Dr Aleš Hrdlička
Dr Aleš Hrdlička, was a world-renowned Czech anthropologist and physician, was one of the early researchers into the diet of indigenous Americans.
George Mann - Two Studies in 1962
George V Mann - The Masai - 1962
Mann did 1546 physical examinations.
No diabetes
No heart disease
(He did 400 electro-cardiograms)
No cancer
Very low cholesterol
Good body structure, tall, with broad shoulders
Diet 60% saturated fats. They drank 2-3lt of milk a day, or a mixture of milk and animal blood.
They usually ate twice a day, mostly the meat of goat or beef cattle.
There were vegetables in the diet, but few of them.
Young Masai men walked many miles most days.
Dr. George Vernon Mann
George V Mann - the Akikuyu - 1962
This tribe ate a diet that is mostly vegetarian.
Mann did 6349 physical examinations.
Numerous bone deformities
Substantial tooth decay.
More anemia and lung disease
Ulcers and blood disorders
Mann also did 50 autopsies on Masai men, only one of those died of a heart attack.
60% of the Akikuyu men were unfit for military service.
Compared with the nearby Masai they averaged 5 inches shorter.
Weston Price
Many Studies 1940's
Weston Price
Price was a dentist. He realised that his American patients over 20 years has increasingly poor teeth and posture.
In the 1940s he travelled the world to find people who, firstly, had good jawbones and strong teeth.
Price found many groups of healthy strong tribal people: good teeth, no tuberculosis, no arthritis, no heart disease or cancer, strong bones, with upright stance. Gall bladder and kidney disease is rare.
People with a strong seafood culture, Weston Price identified as particularly healthy.
Healthy people ate lots of game, and ate it nose to tail. Their diet had very high mineral and vitamin content.
Price identified some super-foods: Insects, offal meats, fish eggs and bone marrow.
He made a special effort to find healthy groups with a vegetarian tradition and could find none.
All the diets he found that were healthy were nothing like the sort of diet we have been taught to believe is healthy. Since we're obviously not very healthy, we might ask ourselves what's wrong?
Stephen Phinney talks about how Inuit ate fat in their diets.