When we were little kids at school we were taught whatever USDA food group system that was being promoted at the time. It might have been the The Basic Seven, or the The Basic Four, or the The Food Guide Pyramid, MyPyramid or now “MyPlate” The USDA’s food recommendations are ever changing. But does our body’s needs change? Not at all! We need the exact same macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients our forebearers lived on. Nothing has changed at all … it’s absurd to think it would!

If you paid close heed to the governments recommendations your diet would have changed radically from the 1940’s when the first set of recommendations were released during World War II. If you are old enough to have lived in the 40’s you know what I mean. The government says the newer recommendations are based on improved science, but is that really the case? Most of us know that the FDA is in the pocket of the pharmaceutical business … that’s why prescription medicine is so expensive here in the US. Why wouldn’t we believe the USDA is in the pocket of agribusiness and is going about promoting the products agribusiness produces making them seem healthful, even like an improvement on what mother nature gave us?

This kind of eating isn’t healthful, folks. Healthful eating is about eating the way people have forever. That means food as nature gives it to us and with the small amount of processing possible in a non-industrialized culture. Food the way Granny made it.

Which brings us to next five principles of a good diet …

Use filtered water for cooking and drinking.

Water as nature gives it is mineral rich, clean and free of chemicals. Tap water as we receive it from our cities municipal water supply typically has fluoride and chlorine added. Fluoride is a toxic waste product of the nuclear industry. For those interested in the whole story of how fluoride became part of our water supply I highly recommend reading The Fluoride Deception for the scoop. Beside fluoride our water supplies are chlorinated. Many cities have found high levels of pharmaceuticals in the water. Many contain unsafe levels of heavy metals.

This is an issue I personally have not resolved to my satisfaction. For the moment we are drinking tap water 🙁 and some bottled water. I’d like to install an under the sink filtration system and it’s on the list for household improvements. So we’re getting there. I use distilled water for ferments right now. Baby steps … it’s important to not beat yourself up over a not 100% real food diet.

Use unrefined Celtic sea salt and a variety of herbs and spices for food interest.

Regular table salt is a purified salt. That means it is basically just salt with additives to prevent clumping. In some countries salt is fortified with iodine and fluoride. Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salts or any other unrefined salt is a mix of salt with trace amounts of a large variety of minerals. These salts come by this mix naturally. Our ancestors ate this kind of salt. The refined purified kind simply didn’t exist.

Wars were fought over access to salt. That’s how important to life it really is. Make good salt a priority in your diet.

Depending on where they lived in the world spices might have been a rare luxury or an everyday common addition to food for our ancestors. One thing’s for sure, spices are traditional any way you look at it, and are great at making otherwise plain foods more appealing. The more appealing the food the more nutrients your body receives just ’cause you’ll eat more!

Make your own salad dressing using raw vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and expeller expressed flax oil.

Most salad dressing are really, really bad for you. Virtually all commercial salad dressing are made with refined vegetable oils, yuck! Luckily it’s really simple to make your own. So if you love salads you’ll want to make this a high priority.

Use natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw honey, maple syrup, dehydrated cane sugar juice and stevia powder.

Sweet flavors were something of a rare luxury throughout history for virtually all cultures. As a rarity it was usually rationed. Each person got a little each day, or week depending on it’s availability. It’s pretty unnatural to eat sweets all day every day. So eat your sweets in moderation and make sure that are wholly natural. If a sweetener is being promoted on TV or in magazines it’s a pretty good bet it is not natural!

Use only unpasteurized wine or beer in strict moderation with meals.

Historically many cultures have drank more beer and wine than even our’s does ;-). These fermented beverages were typically taken with meals and weren’t drank to excess by most of the population. Why, in many cultures they were served to kids as they were safer to drink than the water was. Keep in mind that most of the big-brand beers are pasteurized so you’ll need to check into any brand you like to find out what their process is. As far as I know most wine is not pasteurized.

Until next time when we go over the final 5 dietary guidelines 🙂

This post is part of a series …

• The First Five Principles
• The Second Five Principles
• The Third Five Principles
• The Final Five Principles

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