Traditional Tibetan Nomadic Diet And Ketogenic Diet
This page summarises the identicality
between the traditional Tibetan nomadic diet and the science-based ketogenic
diet.
In the mountain locked snowy land of Tibet, the natives
lived and thrived in the plains and valleys of all three regions at an average
altitude of around 5000 metres or more, simply doing a low-carb diet.
Most Tibetans were nomads, so we refer to their
diet affectionately as the nomadic diet on this website, and the Tibetan inscription
on the logo cheekily says, “nomads know”.
The low-carb ketogenic diet focuses primarily on
protein and fat for optimal human health, with very low emphasis on dietary
carbohydrate intake. The vast land of Tibet provided minimal grain-growing opportunities
thanks to the elemental nature of the environment. Still, Tibetans thrived with
high-quality animal-sourced protein and fat for thousands of years, with very
little or low carbohydrates. In later centuries, with the introduction of
grains, only a small part of the population became crop farmers.
It's said that over 90 per cent of the population were
nomads, spread impressively across Tibet's three vast regions of Amdo, U-Tsang
and Kham. Their animals grazed in the beautiful clean mountains and valleys, with
impressive access to pure melted glacier water and no air pollution. That was
the case until recent decades. With sudden changes in circumstances, nomads are
now being urbanised at a rate never seen before.
Exposure to the urban lifestyle has brought
temporary opportunities for a few. Still, to the majority, this brought unfortunate
changes to the tradition and history of open, clean and sustainable living that
led to excellent robust health.
Now with abundant access to the modern-day
convenient, carb-rich, long shelf-life substances like grains, sugar and
packaged processed substances, these once strong native people with optimal health
are in rapid deterioration, with the unprecedented prevalence of diabetes,
hypertension, obesity, gastrointestinal issues, and so on in
the community all around the world.
More and
more patient-centric, open-minded, evidence-based science following healthcare
professionals worldwide are prescribing a low-carb ketogenic lifestyle for
optimising human health, particularly for those with challenging metabolic
syndromes like diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases PCOS, insulin
resistance, GERD, arthritis and more.
For more about this healthy low-carb way of eating
and its relation to our health, please click here and here.