Health problems have been going up like never before. There has been a rise in birth defects, asthma, allergies, auto-immune disorders, obesity, diabetes, autism, and new diseases are being discovered. Heart disease was almost unheard of before the 1900’s and now it’s the No. 1 killer in America.
Our diet has changed more in the last 100 years than all of the years preceding it.
These statements are inexorably connected.
We are what we consume. The food we eat affects us at the genetic level. Our bodies use food as information to decide how our cells should function.
A lot of Western diseases are blindly self-inflicted. We need to feed our bodies the nutrients it requires and eliminate toxins from our diet. Stop eating ultra processed foods, full of vegetable oils and sugar, and return to the traditional foods our bodies were built on for millennia.
You can learn all of this by reading Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, M.D. This has been on my reading list all year, after seeing Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes continuously recommend it. Deep Nutrition is a must read for everyone, especially for those experiencing health issues as well as followers of the Standard American Diet.
I’ve listed a few of my biggest takeaways below.
Two Things to Avoid Consuming:
- Vegetable Oils
- Sugar
Simply eliminating these two toxic items from your diet will do wonders for your health and reduce your risk of all chronic diseases. These two toxins are pro-inflammatory and are main ingredients in almost every ultra processed food.
The nutrition facts on vegetable oil are very misleading. They are labeled 0g of trans fat and claim to be heart healthy, but that is far from the truth.
Aside from being highly processed, vegetable oil is composed of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) which are heat sensitive. This means that when vegetable oil is used to cook, and experiences heat, the bonds in the PUFAs are shifted and turn into trans fats which causes oxidative stress and wreaks havoc on our health.
Vegetable oil, the perfect brain-eating toxin, promotes brain disorders both directly and indirectly by impacting these systems:
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Gut. Inflammatory reactions in the gut influence brain health by way of the microbiota, the immune system, and leaky guy.
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Lipoproteins. These serve as Trojan horses distributing toxins to the brain and other target organs.
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Arteries. Vegetable oil disrupts the regulation of blood flow through the brain.
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White blood cells. Vegetable oil turns our immune system against us, causing food and infectious diseases to trigger nerve degenerating reactions.
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Nerve cellular architecture. Vegetable oils overload oxidative reactions inside the cell, leading to the accumulation of intra-cellular trash. When this affects our white matter we lose our mobility. When it affects our gray matter, we lose our personalities, and connections to the world.
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Gene replication. Vegetable oils impair brain development through direct mutagenic effects on DNA and altered epigenetic expression.”
Dr. Catherine Shanahan explains the science between each of these points as well as several other ways vegetable oils harm our health throughout the book.
If you currently cook with vegetable oil and you’re not sure what to switch to, here’s a breakdown of healthy and harmful fats (I cook exclusively with butter and olive oil):
Let’s not forget about the other toxin to avoid, sugar.
Since high concentrations of sugar are rarely found in nature, our metabolism is unable to adequately process the 130 pounds of sugar the average american consumes each year.
“For the same reasons sugar jams hormone signals, it also clogs nutrient channels, weakening bone and muscle and slowing neural communication, which can impair mood and memory and lead to dementia. While all this is going on, sugar stiffens the collagen in your tendons, joints, and skin, causing arthritis and premature wrinkling, while interfering with the production of new collagen throughout your entire body. And because sugar changes the surface markers your white blood cells need to distinguish indigenous cells from invaders, it opens the door to cancer and infection.”
Dr. Shanahan has an entire chapter dedicated to sugar, aptly named Sickly Sweet, where she elaborates how sugar disrupts our health.
I have eliminated ultra processed foods from my diet for some time now, but those are not the only foods that contain vegetable oils and sugar. Look through the ingredient lists of all the food in your kitchen, you may be surprised where you’ll find them.
Most restaurants unfortunately cook with vegetable oils. Avoid fried foods at all costs unless cooked in an animal fat, like potatoes prepared with duck fat. Depending on the restaurant, you could make a special request that your meat is prepared with butter or olive oil instead of a blended oil, most likely comprised of vegetable oils.
A lot of salad dressings are made with vegetable oils, so your best bet is olive oil and vinegar, or some type of balsamic. Check the labels.
Now what should we eat?
Dr. Shanahan recommends the Human Diet strategy that “allows you to extract the maximum available nutrition from the edible world”. Below is a simplified breakdown of what is available in the book. The foods mentioned are not an exhaustive list, buy the book to get all of the information.
The Four Pillars of the Human Diet
1.Meat on the Bone
Examples: Steaks, roasted turkey, chicken stock, lamb chops, ribs, bone broths, etc.
Meat has been a staple of my diet for most of my life. I am going to try to incorporate more beef and chicken stock to my diet. These broths are full of collagen and benefit your skin, joints, and bones.
2. Organ Meat, Offal
Examples: Liver, bone marrow, tongue, fish head soup, runny yolk eggs etc.
As mentioned in a previous post, I was very picky growing up and never tried any organ meats. I am going to try bone marrow next time I’m at a restaurant that serves it and want to try some of the organ meat recipes Dr. Shanahan recommended in the book. Luckily, runny yolk eggs (over easy, poached) have many of the same benefits as organ meats. I eat 3 extra large eggs every day when I break my fast at noon during my mid-day break from training.
3. Fermented and Sprouted Foods
Examples: Greek yogurt, sour cream, cheddar cheese, kombucha, kimchi, sourdough bread, sprouted almonds, sprouted pumpkin seeds etc.
Every time I go grocery shopping I’m sure to buy plain, full-fat Greek yogurt, kombucha (Kevita Mater Brew or GT’s), and a half loaf of organic sourdough bread. I just started eating sour cream and have been putting it on air-fried potatoes, I’m hooked. I am going to try some Ezekiel bread and sprouted nuts and seeds next time I go shopping.
4. Fresh, Raw Food
Examples: Spinach, broccoli, garlic, raw nuts, ceviche, raw milk, raw seeds, sushi, etc.
I regularly make a green smoothie full of spinach, kale, and chard (+banana and berries) as well as broccoli with most dinners. I need to branch out and try sushi as well as adding more fish to my diet aside from the occasional salmon. Nuts, seeds, and raw milk cheeses are some of the easiest foods to snack on if you’re in a rush.
I hope the information I’ve given you about Deep Nutrition motivates you to read the book and learn more about healthy eating.
Use this post as a lighthouse to guide you through the sea of misinformation regarding nutrition.
The food pyramid was made by the department of agriculture… not the department of health.
If that’s your source of nutritional information you need to reconsider everything you know about food and read this book.
There’s no money to be made telling you to eat healthy and exercise.
Entire industries are profiting off of keeping you fat, sick, and in the system.
Take back control of your heath.
Dr. Catherine Shanahan does an amazing job explaining the importance of eating traditional foods and how it can positively impact your health as well as the genetic potential of your descendants.
Read the book.
It could save your life and your lineage.
Sincerely,
Shane