How watching horse racing might change your eating habits.
Why nutrition is complicated, and why your grandma knew it better.
Here is a thing, our paleolithic ancestors and your grandma had no nutrition education. And had no way of figuring out, what to eat and what not to eat. Nor did they have some authority figure, telling them what to eat and what not to eat. So what did they do to make sure to eat for health today, and hopefully for a long productive life, in the times, when there was no extensive medical care able to treat diseases of their lifestyle, if they had any?
They relied on generational wisdom.
They learned from their parents, that learned from their parents, that learned from their parents… you get the idea. They learned, what was good to eat and what wasn’t, what kept them fit and able to work hard to survive and what didn’t, what they needed to eat regularly to prevent diseases and health hazards (very possibly death), caused by some deficiencies (Vitamins were not discovered till the beginning of the 20th century). There was no food marketing to make them confused, to sell them something thy didn’t need, or to demonize certain food of food ingredient to prevent them from eating it, when it was obviously beneficial for health. So they just ate, what made sense, according to what they learned from their grandparents or village elders.
Makes sense so far?
Just imagine, what you would do, if we didn’t have nutrition facts labels, or the whole supermarket thing and food available 24/7, and you had to rely solely on what was grown in your garden or on your farm, animals you raised, fish you caught, whatever you foraged. How would you know, which mushroom could be a great source of nutrients with some beneficial to your gut fibers, and which one could kill you? How would you know, which foods you absolutely needed to eat for healthy bones and teeth? To have a healthy child?
You’d probably learn from people, who knew people with robust health, who shared what they ate — and that would be passed from generation to generation to create species, that could survive and thrive. Basically, so you and I could exist.
Makes sense?
And then a few generations later…
You and I live in a world, where even our parents hardly remember, what their parents fed them and why, and that there was such time, when we didn’t need nutrition facts labels to count calories to make sure we eat the right amount of food, that there was time, when nobody was telling us, what nutrient was out there to kill us, or what diet to follow to prevent over-expansion of our waistline. We think ,that generational nutrition wisdom is some fluff close to superstition beliefs, forgetting, that it was formed by thousands of years of experience VS our modern nutrition, that is about a century old.
If we did more proper research of our generational eating habits, we could have avoided infant deaths caused by feeding them some “advanced” formula, that your grandma would not even dare feed farm animals, we definitely could have avoided that much obesity, if we didn’t try to outsmart nature, replacing whole foods by some “advanced” food-like products.
And when people ask me these days, “Why do nutrition and healthy eating have to be that complicated? Vitamin A, vitamin, D, vitamin K2, potassium and magnesium, calcium, some fats are essential some are more like slowly-killing poisons, some plants will make your gut ecstatic, and some plants are on a mission to bring you down? Why can’t we just eat whatever? Whenever? Like our ancestors did?”
Only — they didn’t. They had thousand-year-old experience to back up their eating habits.
On my FOOD SCHOOL podcast last week with Chris Masterjohn (one of the brightest nutrition scientists from Brooklyn) we talked about that. About that caveman nutrition wisdom, that will outsmart most of us, when it comes to healthy eating. And we also talked about how variety in our diet is absolutely essential, if we want to stay healthy, performing well mentally and physically, avoiding diseases, mental and physical (We also talked about a vegan diet, that both of us experienced first-hand, and how it can drive you nuts).
Variety.
I’m not talking about different flavors of potato chips, pizza toppings, or yogurt-like sugary desserts kind of variety.
I’m talking about variety of proteins: meat, fish, poultry, eggs, organ meats, dairy, different animals, different parts of animals, quail and duck eggs, chicken and beef, or even cod livers, bones and bone broth, fish row, goat and sheep dairy.
I’m talking about variety of tomatoes and carrots, greens, yams and potatoes from different parts of the world, vegetables of all colors, shapes, sizes and seasons.
What about fermented foods and all sorts of pickles?
Hundreds of herbs, spices and mushrooms?
That’s the variety I’m talking about. Food variety VS Product variety. See the difference?
With Chris we also talked about vitamins and minerals. Especially fat-soluble vitamins, and minerals to support them, essential for very important cellular functions, like replicating your DNA or forming cell membranes, or depositing calcium in your bones and teeth instead of your arteries, at the same time keeping your heart beating and muscles contracting, instead of accumulating fat around your liver and other organs, causing an exponential belly growth.
We argue a lot these days, “Why is it, we are seeing this health epidemic right now in our never-has-been-that-affluent-before society?”.
Obesity is sky-rocketing along with diabetes, cancers, neurological and brain disorders, mental illnesses?
There are many reasons for this. For sure.
But might one of the big ones be — we abandoned our generational eating habits as some ancient mythology, but we haven’t quite figured out yet a better system to put in place of that?
But might one of the big ones be — we abandoned our generational eating habits as some ancient mythology, but we haven’t quite figured out yet a better system to put in place of that?
We think our food industry got us covered.
Really?
Most people in food industry have zero to none nutritional education.
Is that, who you trust to make eating decisions for you? Food decisions? Health decisions?
It’s like going to a mechanic, who has equal to yours knowledge of how a car works, expecting him to fix it and maintain it in a tip-top condition.
Our body is an amazing machine, that pretty much is maintaining itself.
But only, when provided the ingredients it needs, the conditions to thrive.
In a world of animal racing — horse racing, camel racing, dog racing — it is universally accepted, that the better the food and living conditions you provide for the animal are — the better it’ll do in a race, the closer it’ll get to a state of peak performance.
Human beings are animals too. With a better operating system.
