Optimal nutrition

[nicklebleu]

Hi all,

This is my first topic since joining this forum. I have had an interesting and frenzied last few days. I literally stumbled upon the Cassiopaea website. The reason I post this under the index "Diet and Health" has to do with the fact, that my starting point was nutrition.

I "Stumbled Upon" (Firefox plug-in) a website about the Paleolithic Diet (_http://paleodiet.com). I was quite interested in this topic, as I always have had a few pounds too much, apart from a borderline hypertension and high serum cholesterol. So I started reading. On this website was a link called "Optimal Diet" which refers to a diet similar to the diverse types of paleolithic diets, which was invented by a polish doctor Jan Kwasniewski (_http://homodiet.netfirms.com). I might have to add, that I am from the medical profession too, and what I read on this website defied conventional medical wisdom completely. It claimed to be able to cure/ alleviate a number of civilatory diseases like multiple sclerosis, Buerger's disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis etc. The basic concept is, that for every gram of protein ingested, you should ingest 2.5 - 3.5 g of fat and less than 0.8 g of carbohydrates. Just to test this hypothesis I went onto this strange regimen straight away. My blood pressure went normal within 3 days and I have been loosing weight slowly - without the faintest trace of hunger. Now you might say: That's all nice and good, but in the end, this amount of fat will increase your serum triglycerides and cholesterol levels, even if you are loosing weight. Kwasniewski claims that cholesterol might go up a bit, but the relevant relation of HDL- vs. LDL-cholesterol would get better (HDL is the "good" and LDL is the "bad" cholesterol) and triglycerides would drop. In the end, he claims, that atherosclerotic changes in the arteries would eventually vanish. He used to run a clinic in Poland and cites many studies that he did on the various diseases. Anyway, I will check my serum lipids in a few months and we will know more ...

But that is just the beginning ... I felt totally reinvigorated. So I was curious about this chap and I bought one of his books called "Homo optimus". In this book, he doesn't only speak about nutrition, but compares the state (as in government) with the body. I found this analogy a bit daring, but hey ... As an example of an "optimal human being" he mentioned one of his idols, a certain priest Wladimierz Sedlak. I was unfortunately not able to find out a lot about Sedlak, as all of his work is published in Polish. His main oeuvre is "Homo electronicus", and apart from being a catholic priest, he was founder of bioelectronics and electromagnetic theory of life. But via Sedlak I found out about Cassiopaea. I don't remember exactly how ...

So after this lengthy introduction, my question is: Does nutrition influence the mind? Kwasniewski makes a interesting analogy between the standard type of nutrition with lots of grains, beans, carbohydrates and the optimal nutrition (which is essentially rich in animal fat) as the difference between sheep in a flock being herded together on the pastures (he also calls them slaves) and beings who are free to decide and lead their own life. He also talks a lot about "Original Sin", not in the religious context of making a mistake and paying for it, but as loosing some essential knowledge and thus slipping into an aberrant lifestyle which has since then ensnared and held people and civilizations as prisoners.

So can a change in nutrition bring about a change of insight or brain function? To me these last few weeks definitively feel that way, as if my life has takes a 180 degree turn. I have always been a seeker of explanations behind things I experienced. This has not been easy all the time and I have gone down many dead ends, but suddenly I have had the impression, that many things have fallen into place. So which is cause and which is effect? Again could a change in dietary habits help bring about some progress on the path to knowledge?

Let me know what your thought are ...

 

[Loud John]

Well I hadn't though untill you mentioned it but I too changed my diet similar to you and that is when I found this site and started reading. It has definately changed the way I look at life in every respect.

 

[John G]

Well coincidently someone on a quantum consciousness yahoo group I subscribe to posted this link today which is about Sedlak's "Homo electronicus":

http://www.bioelektronika.com/electronicus.htm

 

[notanothermonday]

nicklebleu

As a way to illustrate how diet has an impact on thought and brain function consider this:
The brain is part of the control system of the body, the spinal cord is an extension of the brain and is part of that control system, each of the nerves leaving the spinal cord are highways of information being fed back to the spinal cord and much of that information is shared with the brain. If you have a physical body that is compromised in any way then the brain and the nervous system are also compromised in function. It is the difference between running electricity through brand new copper wires with clean connections and running the same energy through corroded wires with loose, dirty connections.

 

[nicklebleu]

How very true, notanothermonday!

However the question is, what is the best nutrition to achieve best results, kind of to make the copper wires last longer.

To give you an example: At my workplace they have just decided to skip full-cream milk and to substitute this with "hi-lo" milk, a medium fat milk. If you read the label, there is all sorts of things in there besides milk: "milk solids", "gum protein" as thickening agents ... now how crazy is that! Full-cream milk is much more nutritious than the "hi-lo" milk. From a "scientific" point of view there is little evidence supporting the claim that a low-fat high-carb diet is good for your health, or vice versa, that a low-carb high-fat diet is bad. And the evidence is just for everyone to see: people are getting more and more obese, with the civilisationary diseases growing at a frightening pace. One starts to wonder, if this isn't another input from 4D STS: to deliberately promote a nutrition that creates disease, suffering, low levels of energy etc.

Since I have switched over to a high-fat low carb diet I have not only lost weight, but I feel much more energized as well...

 

[Angelique]

Have any of ya heard of a drug called hcg pregnyl to help you lose weight? my friend is taking part in a hcg weight loss challenge and i think she is crazy for doing it, she has injections that she does every day and although she has lost weight i think its only short term. Here is her blog http://www.drugdelivery.ca/blog/hcg/10/ Lori Blog. What do you think about this diet, have you hear heard of it because i have not.

 

[the_hammer]

I have only ever heard about hCG being used in Russia by athletes to gain more muscles. It does sound rather silly though for a girl to be mimicking a pregnancy for the purpose of loosing weight. I haven't found anything on the internet that states that using hCG will make you loose weight or that it will distribute the body fats differently, so for me it sound as if the only thing she is sure to gain from taking these injections are all the chemicals being used to preserve the hCG.

 

[vinny]

hi nicklebleu,

Does nutrition influence the mind?

what is the best nutrition to achieve best results, kind of to make the copper wires last longer.

you might find it interesting/useful to read about the 'blood-type diet' (you need to know what blood-type you are) and also glutens and how to reduce them. many here have had positive results. I think there is some stuff on blood-type and definitely some stuff on gluten on the forum, so a forum search should dig it up.

 

[Laura]

The Paleo Diet is brought up here:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=5882.msg46319#msg46319
and here:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=7757.msg55392#msg55392

The first link is to a post in a much longer thread that covers a lot of stuff. We've published a raft of articles on the Health and Wellness category on sott about these topics. You might want to scroll through there to find some very interesting stuff! (Especially about gluten).

 

[Third_Density_Resident]

nickelbleu, be very careful not to lump all humans into the same category. You are basically saying that low-carb, high-fat diets are much better for ALL humans, which is just plain incorrect. There are many people who do not like to eat meat or any animal products, and function much better and have more energy as vegetarians. Similarly, there are those who claim the opposite -- that they have no energy on a vegetarian diet, and simply have to eat meat to survive. I know people who get sick consuming high-fat products, and I happen to be one of them. I don't know much about high-fat, low-carb diets, but I do know that the Atkins diet (which is low-carb, high-protein) is not without controversy.

A 2001 scientific review conducted by Freedman et al. and published in the peer reviewed scientific journal Obesity Research concluded that low-carb dieters' initial advantage in weight loss was a result of increased water loss, and that after the initial period, low-carbohydrate diets produce similar fat loss to other diets with similar caloric intake.

I'm not so sure that a loss of water to lose weight is such a good thing in the long term. It has also been found that vegetable fats and proteins can be beneficial in reducing heart disease in women:

A long-term study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 found that women reduced heart disease risk by eating more protein and fat from vegetable sources.

Of course the above would not apply in all cases. So to reiterate, the point I'm trying to make is that different people have different dietary needs. There is no "one diet fits all" solution. Vinny pointed out the blood-type diet, and I think that sort of fits it with what I'm saying.

 

[Laura]

Keep in mind that wikipedia is often wrong. The attack of the AMA against the ideas of the Atkins diet were designed to keep people sick and wikipedia has joined in the fray.

I believe that the most common blood type is O + which would benefit from the paleo diet. Of course, it is not beneficial for the type A blood.

And, as we have discovered, wheat and corn are generally not good for ANY of the blood types, though wheat is the most evil!

And what is the Standard American Diet (SAD) composed of mainly? What is in virtually everything? Some variation of wheat or corn.

 

[nicklebleu]

Hi all,

Just back from an overseas trip in Asia, where I was forced to eat a low-fat high-carb diet, as their main staple consists of rice in the morning, rice at lunch-time and rice in the evening, with a bit of vegetable and meat. The changes to my body were quite astonishing. One of the things I noticed, was that for many years I have had a "lump in the throat" and I have developed the habit of "clearing my throat" quite often, with a little bit of mucous coming up - kind of like a low-grade chronic laryngitis. After about 2 months on the paleo-diet that was gone. Now, after only 10 days back on the high-carb diet this symptom is back - nothing much to worry about, but still very interesting, I think!

As to the blood-type diet: I am actually A neg., which means I should be on a "vegetarian diet" avoiding meats. Haven't studied this subject a lot, but agree with Laura on the AMA and SAD recommendations. If one looks at the basic data, then the recommendations based on these studies are just untenable. For instance, there is just no evidence, that an increase in cholesterol intake increases your blood cholesterol. For additional information I refer you to J.Kwasniewski - Optimal Diet. And look around you - the recommended diet just doesn't work.

As to Third_Density_Residents remarks about fitting your diet to your individual body ... you are probably right about that. However, I think that some things are bad no matter what body you "wear". And I definitively think wheat is one of them, the other that comes to mind is sugar. I know that some people have problems with high-fat diets, although I think it really depends how you do it. If you compare the Atkins Diet with the Optimal diet, you will see, that the latter looks mainly at the balance between fat, carbohydrates and protein, and not at the absolute amounts of each. In my opinion, this is the key - your body will tell you when to stop eating, once the balance of the different nutrients have been ingested. And you have to "wean" your body off the carbs first and that takes some adjusting to.

I just find it interesting, that human beings settled down and became agrarians 10'000 years ago. And that with the conversion of the diet life expectancy dropped, as well as stature. From a Controller perspective, settled-down and localized humans are easier to control than itinerant peoples - but that is all just speculation.

 

[Thomas Alan]

Keep in mind that wikipedia is often wrong. The attack of the AMA against the ideas of the Atkins diet were designed to keep people sick and wikipedia has joined in the fray.

I believe that the most common blood type is O + which would benefit from the paleo diet. Of course, it is not beneficial for the type A blood.

And, as we have discovered, wheat and corn are generally not good for ANY of the blood types, though wheat is the most evil!

And what is the Standard American Diet (SAD) composed of mainly? What is in virtually everything? Some variation of wheat or corn.

In the past year or so I have been adopting the paleo diet. Meats, animal fats, eliminating soy, gluten, msg.
I must say I feel better and I love bacon for breakfast. Starts my day with feeling of something solid in my stomach. I am A- so a bit of a seeming contradiction here.

An interesting note. I recently had a blood screening. The cholesterol reading was particularly interesting. The 12/2 test showed total cholesterol at 169, hdl 76, ldl 85.
A 7/15/10 test showed total 177 hdl 59 ldl 107. So adding more meats and animal fat to my diet appears to have brought my ldl .down!

Still working on my diet. Learning if fun!

Mac