A CASE FOR LINDY DIET
We already know the best diet! And it does come not from the doctors or nutritionists but from our ancestors…
Let’s start by the definition of Lindy:
The Lindy effect is a theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy. Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time.
Let’s see this in context of food first and then we can go deeper into what actually constitutes the Lindy Diet.
Food is as old as life. Since the single celled life first began on Earth, it has been consuming to live and to reproduce. And older the food, more pronounced it’s role in our evolution. Like a plant increases the surface area (over generations, of course) of it’s leaves for receiving more sunlight and like the fabled neck of the giraffes, all life on earth adapts in a way that makes their food (or means to make it) more accessible. The evolution of all species is lead by its immediate surroundings. Surprisingly, one of the human body’s greatest relationship with its surrounding is through its gut. An older food source means our bodies are already adapted in dealing with it. The food is how we interact with our surroundings. We are more proficient in dealing with the negative fallouts of a food if it is old. Old is gold, quite literally. And traditional food is essentially Lindy. It has been with us for thousands of years and will continue to be with us for thousands of years hence unless of course a Black Swan event.
Examples of Lindy foods are all around us: thousand year old wines, butter and/or ghee, natural meat, veggies, fruits, grains (non GMO), hard pressed traditional oils, lentils, honey, jaggery, practically what your great grandmother ate.
Examples of NON Lindy foods are also around us: chemically refined oils, vegetable and seed oils (canola, soybean), sugar, refined flour, corn syrup, all pre-packaged and chemically preserved food (take it as an aphorism), added sugar foods, added sodium foods, preserved meat, poultry farms, unfertilized eggs, fake butters, and the list is endless.
To illustrate further, let us take help of an example, refined seed oils have not been a part of the Western diet for most of history. Then why did they suddenly switched to them? One reason: Industrial Corporations and their sponsored (mostly trash) academics and their studies. Then what did they traditionally eat? Lard, butter, cod oil and other animal derived fats. On the other hand, in the Mediterranean region, olive oils (hard pressed, virgin) have a part of their diet since ages. A campaign was run against poor olives in the 60s (some rail against it even today (I can guarantee they’re sponsored by the Seed Oil corporations)). Coming to the Indian Subcontinent, Mustard Oil has been eaten since at least the Saraswati Valley Civilization (a.k.a Indus Valley Civilization), and poor mustard seeds have been railed against even more than olives. We now have at least two generations laced in refined seed oils (explains the high heart disease and diabetes rates in this lart of the world). Switching to the ways of our ancients is the key. People must go back to their roots. Olives, Mustards, Coconuts, Sesame, Cod, Butter, Red Meat. LINDY.
Going Lindy will essentially be lighter on your pocket (mostly) and save lots from your health budget too. Your lifestyle must be Lindy and for that let us start with food. A step at a time. :)
MY ARGUMENT IS SIMPLE: EAT AS YOUR ANCESTORS ATE THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO
Here’s a heuristic: Recent inventions in food made possible by industrial machinery should be avoided. The human body isn’t prepared to process them.
Why is it so you may ask. It is simply because (a) our bodies evolved according to the food (and the regular lack of it — hence fasting) they received and (b) our systems may not necessarily be trained to process all that we eat. Simply, why risk it when unaware of the consequences?
Effectively speaking Lindy has a number of economic benefits which is beyond the scope of this article. Moreover, I shall illustrate with the help of a number of examples how big corporations and a medical “science” slave to hard facts have ruined food for everybody.
- Seed and vegetable oils like soyabean, canola, margarine, fake butter(from vegetable oils) need high temperatures and special chemicals to extract and process. A strict no no. They have been recently developed by the help of industrial machines and chemicals and sold by the big corporations. Pseudo scientists cook studies to support these oils. Corporates sponsor these charlatans. And here we are, drowned in the sea of seed and vegetable oils. On the contrary, Oils from olives, coconuts, mustard and sesame are fine for consumption. They are simply squeezed. Go for them. Go lindy.
- Cane Sugar is another evil that wasn’t in our plates just a few decades ago. Industrial revolution and the American Big Food brought it to all our plates. They’re now as essential as salt. Or are they? Sugar is just everywhere. All the processed junk that we take is laced with cane sugar. Read here this series of articles for details.
“The twin ideas that carbs give you energy, and that you should eat and snack your way through the day, are just two of the very bad ideas that the health establishment gave us.”
- Carbohydrates are like cherry on cake. Do you put cherry on cake or cake on cherry? Of course you decorate with two or three cherries (crude example). Similarly, carbohydrates should be like cherries in your diet but going by the diet propagated by the doctors — the so called experts — 60%-80% of our diet should be carbs. Is that Lindy? NO. Hunter gatherers and even agriculturists ate 10% carbs at most. There was simply no sugar to go high on. Eat less of carbs. You’ll feel more energetic already. Tip: Don’t drink glucose water. Drink lemon and salt in water.
- Snacking. Eating five times a day. All meals laced with carbs are just like coke shots. Your body has become addicted to chemical oils and carbs. Making us prone to heart diseases and diabetes. Fasting is the way of our ancestors. Fasting isn’t an over the top exercise. It is what they had to do compulsorily. Food was a luxury. Our bodies naturally evolved and adapted to these episodes. And, when we attempt to change it by frequently feeding this body, what does it do? Frankly we don’t know. But it is advisable to not mess with the status quo. And stick to the ways of our ancients. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
THE LINDY DIET
As Nassim Nicholas Taleb put it in a tweet:
If we’ve been eating animals for > 300 million years & some "study" says it’s "unhealthy", odds study is wrong/misspecified.
If there’s a study that says beef is bad or olive oil is bad or mustard oil is bad or milk (with cream, obviously) is bad or spicy food is bad or fat is bad and so on. The study probably belongs in the dustbin. But what we see are hundreds of citations to such studies. These studies essentially are citation rings with their authors rent seeking mites. More on them some other time.
Let us now imagine the diet of semi nomadic men and women living in the Eastern Mediterranean some 20,000 years ago. They lived in medium to small groups. Agriculture was still a few thousand years away. Occasional meat (whatever small animals they could catch). Rarely any large animals. Lots of dates, olives (probably olive oil), wild berries, nuts, wild wheat, honey. They rarely ate a full stomach their elders warned against it for fear of large carnivores. Whenever they’d kill a large enough bovine they’d have a feast. Roasted meat was a luxury. For all they knew, the next day they’d have to go to sleep only on berries. Life was tough. They were all lean and could run a marathon in search of prey. They also ate lots of lard and butter. Domestication was rare for a small group but common for a large one. Butter and lard were most important sources of fat. They didn’t have sugar. There were no lifestyle diseases.
1500 years ago. North India. The fertile basin of Ganga and Indus provided the best place for large scale agriculture. People lived in villages. The cities were modest with few dwellers. Most people lived in the villages. The usual politics of the rules were just background noise. They knew about cane sugar and jaggery but exported large quantities. Their diet consisted of lots of ghee (clarified butter), milk, meat (chicken, rabbit, etc), spices, wheat, rice, barley, lentils, pulses, mustard oil, eggplants, melons, honey and so on. What do you find common between the Indian diet 1500 years ago and Eastern Mediterranean diet 20,000 years ago? There is fat, protein, other micro nutrients from local fruits but no carbohydrates (other than small quantities from fruits). Why does their doesn’t have calorie counting or lots of carbohydrates? Because they all knew better. They preferred what their ancestors ate. New food items were added but in quantities that wouldn’t harm their ability to hunt or farm. They were simple people from simpler times.
Contrast this with the modern diet. Refined seed oils, diet based on carbohydrates, lots of sugar (lots of it), processed food, preserved food, fruits to look good on social media, veganism is in vogue, more eating out than cooking at home and so on. Does it sound bad? Of course it is. This is a fraud, corporate sponsored junk that we have let in on our plates. We are the same people who will pay millions to the doctor to treat a disease caused by our food habits. I could go on. I won’t. Figure out the non lindy aspects of your diet. Purge it. Go local. Eat what your great-great-grandfather used to eat. Stop your addiction to sugar (read this Twitter thread) and seed oils (this article tells why). Eat honey. Use local(olive, coconut, sesame, mustard, stick to geography), hard pressed oils. Avoid soybean, canola, margarine, fake butters, etc(Read about them here) . No chemically refined oils. Shun processed food. Butter is also fine (Sidenote: our bodies have the same design as our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The fat they ate almost always came with protein or fiber (eg, animal meat and nuts) hence use isolated fats in conjunction). Eat more fat. Less carbs. Drink water. Since, the author is an Indian, he would recommend reading about Ayurveda and altering your daily diets based on that. Lift weights. Gym less. A fifty kilo sack of wheat will be difficult to pick up than a fifty kilo weights balanced on a fulcrum. Expose yourself to real world risks. Don’t jog. Go for a hike. Don’t do aerobics. Go for a sprint. Do yoga (5000 year old hence lindy). Follow 18 hour intermittent fasting. Go keto if you’re interested. Never follow diet plans. Never count calories. I can go on ranting :)
EXAMPLES OF A LINDY DIET PLAN
- An example “Lindy” meal (in northern part of the subcontinent) is an essentially traditional meal minus rice, bread, pasta, roti — mainly meat and local vegetables — made fattier with eggs, mustard oil, peanuts, ghee or butter or full cream dahi. Don’t count calories. Do intermittent fasting. It’ll keep you away from checking you macronutrients. Eat spices for micronutrients.
- For vegetarians: In place of meat eat pulses, lentils, small amount of roti or rice, salad, milk, ghee and a lot more attention towards the macro and micro nutrients you take. Fasting is a must anyhow.
- In the Mediterranean region, an example of a Lindy diet will also be traditional. Meat, citrus fruits, veggies, olive oil, squid ink, spices, butter, lard, eggs, cod liver oil, nuts, beans and of course wine. Fasting. Not counting calories. And so on.
FOOTNOTE FOR THE VEGETARIAN IN YOU AND ME :
I am Saryupareen Brahmin. My family is a vegetarian and hence I have been a one all my life. Moreover my personal dislike for the pungent odoured garlic, onions ginger make me really ritualistic with my food. And over the years, vegetarianism has become more of a personal choice than anything else in deciding my culinary habits (of course I can always eat whatever I want without telling my mum!). Hence, a general tip that I’d like to share with my fellow vegetarians is that we have to extremely vigilant of what all we ingest principally because meat is one true complete food with all major macro and micro nutrients. We must be carefully map all the nutrients that are necessary. Proteins, Minerals, Vitamins must kept track of. Seasonal fruits/vegetables must always be eaten. Dal must be an everyday fixture. Carbs can only be reduced by focusing more on the veggies and dal than roti/rice. Fat sources are ghee, milk, paneer, mustard oil and dry fruits. Jaggery and honey can be sugar replacements. Fast regularly. All in all it is tough being a vegetarian and if you really feel like it then must be up for a task. Meat eaters can go carnivore and forget everything not us. Watch out.
FOOTNOTE #2: KETO?
Readers familiar with Ketogenic diet will recognise this as such. Lindy diets are practically the same. You got that correctly. The fundamental difference is the plain timing BS of the Keto proponents. Food should not depend on the clock. If you do a 20 hour fast each day that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy shahi paneer in the party that you go. Of course you will, what’s the point of life then. Also, never call this cheat days. Would your ancestors not party? Of course they partied, drank, ate more than their stomach could carry and slept. The next day they had to work that was their detoxification. Find yours. Diet should always be uncertain. Our bodies are trained to handle it. Never stress ot count calories. Stress kills.
I have tried to write about what I feel a diet should be. You’ve to conjure up one for yourself, one that is applicable for you. Just keep the principles solid. Daily stressors are a part and parcel of life. A risk free life is no life. A life without uncertainty is no life.
