A question often brought up in discussions with me is what is a suitable diet for humans. Unfortunately it is easier to ask that question than to answer it in general terms. I can tell you about many things that are harmful, and many being good for your health too. But when it comes to the composition of a perfect diet we tread uncertain grounds. Moreover, what is perfect might to some extent vary from person to person - depending on differences in outer environment and inner biochemistry.
It is an often repeated mantra, however, that it is essential to have a varied diet. Given the many known and unknown nutrients we supposedly need, this makes sense. From that perspective one should eat very little of each of very many different foodstuffs. Preferably daily. (Discussed more below.) Yet, perhaps it is not that simple.
Monodiet or Varied Diet?
Nature is often our best teacher. But if we let observation of nature guide us, we will soon find something that must make us question the cherished "truth" of a varied diet: Most animals eat the same thing, or just a few closely related foods, during their whole life! The variation they have, appears to be a result of limited supply of the favoured food, not anything dictated by biological need. This makes us ask: Have we completely gone astray about nutrition; is the ideal food a monodiet?
To further saw doubts: most diets that have successfully been used to cure various diseases have been very limited in variation, sometimes veritable monodiets. I know cases of eating only garlic, apples, tomatoes, dates, potatoes, canned cherries, eggs, meat, soil, or clay,... What they have in common is that they all were monodiets or almost so. At times it almost seems as if that were the important detail, that limiting the diet to only one foodstuff is more important than what we choose to eat!
I will not recommend a monodiet for the healthy individual. Still varied eating makes more sense, given our current knowledge of nutrition. Yet I think these observations are thought-provoking; and, as I have written on several occasions:
“they remind us of not being over-confident in our current knowledge, but keep the mind open for that cherished truths can change with time. We don't know everything - and everything we believe we know might be wrong.”
Multinutrition or Variation in Series?
A fundamental principle is that every essential nutrient or other compound should be available in the blood at every moment. Resultant of that is that every nutrient or other essential or beneficial substance should be ingested every day, because the optimal level in the blood must at all times be kept. Taken once a week or a little now and then, it will not do much good. The level would swing up and down and sometimes be too low – and, perhaps, sometimes too high (when applicable). If we want the optimal beneficial effects of something, we must get it daily or almost daily.
What does it say about our diet?
That we need to eat a lot of different things and we need to do it daily. A little garlic or turmeric can make wonders with your health, but it must be taken every day or almost so. The same goes for all health-providing foodstuffs or substances in our diet, including supplements. A conventionally varied diet, where you eat one thing one day, another the second, again another the third, etc., is of limited value. In that way the level in the blood, if it changes at all, will just a short while be high enough to influence your biochemistry and then it will be gone again. It will not give any permanent effect. However, a little of everything every day would.
On the other hand, that goes for bad things as well. For them to make real harm, they must be taken regularly. Not necessarily every day, but in some sense regularly. An occasional indulgence in sweets, bad fats, alcohol or even smoking, will not cause irreparable harm. The harm comes when it is often.
This is The Power Of Graduality .
Its power rests on the general fact that frequency is more important than amount. The effect of frequency is gradually built up in small regular steps, and it is permanent.
In order to keep the blood biochemically balanced so that everything you need or might need if an acute crisis occurs (accident, illness, intoxication) is always available, you'd be better off by eating very small amounts of a large number of essential or healthy foodstuffs and nutrients every day, rather than meals consisting of a relatively large amount of 3-4 foodstuffs which are changing from day to day.
Someone I know wanted to be serious about this. He decided to design a daily regime consisting of as many different things as possible, things known to be healthy. In order to do so, he invented a machine with which he could dry and pulverise almost any foodstuff. Dry it, because that would ensure supply during the whole year; pulverise, because he could then take very little of everything – and it has to be little if you eat that many things.
He dried as many different fruits, nuts and vegetables he could find, with their seeds of course – continuing with herbs, flowers, spices... you mention it. Then he took a very small amount of each every day, mainly in yoghurt or mixed into other food. (But he could also use certain dry powders separately. He got a fantastic bread by mixing apple powder into the dew. That was fibre, and dry powder binds water and the bread becomes juicy.)
His blood contained significant levels of over a thousand substances of which there is not normally any significant amount in the blood of people with an ordinary diet. At least not on a permanent basis.
However, let's now look at the other side of this coin. Even if this idea is good, there is a risk involved in following it too slavishly. What happens when small amounts of something toxic gradually builds up like this? Or pollutions in the foodstuff used? Or simply long term overdose? There is also the risk of developing hypersensitivity to something that is always there.
No matter whether you follow the described multi-nutrient approach or not, I would suggest you to refrain from everything one day per week, one week per month, and one month per year. Every foodstuff, every supplement you take, everything you ingest - except possibly water. However, it is not necessary to refrain from everything at the same time. Skip some things one day, and others the next, etc.. - just for each single thing, keep to the pattern. That will eliminate the risk for hypersensitivity and strongly reduce the risk for other negative side-effects.
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(Lead image: Photo by diapicard/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain. The image has been cropped.)
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I remember few people here who only have dry fruits in their diet. And I wonder how do they complete their whole other nutrition.