My own story on how I discovered paleo…
I got sick from not following Paleo/Ancestral. I was vegan for 20 years with constantly declining health thinking I had the right diet, tried every diet/modality I could find, spent thousands of dollars and lived a compromised life, until I discovered paleo/primal. I started healing instantly. My body said yes, yes, yes and in only two weeks put on 20 pounds to my skin-and-bones frame that nothing else could fix. All along there was nothing to fix in the first place. Only something to correct. From that point my life began again. This was my second chance. My body and personality changed as I went from meek and quiet to bold and outgoing, pale and weak to robust and strong. I continued to heal and now after 20 years there is no amount of theory or heresay that can tell me this was a placebo.
Even with the limited amount of knowledge before there was even a PALEO movement, it worked. And now, with millions of people following the Ancestral Health ideas, I am confident my intuition was spot on and continues to get better. How We Eat Our Environment The food we eat matters because native food syncs our brain and body to our native habitat. The closer it is to our pre-industrialized ancestors the better. In temperate climates that means a focus on saturated fat and red meat grown on organic pastures with mineral rich soil. Eggs, dairy, meat, fat, veggies and fruits in season. In the tropics that means fruits, dairy, coconuts, in addition to meat. Also consider:
Food, Light, Water, Magnetism, Movement, Temperature (Epigenetics)
Food isn’t the only one thing we eat. We also eat light. We also eat the temperature, the magnetism of the earth, and a few other things in our environment. How can this be? Because light from the sun is what sets our circadian rhythms as well as provides numerous nutrients including vitamin D which we can’t get from food. The Rewilder knows to follow the cycles of the day/night. Part of this means avoiding artificial lighting and wearing blue blocking glasses. It also means rising with the sun, exposing ourselves to the sun in amounts that we require to get the frequencies that make us whole.
It means drinking pure water which is structured and energized by nature and also breathing the negative ions of air which has been purified and energized by the trees and atmosphere. It means not hiding from the season, inside buildings which are over-insulating, over-proctecting, and off gassing toxins which weak havoc on our immune system. And lastly it means wearing natural fibers which allow the skin to breath and the energy systems to flow freely so we are grounded and connected to the environment.
To me PALEO should be considered an actual MODALITY similar to Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, etc. The paleo principles (And it would be easy to substitute the term Pro Thyroid here) are broken by modern views. The idea of veganism (eating no animal products) is only a product of over-domestication. After several generations have been cut off from rural farm living where people lived off the land and relied on the same nutrition as their hunter/gatherer ancestors.
By raising their own meat they were in touch with the processes of life and death. When cut off from that process, the idea of killing an animal for sustainance has become repulsive to some city dwellers. When in fact there is no traditional ancestral society which has been discovered that is vegan. Animal protein and fat is essential for human health and well being. It is simple to see in chemistry that plant protein is not adequate to build the thyroid hormone. So eating a vegan diet is like slowly staving our body as it becomes demineralized and our metabolism becomes weaker and weaker…as mine did.
I know there are always exceptions to any rule, so if someone really does have a healthy working thyroid after spending time on the vegan diet, I would say it is working for them. However, I haven’t personally found anyone who has this. And it is easy to see even in a photo the declining genetics experienced by modern civilization simply by seeing the narrowing faces as compared to previous generations. Even in my own family this is evident as seen in these two pictures.
It is well documented and easy to see how our ancestors enjoyed natural robust wellness without a complex medical system. This was first documented by Weston A. Price in the 1930s. What caused that? The foods they ate were in perfect balance with the requirements for metabolism. The diet was full of pro-thyroid substances which provided the raw ingredients for perfect bone development and energy for coping with a rigorous lifestyle lived in the open air.
Nutrient dense foods packed with the right minerals and vitamins amped up the metabolism which warded off pathogens. Also the act of moving around, as hunter gatherers, farming and Shepard society, is another essential nutrient which is encoded in our very DNA.
As Matt Blackburn testifies:
Prior to realizing the healing power of animal foods, especially dairy, I thought that it was: 1) unethical, 2) harmful to the environment, and 3) not compatible with human physiology. I now realize that all of those beliefs were false. It is all about sourcing. When we purchase raw grass-fed dairy from a local small farm, or even a family selling goat products under the table, we are supporting the development of the future generations brain. The brain needs animal nutrition to function properly, especially animo acids only found in significant amounts and proper ratios in animal foods, and fat soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K. Plants do not contain these nutrients in sufficient quantities to support human health. When I transitioned years ago from veganism to sourcing high quality animal foods, it felt like flipping a switch to the on position in my brain. I was drinking a half gallon of raw goat milk everyday that I picked up directly from the farm. My acne was clearing up, I was working three jobs, going to school full-time, and had unlimited energy. Don’t believe the myths about dairy causing “mucus” and making you “acidic”. If you go slow, you build up the enzyme lactase to digest the lactose and it will have an anti-stress, immune-strengthening, skin-clearing effect.
Ethics of Meat Eating
Factory farmed meat is unhealthy and inhumane, unnatural and far from Paleo. Don’t eat factory farmed meat. However, pasture raised organic meat is what was here before humans came and destroyed the land to create agriculture. This kind of meat is from animals that live on land that isn’t tillable for the most part and is actually more eco friendly than raising soybeans and grain, which weaken humans and cause hypo thyroidism which has several other names such as “metabolic syndrome” and “diseases of captivity,” Dahli Llama eats meat because he finally discovered that health can’t be sustained without it. Jesus, ate meat. Think of the loaves and fishes. Veganism is a product of over domestication and a perversion of thinking that results when we are cut off from the cycles of life and death. That happened when people moved from the countryside to the cities and lost touch with the cycles of nature and procuring of one’s own food. When everything comes from the supermarket the connection to one’s sustainance becomes remote and abstract. Also the body no longer needs to know how to exist in the weather when surrounded by climate controlled buildings. Our instincts become shut down. Anyone who lives off the land would soon see, you can’t make it on grains and veggies alone. Unless you live in the tropics where fruits and coconuts provide the right balance for that environment, along with dairy, it would work. But not in a cold temperate climate. It isn’t natural and disrupts the laws of nature. I don’t believe we have a punishing God that deprives us of what we need to be happy healthy humans. Who ever created the idea/belief it is wrong to eat animals? Humans have been doing that since we broke off from the plant eating ape evolutionary line.
Resources https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/