Hunting and Gathering in Your A&P Supermarket
And here's the scary part, hunting and gathering is still a risky business.
While shopping at the supermarket you're often attacked with confusing information and sweet temptations. So what's the safest thing to do? What’s the natural thing for us human beings to be eating?
This is a really hard thing to keep in mind when shopping for food. But it's not just while shopping that you're attacked. It's all day long!
Modern Hunting and Gathering
Here's something to consider. The more things change, the more they tend to stay the same. Just stop and think about the evidence for that.
Our population is gaining weight. And with every new “diet plan” promising permanent weight loss, we continue to gain – nothing’s changed.
Or how about this one. Degenerative disease has been on the increase for years. And even though "health care" has “advanced” over those years, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases are still on the increase. (Maybe that's why they call it “practicing” medicine!)
And just think how "modern" we've become compared to our ancestors.
We’ve tossed off our animal skin attire for imitation fur and synthetic fibers. And who can't chase down a sirloin steak faster than tracking a whole mastodon? But in spite of our advances, we still need to hunt and gather our food – even though it's with a shopping cart instead of a spear.
Supermarket shopping is just a modern version of hunting and gathering.
Hunting and Gathering Risk Management
Now think about this. Your life still depends on your hunting and gathering skills – just as much as it did for your early ancestors. And having a healthy life is based on you making the right risk management decisions.
Should you track down the herd or eke out a meager existence farming some rocky soil? Should you eat healthy wholesome food or indulge in a Big Mac and French-fries? Every choice you make determines your future, whether it’s long or short, healthy or painful, happy or depressing.
Of course, the results of today's risk management decisions don't usually show up as fast as they did for your early ancestors. After all, they could have been trampled to death hunting a giant mastodon and that seldom happens while buying a sirloin steak at the supermarket.
And that's where we tend to get caught off guard, because our risk management decisions show up over time. But it’s absolutely clear that your food choices today determine your health in the future - whether or not you get the flu this year or heart disease 10 years from now.
So next time you go shopping at your local supermarket, think of yourself as a hunter-gatherer. And remember, your life depends on your choices just as much as they did your great, great, great (multiplied many times over) grandparents. (The ones in animal skins with bone tools).
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Posted in: Healthy Living
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