Original subtitles

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On Memorial Day 1978, I

dropped dead.

10 days later, I would leave

ucla medical center with this

prescription... don't walk up

stairs, don't go anywhere

without someone who knows cpr.

Give up your motocross career.

Take heart medication for the

rest of your life.

You have over a 50% chance of

dying in the next two years, and

if you're lucky, you'll survive

sex.

That turning point launched my

personal quest for optimal

health.

Without the ability to perform

even moderately strenuous

physical activities, my diet

became crucial to my personal

well-being and my survival.

First, I went with the u.S.

Government's conventional

advice, following the usda's

low-fat, high-carb food pyramid

recommendations.

I soon learned that following

the food pyramid left me

constantly hungry, hypoglycemic,

and over-obsessing about

everything I ate.

I continued searching, reading

everything I could get my hands

on about natural health.

I experimented with a wide

variety of eating methods,

cleansing fasts, and dietary

philosophies to see if they

could help me be my healthiest,

including macrobiotics, juicing,

water fasts, the master cleanse,

natural hygiene's food

combining, and vegetarianism.

I also explored spiritual

disciplines and their dietary

ideas and ultimately became a

raw-food vegan in an effort to

find both health and the same

inner peace I'd felt during my

near-death experience on the

running track.

For over five years, I ate only

uncooked fruits, vegetables,

nuts, seeds, and sprouts, an

experience that inspired my

first book, "the Christ diet...

Connect your cells to your

soul."

But as time passed and life

stresses tested my resilience, I

didn't feel as good physically

or emotionally as when I first

began a vegan diet.

The defining moment for me was

my mother's death at the hands

of a drunk driver.

My dietary discipline, no matter

how well-intentioned, wasn't

providing my body, mind, or

spirit with the materials I

needed to recover from the

physical and emotional impact of

my loss.

In fact, it wasn't long before

my inner voice began crying out

for real protein.

During these same years as I

became a writer and broadcast

journalist, we've seen a new

national crisis emerge... an

epidemic of overweight, obesity,

and diet-related chronic disease

that is now the number-one

killer in the u.S., spreading

unchecked to developed countries

around the globe.

The confusion for most Americans

is that we see and hear so much

contradictory advice that we

don't really understand what to

eat for optimal health.

How can we deal with a national

obesity epidemic when most of US

aren't even sure how to lose our

own excess body fat?

In fact, 10 years ago, a

national Harris poll said 80% of

Americans over 25 were

overweight.

And abc news declared that

Americans are fat and just too

confused to do anything about

it.

The public is confused not

because what are known as facts

continue to change.

The public is confused because

what the media and

special-interest groups and

large corporations selling

foods, et cetera, would like you

to currently believe is a fact

keeps on being changed.

90% of the people that I see

have no clue, and they're just

jumping from one thing to the

next thing on a daily basis.

I think we just need to ditch

the whole thing and

reconceptualize and reteach

nutrition from a very basic

point of view.

I think we complicate it too

much.

I have spent a fair amount of

time in hospital scenarios and

it's tragic when you see some of

the compounding factors of

obesity and how it shortens

lives, how it decreases quality

of life.

So it's a tragedy in that

regard, particularly when we're

seeing more and more children

affected by it.

People will not be able to

afford the cost of chronic

obesity and diabetes and all of

the complications that come

with that.

We're spending $147 billion a

year because of obesity-related

conditions.

And we've seen the rate increase

among kids in all communities.

In the African-American and

hispanic communities, the

numbers are even worse.

Add to the mix our new

personal media devices and

escaping our uncertainty is made

increasingly difficult because

we are surrounded by a

never-ending cycle of

ever-changing diet

recommendations and emotionally

charged nutritional beliefs

everywhere we go, every day of

our lives.

There are three things in

life which are very visceral...

Religion, politics, and

nutrition.

They're all based on belief

systems, and none of them

respond well to challenge.

Essentially, you say, "don't

confuse me with the facts

because, in my heart, I know i'm

right."

A quick Google search on

healthy eating reveals literally

thousand of contradictory

messages, medical entertainment

shows, superficial news

coverage, inaccurate reporting,

and personal opinions delivered

as fact, fueling even more

confusion.

Nobody's really interested in

delineating the distinctions,

here, in educating people and

allowing them to make an

informed choice.

We look for sensationalism, and

so they create a very false

dichotomy right out of the gate

that... usually, the person

presenting information like

this... Gary taubes and some

other people have been kind of

waylaid by these setups,

essentially.

Health is not simply the

absence of disease.

Health is being healthy.

And a lot of people have no

disease, but they never get

enough sleep, they can't get out

of bed in the morning, they

don't have all the energy they

need for the things they do,

they have to visit a doctor two

or three times, you know, in

a six-month period.

They're at their chiropractor

every week.

They take two or three

over-the-counter pain meds, two

or three anti-inflammatories, a

bunch of antihistamines.

That's not health.

They don't have a diagnosed

illness, and they are not

healthy.

And that's most of the public.

The tragic end result of this

confusion is that in the u.S.

Alone, it's estimated that

between 300,000 and 400,000

people die every year from

complications directly related

to their diet.

That means in 10 years, four

million more of US will be dead

from largely preventable causes,

a statistic that should stop US

in our tracks and push US to

search for an immediate

solution.

Yet what remains is an invisible

epidemic without a face.

Sadly, unless we see the horror

for ourselves on live television

as we did September 11, 2001, we

don't seem to grasp the very

real threat to ourselves and our

loved ones.

With all due respect to those

who lost their lives that day,

their friends and loved ones,

take a moment to consider this

analogy.

The largely preventable deaths

of the 300,000 to 400,000 people

who die every year from disease

caused by the diet they eat

every day is about 100 9/11s,

essentially the same as one 9/11

every three days, year in and

year out with no end in sight.

Dropping dead was easy that hot

Memorial Day in 1978 compared to

what I had to face later.

That day, at the age of 24, I

felt no pain, had no visible

scars, and soon moved forward

with getting my life back

together.

Then, 22 years later at age 46,

due to increasing irregular

heartbeats and difficulty

breathing, I had to have a

cardiac defibrillator implanted

in my left chest muscle, which

would restart my heart if I

collapsed again.

The implant was a physically

painful and dispiriting reminder

of my mortality I could see and

feel every day.

I didn't know how much time I

had left to live, but I was

determined to use what time I

had to make a difference.

This was the beginning of my

unprecedented 10-year global

journey to define the perfect

human diet.

Albert Einstein once said,

"we can't solve problems with

the same kind of thinking we use

when we created them."

Similarly, when I was a boy and

I really wanted to know the

answer to a complex or confusing

question, my parents gave me

some simple advice to open up my

mind to new ways of thinking.

First, they said, "dive in and

do your own homework."

Second... "be willing to

look past conventional thinking

for clues and alternative points

of view."

And finally, "don't be afraid to

go back and start at the

beginning and see where it leads

you.

Using that model, preparing to

search for the perfect human

diet required me to do some

homework on a few nutritional

pioneers that are flying under

the radar of conventional

dietary thinking.

The west coast repository for

one of the largest libraries of

books and media dedicated to

preserving the works of the

nutritional pioneers is the

price-pottenger nutrition

foundation in San Diego,

California, where I spoke with

the foundation board vice

president, David getoff.

The foundation is set up to

do two main things... to archive

the works of all the nutrition

pioneers, and the other is to

promote the information that was

derived from all that work, and

to have people understand that

the ways in which the population

of the planet... you know, not

of the u.S. Or any particular

little area, but the planet...

Ate when they were researched by

Weston price when he traveled

around our world looking at all

sorts of different tribal and

traditional populations that had

not yet been influenced by all

of the things that we're all

influenced by because there

wasn't anything around them.

They were still eating in the

traditional methods... that they

had very unbelievably, extremely

good health, that they had a

completely different-looking

face, which some people today

might not even like because

we've gotten used to the thin

faces that have developed from

improper feeding, which is

pretty cute, actually.

It's very interesting.

But the jaw structure and the

skull was large enough that you

didn't have to remove your

wisdom teeth because there

wasn't room for them.

You didn't have to pull two or

three other teeth out for

orthodontia and then work on an

overbite or underbite.

None of those things happened

because we were all eating

correctly.

What I say in classes is

generally that the longest

running and most

comprehensive... and the largest

number of people in the actual

group... of research that has

ever been done on the human diet

is called the history of the

world.

And so when somebody takes a

small research study that went

on for six months or 10 years

and it seems to show something

which Weston price's research

showed the opposite of, then the

new research is wrong because

Weston price's research was

specifically designed to look at

tribal populations that had been

eating the same diet for many

multiple generations, and that

they still had perfect health.

Another modern nutritional

pioneer flying under the radar

of conventional dietary thinking

is professor kerin o'DEA,

currently of the university of

south Australia.

About 30 years ago,

professor o'DEA conducted a

study in derby, Australia, which

illustrated a traditional method

of eating's potential to restore

health to a population in

decline due to dietary changes.

Professor o'DEA examined a group

of Australian aborigines who had

originally grown up in the bush

as hunter-gatherers.

They knew which foods to pick

and gather, they knew how to

make weapons to kill kangaroos

and dig out wallabies, and

knew where and in what season to

find both wild game and plants.

But as early adults, they became

westernized.

They moved into small towns and

cities and started to eat

western foods.

They became fat.

They developed health issues,

like type 2 diabetes and heart

disease.

So professor o'DEA asked the

group, "would you be willing to

go out to the outback for a

seven-week experiment and become

hunter-gatherers again?"

They agreed.

She took them out to their

traditional country in an

isolated location where they

lived off the land as

hunter-gatherers.

Depending on whether the group

was on the coast or inland,

their diet varied, eating from

54% to 80% animal protein, 13%

to 40% fat, and from 5% to 33%

wild, fibrous carbohydrates.

Lo and behold, they lost weight.

The Insulin resistance, the high

blood pressure, the high

cholesterol... everything

normalized when they

re-established their former,

traditional lifestyles.

All this improvement came in

just seven weeks on a diet

predominantly animal in origin,

an average of 64% animal-based

foods.

And interestingly enough,

exercise was not a factor in

their improvements.

Professor o'DEA determined that

the group was actually less

physically active in the bush

than in the city.

A current test of a traditional

method of eating's ability to

restore health has been

undertaken by Canadian

physician Dr. Jay wortman, who

became interested in the

relationship between diet and

diabetes in the first nations

peoples of Canada.

First nations are one of the

aboriginal peoples in Canada,

and they have terrible problems

with obesity, metabolic

syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.

And I think it's got a lot to do

with the change, the dramatic

change from a traditional diet

to a modern diet that is not a

very healthy diet.

The traditional diet in this

part of the world was very low

in carbohydrates and it

consisted of game, seafood, all

kinds of fish, and some wild,

edible plants, usually seasonal

plants like berries and certain

Greens that are eaten at certain

times of the year, but a diet

that's very low in starch and

sugar content.

And so it got me interested in

the modern low-carbohydrate

diet, so I looked at the

research in low-carbohydrate

diets and found that people who

had diabetes or

metabolic syndrome or just

obesity benefited a lot from

being on a modern,

low-carbohydrate diet.

So I got interested in that

relationship... the traditional

diet, the fact that it was low

in carbohydrates, the change in

that diet, which is a big, big

increase in carbohydrates, and

the advent of these diseases.

In my travels, I go into a lot

of remote communities and meet

with people.

I started questioning the elders

about the diet.

"What were your traditional

foods?

What kinds of foods did you

eat?"

I started collecting stories,

and it became very evident to me

that their diet was very low in

carbohydrate.

Everybody was very interested,

and we've selected a community

where it looked like it may work

and started developing a study

there.

It surprised me, actually, in

some ways, the enthusiasm, the

uptake.

People immediately understood

that the connection between

their traditional ways and this

dietary approach made sense to

them.

It resonated very strongly with

them because there's a whole

renaissance going on in terms of

the culture.

I feel like I'm the guy

standing by the train tracks,

and I know that the bridge is

out down around the corner.

And I'm waving at the train,

saying, "stop! Stop!"

And they all look at me like i'm

crazy.

And it's interesting because in

the niche where I work with this

diet, with first nations people,

when I connect the dots for them

and I say, "think about your

traditional diet.

Think about what your elders

ate, your ancestors.

Think about the foods that you

eat today and how your diet has

changed," the lightbulbs go on.

So I find it very rewarding to

work in this population because

they get it.

They get it very quickly, and it

makes a lot of sense to them

that the diet they're eating

today may, in fact, be the cause

of a lot of the health problems

they have.

So that very strong resonance of

this idea in this population

gives me hope that we will make

a difference with this approach.

And if we make a difference

here, it's gonna be hard for

everybody else to ignore.

For my next phase of

preparation, I began searching

for perspectives we are unlikely

to hear in the mainstream

media's coverage of popular

dietary advice beginning with

vegetarianism.

Coincidentally, the

San Francisco vegetarian

society's seventh-annual world

vegetarian festival opened just

as I was preparing to start my

trip.

It seemed like a perfect

opportunity to hear the current

thinking in the vegetarian and

vegan world from both the

participants and the movement's

professional leaders.

How you doing?

I'm doing a documentary

called "in search of the perfect

human diet."

Somebody want to talk to US

about your magazine and what you

do and why you're here and all

that good stuff?

It's a perfect fusion of both

my passions... vegetarian

lifestyle, even a focus on

veganism, with the whole

publishing aspect of a magazine.

And you're vegan?

I'm vegan, almost life-long.

Since I was 2.

Really?

That's pretty amazing.

I've been vegetarian 22

years.

I'm just recently vegan, though,

so I'm vegan now.

So, we know, in america, that

people aren't eating right.

Most people know you're supposed

to eat more fruits and

vegetables, right?

I don't tell people they should

eat more fruits and vegetables.

I tell people... you know, they

say, "how many servings of

fruits and vegetables?

Five a day, six a day, eight a

day?"

And I say, "no.

Stop counting.

Don't add fruits and vegetables

to the core of your diet.

Make fruits and vegetables the

diet."

You follow that?

Then we can count what things we

we eat... a couple of this or a

couple of that... that aren't

fruits and vegetables.

But most of what we eat should

be fruits and vegetables, and

our diet should be

vegetable-based.

The mistake that most

vegetarians make is they think

they need to make up for lack of

dead, decaying flesh in their

diet.

You don't need to make up for

the lack of meat.

You just need to get rid of the

meat, okay?

And then you need to get all of

your calories from whole,

natural foods, not from highly

processed, heated, beated,

treated, chopped, diced, salted,

sugared crap that's being sold

at five times the cost of whole,

natural foods, 'cause that's

what people want.

Tell US why you're here.

I am the co-founder and

creator of tasty eats, so I

created soy jerky.

Soy jerky.

Yeah.

Now, that's interesting as an

alternative to beef jerky.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Because beef jerky is just

loaded with saturated fat,

sodium, just artery-clogging

ingredients.

Okay.

So, beef is bad, soy is good.

Absolutely.

We're actually anatomically...

We are herbivores.

We're actually not carnivores.

The way our digestive system

works, we're actually better

suited to be vegetarians.

Vegetarians obviously don't

eat meat, and they have a real

problem with foods of animal

origin.

So if you advocate a low-carb

diet and... you pretty much are

telling people to eat meat.

It doesn't have to be.

We've had patients... a lot of

patients... that have been

vegetarian and have done fine.

I mean, they have to work to do

it and they have to take some

supplements, but they can do it

and they can do fine.

But for the most part, if you

advocate a higher-protein diet,

you're advocating a meat diet.

And people that are vegetarians

look for every reason to not eat

meat up to and including trying

to promote this idea that it's

healthy, that the vegetarian way

of life is a healthier way of

life, which is... Not true.

I mean, it's absurd.

There are, sort of, articles to

physicians on how to deal with

patients on vegetarian diets...

Not to get them off the

vegetarian diets, but how to,

you know, what kind of treatment

problems you're gonna run into.

I mean, it's an aberration.

It's not the way of man.

We've got a carnivorous g.I.

Tract.

There are two kinds of g.I.

Tracts, basically.

There's a carnivorous and

there's a herbivorous, and

an herbivorous g.I. Tract is,

you know, got multiple stomachs,

a lot of herbivores, because the

nutrient density in plant foods

is so low that animals... cows

that eat grass and things like

that, that's really not very

nutritious, they have to eat all

the time.

A lot of these vegetarian

animals regurgitate their food

and re-chew it and re-swallow

it.

Some of them even eat their own

feces to recycle it to try to

extract every little bit of

nutrient out of it.

But the main thing is they have

to eat all the time, and we

don't do that.

We can eat once day and do

fine.

We can eat once every two or

three days and do fine, just

like lions can.

We've got a carnivorous g.I.

Tract and vitamin b12, which is

only found in foods of animal

origin, is essential to US.

I mean, if we don't get vitamin

b12, we die.

It's an essential nutrient.

So that right there, in and of

itself, with nothing else is an

argument against the fact that

our natural state is

vegetarianism.

It's nonsense.

What is commonly referred to

as the low-carb diet, recently

gaining wider media and medical

acceptance reframed as low

glycemic, had its beginnings in

1863 with the first popular diet

book ever written... "banting's

letter on corpulence addressed

to the public."

In 1862, London undertaker

William banting was 65, 5'5"

tall, and weighed 202 pounds.

So fat, in fact, he wrote that

he couldn't stoop to tie his

shoes, became winded with every

slight exertion, was losing his

eyesight and hearing, and had to

walk down stairs backwards to

avoid knee and ankle pain.

After 30 years of failure trying

everything we're still advised

to do today, including reducing

fat, cutting calories, and

exercising more, one doctor

finally prescribed a diet that

advised him to "abstain as much

as possible from bread, butter,

milk, sugar, beer, and

potatoes"... which had been the

mainstay of his diet

for years... and eat instead

three meals per day primarily of

meat, fish, poultry or game,

very small amounts of dry,

toasted fruit, any vegetable

except potatoes, tea without

milk and sugar, and dry wine,

and no strict restrictions on

the quantity of food at his

meals.

In August of 1863, banting wrote

in his booklet that at 66 years

of age, he had dropped 35 pounds

in 38 weeks.

And later, 50 pounds by early

1864.

His eyesight and hearing

improved, he could exercise

freely, and, yes, he could

finally walk down stairs

forwards with perfect ease.

His book became a phenomenal

success, ruffled the feathers of

some in the medical community

and popular press, and his name

became part of the queen's

English as a verb meaning "to

diet."

You know, we know that

banting came out with his diet

in 1863, published it, but

what... how did the medical

community respond?

What people don't realize is

that, for the most part, the

medical community decided that

banting was right.

So these diets recommend meat

and green vegetables, and that

was the base of a diet.

If you went to the obesity

textbooks or the medical

textbooks or William osler, who

was the most famous physician of

the, you know, turn of the 20th

century, the early years of the

20th century.

In his medical textbook, he

says, you know, fat children

come to see me or fat women come

to see me, I tell them to give

up carbohydrates, starches, and

sweets.

And you get rid of added fats,

as well, by which they meant

butter, lard, you know.

So you're eating... the basis of

the medical establishment's

typical diet through the 1960s

would have been some amount of

meat and green vegetables.

Every diet restricted

carbohydrates.

And then the question was

whether or not you're gonna

restrict fats, as well.

And this isn't actually through

1910.

Say from 1865 to 1965, for a

century, if you went to a

hospital and were treated for

obesity, you were told to give

up carbohydrates.

Now, of course, it's obvious

to anyone following the media's

coverage of diet and health

stories that the low-carb

prescription is not conventional

medical advice, begging the

question, "what happened to the

science of nutrition and weight

loss that had guided medicine

for the preceding 100 years?"

You know, in the 1950s, we

started coming up with this idea

that fat causes heart disease,

and if you're gonna tell people

to eat less fat, you've got to

tell them to eat more

carbohydrates.

So this, the idea of the

fattening carbohydrate and the

idea of removing carbs first

from a weight-loss diet in the

1960s vanished to be replaced

with the idea that dietary fat

is the problem and carbohydrates

are now... not only are they

heart healthy, but the basis of

a good, healthy diet is supposed

to be a lot of carbohydrates.

Jane Brody, the New York times'

personal health reporter, this

is her 1985 "good food book."

And the subtitle is "living the

high-carbohydrate way."

And she actually says in the

book that when she was raised,

she was raised to believe that

potatoes, bread, pasta, rice

were fattening.

Lo and behold, they're not, and

you can eat as many of them as

you want.

And now a diet becomes... weight

loss diet... becomes the exact

opposite of what it was.

Now it's... a weight loss diet

is low in fat and high in

carbohydrates, and particularly

those carbohydrates that

everybody believed was fattening

until the 1960s... bread, pasta,

potatoes... just don't put fat

on it.

Don't put butter on it, don't

put cheese on it.

That's what makes you fat.

And the fascinating thing about

this switch, this paradigm shift

is that there was no evidence to

support it.

There was this belief that fat

caused heart disease by its

effect on cholesterol and

nothing else.

You know, absolutely nothing

else.

We changed at least a century of

established wisdom on what

constituted not just a healthy

diet, but a weight-reduction

diet based on a belief that

dietary fat caused heart

disease.

You know, we have come out of

the era in which fat is

demonized as the bad

macronutrient.

But that legacy is still very

much with US.

I still see that when people are

giving people nutritional

advice, talking about weight

control, I still see the

emphasis on fatty foods and

people talking about high-fat

foods and cutting down on fat

consumption and low-fat foods.

Fat does not make you fat.

This is a very important

concept.

Fat does not make you fat.

What is driving the obesity

epidemic in this country is the

very high consumption of high

glycemic, low-carbohydrate

foods, which have been

technically manipulated.

The famous framingham heart

study was used to promote

margarine and other foods that

did not contain saturated fat.

But, in fact, this study found

that those who ate the most

saturated fat, the most

cholesterol and even the most

calories weighed the least, had

lower levels of

serum cholesterol, and were more

physically active.

So the three biggest risk

factors for heart disease... or

what we consider risk factors...

Were lower in people consuming

more saturated fat.

My food plate is the new

graphical representation of the

newly revised 2010 dietary

guidelines for Americans.

The plate replaces the

well-known but confusing food

pyramid in an effort to simplify

the federal government's

at-a-glance nutritional

guidelines intended to promote

health through improved

nutrition.

Using new, more generalized

language, the new guidelines

advise US to enjoy our food, but

eat less.

Eat more vegetables, fruits,

whole grains, and fat-free or

1% dairy products and also to

eat less of the foods that are

high in saturated fats, sodium,

and added sugars.

Substantial changes to the

actual recommendations made by

the new food plate are few,

leaving it essentially the same

as the old pyramid.

But what doesn't get much public

attention is the methodology

that has been used to create the

u.s. Diet guidelines.

The guidelines are based on a

report generated every five

years by a specially selected

review panel.

The panel members decide what

scientific evidence in testimony

to include from all that is

presented.

What the panel chooses will

then guide the nation's health

policies for at least the next

five years.

I mean, for years, the

mainstream has been telling US

academicians, and those are the

people that the government

always turns to, all the usual

suspects, when they want to have

a conference to decide how to do

something.

They go after the mainstream,

and the mainstream has been

wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,

nutritionally, over the past 20

or 30 years.

And so they get the advice from

people that give them incorrect

advice, and they act on it, and

then we all suffer from it.

From the start, our dietary

recommendations have been based

as much on politics as on

science.

The first set of dietary goals

were written by political

staffers, not by scientists or

nutritionists.

They were based then, that first

set, on the as-yet unproven

theory that reducing dietary

fat would reduce heart disease,

diabetes, and obesity.

They directed Americans to

consume less fat, less sodium,

less saturated fat, more

carbohydrate, and these

recommendations have remained

remarkably consistent for 30

years.

They come right out and they

actually say vegetarian for

kind of the first time.

It's even more grain, more

legume-based, a de-emphasis in

animal-based proteins, which,

for me, is absolute madness and

is definitely driving the train

in the wrong direction.

And it's further problematic

that there's no distinction made

when they say plant-based

proteins or grains.

A snackwell or a similar, like,

highly refined, high-fructose

containing item is lumped in

right along with a bowl of

steel-cut oats or pearled

barley.

Few people are eating those

types of foods, though, and even

for me, those are not optimum

foods.

Those are marginal for the most

part, which makes me sound like

a crazy person, but let's take

that, then, further steps of

refinement and take that

steel-cut oat and make it

instant oats, which we know that

the glycemic and

Insulin-generating effects

of that type of food are so much

more powerful than the less

processed forms.

It's somewhat disheartening.

I went to a farmer's co-op in

Arkansas once and went in there

and started looking at the

labels on the feed bags.

And this guy comes over, and he

asks me if he could help me and

I told him kind of what I was

doing and that I was writing a

book on nutrition, and I wanted

to see how you fattened up

animals.

And he said, "well, you know,

the guy that does this is

upstairs.

Let me take you up, and he can

talk to you."

So we go up, and the guy pulls

out his book... his manual of

animal feeding.

I think it was called... he

looks down there and he says,

"yeah, this is where we come up

with our formulas to, you know,

to fatten cows, to fatten hogs,

to do this, to do that."

And so he made me some copies of

these things, and so I took them

home and I ran them through my

nutritional computer just to see

how it came out.

And it came out almost to the

percent exactly what the

u.s.d.a. Food pyramid is.

So farmers basically use the

u.s.d.a. Food pyramid to fatten

their animals.

And so I refer to it as the feed

lot pyramid.

Now with initial preparations

complete, it's time to start at

the beginning of human evolution

to see where it leads US.

I traveled to the

university of Colorado in

fort Collins to meet with

america's leading expert in

evolutionary nutrition.

Professor loren cordain.

The evolution by natural

selection is the most powerful

idea in all of medicine and

biology.

It's only been within the last

decade, maybe 15 years, that the

scientific and nutritional

communities have become aware

that, indeed, our nutritional

requirements are shaped by our

evolution.

Probably about 1987, I read the

classic paper by Dr. Boyd eaton

from Emory university called

"paleolithic nutrition" that was

published in the new england

journal of medicine.

And I thought that was about the

best idea I'd ever heard of in

my life.

And being somewhat of a

obsessive personality, I decided

to follow up on this.

And after I read the article, I

went out, and there were 60 or

70 references to the article.

I went out and got every one of

those, and I read every one of

those.

And if you're a scientist, you

realize that every article has

references, and you basically

can reference every paper that's

ever been published ever.

And so I started to read these

articles, and I started to put

them in piles.

They started to form these

patterns, like milk, problems

with drinking milk, problems

with eating grains, problems

with vegetable oil, and so

forth.

Then, I started to file them and

you see these filing cabinets

in here.

I now probably have 10 or 15,

20,000 scientific articles, and

they started to form subpatterns

and have patterns in blah, blah,

blah, blah.

And so I started to get this

insight into the whole thing,

and one of the days, finally in

the early '90s, I got up the

courage to call Boyd eaton,

'cause he was kind of my hero.

Called him up on the telephone,

and I very... he's a gentleman

by the true sense of the word

"gentleman"... and he, of

course, entertained a telephone

conversation from a complete

stranger for about 45 minutes.

And at the end of the

conversation, he goes, "well,

sounds to me like you know more

about this than I do."

To better illustrate the

concept of evolutionary

nutrition, professor cordain

took me down to the football

field to give human dietary

evolution a sense of scale.

Two million years ago was the

very first appearance of a

member... one of our ancestors

called homo erectus.

And so we believe that this is

the first member of the human

genus "homo," which means "man."

And we believe that this is a

crucial step in the evolution of

the human diet, so this is

basically the starting point,

and we can go back 1/2 million

years earlier, and that's when

the first stone tools were made.

But the first appearance of

people that were anatomically

very similar to US from the head

down starts about two million

years ago.

Then homo erectus leaves

Africa and crosses into Europe.

We find homo erectus for the

first time in a place called

dmanisi.

Dmanisi is dated to about 1.7 to

1.8 million years ago.

This is the first time we see

homo erectus moving to

40 degrees north latitude.

Now, the crucial idea at

40 degrees north latitude is

that plant foods are not

available all year round, so

there's a number of months out

of the year when there's nothing

to eat but animal foods.

After we pick up the fossil

record from dmanisi and Georgia,

the homo erectus spreads

throughout the rest of Asia, and

they go east to a site in China

roughly 1.65 million years ago.

And they spread all throughout

Asia up to about 40 degrees

north latitude, but they

couldn't crack much higher

latitudes than that because they

probably hadn't mastered fire by

that time.

Then, we have homo spreading

from Southern Europe on into

Northern Europe, and we can go

to boxgrove in england about

500,000 years ago between

400,000 and 500,000 years ago

where we could pick up the

fossil record there.

Boxgrove revealed a rich

fossil record of big-game

animals and the butchering of

large herbivores, including a

rhinoceros.

Another famous European site is

in schonigen, Germany, dated to

400,000 years ago where a series

of wooden throwing Spears were

found.

Radiocarbon dating has

confirmed that three of the

wooden Spears found there are

the oldest complete hunting

weapons ever found.

They were found with more than

10,000 animal bones, mostly from

horses, including many that were

butchered for edible meat.

Then, at about 230,000 years

ago, we first see evidence of

neanderthals in Europe.

And the evidence suggests that

like early homo, they were

highly dependent upon animal

foods.

As our brain size increased,

our behavioral sophistication

also increased, and we were

better able to hunt animal food.

We weren't dependent upon

scavenging.

So more and more of the fossil

evidence suggests that more and

more animal food was included in

the diet.

It takes a degree of behavioral

sophistication to be able to

make a sharp stone stick to the

end of a spear.

Now, did diet have anything

to do with our sophistication?

We belive that it does.

We believe that increasingly, we

started to include more omega-3

fatty acids in our diet.

We believe that as we became

more and more dependent on

omega-3 fatty acids, that also

facilitated increased brain

growth, increased behavioral

sophistication.

So by following this dietary

path here, we were getting

smarter and, you know, more

sophisticated and better able to

survive and take care of

ourselves.

Literally.

The evolution of the human brain

was dependent upon animal foods.

We would not be sitting here

speaking to one another had not

those guys way back there

started to eat animal foods.

So, as I understand it, then,

right next door is another

critical time in history.

That's absolutely right.

192,000 years ago, in Africa,

for the very first time, we see

anatomically modern humans

appearing.

192,000 years ago.

So the next stop along the

line is when things really took

a big hit.

Well, that's right.

When we look at anatomically

modern humans, they left Africa,

perhaps, give or take, 20,000

years by about 70,000 years ago,

and they headed east again.

They went towards Australia.

So about 45,000 years ago, we

think anatomically modern humans

entered Europe.

And we also believe that they

were behaviorally modern by that

time.

We believe that they had full

capacity for speech.

We see sophistication in the

toolmaking.

We see art, we see burying of

the dead, we see musical

instruments, we see cave

paintings.

Wow.

Yes.

And so we actually... there's

famous cave paintings in Europe

where we actually see these

humans hunting wild animals.

That's in France.

In France. That's right.

Yeah.

Let's shuffle forward to about

10,000 years ago, which is the

half-yard line.

The half-yard line?

The half-yard line, indeed.

That was 10,000 years ago.

Now, that seems to be

historically remote, but on an

evolutionary basis, it's a drop

in the bucket, isn't it?

Let's shuffle on up there.

And we look back, and that's

a long way.

From that point until here,

every human being on the planet

ate wild, plant, and animal

foods that they either hunt or

gather.

From that point to here, nobody

drank milk or ate grain.

So, for the first time, we

see humans eating dairy and

wheat, and then there was

another big change with that,

right?

That's right.

With the industrial revolution,

we started to include refined

sugars, refined grains, and

mixtures of these refined

sugars, refined grains, refined

oils.

We call them processed foods.

These are the ubiquitous foods

in the typical American diet

that comprise more than 70% of

the average calories in the

American diet.

Right now?

Right now.

70% of everything that we eat

stems from the industrial

period, essentially?

The industrial period

forward.

And actually, processed foods

really didn't get going until

about 1900, 1920, so let's go

down to that point here on our

evolutionary time scale.

And let me point down here to

this.

If we take a look at the last

fifth of the last inch...

Right in front of your

fingernail.

Right in front of my

fingernail.

The last fifth of the last inch

of this entire evolutionary

time scale, that's when humanity

started to generally eat

processed foods.

Now, tell me.

My god, when you look back at

that distance to here, is it any

wonder that we are having

trouble with our diet?

We are so far off base from what

we are genetically programmed to

eat.

The second leg of our search

takes US to New York City for US

to meet with the

American museum of

natural history's

Gary j. Sawyer, physical

anthropologist.

Sawyer specializes in the

forensic reconstruction of our

extinct relatives based on the

most up-to-date evidence of

where and how our ancestors

lived.

We do not know how to eat

properly.

We feed ourselves, but we fail

to give ourselves the proper

nutrition.

And after a while, it becomes

cumulative, and that's when we

start developing degenerative

diseases.

I'd like to welcome you to the

hall of human origins.

We're gonna take a big leap in

time now into what we call the

very early paleolithic.

If you'll follow me over this

way, I'll be able to explain it

to you.

Great.

We're now 2 million years

into the past.

What I'd like to point out is

the environment where these

people lived.

All open grassland... what we

call Savanna.

There's trees in the background,

but it's very open, very

dangerous territory for them.

So when we hear that the

earliest modern humans came from

Africa and came from the

Savanna, this is a

representation of that?

This is an excellent

representation.

What I'd like, now, to do is

show you something.

Look at that.

All right.

This is a fossilized skull,

approximately 2 million years

old... in excellent condition.

To find a specimen like this so

perfectly preserved... these

people were now becoming more

and more meat eaters, and we

feel that this had a great deal

to do with expansion of the

brain.

Our bodies evolved the way they

are now quickly.

Our brain, however, took awhile

to catch up.

However, with a high-protein

diet... that's what they had...

That was the secret for

insufflating our brain and for

the greater intelligence that we

have today.

Does that mean growing our

brain?

Yes, it does.

It does, yeah.

They would actually crack open

the skulls of these animals and

actually get the brain tissue

out... which is high in

cholesterol... break open the

long bones and get the marrow

out and eat that.

So already, early fossil humans

were consuming meat.

And... and that made a big

difference in our evolution and

how our brains developed.

We believe it made all the

difference in our evolution.

If we had stayed as vegetarians,

in all probability, I wouldn't

be speaking to you on this

particular high level of

intellect.

This is a diorama that features

anatomically modern humans just

like you and I, albeit, very

primitive.

If you look at the background,

they're living in a tundra

environment, but they've already

constructed a house, a very

interesting house made of

mammoth bones.

It's all mammoth bones?

It's all mammoth bones,

correct.

These are what we would call

anatomically modern humans just

like you and I, identical in all

respects.

Same form of intelligence,

everything.

However, they're still living in

the paleolithic, which means

that their diet, so to speak, is

lean meat, any form of

vegetation they could get,

fruits, berries, nuts, fish,

okay?

Everything is coming from a

world that was pristine, as

opposed to a world today that is

highly polluted, okay?

The humans here are modern like

you and I.

They are clothed.

We know that they used needles

to sew their clothing.

They're actually burying some

meat right here.

Right there.

Right there, they are, right?

Their refrigeration system.

Their refrigeration system.

Okay, so they're advancing

considerably.

They're still what we call "in

the stone age."

They're still making their tools

of stone and bone.

No metal exists before this.

So we're roughly dealing with

a period maybe 30,000, 40,000

years b.P., before the present,

all right, just before a big

change would start taking

place in human evolution, a

change we call a dietary change.

So this is just before the

beginning of agriculture, just

before the big switchover in a

different phase of human

evolution.

And this was nutritionally

superior, this kind of diet.

This represents the

pre-agricultural age.

After that, we start to decline.

Things change.

Things change.

Things change.

The foods that were available

to them in nature is what helped

move evolution forward, right?

We believe so.

Definitely, yeah.

It was a struggle.

It was a struggle.

It was survival of the fittest

and today, we are it.

We're the end product of that

long survival.

Also located in New York is

the wenner-gren foundation for

anthropological research, which

supports significant and

innovative research in

humanity's biological and

cultural origins, development,

and variation.

Evolutionary anthropologist and

president of the foundation

Leslie aiello's research focuses

on the evolution of human

adaptation, including evolution

of diet, the brain, language,

and cognition.

Well, what we call the ideal

human diet depends on what we

call human because we've had

7 million years of human

evolution, that being defined as

the time that we separated from

our closest living ancestors,

the chimpanzees.

But throughout that 7 million

years, we weren't human as we

would define it today.

And for probably 5 million years

throughout that time period, if

we saw one of these ancestors on

the street, we'd recognize them

as an ape standing on two legs.

And their diet was

correspondingly different.

It wasn't identical to modern

apes, but what we think is they

were subsisting primarily on

vegetable materials... fruits,

leaves, that type of thing...

Supplementing, of course, with a

bit of animal material.

But at about 2 million years

ago, we think the change really

happened.

And at this time, our

ancestors... we call them

homo erectus... were radically

different in body form.

They were about 50%, again, as

big as these earlier ancestors.

And if you saw them on the

street, they would look more

like US.

They would have the same body

proportions... long legs,

relatively short arms in

relation to those legs, and very

importantly, smaller teeth and

jaws.

Now, this indicates that there

was something definitely

different about the diet of

these ancestors to 1.7 million

years ago.

The question is, what was

different?

Many of the earliest modern

humans were actually also very

big individuals.

And so, you know, so this idea

that our early ancestors were

small people and we've just

gotten bigger since then really

isn't true.

And it looks like, you know,

there were periods from these

large individuals.

Many modern humans are much

smaller.

Our early hunter and gatherer

ancestors... one of my old

professors used to say this was

the high period of

human evolution, and it's been

downhill since then because they

were eating a huge diversity of

foodstuffs.

We go to the supermarket, and

when we make a salad, we think

that we're eating a lot of

different types of veggies, you

know.

But in comparison to what our

early ancestors were eating,

this isn't true.

They had a huge diversity.

Once you start agriculture, you

seriously reduce the variety in

your food, and this also reduces

the variety of nutrients you

get.

And what we think we're seeing

when we see the real reduction

in the skeletons, when we see

evidence in the skeletons of,

really, nutritional deficiency,

that what we're tracking is this

reduction of variation in the

diet.

We aren't getting what we were

built to need, and I think that

that's the bottom line.

In 2003, at a symposium on

the evolution of the human

diet... the known, the unknown,

and the unknowable... at the

university of Arkansas, one

remarkable development caught my

attention above all others

presented... that we were just

now entering a period of

exploding scientific

understanding with rapid changes

in scientific technology,

bringing to light new facts

about the human diet that were

previously unknowable.

Three years later when I was

interviewing professor cordain,

he said, "you really should talk

to Mike Richards at

the Max planck institute.

He's got some new technology

that can tell you exactly what

humans ate in the past."

On my way to leipzig, Mike

suggested I visit one of his

department's dig sites in the

south of France to see the human

nutrition discovery process from

start to finish.

They came here.

They were butchering these

animals.

They were leaving behind the

bones and the stone tools.

We want to know a little bit

more about that.

Were they cutting off the meaty

parts and taking those with

them?

Do you find evidence of those

parts still here?

What exactly was the process

that led to the creation of this

thick deposit of bones?

Well, you're standing in the

site of jonzac, also known

as chez pinaud.

Middle paleolithic and

early upper paleolithic site

that was... really, it was

discovered, in effect, 100 years

ago when they cut this road that

we're standing in.

They cut a road to get access to

the limestone face, here, which

they then quarried.

And when they built this road,

they sliced through the site.

And you can probably see the

richness of the archaeological

levels, there.

You see that tag that says sw-08

and all those dark things in

this section are stone tools.

Wow.

It's a very rich layer that

appears, as well, down here.

They didn't report it to anybody

official.

It didn't really make it into

any publications, and the site

went unnoticed again for about

100 years.

And it was in the 1990s that a

French geologist working in the

region came here and took

advantage of the road cut, came

across the stone tools and the

bones in the section, and

brought it to the attention of a

local French archaeologist.

What we do is we study the bones

and stone tools left behind by,

first, neanderthals and then

modern people at the top of the

sequence, and reconstruct what

kinds of stone tools we find and

what kinds of animals they were

hunting at what periods.

And, indeed, were they hunting,

or were the bones brought here

by other kinds of animals like

various kinds of carnivores and

so forth?

And are these all animal

bones at this point in time?

Yep. All animal bones.

And then that brings US up to

this layer of large limestone

blocks that you see.

Below those limestone blocks, we

know it's neanderthals.

Above those limestone blocks, we

know it's moderns.

And during that time period

represented by those layers

there, the change happened, and

then what happened when those

two groups met each other?

Did they, indeed, meet?

What was that interaction like?

And here, you would have had

hundreds of thousands of years

of neanderthals living here,

well adapted to this region

doing perfectly well, probably.

And then in come these modern

individuals.

How did they react?

What exactly happened?

Well, and thus far, when it

comes down to diet, can you tell

from... besides the range here,

obviously, the animals that were

here, can you tell US what they

ate?

Well, the evidence, for the

most part, is going to come from

the bones because that's what's

preserved.

We have a large team here of

individuals studying the fauna,

and they can tell you a little

bit more in detail about the

kinds of things they are

finding.

That they are finding down

there.

Yeah.

We have

found lots of reindeer during

the excavation.

And as you can see, long bone of

a reindeer, and we've got a

scutella of reindeer there.

Just... just there.

And lots of rib.

Is the preference for

reindeer because reindeer was

the animal that was here, or do

we have a lot of reindeer

because they really wanted

reindeer?

And there were horse and bison

around, but they ignored those.

Those are the kinds of

questions.

Right. Selective.

Exactly.

Is there anywhere in this

layering that... you said

neanderthals completely

disappear?

Don't find neanderthals after

that layer of root fall.

The moderns came in.

So modern humans, more like

US?

Yes.

Exactly like US.

Exactl like US.

They were modern humans.

They did... they had a brain

that was organized, as far as we

can tell, like ours.

So you have to imagine these

neanderthals being extremely

capable hunters, extremely

capable at surviving in this

environment.

They were very intelligent,

bipedal hominids successfully

adapting to this region, but

yet at the same time, not quite

US.

To me, that's what makes them so

interesting.

Yeah.

We want

to really understand if those

neanderthals were encountering

anatomically modern humans

because we want to understand if

they interact with each other.

Because right after that, they

disappeared.

And, of course, one of the big

questions is why did they

disappear and what happened when

they disappeared?

It's certainly one of the

bigger questions.

It's kind of...

why are we here and they're

not here?

Exactly. Exactly.

What happened, exactly, that our

species is the one that was left

standing?

Would you say, based on the

archaeological evidence, that

they were healthy compared to

humans today?

Well, they were...

Fortunately, they were healthy

because we would not be here if

they were not healthy.

All of the fossils excavated

at the dig are taken a few miles

away to a field lab where they

are identified, bagged, labeled,

and logged prior to being taken

back to the department of human

evolution's laboratories in

leipzig, Germany.

Department director

Jean-Jacques hublin spoke with

me more specifically about what

the institute's research has

discovered about early modern

humans' health.

Well, if it looks like

neanderthal and modern humans

evolved as hunter-gatherers,

were we healthy then, and were

we healthier then than now?

Well,

I'm sure that they had a lot of

troubles with their health, but

very different kind of

problems than the one we have

now.

We live in a society which is

very safe.

We don't have much accidents.

Although we have violence, it's

limited.

And so we are mainly preoccupied

with all the else problems

related to our diet and our way

of life.

I think for the neanderthals or

for the first modern humans in

our regions, they were mostly

preoccupied in finding food.

And the kind of problems they

had in their daily life with

their health was basically

related to all the kind of

accidents they could have

looking for food and hunting

animals.

It's very unlikely that they had

a lot of obesity.

What we can say just looking at

their skeletons is that they

were very... they looked like

very tall, very strong, and very

healthy people in general.

From the farmers, we have to

suffer sometimes some kind of

misadaptation related to the

fact that initially, we were not

really meant to eat so much

cereals and sugar and things

like that.

The next destination is the

Max planck institute for

evolutionary anthropology's

department of human evolution in

leipzig, Germany.

Professor Mike Richard's

research involves the

application of stable isotope

analysis of bone collagen to

determine human and animal

diets, as well as dietary

changes in prehistoric and

historic Europe.

These are the things that I

think people are completely

confused about.

I mean, I certainly was growing

up.

You just think that these are...

You know, it's good to have a

glass of milk, and that's good

for you, and have lots of

cereals every day, and these

kinds of things.

But when you really think about

it, you realize that these diets

are not so good for you at all.

I run a group that's in a field

called archaeological science,

so we specialize in applying,

sort of, hard science techniques

to anthropology, archaeology.

And I understand you're also

working with early human diet?

Yeah.

My main specialty is diet.

I study bone chemistry as a way

of getting at what the diets of

people and animals were in the

past.

And one of the main things we're

looking at is the evolution of

diets through time by trying to

get this information from these

bones themselves and doing

scientific analysis of the

composition of these bones.

People have hypothesized that

it's a trait of, like, the first

homo, our species, is that

animal products is what led to

our increased brain size and all

sort of things that we... set US

apart from other primates.

And the problem is you can...

The evidence for this is

circumstantial.

You find tools that are being

used to cut up animals, you find

butchered animal bones.

But there's no way to really

tell what proportion of the diet

that represented.

And plant foods just don't

survive, so they're invisible.

So we have to use this kind of

study looking directly at the

fossils themselves or the bone

chemistry to really prove what

proportion of their diet was

coming from animal protein

versus plant protein.

The first step is taking the

sample.

That usually happens in the

museum or in the field, and we

try to take as small a sample as

possible, so maybe like the size

of a thumbnail is what we can

work with.

When we get that sample back to

the lab, we clean off the

outside layer to get rid of any

sort of contaminants from the

soil.

Then, we take that bone and

we put it in hydrochloric acid,

and that dissolves away most of

the bone because most of bone is

mineral, and that's where these

contaminations from the soil

will come in.

So we want to get rid of that

entirely, and it leaves this

protein.

And then we take that

freeze-dried collagen... white,

fluffy collagen... to the mass

spectrometers, and we measure

the amount of carbon and

nitrogen in it to make sure,

again, that it's really

collagen, and then we measure

the isotope ratios.

And when we get those numbers,

we compare, for example,

neanderthals to animals that

lived at the same time so you

know that if you have reindeer,

you know they're herbivores.

And then if you have wolves, you

know they're carnivores.

You build up this whole sort of

food web with isotope values and

you see how they all fit in.

When we pick up the story with

the neanderthals, which is the

first time we can, then we do

see, really, they are getting

all their protein from animal

sources.

So, as predicted, we pick that

up.

And then we see with modern

humans, as well, the same

thing... that they're very

successful because they're

eating mostly animal protein, as

well, and very little plant

foods in Europe.

But a larger range of animal

foods, including, I think, fish,

was a big part of modern humans.

So that's the idea we have of

the paleolithic diet.

Then we see for modern humans,

it's a lot of animal protein, I

think.

I spent a lot of time working on

neolithic, post neolithic sites,

as well, and there you really do

see the humans with much lower

nitrogen isotope values, and

they're clearly getting a lot of

their protein from plants.

As agriculture moves in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But before that, they had the

same kind of values as the

neanderthal?

Yeah, except for this

addition of these extra fish.

That seems to be the big

difference.

Main difference.

So, until agriculture, were

there any human, modern human

vegetarians?

I really don't think so.

I do not think so.

And actually, it's extremely

hard to find vegetarians even at

the graph, there,

archaeologically.

I don't... in all the studies,

we've measured thousands and

thousands of humans from all

over the world, and I think

we've yet to find a vegetarian

or vegan.

There's no way.

Sometimes, we do, but then we go

back and realize that we

actually sampled a cow or

something by mistake.

Yeah, you, - there are no

vegans until recently, so...

When you get really big

villages, people crowding

together, and having a really

high, I guess, cereal... amount

of cereals in their diet, you

really see a difference in their

bones.

And these diseases that you

would never see... you never saw

in the paleolithic, you start to

see in kind of high abundances.

So does it make scientific

sense as well as logical sense

that we can learn things from

their lifestyle that would then

apply to US?

I think so.

I think you think of this

evolutionary trajectory that

made... how these humans evolved

to this state, the modern

humans, we got to be this way.

And it's over maybe 100,000

years of evolution to get to

be this state of actually

adapting to this diet of being a

hunter-gatherer, moving around

a lot, eating these wild foods.

I think there's no question that

for most of the time that we've

been around, we had a really...

That kind of nomadic lifestyle

with lots of exercise and eating

a lot of animal proteins and

wild plant foods.

But if you just think of what's

been successful in terms of US

as a species, we've survived,

you know, 100,000 years and most

of that... 95% of that... was

this kind of adaptation, was

eating these wild animal foods,

plants foods with lots of

exercise.

That's what we've been very

successful at.

It's a new experiment now.

This neolithic is a very short

period of time, you know, since

we've been around, less than 10%

maybe that modern humans have

been around so, I don't know.

Maybe it's, you know... if you

think of it that way, I mean,

what we are adapted to is not

what we're living right now.

This kind of paleolithic diet, I

guess, is probably the most

optimum for modern humans.

It has to be.

It's what, you know,

evolutionary pressure has got US

towards, and we were successful

in that kind of diet.

So I think it is... it's got to

be the best diet for humans.

If this way of eating is the

best diet for humans, I wanted

to understand how we could use

this knowledge now in our modern

world.

I called professor cordain to

see if anyone... medical

professional or scientist... was

putting this evolutionary

nutrition method of eating into

practice with real patients.

He suggested I contact

Dr. Lane sebring at

the sebring clinic in

wimberley, Texas, who is having

extraordinary results with his

patients employing just such an

evolution-based method of

eating.

One of the things I tell my

patients, you know, it's nice to

know improvement's possible.

Every year, the doctor adds a

new pill to your list, and

you've got another problem, and

the hope starts to fade.

I sort of break food into two

categories... human food and

non-human food.

And the human foods would be the

lean meat, chicken, fish,

Turkey, et cetera, preferably

from an animal eating what it's

designed to eat.

Fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

The non-human food would be the

grains, which is probably the

worst problem we've got.

Dairy... after two years old,

we're not designed for dairy

after two years old, certainly

not from another animal.

Beans and potatoes.

And so those are the simple

categories that I put them in,

and people understand that.

I understand that.

And it helps me to make choices.

Grains cause US to lose height.

They cause a narrowing of the

sphenoid bone here.

Our bones aren't strong enough

to support the full weight, and

so... and buttress the skull,

and so this is narrowed.

This bone, now, is narrowed

down.

And so we have smaller brains as

a result of eating grains.

We have more scrunched up noses

we can't breathe through.

And we have a jaw that can't

hold a full complement of teeth,

and so we get overlapping teeth,

or we have no room for our

wisdom teeth, and that's common

to all civilized groups on the

planet because they eat grains

and that happened when that

began, and it follows the

introduction of grains into the

diet.

They bring in gluten, they bring

in yeast, they cause a chronic

inflammatory state of the gut.

And as a big initiator of almost

all our chronic inflammatory

diseases... autoimmune diseases,

rheumatoid arthritis...

Virtually absent in the

archaeologic record prior to the

institution of grains into the

diet.

I try to get patients to realize

what they need to do is to think

about protein as time-released

glucose, okay?

You think about protein, the

liver can take protein and turn

it into glucose in a

time-release fashion.

Work harder makes more, okay?

That's how we're truly designed.

How beautiful is that?

So you got steady energy all day

long.

But if you eat a bunch of

carbohydrates, then the Insulin

level goes up and Insulin goes

to the liver and shuts off the

conversion of protein into

glucose.

So now, if you had a steak for

breakfast, you can't get to it

for energy, you see?

And so your sugars are gonna

start crashing pretty soon.

And at that point, the only way

to get it back up is either to

rest a little bit... and you can

sort of stuff more protein in,

and then that'll bring it up,

but a lot of times, at that

point, they're craving carbs.

They want something quick, they

want it now, and they don't feel

good.

Each meal should start with a

major source of protein.

Surround that with all the

vegetables you want.

And then, in between meals, if

you want some fruits and nuts,

or maybe even with the meal you

can do that, as well.

Like, I like to throw nuts in a

big, green salad.

You know, sometimes fruit in

there, as well.

And if you need... those two

work... the fruits and nuts work

great for snacks.

Doctor, here we are at

brookshire brothers supermarket,

local supermarket here in town.

And most people shop in a

regular supermarket and, you

know, they want to really know

and understand what they should

buy and what they shouldn't buy

when they go shopping, so how

about we go inside and you show

US what to do?

The healthiest meat are the

larger cuts of meat.

You know, you want to get larger

cuts of meat.

And so, you know, here we've got

pork tenderloin.

Here's some more of my favorite,

here... sirloin steak.

Looking for... here we go.

Some rib eyes.

Let's get some distinctions,

here, 'cause a lot of people

that are on the run or whatnot,

they'll get frozen vegetables or

canned vegetables.

And they don't feel like they

have time for fresh.

Is it any good for US?

Well, between the frozen and

the canned, the frozen is much

better.

Much better for you.

It's not... they often add some

salt, but here's some collard

Greens, et cetera.

But these are frozen.

They're usually quick frozen,

and so maintain their freshness.

In some cases, the frozen can be

even better than old fresh

that's been laying around for

a while because this sort of,

for the most part, can stop any

sort of decline by freezing.

Romaine lettuce is much better

for you than the iceberg

lettuce.

There's a lot more in it.

Just a lot more nutritional

value?

A lot more nutritional value

in it.

The color tells you an awful

lot.

The more color it's got, the

better it is for you.

Unfortunately, sometimes you

have to be careful because

there's an awful lot of

pesticides used on red bell

peppers and strawberries and a

few things like that because

they have to do that if they're

not going to be grown

organically.

Here, we've got some beautiful

fruit.

Each one of these is gonna be

loaded with nutrients.

It's really hard to overdo this.

If you're diabetic, you need to

be careful and not have too much

fruit.

One of these a day.

There's still a lot of fruit

sugar in fruit.

There is.

Right. Fructose.

And fructose can do some bad

things to you in high amounts.

Right.

Especially if you're

diabetic.

Exercise UN-does that damage,

by the way, and that's another

lecture, but this is an

excellent source of especially

energy through the day.

You know, eat half an apple

in between a meal.

It's great.

Then eat the other half later.

Or an orange.

It doesn't really matter.

You should eat the orange and

not the orange juice.

Orange juice can be way too much

sugar.

People hear, a lot of times,

whole grain oatmeal.

Whole grains have problems,

nutritional problems, that the

refined grains don't, so you

can't win either way.

They have their own set

of problems?

The whole grain thing that's

coming up now, actually...

it's a gimmick.

It's a gimmick, okay?

It's their touting whole grain,

it sounds kind of like

"wholesome."

It does.

They have hearts on there,

right?

"Healthy for your heart."

That's what we're led to

believe.

But it's marketing.

And so what are the new

problems you get if you have a

whole grain?

Well, again, it holds a lot

of the minerals in the gut.

You can't absorb those.

It blocks the absorption of a

lot of the nutrients we need, so

it actually raises your

appetite... and increases your

need for a good multiple

vitamin that you should take

separate from the whole grains.

You take a multiple vitamin with

minerals, and you've got a bunch

of grains that go with that,

you're not gonna get any of it.

So you were giving me that

top list of things to avoid,

and that included bread.

The staple of American life,

pretty much.

It's what... unfortunately,

it's not good for US.

Okay.

If we don't change some

things, we're not gonna fix this

problem.

So here's a white bread.

There's not much in here that's

good for you at all.

It blocks... again, it blocks

the absorption of nutrients, it

promotes osteoporosis,

et cetera.

It's sugar.

Two slices of French bread...

1/4 cup of sugar, and a medium

baked potato are virtually

identical.

Okay.

So, two pieces of French bread

are the same as 1/4 cup of

sugar.

Exactly.

Baked potato... same as 1/4

cup of sugar.

Some people, the sugar goes

up faster with the bread than it

does with the 1/4 cup of sugar.

Really?

Yes.

Now, that's interesting.

Not everyone, but some

people.

Here we've got...

oat nut.

Oatmeal bread.

Yeah.

This is supposed to be good for

US, but it's not.

This actually has problems that

this one doesn't have.

It actually holds more of the

minerals into the gut from being

absorbed than this one does.

Because it's got the whole

grain.

And that particular... those

molecules bind up a lot of our

minerals that we need.

So this whole new, once

again, this whole-grain push

that's going on now kind of

coming against the low carb

thing, you're saying this is

much healthier for you.

It's not... it's just not

accurate.

It's a marketing strategy, much

like selling US on soy.

Okay.

All right.

So there's really... not good

for you.

This is a "no."

This is big on the "no" list.

This is big on the "no" list.

Now, okay.

Here's a perfect example of

something that could be marketed

as fat free.

And fat free is supposed to be

good for you.

Fat free is supposed to be good

for US, but in fact... and

there's no fat in here.

So it's fat free, but there's

nothing worse for you on the

planet than to eat all this

sugar.

But it's got "better" right

on the front.

Right, but it's not.

So, it's fat free, and

there's nothing worse for you.

High-fructose corn syrup.

Okay.

This is what you're really

trying to avoid.

Clogs up your arteries.

That's the number-one

ingredient.

That's about all it is.

Okay.

After that is salt.

So there's nothing in there that

you want.

Right.

And that's true for probably

most of the syrups and those

kinds of things.

Then you've got the

sugar-free version, and then you

have to worry about, "what do

they put in here?"

It's probably not found in

nature.

It's probably something

completely manufactured, our

body knows nothing of what to do

with it, and often works as

neurotransmitters in the brain

that mess up our thinking,

cause fogging of thinking,

et cetera.

Even shown to produce

depression.

Here's something off the shelf.

Look at this.

My goodness.

It almost looks like candy,

like, at Halloween that you

would get with all the sugar.

That's exactly what it is.

It's just coated with thick

icing on these little mini

wheats.

And so the ingredients, there's

whole-grain wheat.

We've already talked about the

fact that how there's nothing in

wheat that's good for you,

really.

I mean, if you look at it, it's

kind of the scourge of health,

the beginning of the downfall of

our health.

Sugar is next, sorbitol,

gelatin reduced down, they throw

some minerals in here, which are

not gonna be absorbed because of

the grains hold that.

And it's whole grain, so it's

gonna hold it even more.

So this is... you're better off

not eating than eating this

unless you're dying of

starvation, you can't get any

sugar to the brain.

This will help you get sugar to

the brain, and that's all it'll

do for you.

Every once in a while, it

looks to me like maybe some

of the good stuff is hidden in

the middle of the...

This is about it.

Aisles.

This is it?

This is about it.

Here, you've got some walnuts.

Very good food.

Those look great.

Pecans, almonds... these,

they're hard to overdo.

So, this is a "yes."

This is a "yes."

This is a big "yes."

There's just so many things

here in the store that can do US

damage if we're not really

aware.

The answer is, in truth,

almost all of it.

Almost all of it.

If you go to the fruits and the

nuts and the vegetables and the

lean meats, chicken, then you're

good.

It's wonderful for you, you

know?

And people are over here at the

checkout in this little town.

They see me checking out, and

I'm pretty good about how I eat.

And they see and they just

think, "boy, I wish I was going

to your house for dinner," you

know?

But I've loaded up the steaks

and the roasts and all the fresh

Greens and salads, and it's much

more color.

And here comes somebody right

behind me with... you know,

they're kind of hiding their

stuff 'cause they know what I do

and how I think about it.

And I had a patient one time

that told me, she said, "you

know, Dr. Sebring, after

reading about this, and I

realize that nothing we bought

was good for US.

Nothing we ate was good for US."

I shop very differently now.

It's a lot quicker shopping.

I'm just in and out.

I grab these few things, and i'm

right out.

I don't have to peruse the

aisles in trying to figure out,

"is this good for me or that?"

I already know it's not.

When we started eating meats,

that allowed the brain to double

in size.

Over 25% of our energy is used

in the brain.

And I've seen studies as high as

70% depending on what factors

they're looking at.

So, we got this compact source

of food, which was animal with

the proteins and fats that very

nutrient dense, and that allowed

US, then, to double the brain

size.

So we don't want to forsake

that.

There's a reason why that worked

that way, and when we do, we get

into trouble.

And, you know, sometimes, I feel

like we're on the precipice here

of falling off.

I feel like maybe we've just

learned just enough in time

through cordain and Boyd eaton,

et cetera, that that's gonna

give US the knowledge.

We'll grab ourselves before we

fall off the precipice of

health, here.

We're just going, and it's going

fast, and nobody's paying

attention.

Everybody's got their individual

plan for themselves, basically,

to perpetuate their wealth or

what have you.

And instead of looking at the

big picture, they're not

thinking about their kids, their

grandkids.

I mean, nutritionists, a lot of

them are saying that the

children born today won't

outlive their parents 'cause

they've never had good

nutrition.

And I've got 11-year-old

type 2 diabetics in my practice.

Type 2 is dietary-induced

diabetics?

Dietary induced.

When I first graduated medical

school, I never saw anybody

under 55 with type 2 diabetes.

I've got children haven't even

hit puberty yet, and they've

got type 2 diabetes.

And so we've made a lot of

mistakes, here, and hopefully,

we can turn this around.

My 10-year global search for

the perfect human diet has been

an amazing and enlightening

treasure hunt, revealing a

wealth of ancestral and

traditional dietary insights, as

well as the most recent

anthropological understandings

of our species' dietary

evolution.

But what I find most fascinating

is the knowledge that has been

unlocked through technological

advancements in the

anthropological sciences, namely

hard, scientific proof of what

was previously unknowable...

What we actually ate to develop

the health, strength, and brain

power to become the dominant

species on the planet.

We can now clearly see that

whenever and wherever

domesticated grains and plant

foods became our species' major

source of protein, our health

declined, and that animal

proteins and fats are

irreplaceable in an optimal

human diet.

This knowledge is a game

changer.

Clearly, the prevailing media

and government message is that

meat and animal protein are

inherently unhealthy, and we

should be eating less.

But I hope that what we've

learned on our search will

elevate and inspire the public

conversation to include the

fullest range of what is now

known about the authentic human

diet and that it will eventually

be enthusiastically embraced by

our government officials when

forming public policy.

Do I think we can find our

way out of the obesity epidemic?

I mean, the techniques are

there to get US out of it.

Whether people choose to adopt

those techniques and methods is

another question.

If they do, unquestionably we

can get out of it.

It's easy to get out of it.

What's the definition of a

fad?

Generally, a fad is a short-term

thing that a whole bunch of

people are... to use a word that

didn't use to exist... glomming

on to because somebody has just

decided to publicize it or make

it famous.

And, so let's see.

Could a fad diet be something

that our ancestors were eating

for thousands of years?

I don't think that fits into the

word "fad."

I didn't invent this diet.

All we did is we uncovered what

was already there.

We uncovered the diet that all

human beings ate on this planet

until 10,000 years ago.

So we did detective work in

finding out what that diet is,

but don't attribute this diet to

me.

There will be other scientists

that will come along, but the

fundamental tenet of the diet

will not ever be shown to be

wrong because it's based upon

our genes, and it's based upon

evolution through natural

selection.

I think you have to go back

to what we are being most

successfully adapted to to this

point.

So I think the process... I

mean, the refined sugars, we've

got to get rid of those.

I think you have to have more

exercise that has to be built

in.

I mean, our paleolithic humans

were moving around all the time.

They had a lot of exercise.

I think meat eating is

important, and processing food

like cooking meat and all those

kind of things... it's what

separates US as a primate from

the other primates, I think.

We have the same biology that

our ancestors did, and that

biology is oriented toward the

lifestyle, including the diet,

that they enjoyed at that time.

Very often, the word

"convenience" comes up.

You know, "well, this is not

convenient.

That's not convenient."

And I've said over and over and

over again, "health is not

convenient, but it's not half as

inconvenient as a fatal illness.

Which would you like to choose?"

I know that for me, once I

understood the full story of our

dietary evolution, it made sense

to embrace the perfect human

diet's optimal method of eating

in order to live a full, healthy

and happy life, especially given

my heart condition.

I've been eating this way for

more than five years now, and

much to the amazement of my

doctors, my bloodwork clearly

illustrates that was absolutely

the right decision.

But what gives me the most hope

that we can solve our epidemic

of obesity and chronic disease

is that there is both a new

ground swell of interest in

ancestral health and more

practicing physicians like

Dr. Lane sebring are

successfully using these

evolutionary nutrition

principles with patients,

proving daily that eating a

perfect, human diet of human

foods and eliminating non-human

foods makes sense, ends patient

confusion, and most importantly,

is both practical and

sustainable.

Thankfully, we don't have to

wait for the government or the

media to expand their scientific

understanding to take advantage

of these crucial discoveries.

This is a method of eating any

of US can adopt beginning with

our next meal.

As David getoff pointed out

earlier, there are those who

will cry that this is just

another fad diet, a passing

obsession that will be forgotten

in a few short years.

But when I asked loren cordain's

colleague Dr. Boyd eaton about

that misconception, I think he

summed it up perfectly.

"If this is a fad diet, then

it's a two-million-year-old

fad."