Ancestral Diet: what does "healthy eating" really mean?

Ancestral diet meal plans – how to finally eat healthy!

So what does ancestral eating actually look like? Here are some actionable tips that you can use in real life.

Foods to include:

• Whole, unprocessed foods
• Nutrient-dense animal foods, including fats and organ meats
• Fresh fruits and vegetables, served with healthy fats
• Moderate consumption of animal fats and tropical oils
• Fermented foods
• Bone broths
• Variety of herbs and spices, including unrefined salt
• Traditional sweeteners in moderation (honey, maple syrup, dried fruits, etc)

 

Foods to avoid:

• Processed foods — packaged, pre-prepared foods that have been made in a factory (examples: cookies, cakes, sauce packages, soft drinks, etc)
• Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats or oils
• Seed oils – vegetable oils such as canola, corn, soybean, sunflower, safflower, etc
• Refined sugar and flour – high-fructose corn syrup, white table sugar, white flour, enriched flours
• Processed dairy – ultra-pasturized, low-fat, skim, powdered or other processed milk
• Food additives – MSG, hydrolyzed ingredients, artificial colors or flavors, artificial sweeteners, synthetic vitamins, chemical preservatives

 

This sounds like a lot to keep in mind, but just remember this rule of thumb – read the ingredients, and don’t eat ingredients that you don’t know what they are!

Try it out with a meal plan!

Try out some traditional foods for a day! Here’s a sample ancestral diet one-day meal plan:

• Breakfast – eggs, cooked in butter, ground chicken or beef sausage (no preservatives), berries or other fruit
• Lunch – slice of sourdough whole wheat bread with butter, soup made with chicken bone broth, diced chicken, and a variety of diced vegetables and spices (leek & potato, carrots & celery, broccoli & turnip, pumpkin & squash are all good combinations)
• Snack – beef sticks (no preservatives), whole fat unsweetened yogurt with berries, celery with nut butter, carrots with guacamole
• Dinner – Chicken or beef or salmon, with vegetables such as sautéed cabbage, roasted beets, and fermented sauerkraut

 

See, it doesn’t have to be complicated or boring. Real food actually tastes really good!

There are many more ways that ancestral nutrition can be used for healing. I love to send out ideas for how you can support your health with nutrition, so sign up to my newsletter for more practical tips.

Ancestral lifestyle — habits beyond food

Ancestral healing principles include more than just food. When we look at our modern lifestyle, it’s obvious that generations before us had some better ideas.

Here are a few ancestral lifestyle habits to consider:

• Move your body – a sedentary lifestyle is not conducive to health. But this doesn’t mean you have to life in a gym (which is as far from traditional as I can imagine!). Try going for a 10-minute walk after dinner, or set aside time on Saturday for a long hike. Try doing physical activities that use your body like sports, gardening, repair projects around the house. These dynamic activities require moving, lifting, twisting, stretching – all good ways to move to encourage health.
• Get outside – many of the activities above can be done outside, which is doubly good for health! The more time you can spend outside, the better. Soak up the sunshine, breathe the fresh air, look at the sky (even if it’s cloudy or raining) — even taking off your shoes and walking barefoot helps to regulate your body and support health.
• Sleep – the modern habits of staying up late lead to a dysregulation of the natural circadian rhythm and contribute to stress levels. Try a gentle bedtime routine to wind down, and give your body the time it needs to rest and repair each night.
• Stress management – speaking of stress, this is one of the most pervasive problems with our modern lives! Our bodies are designed to cope with occasional stresses, but chronic stress that never lets up is very damaging to the body. Of course, reducing and eliminating stress is the best goal, but it’s also important to learn to manage stress (even when we can’t get rid of it).
• Avoid toxins – toxins are another common part of the modern life, in foods and everywhere else – air, water, cleaning & beauty products, etc. Just like in food, ingredients matter. Try to choose clean ingredients and minimize the toxins in the air, water, and products you choose.

 

Does this feel overwhelming?

Does all this talk of lists and habits and ingredients sound overwhelming? I want to help make this approachable and doable for you, even in your modern busy life.

An ancestral diet and ancestral lifestyle principles are not all or nothing. Remember, these are principles, and not everything here will work for every person.

You don’t have to overhaul your life and diet overnight. (In fact, I recommend that you do not overhaul anything overnight – that’s a sure path to burnout!) You don’t even have to agree with everything in my lists above.

But I am sure that changing one or two aspects of your life to be more aligned with traditional ancestral principles will only improve your health.

How can I be so sure? Because these principles are built into creation and our human design. When we work with the grain of how we are designed, and stop going against the grain and fighting our bodies, we can finally find peace and healing – one day at a time.

Traditional wisdom for today – cut the confusion and finally nourish your body

An ancestral diet (and lifestyle!) is a guide to traditional wisdom from what has been tried and tested for many years before us. Instead of the modern processed food which is at the heart of so many chronic health issues today, we can choose real food to nourish the body and bring nutrients to support healing.  

You can start small. Choose one or two ancestral principles to try this week. Then add in one more next week… before you know it, you will be on the road to energy and health and hope!

An ancestral diet is based on real food that nourishes the body. Don’t let health fads and nutrition trends derail your health – just focus on giving your body what it needs to work according to God’s good design.

Your body is designed to heal. Give it the nutrients it needs to do the job!

 

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• What is Nutritional Therapy?
• Why focus on digestion when my real problem is something else?