Lore of Nutrition: Challenging conventional dietary beliefs

by Tim Noakes

Africa also includes ethnic groupings that chose to eat different diets either predominantly carnivorous or plant-based. In 1931, J.B. Orr and J.L. Gilks compared the health and physical attributes of the Akikuyu, a ‘vegetarian tribe’ eating predominantly cereals supplemented with roots and fruits, with the ‘largely carnivorous’ Masai, whose diet comprised milk, meat and raw blood. Compared to adult Akikuyu, adult Masai were about five inches taller, 23 pounds (10 kilograms) heavier, and 50 per cent stronger when tested with a hand dynamometer. In addition, bony deformities, dental caries, anaemia, pulmonary conditions and tropical ulcers were much more prevalent in the Akikuyu, whereas rheumatoid arthritis and ‘intestinal stasis’ were more common in the Masai.68