Page 59 - Spring2010

All Thumbs Book Reviews

Protein Power Lifeplan insulin connection to a host of disease conditions,
A New Comprehensive Blueprint for and focus on the reduction of insulin levels as
Optimal Health the primary goal of carbohydrate restriction.
By Michael Eades, MD and Raising the body’s sensitivity to insulin—so that
Mary Dan Eades, MD it requires less to function optimally—can best
Warner Books, 2000 be done by reducing carbohydrate consumption.
(Reducing overall calorie intake and increasing
In 1996 weight-loss doctors Michael and exercise can help, too.) With this premise at the
Mary Dan Eades wrote the New York Times core of their dietary plan, the Eades establish the
bestseller Protein Power in which they asserted other nutritional components of our ancestors’ di-
that excessive consumption of carbohydrates, ets that are necessary for sound health—namely
rather than fats, cause obesity and illness such as fat and protein.
diabetes and heart disease. In 2000, the husband- In the chapter “The Fat of the Land” we read
and-wife team followed with Protein Power an excerpt of field notes from researchers in the
Lifeplan, an expansion of their theories as well 1940s who meticulously documented how Aus-
as guide to a nutritional philosophy of lifelong tralian Aborigines prepared and ate a wallaby.
health and freedom from disabling diseases. The Eades included these details to emphasize
Although loss of excess weight may be a happy how the fat content of modern diets—heavy in
benefit of adopting the Eades’s plan, achieving rancid, adulterated vegetable oils—has drasti-
vibrant health and productive longevity are the cally changed from the diet of wild-game hunt-
real goals of their program. ers. Even the diet of modern, “civilized” meat
Protein Power Lifeplan revisits the hunter/ eaters—who choose muscle meats exclusively,
gatherer perspective of our genetic heritage and and most often from unnaturally raised feedlot
reminds us that this inheritance continues to animals—cannot approximate the rich and
govern our metabolic functions today. As have varied source of healthy fats that our ancestors
other writers, the Eades point out that agricul- feasted upon, and which conferred such robust
ture is an innovation of merely ten thousand health. The Aborigines with their meal of whole
years ago—much too recent for us to have fully wallaby on the fire pit began with the viscera—
adapted to such an altered dietary environment. kidneys, liver, and heart—along with the fat
Our pre-farming ancestors of 500,000 to three cushioning those organs which were eaten first.
million years ago consumed far fewer carbohy- The lungs were briefly cooked and used to soak
drates (and none of them refined) than do cultures up the blood, which was eaten next. The tail fat
which base their diets on grains. Easily digested was cooked and eaten; the skull cracked for the
carbohydrate foods are all converted to sugar brain and bones for their marrow. The fifteen-
during digestion. The body must mount constant to-twenty pound carcass was cooked for barely
corrective measures to balance blood sugar, and half an hour, and only the stomach and intestines
does so via the hormone insulin. It is the constant were not consumed. Native hunting groups from
circulation of insulin, rather than the mere fact all over the globe consume their whole animal
of high blood sugar, that is the culprit not only in catches in similar manner—leaving behind only
stimulating weight storage and gain, but in other the truly inedible bits.
serious disorders such as hypertension, heart With the wallaby dinner as a graphic point of
disease and diabetes. departure, the Eades take us on a tour of modern
The Eades hammer home the message of the industrialized oils and fats that will be familiar

SPRING 2010 Wise Traditions 59