(Wellness Montana) Once upon a time, I was a poor and starving college student who needed to pay her rent. As such, I applied to as many part time jobs as I could find to get a paycheck.

I worked as a shipping clerk for three years feeling generally unfulfilled and bored. Then I worked as a receptionist and temp, feeling even more unfulfilled and bored. The straw that broke the camel’s back was working as a phone dispatcher in a stressful, negative environment. While I could manage feeling unfulfilled and bored in my previous two jobs, constantly going to a hostile environment where people openly hated their jobs not only made my working hours miserable, it made my off-hours miserable, too. Rather than enjoying my time off, I spent it dreading the cycle beginning again the following Monday.
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As were the philosophies in the Renaissance and Reformation of the early modern era, new philosophies on diet must be a return to roots–to basics and original sources. For too long–much of the past century–food manufacturers and dieticians have sought to astonish people with revolutionary techniques and revolutionary products.

Foods are produced as quickly as can be yet last as long as can be. Every year or so there is a new dieting plan that has never been seen before but is supposed to revolutionize the health of America. Nutritionists are constantly searching for that previously undiscovered answer to the problems of obesity and chronic disease. Searching for new revelations is an excuse to pursue the latest technology and to disregard the Christian history that informed much of the last five hundred years. How long will present-day dieticians keep arranging various proportions of newfangled foods to see which combinations might alleviate disease, before they realize that it is newfangled foods that are causing disease in the first place?
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Last time we looked at the need to address our metabolisms individually and specifically rather than appealing to the “mass market nutrition” so popular in our current culture.

Here are four tips for thinking about heritage, lifestyle, geography, and metabolism-and how they influence our nutritional needs:

1. Know your ancestral heritage and the foods which would have been eaten before native people groups became as mobile as they are today. Countries other than America have remained closer to the traditional foods of their ancestors. For instance, while traveling in other countries, it is fairly easy to find traditional foods and dishes. America seems to have amalgamated the foods that various people groups have brought to our shores, lending an overwhelming number of choices.
2. Know the lifestyle that you lead and the nutritional requirements of it. An active lifestyle requires, and burns, more energy-producing foods such as fats and carbohydrates. A sedentary lifestyle requires less of the same. Hard workers may be able to handle their largest meal in the evening. People with more relaxed activity levels may want to eat their large meal earlier in the day. Continue reading…