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Primal Nomads.

Farming first developed around 9000BC in what is referred to as the (now desertified) fertile crescent, leading to a revolution in human culture. Whilst farming created reliable food and a resultant increase in human population size, it was also the beginning of culture moving increasingly out of step with natural evolutionary processes and contributing to a reduction in ecosystem diversity.

To quote historian Deborah Barham Smith:

Wherever farming developed, the more reliable food source it produced led to a massive upswing in population.

But on the downside, there were dramatic reductions in the variety of local flora and fauna, as more and more land was given over to fewer varieties of plants and animals. (1)

At first, farming offered a reliable food source to supplement wild hunting and foraging, but it soon became the dominant source of sustenance, replacing our wild hunting and gathering almost entirely. Disruption of local flora and fauna and limitations on access to wild spaces led to an increasing dependence on farmed land and a reduced capacity to obtain sufficient wild food. Land in the UK, for example, became enclosed in Monastic granges, King’s hunting grounds and later through private ownership due to the enclosure act. Though we can now forage for our own wild food along public footpaths and parks, there has been a devastating loss of heritage and knowledge when it comes to edible and medicinal wild foods. 

This has led to a dramatic reduction in the diversity of our modern-day diet, and it’s not just humans that these effects have impacted. Wildlife and livestock, too, have had to endure a dramatic loss of the diverse forage they have evolved alongside, and the consequences are beginning to show.

Research conducted by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1930s shows the dramatic effects on our dentition, skeletal structure and overall health when transitioning from a primitive diet to a modern one (2).

Weston A Price noticed an immediate degeneration in health within one generation after primitive peoples adopted a modernised diet. Quoting from his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

‘…a chain of disturbances developed in these various primitive racial stocks starting even in the first generation after the adoption of the modernised diet and rapidly increased in severity with expressions quite constantly like the characteristic degenerative processes of our modern civilisation of America and Europe’ (2)

Our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed the numerous benefits of a diverse ancestral diet. It won’t be news to anyone familiar with the ancestral health movement that although our palaeolithic ancestors may have died young from the extremes of their lifestyle, they were not plagued with the chronic degenerative diseases from which we westerners currently suffer.  

According to Chris Kresser (3) – many other advocates of the ancestral health diet – nomadic peoples eating traditional diets were likely to have a longer healthspan, carried less weight and were less likely to suffer from; 

• Cardiovascular disease
• Diabetes and obesity.
• Neurological and mood disorders. 

Much of this can be attributed to their nose to tail eating of nutrient-dense meats and consumption of seasonal wild foraged foods.

The Hadza are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in the world. It’s thought they’ve lived on the same land in northern Tanzania, eating berries, tubers and 30 different mammals for 40,000 years. (4)

According to scientists, the Hadza have the most diverse gut bacteria of anyone anywhere globally. Our gut microbiome (the community of bacteria that lives in our guts) is essential for our overall wellbeing, affecting everything from our metabolism to our immune system and mental health. (5)

Nowadays, we enjoy reliable food all year round, but we do not have access to a truly diverse diet. 

Happily, there is a way to produce a reliable food supply all year round and access elements of the diverse diet from which our nomadic ancestors were able to benefit. 

At Primal Meats, we work closely with farms that regenerate their land and manage important habitats throughout the country. These farming methods lead to an increased diversity of plants in various systems and habitats, including glade pastures, uplands, hedgerows, riverbanks, etc. As a result, the livestock that graze or feed on such systems can benefit from the increased diversity of forage material, leading to more diverse plant compounds being concentrated in their meat. This bioaccumulation of important phytochemicals can be detected in the flavour of the meat and can lead to the development of distinct and complex flavour and texture. 

What livestock eat contributes to the diversity of plant-based compounds, known as phytonutrients in their meat, which further diversifies our diets when consuming meat. This is discussed in the wonderful book ‘Nourishment’ by Fred Provenza and demonstrated in his research (6). 

Eating meat from different farms in different locations and habitats could mimic a more nomadic diet. 

Imagine wild game on the moors surviving on gorse and heather, cattle from inland grazing on wildflower-rich glades, sheep from coastal areas eating the sea-mineral rich coastal forage and pigs from woodlands enjoying a feast of seeds, insects, nuts, fruits and whatever else they can snout out. 

A diet containing meat sourced from these unique systems can offer dietary diversity that cannot be obtained from one system or habitat alone. 

Just as a Nomad would wander the lands moving in tune with the seasons and food availability, we can attempt to replicate this and in doing so access a range of diverse nutrients that would not be available otherwise. 

As we support the regeneration of landscapes, we are also increasing the diversity of edible wild plants available throughout the year. We support maximal diversity recovery from the soil up from coastal samphires, seaweeds and salty fingers to simple inland species like meadowsweet, burdock root and garlic mustards. 

At Primal Meats, we offer cow share’s from many regenerative farms with unique biodiversity; regularly buying meat that ‘upcycled’ the vast diversity of wildflowers on these farms could be a great way of diversifying your diet. 

References;

1. https://www.farminguk.com/news/-humankind-s-greatest-invention-the-history-of-agriculture-part-one_44383.html 
2. Weston Price; Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – A comparison of primitive and modern diets and their effects; 2010 Benediction Classics, Oxford
3. https://chriskresser.com/what-is-an-ancestral-diet-and-how-does-it-help-you/
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40686373
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996546/#b12
6. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426/full

Digital Addiction.

I have been aware of the negative impact of being overexposed to media bombardment and distraction for a long time. 

Stephen and I haven’t had a telly for more than ten years, and my reading list for the last decade must be knocking on several hundred, so I wouldn’t consider myself addicted to digital devices. However, after two years of feeling like I was being sucked back into digital distraction, I decided to ‘reset’ myself with a total digital detox for a week, solo on a remote island on the West coast of Scotland! 

Years ago, I was inspired by the ‘four hour work week’ by Tim Ferris, and although I don’t have any desire to spend time sunning myself in a bikini on a desert island – frankly, the world doesn’t need that! – I did take on board many of the superb work efficacy suggestions highlighted in the book. 

The book – and many more that followed – opened my eyes to a new generation of entrepreneurs and leaders who consider their optimised health and highly trained ability to focus on deep work their number one asset. 

I might not have achieved a four-hour workweek. Still, I have learned to value my attention and developed proactive practices such as disabling all notifications, only responding to email in allocated time slots, and developing my capacity for concentration through meditation and other techniques. These practices have allowed me to free time to work on unprofitable but incredibly important projects for the regeneration of our planet and find time to cook healthy food, balance family time and bring up three highly resilient kids.   

Managing our attention is a highly overlooked skill, and it’s costing us in many ways. Our relationships, work ethic, mood, stress levels and ability to focus on a task to completion have been seriously eroded. 

Social media companies know the value of your attention which is why the so-called ‘mind hacking’ industry is now worth approximately seven trillion dollars!

You might think of being distracted by technology as a soft addiction that is easily overcome, but habitually using technology lights up the same part of the brain as when we are addicted to alcohol or cocaine! 

Unless you actively take control, you are being hardwired to depend on technology! And our kids are most vulnerable of all. 

Behind every ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ are teams of the world’s best technology engineers and psychologists working out how to best hack your attention. Your hyper-personalised feed is ever-present, luring you with exactly what they know – through clever algorithms – you cannot resist. They want you to stay on their platform, following the breadcrumbs to what they want to sell you or are paid to influence you with. It’s as impressive as it’s sinister! Meanwhile, you think you are just checking what our friends are up to – completely unaware! 

You might think you are getting these social platforms for free, but you get free access to them because YOU are the product, and you are worth a fortune to them! Interestingly, the two industries that use the term ‘user’ to describe their customers are; drug dealers and technology companies!

But unlike being addicted to heroin, where you can stay away from your drug dealer and the places that trigger you to use, we addicted technology users are surrounded – it’s relentless!

During my childhood, the extent of my technological distraction was a cassette player, four TV channels, a telephone that required me to dial a number at an agreed time to talk to a friend, a calculator, a Casio watch and an occasional postcard if on holiday! It was no contest – I spent my ‘attention’ on plying in the woods or galloping the countryside on the back of a horse. 

Our modern existence is swarming with technological inputs; most of us work on a computer, receive emails, notifications, have on-demand unlimited TV, computer games, drive past electronic billboards, have the radio on, are never far from our iPhone, constant texts, WhatsApp’s, Instagram messages, tweets, push notifications from apps and the constant allure of google – the gateway to the world! Even our cars tell us how to drive and when to take a break!

Physiologically our bodies and minds haven’t adapted to the tidal wave of technology that has washed over us in the last 25 years. As a result, it’s making us sick, depressed, ineffective and inefficient. 
We are nearly ALL addicted to some degree. There’s no shame in it, but it needs to be proactively managed. Just because everyone does something doesn’t mean we should all give in and go along with it.

We are experiencing a shifting baseline in what constitutes an acceptable level of focus and attention. Frankly, nearly everyone who is regularly distracted by technology is performing at some level of mediocre. 

Dr Richie Davidson, a neuroscientist who created the field of contemplative neuroscience, hooked up some of the Dali Lama’s monks to study the effects of meditation on the brain. What he found was that through dedicated practice, their brains could be moulded to be able to focus to exceptional levels;

“What we saw in these individuals, not a burst of gamma, but a long duration [of activity] for minutes while they were meditating, which is crazy,” Davidson said. “This had never been seen in a human brain before.” Typically in an “untrained mind,” Davidson said, a burst of activity would last for about one second, but the monks could sustain it.

“And [they] can turn it on pretty much at will,” he said. “Any of us can have it and we may not be able to sustain it, that’s the difference … a thought will come into our mind and we’ll get lost in it for a few minutes, and so the ability to sustain it I think really requires much more practice.”

Top entrepreneurs and leaders are well aware of the digital distraction issue and go out of their way to proactively manage this habitual lure. It’s even said that Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his own kids have an iPad! 

So how do we mere mortals learn to live with technology and successfully limit the many negative impacts of being plugged into the technological system 24/7?

Like any addiction, rule number one is; to recognise you have some level of addiction. ‘I am no longer completely in control of this situation, and I will take steps to regulate it so it doesn’t take over my life.’

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti

Put your phone in a drawer out of sight, switch off your notifications and email popups, commit to a cut off time for technology in the evening, ban your phone from the bedroom, and read an actual book! 

Our ability to clear space for deep thinking and flow states helps us build the capacity for focus and allows us to step between stimulus and response. Nature, of course, has a considerable part to play. Digital distraction removes us from the natural rhythm of life, which compounds the issue with artificial light and electromagnetic bombardment, making us sleep-deprived, more stressed, and even more likely to zone out with yet more technology!

Make a plan and start with your evening, not your morning. Shut down and get to bed, tech-free and in a cool dark room. When you wake, instead of checking your notifications, why not journal the boundaries you intend to put in place with a notepad and pen. 

Build longer and longer periods of nature-based reflection time and meditation into your life. For example, leave your phone behind when walking in nature and build up your capacity for being away from technology for prolonged periods. 

And this is exactly why I ended up on a remote island on the West Coast of Scotland – to reset my relationship with technology.

Many of our Wilderculture projects are in wild places, and working on these sites can involve having prolonged periods away from technology or instant communication. Still, few are as cut off from the modern world as Wilder Carna – our first-ever Wilderculture project. 

On this occasion, the Island’s two off-grid holiday cottages were vacant. So after being dropped off by boat (by Andy, the Island manager) and accompanied by my Jack Russel Joss, I spent the week on the Island. No internet access, iPhone (apart from once a day from the top of the hill to send an ‘i’m safe’ message to Stephen), and I limited myself to the open fire and candlelight – no electricity. I even took the opportunity to fast for four days to give my body a complete break.

It was an incredible experience of retraining my brain to be okay without constant inputs and overcoming the guilt of allowing myself not to work or be ‘productive’. Time went SO slowly because there wasn’t anything to punctuate the day, and after a day of my brain chattering and clattering like a speeding train, my mind eventually settled into – calm silence! 

I spent days watching our ‘wee wild herd’ of cows graze, observing the wildlife, journaling, and simply gazing at the weather flowing over the hills and the tide washing in and out over the beach.

It felt like after years of ‘binge eating’ information, I finally had allowed my mind some time to digest it! Since my return home, I have re-established some firm technology boundaries, and my focus, mood and stress levels have hugely improved. 

I would highly recommend taking technology breaks to anyone. Perhaps you could have a digital free Sunday or pre-plan a camping weekend with no phone? Once you have managed other people’s expectations, it’s not that hard and absolutely worth the effort. 

You might just be able to hear yourself think!

Christmas seems like a good time to write about the importance of social connection. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the least qualified person in the world to be talking about this! But, as a self-declared hermit, I am using this opportunity to remind myself of the importance of empathy and connection and to set myself some ‘social’ New Year resolutions. 

We are more connected than at any time in our human evolution, yet we are also unhappier than at any other point in time. The negative consequences of having thousands of shallow virtual connections delivered by distracting and additive platforms and fewer really meaningful and soul-nourishing face to face encounters is taking its toll. 

Our primal need for social contact is hard wired through millions of years of evolution. Sharing food and other resources, caring for infants and the elderly, coordinating hunting parties and sharing vital information about freshwater sources and shelter helped our ancestors meet the challenges of their hostile environment.

Over time, early humans began to gather at hearths and shelters to eat and socialise. As brains became larger and more complex, growing up took longer—requiring more parental care and the protective environment of a home. Eventually, expanding social networks led to the complex social lives of modern humans.1,2

This genetic legacy is essential; humans evolved to live in a tribe. Numerous studies highlight the benefits of social connection for mental health and well-being and offer tangible and measurable physiological advantages. 

Social connection is a pillar of lifestyle medicine. Humans are wired to connect, and this connection affects our health. From psychological theories to recent research, there is significant evidence that social support and feeling connected can help people maintain a healthy body mass index, control blood sugars, improve cancer survival, decrease cardiovascular mortality, decrease depressive symptoms, mitigate posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and improve overall mental health. The opposite of connection, social isolation, has a negative effect on health and can increase depressive symptoms as well as mortality. 3

In his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, UCLA professor Matthew Lieberman talks about humans having a social superpower – the ability to get inside the other person’s head and feel their pain, consider what they are thinking, and have empathy. The fact that we can do this gives us an unparalleled ability to cooperate and collaborate with others – which has been a large part of our success as a species.

According to neuroscientists, our ability to think socially (imagining other peoples’ thoughts and feelings about a situation) is so crucial that evolution created a separate brain system for social thinking than that dedicated to analytical thinking and logical reasoning. Using one of these brain systems temporarily quiets the other; if we think analytically, we find it hard to imagine peoples’ thoughts and feelings. But evolution prioritised social thinking above even critical thinking, so when we are not actively using logical reasoning, our predisposition is to be thinking socially. 

There is a good case for getting socially connected to help us become smarter, happier and more productive in the real world of meaningful personal contact and healthy, supportive communities. But in a digital world, this predisposition could leave us vulnerable to exploitation, creating cascading and compounding negative impacts. 4

As highlighted by the mind-blowing documentary, ‘the social dilemma’ powerful influencers control how we consume information and ensure we are plugged in 24/7, returning to our devices repeatedly like a dependent drug addict. As a result, what we think are rational and objective choices about what to read and how we act around our devices are, in fact, utterly manipulated and controlled.

The apparent connectedness of online social media takes us away from the actual physical, social connection. One study found that users spent an average of 5 ½ hours a day on their smartphones. 5

Digital distraction is well known to erode and undermine real-life personal connections. Still, studies show it could be lowering your IQ as well as negatively affecting your social, emotional and spiritual intelligence! 5

Psychologist Daniel Levitin and others have also pointed out that multitasking—the essential smartphone activity—lowers your IQ and then spreads that weakened thinking across as many areas of life as possible. In The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information, Levitin reported that “being in a situation where you are trying to concentrate on a task, [while] an e-mail is sitting unread in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points.”

That used to be a mental decline we suffered only while we sat at our desks. Now we choose to make that 10-point IQ loss a 24/7 thing.

Today our daily news is filled with dramatic and apocalyptic messages that make us concerned for ourselves and our loved ones. But is it possible that this way of consuming media is shutting down our ability to think critically and make rational judgments? We are so distracted and dumbed down by our devices that we haven’t noticed what we are consuming is more in the interest of powerful influencers than ourselves and our families?

Unlike our ancient ancestors, who benefited from collaboration and information exchange to become the most intelligent and evolved species, we may have reached a point where our tendency for being social has turned against us!

In his superb TED talk, Johan Hari highlights research that shows humans are the loneliest we have ever been. He talks about the many mechanisms for depression and focuses on the often-overlooked phycological needs that lead to us becoming depressed and anxious. For example, not feeling like you belong, a lack of meaning and purpose, and feel like you are not seen or valued in your community are often the real root cause of depression and anxiety.

What if, as a society, rather than offer anti-depressants, we invested time and money into developing decentralised supportive community networks where we could come together and learn and grow, share and collaborate? We could potentially address loneliness, depression, and anxiety and a whole host of other issues such as health, childcare, resilient food sourcing, and education.   

So this Christmas. Put down your phones, unplug from the internet, turn off the news and take some time to reconnect with family and friends in a meaningful and fully present way. 

Next year perhaps one of your New Year resolutions could be to join or create a community group focused on promoting health from the soil up – a way of humans and our planet growing well together. 

I know what I will be committing to – developing our Primal Web network to help facilitate this process.  

Happy Christmas.