Superstimuli

During the 1940s and 50s, an Austrian psychologist named Konrad Lorenz studied the behavioral patterns of geese.

One of the things he observed was the egg-retrieving behavior of the greylag goose. When an egg rolls out of a goose's nest, it gently uses its bill to roll it back in. However, when Lorenz took an egg from the nest and placed it next to a larger round white object, the goose preferentially rolled the larger object back into its nest while ignoring the real egg. He called this larger object a superstimulus. It was an abnormally strong stimulus that was able to hijack the bird's normal behavioral pattern in a maladaptive way.

Our brains are wired to respond to the stimuli with which they evolved. For example, our natural taste preferences tell us that fruit is good. But what happens when we concentrate that sugar tenfold? We get a superstimulus. Our brains are not designed to process that amount of stimulation constructively, and it often leads to a loss of control over the will, or addiction.

It's a very similar process to drug addiction. Addictive drugs are able to plug directly into the brain's pleasure centers, stimulating them beyond their usual bounds. Food superstimuli do this less directly, by working through the body's taste reward pathways. In fact, sweet liquids are so addictive, rats prefer them to intravenous cocaine. You can't take just one hit of crack, and you can't have just one Hershey's kiss.

Our bodies are finely honed to seek out healthy food, but only in the context of what we knew when our tastes developed during evolution. If all that's available is grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, vegetables, fruit, and nuts, your appetite will naturally guide you to a healthy diet.

If you surround yourself with superstimuli such as sugars, refined grains and MSG, your body will not guide you to a healthy diet. It will take you straight into a nutritional rut because it's not adapted to dealing with unnatural foods.

Your brain is pretty simple in some ways. It has these very basic hard-wired associations, like "sweet is good" and "free glutamate is good". If your brain likes a little bit of sweet, then it really likes a lot of sweet. If it likes a little bit of glutamate from meat, then it really likes a flood of glutamate from MSG. Just like the graylag goose that prefers the big white ball over her own egg, your brain drives you to ignore normal stimuli in favor of more potent superstimuli.

This explains the partially true saying "Everything that tastes good is bad for you". Why would your body deliberately encourage you to damage your health? In our hunter-gatherer state, it didn't. In this age of processed food, our technology has outstripped our ability to adapt.

Real Food I: Soup Stock

Making soup stock is a common practice in cultures throughout the world. It's a way of maximizing the value, nutrition and flavor of foods that are not always abundant. It's particularly relevant in the 21st century, when it's important to make the most of animal products that have a large environmental footprint.

The simplest way to make stock is to keep a "stock bag" in the freezer. Keep two plastic freezer bags (or whatever container you prefer) in the freezer, ready to accept food scraps whenever you have them. One is for vegetable scraps such as carrot peels, onion skins (not the brown part!), radish tops, etc. The other is for animal scraps such as bones, fish heads/tails, gristle, etc.


These are examples of vegetable scraps that are appropriate for stock:

Vegetable peels
Carrot ends
Onion scraps
Wilted greens
Asparagus stems

These are examples of animal products that are good for stock:

Bones
Gristle
Fish heads/tails
Chicken feet
Parmesan rinds (thanks Debs!)

These should not be used for stock:

Brown onion skins
Anything covered in dirt
Anything rotten or unpleasant-smelling
Celery greens, carrot greens and other bitter greens


Vegetable stock is the easiest. Take a generous amount of vegetable scraps out of your stock bag and put them in a pot full of water. Boil for one hour, then strain.

In my opinion, the best stock is made with animal bones. It's rich in minerals and gelatin, and has a full, meaty flavor. Break the bones to expose the marrow, put them in a pot full of water or a crockpot, add 2 tablespoons vinegar, and simmer for 1-20 hours. Add vegetable scraps for the last hour, then strain. Large bones from beef or lamb require long cooking to draw out their full flavor, while thinner chicken bones and fish parts require less. The vinegar helps draw the minerals out of the bones into solution.

Fish heads also make a delicious, nutritious stock. They're full of minerals (including iodine), omega-3 fats and vitamin A from the eyes. You can often get them dirt-cheap at the fish counter. Boil them for one hour with vegetable scraps and two tablespoons of vinegar, strain, pick off the meat and add it to your soup.

Genetics and Disease

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the role of genetics in health. It seems like every day the media have a new story about gene X or Y 'causing' obesity, diabetes or heart disease. There are some diseases that are strongly and clearly linked to a gene, such as the disease I study: spinocerebellar ataxia type 7. I do not believe that genetics are the cause of more than a slim minority of health problems however. Part of this is a semantic issue. How do you define the word 'cause'? It's a difficult question, but I'll give you an example of my reasoning and then we'll come back to it.

A classic and thoroughly studied example of genetic factors in disease can be found in the Pima indians of Arizona. Currently, this population eats a version of the American diet, high in refined and processed foods. It also has the highest prevalence of type II diabetes of any population on earth (much higher than the US average), and a very high rate of obesity. One viewpoint is that these people are genetically susceptible to obesity and diabetes, and thus their genes are the cause of their health problems.

However, if you walk across the national border to Mexico, you'll find another group of Pima indians. This population is genetically very similar to the Arizona Pima except they have low rates of obesity and diabetes. They eat a healthier, whole-foods, agriculture-based diet. Furthermore, 200 years ago, the Arizona Pima were healthy as well. So what's the cause of disease here? Strictly speaking, it's both genetics and lifestyle. Both of these factors are necessary for the health problems of the Arizona Pima. However, I think it's more helpful to think of lifestyle as the cause of disease, since that's the factor that changed.

The Pima are a useful analogy for the world in general. They are an extreme example of what has happened to many if not all modern societies. Thus, when we talk about the 'obesity gene' or the 'heart disease gene', it's misleading. It's only the 'obesity gene' in the context of a lifestyle to which we are not genetically adapted.

I do not believe that over half of paleolithic humans were overweight, or that 20% had serious blood glucose imbalances. In fact, studies of remaining populations living naturally and traditionally have shown that they are typically much healthier than industrialized humans. Yet here we are in the US, carrying the very same genes as our ancestors, sick as dogs. That's not all though: we're actually getting sicker. Obesity, diabetes, allergies and many other problems are on the rise, despite the fact that our genes haven't changed.

I conclude that genetics are only rarely the cause of disease, and that the vast majority of health problems in the US are lifestyle-related. Studies into the genetic factors that predispose us to common health problems are interesting, but they're a distraction from the real problems and the real solutions that are staring us in the face. These solutions are to promote a healthy diet, exercise, and effective stress management.

Welcome

Yes, I'm finally diving headfirst into blog-land. Welcome to the blog section of Whole Health Source.

This blog will be a collection of my thoughts on health, food, the environment, science, wholesome living and whatever else captures my interest.

Maybe this will help me stop clogging up other blogs' comment pages.

C 2008