This is an ongoing series in which I attempt to codify my evolving thoughts and ideas. I wish I could say it’s a fun exercise, and when I draft these things it feels like I should have done it sooner. Then the weekend rolls around and I realise that my hastily typed ideas are badly in need of editing. The editing takes more time than the writing. Ah, well.
Last week’s post was a summary of my views on politics and philosophy.
This is part two, in which I discuss some of my views on food, movement, and general health.
More than two years into a global health crisis, I still find it shockingly weird that there is no interest in building a healthy population that could withstand any pandemic. Let’s start with obesity.
Obesity will kill more people this year than covid, just like it did last year, and every year before that. In the early 2000's obesity was talked about as "approaching global crisis levels." It's gotten far worse and we just stopped talking about it almost completely. Any effort to point to obesity’s OUTSIZED role in causing comorbidity in covid patients instantaneously gets shut down as “victim-blaming”, “fatphobia”, or – I shit you not – “neo-colonialism”. What the hell is going on?
Well, let me borrow a vignette from Simon Sarris:
History is voyeurism: We are civilization's naughty children, peeping through the keyhole of ancient, incomplete texts. Despite the lack of detail, or maybe because of it, the view stokes imagination.
There's a popular dig at the ancient Romans, it goes like this: Lead in the pipes or in the wine brought about so much lead poisoning that the aristocratic class became progressively more insane, and less fertile, ultimately resulting in the downfall of the Empire.
While lead ingestion was enough to notice (Saturnalia, they're calling it), it wasn't enough to cause collapse. The lead hypothesis is mostly the overblown theory of one historian. But for the historical bystander, which is all of us, it's just too juicy. A great story.
There's something romantic (in the literary sense) about imagining a people imploding from something raucous, self-imposed, and simple to stop doing. Why didn't they stop? Didn't they realize? Don't they care? Didn't they know?
Didn't we?
EAT
If you are reading this, then in all likelihood you were raised on the Standard American Diet (meat-plus-starch diet – think hamburgers) or a variant of it.
Think: when’s the last time you had the traditional cuisine of your people? I don’t just direct this at my readers of Indian/African/Asiatic descent. After all European peoples have their own rich and diverse traditional cuisines, believe it or not. Anyway, there are a multitude of economic, cultural and political reasons for why the whole world has come to adopt this diet. It’s cheap, it’s versatile, and it puts the most calories in bellies as possible. But it’s killing us at alarming rates.
If you leave America/Canada or UK for a few weeks and then come back, you can see the toll the SAD is taking. The pallid complexion that somehow manages to be greasy at the same time, the skinnyfat physiques on men and women. Humans are like rats in that we can survive on damn near anything. You could eat nothing but Five Guys for 10 years and survive. But surviving is not exactly the same as thriving, is it?
The food you’re eating will either build you or break you.
Find an agreeable diet – I recommend Carnivore, Ketogenic, and Paleo if you’re recovering from the standard modern diet. Aim to get plenty of natural foods that are as minimally processed or altered as possible. Lots of protein, healthy fats, some fibre and a bit of sweet potatoes/rice/sourdough. ZERO or minimal refined sugar. If your grandmother would not have recognized it as food, high chance you should avoid it.
Globally soil is depleted, so food today is half as rich in micronutrients as it was 50 years ago. To compensate, take the basic supplements. I recommend Magnesium, Vitamin D, Omega 3 (in fish oil), a daily multivitamin and Zinc.
My views on food have come a long way. I started teaching myself about food and nutrition in the 5th grade. This was probably because I was very much overweight as a child, borderline obese really. My understanding of food has grown since then, but I have always known that meat, fresh fruits and vegetables are key.
2. Our ancestors ate some plants, carbs (starch from tubers and sugar from fruit), and lots of meat from wild game when they could get it. Some years were lean and some years were abundant. It is difficult to piece together the micronutrient profile of ancient plants and animals but even today, wild animals are fairly lean and full of good fats – essential for healthy skin, joints and neurological function. There are three main components to food: proteins, fats and carbohydrates. You need all three. The human organism is omnivorous – any diet that claims one of these should be avoided is nonsense. Vegans and carnivores are playing themselves.
3. Due to modern agricultural practices that deplete soil nutrients, modern vegetables and fruits have only a small fraction of the vitamins and minerals they contained even 50-100 years ago. So it is that you and everyone you know are nutrient-deficient to some extent, greater or lesser. What do? You can take a multivitamin, and whey isolate, and get fish oil supplements for the omega fats, but supplements are a poor substitute for what you get from whole foods. Eating a grass-fed steak or grass fed liver, and wild-caught salmon and oysters will more to replenish your body’s reserves than the world’s greatest supplement stack.
For further reading, check out Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Catherine Shanahan’s Deep Nutrition.
4. Some people argue that plant foods such as legumes, nuts or tempe have abundant protein but this is a fallacy because they have not taken into consideration the different bioavailability of animal vs. plant protein. You have to eat a bucket of broccoli to get the same amount of protein as a 200gm steak. Not to mention the micronutrients e.g., creatine, B complex, folic acid, minerals, amino acid profile, etc. And as for “milk” or “meat” they produce in labs? It’s crammed with so much soybean/palm oil, chemical flavors and stabilizers that whatever protein you get from it is cancelled out. Don’t put that shit in your body.
I am a firm advocate of regenerative cattle-based agriculture. We know so much now about how ruminants like cows and goats can turn otherwise barren or unproductive land into food in the form of milk and meat. If we’re going to find a way to feed 8 billion people, we’d better understand the key is to raise MORE cows and goats, not less.
5. Dairy. In some parts of Europe, UK and the US, dairy products taste better. I am referring of course to raw (unheated/unpasteurised) milk. Raw milk is better for your health and it just tastes plain amazing when compared to the sad pale watery stuff that you find in supermarket. Why is this allowed? This is because lobbyists for the commercial dairy industry are working to maximize profit in the short term.
Bread. Modern bread is, pardon me, utter garbage. The Chorleywood bread process strips whatever meager nutrients remain in the wheat, so you’re eating a fluffy little piece of… not much really. Just empty carbohydrates. You’re better off eating rice or potatoes! If you are going to eat bread at all…. choose only sourdough. It’s the way bread has been made for thousands of years, since we began making bread. Flour, water, salt, yeast and air. 5 ingredients. You should see no more than that on the ingredient label.
6. Intermittent fasting/ time-restricted feeding. We have had this idiotic notion drilled into our heads that we are supposed to eat three huge meals per day. Do you think your caveman ancestors had the luxury of waking up and having a couple eggs, streaky bacon, and avocado toast? Nope. They didn’t get to eat unless they successfully killed or gathered something. Numerous historical sources from different cultures point to people eating one large meal a day, usually at night. The wealthy could eat a whopping two meals a day. If your lifestyle permits, try one or two large meals, with the evening meal being the larger.
I confess: It’s not cheap to eat optimally. The optimal diet costs more money and time than less optimal ones. Fast food and processed food industries are absurdly profitable, and so they will keep advertising and keep prices low. Causing people to continue eating unhealthily because it’s easy and cheap. But simply following this advice: “Eat zero sugar or refined carbs for 30 days and see how you feel" costs nothing and and would be highly effective for much of the population. I cannot emphasize how BAD much of what passes for food these days is, that significant gains could be had by simply not putting these things in your body.
It costs $0 to fast, and fasting - even if it's just intermittent - is an absurdly effective tool for weight loss.
MOVE
1. My maternal grandfather was strong as an ox. No heart disease. When he finally did die it was from lung cancer from the cigarettes he would smoke like a chimney.
2. From the day we start school we are told we have to sit in a chair for six hours a day. You sit quietly and nod and write things down in a little book. That’s called learning. In truth, this is the worst possible thing to do to a child. You don’t realize the extent of the damage being done to you because it happens to everybody and no one is left alive who remembers anything but the education-industrial system.
So, most of us just shrug and get used to it. Some never do, and they get labelled with ADHD (a rotten fiction) and pumped full of Ritalin or other sedative until it turns their inbuilt thumotic drive into mush. But hey, no harm no foul, as long as they can sit still and receive an education. Right?
Wrong! Turns out, it’s hell for the body. With and without the medication. People take this damage - this trauma - and carry it around with them the rest of their lives. The damage is irrecoverable.
Check it:
For 200,000 years our forebears walked a lot to hunt game and gather edible plants. And, peasants of every historical period enjoyed more sun and exercise than the modern “liberated” employee, who sits on their ass indoors for 8-12 hours a day bathed in blue light and electromagnetic frequencies. Humans were not built for this ersatz life.
The bodies we have inherited are designed for fighting, fleeing, feasting and fucking. Act accordingly. You can make time to move with intention for an hour each day. Lift, run, row, cycle – start moving and never stop. This does not mean you must train hard 7 days a week with no rest. Don’t be a moron. But, get off your ass.
3. Muscle is hard to build. It is a time consuming and resource-intensive process for the body. Flimsy modern people think that muscle is no longer necessary, that it is a vanity project to build good and handsome physique because muscle power is no longer need to tend the fields or build stuff. This is quite a silly goose way of seeing the world! In addition to giving you a foxy/vivacious aesthetic, more lean mass empirically correlates with the following health benefits:
Protection from joint injury;
Faster recovery from injury;
Better emotional regulation;
Reduced risk of neural degeneration as you age;
Longer life expectancy;
Generally better health and fewer complications arising from blood pressure, sugar, heart disease, high body fat %, etc.
Neuro-protective benefits we are only beginning to learn more about. It appears that being less fat and more muscular reduces the severity of anxiety/depression.
It’s hard to know if we as a species are more or less mentally ill than we were in the past. I think, mental illness is definitely up. I also think this is an avoidable crisis of our own making. Diet and exercise have measurable and profound effects on mental health. So does sun exposure.
4. As the natural world retreats and takes our connection to nature with it, conditions such as depression, anxiety and even ADHD could be a way our sensitive brains respond. On a material level the brain is a piece of fat and meat with electricity running through it. Its only going to be as good as what the body it’s encased in. Human brains are remarkably resilient and can soak up a lot of punishment before breaking – look up neuroplasticity. But if your brain chemistry betrays you, perhaps you should consider incorporating more movement, sun exposure, and improved diet into your life before you take the pharmaceutical route.
Plato instead of Prozac. Hikes in the woods, and steak and oysters instead of Zoloft. Sun exposure and regular high-intensity training instead of Ambien. Who the hell knows? I’m not a doctor, just a dude on the internet. I don’t deny the utility of SSRIs and related drugs. Quite a few people I’m close to have been, or still are, on them. It is painful to watch them grapple with the side effects because I know they don’t all have to live like this.
SLEEP
Sleep 8 hours each night.
9 is better.
You’ve heard this advice countless times but do you listen? I want you to take a look at your lifestyle and your obligations/responsibilities. What makes you wake up and what keeps you up at night.
Do you have an infant child?
Are you a night or shift laborer?
If you answered No to both of the above you have no excuse.
Folks, night owls aren’t real, your Circadian rhythm is just broken. Don’t @ me with chronotypes. They don’t mean what you think they mean. Fix the sleep hygiene and the sleep will come. On 9 hours of sleep you will almost always feel like a king. Netflix, YouTube and all these other distractions are just excuses we use to justify our poor sleeping habits.
It goes without saying that the sleep will come faster/easier and be deeper when you throttle back your alcohol and caffeine intake. For Lent this year I gave up coffee. I allow myself some tea each day. I have noticed a significant improvement in how fast I fall asleep, how well I sleep, and even, believe it or not, how interesting/vivid my dreams are.
FRIENDS
You are the product of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
The company you keep will make or break you.
Humans are social creatures and the damnedest thing about Modernity is how it has atomised and isolated each and every one of us. It’s presented to us as the last frontier in autonomy and freedom, but at what cost? Only the thing that really matters at the end of the day: OTHER PEOPLE. Community. Kinship. Romance. Family. Love.
Humans cannot live in isolation.
Find the most honest, smartest, kindest, most creative people who will tolerate you. Get them to be your friends. You need friends.
If someone makes you feel tired or shitty about yourself, AVOID THEM. Psychic vampires are real.
Try to leave people better than you found them.
Don’t treat people like they are stupid, even if they are.
I am grateful to be in a position where I am constantly surrounded by people fitter, happier, smarter, or wealthier than I am.
If you’re the smartest/fittest/richest/etc. person in your circle…
… You need to get the hell out of there and find a new set of friends.
I haven’t eaten fruits or vegables in years.. except maybe a dried fig, or some sauerkraut. I guess you follow a more paleo diet?
My diet for the last (almost) year has been 1 gallon raw milk, 6-18 raw eggs, and ~1lb raw/cooked beef daily. I don’t drink all the milk straight.. I make cheese and kefir with it too. I‘ve been mostly carnivore tho for almost 8 years
I work nights 😪 I go to a tanning salon.