The secrets to healthy eating

Eating healthfully is one of the "secrets" of health and vitality. There are others, good sleep, loving relationships, balanced and dynamic movement of the body. I don't know if any of the "secrets" to health and vitality are more important than the others, but I do know eating healthfully is, let's say, a bit more of a mystery or point of contention than some of the others. Good quality of sleep for example...most will agree that good sleep is one of the more important aspects of health and vitality. The various aspects that induce the best health may all be equal, but even if so many of us will be less informed on one in particular.

Meanwhile, the foods we eat have become a huge point of contention for those of us who are interested in optimal health, vitality, and longevity. It is fair to say however this group is for the most part considerably healthier than those who pay little to no attention to quality of food and diet. The obesity rate in the US is the clear marker of this unfortunate state of affairs.

So then, what are these "secrets" of healthy eating? I may not know them all myself, but I will do my best to identify them.

One of them is "easy to digest". This may not sound like a big deal, but in fact is huge. Now, ice cream is easy to digest, but is also lacking in nutrients, so another qualifier of healthy eating is "high in nutrition". Easy to digest and high in nutrition means we are using less energy to aquire our nutrition. More "miles per gallon", we might say, on some level it's all about efficiency.

Let's also say if we tried to live on a diet of pills we wouldn't get very far, so then it becomes obvious that "real food" is the critically important element. 

Then let's also seperate the junk from the real, the primary distinction being non-fractionated "whole" foods that arrive to our tables and bodies in as close to their natural state as possible. 

One problem however is whole foods may not taste as good when they are not "seasoned" with highly palatable substances that create a dopamine cascade in the brain. It's not unusual to hear some people refer to health destructive and addictive drugs as "dope", a slang term for toxins that make us feel better in the short term, and worse over the long term.

So then one of the conditions that reduces optimal health is "over seasoning" our food, which then creates a pleasurable dopamine cascade in our brain, which reduces the power and efficacy of whole foods. It's a bit odd that we post industrial humans have come to the point we do not necessarily realize the whole fresh unprocessed foods we are biologically adapted to are those that are maximally effective in creating health.

"Frankenfoods", even over seasoned foods, are a mostly unrecognized problem that is highly profitable, for pretty much the same reason drugs are highly profitable...the dopamine cascade in the brain. Restaurants that serve up overly stimulating calories, which is most of them, are to some significant degree responsible for the health destructive obesity problem in the post industrial world.

Food as a drug? Sure, it can be. It's probably safe to say most of obesity is down to this problem, and food as a drug is a mostly invisible problem.

Table salt is toxic, a primary contributor to the various cardiovascular diseases that kill most of us prematurely.

Another drug masquerading as food is table sugar...100% calories, zero nutrition. (Eat whole fruits, they are real food, and are nutritious, delicious, and quell the refined sugar addiction.)

Another problem hiding in plain sight is refined fats, which we know as vegetable oils, and 100% calories but zero nutrition, and a major contributor to obesity. We don't even know these empty calories are in most foods, and dangerous. After all, they are tasteless. They are also the other major contributor to premature death in the US. 

If refined oils in foods are so destructive to health why are they there to begin with? They make cooking highly palatable substances easier.

So the primary secret to healthful eating is to know the overstimulation of our brain and body with toxic substances is a template unique to post-industrial humans. And then endeavor to adapt to real foods that are non-fractionated and whole. They may not stimulate the taste buds quite as much at first, but as we adapt we will recognize that we feel better, and healthier.

As I've done many times in this blog on health, I will recommend a book that has helped many understand the "food as a drug" problem:

The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health & Happiness.

What's all the fuss about whole food plant based?

A physician I just learned about will explain it better than I can. Hint: it's multifaceted, perhaps infinately so. 

Meet Dr Rubin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3vvPnOpKBg

The AI Potential for Malevolence....Really?

AI is an interesting technology, and like all technologies will be a double edged sword with unintended consequences difficult to predict.

But I'm having difficulty imagining how a non biological structure can be malevolent. Perhaps the word is being misused?

Malevolence belongs to biology, and mostly to human biology. We don't think of natural disasters as malevolence. We don't think of a cheetah killing and eating a gazelle as malevolent. Malevolence is a deliberate evil rising from a lust for power or hatred. It has an emotional origin.

An AI could be programmed to be destructive, but the malevolence would come from the programmer, not the software. It could happen accidently as an unintended consequence where the human creators had no malevolence. But just as hurricanes are not malevolent because hurricanes do not have feelings, an AI could be programmed to be destructive, deliberately or accidentally, but it would not be malevolent because AI cannot have feelings, it/they are not biological.

Malevolence is very simply an expression of the human capacity for evil. Deliberately teaching an AI to be destructive is malevolent, but the machine itself (with no feelings and no hatred) is not malevolent, the human is.

We won't be able to teach an AI to love either. We will be able to teach it to look and sound like love, but real emotion will not be there.

Think for a moment of some of the emotions an AI cannot possess: Regret, anguish, grief, anger, joy love benevolence.

In fact malevolence and benevolence are opposite emotions, but a computer cannot experience either of them, because machines do not have emotions.

An AI enabled human can have emotions because the human continues to be biological.

Certain science fictions can become reality, but others cannot, and we can have difficulty discerning which is which because of the human tendency toward hubris. Hubris, like its opposite, modesty, arise from the capacity for emotion. Pride is an emotion.

Emotions are the most complex aspect of being human, and for that reason we can both value them and despise them. When we despise them we may try to push them into our unconscious to the extent possible in order to function. Hubris exists mostly on the unconscious level, and it is moderated only by becoming conscious of it.

Think of a current figure on the world stage whose name begins with a T and who appears to have little to no capacity for the moderation of his own hubris. Where there is little capacity for the moderation of hubris there is pathological narcissism, a dangerous psychological disorder.

If we humans ultimately become the authors of our own species destruction, that malevolence resides within us. Nukes and computer technology are not malevolent, using them to kill humans is.

Why do we persist in attributing malevolence to software/hardware? The answer is found in psychology, it's the denial mechanism, a way of not facing and taking responsibility for our own destructivity.

The history of all technological progress may be leading to our own species self destruction, it does sometimes appear to be the case. If so we cannot attribute the fault to technology, which has no conscience, no emotion, no blood, no veins. We would only accurately attribute the self destruction of our own species to our own inability to recognize the hubris in our belief we are the masters of the laws of nature and biology.

Fuhrman - How to Stay Fit and Strong at Any Age: Fitness Tips for Longevity

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SLos6olvQc

Longer, healthier, disease free life span

I'm going to reintroduce Dr Joel Fuhrman in this post for a couple of reasons. One, he now has a podcast with his daughter that I have found to be quite informative over time. And two, he has the most science based approach to healthy eating, disease reversal, and longevity of any other expert health advocate I am aware of.

Two of his recent conversations form a solid introduction, or reintroduction, to his perspective and expertise. 

The first of these deals with a significant problem we face as we age, osteoporosis. In this conversation he speaks mostly to the nutrition issue (but he is also a strong advocate of the importance of resistance training in aging):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjetyNW4ybs

The second conversation is more free ranging, covering a broad range of information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pogyaBqGX64

SHARK!

I was at the gym this morning, and while winding down on the treadmill one of the screens was running a National Geographic special on shark attacks on surfers. It made me wonder how common shark attacks are, so I asked Gemini, the Google AI. My question:

Near the shore humans are an easy target for sharks. Why don’t sharks feed on humans more often?

The answer:

The available information provides a comprehensive understanding of shark feeding behaviors, the rarity of shark attacks on humans, and the reasons why sharks generally do not view humans as prey.

Here is a synthesis of the findings:

1. Shark Feeding Behavior and Preferences: Sharks are opportunistic predators with diverse diets. While some species specialize, most sharks eat a variety of marine life, including fish, crustaceans, mollusks, marine mammals, and other sharks. Large species like great whites, tiger sharks, and bull sharks prey on seals, sea lions, dolphins, and turtles. Sharks often target weak, injured, or dying prey to conserve energy.

2. Frequency of Shark Attacks on Humans: Shark attacks are extremely rare. The International Shark Attack File (ISAF) typically records an average of about 60 to 70 unprovoked attacks globally per year. The risk of being attacked or killed by a shark is statistically minuscule; for instance, you are far more likely to be struck by lightning or killed by a falling coconut.

OK, that is not the complete answer, but I think we can stop at far more likely to be killed by a falling coconut :)

The point is this sort of thing can help us understand mythology a bit better, because mythology typically arises from the unconscious fear of death.

Of the most likely causes of premature death in the US, medical error and iatrogenic death are the third leading cause, behind heart disease and cancer. Iatrogenic death refers to a death caused by medical treatment or medical professionals. This includes errors in diagnosis, treatment, medication, or surgical procedures.

We don't come across this information casually because it tramples on one of our most cherished mythologies. So let's put it this way, we are far more likely to be killed by the medical and pharmacology industries than a coconut falling on our head, but we are far more afraid of being eaten by a shark.

So are we being preyed upon by these industries? Interesting question. Surely not, the medical / pharmacological industry is altruistic, right? Humm. 

On the other hand it does profit from our diseases. In fact these industries are more profitable by orders of magnitude than the other major industries combined. 

Surely however, we are not "preyed upon" by these industries. On the other hand the US, the wealthiest nation in the world, is also the sickest developed nation in the world. Why are we so sick?

Well (no pun intended), these industries can't help themselves, they operate (no pun intended) by the profit motive. Whether they intentionally make us sick is a debatable question. One thing can be sure, as long as they operate by a profit motive they are incentivized to disseminate completely incorrect information as to the cause of health, just as they are incentivized to disseminate completely incorrect information as to the cause of disease.

Many if not most doctors start off with altruistic intentions. It's a reasonably safe bet the ones who stick it out do not end up that way.

And it's more than a sad state of affairs, it's tragic.

In fact, it's a title waiting for a book...

Nutrition: An American Tragedy

Dr. Doug makes his case with unassailable logic

But what he is saying is so foreign to our post modern diet and lifestyle choices we literally can't comprehend the truth of it. Meanwhile the average way of eating these days is making us sicker and sicker, and the so-called health care system is making itself richer and richer.

Is what I just said an oversimplification? 

There are also ever increasing levels of environmental toxicities, and it would be difficult to design and mount studies to determine whether the primary cause of increasing post modern diseases are due primarily to toxins we handle and inhale or to toxins we chew and swallow.

Or even, as it has becomes increasingly apparent, to the drugs pushed on us by big pharma.

With all sources of toxicity in the mix it's difficult to find a definitive answer as to which of these three sources of toxicity is the primarily culprit, but it's interesting to note that one of them, environmental toxicities, we do not choose to ingest into our bodies, as they are in our environment, but highly-palatable toxic substances we do choose to ingest.

So that one source of toxicity is completely under our control. So how do we implement these changes? As Dr. Doug says, eat more fruits and vegetables, in particular the ones that can be eaten raw. 

Fruit till dinner, and salads at dinner, it's not complicated, but to get enough calories you will be eating a higher volume of food than you are used to. Why is that? Plants are high in fiber and low in fat, and fats are very calorie dense. It's basically impossible to get fat or stay fat on a high fiber low fat diet, but the processed food industry doesn't want to tell us the truth about that, and big pharma is happy to tell us Ozempic is the answer to obesity.

It's a lie. But a very profitable lie.

Pharma drugs? We can usually stop ingesting these also, as we make healthier choices as to what we chew and swallow.

If something is highly palatable maybe let's stop falling into that pleasure trap, and choose whole fruits instead. When hyper-palatability is eliminated as a choice the palatability of fruits as our healthy choice comes to the fore.

But won't we become weak eating only plants, especially raw plants? You may find it interesting that Dr. Doug Graham has won the British Masters National Powerlifting competition recently, making it two years in a row.

Dr. Doug Graham's journey into dietary logic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoOtT_slJ-U&t=303s