[.ca] The Origin Diet: How Eating Like Our Stone Age Ancestors ... (ISBN 0805069283)

From Amazon.com:
"For 99 percent of the time humans have been on earth, our ancestors ate and evolved on diets of plants and very lean wild game," writes Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D. During the last few thousand years, humans converted from hunters and gatherers to farmers, and finally to automobile drivers headed for fast-food restaurants. Somer's point is that although our behavior and eating habits have changed, our basic biology remains the same as our hunger-gatherer ancestors. We are "genetically programmed to thrive on a diet of nuts, seeds, leaves, honey, and wild game, but not gorging on doughnuts, cheese puffs, domesticated beef, soda pop." We would be healthier, says Somer, if we would eat as our ancestors did when there was no cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, or diabetes. In The Origin Diet, she describes how to translate to modern life the five "Stone Age Secrets": Stay strong and lean. Focus on wild (natural) foods. Stay healthy and alert. Handle stress quickly, then relax. Belong to a supportive tribe of family and friends. Although the premise is unusual and interesting, much of Somer's advice is similar to what you hear from all the major health and medical associations: eat lots of fruits and vegetables, avoid processed foods, eat starchy carbohydrates and grains, eat fiber, cut back on saturated fat, drink water, exercise vigorously, and manage stress. Somer is not recommending that you hunt your own mastodon (although wild game is only 4 percent fat, compared with 25 to 30 percent fat in domesticated meat); you can substitute chicken breast and salmon (while salmon is higher in fat than other types of fish, it's high in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids). Eat more produce and fiber, she urges us. Graze, don't gorge. Exercise. "The secret to regaining our evolutionary balance is to glean the best of our ancient ancestors' eating habits and combine those with the safe, abundant, nutritious foods available today," says Somer. The book includes an appendix of recipes such as Garbanzo Cilantro Dip, Chili-Glazed Chicken, Crusty Basil Salmon, and Tofu Confetti Burritos (no bison burgers!). Somer, contributing editor to Shape and Eating Well and former consultant to Good Morning America, has written several other books on nutrition, including Food & Mood: The Complete Guide to Eating Well and Feeling Your Best (with Nancy Snyderman), Age-Proof Your Body: Your Complete Guide to Lifelong Vitality, and Nutrition for Women: The Complete Guide. --Joan Price

What an excellent book! The best I have ever read:
Elizabeth Somer has done it again. The Origin Diet is insightful and presents sound nutritional idea in a way that is easy to understand without oversimplifying this difficult subject. Our ancestors ate a mixed diet of plants and lean game. By staying close to our origins, we provide our bodies what they need and deserve. I have found this book to be an excellent addition to my library. Read it for yourself and make up your own mind.

Some structural problems with this book...:
I have no comments as yet about the content of this book -- I'm trying it out and will have to see for myself how the advice works for me. (I will say that it's kind of hard to argue with someone who tells you to stop eating donuts and start working out, and I for one am glad to have qualified advice on how to approximate a more natural diet with the foods that are available today. Not all of us have the wherewithal to track down gazelle.) However, as an ex-tech writer, I do have to comment about the structure of this book. Some chapters are straightforward heading/sub-heading text, but once the guidelines and lists and tip callouts start, you're in trouble. I found it incredibly difficult to determine which set of "Five Habits" or "Seven Guidelines" I was reading. I'd routinely run into, say, item four of some continuing list and have to flip back to remind myself what subject I was on. This book needs: - fewer and clearer heading styles - fewer and clearer numbering styles (ABC, 123, and bullets abound...) - a page design that differentiates between central content and informational asides. I am looking forward to the Origin Diet Cookbook should such a thing be in the offing (not to mention the Origin Diet Shopping Guide -- where DOES one obtain bison burger, anyway?) However, I hope that future offerings are a little more carefully designed than this one.

Not really stone age:
This book is an absurd contradiction. The author correctly states that a truly healthy diet should follow the way man ate before civilization and society changed the way we eat. That is how we evolved. Then, she advocates whole grains which had no part in the foods available for consumption in those ages.

Amazing, Inspiring, and Motivating Book!:
This book is written in a style that is honest, and really motivates you to eat healthier. The lists, illustrastions, and recipies are extremely helpful, and I have lost 10 pounds by adopting the techniques of my ancestors. An excellent read!

Absurd Nonsense:
Dietician Elizabeth Somer has done it again: she has written yet another politically correct nutrition book that has little truth in it. In this one, she's attemtping to cash in on the current interest in the Paleolithic diet--the way our ancestors ate. Somer starts off by rightly stating that for 99% of its history, humanity lived and thrived on a hunter-gatherer diet and that widespread use of agricultural foods is a relatively recent phenomenon. She rightly states that, at the genetic level, people are still the Paleolithic eaters of yesteryear, implying that we should eat more Paleolithic foods. After that, her premise gets thrown right out the window and she recommends such modern food items as skim milk, whole grains, low-fat cheese, and soybeans! I'd like to see evidence of paleolithic peoples eating a bowl of brown rice. It is just stupid and historically impossible. Her book is full of Food Pyramid hogwash--from misinformation on fatty acids to eating tons of grains to maintain optimal health. Don't waste your money on this piece of unmitigated garbage. Better and more accurate buys would be Allan and Lutz' book LIFE WITHOUT BREAD, Weston price's NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL DEGENERATION, or Fallon and Enig's NOURISHING TRADITIONS.