Return to Your Ancestral Diet

Check out the free 7-day menu at the end!

While renown historian Nell Irvin Painter isn’t the first academic to explain why race is a made-up construct, she does a wonderful job of explaining it in her New Times best seller, The History of White People. Since the 17^th century, race has been used to group people together by physical features as a way to maintain dominance. There is as much physical difference within the so-called black race as there is among and between other racially constructed groups, so this classification is biologically meaningless.  Many black people in the United States do share the same cultural identify.  More importantly, they also share a common genome originating from Africa, and this has health implications you should know. Genomes change as people mate and migrate to different geographic location over millions of years. This is the accepted theory of how man has not only survived but thrived through harsh conditions.  Variation in genetic make-up is a widely accepted theory to increase the health of subsequent offspring. Those with genes well suited for the environment they happen to live in have higher survival rates than those whose randomly allocated genes rendered them more susceptible to disease. Natural selection or evolution also plays a role in adaption to the environment. Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection is based on the ability of genes to change on their own over successive generations as a way of adapting to the physical environment. Unfortunately, researchers estimate it takes between 50,000-100,000 years for natural selection to yield favorable adaptation of genes to an environment. In the words of Kimberly Wilkins, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

It is estimated that the African American genome pool is made up of at least 80 percent African ancestry. This means that the majority of African Americans living in the US have a common genome developed through mating and migration as well as natural selection over millions of years. Since Africa is considered the birthplace of humans, their genome has been finely tuned to withstand the ages…on the continent of Africa. Africans have not been in the US long enough for beneficial evolution to take place. African Americans (US born) have the highest rates of obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and end-stage kidney disease – and are more likely to have it at an earlier age with more complications and lower survival rates than any other population groups.  While socio-economics has played a role, poor health outcomes persist even among wealthier African Americans compared to whites. For instance, black women with advanced degrees have higher pre-term and low-birth weight babies as well as infant and maternal death than white women with just a high school education. Researchers speculate discrimination and daily microaggressions increase stress, a potent risk factor for poor health outcomes.  So why do African and afro-Caribbean immigrants have more favorable health outcomes than their African American counterparts despite having a similar genome?  Preliminary research presented at the 2020 American Heart Association Scientific Session showed stark differences in health between African American and African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants. African immigrants had the lowest rate of high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity compared to African Americans and whites. Afro-Caribbean populations had the second lowest rates. Lack of access to health care is often cited as a reason for poor health outcomes yet African immigrants are least likely to have health insurance. Since black people in the US share a similar genome, and we can assume they experience the same racial discrimination, the difference must be cultural. In my field of dietetics, it is a well-known phenomenon when people move to the United States their weight increases and so do all of the risk factors for chronic disease. The longer people are in the US, the more likely they turn away from their cultural diet and adopt a more westernized one. The infamous Ni-Hon-San study looked at the changes in heart disease among the Japanese as they migrated from Nagasaki, Japan to Honolulu Hawaii, and then San Francisco, California. As they adopted a more western diet moving from east to west, their rate of heart disease increased. A study investigating cultural factors which influence the diet of Caribbean/Latin American-born and African-born blacks showed they more strongly identify with their culture in their dietary selection while US-born blacks preferred a traditional westernized diet. I couldn’t have designed a better epidemiological study to look at the effect of diet on the health of a specific population. We’ve got a large sample size, a control group (Africans using a traditional African diet) and a randomized treatment group (US-born blacks using a typical western diet) to compare. The statistics clearly show the treatment group (western diet) is terrible for the health of US-born people of African descent. What conclusion can we draw from this information? Getting back to an ancestral diet may hold the key to improvements in African American health.

How can you begin to adopt your ancestral heritage diet? You might begin learning more about a traditional African way of eating. Africa is the second largest continent (surface area of 30.3 km) and second most populated (1.3 billion people) after Asia, so you can imagine the wide-ranging cultural diets and preparation techniques. The continent of Africa is divided by the United Nations into five subregions, four of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa and include West Africa (18 nations), East Africa (20 nations), North Africa (7 nations), South Africa (5 nations) and Central Africa (9 nations). You’d have to research each particular region or individual nation to get more specific details – a simple Google search should yield good results.  I’ve put together a list of foods (limited due to the sheer number) which are a common part of the African diet (see Table 1). Some of the foods are indigenous to Africa and some were introduced by other cultures and adopted as part of their cultural diets. Traditionally, the African diet is plant-based with smaller amounts of animal protein and seafood.  While the western diet is centered around meat, the African diet is centered around starches or cereals to which fruits, vegetables, meats, herbs and spices are added.

Table 1 Abbreviated list of common foods of Africa

A few resources which I especially like that you can use to begin learning about different African diets along with recipes include:

• A well sourced food blog written by a Nigerian woman with an interest in Afro-fusion cooking. She provides a lot of historical background and dozens of recipes to try. 
• The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a continent by Dr. Jessica Harris, a leading expert on African cuisine.  You can purchase her book on Amazon for $20. 
• Oldways is a nonprofit organization out of Boston, Massachusetts started in 1991 to help preserve cultural diets and promote healthy eating.  In 2011 and funded by Walmart, Oldways gathered many African American experts such as culinary historian Professor Jessica Harris and dietitian Constance Brown-Riggs – just to name two luminaries who participated – to create an African Heritage Diet Pyramid, cultural recipes, and a cooking program to promote this diet.  They have created a plethora of educational materials (some free, some available for a small fee) to help people learn about the African Heritage Diet.  I especially like that you can search on African Heritage Diet recipes based on filters such as cost, meal type, ease of preparation, etc. and best of all, it’s free!

It would not be an accurate reflection of the heritage of our African ancestors without mention of their aptitude for growing and harvesting their own food.  The good news is many of the foods I discussed above are easy to grow.  Now is a good time to start thinking about what you can grow and where you can grow it.  My garden has brought me immense joy and satisfaction as well as a plethora of herbs and vegetables I am still using well after the growing season has ended.   

I must admit I have not tried many of the foods in Table 1, but I am excited to experiment – especially with the herbs and spices which typically give food its unique flavor. My advice is to begin slowly. Start by going to an African restaurant – after all, at least you’ll know what traditional African food is supposed to taste like!  Next, try one of the many recipes you can easily find on the Internet such as this one which looks wonderful to me. I also suggest you make cooking and eating the African Heritage Diet a family and/or friend affair because a significant part of African cultural heritage centers around social connection and community. Keep experimenting with different recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You will find they become part of your staple food repertoire. It’s natural to be hesitant to try new things, but I think the health benefits of incorporating new plants/foods into your diet based on your ancestral heritage is far more advantageous than our trivial fears about it. Chakula chema!

Here’s your free African Heritage 7-Day Menu! Give it a try and let me know how you like it.