These days, it’s trendy to scrutinize the protein, fat, and carbohydrate content of our food. But with so many conflicting articles and opinions, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and confused. My goal with this article is to simplify the topic so you can feel more at ease about your eating habits. Scientists tell us that early humans survived by hunting and gathering as they moved across the land. We know this from fossil evidence—including fossilized feces, which reveal what these ancient people ate: meats, fibrous vegetables (like greens and asparagus), roots, and foraged fruits. Researchers estimate that humans ate this way for roughly 100 million years. In contrast, agriculture is a much more recent development. According to experts, organized farming began about 10,000 years ago. That means bread, rice, breakfast cereals, and other grain-based foods are relatively new additions to the human diet. Some scientists even speculate that early humans began cultivating grains to brew beer, or started growing grapes to make wine. Why does this matter? Because these dietary changes have introduced new biochemical challenges for our bodies—challenges we’re still adapting to. Let’s talk about insulin. Any medical textbook will include a section on insulin and how it regulates blood sugar. When blood glucose rises too high, the body releases insulin to prevent damage. Insulin helps shuttle excess glucose into fat cells, keeping blood sugar under control. This process is crucial—but for our primitive ancestors, it was rarely needed. How often did they consume large amounts of carbohydrates? Maybe during a rare feast with fermented drinks, or at the height of summer when fruit was abundant. In modern life, by contrast, we trigger insulin secretion four to six times a day—every time we eat meals or snacks. So what’s the problem? The issue is that insulin is a pro-inflammatory hormone. In other words, every time insulin is released, it promotes inflammation throughout the body. That inflammation can worsen joint pain, headaches, bruises, muscle strains—essentially, any source of pain or discomfort. It’s alarming, isn’t it? Our modern diet and lifestyle are fueling inflammation at a systemic level. And because agriculture and grain-based diets are such recent developments in evolutionary terms, our bodies haven’t fully adapted. If we still ate a hunter-gatherer diet—centered on fats, proteins, some nuts and berries, and fibrous vegetables—our blood sugar would rarely spike enough to trigger insulin. For millions of years, insulin secretion was rare. Today, it’s a daily event at every meal. And with this shift, we’ve seen the rise of diseases unknown to our ancestors: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and more. Sure, we no longer face the threat of starvation or saber-toothed tigers, but we’ve introduced a different set of problems with this 10,000-year experiment in agriculture. Here’s another concern: every time we consume excess carbohydrates, our white blood cells become less active for up to four hours. That means each blood sugar spike temporarily weakens our immune defenses. So the old advice to drink orange juice when you have a cold? Not so helpful after all. Keep this in mind: whenever you drink alcohol, fruit juice, sugary beverages, or eat cakes, pies, pastries, bread, cookies, or breakfast cereals, you’re prompting your body to release insulin—and with it, inflammation. Learn more about our diet and lifestyle help by going to our website and signing up for our free newsletter here: www.DrDeanHowell.com
Author