The extraordinary diversity of aboriginal food cultures testifies to the capacity of many combinations of foodstuffs to sustain human health and reproduction. From this diversity it is apparent that humans have no requirement for specific foods (with the qualified exception of breast milk, which can be replaced by the milk of other mammals but with less satisfactory results). Modern nutritional science has demonstrated that good health is dependent upon the consumption of a discrete number of biochemical compounds that are essential for normal metabolism but cannot be synthesized de novo in the body. These compounds or their metabolic precursors can be obtained from many different combinations of foods.

It is possible that there are still unidentified trace elements required in such small amounts that it has not yet been possible to demonstrate their essentiality, although it is unlikely that they are of any clinical importance in human nutrition. It is probable that current perceptions of the amounts of some nutrients required for optimal health – such as the relative amounts of various fatty acids necessary for the prevention of cardiovascular disease – will undergo further change, but the present state of nutritional knowledge is adequate as a basis for evaluating the quality of different food cultures in terms of their ability to provide the nutrients required for nutritional health.

This chapter evaluates two contrasting food cultures: the carnivorous aboriginal diets of the Arctic Inuit and the traditional cereal-based diets consumed by the inhabitants of Southeast Asia and of Central and South America. Also, the current nutritional health of these populations is evaluated in terms of their adaptation to a modern diet and lifestyle.