Have Respect for What is Right

evolution rWhen you think about things changing over time, you might compare how things are today related to a time in the past. For example, a gallon of gasoline today costs about $3.35, but a gallon of gas when I started driving in Baltimore in the mid 1960s cost $0.23 a gallon. Styles of clothing have changed decade after decade. Food preparation certainly has changed from when our grandparents were cooking compared to how we cook today. Everything is relative. Some things are better today; some things were better in times gone by.

 

Old is also relative. After my wife and I moved to Charleston over 40 years ago, we were impressed with the city’s history and homes that dated back several hundred years. I thought that was old. Years after moving to Charleston, my wife and I traveled to Israel. We were shown and told about buildings that were built several thousand years ago. We thought that was really old. Sometimes old is good; sometimes old is not so good. But several thousand years is not that old.

 

Really old is when you go back 2.5 million years and look at our evolution. During that period of time, our bodies slowly adapted to our environment and the foods that were available to us for nutrition. Our bodies developed a method of using nutrients for our growth and survival. It took 2.5 million years for our cells and organs to slowly evolve. We need to respect what our bodies need.

 

Degenerative diseases today can be traced back to the insults from certain foods that we began to eat about 10,000 years ago and which our guts were never designed to digest completely. Also, toxins we ingest as well as toxins we create internally are related to these degenerative diseases.

 

We need to understand what was right about the diet and lifestyle of our primal ancestors. We shouldn’t condemn modern life; we should make progress where progress leads to betterment. Change usually is for the good. Yet, we never should lose sight of what our bodies essentially require. Nutrient-dense foods are always going to be the right things for us. That will never change!

 

So what are nutrient-dense foods? These are foods that have an abundance of the things we need with little or none of the things we don’t need. Specifically these are:

 

• Free range and grass fed animal products from nose to tail including all their wonderful fat and organs
• Wild caught seafood
• All kinds and colors of vegetables including seaweeds
• Fermented foods
• Most fruits with an emphasis on the deeply colored varieties
• Some nuts and seeds in moderation

 

Don’t get confused with all the processed products on the grocery shelves that have been filled with chemicals and artificial ingredients that can only harm our individual cells. Always keep in mind that you want to eat what is natural – not what has been transformed and processed into cutely packaged goodies. Amazingly, your overall health is at stake here, and your mouth will be the healthy recipient.

What Skeletons Can Teach Us

evolution rI remember going to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC as a child. My favorite exhibits were the dinosaurs. I was in awe with the age of these beasts. Skeletons told a fascinating story to me as a child.
 
Today, skeletons still tell the story.
 
Human evolution dates back about 2.5 million years. During that period of time, our bodies slowly adapted to our environment and the foods that were available to us for nutrition. Our bodies developed a method of using nutrients for our growth and survival. It took 2.5 million years for our cells and organs to slowly evolve.
 
Human skeletal remains recently have been discovered in Spain dating back about 400,000 years. Today, DNA testing can actually look at dental remains and determine what types of bacteria existed in the mouths of these people. We now can determine how healthy our evolutionary ancestors were. Science is amazing!
 
The DNA taken from teeth of skeletons dating about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago showed bacteria that were not virulent. In other words, our primal ancestors rarely demonstrated tooth decay or gum disease. Then, from about 10,000 years ago (when grains were introduced into our diets) until about 150 years ago, the DNA became unhealthy, and decay and gum disease began to become the norm. Then, 150 years ago (when flour and sugar became a staple of our diets) the bacteria went crazy causing lots of decay and gum disease.
 
What was happening was the good gut bacteria that our species developed during 2.5 million years of evolution slowly began to change to unhealthy types because of the insult from these unnatural foods. Unfriendly bacteria began to breakdown our intestinal cells. Food particles and bacteria that were never supposed to leak into our blood system began invading our bodies. Today, our bodies have not had time to evolve to compensate for these rapid insults. Degenerative diseases that were never part of the human experience began to emerge.
 
Today, genetically modified foods that never have been tested over time in humans also have negatively affected our gut bacteria. In addition, toxic additives in processed foods have been accumulating in our bodies contributing to our problems. We are living longer with decreasing quality of life. Unhealthy gut bacteria and associated gut disorders have been implicated in cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, ADHD in children, gastrointestinal diseases, allergies, autoimmune diseases, and on and on. And, our mouths are paying the price.
 
So what can we do today to get ourselves back in shape? We need to look at evolution and how our bodies were designed to function and thrive. We must work in concert with the needs of our bodies.
 
From a dental standpoint, brushing and flossing are important, but healthy food choices and friendly gut bacteria are more important. We should eat the foods that give us nutrition and not destroy our bodily systems. We need to repopulate our gut bacteria with friendly types that can ward off disease and maintain a healthy intestinal environment.
 
We also need to occasionally exercise our muscles hard, to sleep 7-8 hours a night, and to deal with life’s stresses more effectively. But, that is another discussion for another time.

 

What Would Happen If….?

evolution rImagine an animal in the wild – a cute, cuddly little thing. And let’s say this animal was living 200,000 years ago. In order for this animal to survive and thrive, it needed to chew its food to get the necessary nutrients into its body. As this animal was growing up, something was happening. Its teeth began to decay, and its gums started to bleed. Soon, this fury guy started to have pain when he chewed his food, and eventually his teeth started to get loose. Then his teeth began to rot and fall out. And this was happening not only to him but also to most of his brothers and sisters and their offspring. What do you think would happen over time to this animal species?

The answer is that this species would eventually die off because it could not survive without its teeth to chew the food to get the nutrients that were critical for life.

As a matter of fact, primal man and woman hardly ever had tooth decay or gum disease during the 2.5 million years of evolution. Our evolutionary ancestors ate a nutrient-dense diet and had healthy gut bacteria that allowed their teeth to stay healthy. Then things changed about 10,000 years ago.

As grains become a staple part of our diets, our overall health declined. Today, the Standard American Diet consists of refined carbohydrates, unhealthy fats, lots of sugar, and a variety of processed foods. However, not everybody eats this way.

There are people living today in isolated parts of the world as hunter-gatherers. They eat the food that their natural environments provide. They never have been exposed to the Standard American Diet, and they do not have tooth decay or various degenerative diseases that plague most of the world’s modern population. Unfortunately, when some of these people leave their native surroundings and start eating unhealthy diets in the “Western” world, their health begins to decline rapidly.

The solutions are learning and believing what nutrient-dense food and healthy gut bacteria are all about as well as yielding to the needs of our individual cells.