 Eat by the "Pro-Pro Principles": Protein and Produce |  |
What is wholesome dining?
How did our ancestors eat to get us to this point?
What did our ancestors eat?. What did the ancestors of modern day cattle eat? For both people and cattle, the picture now is very different
By necessity, our ancestors ate mostly protein from animals that they killed or scavenged, and plant material that they had gathered and or processed. Certainly they consumed some seeds, nuts, and grains, and even processed them into breads and cakes, but grains didn't make up the bulk of their diet.
However, our modern American diet of heaping calories of empty grain and corn syrup has given us a new generation of obese children, with the adults adding more and more pounds every decade.
For as obsessed as Americans are with trying to find a healthy diet, most are not succeeding, and are getting unhealthier year by year. Unfortunately, most Americans have bought into what mainstream health is telling them, and paying the price with their health.
Dr. Joseph Brasco , in his excellent article
"Low grain and carbohydrate diets treat hypoglycemia, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and nearly all chronic illness" states: "Anthropological study of early hominids has concluded that they lived as hunters-gathers. While nuts, seeds, vegetation and fruit made up an important part of the hunter- gather's diet, his mainstay was hunted or scavenged animal prey".
More recent evaluations of early man's nutritional patterns by Dr. Loren Cordain, estimate that "as much as 65 percent of his calories were derived from animal products. Granted, early man was not eating corn fed Angus beef from Jewel, but he was eating the meat, the organs and the bones of his prey, essentially, a high protein/fat diet. It was a mere 10,000 years ago (or less) that man began exploiting an agricultural niche."
Later in the article, Dr. Brasco goes on to say: "In a review of 51 references examining human populations from around the earth and from differing chronologies, as they transitioned from hunter-gathers to farmers, one investigator concluded that there was an overall decline in both the quality and quantity of life.
There is now substantial empirical and clinical evidence to indicate that many of these deleterious changes are directly related to the predominately cereal-based diets of these early farmers. Since 99.99% of our genes were formed before the development of agriculture, from a biological perspective, we are still hunter-gathers.
Thus, our diet should reflect the sensibilities of this nutritional niche: lean meats; fish; seafood; low glycemic vegetables and fruit, (modern agriculture has significantly increased the sugar and starch content of vegetables and fruits over their Paleolithic counterparts), nuts and seeds - the evolutionary diet".
Modern America's diet is the very antithesis of a healthy diet
In our modern era, many of the so-called foods containing processed grains and corn syrup have been passed off as being healthy, while the good proteins and fats that are so necessary for optimum health were reviled in the mainstream medical establishment and media. It's still going on today!
For years the USDA food pyramid recommend grains of all forms as the main staple of a supposedly healthy diet, without ever differentiating between the quality of the grain products, their glycemic index, and complex carbohydrates, verses simple carbohydrates. They've since modified the pyramid, but it still places far too much emphasis on grains, even though they at least mention whole grains.
The margarine hoax
Fake fat in the form of margarine was probably one of the worst hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American eating public. Heralded as "heart healthy" for decades, people are starting to know the truth, that its hydrogenated oils and trans-fats do far more harm than good to the human body, and that fat from good sources (meat and dairy from animals that have eaten as they evolved to -- grass fed) is not only just good for you but essential for a healthy diet! As it turns out, butter is better, and always has been.
Grass Fed Beef as a Dietary Staple
I honestly believe that eating grass fed beef is one of the best things you can do for your health. Am I biased? Absolutely! My husband and I raise grass fed beef, and eat it all the time ourselves. I and my family are all in excellent health. In fact, in 2005 our HMO gave our group an 11% discount because of the health of the group (our family and our employee's family).
For years, along with other people in the cattle business, we bought into the notion that in order for beef to be tender, it had to be grain fed, and so fed grain to the steers that we had selected for our own personal beef. Every year we would pen up our chosen calves and would pour the grain to them to fatten them up.
In spite of all that grain feeding of our beef, we were still very healthy, but both Mike and I were overweight.
A number of years ago, we started reading about and looking into grass fed beef, and the role it can play in a healthy diet, and decided to try some for ourselves. In our searching, we discovered that there were ways to tell if beef would be tender while it was still live and on the hoof, so that its carcass qualities could be known before it ever went to the processor.
We started eating our own grass fed beef, and absolutely fell in love with the flavor. It was like nothing else we had ever tasted! Who knew that for all those years we had been watering down the flavor and nutritional value of our own beef by feeding it grain?
I also fully believe that it was switching from grain fed to grass fed beef (beef has always been the primary staple in our diet because it's what we produce and have an abundance of) that resulted in my losing 50 pounds. Since switching to eating grass fed Mike and I together have lost over 100 pounds between the two of us.
Grass fed beef can be a primary staple in a healthy diet, and we are living proof of that. Along with our great beef and other cleanly and locally raised protein, we eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, and a little bit of whole grain and potatoes. Now and then we allow ourselves a certain amount of what we call our "white flour allotment" with some great French baguettes, and of course hamburger buns.
A healthy diet for bovines is forage based
Cattle, oxen, bison, and other bovines ate grass and available forage. They may have obtained a little bit of grain when grazing on mature grass that had "headed out" (grain is nothing but grass seeds), but it was a minor contribution to their diet compared to the large volume of forage that had to be eaten to obtain those seed heads.