5 Things You Need to Know About the Hunza Diet

1. The Land of the Hunza

The Hunza people live in the Kashmir valley, a mountainous area in the north of Pakistan. This area is very isolated. The easiest way to get there is to fly to Pakistan and then travel for several days through a narrow mountain gorge. Therefore, the Hunza live mainly on foods grown in their region. It came as a surprise to some people who came to visit and study the Hunza that these primitive people were so healthy. They wondered what the Hunza people were eating.

2. The Secret to Long Life and Health

A British physician named Sir Robert McCarrison lived with the Hunza people from 1904 until 1911 and wrote a book that told how long the Hunza people lived and how free of disease they were. This happened again in 1956, when John Clark, a geologist, wrote a book about the Hunza people and in the early 1960s, wrote a book entitled "Hunza Land: The Fabulous Youth Wonderland of the World." She wrote about how many of the Hunza people were well over 100 years old and were still happy and healthy. They usually die of old age between 120 and 140 years old and do not suffer from degenerative diseases that are common in the West.

3. Try Some Chapatti

So what do the Hunza people eat? First of all, they eat very few animal products, because most people can only afford one or two animals, and grazing land on the side of the Himalayas is scarce. Chapatti is the main staple of their diet. This form of bread comes from freshly ground barley, wheat, buckwheat or millet flour from whole grain. Hunzans knead and bake the bread over an open fire. The Hunza people also eat sprouted seeds, fresh vegetables, apricots, mulberries, grapes and walnuts. The milk that they consume is mainly goat's milk, and milk and buttermilk are sour. Twice a year, an animal goes to slaughter and Hunzans eat on that animal for 2 weeks.

4. Stay Away From Animal Fat

To follow a traditional Hunza diet, you should eat unprocessed whole foods. Whole grains should make up about 40 percent of your calories, and 30 percent of your calories should come from vegetables. The rest of your calories should come from fruits, beans, nuts and seeds. Only 1 percent of your calories should come from animal products.

5. The Hunza Gets Visitors

Today the Kashmir valley is a tourist destination in the summer, in part because of all of the publicity about the Hunza people. Many of the younger people leave the area because the valley cannot sustain them. There are people who say that the Hunza diet is more suited to the people of that valley who walked over mountainous terrain, and that it is not as well suited to our sedentary lifestyle.