Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

by Christopher McDougall

The first step toward going cancer-free the Tarahumara way, consequently, is simple enough: Eat less.

The second step is just as simple on paper, though tougher in practice: Eat better.

Eat like a poor person, as Coach Joe Vigil likes to say, and you’ll only see your doctor on the golf course.

“Anything the Tarahumara eat, you can get very easily,” Tony told me. “It’s mostly pinto beans, squash, chili peppers, wild greens, pinole, and lots of chia.

As one writer put it, wild geranium is “anti-everything—anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant.”

Under her Tarahumara-style eating plan, lunch and dinner were built around fruit, beans, yams, whole grains, and vegetables, and breakfast was often salad.