Only a few years ago I had an “aha! moment” while browsing in the supermarket (or maybe it was more of an OMG! moment). It was like the scene in The Matrix when Neo can finally see it. All saw in the supermarket was sugar & highly processed foods in most of the aisles. When you take all those products away you are left with very little in a supermarket. It is amazing how obvious the revelation was but we do not see it.
I live in Spain, the Mediterranean diet is almost becoming mythical these days. I’m also taking the same approach as yourself - avoid highly processed foods & cook more at home with fresh ingredients.
More people should try and grow foods at home but it is difficult if you live in a city in a flat. But as the saying goes - baby steps.
How do you feel after a month reducing your sugar intake?
Moving away from processed foods/frankenfoods is definitely a step in the right direction
There is a lot of contention around plant foods though, plants definitely contain compounds that are harmful, however I am undecided myself whether I fall in the Sinclair camp (where a little bit of harm does you good) or the Saladino camp (why eat plant molecules when they’re harmful and you can get similar benefits from things like exercise, heat/cold therapy, intermittent fasting etc). The latter is probably harder to follow.
Nice! I’d love to myself one day. I’ve also been considering drilling a borehole/water-well for natural water. I don’t drink or cook with tap water but really dislike plastic…
“A little bit of harm does you good”… sooo, that means eating a little bit of cyanide each day is fine, or silver nitrate or whatever it was? It’s perfectly fine because it’s in small amounts and causes you death only after years of that? Or perhaps a little bit organic mercury, which doesn’t really “harm” you either, just makes you slowly go crazy over time as it rips the brains processing paths apart?
Yeah, I am not in the camp of “A little bit of harm does you good”, that’s not the case in really anything. Even in the context of working out muscles it’s not even true because the ripping and such of the fibers is how we evolved, it’s not harm, it’s how are bodies work. Harm is harm.
Yeah, I’m undecided myself atm. On the one hand, we know plant molecules are very powerful (many medicines are derived from them) but on the other we know they can be damaging as well. Bio-hackers are usually in the former group, and the argument for it can be quite compelling.
Speaking of brains, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that human brains have been shrinking as we’ve moved away from a Palaeolithic diet:
Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa — everywhere we look.” If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc.
Don’t forget that most poisons come from plants as well, because the plants specifically make poison to try to keep things away form them. ^>^;
I’ve mostly heard that’s because we’ve evolved to be able to make more efficient connections in the brain, same reason an adults brain shrinks from a child, it’s pruning the useless parts and making more efficient connections stronger.
But it’s happened sharply in the last 20K years, whereas previously the brain was increasing in size. I wonder whether they’ve checked the size of hunter gatherer tribes that still exist today… that would be interesting…
Evolutionary changes do tend to be stagnant for a long while before within a comparatively short period of time some major changes happen. The ‘slooow’ changes over a long period are the significantly more rare ones.
I have The Blue Zones to read yet. There might be something in that. I think those communities are tribal.
Just discovered there is even a bluezones website. And it has lots of information … I need a bigger brain
That’s one of the reasons I’ve looked at going to Costa Rica for a while - one of the blue zones is there It’s very friendly for Digital Nomads where you can get a two year ‘Rentista’ fairly easily so long as you earn a specified amount per month from outside of the country.
There is some debate about the reasons behind longevity of people in the blue zones, but I think it’s interesting and worth exploring nonetheless.
Not different, and at the moment anyway not particularly good. Sometimes I have a period where I’ve got a lot of headache, usually in winter. It’s already since I was a child, didn’t find anything I could do about it yet.
I think this is more protein-related than fat-related.
Yeah protein definitely, though I find fats are as well:
Is dietary fat satiating? Within a controlled environment, yes, fats do have an effect on satiety and appear to regulate appetite through several mechanisms including the release of appetite hormones and inhibition of gastric emptying and intestinal transit. Certain types of fats are more satiating than others.
hi @Rainer - for what it might be worth - have you tried ginger for your headaches?
Mixing ginger powder with water has been reported as helping relieve patients suffering migraines.
Apparently mixing about an eight of a teaspoon of ginger powder with water and then drinking once a headache comes on has an effect within 30 minutes. I read that in How Not To Die in the chapter about Herbs & Spices.
Just sharing.
Didn’t hear of that, sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I really dislike ginger
If it’s getting too bad I usually take ibuprofen, which is rather bad in the long term…
Would be good to find something else that helps, even if it’s disgusting haha
@AstonJ - I’ve started reading Longevity Diet and it’s really interesting. Sinclair’s podcast is going to be a great companion guide as well as a different angle and up-to-date science.
What I like about the idea is to be healthier for longer, but I’m not into “immortality”.
If it’s worse in winter could be vit D deficiency or mould toxicity? This might be worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78mZUvF414w Could also be dehydration due to central heating? (Drink plenty of natural water)
This is interesting - According to Stanfield Sinclair sold a company to gsk for $720M back in 2008 after the resveratrol findings… which are apparently flawed:
It’s very friendly for 
