“Damn! He dies!?”
That was the first thing I said after I popped ‘In Search of the Perfect Human Diet‘ into my DVD player.
Yep, producer C.J. Hunt drops dead at the beginning of the film. He had a cardiac arrest during a run at just age 24.
10 days later (and apparently not dead) he is discharged from hospital with the following advice:
- Don’t walk upstairs
- Don’t go anywhere without someone who knows CPR
- Take heart medication for rest of your life
- There is a 50% chance you’ll die over next 2 years
Bad times 🙁
This started Hunt’s obsession with diet and nutrition.
He tried it all and settled on being a raw food vegan. But after 5 years on the diet he says,
“My body was crying out for real protein”
In the US 300,000 – 400,000 people die every year due to complications directly due to their diet.
Hunt then gives us an analogy to help put this into perspective: It’s about 100 x 9/11’s every year, or 1 x 9/11 every 3 days!
He says that at 46 he was fitted with a defibrillator, which would restart his heart if he collapsed again.
“The implant was a physically painful and dispiriting reminder of my mortality that I could see and feel every day. I didn’t know how much time I had left to live, but I was determined to use what time I had to make a difference.”
This started his unprecedented 10-year journey to find the perfect human diet.
The next section of the documentary talks about Kerin O’Dea’s research into a hunter gatherer population in Derby, Australia.
Some of this group had moved to the city had since gotten fat and developed health problems. O’Dea then conducted a 7-week experiment where this group went back to the bush to live their former lifestyles.
The result was that the following problems that they had:
- Being overweight
- Insulin resistance
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
all normalized after just 7 weeks.
They ate mostly animal fats and proteins. Interestingly, in terms of physical activity, the group was LESS physically active in the bush than they were in the city.
There’s a similar story after this about the First Nations people of Canada and the difference between how they eat now and how their elders ate. They are now also suffering the health problems seen above as a result of this dietary change.
The next section is on vegetarianism and veganism. You know the story: beef is bad, soy is good. Yeah right!
An interview with a vegan has her tell us that we humans are herbivores! Dr. Michael Eades says in his interview that this is absurd. We have a carnivorous GI tract. Furthermore, vitamin B12, which is only found in food of animal origin, is essential to us. So our natural state is NOT vegetarian at all.
The first diet program as such was the Banting diet in 1863. William Banting was a formerly obese English undertaker who cured his obesity problem with a weight loss diet based on limiting intake of refined and easily digestible carbohydrates. Meat and green vegetables were the staples.
Gary Taubes says that up to the 1950’s this was still the accepted and common way to lose weight. It was common that if you went to a doctor to be treated for obesity, you were advised to restrict carbohydrates.
Dr. Weil agrees and says that fat does not make you fat. What’s driving the obesity epidemic is the excessive consumption of high glycemic carbs.
Nowadays a low-carb approach is not the prescription for obesity, which begs the question – why did things change?
The first set of government nutritional guidelines were written by political staffers, not scientists or nutritionists. They were based on a STILL unproven theory that dietary fat is responsible for heart disease (see my article on this here). These recommendations have, unfortunately, been remarkably consistent ever since.
EVOLUTION
2 million years ago saw the first appearance of homo erectus. They were very anatomically similar to us from the neck down. And all the evidence says they ate a diet very high in animal foods.
We ate this type of diet to develop the brains, health, and strength to become the dominant species.
Particularly interesting in this movie was the visit to the Max Planck institute in Germany to talk about stable isotope analysis of bone collagen to determine human and animal diets (and dietary changes) in prehistoric and historic Europe.
Whereas finding tools to kill and cut up animals points to a high meat diet, it doesn’t necessarily prove it. That’s why this type of bone analysis is particularly revealing.
Professor Mike Richards from the institute states that neanderthals got all of their protein from animal sources. “And then we see the same thing with more modern humans as well…but a larger range of animal proteins including more fish.”
From 2 million years ago, we come up to just 10,000 years ago – the birth of agriculture.
This is illustrated on a (American) football field as the half yard line. Up to this half yard line everyone ate wild animal and plant food. From this tiny sliver of time up to now, refined sugars, refined wheat, refined oils comprise about 70% of the calories in the average American diet. We really can’t be surprised that we have problems, can we?
However, these “processed” foods didn’t really get going until the 1900’s, which is the 0.001 yard line on a football pitch! This illustrates that we are now WAY off base when it comes to what we are genetically programmed to eat.
We can say with certainty that it is a high carb-diet that is truly the fad diet (something popular in the short term). A lower carb, higher protein and fat diet IS simply the real HUMAN diet. If it’s a fad diet, it’s a 2 million year old fad.
It can be clearly seen from this section of the film than wherever and whenever grains and plant foods became our species’ major source of protein, our health declined.
Professor Mike Richards from the Max Planck Institute says “Animal proteins and fats are irreplaceable in an optimal human diet”.
EATING
The next section was a treat and something I didn’t expect. It’s something that is normally left out of films like this: How to shop for this type of diet.
Here are some tips from the film.
Get larger cuts of meat including:
Pork tenderloin
Sirloin Steak
Ribeye Steak
Vegetables. If you haven’t got time for fresh vegetables, frozen is much better than canned, so…
Frozen Greens for convenience
Romaine Lettuce is better for you than iceberg
Peppers (I LOVE peppers)
Fruit including:
Avocados
Bananas (diabetics should stay away from high sugar fruits like bananas) see my article on lower sugar fruits here
Apples
Oranges (never drink fruit juices as they have way too much sugar and the fiber is taken out)
Snack on nuts as well as fruit including walnuts, pecans, and almonds.
Avoid grains (yes including whole grains).
Avoid:
Bread
Oats
Cereals
Hunt finishes by saying that because of his heart condition he made a choice 5 years ago to adopt a higher animal protein and fat diet while reducing his carb intake. His doctors have said that his blood work proves that this was the right decision.
Final message is: Eat human food. Avoid non-human food.
I loved this film. Where I see big potential for it is in helping others see the truth about optimum human nutrition. If you have people in your life who just won’t listen to the truth about controlling carbohydrate and eating more natural fats, don’t spend ages debating with them, give them this DVD. 😀
To see why this diet is good for your muscular development also, check out my MANS diet.
Eat Well & Be Healthy,
Mark
P.S. Filmmaker CJ Hunt has been in touch and said that the DVD no longer ships internationally. However, you CAN get the film on iTunes in Ireland, UK, AU, NZ, Canada and USA; search “THE PERFECT HUMAN DIET”. Also, international viewers may find it on Amazon Instant Video, GooglePlay or SonyPlayStation. USA and Canada are also on cable systems.
Sounds interesting, thanks for the tip. I’ll make sure to check it out. Cheers!
watched this when it came out last year
very impressive and it validated our approach to nutrition which is paleo / primal with MANS of course
never been healthier!
Had a massive row with a paleo-diet advocate a couple of years ago about this. The way I see it is that if blue eyes evolved in 6,000 – 10,000 years, (look it up), a stomach can evolve to metabolise grain just fine. The start of agriculture and therefore grains as a staple in diet has been discovered to have commenced about 23,000 years ago.
More facts for you. Japan has the highest life expectancy, high degree of grains in their diet
Being a slave to any diet makes a vital part of life boring. Treat any diet with a degree of suspicion and never commit to one diet that excludes foods that you enjoy. Once again it’s moderation that matters.
Dvd sounds interesting…something along the lines of the ketagenic diet. My one critique would be that the meat and animal products in our day and age are laced with hormones and the like, which definitely aren’t natural. I’ve also seen studies recently that do anything but promote the added benefits of organically sourced products. Cheers
This is essentially the paleo or cavemans diet. I have been on this for a year now and it is spectacular. Everything in your body feels so much better. Even if you implemented half of it would be beneficial. All I cook with is butter and people thing im crazy, but thats real food. Not some vegetable oil, or some processed margarine. The only change I have made was having a half cup of steel cut oats in the am, I just feel i need that tiny carb boost first thing in the morning. After that though, the only carb i get might be from a potato and vegetable.
I gotta admit that while I was on MANS I never felt more healthy, strong and energetic. Finally a documentary that supports what MANS advocates already know. Nice work
been going to some low carb talks with all the latest stuff going on and whats really happening in the food industry, its shocking to note that fat has a bad name, sugar sells and is a booming industry, what got my attention is that we have all been lied to! the american heart association and the like, where we are getting all this nonsense infomation on food is infact sponsored by companies like coca-cola and mars bars..etc. they sponsor millions of $’s for these guys to write up on how bad fats are and to not mention that sugar is infact the problem. This article is spot on and I erge all of you to do your own research on healthy eating, also google GMO’s in food!! you will be shocked at what so called health shops are selling you and putting in your mouth.
I am reasonably certain the Japanese live longer due to the intense amount of FISH they eat, although I am sure their rice is superb to the Uncle Ben’s trash distributed here in the US. Asian edibles and snacks focus on natural products, like dried shrimp and such, so I wouldn’t be so quick to exploit the Japanese as a pro-grain approach. Simply unfounded.
Hi mark just wondering what you would advise for diet when high cardio is a must? (Army training Etc)
Thanks!
Hi Mark,
This is the filmmaker…Thanks for the great write up!
Please note, as of 2 days ago the DVD is no longer available world wide. The US Post Office changed the rates and now it’s higher than the cost of the DVD…. so, at the moment, the DVD is USA ONLY (you just made it with your order!).
BUT your friends and subscribers CAN get the film on iTunes in Ireland, UK, AU, NZ, Canada and USA, “THE PERFECT HUMAN DIET”. Also, International viewers may find it by Title search on Amazon Instant Video, GooglePlay or SonyPlayStation. USA and Canada are also on cable systems.
Thank you too for the links in the article, which will work for Amazon Instant Video, but not the DVD. We do not sell the DVD on Amazon Only here http://www.perfecthumandiet.us. (that picture on Amazon is someones resale)
Thanks so much for your support!!
Sincerely,
CJ
Charles “CJ” Hunt
http://www.PerfectHumanDiet.us
@PhDdocumentary
#ThePerfectHumanDiet
I agree with Ian’s comment about the high degree of grains. Also, vegetarians don’t always refrain from eating meat because they consider it to be healthier, it’s because they don’t like the thought of eating a once living creature.
Mark,
What’s bad about eating oats?????
The Japanese diet has changed dramatically since the end of World War 2. Up to that point heart disease was virtually unknown in Japan, cancers of the colon and bowel were also very rare. After the war America set up a base there and introduced fast food to the Japanese people and now their incidence of heart disease and cancers has skyrocketed.
We are genetically programmed to be omnivores and the paleo or caveman approach makes perfect sense. As for the comment about evolution – if that were true then where are all the species that should have evolved over the last 20,000 years?? The human body is what it always was and we are designed to process animal fats and proteins.
Yeah, why is oat bad? No offense for this MANS food but it costs way more than basic low fat balanced carb-protein
I lived in Japan for a while. They eat a lot of rice but normally wrapped around quality fish and seaweed. There portion size is very small. It’s their culture and also they have little concept of the desert. They tend to eat fruit and that’s about it as regards sweet things. That alone would explain there relative low heart disease. Personally I do believe that some grains are fine in a diet. It depends on whether or not you are in any way intolerant to gluten etc. Same goes for lactose intolerance in dairy. I eat 60% protein and control calories mainly by IFing. Never been fitter. In fact in a nutshell, control calories, eat lots of protein and lift to failure.
Thanks for the review, Mark. I totally want to check out this DVD. Maybe I can get my husband to watch it too.
You all need to stop beating the “evolution” drum. It is abundantly clear that your concept of evolution is flawed. You’re all putting the cart before the horse. We have evolved to eat grains because we have been doing it and getting away with it i.e. we’re still procreating and passing along our genetic material while eating a lot of carbs ergo we have evolved to eat carbs. The measure of evolution of a species can be distilled down to 2 criteria – how many of the species are there and how long has the species been around. Since we’ve been agricultural societies the human population has sky-rocketed to 7 billion people so you could easily argue that humans have evolved to eat carbs. This is of course a flawed argument because our evolution is completely isolated from our diet now (because it makes us no better or worse at passing along our genetic material).
Now is a high carb diet healthy? Given the evidence – probably not. My point is our diets are now pretty much isolated from our evolution. If we’re all (vegans, vegetarians, omnivores) procreating we’re all evolving, it’s as simple as that
Great article, i’m actually just writing a speech about all of the common misconceptions americans have about what they eat. While doing some research I found a study by the oxford group that showed how a diet high in carbohydrates raised LDL and Triglyceride levels(bad cholesterol), and a high fat diet lowered LDL and Triglycerides, while raising HDL(good cholesterol). they point out the process of novo lipogenesis,The researchers found this to be the cause of higher LDL, triglyceride, and lipidprotein levels in the individuals on the lowfat/high carb diet in the study. lipogenesis occurs only when a higher amount of carbohydrate energy is consumed than is being used. (and no, this does not mean that eating carbs before,after or during a workout is a good idea, due to the negative effect on growth hormone and testosterone levels.) Our bodies like to store any energy they can and carbohydrates are easily converted into fat for storage, fat cannot be converted back into carbohydrates and requires more effort from the body to utilize, but people do function better when using fat as the main energy source.
As far as the asian cultures eating high amounts of carbs, they do but they also eat more fish. There were two exchange students in my school from South Korea who were pretty skinny when they came to the U.S. and despite higher levels of activity they both gained a lot of weight in a few months. Instead of eating potato chips, in their country they would eat things like baked seaweed which comes in a chip bag.
I do support low carb diets as they are the only way I loose weight but after 6 months on Atkins my wife and I had choleserol levels that were through the roof.
The problem I can see is that Diets high in protein are much more expensive, to accomodate this cheaper cuts of meat are used and they are much higher in fat.
I am currently trying the moderation thing but it doesnt work like low carb and is harder to stay disiplined on
Thank you Mark for this article, film sounds interesting.
Byron: cholesterol is NOT one of the reasons included in 90% of myocardial infarction cases, according to INTERHEART-study(WHO-supported study), published in the Lancet 2004.
Here is small clip of acute MI reasons “Evaluating more than 29000 subjects from 262 sites across 52 countries, the investigators report that the two most important risk factors worldwide for acute MI were an abnormal apolipoprotein B/apolipoprotein A-1 (ApoB/ApoA-1) ratio and cigarette smoking. Diabetes, hypertension, abdominal obesity, psychosocial variables such as stress and depression, exercise, diet, and alcohol intake were the other variables that predicted risk of acute MI.”