Traditional Nutrition: From Weston A. Price to the Blue Zones; Healthy Diets from Around the Globe

by Ben Hirshberg

In today’s society there are endless health professionals all telling us what we should and shouldn’t eat, but very few of them ever seem to agree with each other! The nutritional minefield that has arisen from significant discrepancies in scientific research can be confusing and frustrating to navigate. Just how do you ‘eat healthily’? Should you be cutting out all carbs, or just some? Should you swear off meat? Or dairy? Should you eat only leafy green veg or subsist purely on pulses? No one seems to have a definitive answer.


Ben Hirshberg, a self-confessed health nerd, sets out to address the problem of navigating this healthy eating minefield in Traditional Nutrition. Through the examination of the research of Weston A. Price and revelations from the Blue Zones, Hirshberg brings a refreshingly open-minded and honest approach to both diet and lifestyle. He investigates common factors between communities where disease is low and life expectancy is high. He introduces us to eleven distinct populations, all of which have a great deal to teach regarding the correlation between lifestyle and health.

Hirshberg goes above and beyond a simple focus on diet, extrapolating other common factors highlighted in his research that can offer simple lessons on how we can increase our health and general wellbeing without searching for Superfoods, or the latest diet ‘fad.’ He takes a step back from the mass of different diets available, and highlights a wonderfully simple, ‘common sense’ approach, which is backed up by beautifully presented research on nourishing traditions across the globe.


The answer, quite simply, is that there is no one diet that is a best-fit for everyone. Hirshberg isn’t out to force a particular food into all our diets, nor does he want to stop us eating anything we enjoy. Instead, he presents a balanced and thoughtful look at the eating habits of some of the healthiest peoples on the planet, and celebrates the variety “The fact that the healthiest people in the world all eat differently means that we have flexibility in what we can eat.”

To find out more about that flexibility, and see what simple changes you can make to your own diet and lifestyle to increase your health and longevity, start reading Traditional Nutrition today. Available on Kindle and as a paperback.

Genres: Health, Nutrition

117 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 28, 2014

About the author

Ben Hirshberg is a young author, health consultant, and entrepreneur from Seattle. His main topics of interest are positive psychology, behavioral psychology, personal finance, entrepreneurship, nutrition, and anything else health related. Ben is certified as a personal trainer by WITS and as a fitness nutrition specialist by NASM. He likes to cook, meditate, read, party, and go trail running.

Go to www.BenHirshberg.com to download The Eudaimonia Manifesto for FREE.

Reviews

[Nicolas Morin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his book, Ben shows us that there is no "one-fits-all solution" to be healthy. By describing various tribes and their completely different dieting patterns, we see that great health was achieved in different manners.
I enjoyed being introduced to several traditional diets (that are unfortunately disappearing due the massive influence of MNCs and their marketing).

While I cannot say that I did not learn new things, I wished the author the author had gone more in-depth by making his own research and not relying only on 2 references.

The key takeaways are:
- Find a dieting pattern that fits your lifestyle
- Avoid processed food
- Try new things (animal's organs are definitely healthy for example).

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summary of the Weston Price and Dan Buettner research into "Blue Zones," or pockets of traditional, unusually healthy populations. Points out population commonalities (not that many dietarily, but all are extremely physically active and socially tight-knit) and goes over the biases of modern Weston Price advocates (over-emphasis on meat) and from Dan Buettner (under-emphasis on meat). Conclusion: humans can thrive on a vastly varied diet, as long as that diet consists of REAL food (not processed, mass produced) and providing there is daily physical exercise and strong family and/or community ties.

[Linda Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice short book highlighting healthy living

An easy way to get the insightful information needed for health and longevity. I love Salley Fallons book about Weston A Price. Terrific but so long. Ben Hirshberg says essentially the same but with less facts and figures. The same goes for the Blue Zone portion. An hour's reading for a lot of info.

[Theresa M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a quick rehash of Dr Prices original work.

[Ricardo Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las sociedad más longevas y que cuentan con mejor salud. Una recopilación de los estudios de Weston Price y de The Blue Zone, donde podemos ver las similitudes entre estas comunidades: no comen aliementos ultraprocesados, no hay azúcar añadida en su alimentación, se encuentran aisladas del mundo globalizado, se fomenta las interrelaciones familiares e intergeneracionales. Otra dato que sobresale es que consumen en su mayoría, grasas en mayor proporción de lo que recomiendan los organismos nutriocionales, y que es a base de manteca, mantequilla y aceite de oliva, en ningún momento se observa aceites de soja, maíz, etc. La leche y sus derivados son in común denominador también.
Vale la pena la lectura y obtener conclusiones personales.

[Jeff Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. I thought Ben did a good job summarizing the work of Weston Price and the Blue Zone work. He was able to say that there are no special diets that lead to a longer life. It is good to read some truth. There are other things besides diet that make up a healthy lifestyle. So if you were looking for answers to the question "What should I eat" this is not the book for you. It is very hard in our society to stay away from processed foods that are all locally grown. So we just try to do our best.

[Caro Lyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a reason this was part of Kindle Unltd. A very brief summary of the diets of isolated populations (Masaii, Nicoyans, Sardinians, etc) and the obvious conclusion that the foods they ate varied significantly. The conclusion is that there is no positive dietary correlation and no one food is inherently detrimental. This was worthy of a high school paper.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

All due respect to the author, this book was more in line with his own musings. It should have been written for his personal use -- perhaps as a long journal entry -- and not submitted for publication. There were no "ah-hah" moments for this reader.

[Guillaume Belanger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of money and waste of time. There's nothing useful in this book.

[Sourabh Aryabhatta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, as it reveals the secret of traditional nutrition for people who looks for healthy diet across the globe. :)