I don't know if this is the proper place to raise this question -- it's not quite health, not quite research, but it's not a practical one either. I hope someone will move it, if this isn't the right place.

There are suggestions, in books about body type and blood type, that ethnicity determines eating patterns, both preferences and what each body handles best. I always take the quizzes in these books, and find the matches amazing in my own case. However, they're also conflicting. (I'm a perfect Type O blood, which is the "caveman," all natural, heavy on the red meat type, and also a perfect Type A body, which is supposed to eschew red meat and go for the grains and the dairy.) I'm beginning to wonder if this is why I've spent my life bouncing back among food plans!

My question is, has anyone else thought about this, or read about this? What if your mother is descended from Goat people and your father from Cow people -- whose digestion did you get? Can you have Italian taste buds and a Kenyan tummy? In my case, both sets of parents are Northern Europeans, but my mother's family has been eating refined carbs for generations and my father's family was definitely black bread. My mother (who's tiny and totally healthy) lives in bread, jelly, biscuits, honey and a little dash of ham or chicken. About 2 tablespoons of protein a day.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experiences with this?

I personally am a bit skeptical about this stuff; let's put it this way, I'd need to see more evidence first. From what I've been reading, there's as much, or more, variation WITHIN ethnic groups than there is BETWEEN them, generally speaking. In my opinion, you should eat right for YOU, not follow a particular plan just because some person or some book tells you you're 'supposed to.' Just my opinion, of course.

Rachel

Oh, I wouldn't disagree with you -- I think there's an enormous variety within ethnic groups, and I'm not suggesting following any rigid plan. But I think it's an interesting question. I've often wondered why some of my friends will lose very well on low fat, or low carb, diets and others not -- obviously individual metabolism is involved, but I think genes play a part in individual metabolism.

There are ethnic diet fads, too -- the Mediterranean cuisine is the healthiest, for example. Well, perhaps not, if your people come from the Arctic circle, or even the Baltics. Inuit extremely high fat diets may be fine for them, but not for me. It's the mixing of these that interests me, and that I was trying to get at. Is it possible to inherit a metabolism that runs well on butter, but not on olive oil -- and vice versa? (And the problem that I'm getting at is that if one has the Butter and Red Meat Gene, but grows up in a household where the Cook, an olive oil and fish person, controls the cuisine, does this affect one's metabolism/weight.)

interesting question...I just read Jared Diamond's evolutionary biology book and about a half dozen more in that field, and there's not a lot of agreement, even on the heels of the Human Genome Project, about how many biological significant ethnic, "racial" (or perhaps more correctly, continent-of-origin?) differences there truly are...but certainly there are some, or we wouldn't see the differences with sickle cell anemia, malaria resistance, skin cancer rates, etc. I mean, just look at that Pima Indian info about diabetes and obesity! Poor folks can't tolerate carbs OR over 1000 calories a day, apparently.

I am pretty skeptical about the "eat right for your type" book. But what I have found that is more convincing in my reading this past year is that basically, the darker your coloring, the less likely you'll tolerate dairy. This apparently has to do with it being people in northern climes who first domesticated animals for their milk. The rates of lactose intolerance among Africans (and African Americans) is very high; the rates among aborginal Americans is even higher. Following the paleo people's reasoning, lighter complexioned people probably are descended from long-time dairy-consuming folk and have had more generations to develop the digestive goodies necessary to process dairy.

Or maybe I just like that idea because I'm blonde and don't want to give up my dairy, even though I'm otherwise intellectually convinced I should! lol.

Anecdotally, my blood type is A, btw...the most recent, but I really cannot tolerate grains, and a vegetarian diet makes me weak as a newborn. More than a little olive oil gags me...is that genetics or habit? Dunno.

You may be right about your own diet and the reasons for it...we still have lots to learn about this whole topic.

Thanks for your response, razzle. I also think it makes sense that certain groups have developed "digestive goodies" to deal with certain foods. It would be interesting to study -- and very difficult because, of course, if you took any ethnic/national group there would be -- as was pointed out -- lots of differences within the group. It would involve tracing individual histories -- and many of us probably don't have a very good idea of who our great-grandparents were, or when the family made the move from countryside to city, seaside to mountain, etc. I'm firmly convinced that individual genetics is so refined that there's an olive gene -- olives are an "acquired taste" only for those who don't have it. The longer an ethnic group has been isolated, I would reason the stronger the food preferences/tolerances is.

I think that the ideal way of eating would be based upon the indigenous foods of an area. Things started to go bad when agriculture was invented. Indigenous plants and indigenous humans grew together, so it seems that the most natural way of eating would be from what is fresh, local and seasonal.

We are starting to come full circle now that this has actually turned into a "movement". Pretty funny how everything old becomes now again!

Karen

Exactly There's little chance of us going back to our genetic country of origin and eating native berries, I guess. Pity!

True, but we can eat locally in our "new" countries. There is so much food we ignore that is right on our own doorstep. On the west coast of BC, there are fish that seldom eaten by the general population. Some out of predjudice and some out of unaware-ness.

It's sad that it's easier to go to a grocery store and buy a frozen dinner then it is to discover the beauty of an oyster.

Karen

I agree with you that we should be open to unusual foods, but one of the points I was trying to make was that part of the obesity problem may be that people ARE using the foods in their areas -- but they've been transplanted to these areas, and the foods aren't what their digestive systems are used to eating. What is the poem that said, of the early colonists, "they ate corn, and were never Englishmen again?"

Hi Alto,

I understand what your saying and have often thought about that in other areas (children with adoptive parents) but realise that when you equate it to food it would be quite possible too.

We must not close our eyes to things, we must look for possibilities and answeres in everything.

Karen

You mention fish, but the scarcity of the fish population and human greed in our desire to catch unusual fish may cause problems with the fish supply in the future. We (man) are responsible for the diminishing populations of fish and animals alike and we have to look to other foods to keep us going.

Vegetarians eat the way they do and they believe they have good reason to, we must appreciate other people's reasons for doing and eating what they choose to.

I personally would like to be able to eat all foods ensuring that I ate healthily and could maintain my weight to a desired level. I must be thankful first though to my good health and well being.

Bez

That's what I'm saying Bez.

There are many varieties of fish in this area - skate and idiotfish come to mind - that are not in any danger and that most people won't touch. Other well-managed fisheries like sablefish, cultured shellfish like oysters and mussels, and populous fish like shark are largely ignored because most people would prefer to eat "trendy" and exotic fish from thousands of miles away. Fish like Chilean sea bass and Atlantic swordfish are in danger exactly because of this.

Karen

I see the clever hand of Marketeers here -- an enterprising Native tribe, perhaps, or a wily restauranteuse. Call it idiotfish, no one will buy it. More for me

This whole thread reminded me of a post I made quite a long time ago about my husband and his weight gain and loss that happened to coincide with my Low carbing. I am copying it here:

my husband is a First Nation Canadian of Dene Origin. We live on the reserve in Northern Manitoba.

The people here still live a very traditional lifestyle. As we speak my brothers in law are out on the boat checking fishing nets to bring the catch to my mother in law and some other women who are working on cutting, preparing and smoking the fish. In the winter months the diet is primarily caribou meat. My husband hunts for his family of 10 brothers and sisters and parents plus their children and probably brings in about 20 caribou a year himself during the season from Novemeber to April.

At my mother in law's house, on any given day you could go inside and find some kind of meat or fish being dried, smoked, boiled or baked in (or outside of) her house. There certainly was no availability of grains, and sugar and flour were luxury items picked up on twice yearly supply trips until the store was built about 15 years ago. Low Carb eating is a matter of nature here.

I can tell you that you see very few overweight people in this community, and what there is of that, is likely recently acquired due to the influences of the fast food and overprocessed food that has become available in the past 15 years with the advancement of the store here. (Northern Store by the way, chain of North West Company). My husband works there, and there are not a lot of healthy food options!

Just a personal note, my husband weighed about 180 lbs when I met him 3 years ago. He had maintained that weight for most of his adult life, standard size 34 pants which were a little baggy on him. He worked hard cutting and hauling wood for heating his house during the long winters and even hauling water for drinking and doing laundry and cleaning as we only got a water system here last year. He ate a diet of primarily meat.

When he started living with me, his diet changed dramatically as I was in carbo-heaven at the time, and he loved every new thing he tried. His weight went up to as high as 225 just about when I started low carbing in April of this year. I'm sure part of that was food, and some had to do with the fact that he now lived in a house with a furnace (teacher accomodations are a little more advanced) and didn't have to do as much physical hard work just to survive day to day. With no real effort on his own, just the fact that I stopped cooking potatoes and rice and buying bread etc... he has dropped 25 lbs and is down one pants size. He still has some bread and eats far more carbohydrates than I do, but I think the "push" he got into what is probably a more natural state of eating for him and his culture and probably genetics is showing a substantial difference without much effort.

For these anecdotal reasons, I really believe that the way we were meant to eat, is far different from how I have been eating, and although I am not calling my people here "cavemen", I certainly think they are a lot closer to a "natural" diet than any diet I was raised on.


So, it seems to me that when my husband's eating, with no real concious effort on his part, got closer to what is "natural" for his people, his weight started to stabalize, and when a bunch of items that were untypical of his traditional diet were added, he started gaining quickly. Not exactly a scientific study, but seems to coincide with the general argument.

Mari

Thank you for that, Mari -- that's a great story. It makes sense that the effect of diet changes is more noticeable in first generation junk fooders. I saw a special on PBS (public broadcasting tv) a few years ago about Pacific Islanders who still lived in nature, and have a very good tolerance for NATURAL sugar -- and a very pronounced sweet tooth. They've discovered Twinkies, and there are little trading posts on the outskirts of their territory that sell them sweets. To see these people lined up with their month's money to buy candy bars -- fat for the first time in the history of the tribe -- really brought it home to me.

I don't think I'm up to eating as much grass and tree leaves as my remote ancestors did, but the getting back to nature idea does resonate. I was trying to get at what happens when cultures mix -- what if someone used to eating dried fish and game meat -- for 300 generations -- marries someone who's from the Mediterranean and has a different digestive tract. Then what happens to their children -- two of whom have the caribou gene, two the spaghetti ones. And then, when they grow up and marry....etc.

My original point was that that may be one of the reasons, not only that we're here today, but that we try so many different things before finding one that works. The "back to nature" idea would seem to be, for nearly everyone, the best. (Except, of course, for my mother and her honey biscuits )

Don’t worry, alto. There is not an ounce of scientific credibility to the blood group and food association theory. All blood types existed in the earliest of times, so the whole theory about one blood type emerging after another is just plain FALSE. Second, the idea that food lectins go after certain organs may make sense to the unscientifically trained but it would only happen if you injected food directly into your veins which, to the best of my knowledge, is definitely not a common way to do things, to say the least... In fact, the digestive organs do an excellent job keeping the food from directly entering the blood stream. Only what it has extracted after processing food intake makes it there, and by then everything has been broken down. The only way food lectins could enter your blood stream uninvited is if you had leaky gut syndrome, where as the name suggests, your guts fail at maintaining a proper barrier. In short, none of the scientific markers necessary to validate a scientific theory is there in ER4YT.
And not having to worry about having a goat type mother and a cow type father makes dating a whole lot easier too…