A Little About Food

So, last year, I had a conversation with a friend of mine that went something like this--

me: So, I signed up for the Chicago Triathlon this year. What was I thinking?

friend: Really? Come do the Warrior Dash with me!

blah blah blah

friend: So have you seen the movie Supersize Me?

me: Nah. I don't agree with the basic premise. Nobody eats McDonald's 3 times a day, every day for a month. At least go to Wendy's, too (yum, Frosty!)

friend: Then you gotta watch Fat Head.

Thus began my descent into the Rabbit Hole of nutrition. Once I started reading more, I opened an account with Pub Med. I already know the basics on how to look for gaps in logic, and I can understand scientific literature fairly well, I was just rusty. At various times in my life, I've wanted to be :a physicist, a pilot (something came true!), a computer programmer (boring!), etc, but I always had a love for the 'hard' sciences. Those where you design an experiment based on a hypothesis generated by (hopefully) multiple observations, and then you control the variables as much as possible, experiment, and then check your results.

O.k.. small digression.. but like I said, it's quite a rabbit hole!

Here are some of the things that I have come to know. I'm sure there will be a post about the philosophy of knowledge, after all, how do we know what we know, and how do we know that we know it (or something else that will give you a slushi brain freeze.)

Some of these will be expanded upon in later posts; I've actually been working on some of that anyways.

I originally ordered this in order of certainty, but I write stream-of-consciousness, so I am sure It's totally out of order below #5. #13 could easily be #8, etc:

1. High Fructose Corn Syrup is a poison. I'm even looking for studies (peer reviewed, unbiased, etc, ) that prove this wrong, but there is just nothing out there. Get it out of your diet, get it out of your house, get it out of your life.
2. Wheat and cereal grains are almost as bad as #1 for you. There may even be a connection or additive effect here between the two. This indicts all of the modern grains. Wheat, barley, oats, rye. They are all grasses, we are not cows. It is a tribute to our omnivorousness that we can eat them to being with.
3. Sugars on the whole are not that great for you. Naturally occurring, they usually have lots of fibrous materiel around them... mother nature's packages. You have to eat a lot to get the sugar load, but modern cultivated fruits are a little different from the wild ones, especially in nutritional value.
4. Eat Meat. Like it or not, Vegetarians, modern humans are designed to eat nutrient dense foods. Plants just do not cut it for everything. At the very least, have a little fish now and then, preferably line caught.
5. Grass fed ruminants are the most nutrient dense food we have. The nutrient profile is perfect, the O-3 and O-6 ratios are exact for what we need, the nutrient levels (especially in liver, and other organ tissues,) are off the charts.
6. Eggs are awesomeness in a shell. You can do magic with them.
7. Cut 'boxed' food out of your life. The friend mentioned above (Hi Ash!) was the first who referred to it as "Shop the Outside" (I think.) Eat all the stuff around the outside of the grocery store, and skip the stuff on the shelves in the middle.
8. The jury is still out on milk. Partly because most of the studies on milk use dried casein for the study, and that has well known problems with oxidized cholesterol and inflammation. Talk about stacking the cards. If you are not allergic, milk, raw milk, is probably quite healthy. Fermented/aged milk products rock the house-- yogurt, cheese, butter, kefir....
9. Veggies, fresh and in season, are a must. I have increased my veggie intake at least 100% (which, considering how little I used to eat, is still not that much.) I eat more and more when I can. Even broccoli makes me say yum (with a small protest) now.
10. Strength training is excellent for both men and women. Girls, you will never... and I mean never... have enough testosterone to 'bulk up' the way that men might be able to. It takes years of dedication, and casual workouts ain't gonna do it. Learn how to lift something heavy. It's good for you.
11. Cardio is not that great. High Intensity Interval Training is much better. Long term cardio might even be downright unhealthy for you.
12. Cholesterol is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But your body makes it naturally, and diet cholesterol intake has almost no effect on blood serum levels. Sniff test-- Under normal circumstances, does your body make anything that would harm you? Every single cell in your body needs cholesterol to function, and your brain is a'chock full of cholesterol. More to come on that for SURE.
13. Fat intake helps you burn fat. Yup. Honest Injun'.
14. Carbs make you fat. Carbs of all kinds, from simple sugars (fructose, glucose,) to the big 'uns (starch, glycogen, and cellulose.)
15. Soy is most likely really not that good for you, unfermented. This is a mega issue with vegetarians and vegans. Lots of bad words spoken in forums on this one.
16. A calorie is not just a calorie. It is not just calories in/calories out. Your body is not a closed system. More to come
17. Most treadmill type exercise is a waste of time. You don't burn fat that way. Like Dr Lustig says in his video "That cookie you ate? 250 calories? Yeah, an hour walking on the treadmill... good luck."
18. Cooking 'oils' are about one of the worst things out there. Cook with butter, lard, ghee, coconut oil. Olive oil is for tasting, not cooking.
19. We need sunshine. Every single one of our cells can make its own Vitamin D. It takes sunshine. Vitamin D deficiencies are related to depression. Ever wonder why in the winter and when it is cloudy for days on end people get more depressed?
20. Nearly everything we have been told about nutrition in the last 40 years has been exactly 180 degrees wrong. Our grandmothers and grandfathers lived to be 90 cooking with lard, eating fat, not exercising, and staying outdoors. We are dying in our 50s with tons of exercise, cooking oils, eating tofu burgers and wearing SPF WTF just leaving the house. What are we missing here?
21. We don't get fat because we are eating more, we are eating more because we are getting fat. Subtle difference, but wildly important, related to hormonal control of the body. It's not willpower; you are trying to use your will to overpower a million years of evolution in your hypothalamus for hormone control. You ain't gonna win this fight.

Basically, here is what it comes down to;

Eat Real Food.

Get some Exercise and Sunshine. Go for a walk, and lift your face to the sun.

Every now and then, lift, throw, move something heavy.

Laugh. Dance. Enjoy.

Sleep well.

I have bunches more to write on almost all of this. Posting will take a little while, because I want to have the footnotes, so if you are reading this you can do what I do; just go read the study yourself.

Re-learn to engage your brain. Does it pass the 'sniff test?' If something sounds crazy, is it because it is crazy, or am I just looking through the telescope from the wrong direction? IS anything hidden? Correlation is not causation (mantra-- keep repeating this.) Just because something is observed to happen at the same time, does not mean A effects B. It doesn't even mean B effects A. --- Statistically, ownership of computers has increased on a perfect trend line that parallels yogurt consumption. Does owning a computer make you buy yogurt? Does eating yogurt make you want to go buy a computer? (Does Yoplait own shares of Apple?)Are they related through a third mechanism 'confounding' what we are looking at? (owning a computer means you can look up health information more readily, you read yogurt is good for you, more people buy yogurt. Not direct causation.)

I am going to try and index, or at least footnote, my references, so that will take a little time, too.

Plus, I may make some more yogurt, or butter, or maybe pickle some zucchini, or something, and get distracted... and... um...look! Bubbles!

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Cheers!

Scott