Purposefully Primitive Seasonal Fitness

Looking to Primordial Man for Our Transformational Template

As a species, mankind has been in existence for roughly 850,000 years. Modern man has been around for 40,000 years and up until 5,000 years ago (a chronologic eye-blink) men worldwide ate the same foods: wild game, seafood, and whatever seasonally appropriate vegetables and fruits they might stumble across. Nutrient sources would vary radically depending on geography. Regardless of where a person lived on the planet during primal times, the proteins were always wild and the fruits and vegetables always organic. Foods that spiked insulin were extremely rare. Manmade foods did not yet exist, no refined foods, no fast food and no factory-made foods. None.

Try and imagine a time before the invention of agriculture or domesticated livestock. For countless centuries leading up to the dawning of the agricultural age, every single bite of food eaten anywhere was derived from wild and organic foodstuffs. As a species, humans worldwide ate variations on the same basic nutritional themes. We did so for countless eons.  It was an age of worldwide nutritional uniformity.  Regardless if were you were a Kalahari Bushman, a North American Plains Indian, an Australian  aborigine, a Germanic tribesman or an Indonesian shore dweller, people everywhere ate the same things: wild game, seafood and wild fruits and vegetables. They might spice up their diets with insects, pilfered bird eggs or wild honey, but nothing was purposefully grown, nothing was cultivated, nothing was raised, nothing was planted and nothing was domesticated. Wild game, fish, shellfish (for fortunate lake, river or coastal dwellers) accounted for all of primordial man’s protein sources.

Primal man instinctively favored “nutrient-dense” food, to expropriate a Weston A. Price favored phrase. Carbohydrates consumption was overwhelmingly fibrous. Eatable plants and vegetables are predominately fibrous. Starch carbs were rare in some areas, plentiful in others. As a species we achieved utter and complete evolution – done, finished, completed – before the invention of agriculture and livestock. With 800,000 years of history on the species odometer, humans have long since ceased evolving and are completely formed. Problems occur when we try and fight our deeply encoded primal nature.  Problems occur when we attempt to run the soft machine on inferior food/fuel it was never designed to run on. We operate best on food locally grown and seasonally appropriate. Primal man fully evolved eating an extremely narrow menu of natural, pure, organic foods eaten exclusively.

• We acquired species maturity existing on a limited menu of organic foods
• We ate foods that were seasonally appropriate
• We were consistent in our consumption of organic foods
• We became, as a species, extremely adapt at utilizing organic nutrients
• We derive maximum nourishment from organic foods
• We consumed these foods exclusively during our evolutionary journey
• Organic foods were – and are – our optimal food-fuel

Reconnecting with Our Inner Caveman

Life and Death Undertakings Kept Primal Man Fit

Primordial Man was active and physical. He ate healthy. His life depended on his survival skills and his fitness. Existence was centered on the daily acquisition of food. If primal man lived in winter climes he had to construct a warm, dry and safe nighttime haven for himself and his dependants. In his tent or cave, other tribal members would cluster around a fire. The primal occupation for man was killing animals; their job was to kill something and then eat it. Meat, fat, bone, skin, organs, every part provided nourishment. Bones were used to make weaponry; skin and fur provided rugs, blankets and clothing. The animals hunted and killed ensured the continued existence of the tribe.

Tribes followed the migratory patterns of large animals, parasitical vampires attached to the periphery of some massive herd of buffalo, gazelle, elk or reindeer. As the tribe followed the animals, they would scour the countryside for wild fruits and vegetables. The survival of the tribe was dependant on being able to successfully forage and to kill animals and catch fish. The narrowness of their foods, this dietary sameness, this consistent consumption of the same foods, organic foods – combined with intense physical activity – created a race of people that were universally lean and fit. The unfit died. The old and infirmed died. There was a significant caloric cost associated with killing animals or catching fish. The combination of organic eating and intense physical activity proved maximally beneficial for the human species.

• Can modern man replicate primal man’s degree of fitness? Can the combination of primal eating and primal activity recapture our primal nature and capacities?
• Can we codify, systematize and recreate a primal approach? Can we blend seasonally appropriate eating with seasonally appropriate training and reignite our long dormant, inherent, ancient, primal nature?
• Can we rediscover modes and methods that will enable us to transform?

Modern man is a poisoned species. We force our bodies to derive nourishment from food/fuel we were never designed to run on. As a fully evolved species, we do not know how to use toxins and chemicals as fuel.  The goal of the Purposeful Primitive is to understand our primal nature and devise eating and exercise templates that allow us to reconnect with our inner caveman. 

Primal Man was no sissy. He was physically active and hunted or fished every day. He had to run after game, catch it and kill it. Primordial man followed migratory game patterns; when the animal would migrate man would migrate with them. Man depended on that meat for existence and relentlessly moved south then north. Tribal man had to drag or carry all their possessions everywhere they went. Life in those times was savage: the old, the sickly, those unable to make the migratory treks, all were left for dead. Physical fitness of that era was not our modern vanity fitness: the ancients’ very survival was dependant on their degree of fitness.

Nature forced primal man to adapt to his surroundings. No horses, no vehicles, no invention of the wheel, the feet were used for walking or running. Ancient man engaged in continual cardio exercise as they walked, trotted, ran, jumped, carried, tugged or sprinted when the occasion required. Primal man engaged in lots of resistance training: hauling, lugging, pulling, lifting, cutting and carrying. Fights with animals or each other usually resulted in maiming and eventual death. Once the animal was killed the hunters had butcher and haul it back to camp. Tents needed to be constructed, firewood gathered daily and when mass migrations occurred, belongings were carried, dragged or pushed.

Primitive Magdalenian hunters stalk their next meal: This depiction shows magnificently fit Magdalenian tribesmen preparing to attack a herd of reindeer. Meanwhile their women would be foraging for wild plants and vegetables within the vicinity of the campsite. For eons, men worldwide subsisted on organic plants and wild animals. There were few insulin-spiking foods. As a species we adapted to a steady diet of organic nutrients obtained from foods killed or foods gathered. The invention of agriculture and livestock created unimaginable health problems. Primal hunter/gatherer tribesmen created diet and exercise templates relevant to this day.

Roughly 5,000 years ago, clever humans figured out that crops could be grown and animals domesticated. Once agriculture and livestock became widespread, men no longer had to follow migrating animal herds. Something was gained but something was lost. Before the advent of agriculture and livestock, high glycemic foods were virtually nonexistent. Smart men figured out how to make bread, baked goods, wine and beer. The pre-agriculture ancients were lean, strong and athletic. Hunter-gatherer societies died out and were replaced by village societies: harsh existence was replaced with sedentary existence.

 Occupations came into existence: nomadic tribesmen had two occupations: hunter or warrior. With the advent of the village, the farmer, storekeeper, village official and sheriff, could all stay in one place, eating bread and pastries, drinking beer for lunch and liqueur with dinner. High glycemic food and toxic drink became the preferred fuels. Obesity became a scourge amongst the societal cultural elites. New and unheard of food maladies appeared; those that continually overindulged contracted gout, a painful, joint-swelling, inflamed condition bought on by excessive consumption of rich foods. Gout became known as “the disease of Kings.”

 Fast forward to the year 2009 and for the first time in the history of civilization, the number one affliction of impoverished peoples is not starvation – the number one health problem among poor people is obesity. No one starves in the streets, they order off the dollar menu.  I recently heard this (unverified) statistic: the number one expenditure related to child rearing is not school supplies, clothes, tuition or gas spent transporting kids around town – the number one expense related to raising children was fast food. Take out food, fast food, purchased by the working parents on their way home from work, is used to feed the kids. These foods are highly estrogenic and estrogen emasculates males and over-feminizes women.

 Want proof? Cruise on over to the local shopping mall and head to the food court: observe the docile breed that is modern humanity. A new species is emerging, softies of indeterminate-sex, gender-neutral, best personified by the character “Pat” in mid-nineties Saturday Night Live episodes. Observe the estrogenically-inflamed physiques of the eatery participants; watch as they waddle from one counter to the next, ordering one chemical concoction after another…their taste buds so battered, so overwhelmed, so shattered that only the most extreme tastes and taste sensations are able to penetrate the thick goo that clogs their taste buds. Only the most outrageous, extreme tastes are recognized or appreciated. Subtle and sensuous foods are wasted on the taste-buds of these deadened, estrogenically poisoned creatures.       

 In 1970 only 11% of the American population was obese. By 1980 that figure had risen to 19%. In 2009 we are at 31% and the pace is accelerating. In 2009 40% of people over the age of 50 are obese. The future projections are sobering. The Purposefully Primitive solution to modern maladies is based on detoxification followed by intense training, periodically rotated, combined with organic, seasonally appropriate eating.