How ancient lifestyles can benefit modern lifestyles?

Divya Dharan

ancient lifestyles

How ancient lifestyles can benefit modern lifestyles?

Lifestyles modern cultures have adopted since the early 1900s have drastically affected how they eat and live. The adoption of more modernized lifestyles has changed the way people in all cultures eat and live. The effects of this change have been both positive and negative, but have also spurred research in many fields of study.

In ancient cultures, people ate a lot of plant-based foods and had much shorter life expediencies. However, as more people adopted these ancient lifestyles, the negative effects of these changes have become more apparent.

Lifestyle changes that have occurred over time have resulted in a variety of negative aspects of ancient cultures. This essay discusses the ways that ancient cultures have negatively affected modern cultures, as well as ways to counteract these effects so as to benefit modern societies.

Food security

One of the most obvious and most talked about ways ancient lifestyles have negatively impacted modern cultures is through food security. Especially in the Western world, our food production and harvesting practices are not as efficient as they used to be. In ancient cultures, much more plant-based foods were grown, so people were able to eat healthier diets. However, as people in developed nations began adopting these ancient lifestyles and eating more plants like wheat and rice, the demand for these crops increased exponentially. As a result, these foods became less available to the population due to high demand.

This has led to an increase in malnutrition across the globe. In fact, 1 in 8 people don’t have enough food on a day-to-day basis because of this problem.

As a result of becoming less reliant on plant-based foods due to lifestyle changes, we’ve seen an increase in obesity rates as well as other health conditions stemming from poor diet like diabetes, cancer rates, and heart diseases.

So how do we combat this issue?

The first step is by educating people on healthy living habits that promote better food choices such as adequate exercise and balanced diets. Secondly, it’s important for us to understand that we need to find new ways of acquiring enough food supplies without relying only on plants like wheat and rice. Lastly, we should consider how plant-based foods can be improved with methods like genetic engineering or even finding new types of plants/fruits that provide

Amount of food consumed

In ancient cultures, people ate a lot of plant-based foods and had much shorter life expectancies. This is because the human body requires two to three times as many calories to maintain its weight than it does in modern cultures. In order for people to get the same amount of calories from plants, they must eat more of them. However, this can also lead to negative effects that are not present when eating a diet high in meat products such as heart disease and obesity.

When people eat more plant-based foods and less animal meats, some negative health effects may result, such as heart disease or obesity. For example, when one consumes too many vegetables, their digestive system has to work harder to process all the roughage. This can lead to symptoms like gas and bloating that are not prevalent in a diet high in animal meats.

The consumption of large amounts of food has also led to greater rates of obesity and heart diseases across the world; however, these problems are not prevalent among those who eat meat-heavy diets. To counteract these negative aspects associated with a plant-based diet, research suggests that one should limit their intake of processed sugars–including table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)–in order to cut down on calorie consumption while keeping your metabolism active at an optimum rate.

Read More: Has modern technology improved our lifestyles

 Body weight

Many people have adopted different lifestyles and diets, which have resulted in a drastic increase in obesity rates. In fact, obesity is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The adoption of traditional diets with an increased carbohydrate intake has been shown to promote weight gain, insulin resistance, and increased risk for type 2 diabetes. A study conducted by the International Journal of Obesity found that a high carb diet can increase body weight and fat mass more than a low carb diet.

The study also found that ketogenic diets (low-carb, high-protein) were effective in reducing body weight and fat mass while maintaining lean muscle mass.

This data implies that adopting a low-carb lifestyle may help reduce the risk of obesity and its related diseases through a reduction in caloric intake as well as an increase in protein consumption.

Morbidity and mortality

One of the most notable negative effects of ancient lifestyles is the increased mortality and morbidity. The adoption of these lifestyles has been linked to many diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. The positive aspects of these diet changes are the decrease in hunger and malnutrition. Previous to the change in diet, there was much greater risk for starvation in many cultures. However, though these benefits outweigh the negative health consequences, they are still a huge concern that needs to be addressed while trying to maintain these ancient lifestyle benefits.

Ecological awareness

One of the problems modernized cultures have is a lack of ecological awareness. The original people had the understanding that the earth and its resources are limited. In fact, they had to live more self-sufficient lifestyles because they knew they only had so much food to go around. However, today, we have an abundance of food at our disposal and most people do not need to think about how much or what kind of food they consume. Along with a lack of ecological understanding, this also means that there is less concern for sustainability in the world.

Ecological awareness has been one of the major aspects that has changed since ancient times. Ancient peoples were aware that their environment was limited and that it was necessary for them to be careful about how they treated it because there was no way for them to refill their supply. Nowadays, many people live carelessly and don’t see themselves as being part of an ecosystem—they just see themselves as people who can take from nature without needing to give anything back or worry about what will happen in the future when resources are depleted.

 Summing up

The ancient lifestyle was characterized by the absence of processed foods, barely any meat or animal products and a high intake of plant-based foods. The mainstay of the diet consisted primarily of root vegetables, grains like barley, oats and rye as well as legumes like beans and lentils. There were no refined sugars in this culture’s diet.