Posts Tagged ‘omega 3 fatty acid’

a diet fit for human physiology

November 19, 2011

What we eat effects our functionality. Here is a brief instruction on what to eat for optimal functionality.

Principle #1: Food is sacred.

Recall the traditional blessing before eating: “Take this and eat it. This is my body….” The body is nourished by what we eat, drink, and even breathe. Nourishment is the foundation of functionality. (By the way, not only is food sacred. Everything else is sacred, too. )

Principle #2: The longer that humans have consumed a particular food, the better the food is for humans.

So, the core of the ancient or paleolithic diet is food that is wild and raw. Note that anything that we have to cook, like beans, was not a primary component of the diet of ancient humans.

In addition to things like wild berries, the primary distinction between the diet of ancient humans and other primates is the eating of wild animals. The high levels of two substances in the diet of certain ancient primates has been identified as the cause of the expanded size of the human brain over that of other primates, as well as the capacity for language and other “higher functions” of humans.

Those two valuable substances are Omega 3 Fatty Acids called EFA and DHA. We need both. The most concentrated natural sources of these substances are wild animals (though some supplements also can provide excellent sources of these and other valuable substances).

In modern life, we can get healthy wild animals either through hunting or out of the water. Also, we can

get food from grass-fed domesticated animals, such as cows or free-range chickens (including eggs). Grass-fed and free-range animals have an abundance of Omega 3 Fatty Acids, unlike grain-fed, “conventionally-raised” commercial livestock. Note that among the only creatures designed to consume grains raw are molds and birds, which have evolved specialized organs for digesting raw grains called gizzards.

The Omega 3 called ALA which is found in plants like hemp and flax does provide a fraction of the nutrition of EFA and DHA, but is much more nutritious than most of the fats in vegetable sources. Notably good vegetable sources of fat are coconuts and olives. The less these are processed the better, including heating them (cooking).

Principle #3 Organs are the most nutritionally-sensitive and nutrient-dense tissues.

So eat them. While fat is of great importance, as is protein, the highest concentrations of a wide range of essential nutrients are in the various organs. Again, the organs of wild or grass-fed creatures are the most nutrient-dense foods naturally available to humans, especially when consumed fresh (raw) or fermented.

Principle #4 Mammals are designed to consume raw milk, especially in infancy.

Note that humans may have only consumed the dairy products of other animals for around 10,000 years. Around that same time, humans began cultivating wild grains and sprouting the seeds to eat the much more nutritious sprouts and greens.

Around 100 years ago, the quality of dairy products was falling from modern conventional practices of raising livestock. Pasteurization of dairy products (and fruit juices and alcohol) became popular, as well as fortification with added vitamins and other “remedial steps” to aid in the sale of such substances.

Note that the pasteurizing or cooking or sterilizing of milk has similar effects to the same processes when used for other foods. The first cooking of meats by humans was to dry them out and preserve them as jerky, but primitive humans ate meat raw or only moderately heated (“rare”), starting with the organs and the fat, and then preserved the less desirable excess portions for later consumption or trade.

As for parasites, they can be killed using the modern techniqueof freezing “questionable” meat

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Poly...

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Polyface Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(such as meat raised in unhealthy conditions like “factory farms”).

Generally, a small portion of fresh high quality meat (no more than moderately heated) is far more nutritious than a bunch of sterilized meat from sickly creatures that require anti-biotics and supplements to survive to adulthood. Similarly, those humans who have unusually low physiological functionalities (and insufficiencies or deficiencies of nutrients) that lead them to value anti-biotics and supplements are the ones who can benefit most from small amounts of the most concentrated nutrients from natural, ancient sources.

Principle #5: Beware of modern things like modern foods and modern medicine.

Avoid carbohydrates and gluten-rich, refined carbohydrates in particular. Avoid low-grade vegetable oils, especially when cooked. Focus on ancient fats from healthy animal sources as well as primitive or traditional sources of vegetable fat like coconut, olives, palm kernels, and avocados.

While the next commentary on modern medicine is not an instruction of what to eat, it is relevant to the subject of promoting health. Modern medicine is well-known for labeling various sets of symptoms as incurable, such as scurvy. Scurvy is just a label for a set of symptoms of the predictable consequences of a lack of VitaminC and the deterioriating of various organs and functions that arise in the absence of Vitamin C (as in the discontinuing of functionalities that depend of the presence of certain amounts of Vitamin C).

Joel Salatin gives a tour of Polyface Farm. He...

Joel Salatin gives a tour of Polyface Farm. Here he stands inside electric netting surrounding a flock of laying hens and their portable coop, dubbed an Eggmobile. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Note that the language of modern medicine in diagnosing various physiological states as incurable may be entirely a reflection of the relative comprehension or ignorance of physiology on the part of the one using that language. If someone calls some development incurable, that may simply mean that the person using that language does not understand the physiology and nutrition relevant to that development.

To a fully-trained  and licensed practitioner of western medicine, scurvy was functionally “incurable” (relative to the extent of their knowledge and competence). However, to someone moderately competent in the realm of basic nutrition, the panicked diagnostic terminology of “incurable scurvy” or “incurable disease” may be deemed something of a “mental illness” or at least a lack of maturity and competence. While modern doctors may desperately panic about scurvy and other so-called incurable diseases, even not having any idea what is going on and why and just reactively labeling something incurable, western scientists at least as far back as the 1930s have been documenting the deterioration of the health and functionality of modern populations subsequent to the popularizing of modern diets and modern food production.

Modern medications have been popularized for their capacity to interrupt the functioning of the immune system (like cough suppressants). While that result of suppressing coughs and other eliminative functions may be valuable in terms of getting an expendable soldier back on the battlefield or an expendable slave back to work, interrupting the functioning of the immune system does long-term harm (including the poisoning of the symbiotic bacteria in the human guts).

Joel Salatin and pigs at Polyface Farms in Vir...

Joel Salatin and pigs at Polyface Farms in Virginia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Modern medicine includes some very short-sighted interventions to suppress secondary eliminative functions of the immune system. It would not improve someone’s health or nutrition to give them poisons that prevent them from having a bowel movements or urinating either. The idea of suppressing the immune system derives from military settings in which the immediate risk to survival is so high that long-term functionality is not a priority. Similarly, in an emergency room of a hospital, people may try interventions that are quite extreme which would be considered negligent if used with more healthy, stable people.

Medical suppression of the human immune system has it’s relevance, but it should not be misunderstood as a replacement for proper nourishment and optimal functionality. Further, when consuming dense sources of nutrients, be aware that suppressed immune functions may be activated. That activating of the immune system does not mean that ancient foods that humans have eaten for thousands or millions of years are poisonous.

An active immune system means that poisons are being eliminated. Those poisons may have been stored in the tissues for years or decades. Simply use moderation in terms of the amount of nutrient-dense foods consumed in any particular period of time. Note that much smaller portions of nutrient-dense foods will be filling than when eating nutrient-deficient substances.

Principle #6 Get very high quality food and consume it conservatively, transitioning gradually toward ancient methods 

For instance, if you have never eaten raw wild-caught fish, begin with a small, experimental amount of it. Transition conservatively by raising the quality of your foods and transitioning toward traditional preparation techniques, like marinading flesh in lemon juice or raw apple cider vinegar then cooking it, but later marinading and just heating it, and finally eating it at normal temperatures (body temperature or room temperature is more digestible than refrigerator temperatures).

Before transitioning to all wild or all raw, unless you have a dire health emergency, you might first transition through a diet that includes some raw dairy and raw, sprouted grains (or even cooked). Also, if you have weak bones, make bones in to broth and eat that. If you have an issue with a certain organ, eating a healthy organ of the same sort is a great place to start when seeking all of the components of a healthy organ of that type.

Also, if you have been eating much refined sugar, a sudden and total discontinuing of sugar consumption may result in symptoms of withdrawal from the addiction, which may include detoxification headaches. When quitting a substance as addictive as sugar, transition conservatively and consume a lot of high quality water (adding minerals is often very beneficial, even when not addicted to sugar).

Eating a lot of sugar can make someone sick to their stomach. Stopping eating sugar allows for the body to stop dumping sugar in to the fat tissues throughout the body and to begin to eliminate it. The body may respond to a sudden decrease in sugar consumption by dumping internal glucose stored in fat tissues and so a moderate sickness to the stomach may result. When quitting sugar, it is best to be drinking high quality water and you can experiment with consuming at least small amounts of very high quality rich fat, which is one of the most satisfying substances to the human palate.

By transitioning from a carb-based diet and metabolism to a fat-based diet and metabolism, energy levels may rise dramatically. This is due to the higher efficiency of ketosis relative to the aerobic metabolism of sugar (three times more efficient), which is itself about 8 times more efficient than the anaerobic metabolism of sugar.

Fat is the primary fuel for human physiology. Supplying adequate amounts of proper fuel will provide long-term energy. Energy drinks and other less-than-primary sources of fuel will have only a fraction of the long-term benefit (if any long-term net benefit at all) of even small amounts of providing high quality fat for cellular metabolism.

Kara’s video reply about her results and her dietary changes:

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Hunger

October 29, 2011
Hunger
Imagine a snake with a big bulge from swallowing food. You may know that a snake can eat something and not be hungry again for weeks.
How about bears? You may know that bears can even hibernate for months without eating.
If we eat the best things for us to eat, how often would we be hungry? Well, if we were consistently well-nourished, we might never experience sensations of hunger at all.
Consider that hunger is kind of like pain: a signal of some type of crisis or danger. What if you could be so well-nourished that you were never hungry again- ever?
We may have been taught that, if we feel hungry, to eat something. That is logical enough, right?
If we are thirsty, then we might drink something, right? But are all liquids equally appealing for drinking? Fresh water and sea water and hand lotion and whiskey and transmission fluid may all be wet, but some liquids are more appealing to drink than others.
Likewise, hunger is not just a signal to eat “something” as in “eat anything,” but to satisfy a nutritional (biochemical) urgency. Pain is an urgent signal.
Hunger, while not as focusing as intense pain, is also a signal of urgency. What does the body usually want when signaling hunger? Energy as in fuel, right?
What is the fuel source that the human body is designed to best utilize? Fat, but not all fat. Saturated fat in particular, but not all saturated fat. Omega 3 fatty acids in particular, but not all omega 3 fatty acids. EPA and DHA in particular (not ALA).

DHA Molecule

Image via Wikipedia

So, it’s pretty simple. If there is a hunger signal, eating something will stop the body from producing that hunger signal. The body will focus on processing the substance eaten. If the body processes something and is still hungry, the body may resume the hunger signal, sometimes rather quickly after eating anything that does not address the actual nutritional priorities of the organism.
What if a person is hungry but is given drugs to suppress their hunger sensations? We could call that “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”
Their body is pumping hormones to get in action and get in communication, perhaps to signal nutritional distress. How receptive and fluent are we to the signals issued by our own bodies and the bodies of our children and youth?
As a side note, what species of earthling is specifically designed to be nourished by refined sugar? None.
Can humans convert refined sugar to energy? Yes. The human body can even “refine” proteins in to sugar for energy. However, the primary source of fuel for humans for millions of years has been EPA and DHA fatty acids from wild animal sources.
Wild-caught seafood may contain a lot of the healthy fats. Even grass-fed domesticated animals may contain a lot of healthy fats.
So, for a human organism to be nourished in the way that humans have been nourished for millions of years, healthy fats are essential. Ingesting huge volumes of other substances does not provide as much nourishment as small amounts of healthy fats. Lots of low quality fat does not provide what high quality fat provides. Rather than experience energy and endurance and focus, someone with a lot of low quality fat may instead feel sluggish, fatigued, and “scattered” or even “hyperactive.”
Does coffee provide high quality energy reserves to a human? No. Does refined sugar provide high quality energy reserves to a human? No. Do cigarettes or recreational drugs or medicinal drugs to interrupt the functioning of the immune system in any way add to the energy reserves of a human organism? No.
The ingestion of many substances can interrupt hunger signals temporarily. Addictions may ensue. Ingesting high quality fats, however, actually provides fuel and other nourishment.
Let’s consider an ideal protein intake: three ounces of wild or grass-fed organic meat twice a day. That is less than half a pound per day.
How can that work? Most of what the body needs is fuel, not protein.
Sufficient amounts of high quality fuel (EPA and DHA) are the issue for hunger, not protein (and certainly not carbohydrates, which were not consumed much by humans until the proliferation of agriculture starting about 10,000 years ago). Similarly, if you use an automobile a lot, most of what it needs is fuel, not new tires. For a human organism, healthy fats are the best fuel and that is what it needs most. Most hunger sensations are signaling for healthy fat.
Of course, there are many substances that have been prized by humans for countless thousands of years for their nutritional value, such as organ meats. However, high quality fat is the key to the distinctive health and longevity of… all the groups of people that have lived so long and so well in the last few million years.
So, one might ask then, if primitive diets are so great, why has modern civilization proliferated? It may be because a “rich” elite have maintained “rich” diets of “rich“ food while raising hordes (herds) of slaves and soldiers and other “useful idiots” which, because of being considered expendable, have been indoctrinated and fed and medicated in ways that keep them easily managed (“governed”) and quickly back on the job or back on the battlefield.
If the secret to functionality is lots of EPA and DHA, then the elite rulers of civilization might (1) distract the masses from that and (2) diminish the access of other people (including primitive tribes) to “the king’s wildlife preserve area (for the monopolizing of wild game for hunting).” Further, the rulers might even indoctrinate the masses to avoid fat, especially saturated fat. The masses are made paranoid about non-conformity and paleolithic diets and primal diets.
However, such theories of conspiracies may be either irrelevant or inaccurate. In fact, I have been told that not only are there no such thing as conspiracies, but there is not even a word for them. ;)
http://www.OneEyedKingsWealthClub.com
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