There’s no such thing as the perfect diet

This piece was originally published in the BWD Magazine Autumn 2018. With a few edits it’s time to bring it to the wide web!

With so many dietary protocols on offer in our modern culture, many people are left feeling confused and overwhelmed when choosing the perfect diet for good health and longevity.

Amidst the science of nutrition, we are also bombarded with ideological nonsense from every direction. We are spoiled for choice at a time when you can have superfoods from Peru and Finland in the same meal, yet as a species, we are more removed from our food production than ever before. Choosing what to eat and when is fraught with questions of health, ethics, and financial integrity… we’ve come a long way from the way our great-grandparents ate food.

Humans are supreme obligate omnivores. All over the world, people eat animal proteins and essential fats (they’re called essential because we can’t live without them) in the form of hunted game, domestically raised and grazed animals, as well as fish, reptiles, and insects. We’ve been doing it for as long as humans have been humans, from a time when sustainable was not a catchphrase, but a way of life.

Reports of human groups who have lived primarily on animal protein are rare, and a variety of whole plant foods appears in every traditional dietary protocol—even in Alaska where the ground is frozen most of the year. Ancestral people eat a diverse range of food over the course of a seasonal year: a minimum of 100 species per year. Modern humans are lucky to reach 30.

Self Crafted Wellness Principle #3: Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Good is a balance that addresses the cyclical nature of life—the changes that occur due to ongoing shifts in your life and in the natural world. Perfect requires a stagnant focus. Perfect assumes things are always the same, appropriately balanced just so, with no room for change.

Nature doesn’t do perfect: the seasons change. Mixed up by the sun and the tides and wind, nature is never stagnant. In nature, different foods are available at different times of the year, and we see that it is Good. Our wild ancestors evolved in a constantly changing environment, and modern humans still run on the same program, even though we’ve created ways to junk it up.

There’s no such thing as the perfect diet. There are times in your life where you will need to clear out your digestive pathways; to strip away unneeded debris, drop excess weight and fluid, and generally clean your internal system. There are also times when you will need to rebuild yourself; where you may need to bulk up a little for strength or immunity, or perhaps you will need to become more robust to deal with life’s unending challenges. In between the times of clearing and building, you require a process of maintenance—keeping up or keeping clear whatever your needs are for this phase of life.

Your digestive needs may be mapped on what I call the Rhythm of Life: a map for Self Crafting. This map details the pathway of living well, in attunement with both nature and your own physical body.

Many filters may be placed over this map, depending on what your focus is. There’s a lunar filter, a seasonal filter, a circadian filter, time of day, physical matter, energetic matter, wellness… the list goes on and on.

A Seasonal Approach to Food

Of course, like any map, it has compass directions. Each compass point directs you to further information on the map. For example:

• East: Where the morning sun rises each day, this is the region of clarity and the beginning stages of building anew. Foods here build and strengthen your body, such as high-protein and complex carbohydrates.

• North: Where the sun is most intense, this is the region for peaking—an apex of the built and spent—before it flows into the inevitable downshift of the west. Nourishing, sustaining foods such as clean marine-based proteins and well-cooked vegetables belong here.

• West: Where the sun disappears and down-regulation occurs, this is the region for shedding, letting go, and clearing away. Juice fasting, raw foods, or restrictive diets are all examples of this region.

• South: Where the sun does not appear, this is the region of quiet repose, gentleness, and silence. The food types here maintain the cleanse for a period of time—most commonly, vegetarian and plant-based diets.

Just like the seasons, our physical needs change throughout our lives. The diet that’s good for you now may not be the same as it was ten years ago. People find themselves at odds with their physical bodies when ideology takes the place of nourishment. Food is for self-care. We eat so that our body is supported to do whatever endeavour you’re asking of it. Feed it what it most needs to get the job done.

Nutritional Needs Shift with Time

Digestion and dietary needs are ever-changing, dependent on your age, stage of life, and what you actually wish to do with your body. A vegan lifestyle in your 20s has a very different effect than in your 50s. The physical body of a man who builds houses all day will require a different amount of protein than a female university student who spends her days trolling meat-eaters on the internet.

Humans thrive on variety, change, and adaptation. Hunter-gatherers ate what was available. Yet modern humans seek the one perfect diet. Science can’t back up a singular approach to nutrition because what humans have done for thousands of years—eating locally, seasonally, and flexibly—is what has kept us thriving.

Instead of looking for the one diet that works, we need to honour our body’s changing needs. Here’s how:

• Eat seasonally. Nature knows how to ensure an ever-changing shopping list—follow her lead and eat what’s in season.

• Eat local. Address ethics and environmental concerns by getting to know the people who grow your food. Ask the questions you want answered.

• Avoid chemicals. People have grown food without chemicals for 300,000 years—until the end of WWII. Food can still be grown without chemicals, it just takes a little more attention.