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- The diets of healthy primitive and nonindustrialized peoples contain no refined or denatured foods such as refined sugar or corn syrup; white flour; canned foods; pasteurized, homogenized, skim or low-fat milk; refined or hydrogenated vegetable oils; protein powders; artificial vitamins or toxic additives and colorings.
- All traditional cultures consume some sort of animal protein and fat from fish and other seafood; water and land fowl; land animals; eggs; milk and milk products; reptiles; and insects.
- Primitive diets contain at least four times the calcium and other minerals and ten times the fat soluble vitamins from animal fats (vitamin A, vitamin D and the Price Factor–now believed to be vitamin K2) as the average American diet.
- In all traditional cultures, some animal products are eaten raw.
- Primitive and traditional diets have a high food-enzyme content from raw dairy products, raw meat and fish; raw honey; tropical fruits; cold-pressed oils; wine and unpasteurized beer; and naturally preserved, lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages, meats and condiments.
- Seeds, grains and nuts are soaked, sprouted, fermented or naturally leavened in order to neutralize naturally occuring antinutrients in these foods, such as phytic acid, enzyme inhibitors, tannins and complex carbohydrates.
- Total fat content of traditional diets varies from 30% to 80% but only about 4% of calories come from polyunsaturated oils naturally occurring in grains, pulses, nuts, fish, animal fats and vegetables. The balance of fat calories is in the form of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids.
- Traditional diets contain nearly equal amounts of omega-6 and omega-3 essential fatty acids.
- All primitive diets contain some salt.
- Traditional cultures consume animal bones, usually in the form of gelatin-rich bone broths.
- Traditional cultures make provisions for the health of future generations by providing special nutrient-rich foods for parents-to-be, pregnant women and growing children; by proper spacing of children; and by teaching the principles of right diet to the young.
Thank you for this article! How long is the recommended proper spacing between children?
I wonder what would be categorized as “proper spacing of children”? Genuinely curious; I realize there will be variation, but on average, how much time between pregnancies would allow for the mother’s body to regain overall health and general nutrition (and then how might that look with extended and/or tandem breastfeeding)?
I happen to know that ‘proper spacing’ is 4 years and that is driven by the breastfeeding which is completely on demand and typically lasts for 4 years.
There isn’t one single citation in this article.
As to proper spacing of children, traditional cultures do not practice birth control; the proper spacing was therefore only regulated by the periods of abstinence from sexual activity observed in most cultures alongside of the fasting regiments. In the Christian East and West, husbands and wives would not come together again until 40 days after a male child, or 80 days after a female child, had been born. And then, they would not have come together on (Wednesdays, in the East and early West), Fridays, Emberdays, Lent, Advent (and, in some places, the Apostles’ Fast in June and the Lady Fast in August). Neither did they come together during menstruation (or pregnancy, for that matter). Apart from such periods of abstinence, traditional cultures do not “space” their children in a deliberate way. Long before I became a Catholic, I had to laugh at a certain kind of “all-natural” hippie, who would be meticulous about her diet, yet not bat an eye at the chemical and hormonal torture, or otherwise unnatural activities, involved in birth control.