The Importance of Understanding Natural Diets
One of the strangest things about the diet advice of the past 50–60 years is how counterintuitive it was. Thankfully, things are beginning to change. The conversation around nutrition is becoming more nuanced, but for decades the message was remarkably odd.
All animals on Earth seem to know what to eat. Each species naturally adapts to its habitat and optimises its diet for survival. Insects, birds and mammals all instinctively select the foods that sustain them and avoid what harms them. A deer, for instance, knows to graze on grasses and leaves while avoiding toxic plants. Its anatomy and metabolism are perfectly tuned to that natural diet and habitat.
Darwinism at Work
No animal holds conferences about what to eat, they instinctively know. And remarkably, they don’t get chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease when left to their natural diets.
But humans are supposed to believe that we alone lost our instinct for food. That natural produce like steak, eggs or duck breast is bad for us, while industrially produced 'low-fat' foods are good. It sounds almost absurd when you start to think about it.
The Role of Natural Foods
The idea that removing natural saturated animal fats and replacing them with artificial seed oils (artificial fats from seeds) or additives could somehow make food healthier is hard to believe.
Low fat foods, stripped of flavour and texture, are made palatable only by adding sugar, sweeteners, and synthetic flavourings. Does it really make sense that this is the healthy option?
The Belief in Natural Foods
We are asked to believe that natural foods, rich in flavour and nutrients, are harmful, while highly processed, synthetic foods are better for us. It's an extraordinary inversion of common sense.
The whole notion rests on the belief that natural fats are dangerous and by implication that sugar and artificial additives are benign. But humans, like every other species, evolved to thrive on natural foods. When something is unprocessed, natural and tastes good, it would be truly counterintuitive if it is not good for us.
The Problem with Modern Processed Foods
Our problem is that we haven’t evolved to detect or avoid artificial flavours, sweeteners, and highly processed fat substitutes. Modern processed foods can easily trick our instincts by combining sweetness, artificial flavour, and texture enhancers in ways that hijack our natural preferences.
We can probably eat eggs and natural yogurt with confidence like Maria the 117-year-old Spanish woman who recently died. But maybe it makes sense to avoid foods containing highly processed artificial fats like seed oils, sugar - which is unnatural except from honey, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavours and other chemicals.