Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food Read Online Free PDF Page B

C, and D, folate, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron, calcium, iodine, zinc, copper, and other trace elements. 19 The human body is designed to manufacture vitamin D from sunlight. The San, like our African Pleistocene ancestors, lived in a sunny place and spent all day outdoors, with no clothes on. Their bodies manufactured all the vitamin D they needed. Nobody suffered from anemia or protein deficiency. The kidneys were functioning normally on the low-salt diet and were excreting very little salt in the urine. Levels of phosphorus in the urine were very low.
    Lactose is a type of sugar found uniquely in milk. It is an aggressive allergen for most adults, although some Caucasians can put up with it. The San, in common with most peoples of the world, are uniformly intolerant of lactose. In glucose tolerance tests, the San had responses that are within the normal, non-diabetic range. Insulin response was slow, as is normal for humans who have virtually no sugars in the diet.
    The San are in excellent health by any terms, let alone under the arduous conditions in which they live. Their old people live to a venerable yet healthy old age, in good shape right to the end. The “end” comes when they are too old to walk the 10 or so miles to the next campsite. The aged San makes contact with the spirits of his waiting ancestors. He is propped up under a bush with a supply of water, food, and weapons; he is surrounded with a thicket of thorny branches to keep the predators away. Sorrowful goodbyes are said and the band moves on. That is how it has always been, and there is nothing else to be done. After a day or two, the carnivores will snout the thorns aside and close in.
     
    A Potent Lesson
    For most of us, this lifestyle seems remote and outlandish, yet that is how our ancestors lived for endlessly cycling seasons in harmony with our African Pleistocene environment. Time is now out of joint and we have to make a mental leap to accept that the San’s present is a potent lesson about the past that shaped us. We have spent some time on the San for a very good reason: their lifestyle gives a very good picture of how our African Pleistocene ancestors lived for eons. It is the way of life for which our bodies are designed. Our studies of tribes like the San give a good picture of the kinds of foods that fueled the machine of our ancestral bodies. We are starting to get an idea of the composition of these foods and the proportions in which they were consumed.
 
    The Australian Aborigine
    Another example of a primal tribe, very remote from the San Bushman, is the Australian Aborigine, who lived a completely primal existence until European settlers first arrived in Australia 200 years ago. The continent of Australia has a wide variety of climates, ranging from tropical in the north to temperate in the south. The vast interior of Australia is very dry and much of it is desert.
    Remarkably, in spite of the wide variation of climate and geography, the Aboriginal living arrangements hardly differed from the Bushman. They lived in bands of 30 to 50 people, men, women, and children included. 20 Each group circulated in its territory, which could have an area of up to 300 square miles in barren regions. They were constantly on the move, camping for a few days and then moving on 10 to 15 miles to the next campsite.
     
    How the Aborigines Feed Themselves
    The basic food collecting patterns were similar to the San’s, especially in the savanna areas that mirror our African homeland. 21 The women gathered and the men hunted. The women used digging sticks and collected plants, insects, and small animals, providing the base load of food on a daily basis. The kinds of plants collected were quite different species to those of the Kalahari, but had very similar characteristics: young leaves and shoots, roots, tubers, bulbs, fibrous fruits, nuts, gums, flowers, water lily roots, and berries.
    The animal food collected would be eggs, turtles, snakes,