Read the full transcript of author Galit Goldfarb’s talk titled “The Ideal Diet for Humans” at TEDxWilmington 2016 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
GALIT GOLDFARB: This is how I send my daughters to school every day to ensure that they’re eating a healthy meal. It’s not always easy for them. They come and ask me, “Why can’t we just eat what everybody else is eating?” And I tell them, “If more parents would know what I know, then they’d probably be serving this food in the schools, and we wouldn’t have to send you with food.”
And that is why I’m here. Because I didn’t always know what I know today, but I sure wish I did. 1.9 billion people in the world today are overweight. That’s over a quarter of the population. And it’s not only to do with the amount of calories we are eating. 7 out of 10 people suffer from chronic diseases, and 50% of the population take medication on a daily basis for the rest of their lives. But why? Because we are led to believe that what we are currently eating is actually normal.
The Reality of Modern Diet
But it’s not. We are conforming to society and allowing big companies to sell us stuff that we really don’t want to be eating. I’m here to talk about the ideal diet for humans. A diet that can transform your life, reverse your health, reverse disease, and help you lose weight naturally.
Now when I say diet, I know it has some negative connotations with a lot of people. So when I say diet, I am referring to food choices. And when I say the ideal diet for humans, I’m talking about the ideal food choices for humans, for you, and for you, and for me, and for all of us.
Personal Journey
For 26 years of my life, I’ve been searching for the keys to health and weight loss. At the age of 16, my parents got divorced. And my father, whom we stayed with, had a new woman in his life. And she cooked completely different foods from what I was used to. She used lots of butter, and cream, and salt in her dishes. They were so tasty that I found myself growing. And this was not very fun for me as a teenager.
My self-esteem was going down the drain, and soon followed a decade and a half of the eating disorder bulimia. I hated myself, and I hated my body. So I decided to go and study more about nutrition and health. And I went on to complete a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Biochemistry.
Professional Development and Personal Challenges
I went on to study immunology. And then I studied many alternative medicine diplomas as well. But at that same time that I was studying, I also started a family. And as fate had it, my two eldest daughters were born with a genetic defect that led them to suffer from severe mental retardation and epilepsy.
It was devastating for me. It was like my whole world collapsed on me, and I just couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I went to do what I know how to do best, and that is to research for a solution. I went on to study medical science.
Cancer Diagnosis and Transformation
I completed my degree with distinction, and decided to go and help more people with the knowledge I learned. So I opened a health and weight loss clinic. But I soon noticed that my clients, my daughters, and me personally were only having temporary results, and this was very frustrating for me. And then what happened may seem like yet another curse in my life, but it actually transformed my life for the better dramatically.
At the age of 40, I got a wake-up call. I was diagnosed with cancer. Now by that time, I had four daughters. There was no way I was going to give up on my life. I was going to heal myself and do it fast.
Understanding Cell Environment
By that time, I knew that the environment of ourselves creates the destiny of ourselves. A healthy cell environment will create healthy thriving cells, and an unhealthy cell environment will create diseased cells that will soon die. Now there are many factors that influence the environment of ourselves.
The amount of sleep we have, the amount of stress we have, the amount of physical activity, the amount of toxins in our environment, and our mindset, the way we think, our attitude, these influence the environment of ourselves. But there is one thing that actually creates the foundation for the environment of ourselves, and that is our food.
The Research Journey
Very simply, our food either supplies our cells with the nutrients they need in order to thrive or fails to do so. So, in fact, our diet is even more important as a determining factor of our health destiny than our genes are, because the environment of ourselves actually determines which genes are expressed and which are not.
And they also help us create a healthy microbiome. So obviously the environment of my cells and my diet was not perfect, but what was I doing wrong with all my studies? I still didn’t know which foods lead to health and which do not, and I found that I was not alone with this confusion. So I decided to do the research myself.
I paused my business for a period of two and a half years and read countless books, papers, articles, and essays from all of the scientific fields together. And by putting together the information from all of these different scientific fields, the ideal diet for humans emerged. At first, I was thinking about calling it the gorilla diet, because I thought we evolved from the apes and our dietary needs may be similar. But I soon learned that this is not the case, and I changed the name to gorilla diet, as in guerrilla warfare.
Evolution and Human Diet
Why?
Because I felt that I had to combat all that I thought, knew, and was taught was healthy for me. So would you like to know what the ideal diet for humans is? Well, the journey begins three and a half million years ago in the rainforest of Africa where all of us that are alive today come from.
Three and a half million years ago, an evolutionary change allowed us to become bipedal, which is walking on two limbs rather than the knuckle walking we shared with the apes. This major evolutionary change came especially to our benefit one million years later with the dawn of the Ice Age. The Ice Age caused the rainforest of Africa to shrink in size, leading to more competition over foods. Being bipedal allowed us to leave the rainforest of Africa and to move to the growing savanna grasslands.
Evolutionary Changes
And once we reached the savannas, we needed to adapt and we needed to do it fast. Look at the differences. In a very short period of time with evolutionary perspective, we started to undergo major evolutionary changes. We started to shed our body hair. Our teeth became smaller, more similar to those of modern humans and our protruding belly that we shared with the apes diminished in size anatomically. And our brains doubled and later with the control of fire tripled in size.
For such major evolutionary changes to occur, a major factor needed to change and that factor was our food. That’s right. Very simply, the foods that were available in the rainforest of Africa were different from the foods that were available on the savannas. In fact, the foods that were available on the savannas allowed us to progressively lead longer and healthier lives.
Ancient Human Longevity
Research by Professor James R. Carey shows that ancient humans were living past the age of 70 if they managed to survive childhood. And women were already living past menopause aged 1.8 million years ago.
The Truth About Meat Consumption
So which were the foods that were allowing us to thrive as a species that we were eating on the savannas? Well, if you’d ask most people, they’d tell you it was meat since the savannas are full with animals. However, the savannas are full with lean animals with hardly any body fat and high levels of protein.
Now, when we consume high levels of protein with very little fat, we will develop a condition called mal de caribou, rabbit starvation, which leads to ammonia buildup in our blood and mineral losses and eventually to our death. Furthermore, Professor of Archaeology John D. Speth points out that even modern hunter-gatherers with a modern-sized brain are only successful in their hunting expeditions 3% of the time. And when they do finally catch an animal, they usually don’t even share it with family members but only share it with fellow hunters.
The Real Foods of Our Ancestors
And they usually hunt at times when other foods are found in plentitude. We came to the conclusion that we were hunting big animals for social and political issues rather than to put food on the table. So meat could not have been this stable food source that allowed our brains to grow and for such major evolutionary changes to occur.
So what were the foods that were found in plentitude on the savannas? Well, number one, grass grains. They were found in wide variety and in abundance. In fact, research shows from our dental calculus, ancient human teeth, and isotope research shows that we were consuming them in abundance. And plants, vegetables with underground storage organs, they grow underground. Therefore, they had hardly any other competitors on the savannas. These include root vegetables, onions, carrots, yams, wheat, and cassava.
Also, legumes were found in plentitude in wide variety and so were fruits and nuts and seeds, but there was more competition over those. Notice how these foods are rich in carbohydrates and in fats needed for our growing brain to develop. Our brain uses up over 20% of our metabolic energy expenditure at rest.
The Truth About Dairy
Now, what about dairy products? Well, dairy foods were only introduced into our diet in populations that migrated out of Africa to northern European countries about 6,000 years ago. But they decided to habituate cows for their milk in order to overcome food scarcity in the winter, but they soon noticed that they couldn’t utilize the milk from the cows because of its high lactose level.
The lactose is a sugar found in dairy products, so humans, like other mammals, lose our ability to digest lactose after infancy. So we clever humans found a way to overcome this, and we made milk into cheese. And in this process, we lose a lot of lactose. But there are other problems associated with consuming milk from a different mammal.
For example, the protein molecule from cow’s milk is a much larger molecule than the whey protein found in human milk. This large molecule, when it enters our digestive system, it causes disruption and may lead to internal wounding and even bleeding, anemia, even cancer. And also, human milk has practically the lowest levels of protein in comparison with other mammals. So we also have very low levels of calcium, but high levels of unsaturated fats and carbohydrates, which are needed for our survival and just goes to show where we should be putting our focus when we are eating.
The Protein Myth
So where did our awe for animal protein ever begin? Well, it probably began at around the early 1900s with the discovery of a disease called kwashiorkor in populations that were dependent on processed grains for their staple foods. Very simply, the processed grain, the whole grain, can last and be stored for about six months. So the Industrial Revolution popularized food processing for storage and transport purposes.
So a whole grain that could last for six months when it was processed could now be stored for three decades. But the processing removes all the wealth of nutrients found in the bran and germ layer and we are left basically with the endosperm, empty calories with a lot of gluten. So these populations that were dependent on processed grains for their food, for their staple food, started to develop protein deficiency. But once their diet was supplemented with animal products, they immediately healed.
And the World Health Organization took these findings very seriously and declared protein deficiency as a world crisis. But if these populations would have been eating whole grains and foods from their natural habitat, they would have never developed protein deficiency in the first place. By personally following the ideal diet for humans, I managed to heal from the disease. I am now four years cancer free.
Thank you. Without the radiation therapy, without the radiation therapy I was recommended. But not only that, I also lost all of my excess weight. So why did I lose my excess weight? Because when we supply ourselves with the nutrients they need, then this automatically removes any overeating and food cravings.
Our Shared DNA
So I’m sure by now you’re wondering whether all of us have the same dietary needs. Well, research by Professor Marcus Feldman of Stanford University points out that all humans alive today share a DNA sequence that is 99.9% identical. Meaning we practically have the same DNA as each other, and very similar to that of our prehistoric forefathers.
Therefore, for the most part, we do have the same dietary needs as each other, and we have the same needs as each other, and as our prehistoric forefathers had, just as you would expect two animals of the same species to have the same dietary needs. We’re always focusing on our differences, but we are basically, practically all the same.
The Path to Longevity
In fact, with all the research available, it is a wonder that we are still living practically until the same age as ancient humans were living if they managed to survive childhood. We should be living long and healthy energetic lives. When we maintain a healthy cell environment and eat our ideal diet, there is no reason why we should settle for anything less.
Environmental Impact
And in fact, this diet, there are no excuses because this diet is the cheapest diet. Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, and plain clean water, these are the cheapest foods. But not only are they cheap on our pocket, they are also cheap on our planet.
When we consume our ideal diet and each of us chooses to consume only half of the animal protein that we are currently consuming, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we reduce the need for a lot of deforestation, we influence world hunger positively, and we reduce the amount of pollution to our water, air, and soil, and also reduce a lot of unnecessary animal cruelty.
The Taste Factor
So now it comes down to the final choice maker, the taste. Well, I won’t lie to you. Unnatural foods, processed foods, and meat with lots of fats, they taste much better because they are designed that way. They are made that way. Billions of dollars are put into this industry to make these foods as pleasurable an experience as possible.
However, when we consume these foods, we will only feel good while we are eating them. Whereas when we consume our ideal diet, we will feel good long after our meal is over and it doesn’t take a long time to get used to what we originally.
Conclusion
So in the Bible it says, “Life and death are in the power of your own tongue.” It’s true. Life and death are in the power of our food choices. Remember, we have one body and one planet and our food choices influence them both.
It’s time for a health revolution and we can all start by making better food choices today. We owe it to ourselves. Thank you very much.
