had a lot more enzymes and good bacteria. The lacto-fermented foods they ate were just packed with good things!

Sixth, seeds, grains, and nuts were properly prepared. That means that if you were eating a peanut ( ) it would be soaked first. If you were going to make a loaf of bread, the bread would be leavened with wild yeasts and bacteria. Sometimes their yeasts would escape and they would have to roam the countryside with butterfly nets, trying to recapture them!

Seventh, the fat content in traditional diets range from 30% to 80%. But only about 4% of the calories come from polyunsaturated oils! Those oils come from the grains, legumes, nuts, fish, animal fats, and vegetables.

Eighth, the tribal people ate about equal amounts of omega-6 and omega-3 essential fatty acids. Nowadays, if you were to eat factory farm beef, pork, or chicken, you would be getting mostly omega-6! Your risk of getting chronic diseases would be huge compared to the traditional peoples.

So that’s it! Pretty long answer! What did you learn from this chapter?

Visit my mom’s or sister’s blogs, where they also have discussions going for chapter 2!