The Goods Are Odd

There is nothing like a little scientific controversy to make a person feel like that guy with two watches. I got a bit mired in the discussion about how much vitamin D people need after we started to take fermented cod liver oil on a semi-regular basis. I wasn’t specifically looking to learn more about Vitamin D, I was pretty convinced about the benefits of cod liver oil, especially in the winter, but starting with a NY Times Well Blog post on the “Hype or Miracle” of vitamin D I found myself trying to figure what our understanding of the vitamin really amounts to.

Americans apparently are showing deficiencies in vitamin D and there are myriad findings for the implications of these deficiencies and apparently just as many ideas about what to do about them. The most common suggestion seems to be upping the RDI and encouraging medical practitioners to give patients who seem to have deficiencies and/or issues that are now being connected to deficiencies high doses of vit. D supplements. The second solution is to increase the vitamin d in the food supply, already vitamin D is put into whole milk and also some orange juice. So this would increase the vitamin D intake of those who consume those foods, whether or not they have deficiencies.

I take issue with both solutions and here’s why. Vitamin D is only found in a few foods, and my inclination is that there is a reason for that. Most of our vitamin D is synthesized through exposure to the sun, and to avoid getting too much of the nutrient steroid hormone the body starts to block the synthesis process when we get too much (hence the darkening of the skin). These two facts seem to say, vitamin d is important but it’s not something to have in excess. That said, clearly our consumption of this nutrient steroid hormone would be in decline since so few of us now have livelihoods that bring us outside and even when we aren’t working, much of our time is spent under roofs. Then, even for those who do go outside there is that pesky dark and cold part of the year that makes it even more difficult. We also consume far fewer vitamin D rich foods, like organ meats, fish, and eggs.

I’m sorry if this seems too obvious, but instead of raising the consumption level of vitamin d to levels that the human body has maybe never experienced we should probably just increase our consumption of naturally vitamin D rich foods as was traditionally done, in the winter and spend some time outdoors when it’s nice out. This follows a very sound and traditional pattern of labor and consumption, meat and indoor activities in the winter, lots of veggies and sun in the spring and summer and fall. Why would supplementation be necessary since we have historically gotten what we need from food and being outside?
I guess it is this kind of controversy that draws me to premise of the research of Dr. Weston Price and the information put out by the Weston A Price foundation. The first question of his research was “is disease inherent?” He saw so much disease in his dental practice- in the mouth and beyond- he was moved to find out if this was just the plight of humanity or an expression of something wrong but preventable. So he looked for people in the world without disease and then looked to find out how they got to be in that lucky state. Dr. Daphne Miller did the same thing in her book. She found people who lacked certain chronic diseases and then looked to their traditions (mostly food traditions, but their lifestyle as a whole as well) to find out how they maintained that level of health. Miller and Price did not isolate a substance and call it a cure, though they did identify powerful foods (raw milk and raw milk products, cod liver oil, nopales, fermented foods, whole fats) that when eaten in their natural/whole state along with the regular traditional diet contributed to remarkable overall health. The research I have come across of sources of vitamin D may discuss co-factors (things the body needs to use something else) but never looks at the whole food. Complexity of a diet, maybe there is more to vitamin D rich foods than just vitamin D?
The lack of attention to traditional foods is a problem in general for health research and specifically the supplement solution this research often leads to, particularly through the food supply- putting substances in other substances where they don’t necessarily belong. (I talked about this before here, and it doesn’t seem beneficial) Maybe, just maybe, the world works the way it does for a reason and there is a good explanation for why milk doesn’t have vitamin d (human or cow). Not to mention orange juice. I think many would agree that our limited understanding of such complex processes might not lead us to the right conclusions and that we need a better point of reference for guiding what we put in our bodies than isolated scientific studies. If you feel like you need a reminder of how little we know about the body, check out the Human Microbiome Project.

I found this article interesting for pointing out the flaws in much of the research supporting increased D supplementation. They also have some useful observations of the role of money and industry in these recommendations, particularly the excitement over increased D fortification by those who produce the supplemented products and the concern that supplementation continues only in their foods so they can maintain that market edge. (A note about this article: the authors of that site have a particular understanding of the role of Vitamin D in the immune system and the relationship with pathogenic bacteria that the they suspect are responsible for chronic disease. Now, their whole theory is currently on the fringe and flies in the face of much research to date about immunity and particularly about vitamin d. But most research dealing with the role of microbes in our body is currently fringe because it is something we know so little about, and most of it flies in the face of what is currently known about such things as human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition. But it makes sense that if we don’t understand something that makes up 90% of our cells we probably know very little about all that stuff over which that 90% has influence. Again, check out that Human Microbiome Project)

My general conclusion from looking into Vitamin D is that the problems and benefits of the hormone isn’t the hormone per se, but everything the hormone is involved in. And we know very little about all that, so what is our point of reference for understanding what the body needs beyond this limited reductionist view? The Weston A Price foundation can turn people off because the information is often self-referential and can seem too scrupulous or the recommendations too impractical. These are  fair assessments for the most part, but what I appreciate about their information is that they use traditional wisdom and foods in their whole form as a guide for what works and why. This practice doesn’t fit in with scientific method, but what if it did? What if, in addition to clinical trials, health researchers had to find out what the role of the substance they are researching was in traditional and healthy populations and then work from their on how to best utilize that substance for modern health issues. Vitamin D researchers might then see the role of the other fat soluble vitamins in balancing out the toxicity potential since they are often found together in foods. There might be better connections made with the role of fat in the diet and cholesterol in the body when looking at how the body makes and uses the hormone D. We might have avoided the low-fat craze if there had been a requirement to take into account fat in the diet of healthy people around the world.
The issue, as always, is that food as medicine in the traditional sense isn’t a very profitable enterprise. If it were, vitamin deficiencies of any kind would force us to look at what worked before the deficiency and to return to that practice. Instead of encouraging the sale of more pills, the National Institute of Health could support funding for outdoor education and workforce requirements for taking lunch breaks and walking/biking to work. Such suggestions may not seem practical, but at least we know they’ve worked for humanity thus far.

Photo Copyright. Mother and Father. 2009. HODGES & CO. all rights revealed

I have really been appreciating Michael Pollan’s recent tour circuit for his latest book Food Rules. With both The Daily Show and Oprah he has been hitting mainstream media with really important messages about food production and culture and is doing so is a way that is straight, truthful and ultimately seems easier for people to get and get behind (easier that is than maybe his past messages and others in the SOLE food movement. (That’s Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical))

The best of these interviews so far has been with Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdek Kouddous on Democracy Now. They tell him at the beginning that their “food rule” for him is “no sound bites” and he plays along (probably eager for the chance to elaborate really). Even if you have read his books and/or heard him talk, and he does do a lot of repeating, as I guess is necessary, this interchange is worth watching. As he does in the other interviews, he really brings together the complexity of the food culture with clear ways out of many of the tangles we’re in but he goes a bit deeper than the rest and seems a bit more forthright.

My favorite point is his mention of the feminist/labor issues around food and how processed food and classic feminism went, unfortunately, hand in hand due to the need for more income and less entrapment of women in a domestic role. I think this questions gets to the heart of our daily food life; who cooks for us, why don’t we cook ourselves, why don’t we prioritize the time and money to eat well? I really feel that addressing these questions and making changes that align with our heart-of-heart values with the answers can be really empowering, healing, and have great impact on the world.

My least favorite point is his use of the word “fat” as if there is one category and none of the members of that category have any distinction. I know he understands this because he is very current on the research on the role of fat in the diet. People generally understand that there a “good fats” and “bad fats” so he could just at least say “bad fats” but he could take it a step further and separate out whole, traditional fats from industrial oils. He does this already with meat. There is no such thing as meat as one category- there are animals that are eaten that have completely different diets and nutritional profiles even though they are technically the same animals. He explains that he eats less meat than he used to and he eats different meat than he used to (only grass fed for beef for example). I wish he would make the same distinction with fat. He mentioned that school lunches are so deplorable because it is the disposal method for surplus cheap food and because the meals have calorie minimums not maximums. He says the meals need to have less fat- well school lunches have low-fat milk, but we know that’s not really the best choice in terms of providing whole food. So schools have followed the low-fat mantra, but are still terribly unhealthy. He doesn’t really mean that they need less fat, they need less of the processed foods and chemicals that are contributing to disease and obesity in children, which is not whole milk- it is soda (which he does mention), and highly processed carbs, and industrial fats. I wouldn’t change much about what he said, and I don’t think he should bring down the ease with which he communicates by bringing this up in such a way (as I do), but it would help his message stay consistent if he would at least make a careful distinction in this regard.

Our food in 2010 seems to be following a color pattern…

In Nourishing Traditions, there is one instance that Sally Fallon gives a thumbs up to the increased globalization (and industrialization) of food and that is to the availability of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables year round, which insures that people will eat enough variety of plants. (I’m not sure if she still holds this feeling as so much of her work involves supporting small farmers to provide ecologically grown local food.) Nina Planck also admits that she goes beyond the farmer’s market in winter to have a fresh green salad every day, for her it’s worth it. Ultimately I would probably make the same choice if I didn’t live in a place where lettuce is bright and happy all year, but I wonder if we are “supposed” to eat the kinds of food we are able to find in a given season. Not just to ecological or economic reasons, but because of what our bodies need at a given time.

I’ve tried to explore an intuition that the foods in season are just the foods our bodies need in a given season. That is, could it be that collard greens, broccoli, brussell sprouts and butternut squash, carrots, and yams are all available right now and such timing matches up with my body’s particular nutritional needs in the winter?

It isn’t really an easy thing to answer since people live in such different climates (around the world and different from their ancestry). Apparently, in Traditional Chinese Medicine “the foods that are natural to a particular season carry strong messages of Qi balancing and tonifying for that season.” (more on that here) From my limited understanding of this body of knowledge it seems that winter is yin, and balance is created by consuming yang foods. Yang foods are warming and include crops that take a long time to grow and those that are eaten cooked. This means that the food needed for balance in winter are just those foods that are available in winter, which would make sense

In western medicine terms winter means cold and flu season and SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Both of these issue can be valiantly battled through food, but it isn’t clear to me that the foods available in winter are uniquely rich in immune supporting qualities (for cold and flu) and omega 3’s, Vitamin D, and antioxidants (for SAD). They all have all these things, but not, it doesn’t seem, in special winter abundance.

So, there is some discrepancy on whether foods really appear during the season in which they are best for your body. But even if nature might not be writing me a seasonal prescription I still hold that eating in season is the best way to get the fullest variety of foods over the course of a year. Even though you might be getting less variety in a given season, you get more greens for your green because in-season food is cheaper and over the course of the year the variety is great because you are not just sticking to the veggies and fruits you are comfortable with, but are challenged to try favorite dishes with seasonal alternatives. Sally Fallon may be right that some people wouldn’t eat fruits and veggies at all in the winter if all they had only brassicas and roots to choose from, but maybe that’s only because they’ve never been challenged to go without. (I have to admit that I am still stuck in the naive assumption that fruits and vegetables are the only things that change with the seasons (besides getting venison at hunting season from family, crab for the first (only) time in the year around Christmas, and a limited supply of pastured eggs at the farmer’s market during winter). For a more complete understanding of the seasonality of food, I recommend reading this article from Mother Earth News by Joel Salatin the famous grass farmer.)

There is also the argument that seasonal veggies and fruits are more nutritional because the food is fresher; that is, you eat it closer to the time it was harvested and it was harvested ripe, which is when a plant is also most nutritious to those animals who eat it…clever plants.

In addition to my New Years resolution to eat more greens I am trying not to get too deep into the details of the nutritional profile for a given whole food. Basically, the  clearest way to talk about food in this culture is to use the terms and taxonomy of western science (The Chinese Medicine example above is a refreshing alternative, but unfortunately doesn’t translate as easily). But this view of food I think has obscured our understanding of what we eat, rather than expanded it. Michael Pollan dealt with this issue in his In Defense of Food, basing a discussion of the rejection of Nutritionism with a whole book about nutrition.  Ultimately a healthy relationship with real food will come from people not relying on lab work with fruit flies to tell them what feels good in their bodies. It seems that best place for this research is a kitchen counter or a table with loved ones. That all said though, if you are interested in knowing the nutritional profile (and much more) of a given food  I highly recommend this site (though their data on cholesterol is limited, like most healthy food sites). See what my orange and green winter meals are providing us here and here (respectively).

Also new this new year I started taking Cod Liver Oil (fermented actually). This is the only supplement I take and the reason is for the difficulty in finding food sources of vitamin D. From another Mother Earth News piece (about SAD actually):

Eat D-licious foods. Only a few foods contain much vitamin D. Sources of vitamin D include cod liver oil (1,360 IU per tablespoon); oily fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel (about 350 IU per 3.5 ounces); eggs (about 20 IU per yolk); and fortified milk, soy milk and orange juice (98 IU per 8-ounce serving).

Up late last night washing dishes, I caught a report from the BBC on the discovery of heart disease in Egyptian mummies. My approach to eating is generally guided by the idea that eating real food is better for overall health and enjoyment and real food is traditional and old. Well mummies are nothing if not old, so what were they doing with this so called modern disease?

Or, at least that’s the irony the media was presenting. How could a disease that is linked to modern vices of fast food, smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle be found in ancient people?

The answer is pretty clear, in that heart disease is more often described (at least by Dr. Weston Price, if not others) as a disease of civilization. Old or new, doesn’t matter.

Here might be why: Whole foods are pretty fool proof health-wise. Processed foods, while tasty, break up the pairings that the body needs to process the food effectively.  Once consumed, these products can be damaging to the whole system, but they are luckily not too easy to come by for most of the world throughout history…unless you have slaves to mill you lots of white flour, or live in modern America with cheap oil and low wage jobs.

This is to say that heart disease might be better characterized as a disease of cheap labor.

For some reason many of the reports I read last night suggested that we don’t know a lot about what Egyptians ate, though that doesn’t seem to be true as they kept great account of daily life through writings and art. We know, for example, that servants ground flour, the more refined the better for the upper-classes. None of the coverage thus far has mentioned this fact, they seem to just put out there that we know Egyptians ate beef, goose, and lamb, all, they point out, fatty foods. I hate to think this will be used as more fodder against healthy traditional fats, when refined carbohydrates clearly had a large role to play in the diets of these deceased elites. (I also read that they fed the chaff and bran from the wheat to livestock, so they may have also suffered the consequences of grain-fed beef)

(Why they point first to fats, when Egyptians arguably invented bread, is beyond me, but this shows the bias against fats in discussions of health. Refined grain has been linked to heart disease because it lacks Vitamin B which help to regulate a certain amino acid(homocysteine).  It is hypothesized  that when this amino acid (homocysteine) is out of whack, it can break down cell walls…which cholesterol then comes in to fix…thus we blame the firefighter for the fire. (from Real Food: What to Eat and Why, By Nina Planck) This is just one of the many ideas about why we have heart disease)

When you have to grow/raise/process/cook all your own food, there isn’t really time to make things fancy, or overly refined. To eat like a peasant doesn’t necessarily mean to be undernourished with low-quality food (although it certainly has meant that for some throughout history) I see eating like a peasant to instead be the antithesis of eating like a king- depending on others, who get too little pay, to process food to a point that it is too rich or refined to eat everyday. Kings can get away with it only to a point when it catches up with them.

Maybe its our democratic foundations, but the modern American food system has made it possible for all our people to eat like kings, relying on underpaid workers to provide for refined palates. It goes without saying that this is catching up with us as well.

One of the co-authors of the study speculated “perhaps atherosclerosis is part of being human.” This is a sad conclusion since plenty of groups throughout history have thrived with an absence of chronic disease. They avoided processed food and the social/environmental/health consequences that go along with it.

I was happy to see that I was not alone in my reaction: see some kindred comments here.

This fall has been a hectic one but included the very fun task of making food for my friend who just had a first baby. Nursing moms (as well as pregnant ladies) are so fun to cook for because they eat a lions share, seem to especially enjoy eating, and really put that food to good use.

I had fun showing off my artisan multi-grain sourdough bread but it took three days of my visit to prepare and was gone in a few hours. Wanting mama and all to have the most nutritious bread I decided to try a more quick and dirty recipe.

I prepared a quart of my starter and then mixed it with about 6 cups of spelt flour, the recipe (from Nourishing Traditions) said to rise from 4 to 12 hours depending on the temperature. I let it go overnight, which was probably too long as it got a bit deflated. I didn’t have loaf pans, so they were kind of batard style loaves. The shap of the slice wasn’t ideal but the flavor was wonderful and went great with the raw cream cheese spread I made.

As soon as I got home I started on another batch. This time I started with spelt berries and ground the flour myself. It sounds like a job for a toiling little red hen, but it’s just an electric gadget and doesn’t take any effort, but yields the freshest flour you can get, ensuring no rancidity. Spelt is a nice grain for home grinding because its gluten level perform like an all-purpose flour, which is actually a mix of soft and hard wheat. So, unless you want to grind two different grains, spelt is a lot simpler.

In my first go at grain grinding I just followed the directions and ground the whole berries on the finest setting, which gave me two distinct layers of flour, a fibery hull and a fine powdering flour. I used it as it came for the bread, which turned out delicious and hearty. After some expert advice, on the next batch I first ground the berries on a coarse setting and then ran it through again on the smallest setting which gave me a much more even flour and more flour per cup of berries (which seems to be about 2.5 c. of flour to 1 c. berries, but it depends on your grind- I am still working out that ratio)

The recipe called for the dough to be soft and easy to work with. To knead Sally says to stretch and fold, a different kneading process that I usually use.

I have now made three batches of the bread and the best results actually came from making the dough in my Kitchen-Aid mixer with the dough hook. The pictures below are from the batch made by hand, and it turns out beautifully, but the mixer does allow a wetter dough since you dont have to add more flour to be able to handle it. This was my fist time making dough with a machine and it left me standing there watching it, sort of wondering what I should do while it worked. It was strange to not be able to feel the dough change. So, I am still a bit conflicted about the thing. I was also hesitant to do sourdoughs in metal, but apparently it makes no difference.

Cooked in a loaf pan, this bread makes a great homemade substitute for sliced sandwich bread. Not the handsomest, but probably the freshest, healthy bread you can get in your mouth.