Evolutionary Nutritional talks

The daily nutritional talks are based up solid science, evolutionary timescales, and common sense.

Unexpectedly, these talks are often the highlight of the week.

Each day you have a two-hour opportunity to stretch your intellectual capacity, be astounded by the order and complexity of your body, and understand just why so many of the foods we currently consume are working against us is in a very obvious biological way..

The Journey of Unlearning

To look at nutrition, first we must look at ourselves, our culture, the pressures, the current reasons we eat. 

And to strip all of that away, to see the biology behind food, we must first look at the human animal, rather than the human being.

Evolutionary Predispositions

Much of our understanding of human health is drawn from what we know of human illnesses. Tissues and nutrients come to our attention because they are left wanting in our current population. 

To truly understand human nutrition, it is most useful to start right at the beginning to see what we can learn from the pre-human condition.

See article on the digestive system

Evolutionary Biology

When looking at human diet, it is useful to consider the last 100,000 years, (the prairie ape concept) but that is best held within the context of the 120m year period before it (the great apes). 

Understanding our gut in this context shows us everything we need to know about food, diet, and modern culinary traditions.

See article on the digestive system

We are Bacterial Beings

One microbe’s wastes are another’s food, and we are a result of an evolved set of synergized loops.

A community of microbial teams working together for the good of us all. We feed them, they feed us

See article on the importance of digestive bacteria

Effects of Cooking Foods

We cook food for many reasons, but no one can really remember them nowadays. So today the question remains; does it still benefit us?

Heat destroys compounds, making a few are made more available, but most are made less accessible. The additional enzymes are required to digest generate heat, allowing us to understand possible connections to Ayurveda & TCM.

Culturally there have been advantages - from empire-building to emotion-squashing, through the use of grains and their fermentative bi-products.

But if they are so important, why does no other animal eat them. And why does no other problem with the fibre in its diet, that we use grains for.

Coffee & Grains

A completely different way of seeing what are natural foods for us, and why we have adopted other methods of eating to survive life in the inhospitable lands we found ourselves in.

However, these relatively new food routines are about survival, and have little to do with our inherent nutrition, and they cause havoc on the biological level.

This medicines were invented to deal with ailments, as well as other problems, like energy levels.

Coffee is the best example of both of these principles in action.

Essential Sugars

If sugars are so bad for us, why do they taste so damned attractive ?  And why aren't all fruit-eating apes suffering from diabetes and obesity ?

The truth is that the whole biological kingdom depends upon them. None more so than us. We are the kings and queens of sweet - co-evolved with the canopy to develop the perfect food.

That's why its called a 'sweet tooth'.

 Effects of Combining Foods

Of all the animals, we are the only ones that do not mono-eat. This mean that we combine foods into meals that were never selected for over the process of evolution. 

It is a series of decision that we have made in the recent course of cultural and economic events - nothing to do with nutrition.

The greater the difference between combined foods, the greater the digestive distress.

• Sugars - how they compete with starch & protein

• Starches- how they combine after ptyalin

• Proteins - how they combine after peptides

 The Role of Fasting and Detox

The pressure put upon our ancestors digestive organs was enough for them to generate illnesses and seek solutions like fasting. The additional stresses and chemical intruders of modern life make fasting an even more effective and essential tool for health.

Fasting works through the pancreas, blood and liver to cleanse congested organs and alleviate the effects of congestive conditions.

See article on the role of fasting

 Colonics & Cleansing Techniques

Colonics are such a common phenomena these days we forget that they were invented for a specific purpose - to use while fasting.

Much of the controversy around them is undone when considered in this context. It is only when they are performed in daily life that the problems mount up.

• The role and function of colonics

• The difference between types of colonic irrigation

• The context of cleansing methods

 Tastes as Indicators

What can we learn from our taste buds, and the culinary tricks we know and love so much?

Are these following compounds essential for life and therefore our tastebuds drive us to consume more of them ?

Or are they just deadly, drug foods, and we are being suckered by our own search for greater 'highs' ?

• Sugars – energy exchange across all biology

• Salts – the mortar between the bricks

• Fats – keeping a cell as a cell

• Starches - not in human taste evolution

Proteins

Emotional obsession or rational compulsion ?

• All cells are built from protein

• Messy and expensive to digest

• Massive impact on pH balance

• Relationship to congestive conditions such a gout

• Why are herbivores bigger than carnivores ?

See article on the global protein obsession

Calcium

Evolutionary precedence of calcium

Bone building and alkalising the body, but where to get it ethically?

The role of cow’s milk in building their babies, and its problems for humans

See article on the roles of calcium

Comparing milks

Human milk comparison

• Sugar/fat/protein ratios with cow's milk

• Soya milk Vs. human milk = Phyto-estrogens, etc.

• Goat & sheep = similar digestive tracts

• Nut milks = Treetop nutrition

The Miracle of Omega Oils

Is it a miracle or just another evolutionary throwback?

• Omegas only found in the plant kingdom

• Fish oils sold as Omegas, but they're not plants

• DHA / EPA as animal derivatives of Omegas

• Omegas are essential – not build-able

• Prostaglandins and inflammation regulation

• Nerves - myelin sheaths and signal conduction

• Brain – grey matter and behavioural consistency

See article on the the importance of dietary Oils

The Cholesterol connection

• Seen as a national killer

• Biologically it is a healing compound

• So why are we shooting the messenger?

• Arterial wall oxidation and plaque

Antioxidants in diet

We are the only lineage of animal that cannot produce its own Vitamin C

• Oxidative damage without sufficient regulators

• Vitamin C in diet rather than blood

• Pointing to bias towards fruit & leaves

• No Vitamin C in diet erodes blood & brain

• Points back to Omega oils in nature

• Points back to elevated cholesterol in population

See article on the wonders of fruit

Healing many major killers in society

Simply by eating as evolution dictates and nature intends, leaving medicines for the more complex maladies

STARCHES

• Need for caffeine

• Adrenal burnout

• Insomnia

• Mood swings

See article on what happens to all that starch

ANTIOXIDANTS

• Arterial Plaque

• Heart disease

• Strokes

• Aging

See article on the wonders of fruit