We are, by evolution, omnivores, my friend. Way back we ate grubs - be pleased that I don't do that anymore. But I would, in a starving situation.
If I don't eat meat once in a while, I get weak - I tried it. I am small and slim (BMI around 21). Meat is on the table about once a week. Fish three times, vegetarian three times.
Occasionally, I do vegetable-broth fasting for detox. I cook and eat several fresh vegetables every day. I make green smoothies every day. But my body tells me that it needs meat and fats (good fats, like coconut, olive, duck). If I don't eat fat, I get voracious and crabby.
Besides, I have the same weight since age twelve ... I must be doing something right.
Having kept my weight (except for pregnancies - I gained twenty pounds with my daughter, and forty with my son, bouncing right back to my normal weight immediately - umh, with some attention and work) all my life, of course, disqualifies me to dispense advice - because overweight people think it is sheer luck that I am slim. I have a chubby sister and a heavy brother (I love them dearly – and worry about them); I have one slim brother - no, it's not genes! - he is the one who commutes by bike and ran a marathon.
My basic idea about nutrition is that we all are coming from different ethnic, geographical backgrounds and therefore really need slightly different foods. What works for me, might not necessarily work for you. What we don't need, however, is industrial junk labeled as "food".
But: In nature, there is no "vegetarian" or "vegan" animal, really. A cow in the meadow gobbles up tons of insects with the grass it is eating. A lion, when devouring its prey, goes for the stomach contents first - which contain grasses and grains.
We all belong to the same living web. Our brains don't make us superior, or different. Thinking you should be "vegetarian" or "vegan" does not make you so; it does not alter your evolutionary make-up and the ancient requirements of body … and spirit.
Lastly, having said that, I am compassionate for the animals who will die for me. The rare times I eat meat, it is organic, grass-fed, free-roaming, preferably local. The animals should be kept humanely, and killed swiftly. I say a prayer over each fish or flesh that goes through my kitchen - not a religious prayer - a prayer of gratitude. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Food And Vitamins
July 8, 2011
Last time we discuss vitamins for a while – I promise!
Yesterday, in my tiredness, I forgot the most important reason why the vitamin bottle is not the answer, but good food is.
We are hardwired to live with and thrive on the plants and animals of this Earth. For millions of years, through all of Evolution, have we been eating the stuff this Earth provides to us. Only during the last one hundred years we are trying to outsmart Nature and to improve on what the Earth gives us.
The detection that there are chemical substances without which a person would die was a great breakthrough. They called those substances “vitamins” – from Latin “vita”, life.
What chemists did not understand then – and many not even now – is that those are only the most conspicuous chemical compounds we cannot survive without. Many other compounds take longer to get depleted – but depleted they become. Perhaps only after years, but then diseases set in. We hear now a lot about anti-oxidants and polyphenols, but there are certainly others. How do I know? Here is the answer: Whenever population studies are done on people who still live close to the Earth – like the people on the Japanese island of Okinawa – they find that they live longer and have much fewer degenerative diseases, including cancer. One can conclude that they have something in their food which we don’t – and which our bodies miss out.
Replacing with vitamins from a bottle is an extremely crude method to make up for healthy food. As we have discussed, too much of something good in too short time wreaks havoc on a body. And vitamins are only the tip of the iceberg – other compounds are lacking, too. Replacing vitamins makes those deficiencies only more dramatic and increases the imbalance in the body.
Health is not a single substance - health come from the whole. A vitamin bottle has nothing to do with the web of life.
If you think you can’t put a fresh meal every evening on the table because you are working so hard in your job: While I was in medical training and had a new baby (I know – looks like bad planning; l but I loved both and wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on either!), I still put good food on the table (I froze some ion my less busy days, but otherwise my food was self-prepared from fresh ingredients).
Without good food, we die – more or less slowly. I wouldn’t want that for my family. Read More
Otto’s Nipples
April 24, 2011
You must have heard about my adorable tomcat Otto. He is all black, with two small white spots, on his breast and on his belly.
Every time he sees me, he throws himself on his back, begging for a belly rub. When I first got him from the shelter, his fear to be touched by a stranger was greater than his desire to get a belly rub. But over time, he became bolder, and now I can touch his belly most of the time, and indeed, he even demands it.
So, when I do my chore and rub his belly, invariably I am astonished to find that he has nipples, two nice rows of it. What a waste to put nipples on a male! In a female, the nipples would serve to feed the young. But in a male?
In the Creation story, God takes a rib from the sleeping Adam and shapes Eve out of it. So why did Adam have nipples? He shouldn’t!
I don’t want to offend religious feelings, but nipples prove that Evolution is real, and that Darwin was right. For me, nipples are the neatest evidence for the Earth and all her inhabitants having come a long way.
In fetal development, the first fourteen weeks are exactly the same in male and female. After that, under influence of the male hormone testosterone, a boy and his special parts develops. If testosterone is not supplied (as in a genetic girl), the fetus stays what it was, basically, and becomes a girl. And since having or not having nipples is of minor consequence, evolution never selected against nipples; they just stayed where they were left at week fourteen of embryonic development.
Medically, the male breast occasionally can develop cancer – just like the female breast does. But the number is only one in a hundred male cases to female cases. Anyway, an unusual swelling in a man’s breast should be evaluated by a physician.
However, swelling of both male breasts usually stems from the influence of hormones (or hormone-like substances). It is called gynecomastia, meaning: breasts like females. They can be a sign that testosterone levels are too low in a man, or that estrogens are too high. In any case, they should also be seen by a physician. This condition often happens in puberty, when the balance of hormones is not yet perfect, and most often it vanishes on its own.
In older men, development of breasts may have to do with obesity and/or alcohol consumption: When the liver is too busy with alcohol, it cannot break down estrogens very well – those estrogens are also produce normally in men, although in low numbers. But when the liver is failing, the estrogen level rises relative to testosterone levels, and gynecomastia develops. Time to drink less alcohol (or none)! The liver has a great capacity for regeneration – and half a year alcohol-free does wonders (if there wasn’t already cirrhosis, the end-stage of liver disease).
All these musings just from stroking Otto’s belly – amazing. But even more amazing is Evolution, I guess. Read More