Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
~ Michael Pollan
Last week I posted the first in a series of seven blogs that provide my seven tips to age well.
Ageing well, to me, means increasing the number of years we live a healthy, functional and meaningful life.
This week I will share the second habit.
But before I do, I want to clarify my concern about the food phobias people have been increasingly expressing.
The physiology of fear increases the possibility that we react and develop food sensitivities. Even healthy foods can cause harm if not digested completely. When the fight, flight or freeze branch of our nervous system is activated, we cannot break down and absorb nutrients properly.
Reducing the variety of food we consume increases the likelihood of becoming more reactive. The foods we eat repeatedly are the foods to which we can become sensitive. Rather than cutting out more food, addressing the underlying causes of intolerance is paramount.
Changing what we eat temporarily may be needed to heal. Sometimes a high-fat, low-carb diet (keto) is the answer to deal with memory loss. Sometimes an elemental (pre-digested) diet without fibre is needed to deal with an acute flare-up of irritable bowel disease. And of course, a gluten-free diet is recognized as the life-long medicine for Celiac disease.
But becoming dogmatic about any particular dietary approach is a recipe for disaster. When diet becomes part of our identity - Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian, Vegan - and we judge others for not making similar choices, we suffer. An us versus them mentality is not conducive to optimal health. Making peace, not war, is the way to sustainable health and well-being.
When it comes to health, much of the research conducted is on men. There are too many confounding variables (hormonal cycles, pregnancy, nursing, menopause) that increase the challenge to study women.
High-level female athletes and women who restrict calorie intake excessively stop menstruating and become less likely to reproduce. For the time being, only women can give birth; we are biologically different. With food restriction or increased need for insufficient fuel, the body alarm signals famine. The starvation-stress response kicks in. Cravings increase in a body that is panicking. Sleep is impaired. The body cries out for sweet foods or comfort foods that raise blood sugar. At times, women may need more of these carbohydrate-rich foods than men. They can help us fall asleep and reset our thyroid function.
There is no one-size-fits-all best diet; constitutional types vary; needs change. No matter how healthy food choices may be, eating food with fear and judgment is hazardous to health.
I, personally, would rather be healthy than right.
Garnish plant-rich foods with high-quality herbs, spices, acidity, fat and protein
Food choices do matter. We eat a ton of food annually, literally the equivalent of a small car. It provides the building blocks to replace our tissues, which are regenerated consistently. If we are what we eat and we eat crappy food, we create crappy bodies.
Today we are overfed but malnourished. The body is left hungry for missing nutrients in pre-packaged food products. Michael Pollan says if we are what we eat and we eat the Standard American Diet, we are corn and soy. Real food is not pulverized and reconstituted grains and legumes. It does not include preservatives, colour, meat glues, fake fats and fake sugars.
Highly palatable, artificially flavoured, preserved, packaged and processed foods interfere with the natural selection of nutrients that heal.
In 1926 a paediatrician named Clara Davis took 15 infants into her care, starting at ages 6 to 11 months.
These infants had never consumed anything but breast milk. They were offered a choice of 34 single ingredient foods at each meal. Tastes changed over time. Different foods were craved and chosen based on nutrient needs for the current state of growth. One infant had rickets and consumed cod liver oil, rich in vitamin D and other bone-building nutrients until rickets healed. When assessed by another high profile paediatrician six years later, these children were considered the finest specimens in terms of behaviour and health.
When we rehabilitate our taste buds, we can rely on our inner gurus to guide us to eat foods that nourish us optimally.
In this case, the inner gurus I’m referring to are the gut bacteria. We outsource a lot of what the human machinery cannot manage to them. Based on their needs, they cause cravings and alter our behaviour to satisfy them. If we have healthy bacteria in our gut; and eat a colourful array of vegetables, fruit, roots and tubers, properly prepared grains and legumes, these bacteria convert the fibres and resistant starches into proteins, fats and vitamins. They eat what we can’t digest. A by-product of their food intake, short chain fatty acids, can heal and seal the gut reducing physical and emotional intolerances.
A plant-rich, whole foods, fresh, local, herbicide and pesticide-free, seasonal diet grown in naturally fertilized soil is sustainable and optimal for most. When plants experience challenges to growth, they produce information that increase our resilience. Variety and rotation of food facilitate adaptation to the local environment and its natural cycles.
Fill the plate with a colourful array of in-season vegetables garnished with:
herbs and spices
acidity (lemon, lime, apple cider vinegar)
high-quality fats like extra virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, ghee, grass-fed cultured butter
protein such as pasture-raised eggs and dairy, wild fish, free-roaming poultry, grass-finished beef, or whole plant proteins like hemp seed, buckwheat, spirulina, fermented organic soy
treat yourself to colourful fruit and home-baked goods
Growing up on farmland that relied on natural inputs, not lab-made fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, I understand the value of having animals roam the land, chew the grass and fertilize the soil. I learned that animal foods are very nutrient-dense.
Of course, the animals were not colossally confined in feeding operations and treated with hormones and antibiotics. Nor were we eating them in large amounts. While the fitness industry encourages the elderly to eat more protein, I helped my older clients implement habits that enhanced protein absorption. Less can be more.
Current Nobel prize-winning research shows that when we give our digestive systems a break, we self-eat, clean up cell debris and recycle proteins. So we may not need to rely on animal foods to the extent that we may have in the recent past. Colossally confined animal feeding operations are a hazard to planetary health.
In previous blogs, I have shared my informed opinion on what, how and when to eat. Scroll through and read at your leisure.
We do not inherit the planet from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
~Wendell Berry
Garnishing clean, whole, fresh, local, and seasonal plant foods with high-quality herbs, spices, acidity, fats, and proteins is an effective way to age well and heal the planet.
Add, don't subtract, to displace unhealthy food choices over time. It's about progress, not perfection. Food can be our best medicine.
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