Back to Nutrition and Health

            Linseed:             

Nutrients from Food For Naturally Better Health

                     

 A field of linseed in the Sussex countryside  

The diet we evolved for: When our earliest  ancestors were evolving into the first Palaeolithic men (and women) they were hunter-gatherers and their bodies evolved to eat the food around them.  Which was naturally nutrient-rich food.

Children were breast-fed (the best start a child can have - and high in omega-3 ALA, vitamins and minerals) often for the first three three years of life. 

Adults killed or scavenged animals -for proteins and fats - and ate it all: the brains, marrow and offal  which provided them with  omega-3 in balance with omega-6  The rest of their diets were made up from slowly grown fruit and plants which they would consume large quantities (remember they had no bread, cereals  or potatoes to fill up on) of  the wild ancestors of the vegetables and fruit we have today; slower grown, tougher and more fibrous but  far richer in minerals, vitamins, micronutrients and dietary and soluble fibre, and other phytochemicals (plant chemicals which act as nutrients) such as phenolic nutrients, (antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer properties) lignans ((anticancer, antioxidant and biologically active properties) and flavonoids (antioxidant and anti-inflammatory). Their diets was low in starch and sugar - what we call "low GI" or low carb.or "paleo"(lithic) diet

Modern diets are inadequate and out of balance: The dietary needs of our bodies is  the same as our hunter-gatherer gatherer ancestors.  But the diet we get is far lower  in  minerals, vitamins, phytochemicals,  dietary and soluble fibre and omega-3 (which is now out of balance because of excessive levels of omega-6 and other fats). (interestingly in our modern affluent societies we start the nutrient deprivation at an early age - by weaning children off mother's milk years earlier than is natural -that is if they get it at all.) We further deviate from our natural diets by eating far too much omega-6, (which comes from vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, factory farmed meat, bread, cereals - in fact when ever we see "polyunsaturates" on the nutritional information it means omega-6 ) this exacerbates the effects of the already almost non-existent omega-3. Omega-6 produces the pro-inflammatory prostaglandins whereas omega-3 produces anti-inflammatory prostaglandins in the body. Which means we should be eating more omega-3 to compensate for the effects of excess omega-6..

 

  Back to Nutrition and Health