The Ancestral Indigenous Diet: A Whole Foods Meat-Based Carnivore Diet

by Frank Tufano

  By removing a large amount of the physical and chemical impurities, you will be greatly reducing potential inflammation (including the destruction of gut bacteria), any electrolyte imbalance (due to an incorrect mineral profile of water), and generally optimizing your hydration. This way, you can be confident that you are consuming something that has a net positive impact.

  After quality comes the question of quantity. Do we really need eight glasses per day? Should we follow the gymrats who pound water by the gallon? Are we OK being like our ancestors who may have consumed less in times of scarcity?

  If we look to the past, there was wide variation in how much water people consumed. This was largely dependent upon geographical and environmental factors. People in deserts may have often consumed very little water, and we know that groups like the Maasai in Kenya have a tradition of drinking blood from livestock. This is now mainly a ceremonial ritual, but anthropologists have long seen evidence of this practice in many cultures, often in dry climates.

  Other indigenous groups in areas of abundance have consumed large volumes of water. This is true both among some that have lived near large aquifers or cold locations with lots of snowfall.

  In a natural human sense, there may be no exact set amount to consume for optimal health. Even today, many people consider hydration to be fairly personal. This is likely just something you will want to experiment with. If you feel better with high volumes, that could be perfect for you. If you start to feel lethargic, you might be drinking too much water and peeing out more electrolytes than you are consuming. And all this can be affected by how much salt and other electrolytes you consume with your food.

  My advice is to figure out what works for you and stick with it. Consistency and individual requirements will be something you can dial in over time. It may seem a little complicated at first. But as the rest of your nutrition becomes better, your body will start to give you better signals about how much it needs.

  Exercise

  We know that our ancient ancestors got a lot more physical activity than we do today. Even just at the start of the 1900s, the majority of people were still working the fields, physically doing construction, or otherwise spending most of the day on their feet. And this of course likely pales in comparison to the near-constant activity early humans performed when it came to hunting, looking for water, or living a nomadic lifestyle.

  Today, most people spend all day sitting at a desk or in a car, struggling to find even an hour to go get some exercise. While this is unfortunate and our modern sedentary existence is certainly contributing to some of our health problems, too many people look at working out as a means to lose weight and make up for a bad diet.

  People run on a treadmill because our society’s ingrained preconceived notions tell us that cardio is the path to weight loss. New fads push 5x5 powerlifting routines to gain muscle mass. In general, exercise and resistance training is a heavily goal-dependent activity. But most people just follow the masses and fail to achieve anything, let alone ever cut the belly fat or unleash the hypertrophy they need to add lean muscle.

  As a teenager and young adult, II was in the gym lifting for two hours a day, almost every day, for nearly 10 years. I gave that up when I realized I didn’t even want to be a high-level bodybuilder. More importantly, I came to understand that the lifestyle wasn’t making me happy — or helping my health at all.

  But I am glad that the experience taught me about the importance of building up muscle mass. Even though following this diet will promote an increase in muscle mass even without working out — simply by consuming so much high-quality animal food — it will help to incorporate some resistance training.

  With a proper, high-volume routine, you can add muscle even without lifting super heavy weights. You will also fix postural and musculoskeletal imbalances created by our sedentary lives without putting massive strain on your ligaments, tendons, and central nervous system, all of which can become overstressed by extended cardio work or powerlifting programs.

  You can also just make an effort to walk more often. Skip lunch and take a long, hour-long walk three times a week on your break from work. It may do more good than hiring a personal trainer. Better yet, start hiking. The fresh air and uphill walks on the weekend closely resemble how most ancient humans likely spent much of their day.

  At the end of the day, we are physical beings. While living a modern life, most of us we will never be as active as our ancestral indigenous forefathers. And we will never have access to the same pristine streams for our water or truly wild game living on unpolluted, naturally pure pasture.

  You still need to do all you can though. And while ancient peoples built their lean muscle mass by building shelters, tracking game, and carrying their kill back home, we need to put things up and put them down in a Planet Fitness. It isn’t an evolutionarily ideal situation. But just a little bit of effort in the gym or hiking on a trail will help you get closer to your ideal health. Most people see their body composition improve after a few months on the carnivore diet, putting on significant muscle while losing excess body fat.

  Sun

  By now, after reading about the fundamentals of the Ancestral Indigenous Diet, you should already know how important Vitamin D3 is for your health. And you know that getting some sun is the best way to hit your optimal levels. So let me start off here by offering another personal anecdote about my attempts to get enough sunshine.

  Years ago, during a time when I was waiting tables at Del Frisco’s steakhouse in New York, I had developed a slight sunburn after laying out for about 15 hours in two days. To help heal, I decided to rub cod liver oil on my skin. But I was entirely unaware of just how awful it smelled. All of the other waiters started asking people if they could smell some foul fish. Where was this coming from?

  I was exhausted from working too many hours at the time, so I didn’t really care. But in hindsight, it must have been terrible. So just a quick piece of advice: Whatever you do, don’t use cod liver oil as a balm if you overdo your time outside.

  That may just be a Frankie problem though. Most other people are much more concerned about skin cancer or thinking that they will always burn if they get too much UV exposure.

  But you need to consider several things. One is that humans have historically adjusted to increased sunlight over the course of the year. We wouldn’t have run out directly to the beach after spending six straight months in a cave. In more northern and far southern latitudes, we would have been outside often throughout the year, so the sporadic April and May rays would start to get us prepared — as our skin darkens with more melatonin — for the long, direct summer UV levels.

  Second is that our modern diets make sunburns more of a problem. Specifically, the unnaturally high Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios cause inflammation, which doesn’t allow our bodies to properly heal our skin after extended exposure and prevent it from being damaged.

  Because I prioritize tanning in the summer months, I do occasionally overdo it. There may be an amazing day in late May when I haven’t yet built up any base and I spend an extra hour laying out. But any initial bit of pinkness I see will disappear entirely by morning and turn to brown. This is because my system is always full of adequate nutrition and is never subject to the chronic inflammation that prevents most people today from allowing their immune system to quickly take care of a minor issue like a small sunburn.

  Understanding this really shouldn’t take much of a leap in logic. Is it really possible that our ancient ancestors were unable to spend even two or three hours a day out in the sun? Because nowadays, there are many people who won’t even consider leaving their house in July without long sleeves, a big hat, and cream all over their face. If humans were this delicate throughout our history, we never would have made it.

  They probably weren’t damaged by even long sun exposure because they maintained a great Omega ratio and stores of fat-soluble vitamins, particularly Vitamin A, which is the most important vitamin for hea
ling tissue (and the one so many people lack today).

  You should of course be smart about sun exposure. There is no need to overdo it. Moderate exposure everyday is better than one 10-hour session that fries you once per week.

  In general, the required dosage of Vitamin D3 is dependent on the immediate need. Have you been deficient your whole life? Do you live somewhere that allows you to get Vitamin D3 all year long? Are you a pregnant or nursing woman? Do you have skin conditions that might be caused by a Vitamin D3 deficiency?

  Depending upon the answers to these and other questions, you should adjust how much sun you get. The best idea is to just get sun when you can. And you can start with a blood-level test to see where you are starting from.

  If it’s been raining for a week straight and Sunday turns out to be a sunny day, skip going to the movies and hit the park. Same goes for lunchtime at work if the sun starts shining. Get out there and soak in some UVB for an hour while you can.

  And anyone who, like me, lives in a place like New York where significant exposure is almost impossible for half the year, do your best to stock up stores during the summer. Then, you will be in better shape by the time Halloween rolls around and can get by with some supplementation or tanning beds until it's spring again.

  Sleep

  You don’t need me to tell you about the importance of sleep. You’ve been hearing it your whole live. Chances are, you still aren’t getting enough, and I won’t be able to convince you to start changing things now.

  You’re already supposed to eat a bunch of strange foods and cut out many of your favorites. Now I’m expecting you to go from six hours a night to the recommended amount? Good luck with that, buddy.

  Well, you know what? I’m going to say it anyway: You should get more sleep. But there are a few other aspects beyond the duration that matter as well, and maybe you’ll listen about these.

  For starters, you get your 8 hours of sleep per night and you're good-to-go, right? Maybe not. Why do most people — even those lucky few who are getting enough sleep — feel awful? It might be about the quality of the sleep itself.

  To be completely honest, as a long-time bartender I should probably be the last person giving sleeping advice. But as someone who has struggled most of their life to get enough rest, there are definitely things that work, and a lot of them tie into natural sleeping patterns.

  There is a lot of research into circadian rhythms and how light patterns affect our ability to get good, quality, restorative sleep no matter how many hours it lasts. But one interesting piece of information came a few years ago from National Geographic.

  They visited several modern indigenous tribes — the Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon, the Hadza society of Tanzania, and the San people in Namibia — who still live without electricity and artificial light to see how they slept.

  Unlike a popular hypothesis, they didn’t necessarily get more sleep than us city and suburbia dwellers. But their sleeping habits did tend to match their local environment.

  “Though the San, Tsimane, and Hadza often average less than seven hours of sleep, they seem to be getting enough sleep,” wrote journalist Traci Watson. "They seldom nap, and they don’t have trouble dozing off. The San and Tsimane languages have no word for insomnia, and when researchers tried to explain it to them, 'they still don’t seem to quite understand.’"

  While the scientific data and anecdotal evidence like this is often conflicting and confusing when it comes to sleep duration, everyone seems to agree that getting quality sleep is the most important.

  One way to improve this is by blacking out your room. Especially if you have been chronically exhausted, sleeping in a pitch black room and letting your body wake up naturally — as opposed to being disturbed by the brightness of the sun — may help you reset your natural sleep needs.

  Everyone, and especially people who have trouble falling asleep, should also seek to reduce blue light at night. This light, which is emitted from modern screens, including phones, can inhibit the production of melatonin (our sleep hormone) and generally confuse the body about the natural light patterns that should trigger tiredness.

  Beyond everything else, you should hopefully see improvement just due to a better diet. Your hormones and energy levels will be more stable and better regulated once you get your vitamins and nutrients in check. This alone, plus a little bit more physical activity during the day, should have you sleeping deeper and in a more natural way even within a few weeks.

  Chapter 13

  Eating As Nature Intended:

  Your Journey to Optimal Health

  There are hundreds of other aspects of diet that I have either not mentioned or only briefly touched on in this book. The bogeyman of cholesterol is one prime example. This is because, honestly, that could be an entire book in and of itself, and the science and studies needed to get into everything are vast.

  In short, you can generally just walk away knowing that high-quality plant foods do have more cholesterol than the standard American diet but that is not a problem you need to worry about because inflammation — as we discussed in an entire chapter — is the real killer when it comes to heart disease.

  Then there is protein. You may be shocked by how little that was even mentioned here. Coming from a bodybuilding background, a world where protein intake is the only thing anyone cares about, I am all too aware of how much this is discussed in most nutritional conversations. Really, most of the popular diet recommendations over the past few decades have always focused heavily on one of the three macronutrients. One is always a big problem area while the others are the best thing since sliced bread.

  While I didn’t speak about it that much, yes, carbs are the odd man out here in the Ancestral Indigenous Diet. But it is not in the same sense as, say, the Keto Diet or the Atkins Diet. Instead, the lack of carbs in the Ancestral Indigenous Diet is more the natural result of focusing on high-quality foods (which come from animals) and staying away from all inflammation and anti-nutrients (which is mostly coming from carb-heavy modern plant foods and processed junk).

  Protein, on the other hand, is absolutely essential. But if you eat along with the principles I explained in this book, focusing on protein intake is not actually important. Because if you’re aiming for nutrient density and now understand where that comes from, your protein intake will inherently be met. Make sure you follow me: Protein is very important, but focusing on consuming it is not — when following this diet — because you will get enough naturally. In fact, my main mistake early on when I started eating this way was consuming too much protein. Or, more accurately, I was not consuming enough fat, and I was lacking energy because of that.

  Another area you might be wondering about is electrolytes, especially if you’ve been spending time on keto forums where they talk about Lite Salt and Snake Juice all day long. Or what about calories in, calories out and visceral vs. subcutaneous fat? Why didn’t Frankie talk about insulin spikes, the glycemic index, and ketones? Where do I get my antioxidants, polyphenols, and flavanols? Shouldn’t I be consuming apple cider vinegar, green tea, and dark chocolate? Don’t I need prebiotics, probiotics, and resistant starch to keep my gut healthy?

  Humans tend to overcomplicate things. They isolate specifics and analyze them to death. But in most cases, nature has a more reasonable answer.

  Some more granular questions are indeed intriguing and new science continues to show us some interesting things (although less than most magazines would have you believe). I myself have spent hours researching findings about mechanisms like the Krebs cycle, mineral chelation, stomach acid concentrations, sodium-potassium exchange, and the hormetic effects of various things we consume.

  A lot of these details, however, are really just distractions for the average person. If you are LeBron James and eating a perfect diet and you need to get that one extra 0.001% of performance, some of these things on the margins might be worth pursuing. Any possible means of improving ATP and mitochondrial function w
ould be worth exploring.

  Even the average person can experiment here and there by seeing how their gut responds to A1 vs A2 milk. I have often tried different things, from eating seaweed to putting clay in my water, to find an ideal balance of electrolytes. And I have played around with raw honey, consuming small servings before exercise to see if it has any effect on performance.

  You need to be realistic though. Most people eat like shit. And they’ve been eating like shit for decades. Even those of use who think we’re doing everything right — like Frankie Boy back when he was a sculpted bodybuilder hitting the gym everyday like a good boy — are still mostly ingesting poison and inflammatory garbage that provides very few nutrients.

  So that’s what you need to focus on. Get the nutrition that you now understand is essential. Cut out the crap that is leaving you inflamed and destroying your digestive system. Keep finding better and better sources of high-quality food now that you actually know what that means. And work to improve all of the other stuff — water, exercise, sun, and sleep — that we all have always known is important to health.

  Then, once you do all that, maybe — and I do mean maybe — you could start researching some studies and wondering if green tea really is beneficial. (It probably isn’t.) You could try seeing if wild blueberry antioxidants do anything for you. (They definitely aren’t necessary.) Or, screw it, even try out some fancy hipster mushrooms for whatever purported benefits people think they might have. (Who even knows?)

  As I stated at the beginning of this book, I try to always remain open minded. I have said time and time again here in this book (and almost daily on my YouTube channel) that every indigenous group has consumed some plant foods, often as one-third of their diet (by caloric intake). So while I am a carnivore and see little value in eating most modern plant foods when calories are no longer scarce, there very well may be some case to be made for certain plant foods when it comes to areas like feeding the gut microbiome.