How they got EVERYTHING wrong about YOUR nutritional requirements and how we can fix it:
Have you noticed that government programs and politically connected big business get nearly every conceivable notion about human wellness wrong?
For over a hundred years now, every time central planners give health 'guidelines,' the opposite of what is biologically correct for humans is spewed out as imposed doctrine that leads to the chronic health condition crisis we now find ourselves in.
"Avoid cholesterol, it blocks your heart!" they say.
No. Dietary cholesterol is an essential building block of your endocrine system and leads to hormonal health. We now understand that inflammation, especially from eating high sugar and damaged seed oils, is the primary cause leading to arterial plaque formation. Cholesterol is in this plaque but that doesn’t mean it causes it.(1)
"Saturated fat hardens your arteries too - eat seed oils instead!"
No. Saturated fats are liquid at body temperature and many saturated fatty acids provide essential metabolic and tissue health. Having a ratio of more stable fat (saturated and monounsaturated foud in animal fats, coconut, olives, etc.) and less unstable oxidizable fat (polyunsaturated - or PUFA - found mainly in seed oils) provides better burning anti-inflammatory fuel for cardiovascular health and whole body and brain performance.(2)
By the way those subsidized seeds oils found in all mainstream food are better suited for their original purpose outside the human body: industrial machine lubricant.
"Eat 6-11 servings of healthy whole grains daily!" said the USDA food pyramid.
No. To avoid blood sugar issues and immunological, inflammatory, gut lining reactions from gluten, lectins, phytates and oxalates in grains (especially in modern wheat), most bodies do best with less or often no cereal grains.(3)
"Eat low fat to be lean!" said every media source when I was growing up in the 90’s.
Just, no. High quality fats provide essential building blocks, clean long burning fuel and appetite regulating satiation. Low fat just ends up being high sugar which leads to weight gain, malnourishment and eventually metabolic disorders.
One more tip from your overlords:
"If a nutrient is not on the government's Recommended Dietary Allowance list, you don't need it!"
Nope. There are thousands of identified compounds found in animal, plant, mushroom and bacterial products that protect and enhance cellular function that hunter gatherer and preindustrial folk consumed regularly and that are lacking in industrial agriculture. <-- This is why I do what I do at Longevity Power.
I could list a hundred more of these 'guidelines.' Most of them are effectively propaganda and some interventions are effectively mass poisoning like neurotoxic fluoridated drinking water (4) that emerged from thedistorted and corrupted economic incentives of government programs that favored corporatist big agriculture and big pharma at the expense of the small farmer and our physical and mental health.
Blindly trusting the [corrupted psuedo]science got us an epidemic of obesity and chronic illness.
That's why I don't inherently trust a dang thing a corporate narrative tells me to put or not put in my body.
The true nature of our health is properly deduced outside of government think tanks, as the inherently corruptible power incentives within them lead to a bureaucratic nutritional nightmare that does not match or favor the reality of human wellness.
The best actions you can take to take a stand against this out of touch dietary dystopia includes more of exactly what you are doing right now: research independent sources of nutrition, pay attention to newer studies that dispel old cherry-picked notions, and support the food sheds and health communities you think are best for you.
Let’s not fall for dogma or become food czars ourselves. There is no one size fits all top-down approach for themasses (this breads terrible health.)
I’m for bottom-up, individualized considerations and decisions to necessarily fine tune each of our states of health and flourishing.
Sometimes I can feel overwhelmed by the monstrosity of a situation our food supply is in. But that's less than half the story...
At the same time as the insanity, there are brilliant producers and researchers and critically thinking consumers who by the billions have advanced our state of health and nutrition access to levels previously unimaginable to more and more of the human race.
Most nutrients and sacred foods are now more easily produced and more accessible than ever, often at theclick of a button.
It's beautiful and I'm grateful.
Every time I sit down with a meal of regeneratively raised beef or imbibe a tall glass of organic adaptogen elixir or simply avoid letting soybean or canola oil on my plate, I know I'm contributing in my own way to a harmonious marketplace and foodshed community of sanity, peace, vitality and nurtured human potential.
Thank you for supporting my business and the other nutrition vendors out there who are not only doing good helpful practices but are disrupting the whole system to do better.
Nourish forth, be adaptable, stay passionate, enjoy the ride.
With love,
Christian Bates
(1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18600364/
(2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20071648/
(3) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19332085/
(4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889