Deep Nutrition

Just started reading this one, and while its flaws have been mentioned already (doesn't talk about gluten, casein, carbs), there is some REALLY fascinating stuff in it. First of all, the author, Catherine Shanahan, writes about epigenetics and how much influence diet and nutrition has on the proper expression and functioning of our genes (and the effects carried over generations). She mentions one well known experiment where lab animals deprived of Vitamin A will give birth to offspring without eyes. The genes read the environment via nutrients, and intelligently conclude that the environment is one in which eyes aren't necessary (lack of the vitamin is interpreted as lack of need). When then given an adequate supply, the offspring are born with eyes (showing that it's epigenetics and not a permanent mutation). Generalized, when our DNA lacks the communication of particular nutrients, it shuts off those systems as unnecessary. Which makes me wonder just how much 'human potential' has been atrophied over thousands of years of an increasingly degenerate and nutrient-poor (in every sense of the word) environment. That's not to mention the effects of toxins which disrupt gene expression (she cites vegetable oils and sugars as two of the main culprits, affecting hormone regulation and communication).

Now, this talk of "intelligent" DNA got me thinking. What she describes is kind of a 'negative epigenetics'; a toxin or deficiency leads to the atrophy of previously active genes (in the above case, those for eyes and vision). The nutrients provide information about the environment and the genome reacts accordingly. As she mentions, this is a seemingly intelligent process. But there's also a more 'positive' epigenetic effect. When you eat the right nutrients, they communicate with DNA, leading to the 'turning on' of dormant genes. This by itself is really fascinating stuff with all kind of implications. But does it go further? I'm wondering if new environment conditions could also lead to the activation of dormant or potential genes? In other words, current evolutionary thought sees adaptation as a random process: chance mutations are beneficial to the organism, promoting its survival and 'sticking' for future generations. This is the approach pretty much all scientists take. For example, Porges in his Polyvagal Theory says as much about the social engagement system, how it was basically an accident, a "byproduct of the neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system". But as Laura pointed out, perhaps a better way of putting it is that of "a neural regulation system evolved to meet the demands of the morphogenetic field influences of soul incarnation which included a need to develop a way to express emotions and prosocial behavior."

Maybe epigenetics, and specifically nutrition (but perhaps more; see below), which seems to have the greatest effect, is part of how this takes place? The way I see it, DNA is like the great ocean of potential (6D thought forms which contain all possibilities). It is the alphabet out of which every living thing grows, or takes its 'name' perhaps. Given the right nutrients from the right environment, the DNA reads this information and "turn on" genes to foster thriving in that environment. There's light, so eyes develop; there are tall tree species, so long necks develop; there are predators, so camouflage and defensive systems develop; etc. This brings in a kind of teleology or purpose to seemingly 'blind' evolutionary processes. When a species lives in a more 'nutritious' environment (as was the case with mammals perhaps?), new systems 'appear' and develop to provide for their further evolution and survival. Evolution proceeds along to a specific (yet open) end, along a specific path. It follows the "Divine Plan" which is really Nature, possibilities and probabilities, throughout levels of density.

Shanahan goes so far as to call the nutritional traditions passed on in traditional cultures an "ancient technology". This immediately brought to mind the old title of Secret History, which was Ancient Science. Highly specialized information was acquired and passed on in order to foster the health of babies and the tribe. Nowadays, we've lost most of this information, as it was guarded closely (she even brings up the high technology of megalith builders to make her point, which I thought was cute). I couldn't help but think of the image of the Grail, empty one minute and overfull the next. Our DNA is like the Grail, and when given the right stuff, is like the Horn of Plenty (which is how John Schumaker, I believe, described Paleolithics' access to food resources).

Anyways, this somewhat random (and hopefully not too tedious) stream of associations led me back to Gurdjieff and EE. Of course we know about all the benefits of vagal stimulation - basically it's what makes us truly human. But then there's that thing Gurdjieff said, which Laura quotes in the EE presentation:

"It is necessary to understand what this means. We all breathe the same air. Apart from the elements known to our science the air contains a great number of substances unknown to science, indefinable for it and inaccessible to its observation. But exact analysis is possible both of the air inhaled and of the air exhaled. This exact analysis shows that although the air inhaled by different people is exactly the same, the air exhaled is quite different. Let us suppose that the air we breathe is composed of twenty different elements unknown to our science. A certain number of these elements are absorbed by every man when he breathes. Let us suppose that five of these elements are always absorbed. Consequently the air exhaled by every man is composed of fifteen elements; five of them have gone to feeding the organism. But some people exhale not fifteen but only ten elements, that is to say, they absorb five elements more. These five elements are higher 'hydrogens.' These higher 'hydrogens' are present in every small particle of air 'we inhale. By inhaling air we introduce these higher 'hydrogens' into ourselves, but if our organism does not know how to extract them out of the particles of air, and retain them, they are exhaled back into the air. If the organism is able to extract and retain them, they remain in it. In this way we all breathe the same air but we extract different substances from it. Some extract more, others less.

"In order to extract more, it is necessary to have in our organism a certain quantity of corresponding fine substances. Then the fine substances contained in the organism act like a magnet on the fine substances contained in the inhaled air. We come again to the old alchemical law: 'In order to make gold, it is first of all necessary to have a certain quantity of real gold.' 'If no gold whatever is possessed, there is no means whatever of making it.'

"The whole of alchemy is nothing but an allegorical description of the human factory and its work of transforming base metals (coarse substances) into precious ones (fine substances).

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The human body truly is a "chemical factory", and maybe conscious breathing (and assimilating all those "active elements" Gurdjieff talks about) is another method of creating the right conditions, providing our DNA with messengers for positive changes?

Back to Deep Nutrition, she also says this:

Living in settled, relatively crowded cities began to chip away at our genetic programming, leading to the rise of disease while simultaneously enabling people with damaged genes, who might otherwise have died, to survive and give birth to less healthy children with less dynamic symmetry.

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She's talking about physical features, but the same could apply to psychopathology. City-living allowed individuals who would otherwise have not survived (e.g. psychopaths) to thrive.

She also makes an offhand comment about how physical deformities are not brought about by "intermixing races" (she's quoting outdated theories for it), but by epigenetic degeneration. This brought to mind the quote from Lobaczewski about skirtoids, and the possibility that intermixing races would lead to possibly great numbers. Maybe it's not the breeding, but the epigenetics at play here?

Anyways, rambling off for now. Back to reading.

Approaching Infinity said:

Just started reading this one, and while its flaws have been mentioned already (doesn't talk about gluten, casein, carbs), there is some REALLY fascinating stuff in it.

Click to expand...

Oh you are in for a real treat. Really.

First of all, the author, Catherine Shanahan, writes about epigenetics and how much influence diet and nutrition has on the proper expression and functioning of our genes (and the effects carried over generations). She mentions one well known experiment where lab animals deprived of Vitamin A will give birth to offspring without eyes. The genes read the environment via nutrients, and intelligently conclude that the environment is one in which eyes aren't necessary (lack of the vitamin is interpreted as lack of need). When then given an adequate supply, the offspring are born with eyes (showing that it's epigenetics and not a permanent mutation).

Click to expand...

Then there's the bit about if you need something that is good for your eyes, eat eyeballs. Really. They're full of nutrients that your eyes can use.

I think this idea is bizarre enough to have some truth to it. A simple relationship that might possibly hold across many levels.

...Now, this talk of "intelligent" DNA got me thinking. What she describes is kind of a 'negative epigenetics'; a toxin or deficiency leads to the atrophy of previously active genes (in the above case, those for eyes and vision). The nutrients provide information about the environment and the genome reacts accordingly. As she mentions, this is a seemingly intelligent process. But there's also a more 'positive' epigenetic effect. When you eat the right nutrients, they communicate with DNA, leading to the 'turning on' of dormant genes. This by itself is really fascinating stuff with all kind of implications. But does it go further?

I'm wondering if new environment conditions could also lead to the activation of dormant or potential genes? In other words, current evolutionary thought sees adaptation as a random process: chance mutations are beneficial to the organism, promoting its survival and 'sticking' for future generations. This is the approach pretty much all scientists take...

Click to expand...

Yes. While I have adopted the basic theory of evolution whole-heartedly, there are a lot of details that leave me wondering. The idea of random mutation makes sense, but I am not at all sure that anything is truly "random." It has seemed to me as though the mutation process might be guided somehow. And this author proposes that the genetic introns are in fact a vast library of epigenetic data on which the genes can draw -- ancient experience. And that many "mutations" are tested in advance using epigenetic controls, and then mutations are introduced when the epigenetic "experiments" prove successful.

Is this process actually part of our reality? I don't know, but I am going to check the references she sites to see where these ideas come from. It is appealing, but that doesn't make it true.

...Anyways, this somewhat random (and hopefully not too tedious) stream of associations led me back to Gurdjieff and EE. Of course we know about all the benefits of vagal stimulation - basically it's what makes us truly human. But then there's that thing Gurdjieff said, which Laura quotes in the EE presentation:...

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This occurred to me while reading. It's proving to be a little more than I can take in at the moment (I am a slow learner) but I hope other people will be able to shed more light on it. The "fine substances" idea was screaming at me as I read this book.

The part of the book about symmetry really grabbed my attention. This part is more mathematical, and if I can ever break free of work and chores long enough to do it, I am going to dig deeper into what she wrote, and the references she gives. I have read through quite a bit of golden ratio word salad in the past, but this material struck me as more substantial. The idea of pervasive laws and symmetry is pretty fundamental, and it would not surprise me that the geometric relationships found in an "ideal" face would reflect the way our universe is constructed.

I know that there are certain patterns I respond to, whether in the form of appearance or behavior, that I can never quite define but that trigger some kind of built-in recognition response. Except that I don't know what to do when it happens.

Another thing that occurs to me after reading this book is that there may be more than one productive path to follow in choosing "healthy" foods. She describes food as language, directing the body according to what we choose. We might think of true paleo diet as an ideal, and the book presents a number of examples of the physical and basic mental health of peoples that still eat this way.

One thing bothers me, though. The people with the "ideal" diet eat, sleep, and reproduce like everybody else, and they generally seem to follow the path of healthy wild animals, as opposed to sickly domestic ones. Maybe I am missing something but the folks with the ideal diet don't seem to have much need for esoteric work. "The work," and its potential for growth, individuation, and evolution, seems to emerge more out of things going wrong.

But Shanahan suggests another pathway for humans, the pathway (and messages to the body) offered by "traditional foods." There may be a middle path (NOT "all things in moderation") between the paleo ideal and modern nutritional suicide, something that is perhaps more optimal for esoteric work. Humans may well have adapted to many new foods in the past 10,000 years, aided by long-forgotten mass die-offs. There may be many things a person from a given culture can eat in the right combinations, guided by time-tested cultural dietary traditions.

But of course many of us now live in multicultural settings that lack that kind of cultural guidance. Our food choices, especially in cities, are limited and we don't individually know what our bodies can tolerate except through elimination diet testing. But we may well need to look to relatively "modern" foods, as organic as we can get them, to provide some portion of our nutritional needs. Not food-factory poisons, but natural plant-source foods along with whatever kind of natural meat we can find. It may not result in physical perfection, but I don't think that is the goal anyway. It's a detour, a distraction. As is seeking an "ideal" diet where it isn't available. Better to find a "good" diet and have time left to explore non-physical things.

I could go on but this is all a lot of speculation at this point. I need to hear what occurs to other people as they read. There seem to be quite a few clues here, but it might just be me wanting answers. I do think we need to be careful about rejecting potential foods outright, when some of them may be healthy for some people in the right combinations with other foods.

I have no desire to eat gluten or grains at this point, as my body doesn't seem to be at all tolerant of it and it has suffered a great deal of damage from them by now. But someone else might be able to eat bread made from sprouted grains. Oddly enough, the bread I was eating when I quit was sprouted breads from Alvarado Street Bakery, mentioned in the book. I don't think I need to try re-introducing it again.

But Phinney & Volek indicate that perhaps 1/4 of the population is not noticeably carb intolerant and perhaps many of them could eat it without complication, if they eliminated other toxic foods like vegetable oils, some organ meats, and so on. Who knows. Were our ancestors sick from eating traditional breads and unprocessed milk? I don't know. The Irish should be dead from eating all that starch (potatoes), but they aren't. There are parts to this puzzle that I don't think we understand. The archaeological record shows a decline in health after the introduction of agriculture, but then a lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, not to mention being held in slavery of one form or another. It's hard to say exactly what it means.

So I like the way this book challenges some of our new-found ideas about what is healthy. Such challenges are healthy.

Lots of interesting thoughts from you both, thank you. I think the 1/4 of the population mentioned by Volek and Phinney that is not noticeably carb intolerant and could perhaps eat bread and grains without complication are likely those whose constitution is fundamentally different in that they are unable to assimilate (digest) the finer substances from the air - and maybe from saturated animal fats as well. Whatever genetic differences exist between potentially souled humans and OPs suggest that DNA for some is not primed (for lack of a better word) for 'reading' the environment beyond the material 3D world. Whatever epigenetic changes do take place within OPs may reach a 'ceiling' or cul de sac because a changing environment that now requires the development of conscience to 'see the unseen' in order to survive and thrive cannot 'turn on' the requisite genes or combinations of genes because they are not present.

Whatever about the rest, as we saw in the August 20 session, it has become pretty clear that diet absolutely must be corrected or this shamanic capacity will read the exponential influx of newer and finer substances into the environment ahead of the wave in the wrong way and drive them mad.

A: Primitive societies that eat according to the normal diet for human beings do not have "schizophrenics", but they do have shamans who can "see".

Q: (Perceval) So a schizophrenic on animal fat is a shaman. (L) Well, wait a minute. There's something real subtle here. What I think you're saying is that when these genetic pathways are activated through wrong diet, it screws up the shamanic capacity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) So, schizophrenia as we understand it or have witnessed it is a screw-up of something that could or might manifest in a completely different way on a different diet? Is that it?

A: Yes

Q: (L) And that's what you meant by not only a doorway, but also a barrier because the person who is on the wrong diet and has schizophrenia is barred from being able to be a bridge between the worlds. They kind of get lost. They're barred from having a normal life, and they're also barred from coming back from their delusions or whatever they're seeing even if they're not delusions. Maybe they’re seeing, but they're unable to help or do anything.

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Megan said:

Who knows. Were our ancestors sick from eating traditional breads and unprocessed milk? I don't know. The Irish should be dead from eating all that starch (potatoes), but they aren't. There are parts to this puzzle that I don't think we understand.

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Well Megan, you chose an interesting example for a case study! First of all, in a sense, 'the Irish' are dead. They succumbed to the blanket smoking ban earliest and without the slightest hesitation - similarly with the international banksters' takeover of their economy. They also accepted a second illegal vote on the creation of and entry into the new EU superstate. I could go on, and comparisons could be made with other countries but I won't belabor that point.

The main thing I would like to point out is that potato consumption is what it is in Ireland because of enforced addiction. Like what the British did to the Chinese with opium, so they did to Ireland with addictive carbs (potatoes are just sugar really). Getting the Irish onto a diet of mainly potatoes may or may not have been the intentional end result. The British government wanted to feed its army, so meat, fish, poultry, eggs, butter, etc were 'appropriated' and escorted out of the country under armed guard. Environmental factors combined with this to produce successive famines, which then left the population with no choice other than to grow and consume potatoes, which are just about the only monoculture that anyone could grow at the time in wet Ireland. Naturally, severe malnutrition remained a problem long afterwards and the slow-motion genocide spread over successive generations until the population decline stabilised.

So when you say "the Irish should be dead from eating all that starch (potatoes), but they aren't", I think we can actually correlate their reliance on the potato as the primary source of nutrition and the death of up to 2 million people plus the enforced emigration of another 3 million (over 50% of the population in total). So that experiment in monoculture didn't end too well. (Alternatively, from the point of view of the British government, it was a spectacular result).

The archaeological record shows a decline in health after the introduction of agriculture, but then a lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, not to mention being held in slavery of one form or another. It's hard to say exactly what it means.

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I don't understand your confusion with why the introduction of agriculture brought about a decline in human health. A lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, yes? Because of the introduction of agriculture! And as we saw from the Irish example, the introduction of agriculture can result from very down-to-Earth power psychopathic lust for control.

For some good evolution reading, try Sir Alister Hardy's "The Living Stream" and other volumes. Lots of "food for thought" there.

Approaching Infinity said:

The human body truly is a "chemical factory", and maybe conscious breathing (and assimilating all those "active elements" Gurdjieff talks about) is another method of creating the right conditions, providing our DNA with messengers for positive changes?

Click to expand...

Yeah, and it makes me wonder how that relates to the next "food octave?" I.e. the first food octave (physical food), the second food octave (air), and the third food octave (impressions) progressively develop, making the person able to extract more "fine substances" in a feedback loop involving all three octaves (getting more and more "nutrition" at each step), as Gurdjieff seemed to imply?

Megan said:

Then there's the bit about if you need something that is good for your eyes, eat eyeballs. Really. They're full of nutrients that your eyes can use.

I think this idea is bizarre enough to have some truth to it. A simple relationship that might possibly hold across many levels.

Click to expand...

I think there's been a bunch of claims in alternative therapies for a while about ingesting tissues/organs for health problems involving those same tissues/organs, but I'm not sure how much detailed scientific explanations there are for the exact mechanisms (other than the same raw materials existing in these tissues/organs - it may involve much more subtle principles as well).

Megan said:

Yes. While I have adopted the basic theory of evolution whole-heartedly, there are a lot of details that leave me wondering. The idea of random mutation makes sense, but I am not at all sure that anything is truly "random." It has seemed to me as though the mutation process might be guided somehow. And this author proposes that the genetic introns are in fact a vast library of epigenetic data on which the genes can draw -- ancient experience. And that many "mutations" are tested in advance using epigenetic controls, and then mutations are introduced when the epigenetic "experiments" prove successful.

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Yes, these ideas are very intriguing and significant. If DNA is the interface between consciousness and matter, then what seems "random" to a materialist may actually be a much more meaningful and intelligent process -- there's definitely chance involved, but it's not totally random, as in arbitrary, if I can put it that way. There's probably a whole lot of quantum effects that are not discussed in materialistic/mainstream science.

Very interesting points in this thread. Yet another book to add to the to-read list that seems to be growing exponentially, it seems.

Laura said:

I don't understand your confusion with why the introduction of agriculture brought about a decline in human health. A lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, yes? Because of the introduction of agriculture! And as we saw from the Irish example, the introduction of agriculture can result from very down-to-Earth power psychopathic lust for control.

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The confusion occurs when we condemn agriculture in total. The meat, fish, eggs, butter, etc. are products of agriculture. It is a specific type of plantation agriculture which forced the Irish to eat potato carbohydrates for energy, while the British imperial agents ate the healthy agricultural products containing concentrated lipids and proteins. So, industrialized agricultural products which produce large yields of carbohydrates allows an over class to maintain a slave class in minimal health and short life span, as the slave human beings are considered to be animals for exploitation and are fed animal food. The human animals are fed the cheapest sources of energy(carbohydrates), since their health and longevity are not considered in the psychopathic profit motive of plantation agriculture, what we today call agribusiness.

I think diversified grass based agriculture was the basis of well fed populations of the Northern Europe of my ancestors. They ate beef, butter, pork, lard, chicken, eggs, ducks, and vegetables from a kitchen garden. These are the products of a specific type of agriculture. Perhaps, you are condemning agriculture in total, when the problem is plantation agriculture and agribusiness which developed as the result of master-slave economics of psychopathy.

Edit: I just received Deep Nutrition and Primal Body, Primal Mind yesterday and am looking forward to a weekend of reading.

Approaching Infinity said:

Just started reading this one, and while its flaws have been mentioned already (doesn't talk about gluten, casein, carbs), there is some REALLY fascinating stuff in it. First of all, the author, Catherine Shanahan, writes about epigenetics and how much influence diet and nutrition has on the proper expression and functioning of our genes (and the effects carried over generations). She mentions one well known experiment where lab animals deprived of Vitamin A will give birth to offspring without eyes. The genes read the environment via nutrients, and intelligently conclude that the environment is one in which eyes aren't necessary (lack of the vitamin is interpreted as lack of need). When then given an adequate supply, the offspring are born with eyes (showing that it's epigenetics and not a permanent mutation). Generalized, when our DNA lacks the communication of particular nutrients, it shuts off those systems as unnecessary. Which makes me wonder just how much 'human potential' has been atrophied over thousands of years of an increasingly degenerate and nutrient-poor (in every sense of the word) environment. That's not to mention the effects of toxins which disrupt gene expression (she cites vegetable oils and sugars as two of the main culprits, affecting hormone regulation and communication).

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This is interesting. Thanks for the book notes AI.

The lab animals being grown without eyes reminds me of an excerpt from T.S. Wiliey's Lights Out where she mentions the effect of environmental stress on salimanders:

The salimanders live in ponds along an isolated rim of the Grand Canyon. When food and water are plentiful, the salamander is in its Dr. Jekyll form - a gregarious, peace-loving insect eater. But when the water begins to dry up, food becomes scarce and living conditions become unbearably competitive and cramped, some of the salamanders go through an amazing Mr. Hyde transformation.

Environmental pressures rapidly alter the function of some of their genes, creating changes in their physical shape and making them aggressive. Muscles enlarge to make their heads and mouths bigger and they grow a new set of huge teeth, adaptations that allow them to attack and eat their fellow salamanders.

They become cannibals, but only for a short time. Once they've gobbled up enough salamanders to reduce crowding, they turn back into Dr. Jekyll. Their heads shrink to normal size and they dine on insects again.

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It's interesting that specific vitamin deficiencies are viewed by the body as a change of environment and can thus alter gene expression too. It makes me wonder how much of our environment has been altered to increase the expression of psychopathy in the general population. Maybe some humans are not all that unlike the salamanders mentioned above...

Fascinating thread! Thanks for the review AI. I recently read this book and this thread makes me want to read it again.

RyanX said:

It's interesting that specific vitamin deficiencies are viewed by the body as a change of environment and can thus alter gene expression too. It makes me wonder how much of our environment has been altered to increase the expression of psychopathy in the general population. Maybe some humans are not all that unlike the salamanders mentioned above...

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Good point. I constantly wonder about the human inability to make vitamin C as it's something we seem to need in particularly high doses and there is so obviously a lack of those quantities in our diets- maybe there's a question for the C's on that point to get a better clue?

About the Irish and potatoes- being Irish myself I have to say that of all the foods I've given up, potatoes were seemingly the hardest (I postponed it for a long time) but I never noticed such a great difference after giving up any other food. It was causing some very extreme sugar cravings!

Also, good point on the golden ratio word salad Megan. I read about that in some work by Drunvalo Melchizedek (I think it was). Like you, it's left me wanting to understand that whole topic better. Since reading the book it's left me looking at people and "physical deformities" differently (but without the understanding!). Oh if only I could make this potato-damaged brain of mine work more efficiently- so much to read, so little time!

RyanX said:

They become cannibals, but only for a short time. Once they've gobbled up enough salamanders to reduce crowding, they turn back into Dr. Jekyll. Their heads shrink to normal size and they dine on insects again.

Click to expand...

It's interesting that specific vitamin deficiencies are viewed by the body as a change of environment and can thus alter gene expression too. It makes me wonder how much of our environment has been altered to increase the expression of psychopathy in the general population. Maybe some humans are not all that unlike the salamanders mentioned above...

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Very interesting. Wonder if it would have anything to do with country's "essence" (and its relation to the percentage of psychopathy) as was discussed in the latest session. Could also be tied with the concept of ponerogenesis.

Kniall said:

Whatever about the rest, as we saw in the August 20 session, it has become pretty clear that diet absolutely must be corrected or this shamanic capacity will read the exponential influx of newer and finer substances into the environment ahead of the wave in the wrong way and drive them mad....

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I have been thinking a lot about that session, but not so much in this context. Thanks!

Megan said:

Who knows. Were our ancestors sick from eating traditional breads and unprocessed milk? I don't know. The Irish should be dead from eating all that starch (potatoes), but they aren't. There are parts to this puzzle that I don't think we understand.

Click to expand...

Well Megan, you chose an interesting example for a case study! First of all, in a sense, 'the Irish' are dead. They succumbed to the blanket smoking ban earliest and without the slightest hesitation - similarly with the international banksters' takeover of their economy. They also accepted a second illegal vote on the creation of and entry into the new EU superstate. I could go on, and comparisons could be made with other countries but I won't belabor that point.

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I was thinking of this more from a biochemical point of view. With all that sugar (starch) intake, one might think their bodies would be overrun with glycation and AGEs, and that they would literally be dead by now. I have heard that they have very poor dental health, and that they are having an obesity epidemic comparable to our own, but until now somehow they seem to have been able to resist some of the deadliest of the effects. One clue may be that sugar and vegetable oils work in concert to cause cellular destruction, and the rise of diabetes and other cellular disease in Ireland may correlate with a rise in intake of that toxic material.

Googling a bit, I see that traditional Irish cuisine, like that of other cultures, seems to have contained plenty of offal. That may have been key to their survival. Today, they are consuming vast quantities of vegetable oils (among other things) and going down with the rest of "civilization."

The archaeological record shows a decline in health after the introduction of agriculture, but then a lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, not to mention being held in slavery of one form or another. It's hard to say exactly what it means.

Click to expand...

I don't understand your confusion with why the introduction of agriculture brought about a decline in human health. A lot of people were being deprived of their basic nutritional needs, yes? Because of the introduction of agriculture! And as we saw from the Irish example, the introduction of agriculture can result from very down-to-Earth power psychopathic lust for control.

Click to expand...

Most of my confusion was from being up too late last night.

We have both an archaeological and a historical record that shows that health declines under agriculture. That record, however, does not delve down into the details. It is possible (likely, I would say) that many people have been able to thrive on agricultural-era diets. Mass die-offs (mentioned in Catching Fire and possibly The Vegetarian Myth) probably occurred during the transition, but that is one form of evolutionary adaptation. And we wouldn't necessarily have had to reinvent the ability to metabolize higher levels of carbs from scratch, since our gene pool should have retained some if not a great deal of information about that in its memory.

So while this is speculation, I would not be surprised if it is possible to do very well on a higher-carb diet given the right genetic/epigenetic configuration, a diet containing substantial offal (but less than paleo levels), and an intact cultural memory of what to eat and what to combine with what.

Shanahan's (an Irish surname!) ideas about food may not be as crazy as they sometimes sound. She does acknowledge that some people need to restrict carbs, but she doesn't present is as a general principle. And maybe it isn't. Maybe it is a special principle that we need to apply to ourselves here as part of our esoteric interests.

As I have zigged and zagged over the last couple of years, trying to figure out what to eat, I have taken a number of short cooking classes. Whenever I do that, I feel the "pull" to be creative and enjoy all that is available. That is fine if all you are doing is looking for ways to pass the time. Deep Nutrition suggests that, with care, and depending on your heath and food sensitivities you can do that by focusing on well-prepared traditional foods, without worrying any more about carbs, dairy, fat, and protein any more than our ancestors did. But I am not just passing the time, and I am not particularly healthy, and I choose to pass on the invitation. In fact the "pull" seems suspiciously similar to the "lure of 3rd density."

There is a wealth of information in this book, but you need to have enough knowledge to be able to make appropriate personal choices in how you use it

Approaching Infinity said:

Just started reading this one, and while its flaws have been mentioned already (doesn't talk about gluten, casein, carbs), there is some REALLY fascinating stuff in it. First of all, the author, Catherine Shanahan, writes about epigenetics and how much influence diet and nutrition has on the proper expression and functioning of our genes (and the effects carried over generations). She mentions one well known experiment where lab animals deprived of Vitamin A will give birth to offspring without eyes. The genes read the environment via nutrients, and intelligently conclude that the environment is one in which eyes aren't necessary (lack of the vitamin is interpreted as lack of need). When then given an adequate supply, the offspring are born with eyes (showing that it's epigenetics and not a permanent mutation). Generalized, when our DNA lacks the communication of particular nutrients, it shuts off those systems as unnecessary. Which makes me wonder just how much 'human potential' has been atrophied over thousands of years of an increasingly degenerate and nutrient-poor (in every sense of the word) environment. That's not to mention the effects of toxins which disrupt gene expression (she cites vegetable oils and sugars as two of the main culprits, affecting hormone regulation and communication).

Now, this talk of "intelligent" DNA got me thinking. What she describes is kind of a 'negative epigenetics'; a toxin or deficiency leads to the atrophy of previously active genes (in the above case, those for eyes and vision). The nutrients provide information about the environment and the genome reacts accordingly. As she mentions, this is a seemingly intelligent process. But there's also a more 'positive' epigenetic effect. When you eat the right nutrients, they communicate with DNA, leading to the 'turning on' of dormant genes. This by itself is really fascinating stuff with all kind of implications. But does it go further? I'm wondering if new environment conditions could also lead to the activation of dormant or potential genes? In other words, current evolutionary thought sees adaptation as a random process: chance mutations are beneficial to the organism, promoting its survival and 'sticking' for future generations. This is the approach pretty much all scientists take. For example, Porges in his Polyvagal Theory says as much about the social engagement system, how it was basically an accident, a "byproduct of the neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system". But as Laura pointed out, perhaps a better way of putting it is that of "a neural regulation system evolved to meet the demands of the morphogenetic field influences of soul incarnation which included a need to develop a way to express emotions and prosocial behavior."

Maybe epigenetics, and specifically nutrition (but perhaps more; see below), which seems to have the greatest effect, is part of how this takes place? The way I see it, DNA is like the great ocean of potential (6D thought forms which contain all possibilities). It is the alphabet out of which every living thing grows, or takes its 'name' perhaps. Given the right nutrients from the right environment, the DNA reads this information and "turn on" genes to foster thriving in that environment. There's light, so eyes develop; there are tall tree species, so long necks develop; there are predators, so camouflage and defensive systems develop; etc. This brings in a kind of teleology or purpose to seemingly 'blind' evolutionary processes. When a species lives in a more 'nutritious' environment (as was the case with mammals perhaps?), new systems 'appear' and develop to provide for their further evolution and survival. Evolution proceeds along to a specific (yet open) end, along a specific path. It follows the "Divine Plan" which is really Nature, possibilities and probabilities, throughout levels of density.

Shanahan goes so far as to call the nutritional traditions passed on in traditional cultures an "ancient technology". This immediately brought to mind the old title of Secret History, which was Ancient Science. Highly specialized information was acquired and passed on in order to foster the health of babies and the tribe. Nowadays, we've lost most of this information, as it was guarded closely (she even brings up the high technology of megalith builders to make her point, which I thought was cute). I couldn't help but think of the image of the Grail, empty one minute and overfull the next. Our DNA is like the Grail, and when given the right stuff, is like the Horn of Plenty (which is how John Schumaker, I believe, described Paleolithics' access to food resources).

Anyways, this somewhat random (and hopefully not too tedious) stream of associations led me back to Gurdjieff and EE. Of course we know about all the benefits of vagal stimulation - basically it's what makes us truly human. But then there's that thing Gurdjieff said, which Laura quotes in the EE presentation:

"It is necessary to understand what this means. We all breathe the same air. Apart from the elements known to our science the air contains a great number of substances unknown to science, indefinable for it and inaccessible to its observation. But exact analysis is possible both of the air inhaled and of the air exhaled. This exact analysis shows that although the air inhaled by different people is exactly the same, the air exhaled is quite different. Let us suppose that the air we breathe is composed of twenty different elements unknown to our science. A certain number of these elements are absorbed by every man when he breathes. Let us suppose that five of these elements are always absorbed. Consequently the air exhaled by every man is composed of fifteen elements; five of them have gone to feeding the organism. But some people exhale not fifteen but only ten elements, that is to say, they absorb five elements more. These five elements are higher 'hydrogens.' These higher 'hydrogens' are present in every small particle of air 'we inhale. By inhaling air we introduce these higher 'hydrogens' into ourselves, but if our organism does not know how to extract them out of the particles of air, and retain them, they are exhaled back into the air. If the organism is able to extract and retain them, they remain in it. In this way we all breathe the same air but we extract different substances from it. Some extract more, others less.

"In order to extract more, it is necessary to have in our organism a certain quantity of corresponding fine substances. Then the fine substances contained in the organism act like a magnet on the fine substances contained in the inhaled air. We come again to the old alchemical law: 'In order to make gold, it is first of all necessary to have a certain quantity of real gold.' 'If no gold whatever is possessed, there is no means whatever of making it.'

"The whole of alchemy is nothing but an allegorical description of the human factory and its work of transforming base metals (coarse substances) into precious ones (fine substances).

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The human body truly is a "chemical factory", and maybe conscious breathing (and assimilating all those "active elements" Gurdjieff talks about) is another method of creating the right conditions, providing our DNA with messengers for positive changes?

Back to Deep Nutrition, she also says this:

Living in settled, relatively crowded cities began to chip away at our genetic programming, leading to the rise of disease while simultaneously enabling people with damaged genes, who might otherwise have died, to survive and give birth to less healthy children with less dynamic symmetry.

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She's talking about physical features, but the same could apply to psychopathology. City-living allowed individuals who would otherwise have not survived (e.g. psychopaths) to thrive.

She also makes an offhand comment about how physical deformities are not brought about by "intermixing races" (she's quoting outdated theories for it), but by epigenetic degeneration. This brought to mind the quote from Lobaczewski about skirtoids, and the possibility that intermixing races would lead to possibly great numbers. Maybe it's not the breeding, but the epigenetics at play here?

Anyways, rambling off for now. Back to reading.

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I just finished reading this book today and really enjoyed it, and I had some of the same thoughts as you AI, definitely worth a read, Just starting on Primal body primal mind, so that will keep me going for a couple of day's oh and thanks to everyone for putting the recommended reading list together, I've been meaning to read this book for a long time, should of done it a long time ago, although my diet is fairly good, i'm not eating enough organ meat although I have started eating it recently and I plan on making some sauerkraut this weekend. bone broth too. thanks again.