(During a looming food-security crisis, a full-on pandemic of preventable, diet-related diseases and…)
Our changing climate and Putin’s war may have combined to threaten food security. And, alongside these crises, there’s a cross-current of complex, what-to-eat choices. I’m a 73-year-old living an active life. Heart and brain function exams and tests indicate I’m enjoying excellent health. However, ten or so years ago, this wasn’t so. I had been a vegetarian for most of my adult life, but I was eating few veggies, mostly defaulting to convenient, starchy grains, legumes and potatoes. Tests indicated I was pre-diabetic but, what finally got my attention were my bouts of brain fog. I fretted over what this might mean. What came next was a chaotic, frantic search; and, admittedly, perhaps I was guided as much by Amazon’s algorithms (“People who have read this book also liked…”) as by inspiration.
My discovery process lasted several years. Many of the diet and lifestyle changes I made during this phase seemed at first to be impossible. But, I began feeling lots better—both in brain function and overall health. Although there were frequent backslides, especially when traveling or socializing, it appeared that I was on the right track. I staggered onward and, nowadays, many foods I once thought were essential have lost their appeal.
Diet disquiet may be inevitable for most of us. And, if we distance ourselves from this fray—and maybe merely shrug at inflating food prices—are we unaffected and unscathed? Our food security, personal health and well-being may hang in the balance: for a host of reasons, scarcities may soon be more common, and there is a daily rain of reports warning that foods in our grocery stores and restaurants are engineered to be irresistible and addictive, but hardly nutritious.
Is it incumbent on us all to weigh what’s being said about our foods and, by whom? And yet, conversely, who is able to discern truth vs. falsehood—let alone healthy from harmful—during this age of disinformation? Also, as absurd as it may seem to some, perhaps taste and convenience are our only necessary considerations?
Our ancestors learned millions of years ago to trust their tastebuds. Sweetness, aroma, color and flavor were indicators that meat, fish, foraged fruits, nuts, veggies, mushrooms, seeds and tubers were ripe, safe and nutritious. Sometime along their journey, our progenitors had come to understand nature’s cycles and rhythms, eg., when to sharpen spears in preparation for periodic animal migrations, how soon after a rainstorm to forage for mushrooms or, when to dig for tubers. They learned that trees and bushes time the attracting infusion of fragrance, nutrients and sugars into fruits and berries simultaneous to the readiness of seeds for dispersal.
But, alas, today, a host of researchers report that during the span of just one human lifetime, maybe this eons-old, joyful affinity humans have enjoyed with the web of life has become hijacked. The World Health Organization reports that humans are quite suddenly—relative to our span of existence—getting really sick. These researchers insist that tweaked ingredients and additives give profit-hungry food manufacturers a means of jamming our trusted discernment. Can we no longer trust our tastebuds? On the other hand, if we concern ourselves with such matters, are we taking the human predicament too seriously?
Got your attention? If so, let’s begin with three broad categories of gut-wrench considerations:
Food security quandaries:
Does Earth’s changing climate threaten the crops on which civilization depends?
Wars, particularly Putin’s war in Ukraine, threaten the world’s breadbaskets, rice and salad bowls, and our overall food system. If food insecurity worsens, won’t more wars foment?
There are warnings that our soils are depleted—due to naïve, rapacious farming practices?—to such a degree that, at the present rate of continued degradation—there may remain only sixty growing seasons before there’s no longer fertility to feed our masses.
Is there a looming freshwater-supply collapse—adding increased peril to our food supply?
For a more secure future, should we engage directly in a search for more sustainable sources of sustenance, such as, growing our own and locally grown?
Some what-to-eat dilemmas:
How many grams of sugar and other carbohydrates can we safely ingest daily before it’s toxic? Many nutrition experts urge us to scrap calorie counting. Instead, they recommend counting grams of carbohydrates. The ideal, however, may be as minimal as 50 grams per day for adults; much less for children. (That’s about the number of sugar grams in two slices of bread. Yes, bread counts as sugar.) (Another informative read is The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes.)
Which carbohydrates are healthful, which carbohydrates and food additives should we swear off as mere additional sugar? Apparently, when we eat leafy greens, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and the like, small amounts of glucose (sugar) are slowly and safely metered into our blood stream. Many experts report that these veggies should become our new daily staples, replacing breads, cereals, crackers, chips, potatoes, today’s hybridized fruits, corn and rice.
This latter list of starchy cultural keystones may have been healthful back when our agrarian ancestors toiled from dawn til dusk. However, since the advent of automation, sedentary lifestyles, and, a food industry that has mastered food science to maximize profits, our innards are awash in excess sugar. This perfect-storm convergence has been like a flurry of gut punches, we are told, which has led to a pandemic of ill effects.
Question: Eating which of these makes our bodies store fat: carbs or fats? Fats, right? Well, researchers—and keto dieters—say, guess again. (Of course, as with anything, too much fat intake may also be harmful. An additional caveat is that many dieters—including me—have discovered that on an extended, full-time keto regimen, we lose too much weight.)
Is it worth our attention that our ancestors were more likely to eat the seed kernels of fruits and melons and discard the actual fruit? Is hybridization for ever-increased sugar content like a blindside magnet placement that has rotated our healthy-stuff compass needles from north to south, and we spit those seeds?
Is there a minimum daily protein requirement? How does protein intake affect blood sugar levels?
Is meat protein essential to good health or a detriment? How important is it that, if we do eat meat, it’s from animals that have grazed freely on their natural diets?
Our bodies have a surprising ability to produce proteins when needed. Studies indicate that more important to health than daily protein may be micronutrients best obtained from small doses of the fats of animals that only eat grasses.
Which fats undermine good health; which are essential? It’s difficult to sort out fact from fiction in all of these regards, but it seems safe to recommend drenching meals in olive or avocado oil. Also, it appears that those early studies warning of health hazards when eating saturated fats were counterfeit. And, there are reports of real health perils associated with the cheap-to-produce oils that for so long have been touted as the “healthy” alternatives to saturated fats.
Supposedly, we choose to consume seafood for its “healthy fats.” However, pollutants are usually fat solvable and accumulate in the fat tissues. Toxins are magnified manifold each time a big fish eats a smaller fish. And, flesh of farmed salmon, fed a different diet than that enjoyed by their uncaged cousins, is without the omega-3 fat benefit. (Watch Seaspiracy, the movie.)
Due to depleted soils and subsequent diminished nutrition in foods, does it behoove us to take daily handfuls of dietary supplements?
Is there a gluten problem?
Is there a GMO problem?
Is the herbicide glyphosate (the brand name is Roundup) harmful to humans? Can we trust corn-based products to not contain a glyphosate residue?
We know that, for most of us, the more regular, vigorous exercise we get—short of obsession—the longer, smarter and healthier we will live. But is our pandemic of preventable diseases due solely to our having sedentary lifestyles, as we are often told, or must we also scrap the modern human diet?
Is there a diet or food that’s natural? An answer may seem improbable after a gaze back through recent evolution: It was a mere 11.7 millennia ago when the ice age melted and human/eco-system relationships shifted. Fatty-flesh mastodons and giant sloths became extinct—perhaps due at least in part because they were too-easy targets for spear throwers. To survive disruptions, many of our ancestors adapted by domesticating docile animals (eg., cows, goats, chickens and sheep) and native grasses for their seeds (eg., wheat, rice and corn).
Some paleo-anthropologists favor a portrayal of our ancestors’ ape-to-hominid-to-homo-sapiens transition as having been initiated by a sudden and then eons-long climate shift. Supposedly, our earliest ancestors were forced by necessity to learn the advantages of walking on two feet, use stone tools and scavenge fat-rich bone marrow and carrion. The idea is that sometime along this evolutionary pathway, their brains grew much larger—perhaps facilitated by fat-rich diets. For these early adventurers, some present-day researchers suggest, a stumble upon a means to extract bone marrow at an abandoned kill site may have sustained a family for days. If this portrayal is accurate, there was a long evolutionary process in Africa, particularly in the East African Rift Valley. However, new findings suggest that creation of human and human-like creatures may have unfolded differently in each African region.
Some writers propose that consumption of fat (for example, bone marrow) had permitted sustained energy for days compared to quick energy bursts when consuming proteins and carbohydrates. Of course, emerging Adams’ and Eves’ new diet likely still included scavenged seasonal veggies, tubers, nuts, meats, mushrooms and fruits.
Pieced together bits of evidence strongly suggests that it wasn’t until relatively recently that humans began to migrate out of Africa and diets necessarily shifted once again. This portrayal of early humans suggests that with the advent of agriculture, an eons-old cuisine underpinned by animal fats evolved (unfortunately?) to starchy beds of rice, slices of bread and corn tortillas.
How much weight does one allow give-a-hoot dilemmas when selecting mealtime fare?
It seems that to live primarily on high-fiber, high-nutrition, high-color veggies isn’t any more natural to our species than a meat-based diet. But…meat production is said to require many times the resources than that required to produce a plateful of veggies containing comparable caloric content.
Does it matter whether meat was produced in factory-like conditions?
Avocados are touted as being a perfect food but, it’s difficult to ignore accounts that say it requires, on average, 18 to 60 gallons of water (depending on who you are listening to) to grow each of these fruits. And, that criminal cartels now extort much of the profit derived from our avocado purchases.
Does it matter that the fishing industry has not only devastated fisheries around the world but is reportedly causing the entire ocean ecosystem—on which all life depends!—to soon collapse?
Is agriculture as we know it sustainable—particularly, our meat-production industry? If not, how secure is our food supply?
We read often that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. What are we when we dispense candy, soda, ice cream, etc. to children?
Might today’s quandaries change civilized society from “live to eat” to “eat to live”?
Knowing sweets and comfort carbs are addictive and, assuming we prefer not to be an addict, must we reassess our relationships to foods?
Is evolution’s human-being experiment ill-fated? If it is fleeting, won’t the bulk of planet Earth’s penance for having hosted us lapse and fade away in mere millennia? Our legacy of having grown in number to 8-10 billion may someday appear as scars no more pronounced, perhaps, than those of Earth having been struck by stray asteroids over the eons. If we are participants presently in just one of the cosmos’s myriad, marvelous, yet momentary blooms—why stress?
Feeling frazzled? Juggling two or more jobs? Feel too old or too sick? There are many good reasons not to search out and ponder answers to these questions. Additionally, many might feel indifferent or are conflicted due to an alignment with the narrative generated by corporate interests.
I’m writing this blog post because I feel there are, however, many readers who are able and feel obliged to embark on such a quest. My guess is that either many of you are experiencing health or weight-gain issues, you are wondering how you might improve your longevity, or you sense the weight of the ethics involved in all of today’s choices.
For those of you whose interest is piqued, I hope to be of assistance on your way forward by sharing my personal process of discovery. I also hope this disclosure will begin dialogue among fellow sojourners—wherein I might also learn from you—and a synergy will form. Your stories, your suggestions for further topic development and other thoughtful feedback are hoped for.
The following are my adapted diet fundamentals:
- I prepare most of my own meals. Main dishes primarily include: Lots of leafy greens, lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, avocados and asparagus. These, I prepare steamed or raw or sautéed.
- I always add a generous slathering of olive or avocado oil to my foods.
- Normally I include one egg from pasture-raised chickens with breakfasts.
- I add herbs generously. Favorites are basil, rosemary and dill.
- Included with most meals are lots of mushrooms, all edible types.
- No fish or seafood. (Yes, it does seem that the fishing industry is Earth’s enemy.)
- Frequently, servings of fermented foods, such as sauerkraut are included.
- I eat a 3- or 4-ounce portion of grass-fed bison many times each week. (Click here to learn some of our rationale for this decision.)
- Added are slices of sheep or goat cheese or pinches of bacon bits as a flavoring. (Agreed, bacon may be a dangerous indulgence. I take this risk and some others for sake of adding flavors.)
- Nuts, berries, olives, sprouted seeds, coffee and dark chocolate are included, usually once or twice a day.
- I try to avoid: factory-farm meats; sweets and artificial sweeteners; breads containing wheat; pastries and pies; out of season, shipped-from-somewhere-far-away fruits; potatoes and rice; squashes and melons (due to their high glycemic index number); any processed or packaged foods (other than pinches of bacon).
- I try to avoid “foods” with long lists of ingredients and oils—other than olive, avocado and coconut (I’m avoiding most seed oils and palm oil).
- Perhaps once each week, on average, I eat legumes and small portions of either poultry or grass-fed beef.
- I try each day to only eat during an eight to ten hour window, such as, a 10:00 am or noon breakfast and an early evening dinner.
Nowadays, regarding diet, what goes on is a constant inner negotiation. Sometimes I feel too darn hungry after a having-run-too-long activity to endure these seeming myriad considerations. And, lines get drawn slightly differently each visit to a market. Many food choices are now easy, many remain wrenching. I savor delicious foods, but these same delights are less wonderful, I find, when there’s disquiet that comes with. And, former favorite restaurant delights now often seem over-salted and grossly over-sweetened. Achieving a joyous culinary communion while doing the least harm to myself and others seems to be a moving target.
You might be grumbling—or crying uncle!—having perused these paragraphs. And…many others of you may instead be crying uncle! under the torment of agonizing illnesses—which your health care provider carefully manages, but, for which—maybe mysteriously—she or he has no cure.
And, possibly, you now feel a bite of unease as you merely imagine a satisfying meal. In response, I grin compassionately in your direction and chuckle: “I hear you.” I’m urged to add that although my search for better health and improved peace of mind has been difficult—at long last—improvements seem worth the time and effort. I trust your quest will be rewarded likewise.
By ending this post’s subtitle with an ellipsis (…), I’m suggesting there’s another provisions-related ponderable—beyond food insecurity and insane ingredients. Must we align ourselves to a more enlightened (We can only hope!) culinary communion and mealtime celebration? If foods and food production must be reinvented yet again—as in, making passé many treasured pastimes: pizza parties, meetups for burgers with fries, and/or chocolate cake, ice cream, or a soda, and so on—will it be due to our having made a shift in priorities, points of view and personal resonance?
“Man is the model of the world,” wrote Leonardo da Vinci five centuries ago. Many other visionaries since—in kindred wonderment—have aimed their beacons to laud this marvel. Each fresh portrayal reawakens our awe—whichever direction our lenses are pointed. And—whether it’s a glimpse of myriad galaxies through the Hubble Space Telescope, the spray of an alpine meadow’s July blossoms or the otherwise invisible world revealed by an electron microscope—what’s mirrored is our own beauty within.
Many of us seek, whether through worship, meditation, service or another form of communion, to attune ourselves to a more splendid resonance. Might choosing to picture the modern human race as just one in the universe’s myriad blossoms—one that will crest (has crested?) and collapse (is collapsing?)—allow us to revel in such resonance?
Does that “more splendid resonance” require that we are actively seeking sustainable sustenance? Wouldn’t a more satisfying resonance require an active search for harmony and healing with other life forms and their processes?
The cycle of life is driven by an urge to produce a better-adapted seed or embryo. Countless plants and creatures live entire lives merely to foster a thriving next generation. Might it be that—in accordance with an entire universe of cyclic processes and rhythms—there is no higher mission for one’s life than to improve the eventual seed-like outcome of the humankind blooming process?
The underlying question this website poses is What is my gift? One hopeful inference is that to ask this question is to tap the Universe’s tuning fork that resonates with All-of-It. Might a journey toward a more enlightened culinary communion help clear our resonance channel?