Posts Tagged ‘paleo diet’

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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beyond shame to well-being

October 20, 2011

So I am newly getting present to the extent to which biochemistry matters- like the immense difference between the average paleolithic natural diet (and it’s results in regard to wellness) and the average modern civilized industrial diet (and it’s metabolic results in regard to wellness). I was not clear until recently on the full extent of the difference or, in particular, of the specific mechanisms of the interference in a physiological functionality of consuming high carbohydrate diets (which started around 10,000 years ago and has been popular in some cultures for thousands of years, but has shifted dramatically in recent decades with such things as the introduction of high fructose corn syrup), nor of the biochemical mechanisms of the interference in normal metabolic functioning from consuming modern cooked vegetable oils and their huge concentrations of free radicals (which started about 100 years ago).

Both of those two dietary patterns have dramatically reduced the wellness of the average person, especially when considering that those dietary components are used in an attempt to replace other more natural foods, as in a major reduction or total elimination of the dietary practices that have apparently worked very well for humans for millions of years. I’m not going to offer a summary of the mechanisms of biochemistry here, but one condensed point of clarity is that proteins and saturated fats (especially omega 3 fatty acids) are apparently essential not only for human survival (avoiding starvation), but for normal development of bones, organs, and nervous systems. The masses of people like me who had crooked teeth in childhood and had braces or had wisdom teeth removed are evidence of the rarity of “normal” bone growth in modern populations. Many of us did not even have enough jawbone to contain a normal set of teeth!

the 1st and 3rd child have wide jaws, normal throughout most of human history

An secondary point, which is the newly clear one for me, is that even when providing lots of proteins and saturated fats, ANY consumption of modern carbohydrates (including ALL refined grains) OR modern vegetable oils (especially when cooked) can be immensely detrimental. Basically, we can think of all of that stuff as poison. There is often no nutritional value but instead just dramatic interruptions to the utilization of any actual nutrients present. Diets that are high in carbs and cooked vegetable oils (other than coconut oil and, to a lesser extent, olive oil) have been consistently reported to directly cause basically all of the health problems of modern life, from degeneration of the eyes and vision to cancer and heart attacks and strokes.

Note: in relation to the symptoms just mentioned, I have worn glasses for several decades and then in early 2007 I had a neurological crisis and lost the ability to walk. Previously, I had blamed that neurological crisis on dehydration and a sudden increase in my consumption of table salt, and only yesterday did I connect my sudden physiological breakdown with the fact that I had also had that salt with “french fries” (potatoes fried in boiling vegetable oils that are often left cooking for hundreds of hours before being discarded- which is the absolute most certain way to introduce huge concentrations of “free radicals” in to the body, which oxidize and destroy essential cells). I had already been eating a mostly low carb diet for years and had avoided fried, low-quality vegetable oils for most of that time, but that Sunday afternoon, I ate french fries. Within a few hours, my abdomen felt like it had never felt before. Soon, not only could I not walk, but my mental coherence declined, perhaps related to the fact that I suddenly was sleeping less than a few hours PER WEEK.

Maybe you have heard this term before to refer to state of a neurological shock: fried. My nerves were “fried.” I was “fried.” My diet had also been… fried.

So, in summary, you can’t have even near optimal functionality without an abundance of the basic nutrients of healthy fats and healthy proteins. Further, even with those, enough modern poisons (like imagine someone quite fit but extremely drunk with alcohol) can be not just detrimental (as in “fried”) but fatal (as in “toast”).

Clearly, I am not talking about supplementing an admittedly deficient diet, which was the kind of thing I talked about in the 1990s. I am directing attention to a diet that makes supplementation irrelevant, avoiding the cost and complexity not only of nutritional supplements but also avoiding all of the many medical interventions that are specifically designed to either interrupt the functioning of the immune system (like cough suppressants) or treat the side effects of other medicinal drugs (which still means an interruption to the process of removing toxins).

But not everyone could eat the diet I am referencing. In fact, not everyone would even if they could. I will come back to the psychological and practical barriers in a moment.

First, consider that the owners of commercial businesses and their agents in governments (like the USDA and FDA) have been promoting dietary practices that fit with their commercial interests. I do not just mean short-term profits. I mean directing the population masses of “human resources.”

In other words, people who are both physically fit and distinctly intelligent could be perceived as threats by those commercial interests (by certain people). However, mercenaries and soldiers who are only rather physically fit but not especially intelligent are not a threat to the commercial interests that direct their mercenaries for their own purposes. Similarly, there is little threat from intellectuals who may even be quite intelligent, but not are physically (or financially) resourceful. Most of those intellectuals can easily be busied with protesting the alleged injustice that the commercial interests train them to protest (which are generally the injustices of the commercial interests themselves).

The commercial interests present to the masses certain ideas through channels of the media, public schools, and even religions. These ideas involve not only what is a favorable or unfavorable dietary choice, but also what is an injustice worthy of protesting.

If we have been indoctrinated that it is an injustice for the commercial interests to promote their commercial interests in particular ways, then when we identify certain mechanisms of indoctrination, we may do as we have been trained and go to governments to appeal for reforms and new elected heroes to protect us from the evil commercial interests. We may not recognize at that point in time the extent to which those commercial interests influence governments- like establishing and directing their governments of their mercenaries and propagandists.

So, commercial interests may promote biochemical functionality that is marginal rather than optimal. Dead slaves are not good slaves, but slaves that have the capacity to compete with their masters are also not what the masters would call good. A result of sub-optimal physiological functionality (but at least marginal physiologic functionality) is a typical target of commercial interests in promoting particular dietary practices and other health choices.

Similarly, marginal intelligence may be promoted, but not optimal intelligence. Since intelligence is largely a function of biochemistry, we can see the importance of indoctrinating and governing the dietary practices of the masses to the commercial interests.

Finally, marginal economic prosperity, but not enough that would be competitive to the current ruling commercial interests, may be promoted by those commercial interests. They want workers that have positive morale, reflexive loyalty (which is even better than reflexive terror), and at least have their basic needs met- at least in general, like at least a certain amount of functionary agents that are reliable servants of the commercial interests.

For instance, the commercial interests need loyal (or at least compliant) propagandists to indoctrinate their mercenaries and their other servants of the empire. The masses need to be told what is just and unjust, who is enemy and who is savior, as well as what traditional foods to be hysterically frightened of and what new chemical substances are legally classified as safe as food (or for adding to drinking water, etc). The masses need to be terrorized and confused and enraged, but only in accord with the commercial interests.

The masses are trained to either hide certain qualities or even to avoid doing anything that someone might interpret as expressing that quality, such as greed or of course dishonesty. Of course, if the masses recognize such a quality in one of their own (or a scapegoat from among the agents of the commercial interests), they jealousy attack. If they have been trained to be ashamed of openly pursuing their self-interest and optimal well-being (“greed”), then no one else should- at least not openly and within the range of their attention.

Here is the linguistic programs that result from the training:

No one [else] should be healthy. No one [else] should be wealthy. In particular, no one [else] should be calm or even uninterested in the mechanisms of propaganda.

In other words, people should be addicted to mainstream medical systems. People should be dependent on borrowing and outside employment (rather than be owners of thriving businesses who have little or no debt). People should be outraged, terrified, or at least depressed about the latest injustice or latest scandal or latest controversy. Actually, no, the “latest” one is not too big of a deal, just as long as there is SOME stimulant for emotionally-reactive moral pre-occupation.

In summary, people should be addicted to being heroic victims. People should sincerely fight against at least one of the evils of the system/society/world/culture, but not so much that they actually bite the hand that feeds them- “only a bit of occasional barking, please.”

I might call it insane. However, shame is more precise.

A culture of shame is indoctrinated repeatedly to promote and preserve the interests of certain people of whom we are so secretly jealous that we openly hate them. We call them evil. We hold them in contempt. We say that they are the reason that our lives are full of contempt and resentment and hatred and shame.

Well, maybe they are. So what?

“Yeah but… we are only fried because of them! They told us to eat fried food, didn’t they?”

Yes, that may be what they told us. How is that related, if at all, to what we actually do next?

Oh, and as for the practical barriers to many billion people all eating a traditional diet, what if there is just not enough wild-grown macronutrients in the ecosystem of the earth currently? Perhaps there is a reason why the earth used to have so many less people at any one time. What if the earth can only sustainably support perhaps a couple of billion very healthy people? What if, without cheap fossil fuels to grow and transport “livestock feed” like grains (and then promote it as a healthy food), there would not be one billion living humans on the planet?

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