Foods that lower cholesterol were the foods of early man

Diet of Early Man

An understanding of the foods that lower cholesterol may be obtained by looking at human physiology and how it was formed many thousands of years ago.

Early man ate a Paleolithic diet of wild berries, nuts, fruits, roots, insects and when he was fortunate enough to kill an animal, he ate meat. All these foods were natural and from the surrounding environment.

Early man got lots of exercise, working, hunting, running after game, and running from hungry carnivores.

For thousands of years man lived off the environment around him. His physiology and biology adjusted to the natural nutrition available. We can only speculate what his blood-cholesterol levels were, but it's a safe guess that they were well within the healthy, optimal ranges of today.

Diet of Twenty-First Century Man

Fast forward a few thousand years to twenty-first century man. In the worst case scenario, we find him sitting on a couch watching a big-screen TV munching on processed snacks. Fast food which is high in fats, salt, and sugar make up a large portion of his diet.

Studies have shown that the average American diet consists of 70 percent carbohydrates and 30 percent saturated fats - mainly processed foods with flavors enhanced by salt, sugars, saturated and trans fats. The latter two affect cholesterol negatively.

The American Heart Association recommends that saturated fat should make up no more than 10 percent of the daily diet. So the average person is eating three times as much saturated fat as recommended. Saturated fat is easily converted by the liver into cholesterol.

It's no wonder that in many cases, a person has high cholesterol and is warned by his or her medical doctor to bring it down. Often, maybe too often, medication is prescribed to deal with the elevated-blood-cholesterol levels.

Does a person exercise today? Only if clicking the remote to change the TV channel is considered a form of exercise.

Present Nutrition compared to Ancient Times

How does present-day nutrition compare to that of early man? Not very good. Today food is processed and far from the natural state, yet human physiology has not changed since ancient times.

Does present-day man exercise? In most cases no - not that half-hour-per-day-aerobic exercise that heart doctors like to see.

And what does present-day man look like? He has an apple-shaped figure with a pot belly. Dangerous fat accumulates in the abdominal region and is indicative of what must be going on inside his arteries. The blood-vessel walls are collecting fat which will restrict blood flow as it converts to plaque.

So can present-day man be saved from further coronary problems? Yes, he can. If he changes his diet to the foods that lower cholesterol, and he gets up off the couch for at least a half-hour a day five days a week and does aerobic exercises. Blood cholesterol levels will drop, in many cases plaque build up in his arteries will be reversed, and further heart disease prevented.

His food choices have to gravitate towards those of early man - the more natural foods. It can be said that early man ate from the list of foods that lower cholesterol. Today, man must eat foods that nature intended for him, that originally formed his physiology.

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