• Locally grown or obtained
• Seasonal
• Naturally grown( no chemical fertilizers or pesticides)
• Cooked according to traditional methods
• Appropriate to the food consumer’ s special condition; that is, different foods are given to infants, pregnant or nursing women, sick people, warriors
• Agreeable to the prevailing standards of taste An interesting detail is the fact that almost no traditional tribe or society is totally vegetarian.( Even primates, which we always visualize with a banana in their hand, will munch on small animals if given the chance. 3) One exception is the Hindus, who became vegetarian for two main reasons:( a) the Buddhist and Jainist religious belief in the transmigration of souls, according to which killing and eating an animal that may be housing a human soul is tantamount to killing and eating a human being; and( b) the economic priority of keeping cows for their milk rather than killing them for their meat. 4 Most inhabitants of the temperate zones, however, consume a higher proportion of vegetable foods than of animal foods. For example, prehistoric American Indians subsisted on yams, potatoes, manioc, squashes, and small amounts of meat. In Europe, the traditional family diet for centuries consisted of cabbages, turnips, onions, radishes, willow and birch shoots, young nettles, ferns, mushrooms, and small game. Vegetable foods, such as beans, lentils, and chick-peas, were staples in the Near East, Central America, and parts of Europe as well and were supplemented by game and small animals, such as snails, shellfish, and river crabs. Similar dietary practices can be found today among isolated groups that still live on native foods and remain in excellent health. Dr. Alexander Leaf’ s study of the inhabitants of Hunza( Pakistan), Vilcabamba( Ecuador), and Abkhazia( USSR) is a classic in the field. 5 People in those remote regions live well past a hundred, even over a hundred-and-thirty. Invariably, they are married, work hard, keep very active, lead useful lives within their communities, are greatly respected, and eat very simple, locally produced foods. The Abkhazians of central Georgia, in the USSR, consumed only 70 percent of their calories in the form of vegetable foods at the time of the study, yet this had apparently not always been so. When they were young, according to one of the aged Abkhazians,“ we had only beans and rice to eat, but now we have meat and wine every day.” It is a well-documented fact that a low-calorie diet during early life extends the total life span. 6 By today’ s standards, it would appear that the dietary regimes that have kept many peoples healthy throughout history are paltry and inadequate. A diet of mostly leaves, roots, parched corn, and beans is probably not one your doctor or nutritionist would recommend. Yet I strongly suspect that such a regime might have some surprisingly positive effects on health. My own way of eating, which for lack of a catchier term I call the health-supportive whole-foods eating style, is strongly anchored in these dietary practices of the past. It is certainly less spartan, more varied fare than that of ancient and / or primitive peoples. But the principles are the same. The most significant difference, perhaps, is that in earlier times people living at one with the earth and nature followed healthful eating patterns automatically, intuitively. It has taken me twenty years of testing and reworking to formulate the dietary principles that inform this book. The health-supportive way of eating is what I teach and live by, and what I have raised my children on. I feel strongly that it is the way of eating that best supports our health, on all levels. It certainly has done so for us. It is, in one sense, a mixture of all the diets I’ ve described in the preceding chapter, and draws on all of them. In general, it stresses a greater use of fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds; and a return to the consumption of unrefined cereals, beans, and other complex carbohydrates. The effect of food on the health of both body and mind is considered from a much broader perspective than is usual today: you need to know a lot more about food than just its nutrient content. Rather than quantity of nutrients, what is stressed is the“ wholeness” of the foodstuffs. Other concerns are freshness, avoiding chemical additives, eating foods grown naturally, without petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the appropriateness of the food to the health of the person eating it. It also favors the consumption of fewer animal protein foods and more protein from vegetable sources than is common in our society, although it recognizes that most people need modest but regular amounts of animal protein. One of the diet’ s key principles is flexibility. Its limits and allowances vary for each person, so that it can range from total vegetarianism to the inclusion of even some red meat; from a high proportion of raw foods to a total avoidance of them; from 45 to 50 percent whole grain to maybe 5 to 10 percent. A health-supportive way of eating will support for one person the ability to do a lot of strenuous exercise; for another, long hours of mental concentration; for a third, stamina enough to work fourteen hours a day without undue stress and strain; and for all, as close an approximation to the Conditions of Health( see chapter eleven,