I'm on a kick this week sharing some of the things I heard at the Dr. Al Sears Confidential Cures Summit in Florida over the weekend. I was the kickoff speaker and hung around for as much as I could until I had to fly home. I think I only missed the last two speakers and then the shindig over at Dr. Sears' anti-aging facility.

The theme of the whole summit was that you can outrun your chronological aging metrics. If you chart average aging issues, from diabetes to cancer to memory loss in the average person, you can beat the odds if you do some specific things--and don't do other things. Intuitively we know certain behaviors and practices are not good for us, like smoking, excessive drinking, and lack of exercise.

We also know that anxiety and stress play havoc with us physically. So being stressed about our own health can bring on poor health. The focus of the summit, therefore, was completely positive. Instead of focusing on disease, focus on health.

What if doctors got paid based on when we didn't need their services? What if my daily conversation centered around what I was doing to stay healthy instead of my back ache, my cold, whatever? The idea that we can choose to do specific things to stay well, besides taking the flu vaccine, is incredibly hopeful.

The chronic diseases of today, from cancer to heart disease to alhzeimers and diabetes, are all symptoms of the Standard American Diet and lifestyle. Known as western diseases, these simply were not part of indigenous cultures. Roman lead poisoning from pipes, Pueblo Indian malnutrition from worn teeth (due to stone mortar and pestles for making maize flour), and infectious diseases like Bubonic plague from unsanitary and unhygienic conditions don't count.

Every time Europeans encountered primitive cultures, they found superior strength and health. The Conquistadors outlawed quinoa because they thought that unusual grain accounted for the superior physique of the Incas. The same observations came from the Europeans who settled on the shores of what would eventually become the U.S. Without gunpowder and steel and European immunities, the indigenous peoples would never have allowed themselves to be subjugated.

Life spans on average were shorter than today not because of inferior health and nutrition; they were shorter due to infectious disease and lifestyle hardship, including constant warring between tribes. The fact that many Native American tribes raided others to capture men because they needed more males for mating is not because the males were dying of prostate cancer; the males were killing each other over tribal disputes and revenge justice.

According to Dr. Mark Smith, who spoke after me at the conference, early diets derived 75-50 percent of their energies from animal foods and only 14-50 percent from plant foods. In a fascinating chart, Dr. Smith showed changes in per capita availability of dietary fats in the U.S. from 1910 to 1985. Animal fat remained fairly constant until 1975, when it nosedived. Vegetable fat remained fairly constant throughout the time period--more than half a century. What changed was total fat, which went from a baseline of 0 to nearly 300 percent increase in the time period.

He recommends zero grains, zero sugar, zero dairy. Otzi, "The Iceman" discovered in 1991 is a 5,300 year old frozen human. He was found between the Austrian and Italian Alps. Careful analysis of his stomach reveals that his last meal consisted of deer meat. Further stomach analysis found bits and pieces of animal hair and fly parts, indicating some pretty unhygienic consumption. One of the keys to longevity, according to Dr. Smith, is putrid, rotting meat and fish. Fermented meats and fish mimic this diet. I just drink out of the cow water tank.

My biggest takeaway from Dr. Smith's presentation was that we do ourselves no favors with highly processed and sterile food. I haven't been sick--not even a cold--for many years. Could it be because I'm swimming in compost, manure, and drinking out of the water trough with the cows?

What are you doing to get filth into your system?