Albert Schweitzer was a theologian and medical doctor who established a missionary hospital in 1913 on the banks of the Ogowe River in a small village in the interior lowlands of West Africa. Forty-one years after his arrival and a year and a half after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his missionary work, Schweitzer encountered his first case of appendicitis among the African natives. Not only did the African natives seem resistant to appendicitis, they seemed resistant to other diseases as well.

In 1957, Schweitzer wrote, “On my arrival in Gabon, I was astonished to encounter no cases of cancer . . . .   I can not, of course, say positively that there was no cancer at all, but, like other frontier doctors, I can only say that if any cases existed they must have been quite rare.”

About the same time another medical missionary, Samuel Hutton, began treating patients in the northern Canadian town of Nain on the coast of Labrador. Hutton recorded that his Eskimo patients fell into two categories: There were those who lived isolated from European settlements and ate a traditional Eskimo diet. Then there were those Eskimos living in Nain who had taken to consuming a “settler’s diet,” consisting primarily of “tea, bread, biscuits, molasses and salt fish or pork.”  Among those Eskimos eating a traditional diet, European diseases were rare. 

“The most striking is cancer,” noted Hutton. “I have not seen or heard of a case of malignant growth in an Eskimo.”  He also observed no asthma, and like Schweitzer, no appendicitis. Hutton also commented that the Eskimos who had adopted the settlers’ diet were “less robust” and “endured fatigue less easily.”

By the early twentieth century, reports like these from physicians working with native groups—especially in Africa—became the norm.  They would typically report a few cancers in towns where the “natives mingled with the Europeans” and had copied their dietetic practices, but not in those areas where lifestyles remained traditional.

Most of these historical observations came from missionary physicians working with populations prior to their exposure to Western foods.  The new Western diet included carbohydrate foods that could be transported around the world without spoiling or being devoured by rodents: sugar, molasses, white flour and white rice. When native populations were exposed to these Western foods, Diseases of Civilization would appear: obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, various forms of cancer, cavities, periodontal disease, appendicitis, peptic ulcers, diverticulitis, gallstones, hemorrhoids, varicose veins and constipation. When any diseases of civilization appeared, all of them would eventually appear.

Because of this, researchers began to propose that all of these diseases had a single common cause—the consumption of easily digestible, refined carbohydrates. The hypothesis was rejected in the early 70’s when it could not be reconciled with conventional wisdom that fat was the problem, and carbohydrates were the solution.

Well, it has been 40 years since we rejected the idea that most of the diseases we suffer from today could be caused by a common flaw in our civilized diet. During that time we have believed fat to be “the root of all evil” so most of us, with guidance from our well meaning doctors have given up fat, particularly saturated fat and replaced it with “healthy carbohydrates.”  Look at where it’s gotten us.  According to the American Cancer Society, more than half a million people in the U.S. will die from cancer this year.

We are now sicker and fatter than we’ve ever been. Yes, Americans are living longer, but the quality of life we are experiencing has declined dramatically. For example, it’s hard to play with your kids or grandkids when you are carrying 45 extra pounds. (That’s the amount of weight the average American gains by age 55).  Even worse, it’s hard to play with other kids when you are carrying 30 pounds of extra weight at age 12.

Forty years ago we missed a valuable lesson we could have learned from missionary doctors. They were encountering large groups of native people who were extremely healthy and robust. Their diet was very different than ours—no processed, easily digestible, refined foods. They ate meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts. They also ate lots of animal fat. The Eskimo diet consisted mostly of seals, walruses and whales, which are high in fat. And they certainly didn’t discard the fat and eat only the lean portions of the animals they killed. They ate everything.

There was no magical food these people were eating to make them healthy.  What they weren’t eating made them healthy—no processed foods, especially processed carbohydrates.

Our goal at Exercise Inc is to help you understand how to live a healthier life. Part of the average American’s problem is the fact that we are bombarded every day by bad information. At Exercise Inc, we promise to give you the best information to help you understand how to live healthy. Sometimes it’s as easy as having common sense, which seems to be rare these days, and eating the way our ancestors did.