The word “diet” comes from the ancient Greek word “dieta,” which means “way of living.”
For most of human history this simply meant living with nature: eating with the seasons, resting and rising to the natural cycle of night and day. Common sense.
Over the last 100 years, however, the idea of a proper diet has become increasingly complicated and contradictory. Just 20 years ago, top nutrition experts were celebrating the health benefits of trans fats. Since then, carbs have been the enemy, fat has been the enemy, and new chemical additives, nanotechnology, and bioengineering have become a fundamental part of the food supply.
Today, there is more health advice than ever before, yet the rise in obesity and disease suggests that we’re still getting the wrong message. According to Dr. Frank Lipman, many health myths have accumulated over the last century, and it’s time to set the record straight.
“A lot of what we’re finding with health now has to do with getting back to common sense and what the old cultures and traditions have been teaching for years: from meditation, to yoga, to how we eat,” he said. “We’re realizing that most of these old traditions had so much wisdom, and we lost that during the Industrial Revolution as we became more, we think, sophisticated and modernized.”
