The Ideal Diet for Humans | Galit Goldfarb | TEDxWilmington

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 seven out of ten 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 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 disease 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 so how do I know this is the ideal diet for humans for all of us let me tell you a little bit about my story before I get into the details of the diet 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 and 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 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 and nutrition and biochemistry 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 first solution I went on to study medical science I completed my degree with with distinction and decided to go and help more people with the knowledge I learned so I opened the 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 get a book give up on my life I was going to heal myself and do it fast 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 disease cells that will soon die now there are many factors that influence the environment of ourselves the 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 very simply our food either supplies ourselves 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 our the environment of ourselves actually determines which genes are expressed and which are not and they also help us create a healthy gut Mak microbiome so obviously the environment of my cells and my diet was not perfect but I 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 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 these different scientific fields the ideal diet for humans emerged at first I was thinking about calling it the gorilla diet because I 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 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 rainforests 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 a knuckle walking we shared with the Apes this major evolutionary change came especially to our benefit 1 million years later with the dawn of the Ice Age the ice age caused the rainforests of Africa to shrink in size leading to more competition over foods being bipedal allowed us to leave the rainforests of Africa and to move to the growing savanna grasslands and once we reach 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 we started to go 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 who the Apes diminished in size anatomically and our brains doubled and later with the 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 rainforests of Africa we're 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 research by Professor James R Kerry shows that ancient humans were living past the age of 70 if they managed to survive childhood and women were already living past menopause age 1.8 million years ago 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 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 Cali boo rabbit starvation which leads to ammonia buildup in our blood and mineral losses and eventually to our death furthermore a professor of archaeology John Dee's Beth points out that even modern hunter gatherers with a modern sized brains are only successful in their hunting expeditions three percent 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 and they usually hunt at times when other foods are found in plenitude he 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 plenitude 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 the 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 beets and cassava also legumes were found in plenitude 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 to grow for our growing brain to develop our brain uses up over 20% of our metabolic energy expenditure at rest 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 have bitchu a 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 dairy from the cows because of its high lactose levels the lactose is the 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 so where did our all for animal protein ever begin well it probably began at around an early 1900s with the discovery of a disease called quashahaw in populations that were dependent on processed grains for their staple foods very simply the processed grain the 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 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 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 so I'm sure by now you're wondering whether all of us have the same dietary needs well research by Professor Markus 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 diet Rainey's as each other and as our prehistoric forefathers had just as you would expect to 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 in fact with all the research available it is a wonder that we are still living practically till the same age as ancient humans were living if they managed to survive childhood we should be living long and healthy energetic lives and when we maintain a healthy cell environment and eat our ideal diet there is no reason why we should settle for anything less 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 eat in 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 so now it comes down to the final choice maker the tastehh 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 and experienced 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 get used to what we originally 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 in one planet and our two 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

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 4,078,686

Rating: 4.5064979 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Health, Achievement, Ancient world, Animals, Anthropology, Benefit, Biology, Body, Cancer, Cause, Cells, Change, Climate Change, Cooking, Culture, Decision making, Disease, Energy, Environment, Food, Freedom, Future, Global issues, Hope, Human origins, Learning, Life, Medicine, Money, Motivation, Nature, Plants, Research, Science, Society, Sustainability, Time, Water

Id: 2wG3b3ql34A

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2016