Last weekend we watched the documentary Chimpanzee which was produced by Disney Nature. There was a line in it that caused my warped mind to go positively crazy which can be paraphrased as “Just like humans, Chimpanzees live on a diet of fruit, vegetables, nuts and some meat”.

Do they mean primitive humans or actual humans?

See, most of the humans I know seem to live on a diet of pasta, rice, chicken wings, breakfast cereal, macaroni and cheese, potato smiles, pizza, yogurt, chips, chocolate pudding and diet soda. I am not saying that they never eat vegetables or fruit, but I can’t say that I know anyone who. like the chimps which outweigh us, gets more than half of their calories from fruits and veggies.

Now, we really do have a lot in common with chimpanzees. They have wars. They hunt in groups. They adopt orphans. They commit murder. They have similar life spans. Cheetah, the chimp from the old Ronald Reagan movies is retired in Florida and in his seventies.

That said, I have talked to the primate specialists at the Lincoln Park Zoo and they have assured me that chimps live about as long as humans assuming that they get to eat like chimps, which means that their diet is mostly fruits and veggies and nuts with some meat thrown in once in a while. If you ask them about pizza, they will stare at you as if you have lost your mind as apparently, chimpanzees are not supposed to eat pizza.

And really, neither are people.

I hear all the time from parents who swear that their children will not eat fruit or veggies. That may be true, but I think these kids have been trained to eat processed food. My son’s preschool had a policy of only fruit and veggies for snack. This is genius from an allergen perspective since so few children are allergic to fruits or veggies and also it teaches the children early to reach for carrots or cherry tomatoes when they have the munchies.

We used to have a potluck once a year. Every year the carrot sticks vanished and the dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets remained largely untouched. The children, trained to eat their natural diet…ate like chimpanzees.

I get that it is a pain to plan for fresh food. Fresh fruit and veggies are bulky. My house overflowed with produce on Saturday only to be down to two bananas on Friday. That said, when the latest illness comes through we are ill for a shorter period and less seriously than anyone else we know. The hassle is real, but the payoff is enormous.

Yes this site is filled with recipes for cakes and cookies and other treats, but that is because they are so hard to make easy and allergen free, and because it is socially odd to not have a cake at your birthday party or a pumpkin cheesecake at Thanksgiving. I don’t think people should eat a lot of cake or a lot of any processed food. Aside from my bouts of recipe testing, we don’t.

In the end allergen free processed food is challenging, expensive and not all that good for you. The easiest way to eat allergen free is to eat the way that humans are supposed to eat.

You know, like a chimpanzee.