Does
the diet of your ancestors impact your microbiome? A review examined whether
the common foods found in specific cultures can benefit people of that culture
who are following a diet high in refined carbohydrate and low in fiber, as is
common in the U.S. Let’s take a look.
The Gold
Standard: the Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet has
been studied more than any other; it emphasizes vegetables, whole grains, fish
and seafood, nuts and seeds, olive oil, fruit, and limited sweets. The benefits
for reducing heart disease, hypertension, and T2D are well documented, and
we’ve always assumed that the Mediterranean diet is appropriate for everyone. But
is it? The point to this review is that while there are similarities, there are
cultural differences that may be important.
For example, there are more
tubers (root vegetables) in African diets and virtually none in most Asian
cultures. The Latin diet has more dairy products while some Asian diets contain
almost none. If you want to become more familiar with cultural diets, check out
www.oldwayspt.org. It’s a non-profit
organization that has developed cultural appropriate diets and teaches people
to prepare foods using traditional cultural spices.
It makes sense; one size does
not fit all. One interview in the paper was with an Eastern Indian physician
who had always recommended the Mediterranean diet to her clients of Indian
descent, but the whole grains of the Mediterranean diet were not the same as
traditional Indian grains. Once she changed the types of grains and other high-fiber
foods to more culturally appropriate choices, her patients did better in
following a higher fiber diet.
The Benefits
of a Culturally Appropriate Diet
Simply
stated, people are more inclined to follow a healthier, high-fiber diet if it’s
based on their own culture. The differences in grains and vegetables may be
subtle but seem to be important. The tastes and flavors may be more familiar to
first or second generation immigrants.
There
is also speculation that the microbiomes of people from varying cultures may
have an evolutionary aspect. In other words, whether you’re a recent immigrant
or a fourth generation of immigrants as I am, your microbiomes may respond
better to foods that your ancestors have eaten for generations. Remember the short-chain
fatty acids (SCFA) in the Thursday
Memo this week? They may be dependent, not just on fiber, but fiber from the
foods of your ancestors.
The Bottom
Line
This
paper gives us something to think about. What if we ate a more plant-based diet
that’s more culturally based? I think it’s worth a try. It doesn’t mean that
you won’t benefit from eating a high-fiber food that’s not culturally based; there’s
no question that you will. But if you ate culturally based foods and they were
prepared based on cultural tastes, you might decide to eat more of them and you
might get more benefit.
The
first thing I did was to look at traditional foods from my ancestors in Poland
and other eastern European cultures. I’m not done yet, but it seems cabbages
and root vegetables are definitely part of my future diet; I’ll keep you posted
as I research my diet further. In the meantime, check out Oldways to get some
perspective on what culturally appropriate foods may benefit your diet. If
you’re an African-American man married to a Chinese-Canadian woman, you’re
going to have some very interesting meals.
What
are you prepared to do today?
Dr. Chet
References:
1. JAMA. 2019; doi: 10.1001/jama.2019.18431.
2. www.oldwayspt.org.
