Our closest Ancestors, Drunken Hunters?

I tivo'd a show on Chimpanzee's that I have been watching bits of every morning when I eat breakfast. Seeing as how chimpanzee's are our closest relatives, I thought it would offer some incite into a more natural diet for humans. I found it very interesting to find that there diet is primarily sweet fruits and what ever they can kill. That's right, those cute little animals are actually hunters.




The show went into detail about how they can often be found hunting monkeys, because, well they like the taste of meat. Can you blame them??
On a side note, the african natives are also making a type of banana liquor, by fermenting banana's that the chimps really like. However, the animals are starting to attack human babies local scientists think that this liquor may have something to do with it.

The chimpanzee's are also known to enjoy the occasional tree trunk full of honey, when ever they can find it.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should also check out the Planet Earth - Jungle episode, in which a tribe on chimps attack another tribe for control over a fig tree. I don't want to ruin it for you, but it is not for the squimish.

What does microwaving do to our food?

Found this neat post describing how microwaves effect the number of free radicals/anti-nutrients in our food.Photo from Flickr's *a guy with a camera

http://www.paleodietonline.com/2007/10/microwave-goodbye.html

You should give it a read. Makes you think before saving that extra 5 minutes!

What are we doing when we process our food?

It seems like just about all food is processed in one way or another and most of us don't even realize it. Whether it is frozen, dried, cooking or heated, what does this processing actually do to our food?

After doing a little research, I stumbled upon an interesting post at NutritionData.com, which lists the effects of such processing:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/topics/processing

Looking at these numbers, these are large losses! Cooking and draining your food can reduce up to 75% of your nutrients!!!

But why does this happen? One theory is that anytime hot water touches your food, it takes nutrients from the food, which stay in the water. This means that this nutrient loss can be avoided by consuming that water. Am I asking you to boil carrots and then drink the left over water, absolutely not. But consider making soups or other saucy dishes that allow you to consume the liquids that steal your nutrients. (Be careful many of these sauces are empty calories, and have some of that wonderful high fructose corn syrup in it, so use sparingly)

Also consider steaming your vegetables, as opposed to boiling them. This will allow for less contact with the water and more nutrients being retained. The more al dente (raw) the vegetable, the better it will be for you! Also, Make sure you are washing your fruits and vegetables before eating them!

Grilling can be another good way to preserve nutrients, but that also comes with problems; Carcinogens. These come from what ever you are burning to heat up the food. Ways to lessen the amount of carcinogens are:

- Marinating
- Keep the grill at a lower temperature
- Don't overcook your food

Whats the moral of the story?

The less cooking/processing the better! But be careful, and do your research before eating raw. Many foods (Legumes, Beans, Meats) can contain bacteria and even be toxic if eaten in raw form.

How has this info impacted my diet?

• I always steam my vegetables as little (al dente) as possible


• I grill my meats as little as possible on the foreman! No burning = No Carcinogens

Just how bad is Fast Food???

Found this pretty cool link that compares fast food restaraunts. But I beg of you, do not look at this as "Which one should I eat", look at it as, wow all this is terrible for me. It's like saying Herpes isn't as bad as AIDS, so I'll sleep with the girl who has herpes.

Also, don't read a word of what the author says, just look at the numbers. The only thing he takes into account are calories and trans fat. While these things are important,there are many other things that are important to consider. He ranks a McDonalds Biscuit as the healthiest sandwich, but all it is is refined carbs. At least the breakfast sandwichs have something other than empty calories.

That being said, it is a neat resource if you REALLY HAVE TO go out and eat.

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/fast-food.php

Decoding Nutrition Labels

Most people just take a quick peek at their nutrition label to check the one value their diet book tells them to check. Whether it be Fat, Calories or Carbohydrates, there are a few other things on these labels that you can really benefit from paying attention to!

The most important of these is the serving size. It seems that Americans today just load up there plate, stuff there face and be on there way. Sure the package said only 70 calories, but that was for 7 chips. If you just ate half the bag, you just got way more calories. A great weight loss tip, is to pay attention to these serving sizes and try to stick to just one serving. (Especially on snack foods and other empty calories)

If you have trouble telling how much 3 oz of beef, or 105 grams of cookies are, a helpful hint is to look at the number of servings in the package. If there are 5 servings in a package, obviously 1 serving is 1/5 of the package.

Another very important thing on your food label is the amount of calories. Especially if you are trying to lose weight. Weight loss is very simple! You burn more calories than you eat, you lose weight. To quote the great Will Ferrel, It's science....

To explain further, calories are a form of energy. Our bodies take food and break it down, and use the energy to complete day to day tasks. Surprisingly our body burns most of our calories on daily maintenance like breathing and digestion. I am a 200 lb male, and my body burns a little over 2000 calories just living, and another 1000 by the little amount of moving and walking I do moving from bed to work to the kitchen etc. That's 3000 calories!!!! This is a huge number compared to the 260 calories I burn running (6 mph) for 20 minutes.

Any extra calories that we eat and our body doesn't burn gets stored as fat, so our body doesn't fail on days where we don't eat enough calories to do these necessary things. Pretty genius, except that our bodies don't understand that we are no longer in danger of starving, so we don't need a large fat build up. But our body builds it up regardless, and in extremes to a dangerous degree.

Back to the post topic, Nutrition labels. Look at the ingredients. Is there High Fructose Corn Syrup (probably), Added Sugar (Probably), Food Coloring, Things you Can't pronounce? As I am on the Paleo Diet, I have chosen not to eat things with these ingredients in them. I personally believe that they are responsible for not just obesity, but possibly also Cancer and other serious health problems.

Bottom line. It's cliche but true. You are what you eat. Know what you are putting into your body. Cheating every once in a while isn't a big deal, but don't go on a diet, change your eating habits for good. It's worth it in the long run!!!

High Fructose Corn Syrup Subsidized ???

Yet another symptom of america's obesity problem. Today I got a chance to read over the Farm Bill and discovered that High Fructose Corn Syrup is actually being subsidized by the government. This is a great idea. Please Uncle Sam, make it cheaper for companies to put HFCS in everything so that america gets even fatter.

So to piggy back off this discovery, why is HFCS bad for us?

Simply put, HFCS shuts off your bodies production of leptins, which are responsible for tell our brains that we are full. So as you pump more and more of this junk into your body, your body keeps telling you that you are hungry.

If you haven't started paying attention to the Ingredients list on your food, just give it a peek. Those things can tell you many more things than just Fat, Carbs and Calories. You will be suprised at the number of foods you think are "healthy", that are loaded with this crap.

When I get a minute I'm going to do a post on what I check nutrition labels for before I buy/eat something.

Why are we still eating grains?

Back in the hunter and gatherer days, humans survived completely on what we could find/kill. This made our diet primarily Meat, Vegetables, Fruit and nuts. Food would spoil a few days after it was picked or killed, forcing us to spend all of our time looking for food. The winter months would be trying times as the plants died, animals were scarce and if your tribe couldn't find food, your tribe died out.

Potatoes, Grains and legumes (peanuts, beans) could not be eaten by the paleolithic people because in their raw form they have so many toxins in them. Eventually, it was discovered that these foods could be ridden of enough toxins to make them edible, by merely heating them up. Note that this process does not remove all toxins, just enough to not kill you.

This discovery revolutionized man as we know it, and is arguably one of the largest contributors to the survival of the human race. These foods could be stored for long periods of times, were very high in energy and were fairly easy to grow. It also freed up time for these people to do things like build, invent, etc.

So, we as humans discovered a way to "hack" this food to make it edible. But in this age of refrigeration, why are we still using this hack? We are no longer in danger of starving or not being able to find food, so why continue to put these anti-nutrients and toxins in out bodies?

Your Answer: Money! In today's capitalist world, anyone will do anything to save a buck, including eat foods that our bodies have not evolved to handle. But that discussion is for another post.

So, what about these food make them so bad for us? Well the main problem is the amount of toxins. These toxin, renamed "anti-nutrients", so as not to alarm the general public, are produced by the plants to deter animals from eating there precious seeds. By making their seeds unappetizing, plants can ensure that their seeds will not be eaten, thus ensuring the plants survival.

Grains and legumes also contain a lot of enzyme blockers. To keep it simple, these blockers keep your body from digesting and using these nutrients. Again, designed by the plant to protect it's survival, these are included in order to keep seeds from being digested. This allows animals to eat foods with the seeds in them, and poop them out unharmed and ready to grow. So why would we want to eat these things?

Another seed protecting mechanism produced by plants are lectins. In the interest of keeping this description simple, lectins are basically natural pesticides toxic to many animals, including humans.

With so many drawbacks to eating grains, potatoes and legumes, I have decided to strip my diet of them completely. Looking at the facts, our survival no longer depends on grains, so I have phased them out of my diet and so should you.