Forget Paleo, Eat and Live Like My Grandfather!

February 6th, 2017

I find it amusing that many people are turning to the “Paleo” diet for improved health and longevity.  Ironically, the people who lived in the “Paleo” age died at the average age of 25!  Granted they also had to deal with infections, the elements and animals trying to eat them.

My grandfather lived to be 101 years old.  I think it is much more logical to model my diet on what he ate to be healthy!  Let me tell you a little about him.  Mr. Jen Yin Chiu worked as a farmer and painted oil paintings as a hobby.  He got up early in the morning, and went to bed early each night.  He drank at least 4 large mugfuls of oolong tea each day.  He did 10 minutes of stretching every morning when he woke up, kind of a mix between tai chi and yoga with deep breathing exercises.  Throughout his life, he rarely ate processed foods having grown up in a farming village where fresh vegetables and fruits were always plentiful.

When I am trying a new food, I think to myself “would my grandfather recognize this as food?”  If the answer is “no” I avoid it.  A good example is cereal that comes in multicolored ring shapes.  Sure, the ingredients list things like wheat and corn, but if my grandfather saw fluorescent colored donuts that stain the milk a rainbow color, he probably would think this is a bowl of plastic beads.  No good.  The same goes with soda.  He only drank tea and water.  In general, anything that is overly processed would be out.  Anything that grows on a farm with the fewest steps between the field and your plate would be ok.

I suggest that rather than “fad diets”, try to avoid packaged foods.  When shopping at the grocery store, shop around the perimeter of the store, which includes the meat section, dairy case, and vegetables.  Avoid the inner aisles where there are packaged and processed foods galore.  The only exception would be the aisle with beans and whole grains.  Read the ingredients on food labels.  If you can’t  pronounce words like “sodium caseinate, disodium inosinate, maltodextrin, disodium guanylate” which I recently saw on a bag of orange colored, triangular shaped corn chips, I recommend you don’t eat it!

My grandfather never stepped foot in a gym to do workouts, but he did get plenty of exercise daily.  Most people burned more calories in previous generations during their daily routine.  Why?  Well, when my grandfather wanted to write a letter to a friend, he would write the letter out by hand and walk it to the post office 20 minutes away.  Today, we could sit at the kitchen counter and click “send” and the email is sent.  When my grandmother washed clothes, she did them by hand.  I estimate she probably burned a good 200-300 calories washing clothes for every half hour of laundry by hand every few days.  Today, when I do laundry, I burn zero calories as I just throw them in the machine and press start.  I’m not saying we should all be doing our laundry by hand again, but this means we MUST get some form of exercise in our day and not just sit at our desks, in our cars or on the couch for over 12 hours a day (and that’s not an exaggeration!).

To make things worse for us, our food portions are getting way out of control.  We are easily consuming 2-3 times the amount of calories that our grandparents ate and the fat content of our food is higher than ever.  Not convinced?  Check out the size of your dinner plate.

Currently, we are on course to a looming health catastrophe.  Already we are seeing Type 2 Diabetes emerge in children (Type 2 Diabetes usually does not appear until adulthood and is associated with obesity).  We are eating more calories than ever and burning less calories because of technological advances.  Healthy eating and regular exercise should be incorporated into everyone’s daily life.  If you have children, you should teach them healthy habits from the start.  Get them off the sofa, perhaps exercise together as a family.