What Is The Best Diet – 6 Questions To Ask Yourself

I have had many people come up to me over the years and ask me what is the best diet for humans.

Many people will tell you that the most ideal diet for humans is the vegetarian diet. Others will tell you that the optimal diet is a raw food diet, while others will tell you that eating meat, eggs, milk, fish or other animal foods is the best way to eat.

I don’t care if you are on the Zone diet, the Atkins diet, or if you follow the advice from health experts like Jillian Michaels, Dr. Mercola, Dr. Oz, Dr. Andrew Weil, or anybody else.

Throw all of your knowledge about nutrition and diet out the window and read this post with an open mind.

My goal in this article is not to tell you whether or not you should eat meat or not eat meat. My goal with this article is to take your existing diet no matter what it is, and cause you to think about whether or not it is the most healthy thing for your body, health and longevity.

The next time you sit down to your dinner plate and are wondering if the food on your plate is actually healthy for you or not, ask yourself some questions like these.

1. Is the food on my plate wild or has it been domesticated?
2. How long ago was the food on my plate picked from the earth?
3. Has any food on my plate been fractionalized, concentrated or refined? In other words is it a whole or not?
4. It is what I’m about to eat food that is local or has it been shipped here from thousands of miles away?
5. Is it what your ancestors ate?

I can guarantee you that no matter what popular diet book you buy off the shelves today, not one of them will talk about whether or not your food is wild or domesticated.

So let’s talk a little bit about these six components of food so that you can start to build a life and nutritional program around these five principles. Again you can apply these five principles to any kind of diet you like.

Is It Wild?

Most trainers, certified nutritionists, dietitians, holistic practitioners, and even authors don’t even know the first thing about wild food. For example when you go to the grocery store and buy some cabbage, kale or onions, you think you are buying three different vegetables right? But that is not the case. These three vegetables have been hybridized in order to breed out their natural alkaloids. Alkaloids are what makes a plant taste better. The alkaloids are critical medicinal properties that are in plants. These vegetables are really a part of the mustard family. Most groups of vegetables and fruits in your local supermarket have all been hybridized and come from just a few different fruits and vegetables originally.

So really instead of hundreds of different fruits and vegetables in your store there are really just a small handful.

Over the generations farmers would continually hybridize their fruits and vegetables in order to make them taste better so that they could sell more produce and make more money. But the result is that these fruits and vegetables are no longer wild and they no longer contain the medicines within them. They’re weaker.

These medicines are what prevent them from being attacked by mold fungus and other insects. They are so weak, they cannot even survive by themselves when we plant them in a safe environment like the garden in our backyard. In order to allow such a weak plants to propagate we need to spray them with insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and other chemicals just so that they can survive.

The more wild food that you can eat the stronger you will be period.

Is It Fresh?

Do you know how long it takes for enzymes to start dying after a piece of fruit has been picked from its branches? If you pluck an orange from a tree, within 30 minutes over half of its enzymes have died.

What diet book or nutritional program is going to tell you that the food you eat needs to be eaten right after you pick it? Probably not many of them. They will all tell you to go to the grocery store and eat this or that.

If the food is not fresh it will not contain the life supporting nutrients, minerals and enzymes that must be present in order for us to be healthy.

Whenever you can eat your food freshly picked from your garden.

Is It In Its Whole Form?

Many people do not even think about whether or not their food is a whole food or if it has been concentrated or fractionalized. What I mean by that is that food must be in its whole state in order for it to be healthy for you. Examples of food that are not a whole are any kind of wheat product (these include pasta, pizza, bread, crackers, cookies, cake, cereal, chips), skim milk and yes even fruit juices. There are many more examples of foods that are not in their whole state that I could list, but I hope you get the idea.

Imagine yourself being a farmer and pulling this food out of the ground, off the tree or off the shrub and eating it just like that. The more you have to process it, cook it, or extract individual components (think supplements), the less healthy the food will be for you.

Do not eat isolated foods. When you eat an egg eat the yolk as well as the area around the yolk.

Is It Organic?

I can’t recall many diet books recommending organic foods. Some of them do but most of them will just tell you to eat more fruits and vegetables as if they are all equal to some degree.

Organic food not only has more minerals, enzymes, and vitamins but they also do not contain all of the chemicals and pesticides that commercially grown food has.

Organic food is much much healthier for you not only because of what it has in it but also because of what it doesn’t have. It is critical for you two support organic farmers. Organic farmers have to go through so much red tape, and jump through so many hoops in order for their food to be labeled organic. Support their efforts.

Even if you can only buy half the amount of produce, you have to buy organic it’s as simple as that. Eating less will be healthier for you anyway. Instead of buying five commercially grown apples, buy two organic apples and you’ll be better off for it.

Is Your Food Local?

The native American Indians would say that everything necessary for you to live and thrive is located within 5 square miles in any direction from where you live. Now I’m not sure how true this is, but I know there is some degree of truth to it. God has provided all of the plant medicines and food for where you are living right now.

There is a lot of debate regarding super foods like goji berries from Tibet, Maca from Peru, coconuts from the islands and so on. I’m not saying that these foods are not good for you, but what I’m saying is that there are local equivalents that you may want to take a look at. Here is an example, if you live in the state of Maine or Canada, instead of buying coconuts that have been flown in from Fiji, how about using maple syrup as a way too sweeten up your drinks? Maple water would be a local food that is growing in your area and much more natural for you to eat.

Not only is local food most likely healthier for you it’s better for the planet as well. You do not have to rely on third party companies using gas and oil in order for these foods to be shipped to you from halfway around the world. It just makes sense. Go local homey.

And remember the more local it is the more fresh it is.

Is Your Diet Ancestral?

There has been much talk lately of following an ancestral diet. People like Dr. Hal Huggins and others have promoted the idea that we can trace back our genetic diet by a simple blood test. Here is an example, somebody who is from the Polynesian islands like Fiji or Hawaii can usually eat higher amounts of fruit simply because they live in a tropical environment and their genetic ancestors have even this way for thousands of years.

Or think about the Eskimos. They thrive on a diet that is high in fat, meat and the blubber along with organ meats. They would not be suited to eat a high carbohydrate like a Polynesian would.

The idea is to look at your genetics by doing a blood type or looking at your family history in order to see what type of diet your ancestors ate.

You’re not gonna get this information from Dr. Oz or Oprah that is for sure.

The next time you start a diet light weight watchers, or Nutri System think about whether or not the foods they are feeding you are wild, fresh, whole, organic,  local or what your ancestors ate. I can almost guarantee you that whenever diet plan people are going to recommend for you to lose weight or to build muscle is going to fail on all six of these counts.

The great thing to know is that you can find foods that meet these criteria. I suggest you walk around your neighborhood, drive or better yet ride a bike and find house is that might be growing food in their front yard. If you cannot grow your own foods this is a great way to go. Walk up to their front door and introduce yourself and tell them what you’re doing. Tell them that you would like to buy some of the food that their growing from the fruit trees that are growing in their front yard. Most of the time they will give it to you for free because either they do not eat it themselves or they are growing too much of it.

Just today my wife and I were given a basketful of fresh tomatoes that were just picked right from the vine just minutes before we passed their house. It was totally by accident that this happened. Even though I do not believe in accidents. Most of the time foods grown this way will meet all six of these requirements.

How much did you pay for this amazing food? Nothing.

So again I would like to stress that this article is not promoting any type of particular diet it was meant to build a framework and foundation in order for you to start asking questions about the food than you do eat so that you can find out whether or not they are healthy for you.

There can be no doubt that what is the best diet for humans is food that is wild, fresh, organic, whole, local and ancestral.