Primal Nomads.
Farming first developed around 9000BC in what is referred to as the (now desertified) fertile crescent, leading to a revolution in human culture. Whilst farming created reliable food and a resultant increase in human population size, it was also the beginning of culture moving increasingly out of step with natural evolutionary processes and contributing to a reduction in ecosystem diversity.
To quote historian Deborah Barham Smith:
‘Farming radically transformed society; hunter-gatherers had previously lived in small family groups building temporary shelters and being fairly nomadic, whereas farmers now began to settle, creating larger habitations wherever the land was more fertile, such as in river valleys’
Deborah Barham Smith
Wherever farming developed, the more reliable food source it produced led to a massive upswing in population.
But on the downside, there were dramatic reductions in the variety of local flora and fauna, as more and more land was given over to fewer varieties of plants and animals. (1)
At first, farming offered a reliable food source to supplement wild hunting and foraging, but it soon became the dominant source of sustenance, replacing our wild hunting and gathering almost entirely. Disruption of local flora and fauna and limitations on access to wild spaces led to an increasing dependence on farmed land and a reduced capacity to obtain sufficient wild food. Land in the UK, for example, became enclosed in Monastic granges, King’s hunting grounds and later through private ownership due to the enclosure act. Though we can now forage for our own wild food along public footpaths and parks, there has been a devastating loss of heritage and knowledge when it comes to edible and medicinal wild foods.
This has led to a dramatic reduction in the diversity of our modern-day diet, and it’s not just humans that these effects have impacted. Wildlife and livestock, too, have had to endure a dramatic loss of the diverse forage they have evolved alongside, and the consequences are beginning to show.
Research conducted by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1930s shows the dramatic effects on our dentition, skeletal structure and overall health when transitioning from a primitive diet to a modern one (2).
Weston A Price noticed an immediate degeneration in health within one generation after primitive peoples adopted a modernised diet. Quoting from his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:
‘…a chain of disturbances developed in these various primitive racial stocks starting even in the first generation after the adoption of the modernised diet and rapidly increased in severity with expressions quite constantly like the characteristic degenerative processes of our modern civilisation of America and Europe’ (2)
Our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed the numerous benefits of a diverse ancestral diet. It won’t be news to anyone familiar with the ancestral health movement that although our palaeolithic ancestors may have died young from the extremes of their lifestyle, they were not plagued with the chronic degenerative diseases from which we westerners currently suffer.
According to Chris Kresser (3) – many other advocates of the ancestral health diet – nomadic peoples eating traditional diets were likely to have a longer healthspan, carried less weight and were less likely to suffer from;
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes and obesity.
- Neurological and mood disorders.
Much of this can be attributed to their nose to tail eating of nutrient-dense meats and consumption of seasonal wild foraged foods.
The Hadza are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in the world. It’s thought they’ve lived on the same land in northern Tanzania, eating berries, tubers and 30 different mammals for 40,000 years. (4)
According to scientists, the Hadza have the most diverse gut bacteria of anyone anywhere globally. Our gut microbiome (the community of bacteria that lives in our guts) is essential for our overall wellbeing, affecting everything from our metabolism to our immune system and mental health. (5)
Nowadays, we enjoy reliable food all year round, but we do not have access to a truly diverse diet.
Happily, there is a way to produce a reliable food supply all year round and access elements of the diverse diet from which our nomadic ancestors were able to benefit.
At Primal Meats, we work closely with farms that regenerate their land and manage important habitats throughout the country. These farming methods lead to an increased diversity of plants in various systems and habitats, including glade pastures, uplands, hedgerows, riverbanks, etc. As a result, the livestock that graze or feed on such systems can benefit from the increased diversity of forage material, leading to more diverse plant compounds being concentrated in their meat. This bioaccumulation of important phytochemicals can be detected in the flavour of the meat and can lead to the development of distinct and complex flavour and texture.
What livestock eat contributes to the diversity of plant-based compounds, known as phytonutrients in their meat, which further diversifies our diets when consuming meat. This is discussed in the wonderful book ‘Nourishment’ by Fred Provenza and demonstrated in his research (6).
Eating meat from different farms in different locations and habitats could mimic a more nomadic diet.
Imagine wild game on the moors surviving on gorse and heather, cattle from inland grazing on wildflower-rich glades, sheep from coastal areas eating the sea-mineral rich coastal forage and pigs from woodlands enjoying a feast of seeds, insects, nuts, fruits and whatever else they can snout out.
A diet containing meat sourced from these unique systems can offer dietary diversity that cannot be obtained from one system or habitat alone.
Just as a Nomad would wander the lands moving in tune with the seasons and food availability, we can attempt to replicate this and in doing so access a range of diverse nutrients that would not be available otherwise.
As we support the regeneration of landscapes, we are also increasing the diversity of edible wild plants available throughout the year. We support maximal diversity recovery from the soil up from coastal samphires, seaweeds and salty fingers to simple inland species like meadowsweet, burdock root and garlic mustards.
At Primal Meats, we offer cow share’s from many regenerative farms with unique biodiversity; regularly buying meat that ‘upcycled’ the vast diversity of wildflowers on these farms could be a great way of diversifying your diet.
References;
- https://www.farminguk.com/news/-humankind-s-greatest-invention-the-history-of-agriculture-part-one_44383.html
- Weston Price; Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – A comparison of primitive and modern diets and their effects; 2010 Benediction Classics, Oxford
- https://chriskresser.com/what-is-an-ancestral-diet-and-how-does-it-help-you/
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40686373
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996546/#b12
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426/full
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