Cultural Genetics

Wha....?? Yes, I made it up.
But why? You ask.
Because I thought it would be a good idea to explain certain things.
What things? You ask.
Well, I have a short story for you about my younger years' nutrition as I was growing up in Hungary.

Since we had very limited resources, and that included food, we did not have the luxury to think healthy. Though we ate lard and fresh cow's milk, we also walked everywhere and ate other vegetables and fruits that my husbands just frowns on. For instance, I remember eating bread (with a thick crispy crust and flaky insides) topped with a half of an inch of sour cream and salted to oblivion. Yes. Gross! We also ate a lot of smoked cold cuts (since we actually butchered pigs and processed all its meat mostly by smoking it and making sausages) on bread with lots of butter. We would eat fresh tomatoes with salt, beats, radishes, cucumbers in various forms, lots of cabbage (red and green), parsnips, squashes, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds, rutabagas, and God knows what else! All of which we went and pulled from the earth, from our very own garden. My father was proud of his fruit collection of black currants, raspberries, apples, cherries, grapes, strawberries, pears, nectarines, peaches, walnuts, and God knows what else! He was not a farmer either, a chemist by trade. It was just that if we wanted to eat those things we had to grow them because we couldn't afford to buy them and they weren't always available. I still love and eat all fruits and enjoys discovering the exotic ones I never tasted. I still eat sour kraut and cabbage, paprika and tomatoes and other veggies, however, I am not so big on lard anymore. My brother used to make a lard and ketchup sandwich that was one of his favorites. My mom used to take the egg yolk and whip it up with sugar and give it to us as dessert or a treat (when she was cooking, or when my brother used the whites to put in his hair). So yes, heart attack to google power. I wonder how the heck we survive but here is what I think happens.

Cultural and social habits influence our life and we adapt. Although we ate a lot of really bad stuff, we also worked harder, moved more and ate vegetables and fruits a lot more. Even though it wasn't quite enough to make up for the lard, for instance, our bodies have developed to process and tolerate the fats and cholesterol better and break it down more efficiently than, say, the oriental cultures. I know that the Northern Europeans have lived a much longer and healthier life and it is mostly due to their Omega 3 and 6 high diets but they are also lacking passion and spice, such as the Hungarian population is blessed with. Ok, this part was for humor. But in all seriousness, I am quiet sure that our genetic make up is largely influenced by our cultural roots and one should not ignore such things when analyzing nutrition and what will or won't work for a certain person. I think nutrition is highly individualized and should not be treated as an umbrella program but rather a personal analysis that goes way deeper than "what are your triggers and bad snacks?" Everyone's vice is different and one great diet plan or nutritional advice may not work at all for another person, which is why we should look into where our habits come from and how we grew up. I can now see the contrast between my and my husband's make up who is from another corner of the world and grew up with a completely different bad nutrition. (Sugar, grains, sweets, and meats, not a lot of fruits and veggies but also lots and lots of running and sports, that would kill an average American kid).
With that in mind, I just want to tell all frustrated dieters to be honest with yourself and know why you do the things that are bad for you, and then you can craft a plan to intercept those habits.