Through most of human history (we’ve been stuck with this same body and mind for at least 50,000 years) the question “What should I eat?” would have sounded ridiculous. We ate what we could hunt, gather, and trade with nearby communities. Food was a big part of traditional cultures, and the knowledge of how particular foods affected us was passed down through generations. For example, there were extremely nutrient dense foods, like seafood and organ meats, that were saved for couples of childbearing age to assure the health of their young, and therefore the survival of the tribe.

Now look at us: we have all the options in the world, at all times of the year. Asparagus and strawberries in the winter, bananas and pineapple in upstate South Carolina, and all the wheat/corn/soy/potatoes stripped, squeezed and stamped into any shape you could ask for. Out of this modern Whole Foods/Amazon dystopia rises the question, “What should I eat?”

I know you’re going to hate me for this, but my answer, just like it is for almost everything, is: It depends. There’s so much nuance, and everyone is an individual with our own unique biochemistry, environment, and experiences. If you only remember one thing from this article it should be that nothing works for everyone. Just because your wife or brother or roommate eats a certain way that works for them, doesn’t mean it’ll work for you.

Unfortunately, an article you found on the internet, no matter how long or well researched, will be able to cover all these nuances and give you true, meaningful advice. Yet here I am, writing about diet and nutrition, and here you are reading it. So I’m going to cover the basics as best I can, and you’re going to experiment and listen to your body and intuition, and together this will cover a lot of ground and get you an answer to this question.

One more thing before I dive into the juicy stuff. After my introduction you may be wondering: If we didn’t need diet advice 50,000 (or 10,000 or 1,000) years ago, why do we need it now? Can’t we just eat like they did? And that’s where the Paleo movement came from, which we’ll be talking about in a minute. But most of the foods that were around then don’t even exist anymore, and boy does it take a long time to prepare everything from scratch all the time. Unfortunately, unlike those Paleo folks who spent hours every day finding and preparing food, we have jobs and have to make money, so if this is out of your reach right now I’ve got some other options for you.

The 4 Tiers of Nutrition

I’ve got 4 different options for you to choose from, to get you started eating better. Which one you choose first will depend on a few factors.

1.     Your current level of health or illness

2.     Where your diet and health sit on your list of priorities

If you’re in fairly good health with no serious chronic illnesses your diet will look different from someone who is working to get their autoimmune condition into remission.

 

Tier 1: Whole Foods Diet

This is the diet that we all should strive for. A wide variety of whole animal and plant foods, without restricting any natural whole food. The only things we’ve taken out of this diet are refined, processed “foods”, and we’re cutting way down on what I call “medicinal foods”.

If you’re not sure where to start, this is it. Start here. If you’re having a few weird health issues, think you have some food sensitivities, have started feeling a little sluggish and inflamed lately, come straight here. Many people who “just aren’t feeling quite right and can’t figure out why” will find all their issues resolve with this diet. Don’t worry about oxalates or FODMAPs or anything else you just read about on Google, just start here.

Eat Whole Foods:

-       All vegetables and fruits, fresh, frozen, or even canned as long as there’s nothing added (look out for hidden sugar and other weird things in canned foods)

-       Whole eggs, all full fat dairy as long as there’s nothing added (I’m looking at you flavored yogurt and ice cream)

-       Fish/seafood, chicken/turkey, pork, beef, any other meats you like, emphasizing fresh pasture raised, minimizing cured meats, and eliminating highly processed meats (hot dogs, lunch meats, etc.)

-       Beans and legumes: if you have issues with bloating when you eat them try soaking the dry beans in water overnight, then drain them and cook low and slow.

-       Grains: whole or minimally processed grains are best and can be prepared similar to the beans above to make them easier to digest.

-       Healthy fats: cook foods in butter, ghee, olive oil, avocado oil or coconut oil, while also not being afraid of foods like avocado, coconut, nuts and seeds, and olives.

Minimize Medicinal Foods – These do contain polyphenols, antioxidants and prebiotics that can be beneficial, but they also come with strong medicinal properties that can knock your system off balance when overused:

-       Caffeine: coffee and tea (especially green and white tea) is ok at one cup a day, but if you deal with anxiety, consider cutting out coffee completely and trying a weak green tea.

-       Alcohol: dry wine is your best option, or a clear spirit in a drink without added sugars. But limit alcohol of any kind to a few times a week at most. Even one daily drink can become habitual and cause problems.

-       Natural sugars: honey, maple syrup, dates, coconut sugar. Limit at most to 1 T a day combined, but really best not to have these on the daily.

Eliminate Processed Foods

-       Added sugars: cane sugar, corn syrup, beet sugar, rice syrup, sugar alcohols, etc, etc, etc. You know what I mean, they show up in lots of food products that are prepackaged. Especially watch out for them in things like yogurt and peanut butter which are otherwise fine.

-       Processed grains/flour: this includes packaged foods like crackers, cookies, granola, cakes, breads, pastas, chips, etc. These are convenience foods without nutritional value.

-       Refined seed oils: canola, soy, vegetable, safflower, and other oils go through heavy refining and stripping so that by the time they reach the shelves they have already gone rancid. These oils are cheap, and are used many times at restaurants, so if you notice that you have symptoms after eating at certain restaurants but not at home, this could be the culprit.

A note on the “eliminate” foods: If you’re in a pretty good place health-wise, and follow this diet well most of the time, you should be able to handle the occasional crap foods. When you’re at a birthday party, have a piece of cake. Out for a special dinner? Have a glass of wine and slice of crusty bread. Your body will tell you when it’s too much, and over time you’ll learn how to balance life and your health.

 

Tier 2: Anti-Inflammatory Diet

 So you’ve diligently followed the Tier 1 diet for a few months, but still have significant symptoms? This is where the extra anti-inflammatory diet comes in. Unfortunately, some people have more inflammatory reactions to certain foods and in order to feel their best, have to cut them out of their diet.

The 2 biggest culprits are gluten and dairy. A good place to start is with the Tier 1 diet, minus gluten and dairy. I know this might be a big ask, and I get it. These foods are everywhere, taste amazing, and can limit you from being able to eat socially with other people. This is where the priorities piece comes into play. Depending on how debilitating your symptoms are, and how much you prioritize feeling good in your body, you can determine how strict you are on any given day with this.

You may find that you only need to cut one out completely, and just minimize the other, or you may find there are other foods causing inflammation instead of, or in addition to, gluten and dairy. The most common culprits are soy, corn, peanuts and eggs. Feel free to experiment by removing these foods for 1-2 months, then slowly reintroduce them and see how you feel.

Tier 2 is really two different things. It’s a place to experiment and possibly find trigger foods for you, eliminating and adding things back in to discover your unique, personalized diet. But it’s also a place to land after you’ve experimented with the next 2 tiers. Tiers 3 and 4 become increasingly restrictive, and aren’t necessarily long term, forever diets. They remove a lot of healthy foods, and restricting too many foods for too long can have a detrimental effect on your microbiome as well as your nutrient status. So feel free to play around in these next 2 tiers, slowly reintroducing foods as you feel ready, with the goal of expanding your diet to as close to Tier 2 as you can get without a return of your symptoms.

 

Tier 3: Allergen Free Diet

These next 2 tiers are not for the faint of heart. But if you have a chronic condition you are trying to manage like fibromyalgia, an autoimmune disease, SIBO, endometriosis, etc, it may be worth it for you to experiment here. Tier 3 removes more possible allergens and inflammatory triggers for at least 30 days, then slowly reintroduces them one by one to test for symptoms.

Eat these foods:

-       All vegetables and fruits, fresh or frozen

-       Whole eggs, fish/seafood, chicken/turkey, pork, beef, any other fresh unprocessed meats

-       Healthy fats: cook foods in butter, ghee, olive oil, avocado oil or coconut oil, while also not being afraid of foods like avocado, coconut, nuts and seeds, and olives.

-       All herbs, spices, seasonings

Eliminate:

-       All grains, including glutenous grains, but even oats, corn, rice, quinoa, etc

-       All legumes, including peanuts, beans and lentils, but green beans and peas are ok

-       All dairy except butter and ghee

-       All added sugar, including maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, stevia, monk fruit, coconut sugar, Splenda, cane sugar, etc

-       All alcohol

If you need some resources on this, look to the Whole 30 diet and you’ll find tons of delicious recipes and online support. Feel free to do this for 30 days, or if you’re feeling good and on a roll you can extend it to 60 days.

The trick is that once you’re done with the elimination phase, don’t got out for pizza and beer the next day! Now that you’re feeling better, take the extra time to slowly reintroduce foods. Start with beans and/or lentils if you don’t think they’re going to cause issues for you. If you can eat them, they are great for heart and metabolic health, as well as gut health, so it’s important to get them back in if you can. Save peanuts and soy until later, they can be more inflammatory for some people.

Next add back in non-glutenous grains like rice, oats, quinoa, etc. These will add back in some good complex carbs and fiber. Again, save corn and glutenous grains like wheat and barley until later.

If you’re feeling good here, you can stay on this diet indefinitely. You’ve got everything you need for good health here. Gluten, dairy, corn, soy, peanuts, sugar, and alcohol don’t add a ton of nutrition to your diet. But if it’s feeling restrictive, you can experiment with adding these foods back in one by one, starting with the foods you feel are less of an issue for you. At the end of the reintroduction phase you’ll have your own unique, personalized diet that works for you.

 

Tier 4: Autoimmune Diet (AIP)

Just like the allergen free diet above, this is not for everybody, and it’s not a forever diet. The Autoimmune diet, or AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) is helpful if you’ve got an autoimmune condition you’re actively working on reducing symptoms of, or getting into remission. This includes other systemic, immune dysregulating conditions like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic Lyme, endometriosis, POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome), etc.

My mentor recommends this diet to all her chronic illness cases for 12 weeks. At the end of that time, we reassess, and figure out if it’s time to add more foods back into the diet, in what order, and how quickly. This is why it can be very helpful to work with a practitioner on this.

The unique thing about AIP is it’s not only about taking out inflammatory foods, but it’s also focused on adding high quality nutrient dense foods, and foods to support gut health, both of which play a part in regulating the immune system for the long term. This means, even though your body is sensitive to these foods now, it won’t always be. So the more you eat these healing foods and avoid the ones you’re sensitive to, they more your body will heal so that eventually you can eat foods that you couldn’t before. Again, the end goal here is to have as diverse a diet as possible without causing symptoms.

Eat these foods:

-       Vegetables of all kinds, aiming for 8 servings a day of as many different types as you can

-       Quality meats, preferably pasture raised, grass-fed, wild as much as possible

-       Healthy fats like animal fats (tallow, lard), olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, fatty fish

-       A wide variety of herbs and spices

-       Small amounts of fruit

There’s a special emphasis on these nutrient dense, gut supportive foods:

-       Organ meats 5x a week, or as much as possible

-       Fish and seafood 3x a week

-       Bone broth daily

-       Probiotic and fermented foods

Avoid these foods:

-       All grains and legumes

-       All dairy and eggs (especially egg whites)

-       All nuts and seeds (including cacao and coffee)

-       Nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, sweet and hot peppers, tomatillos, paprika)

-       Alcohol, added sugars and sweeteners of all kinds

-       Refined oils and food additives

This diet is really best used in conjunction with a healing protocol, including personalized supplements and herbs, and other lifestyle changes. This way you’re getting the most bang for your buck, and will be able to transition sooner into eating a more diverse diet.