INCI- “DENTAL” - Hunter gatherer body – Modern world.
The doors opened, the draft of the air conditioner traveled down the steps as a customer climbed up and entered the food mall. Neon lights, soft music, row upon row of shelves stocked with modern foods all attractively packed with nutritional information and expiry dated clearly mentioned. But Mr Jarawa was unlettered, unable to read and terribly hungry. Having just lost his way from his island in the Andaman Islands off the eastern coast of India, Mr Jarawa short of stature, with tightly coiled peppercorn hair, shiny black skin, negrito in appearance resembling and African Pygmy, was desperately hungry. Shipwrecked in a modern city, armed with only a bow and arrow and ready for a hunt, Mr, Jarawa tentatively crossed the threshold.
His naked body covered with leaves and shells, he caught the attention of the shop girl who dropped her parcels and her jaw with shock and disbelief at what she was seeing. Equipped with an arrow tip and hunting gear he was all set to hunt an animal or look for some fish or turtle to eat. All he was looking for was recognizable food to satisfy the extreme ache in his belly. Having recovered from her surprise the shop girl with an amused look on her face walked up to Mr Jarawa and offered her services.
The striking man was one of the few remnants of the Jarawa tribe of hunter – forager-fishermen that lived for perhaps 55000 years as a warrior and defender of his traditional tropical forest island. His nomadic tribe lived in harmony with nature hunting wild pigs, monitor lizards and other prey with bows and arrows. Fishing Mollusks and turtles and dugongs in the shallow waters for thousands of years he had satisfied his hunger and fed his family and tribe. Supplementing the protein with fruit, tubers and honey from the forest all his nutritional needs were met from the lush environment that he inhabited.
The wheels of time, civilization and population pressures had pushed him out of forest where his body was shaped by eons of evolution. Being a strict hunter gatherer Mr Jarawa was unexposed to the instant gratification and bounty of the agricultural and industrial revolution. Modern foods were unrecognizable and alien to him. Walking in the bubble of cultural evolution Mr Jarawa was totally lost as to what modern food to eat?
Hunter gather bodies exposed to modern worlds is what explains why as a world, and a nation we are heading towards a health crisis of gigantic proportions. Obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, cardiac problems are potentially debilitating our world. Evolutionarily clever as we are, we can at best superficially change our bodies without fundamentally altering our inherited form. It is man’s hubris to think that in 14000 years, at the advent of agriculture it is possible to re-imagine and redesign our bodies that were forged over hundreds of thousands of years in the jungles of Africa. Our, furless, bipedal, slightly fat form, with a highly developed brain and a long distance walking and running body structure , is hopelessly out of sync in a world of cars , processed foods, sedentary ways and overindulgence . Hopelessly addicted to salt, fat and sugar but actually capable of eating a diverse diet of fibrous fruits, and vegetables, nuts, seeds, tubers and lean meat our bodies are now paying the price of affluence and plenty.
Our caveman bodies are totally mismatched and un-adapted to the food and environment and culture that we are currently exposed to. From an age of fasting and feasting we are living in an era of overindulgence and plenty. Faced with a multitude of choices quite like Mr Jarawa our bodies stand shocked, our metabolism confused as to what choices we should exercise. A drastic change! A re-calibration! Or a back to basics strategy.
Where does the road to good health lie?
