Food has always been my medium. For as long as I can remember, I have been cooking for both love and money. I was the kid with the lemonade stand, the girlfriend delivering a cheesecake, the caterer, the hostess with the mostest, I was known for my culinary expertise. But when I had a family of my own, my relationship with food changed. Suddenly I wanted to make sure everything I was feeding my family was of the highest quality. I became wary of labels with long lists of ingredients, scared about fruits and vegetables that had been irritated, and concerned about chemicals being used in and on the things my family was eating. Food wasn’t just calories; it was a complicated minefield of things that could potentially affect my health and the health of my family.

I basically became a culinary Sherlock Holmes trying to sleuth out the best choices for my family. This is what I discovered.

Humans are Omnivores

Many human diets evolved in different parts of the world over millennia, and they vary widely. Some are high in meat or seafood, and others are plant-based; there are hundreds of variations. But they have one main thing in common: they are made up of whole foods. 

Functional real foods or whole foods are foods that the human omnivore is pre-wired to eat for fuel, Plants, animals, seafood, nuts, seeds and fungi. When we eat like omnivores, it’s better for us and better for the planet.

Food and the way humans eat have changed more in the past 140 years than the 10,000 years before. 

The most significant dietary changes happened with grain processing, refining oils, the arrival of free sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and processed foods. Less reliance on whole foods that have been nourishing omnivores since the beginning of time.

The Industrial Revolution gave birth to The Western Diet, which most of us eat.

The Western Diet is low in the types of foods omnivores are designed to eat: Whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, fungi, meat, and seafood. And it is high in industrially raised animal products, refined carbohydrates, sugars, unhealthy fats, artificial ingredients, and processed foods. None of which humans were designed to consume.

The Western Diet is linked to inflammation and every lifestyle disease we never want to have.

Our food communicates with our genes, and what we eat and drink can alter our gene expression. It’s called epigenetics. 

It is even more interesting that functional “real” foods contain a collective group of nutrients designed to be consumed together to maximize their benefits. Functional “real” foods are the plants, animals, seafood, and fungi feeding humans for millennia. Basically, these foods are designed to support our bodies and brains, protecting our health by keeping the bad stuff from damaging our genes.

Over 30 thousand genes in the human body can be affected by things in our environment, including what we eat and drink.

Over time, the industrialization of farming and animal raising and the processing of our foods turned us into carnivores who eat carbohydrates. We lost the intuitive ways of eating that have nourished humans for centuries, making us sick and stealing our happiness in the process.

What I discovered was so simple yet so obscured. Because there is little money to be made telling people to eat more plants and less processed foods, we have gravitated toward foods of convenience with inconvenient consequences. 

Processed and manufactured foods with labels touting their health benefits. Foods that are fat-free, sugar-free, and cholesterol-free. Foods engineered to be addictive, contain chemicals and are loaded with added sugars. Foods farmed, raised and processed using excessive chemicals, hormones, and genetic engineering.

The answer to improved personal health and a healthier planet is to eat more plants, fewer animals, and to avoid chemicals. Just because chemicals are in food, doesn’t mean chemicals are food.

Plants have the power to heal and nourish us.

Plants give us air.

Herbs and spices have medicinal uses; fruits and vegetables are loaded with fiber, micro and macronutrients, and more good stuff that keeps us healthy and happy.

When we eat the way humans are designed to eat, we are rewarded with resilient wellness, strong bodies and focused minds. To put it in a nutshell, eat the way your great-great-grandparents ate. Enjoy lots of local, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and when you can’t identify ingredients on a label, don’t eat it.

We have to eat to live. But in order to live well we need to eat well by consuming the foods that are better for us and better for the planet.