Why counting calories doesn't work

Most people believe, and in fact many diet experts will actually say, that you gain weight by eating more calories than you burn, as if the spectacularly complex biochemistry of metabolism were comparable to filling up the car with gas.

Healthy newborn babies enter the world with a complete set of self-regulating systems designed to keep everything in balance. Our bodies brilliantly maintain balance in body temperature, blood water levels, blood pH, blood pressure, blood salt levels, sleep and the elimination of wastes. The human body is magnificent at simultaneously maintaining balance of hundreds of sub-systems throughout life.

Optimal weight is another thing the human body is great at balancing. Our taste and olfactory senses are programmed to enjoy foods that keep us healthy. The hunger-satiety cycle tells us when to eat and when to stop.

If we gain weight, it doesn't mean we're not effectively counting calories. It means our body's system for maintaining healthy weight has been broken.

So what broke it?

The short answer is that our food did. The longer answer is our food, environment and lifestyle conspired to knock our bodies out of balance.

Let's start with what's wrong with our food.

Far too much of the food we eat has been ultra-processed.  Stripped of nutrients, modified beyond recognition, sterilized, and augmented with non-food chemicals, our food isn't fit for human consumption.

Most processed food is too soft. Simple carbs like sugar and white flour-baked goods, processed oils, fatty meats -- too much of our food is eaten and digested too quickly and easily. While most dietary advice focuses on the bio-chemistry of foods (fats, carbs, protein), researchers have demonstrated the importance of bio-physics. You'll gain more weight with soft food than rougher food (whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.) even if the calories are the same.

Processed industrial food is also unhealthy for our gut flora. While some of the food we eat goes straight into our bloodstreams, other foods and food components are eaten by the trillions of microbes that live in our digestive tracks, and our bodies are then nourished by the flora. Foods that our gut microbes eat are called prebiotics. The best sources of prebiotics are whole-grain wheat and barley, berries, specific raw fruits and vegetables, flax, garlic and other foods.

When we're born, our guts are sterile. We acquire the hundreds of species of microbes necessary for optimum health from our food and the environment. Simply eating organic strawberries, fresh salad, organic whole grain bread or eating raw-milk cheese supplies the kind of gut microbes we need for optimal health. But these aren't the kinds of foods that most people eat. Canned, bottled and most packaged food is sterile to keep it from decomposing. Our bodies were never designed to eat so much sterile food.

Even fermented foods, which were traditionally used to improve the nutritional quality and flavor of and preserve food, as well as supply our gut microbes with vital reinforcements, are now sold in a sterile form. For example, olives, sauerkraut, pickles and others are sterilized for mass production and distribution. Milk is usually sterilized through pasteurization before being sold for drinking, or being made into cheese or yogurt.

All that sterile food, plus the consumption of fatty, sugary junk food, is decimating the natural balance of healthy gut microbes, causing all kinds of havoc, including on our bodily systems for maintaining healthy weight. Researchers have recently discovered that junk food and processed food diets damage gut bacteria in a way that leads to unnatural weight gain. In other words, you'll gain more weight on a diet that harms gut bacteria than you will on a healthy diet, even if calories are the same.

Food-borne, environmental and household chemicals, a lack of sleep, drugs, inadequate sunshine and Vitamin D and not enough exercise all prime your body for weight gain beyond what mere calories in, calories burned would predict. And, in fact, the vast majority of people in industrialized countries are damaging their bodies not with some but all these factors.

The whole process of counting calories is an act of self-delusion. First, the difference between perfect weight and morbid obesity over a period of a few decades is less than 50 calories per day. Nobody can "count calories" with that level of precision. You can't know how many calories you really need. You can't know how many calories you're "burning." And you can't know how many calories are in the food you eat.

Counting calories is a futile guessing game that doesn't get at the root of the problem.

The problem is that people are trying to replace a functioning bodyweight balancing system with blind guesses about how many calories they're eating and burning.

The solution is to fix your broken body, and allow it to naturally maintain a healthy weight for you.

The way to fix your body is to fix your diet, get plenty of sleep, exercise outdoors every day and avoid all the toxic chemicals you can. And this is what the Spartan Diet shows you how to do. 

What is 'man food'?

Food is culture. Methods for growing, storing, distributing, choosing, preparing, eating and even thinking about foods are learned, shared and passed down from one generation to the next.

It's also cultural in the sense that we associate food with specific types of people. People with certain socio-economic status, region and ethnicity are assumed to favor specific foods. For example, suan cai, kimchi, sauerkraut and curtido are four methods for fermenting cabbage and other vegetables, associated respectively with Chinese, Korean, German and Salvadoran cultures. In the United States, fried chicken is Southern. Hot sauce is Western. Clam chowder is North-Eastern. Caviar is rich-people food. Red Bull is for young people. Sprouted barley is a "hippy" thing if eaten, but not if drunk (beer is made from sprouted barley, water, yeast, and flavored with hops).

The association of specific kinds of foods with specific kinds of people is harmless, unless people receive and accept the message that "people like you are supposed to eat junk food – healthy food is for those other people." And this is exactly what's happening. A culture of "man food" has arisen, aided and abetted by aggressive product marketing, which is contributing to the health crisis.

Differences in food preferences between American men and women were detailed in a 2008 population survey of the Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) that found, in general, a male preference for meat and a female preference for fruits and vegetables.

This study barely scratches the surface of the national gender divide over food. For example, while men are more likely to prefer meat than women, we have observed gender differences over the type of meat, with men more likely to prefer unhealthier meats like pork and beef, and women more likely to prefer “lighter” and “whiter” meats like fish and chicken. Women are more than men likely to advocate vegetarianism, veganism, organic foods and salads. Men are more likely than women to prefer fast food, barbequed meats and fried foods.

Like so many of these things, it’s not clear how much of all this is biological, and how much cultural. To be sure, food marketing is aware of them, and uses these gender differences to sell food products.

One example is a recent marketing campaign for the Nutrisystem diet plan, which has separate versions for women and men. Nutrisystem provides pre-cooked meals that dieters eat, so Nutrisystem is not just an approach to dieting but also a food distribution company. The lead-in on the Nutrisystem home page advertises the women’s plan like this: “Eat The Foods You Love. Yes! You can eat chocolate every day and still lose weight!” The plan for men, on the other hand, read like this: “Mmm…MAN FOOD! Eat burgers, pizza, pot roast -- and still lose weight!”

Nutrisystem’s marketing department is skillfully taping into cultural norms as they relate to food and gender. Women, for example, may not want to diet if it involves giving up chocolate. Men may not want to diet if it involves eating “effeminate” foods, like salads, light pastas and other standard “diet” fare.

The actual menus for men and women have more or less that same stuff. But the packaging and even the order they list things on the web site are designed to appeal to cultural associations between food and gender.

The absurd and largely unexamined foundation of, say, beef as a "man food" is that beef is high in protein, protein is associated with muscle strength, which is associated with masculinity. And beef is associated with Western cattle culture, the cattle drive, rodeo, the frontier and rugged individualism.

The problem is that the cultural association doesn't match reality.

Beef is high in protein, but it's a bad source of protein because of what else you get with it. Most beef in the supermarket comes from cows fed genetically modified grain mixed with chicken parts, feathers, feces and even beef fat. They're typically injected with antibiotics and steroids to maximize the amount of sellable flesh that each animal can produce.

Cows have been selectively bred over the centuries to be passive, docile, fatty and slow. Unlike wild game meats, which tend to have very high ratios of protein to fat, and don't come with a payload of toxic chemicals, beef is a "soft food" that if eaten to excess makes you fat, sick and weak.

Beef is associated with a long list of cancers, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, stomach cancer, lymphoma, bladder cancer and prostate cancer. Beef has been linked to high blood pressure, cardio vascular disease, bone loss, type 2 diabetes and arthritis.

Beef, as well as the whole range of incredibly fatty "man foods," have been linked to infertility in men. One study found that women who ate a lot of beef during pregnancy were more likely to produce boys with lower sperm counts.

In general, "man foods" are laden with bad fats and toxic chemicals. These are the kinds of foods that contribute to diabetes, kidney disease, atherosclerosis, vascular disease, heart disease, which are diseases that cause erectile dysfunction. Many of the drugs prescribed to combat these diseases, including blood pressure medication, are also linked to erectile dysfunction. 

Even though a cultural association remains between beef and rugged outdoor living, the connection defies logic. The passively bred animals walk right up the ramp and into the factory, where a mechanized, assembly line process kills the animals for dismemberment.

To acquire this flesh, you go shopping. You acquire it in exactly the same way one buys toilet paper or laundry detergent. What a man!

So there's the paradox. The foods culturally assigned as "man foods" cause lower sperm counts, man breasts, erectile dysfunction, pot bellies, muscle weakness, disease and early death.

We believe it's time for a cultural re-set. We believe that real "man foods" are foods that lead to manly outcomes: virility, strength, athleticism, independence and health.

Why cooking food wrong makes it toxic

Healthy eating isn't just about which foods you eat, but how they're prepared. Cooking food wrong can create toxic chemicals that make you sick. These chemicals are called Advanced Glycation End Products, or AGEs.

An average person accumulates excess AGEs just from eating common processed industrial foods and beverages. AGEs cause inflammation and contribute to heart disease, diabetes and other problems, including damage to the overall immune system. AGEs can simulate premature aging by damaging skin collagen, promoting arthritis and hardening arteries.

Of course, the body is capable purging itself of the small level of AGE intake that results from a natural, whole-foods diet cooked properly. But a typical industrial diet overwhelms the body's ability to keep up, so they accumulate. You should also know that your body's ability to remove AGEs decreases with age (no pun intended).

When meat, or foods high in sugar or fat, are fried, grilled or even baked at high temperature, AGEs are generated spontaneously in the food. The effect is magnified when foods contain high amounts of both sugar and fat together, as is the case with most industrial junk food. Generally speaking, the process is most common in foods that are less healthy to begin with (processed white flour, fatty domesticated meats, sugary foods) that are also heated at too high a temperature. The coffee roasting process also produces an unacceptably high quantity of AGEs.

Potato chips, french fries, dark toast, cold cereal, barbecued and fried meats -- just about any industrial-age foods made crispy, crunchy, roasted and toasted are also made toxic with AGEs. Boxed cold cereal, for example, which tends to contain both fat and sugar and is roasted until it's crunchy, can be very high in AGEs. A better alternative is Spartan Muesli (pictured).

Whole foods, as well as any foods lightly sauteed, boiled or slow-cooked produce much smaller quantities of AGEs.

The Spartan Diet is an anti-AGE diet. The upcoming book will detail exactly how to choose and cook food in a way that keeps the incoming AGEs far lower than your body's ability to remove them.

Why organic produce is more Spartan than conventional

Pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers, ripening agents, genetically modified grain, the use of radiation and other "conventional" methods improve crop yields. A far greater percentage of fruits or vegetables or beans survive until harvest, at which time the producer has more to sell, as measured by weight.

Conventionally grown foods are artificially coddled, protected and babied. Their natural defenses may atrophy, as they're supplanted by artificial defenses. Contrary to nature, the weakest plants and fruits survive until harvest just like the strongest do.

With organic foods, on the other hand, only the strong survive. An organic Apple for example, survived until harvest not because it was sprayed with man-made poison, but because it engaged in a battle against insects and plant disease using its natural defenses -- and emerged victorious.

Conventionally grown foods are weak, and they pass their weakness on to the person who eats them. Organic foods are strong, and this strength is passed on to the eater. New science is showing how this works.

Organic blueberries have been found to contain higher values of ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) than conventional, on average. (Higher ORAC means higher cancer-fighting ability.) Another study found that organic tomatoes are between 79 and 97 percent higher in the flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol -- both antioxidants -- compared with conventionally grown. And yet another study found not only higher rates of anti-oxidants in organic produce, but also more vitamins. 

It turns out that the same biochemical factors that enable a plant to survive are the same ones that strengthen the human immune system and help us to survive. The phytochemicals so beneficial to human health are the same chemicals that enable plants to resist disease and insect attacks. 

In other words, organic foods are generally stronger for two reasons: 1) weak plants and fruits die, and never make it to market; and 2) without man-made protection, plants must develop and strengthen their own defenses to survive, and these "defenses" benefit human health when you eat them.

Note that nutritional differences between conventional and organic foods is controversial, and that direct comparisons are very difficult due to variations in soil quality, weather, climate, and the skills of the farmers involved. For example, one meta-study found that looking at many comparative studies the organic produce was healthier, but that the overall differences weren't statistically significant.

More research is needed. In the meantime, common sense suggests that organic foods, which have to rely more on innate defenses rather than artificial ones, are stronger and probably healthier. And don't forget: Organic foods don't have traces of the toxic pesticides, herbicides, ripening agents and other chemicals that conventional foods are likely to have.

How gut microbes can make or break your health

Don't look now, but you're not alone. Inside your digestive system, trillions of microbes play a central role in your health.

The vast majority of both cells and genes in your body, in fact, aren't human, but intestinal gut flora cells and genes present in the hundreds of species that have colonized different parts of your digestive tract. They are so numerous that they collectively weigh between between two and five pounds. (Note that a gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds.)

These gut microbiota not only digest and process your food, they are the foundation of health. They manufacture hormones, biotin and vitamin K, suppress the growth of harmful bacteria and "train" the immune system, among many other tasks.

You can upset the normal balance of intestinal microbes by eating processed food, taking antibiotics, experiencing stress, not drinking enough water and in other ways. The simple act of eating domesticated animal meat, for example, may trigger the gut to produce carcinogenic toxins, and even destroy helpful gut bacteria through the presence of veterinary antibiotics. Taking prescription antibiotics can wipe out up to half the species of intestinal microbes normally present. And food preservatives, household cleaners, chlorine and other everyday poisons can damage the normal balance of gut microbes as well. 

The composition and health of your gut flora can even influence weight by affecting how your body stores fat. A typical American high-fat, high-sugar diet has been found to alter intestinal bacteria so you gain weight faster than you would on a healthy diet with the same calories. This is yet another reason why yo-yo dieting doesn't work. A crash diet can starve your body thin, but your intestinal flora can stay optimized for weight gain for months, or even years. It takes less than 24 hours to throw gut flora out of balance. And it can take anywhere from two weeks to four years of eating a healthy diet and avoiding antibiotics to restore that balance.

We are born without any gut flora, and we cannot produce them. We must acquire them from the environment and from the food we eat. Processed industrial food, which is sterilized to avoid spoilage as it ages, prevents the natural transfer of healthy microbes from nature into our bodies. This is why laws in many states requiring pasteurization of dairy, nuts and other foods may do more harm than good: Pasteurization cuts off our needed supply of microbes. We get these necessary microbes from raw honey, which most people never eat, from nuts like raw almonds, which are illegal to sell in the supermarket, from whole grains, which most people don't buy and from fresh produce, which hardly anyone eats enough of, and from fermented foods like sourdough bread, raw-milk cheese, olives and others.

A study conducted by Italian scientists found that African children who eat a diet of primarily millet grain, sorghum wheat, legumes, vegetables and even the occasional termite had vastly superior gut flora than Italian children who eat a typical Western diet high in animal protein, fat and sugar. Most likely because of that better flora, the African kids rarely get allergies, asthma or suffer from the wide range of autoimmune disorders common among European and American children.

A recent study found that sufferers of both irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis are missing many of the species of gut microbiota that people without the disorders have.

Scientific understanding of intestinal microbes is still in its infancy -- many species have yet to be even identified. But it appears that throwing these communities out of whack can predispose you to a wide range of diseases and contribute to excess weight and even metabolic syndrome.

The bottom line is that healthy diet and lifestyle equals healthy gut flora, and healthy gut flora is absolutely necessary for a healthy body.

Diet can largely determine whether gut microbes help or hinder digestion, protect from or create inflammatory conditions, protect from or produce harmful bacteria and toxins or strengthen or weaken our immune systems. 

The Spartan Diet is not only the healthiest diet for humans, but also for the gut microbes we depend on every day for optimal health.

New discoveries this week

USDA to implement new standards for extra virgin olive oil http://bit.ly/9q0lIO

4 ways to protect yourself from cancer http://bit.ly/cS9k5K

Spartan Diet fish, such as salmon and tuna, help prevent cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, obesity. http://bit.ly/bbkEiL

More exercise and a better, healthier diet can improve type 2 diabetes symptoms http://bit.ly/ckKDnz

High-fat diet increases risk of sepsis http://bit.ly/c455Cb

Paying for groceries with cash, rather than credit cards, reduces purchase of fatty, sugary junk. http://bit.ly/az8zDi

Whole grains linked to reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and obesity. http://bit.ly/cVVMdX

Diabetes rose 90% between 2002 and 2008. Junk food is killing us. http://bit.ly/9PoPmf

Nearly a third of Americans may have diabetes by 2050 - study http://bit.ly/aGnkNg

Hormone replacement linked to cancer http://bit.ly/angOTR

Mathematical model helps marathoners pace themselves to a strong finish http://bit.ly/a4nrPF

To help reverse an obesity explosion from Western diets, China to require all government employees to exercise http://lat.ms/cjbYIT

Why you should never EVER eat canned food. http://bit.ly/axlQas

Overweight dads can increase risk of kids' diabetes. http://bit.ly/9t5qEO

New searchable database will tell you if your doctor is taking bribes from Pharmaceutical companies. http://bit.ly/dpbS83

Humans made flour 30,000 years ago http://bit.ly/bPmgUF

Inside the Spartan syssition

The entirety of ancient Sparta's rich and fascinating food culture is often reduced to a caricature of brutes grunting over a nasty concoction of pork-and-blood soup in a solemn nightly ritual. The horribly inaccurate Wikipedia entry on "Ancient Greek cuisine" sums up the misperception nicely: "Spartans primarily ate pork stew, the black broth."

This view is misleading, a misreading of history, devoid of Spartan context and purpose and easily invalidated.

Ancient observers of Sparta obsessed over aspects of Spartan culture that were unusual or unique. One of these was the famous group dining clubs, or syssitia, to which all citizens (males in good standing over the age of 20) were required to belong, and all members required to attend most nights for dinner. Because this meal was so heavily commented upon, many have made a bizarre leap to assume this was the only possible meal in ancient Sparta.

Let's explore just how easily this widely held notion can be invalidated.

First, the majority of Spartans weren't eligible for syssitia membership. Women, who were a majority in Sparta, were not eligible, nor were children and teenagers. Only males in good standing over the age of 20, with good reputations and who were able to pay dues in the form of annual food donations and regular meal contributions could belong to a syssition. Male children and teenagers, as well as women and girls of all ages were ineligible for syssition membership, and never ate syssition-specific meals.

But even full-fledged adult male Spartiates ate breakfast and lunch like other Greeks, and ate dinner outside their syssitia when hunting, traveling, training away from the city or while at war. Sparta was famous throughout Greece for its many elaborate, multi-day annual religious festivals, most importantly the Karneia, Hyacinthia and Gymnopaedia, which involved a wide variety of festival-specific foods of incredible variety. These festivals superseeded all other activity by Spartans, including syssitia meals, hunting and even military campaigns.

And even within the Spartan syssition meal itself, blood soup represented only a small fraction of the total meal. According to my admittedly unscientific calculation, black soup accounted for about 3 percent of the total caloric intake of Spartan men, women and children -- hardly what they "primarily ate."

Our only source for black soup ingredients, a book called Deipnosophists (or "The Banquet Philosophers") written by a 3rd century A.D. Greek-Egyptian writer named Athenaeus, also spells out the incredible varieties of other foods provided at every dinner. So if you accept the ingredients in the broth, you must accept the other foods specified in that same section from Athenaeus' master work.

Based primarily on Athenaeus, and secondarily on other sources, let's reconstruct a typical nightly Spartan syssition meal, then consider what was really going on.

Somewhere between a dozen and 30 or so members file in at the appointed hour and take their seats on benches at a group table. At the same time, hundreds of other such clubs are similarly gathering for the exact same type of meal. 

As always, dinner will be served in two distinct parts. The first part, called the aiklon, is dictated by Spartan Law, mandated in every detail by the state and prepared by a guild of hereditary cooks. The foods prepared for the aiklon meal come from member dues in the form of a very specific amount of barley, wine, cheese, figs and money required of each Spartiate in order to maintain membership -- and citizenship. These items come from the farm that each Spartan is required to own, and produced by Helot slaves provided by the state for the purpose of growing and producing food for the Spartan people.

The second part of the meal, called the epaiklon, is made up of dishes shared voluntarily or more accurately required by custom and social dynamics, and prepared by the households of members.

Even though all the food is provided by members, it's essentially food provided by the state. Rather than taxing citizens money, then buying food, Spartan Law simply cuts out the tax man and required that Spartiates feed each other.

The aiklon course begins. The cooks serve each member a small amount of black soup, a broth made from water, blood, vinegar and salt. Ideally, this broth is made with wild boar meat of which each member is provided a very small amount -- no more than a quarter pound. Sometimes only broth is served without meat, and some older members are said to prefer broth only. Accompanying the black soup there may "possibly be an olive or a cheese or a fig," according to Athenaus, or the group may share "a fish or a hare or a ring-dove or something similar." After the soup, each Spartiate is given barley-cake (essentially an un-sweetened barley gruel mixed with olive oil). The amount of food in this initial course is very small. Each member has his own cup, into which is poured a watered-down wine.

During this first part of the meal, no food or wine is shared. Each is given his ration and nothing more.

When the aiklon ends, the epaiklon begins. The second part of the meal also includes member-contributed food, but it's done on a voluntary basis. Before it begins, members may invite boys under the age of 20 to come in and listen to the conversation. The boys file in quietly and sit on the floor around the table where the men remain seated, and are served barley cakes wrapped in laurel leaves. The practice of inviting in the boys is aimed at teaching them how to engage in proper Spartan conversation, learn Spartan stories and history and how to speak with brevity and wit.

Although that's all the boys get for dinner, the members are served whatever foods have been voluntarily provided by members. The only rules for this food appear to be that it cannot have been purchased; it must have been produced by the contributing member's farm and prepared in his home. Wealthy members tended to provide bread and fresh, seasonal produce. Members might bring olives, pomagranates, apples, almonds or any number of foods grown on the farm. Poorer Spartiates could provide game killed in the hunt, or animals raised on their farms, including small birds or very rarely, lamb.

Atheneaus quotes a 2nd Century BC stoic philospher, who taught in Sparta and served as an adviser to the Spartan king Cleomenes III. Sphaerus, who wrote a now-lost work called "The Spartan State," as writing that "Sometimes the common people bring whatever is caught in the chase; but the rich contribute wheat bread and anything from the fields which the season permits, in quantities sufficient for the one meeting alone, because they believe that to provide more than is enough is uncalled for."

Contributions confer status on the member providing, based on the quality of the food, and also the quantity: The amount provided must feed everyone a small portion. Any deficiency in quantity, or worse, excess, is frowned upon. Xenophon wrote that "from beginning to end, till the mess breaks up, the common board is never stinted for food nor yet extravagantly furnished.

Members chose the very best foods their lands and homes could produce, then shared those foods in restrained portions as a status-conferring point of pride. Epaikla foods were not supposed to be fancy, fashionable or complicated. But it's very likely that this was the highest-quality food in Greece. Sparta had the most and the best agricultural land, every acre of which was controlled by syssitia members. Each member competed against the others to provide the very best foods he could to the mess.

So what's going on here? 

The nightly syssition meal was an institutionalized form of socialization, the ritualized preservation of a very ancient Doric military custom for how the ancestors of the Spartans ate in the field, and a powerful system for creating strong bonds and shaping the basic military organization of the Spartan army. First, they ate rations in the form of a soup made from animals killed in organized hunting. Then they ate anything acquired by individuals through looting or foraging.

The ritual was remarkably well preserved for centuries. The aiklon course didn't evolve much because the ingredients and cooking methods were enshrined in law. The epaiklon course, however, being "whatever you could get your hands on" evolved greatly with farming and with the attachment of status to the quality of food. For example, it's likely that breads gradually transitions from mostly barley in the early centuries to mostly wheat breads.

Consider that the Spartiate's farm fed both farm and household helot slaves, as well as his extended family. The land controlled by a single Spartan no doubt fed somewhere between 10 and 100 people. Given the importance of status within the syssition, only the best of the best foods were selected for epaikla courses. Any unusually great crop of apples or pomegranates, any especially delicious batch of olives, cheese or wine -- anything on the farm that was especially good would be diverted to the Spartiate's syssition to bolster his status. Further, this food was very fresh, probably picked or slaughtered that day and prepared in the home in the late afternoon. How could any other system in Greece result in higher-quality food?

It's official: Grains were part of the original 'Paleo diet'

There are many versions of the modern Paleo diet, which intend to re-create or simulate the diet of humans during the Paleolithic era (starting about 2.5 million years ago and ending about 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture). All these variants share an opposition to the consumption of grains, such as barley, wheat, rice, quinoa, kasha, oats, millet, amaranth, corn, sorghum, rye and triticale.

That anti-grain stance is based on the belief that since Paleolithic man didn't eat grains, we shouldn't either.

Archeology is now proving that Paleolithic man, in fact, ate grains as a regular part of the original "Paleolithic diet."

That's right: The entire premise of the Paleo diet's anti-grain stance is false.

How did this misunderstanding happen? Archeological evidence is skewed toward materials that survive the centuries, such as stone, bone and other hard objects. Soft materials (such as grains) don't survive unless hard objects were used to process them. Even then, actual food residues are unlikely to be detectable millennia later.

When the Paleo concept was first popularized in 1975 by Walter L. Voegtlin, and even when Loren Cordain published his influential book The Paleo Diet in 2002, there was little material evidence for Paleolithic grain consumption. That lack of evidence, combined with an absence of grain in the diets of today's remaining hunter-gatherer groups, lead to the belief that grain consumption was not part of the Paleolithic diet.

Thanks to improved methods and technology, however, the evidence for Paleolithic grain consumption is starting to pile up.

The oldest evidence we have for the domestication of grains is about 10,500 years ago. But the direct evidence for the processing of wild grains for food goes back much earlier than domestication.

Mortars and pestles with actual grains embedded in the pores were found in Israel dating back 23,000 years, according to a 2004 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper. Note that the grains processed were wild barley and possibly wild wheat. This is direct, unambiguous evidence that humans were eating grains deep into the Upper Paleolithic era, and 13,000 years before the end of the Paleolithic era and the beginning of domesticated grains, agriculture and civilization.

This week, a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences details the new discoveries of Paleolithic-era flour residues on 30,000-year-old grinding stones found in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic. The grain residues are from a wild species of cattail and the grains of a grass called Brachypodium, which both offer a nutritional package comparable to wheat and barley.

Archeologists published a paper in the December, 2009, issue of Science unveiling their discovery in Mozambique of stone tools with thousands of wild grain residues on them dated to 105,000 years ago -- during the Middle Paleolithic. The grain was sorghum, and an ancestor of modern sorghum used even today in breads and beer.

Some Paleo diet advocates claim that while there is evidence of sorghum processing, there is no evidence that the practice was widespread or that the grain was sprouted and cooked in a way that made it nutritionally usable -- in fact, the dating shows usage of the grain well before the development of pottery.

This is true: There is no evidence of widespread use or cooking. It's also true that there is no evidence against it. We simply don't know.

It's easy to imagine how Paleolithic man might have processed grains for food. Essene bread, for example, is made by sprouting grains, mashing, forming into flat patties and cooking them on rocks in the sun, or on hot rocks from a fire. It's easy to sprout grains -- in fact, it's hard to keep them from sprouting without airtight containers or water-proof roofs.

Palelithic peoples used gourds extensively. Before the development of pottery, gourds were used for cooking. By filling a gourd with water and dropping rocks into it from a fire, the water boils. Into that boiling water, the addition of meat, vegetation and grains would make the most nutritious meal and the most efficient use of available foods. It would enable the removal nutrition from the marrow and creases of bones, soften root vegetables, improve the digestibility of foods like leaves. In other words, such cooking methods would not only be necessary to benefit from grains, but from a wide variety of other foods as well.

None of these technologies -- sun-cooking, hot-rock frying and gourd-based boiling -- would leave a trace for archeologists after 100,000 years.

The Paleo Diet belief that grain was consumed only as a cultivated crop, rather than wild, also fails the history test.

The grain we now call wild rice was a central part of the diets and cultures of Ojibwa peoples in Canada and North America, and an important food of the Algonquin, Dakota, Winnebago, Sioux, Fox and many other tribes through trade. There was even a tribe called the Menominee, or "Wild Rice People."

Native American and First Nation gatherers of this grain did so by canoe in a method prescribed by tribal law for at least 600 years when they were hunter-gatherers. The cereal crop was instrumental in enabling the Ojibwa people to surve incredibly harsh Northeastern winters, the annual success of which shocked early French explorers.

Today, most wild rice you can buy in the store is grown in paddies in California. However, the Ojibwa still harvest wild rice in canoes, and you can buy it from them on the Internet.

So now we can say it: Archeology has proved that grains were part of the Paleolithic diet. The anti-grain stance of modern Paleo dieters is based on incomplete archeology.

And it's time for Paleo diet fans cave-man up, admit the error and to start eating healthy whole grains.

Discoveries this week

Compound in carrots, peppers boosts brain health. http://bit.ly/9FtMAq

Brain Food: 10 super foods to lift your mood and improve memory. http://bit.ly/bf4NYI

Canadian researchers to investigate whether giving babies antibiotics triggers asthma and allergies later in life. http://bit.ly/drY5kb

Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet - study http://bit.ly/9CLuW1

American Spartan Shalane Flanagan has never run a marathon. But she just might win her first: The NYC Marathon. http://nyti.ms/dd1R6d

Group calls for food labels that spell out how dangerous and unhealthy the food inside really is. http://nyti.ms/d74sxC

Canada formally declares BPA toxic. The chemical mimics estrogen, and leaches from cans and bottles. http://nyti.ms/bz6pdi

How corporate egg producers use sneaky tricks to barely pass as "organic." http://bit.ly/bydn3z

From the Department of Obvious: Americans not eating enough whole grains http://bit.ly/9e44aZ

Eating fish may reduce risk of getting prostate cancer. And fish makes those who get it more likely to survive it. http://bit.ly/aw1ZmE

Chili supplement doesn't work as a shortcut to weight loss http://yhoo.it/8XYs7i

Eating too much fish oil found to induce severe colitis and colon cancer in mice http://bit.ly/apJycH

Soy improves bone health, cuts hot flashes and pain in postmenopausal women http://bit.ly/9TRwiq

New study finds that regular exercise, healthy diet, and limited alcohol lower risk of breast cancer. http://bit.ly/cqhGaL

Lights on at night probably make you gain weight. http://bit.ly/cCGeCw

Too much screen time is bad even for active kids. http://bit.ly/9PJnRs

Children who spend more than two hours a day watching TV are prone to psychological problems. http://bit.ly/9PTWcV

(Picture shows purple carrots.)

Why science alone can't tell you what's best to eat

We live in an age of incredible scientific discovery about all kinds of things, including about the connection between diet and health.

Literally every day, new discoveries are announced that improve our understanding of human biology, and about the complex interaction between DNA, diet, behavior and environment to determine how long and how well we can live.

There is, however, an unfortunate disconnect between what scientists do and what the public thinks they do. As a result, media stories about new findings can confuse as much as they enlighten.

Here's what you need to keep in mind when considering scientific discoveries about diet and health:


1. Scientists are never finished understanding anything.  

The pace of new discoveries appears to accelerate with the application of new research technologies. Yet no final understanding of anything has ever been achieved. There is always more to learn.

For example, all the major dietary vitamins were discovered by scientists between 1913, with the discovery of Vitamin A, through 1941, with the discovery of Vitamin B9. These discoveries spawned an industry of vitamin pills, which were viewed by many consumers as an alternative to eating plenty of fruits and vegetables.

The assumption by the lay public was that vitamins and minerals were all fresh produce had to offer. Another assumption was that, say, the vitamin you get in a pill is as good as the vitamin you get in food.

In the last couple of decades, researchers have discovered the importance of phytochemicals, including polyphenol antioxidants. Even newer research has identified not only that vitamin pills can't substitute for food, they can even damage health.

Those substituting vitamin pills for produce all those years were robbing themselves of important nutrients because they had irrationally assumed that science was finished understanding how fruits and vegetables maintain health.

This is a lesson for the future. All the discoveries that will be made about food in the next hundred years already apply to the foods you're eating today.

Scientists can tell you what they know, but they can't tell you what they don't know.


2. The baseline is usually "normal," not "healthy." 

The average human subject in dietary research is unhealthy. Scientists find representative samples from the general public. The average person is overweight, severely deficient in Vitamin D, chronically under-hydrated, out of shape, stressed out and subsists on a highly inflammatory diet that's too high in fat, sugar, salt and man-made chemicals and deficient in most key nutrients.

Even in rigorous double-blind studies, both the experimental and control groups are likely populated by unhealthy people. So when some effect is attributed to a food or drink, it's not necessarily applicable to those eating plenty of fresh, whole organic foods and avoiding processed foods and addictive substances. 

For example, numerous research studies have linked the drinking of coffee to lowered risk of one disease or another. One study found that drinking four or more cups of coffee per day may lower the risk of gout. A casual health-conscious consumer of this news might conclude that drinking a lot of coffee is a good idea. And for someone with a horrible diet, metabolic syndrome and a refusal to embrace a healthy lifestyle, four daily trips to Starbucks might delay gout.

But for a non-coffee drinker who eats a great diet, the introduction of coffee degrades, rather than improves, health.

The scientific assumption of bad health has another curious effect. It leads researchers and journalists to express improved health from eating a healthy food as if that food was a kind of drug that improved a natural unhealthy condition. For example, a recent study found yet another link between the amount of vegetables people eat and their likelihood of getting cancer. Here's the lead sentence from the institution's press release:

"Investigators from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University School of Medicine have reported that African American women who consume more vegetables are less likely to develop estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer than women with low vegetable intake."

See how that finding has been expressed? To paraphrase, they're saying that eating more vegetables lowers the risk of a specific breast cancer.

A more accurate but less scientific expression of that finding might be that not eating enough vegetables increases the risk of a specific breast cancer. It's more accurate because our DNA simply expects us to eat vegetables. (In fact, another study has determined that cancer may be an entirely modern and made-made disease, caused by environment, industrial diets and other recent phenomena.)

However, scientists must take the world as they find it. In the actual world, normal must be the baseline, not historically normal, or healthy normal, or biologically normal, but normal as an expression of average or typical. 


3. Science must isolate factors, but in the real world nothing is isolated.

Much diet-related health research involves identifying specific ingredients in food that affect specific aspects of health.

Let's say a food company develops a new preservative, and wants to test whether it is safe for human consumption. Researchers might do this by eliminating all other unhealthy substances from the diet of laboratory animal subjects so that any ill effects can be faithfully attributed to the preservative. But let's say the researchers find the preservative safe, and so does the government, so the preservative is approved and added to the company's products.

But when people buy and eat the product, they are doing so in conjunction with an incomprehensibly large number of other factors not tested in the lab. Scientists found the preservative safe in isolation, but what about when combined in the bloodstream with the chemicals from toxic pesticides on non-organic fruit, household cleaners, personal-care products, car exhaust inhaled during jogging and excessive alcohol?

In other words, scientists must test foods and food ingredients in isolation. But we don't eat them in isolation. It's likely that some diseases, such as some cancers, may often be caused entirely by the long-term combination of a large number of substances proved safe in isolation.

Also: Natural foods vary in their biochemical and nutritional makeup. But scientists need precision in testing. So often they'll test not with a whole food, but with an extract, or a concentration, or a powder, or even a single isolated substance from food.

When they announce their finding, they report the truth, which is that a specific food extract had a specific measurable effect. But that doesn't mean the extract is better to eat than a whole food. It means only that it's better for testing.

And finally, scientists try to nail down a specific effect. For example, the Boston University study mentioned above tested for the effect of vegetable consumption on one very specific form of breast cancer. A reasonable person can conclude that if eating more vegetables lowers the risk of one form of breast cancer, it probably also has a wide-ranging benefit to overall health. But scientists can't say that unless they tested for it.


4. Science is biased in favor of new products or policies.

Broadly speaking, scientific research about health tends to result ultimately in the development of a new product, such as a pill, or in a change in public policy. There are two reasons for this.

First, science doesn't happen unless it's funded. While some funding is made by grants or taxpayer dollars, a lot of funding comes from companies that make the investment with the intention of monetizing it through product development. In other words, projects that are seeking a new pill that can be sold for profit are much more likely to be funded.

Second, scientists are aware that human behavior is very difficult to change. The greatest number of people will benefit from research not by giving advice that most will ignore, but by making the consumption of a substance either very easy or mandatory.

By advocating a pill, rather than a wholesale change in diet or lifestyle, researchers can do the most good for the greatest number. In cases of major public health, lawmakers often mandate the introduction of substances, such as the addition of fluoride to water, or vitamin D to milk -- and they do so often on the recommendations of researchers.

That doesn't mean a new pill or new law is best for you, personally.

Scientific research is the best tool we have for understanding our world, including the part of our world we eat every day. But by itself, science can't tell you what's best to eat because of the limitations listed above.

The best answers come from combining scientific findings with reason and common sense -- which is what we do in the Spartan Diet. That, plus a little help from our friends in ancient Sparta.

How to beat food addiction

Food is pleasurable to eat. Nature has endowed us with a desire to eat the foods that keep us alive and healthy and a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction when we do so.

The pleasure of food is part of the body's balance system for maintaining weight and health. We're designed to be motivated by this pleasure to seek out foods that sustain life and health. As we eat them, they become less appealing until we stop. The system works perfectly to maintain optimum weight with foods provided by nature.

That two-thirds of all Americans are overweight does not represent a failure of our bodies to regulate weight, but a failure of our food system to provide real food.

While most foods taste good and are pleasurable to eat, some foods act on our bodies like drugs. Certain combinations of concentrated salt, fat and sugar and other ingredients act on the brain's reward system much like heroin, cocaine, or morphine.

Cupcakes, for example, have high concentrations of processed white flour, sugar, and fat. In addition to tasting good, this combination can trigger the release of dopamine, which is the brain's "feel-good neurotransmitter." Later, the body craves another hit of dopamine. But over-stimulating the brain receptors for dopamine causes the body to produce less of it. So the more cupcakes you eat, the more cupcakes it takes to reproduce the dopamine high you crave. In other words, you'll eventually have to eat two cupcakes to get the same dopamine reward you used to get with one.

This is why fatty, salty and sugary foods are such a perfect product. They're cheap to manufacture, and once companies get people to try them through advertising, they may quickly become addicted. The foods themselves generate a strong desire to eat an ever-increasing quantity.

Companies have become skillful at engineering food products to trigger exactly this addictive response. As the amount of food necessary to satisfy the addiction goes up, companies are happy to super-size portions to respond to the "demand" they have created through addiction-engineered foods. You'll notice that only fatty, sugary, salty -- addictive -- food portions have risen. Portions of non-addictive foods have not.

Addictive junk foods are designed to side-step your rational decision-making process and turn you into something like a drug addict. Food companies have hijacked your food decision-making process to serve their goals, and at the expense of your health.

What they’re really engineering is the ideal customer: one who compulsively eats increasing amounts of their branded food products. (They're also engineering the ideal customer for the medical-industrial complex, but that's a topic for another post).

Caffeinated sodas represent a "perfect storm" of addictive qualities. They contain sugar and caffeine, which are both addictive. But the carbonation itself causes an additional release of dopamine. Those tiny bubbles create pain in the mouth, which causes the brain to release dopamine.

Some foods and beverages are addictive, but not unhealthy. For example, sparkling "fizzy" water in glass bottles is perfectly healthy. Spicy foods made "hot" with chili peppers can be very healthful. And chocolate is highly addictive, but raw cacao is generally beneficial to health. 

The risk in eating peppers and chocolate is that these foods are often difficult to find without a generous portion of junk. An addiction to peppers could lead you to crave nachos, for example. But if you make your own spicy food at home using healthful ingredients, spicy pepper addiction does no harm.

Chocolate is especially problematic, in part because it's unusually addictive but also because it tends come overly processed and mixed with junk like sugar, milk, preservatives and other ingredients that are not the healthiest of foods. Even if you buy organic raw cacao and add it to foods without resorting to sugar, dairy and the rest, you risk a strong addiction that could later motivate you to eat chocolate bars and chocolate cake.

Most addictive foods are total junk foods. Worse, these foods tend to be very high in fat and calories and low in nutrients. So too much junk food in your diet can leave you malnourished. This triggers a panicky survival mode that combines with the junk food addiction to make you experience a weird metabolic hunger that causes even more urgent uncontrollable eating.

But addiction can strike even when you're not hungry. The most common example is craving for dessert. By having something sweet after a meal, we condition our brains to expect a sugar-high and dopamine reward after meals. Even when we feel full to the point of discomfort, we still want dessert. 

Uncontrollable junk food addicts behave very much like drug addicts -- hating themselves for lack of control while simultaneously becoming defensive about junk food and hostile toward healthy foods. Extreme cases involve hoarding, hiding and lying about food, and damage to career and relationships.

Plutarch tells a story about the Spartan King Agesilaus leading his army through Thasian territory. The Thasians sent the Spartans barley meal, plus a wide variety of sweet desserts, fatty delicacies and a wide variety of "expensive things to eat and drink" -- the addictive junk food of classical antiquity. Agesilaus kept the barley for his army, but ordered the rest distributed to the Helot slaves in their company. When the Thasians asked why he did this, Agesilaus said: "It is not in keeping that those who practice manly virtues should indulge in such gormandizing, for things that attract servile people are alien to free men."

We believe that all addictions, including food addictions, constitute a form of slavery.

The Spartan Diet solution is to, well, get on the Spartan Diet.

The Spartan Diet takes a two-part approach to addictive foods. First, all addictive foods are eliminated: No processed flour, no concentrated fats like butter, and no overly salty foods. In fact, there are no industrial "engineered" foods at all. And we also call on Spartan Dieters to honestly identify which foods are eaten with addictive compulsion -- and to stop eating them, eliminate them from the kitchen and take pride in abstinence. If you crave dessert, stop having dessert altogether. The compulsion will slowly decrease until you no longer feel it.

The second part is to increase the healthy pleasure of food. Because Spartan Diet foods are by definition the highest quality, fresh ingredients, Spartan Diet foods taste just about as good as food can taste. In our upcoming book, we'll show you how to make the healthiest foods also the most delicious.

The drug-addict's dopamine pleasure is replaced by the pleasure of how food tastes, and also by the pleasure of vibrant health.

By abstaining from addictive foods, and embracing fresh, nutritionally complete and balanced whole-foods, you enjoy food more than ever, plus enjoy the ultimate pleasure of total, lifelong health – which we believe is better even than cupcakes.

Spartan Diet recipe: Butternut Squash Soup

Squash is one of the most under-appreciated foods around. It’s delicious, nutritious and versatile.

The ancient Greeks ate something similar to squash, which is often mistranslated as "pumpkin" or "squash." In fact, squash is native to North and South America. The English name "squash" is derived from the Narragansett North American tribe word "askutasquash."

Available from August through March, peak squash season is October and November. Squash is eaten like a vegetable, but is technically a fruit.

Butternut squash, like all other Winter squashes, is an excellent source of antioxidants, vitamin C, potassium, niacin, phosphorus, folate, iron and fiber. The deep yellow colors show the richness of healthful carotenoids, such as beta carotene, the precursor to vitamin A. Just half a cup serving of squash can provide a day’s worth of beta carotene, essential for good eyesight, protection from free radicals and overall good health.

Choose squash that is free of blemishes and decaying or moldy spots. They should feel heavy, solid and have a small stem still attached that feels firm. Store squash in a cool, dry place. Squash can last for weeks, if not months.

One reason some don’t like cooking with squash is that they’re more challenging to peel than other fruits, especially the ones with harder and thicker skins, such as kabocha. But we believe the inconvenience is well worth the trouble.

You’ll need a heavy chef’s knife and, even better, a meat cleaver. Cut off the stem, and with the knife or meat cleaver, chop once lengthwise so that the knife gets lodged in the top. Use a rubber mallet or heavy object to carefully hammer the part where the blade and handle of the knife meet to dig the knife deeper and make the squash split in two. Scoop out the pulp and seeds with a spoon.

Squash can be cooked, steamed or baked with skin on, as it will be easier to remove skin after cooking. But thinner skin squash can be peeled before cooking and cut up into cubes for roasting, making stew and soup.

All squash can be steamed, baked, roasted, pureed and added to soups, casseroles, salads and stews. With the exception of spaghetti squash, most squash is versatile to cook with. Different types of squash can be used interchangeably with other squash or even sweet potatoes.

Buy locally grown, fresh and whole butternut squash, at your local Farmer’s market when possible.

Here’s how to make our Butternut Squash Soup.

Butternut Squash Soup
(Yields 6 to 8 servings)

Winter squash is a "super food." But this soup also contains others, including ginger and turmeric, which are powerful anti-inflammatory foods that boost the immune system. Use only organic olive oil and produce.

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 celery stalks, finely chopped (green part only)
3 small carrots, finely chopped
3 medium leeks, finely chopped (white part only)
1 small shallot, finely chopped
3 quarts of filtered water
1 medium to large butternut squash, peeled, pulp and seeds removed (½ inch cubes)
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme
½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger (peeled)
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh turmeric root (peeled)
½ teaspoon ground turmeric (plus ¼ teaspoon if fresh turmeric not available)
¼ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper (or black pepper)
Sea salt to taste (We prefer Real Salt, Celtic Sea Salt or Himalayan Salt brands)


INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large stockpot, heat olive oil over low heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, leeks and shallot sautéing over low to medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes or until onions and celery look translucent.
2. Add water, butternut squash, thyme and sage. Cover with lid and simmer over low heat for 20 to 25 minutes or until butternut squash is tender.
3. Add 2 or more cups of water if more liquid soup is desired. Stir in fresh and ground ginger, fresh and ground turmeric, curry, paprika, ground pepper and salt continuing to simmer over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings as desired. Remove from heat and serve.

NOTES

• The USDA and others refer to the entire head of celery as a "stalk," but here a "stalk" is a single rib of celery.
• The recipe as written here is chunky, but you can puree the soup for an even texture at the end, if that's the kind of soup you prefer. Use a food processor, blender or immersion hand blender.
• If there's no fresh turmeric is available, add an additional ¼ teaspoon of ground turmeric. 

Why weight loss is not a worthwhile goal

Losing weight is a global obsession. Health club marketing, fitness and beauty magazines, diets and drugs cater to the desire to shed pounds. But why do people want to lose weight?

Our industrial food and sedentary lifestyles have made a majority of people fat and unhealthy. Excess weight is only the most obvious symptom of ill health.

The human mind is finely attuned to the health of other people. We respond instinctively and automatically to the health of others. Although we live in a completely different environment than our ancestors, our DNA -- our bodies and brains -- are essentially identical.

We are intensely social creatures designed to live in a small tribe or village. Our minds are built to evaluate the health of others in our community. This evaluation helps us to choose mates and establish the social hierarchy of the group. The fittest members of any human community are usually held in higher esteem than others.

And this is why people diet: to hide the most conspicuous evidence that we are unwell. We diet to simulate health in order to become more attractive, powerful and respected in our social groupings.

We can do better than that. Much better.

The appearance of good health is no more valuable than the appearance of education or the appearance of athletic achievement. For example, you can "attend" some unaccredited online university and receive a bogus diploma you can frame and hang on your wall. You can buy a trophy on eBay.

Striving to lose weight without improving health is like buying a diploma or trophy: You might impress some people, but you haven't gained the thing of real value, only the superficial appearance of having done so.

We believe that life and death isn't binary, but exists on a scale. At one end is death, and the other end is the most alive you can be given the totality of your circumstances. Most people exist between those extremes.

The purpose of the Spartan diet is to become as alive as possible.

Sure, everyone on the Spartan Diet who is overweight loses excess fat. But the weight loss comes as a result of fixing what was broken, not breaking it further.

If you simply cut calories, or embrace some gimmicky fad diet – in other words try to lose weight without bringing your physical body into balance – the weight will come back. And worse, you’ll knock things further out of whack.

Faking health through weight loss is a losing proposition, and an unworthy goal. A vastly superior goal is to actually achieve lifelong health.

Your whole metabolic system will be restored to balance, but so will your immune, digestive, circulatory, muscular and other systems. Your energy level will soar, and your mind will be clear and function much better. Your immune system will defend you from all kinds of diseases, and you'll have the strength and energy to pursue all your dreams.

In short, you will become much more alive.

Now that's a worthwhile goal.

Join us on Facebook!

If you're interested in joining a growing conversation about the Spartan Diet, why not join us on Facebook? Just click here, then click on the "Like" button. After that, you'll see Spartan Diet page posts on your Facebook "News Feed."

Spartan Diet fans are posting pictures of their Spartan Diet recipes, which often lead to great conversations about ingredients (and where to find them), cooking methods and Spartan Diet principles.

So if you use Facebook, please visit our page! If you like it, please "Like" it!

Scientists test Spartan Diet foods as sunscreen

Scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio are experiementing with extracts from Spartan Diet foods that, when applied to the skin, may prevent skin cancer.

The researchers have found that combinations that include resveratrol, found in red grapes; ellagic acid, present in berries and walnuts; and calcium D-glucarate, found in a wide variety of both fruits and vegetables have already proved effective in protecting against skin cancer, even in low quantities. Interestingly, these ingredients worked far better in combination than when each was tested by itself.

The ongoing research supports previous experiements that found that right foods (all major Spartan Diet foods) can prevent skin cancer and sun damage to the skin.

It also supports research conducted in Japan that found extra virgin olive oil applied to the skin after sun exposure greatly reduced skin damage and skin cancer.

Interestingly, some 2,600 years ago, the Spartans started the "fad" in Ancient Greece of applying olive oil to their skin after competing in the Olympic Games and other athletic competitions (which always took place in the blazing Greek sunshine). The Spartans were just doing something they did every day -- after training and excercising all day in the sun, the Spartans routinely applied olive oil to their skin.

Scientists are just now starting to understand how a diet like that of the Ancient Spartans, and also how applying antioxidant rich food to to the skin, prevent skin cancer.

It's worth noting that even though Spartan men and women spent enormous time in the sun every day, and altough they mostly lived well into their 80s and older, they didn't seem to get skin cancer.

Food for thought.

How to do a Spartan Reboot

The ancient Spartans made a constant ally of hunger. They cultivated familiarity with hunger, and were so controlled in their diet that outsiders were shocked, horrified and amazed at how little the Spartans ate.

Of course, they ate well, and generally got enough to eat. And our modern Spartan Diet involves neither deprivation nor excess.

But wealthy aristocrats from Athens and elsewhere given a rare invitation to join a Spartan mess for dinner found something very different to the gluttonous, drunken symposia they were accustomed to. Spartans made an art form out of providing each person with precisely enough food to sustain health, but not a bite more. Boys in the agoge were repeatedly starved so they would become familiar with, and tolerant of, real hunger. If you can imagine hundreds of teenage boys capable of going days without food -- without complaining -- then you can imagine the Spartan agoge.

The irony of Spartan hunger is that Sparta was an incredibly wealthy polis, and their wealth existed entirely in the form of fertile farmland and food production. Every Spartan citizen by definition owned a huge farm. They had the means -- far more than most ancient Greeks -- to have stuffed their faces at every meal, but, as a matter of principle, abstained.

In the modern industrialized world, the cultivation of sensible hunger is utterly alien to us. We never go hungry. Not really. Although our incredibly low-quality food and sedentary lifestyles make us experience an urgent, panicky kind of hunger, most of us never go very long without eating all we want -- and more.

We're habituated with food-related discomfort. We're used to feeling edgy, dull, bloated and "stuffed." We've all experienced the cloudy, weak feeling from over-indulging in greasy, fatty or sugary foods. But hunger? We really don't understand it.

The Spartans did. And for good reason: It's a powerful practice to cultivate. If you do it right, hunger can sharpen your mind, lighten your body, and give you incredible energy.

New research at Washington University explains at least in part why the Spartan Reboot gives you mental and physical energy. Apparently hunger changes how the body manages the storage and use of fat molecules called lipids in a way that prevents those molecules from activating fatigue.

Want to try it?

A technique we call the Spartan Reboot enables you to use hunger to quickly attain high energy, mental clarity, physical stamina and overall vitality. Here is how to do it:

(This is a great thing to do on Sundays, by the way, to prepare for an awesome Monday.)

Eat a healthy balanced breakfast and lunch at the normal times, plus some fruit in the mid-afternoon. Then, after eating your fruit, go on a very long walk, hike or run – at least fifty percent more time or distance than you usually do. We generally do about 15 miles or so, but your miles may vary. Make sure you stay well hydrated.

Then you skip dinner. Go to bed early enough to get a solid 8 hours of sleep.

That's it! You've only skipped one meal. But when you wake up, you'll feel like a different person. Your body will feel light. Your mind will be super sharp and clear. And you'll have physical and mental energy and stamina all day. And you won't even be that hungry. In fact, if you follow your hunger, you'll probably want to eat less than you normally do.

Try it, and please report your results back to us here in the comments area of this post!

Exercise makes you less hungry - study

Brazilian researchers believe they have discovered why people who don't exercise feel hungrier than people who do.

In a study conducted at the Department of Internal Medicine at the State University of Campinas in São Paulo, researchers found that "physical activity reorganizes the set point of nutritional balance through anti-inflammatory signaling," at least in the obese rats they studied.

It turns out that during exercise, the muscles release key proteins that optimize the body's signaling system for hunger. Stated another way, in the unnatural condition of little to no exercise, all aspects of the body's hunger triggering system are not present, which explains in part why couch potatoes experience more intense hunger than triathletes.

The Spartan Diet calls for daily exercise, and relies upon the fine-tuning of your hunger-satiety system for optimizing food quantity (instead of counting carbs or calories).

Berries prevent age-related memory loss - new research

New research has discovered that in addition to health effects previously discovered, polyphenolics in berries and other whole foods actually perform "housekeeping" chores in the brain, sweeping away "biochemical debris" that causes age-related memory loss and mental decline.

The research, presented by Shibu Poulose and James Joseph of the U. S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston, found that in younger people cells called microglia engage in a process called autophagy, which involves removing biochemical debris that would interfere with brain function. As we age, microglia slowly become less effective, the debris builds up and people experience age-related mental decline, including memory loss. The research found that the polyphenolics sustain the effectiveness of microglia, enabling them to continue protecting the brain well into old age.

A wide range of foods contain these polyphenolics, including berries and other fruits, especially those with dark red, orange or blue colors, and also nuts, including walnuts.

Eat these foods according to Spartan Diet principles -- eat them as fresh, raw and organic as possible.

(Photo shows Spartan Muesli with Spartan Cashew Milk topped with blueberries and acai.)

How to get REAL extra-virgin olive oil

Extra-virgin olive oil is a wonderful thing. The "extra virgin" designation indicates the highest quality: Olive oil extracted from the first pressing that has an acid content of less than .8 percent.

Organic extra-virgin olive oil is the only oil on the Spartan Diet. But there's a problem. A recent study by the University of California at Davis Olive Oil Center, in collaboration with the Australian Oils Research Laboratory, found that many products labeled as "extra virgin olive oil" in fact are not.

Unlike in Europe, where the "extra-virgin" designation is defined by law, there is no enforcement of standards in the United States.

Researchers found that 69 percent of imported oil labeled as "extra-virgin" in fact was not, whereas 10 percent of oils produced in California and sold as "extra virgin" were not. However, nearly all (99%) of oil labeled as extra-virgin olive oil in the United States is imported, so many American olive-oil eaters have never even tried US-made olive oil.

Researchers found that a wide variety of events can disqualify olive oil from the extra-virgin designation. Inferior-quality olives, oxidation of the oil, improper storage or the addition of lower-quality oil all can ruin olive oil and make it not truly extra virgin at the time of purchase.

In other words, many olive oils sold as extra virgin in fact did qualify at the time the oil was pressed, but has been degraded by some event later in the storage, transportation or bottling process. Oil can be oxidized, for example, by sunlight, heat or oxygen. The oxidation process raises the acidity level to above the "extra-virgin" limit, no matter what the label says.

This may explain why California olive oils tested so much better than imported oils: UC Davis is in California, so the California oil was all local, less handled and probably fresher.

Even olive oil that's high-quality extra-virgin stuff when you buy it can degrade in your kitchen. Improper storage (with sunlight or heat) can damage the oil, of course. But even in ideal conditions, the quality of olive oil naturally degrades over time. One study found that after 6 months, olive oil loses about 40% of its antioxidants.

You can also ruin olive oil at the last minute by cooking it at too high a temperature.

So what's an olive-oil obsessed Spartan Dieter to do? First of all, we need to think of extra virgin olive oil as something different than the indestructible cooking oils we grew up with. Because it's unheated and unprocessed, olive oil is really almost a fruit juice.

You want to make sure your extra-virgin olive oil comes from a reputable producer, has been properly stored and handled between the producer and the store, and has been pressed as recently as possible.

Some farmer's markets offer locally produced extra virgin olive oil. Because you're buying it directly from the producer, it's less likely to have been damaged during shipping and so on. This is not always the case, however. Grill the seller until you're satisfied he or she is doing it right and selling the real deal.

Look for domestic olive oil, wherever you live. The less transportation the oil undergoes, the fewer the opportunities for spoilage.

Buy only organic. In our experience, organic producers tend to be more honest and more careful with oil quality. Besides, who wants pesticides in their salad?

Look for acidity level. Some olive oils proudly boast of their low acidity levels. This is a good sign. The lower, the better.

Ultimately, however, there is no substitute for becoming an olive-oil snob and knowing the difference based on how oil looks, smells and tastes. Because even good oil can go bad in your kitchen.

Look for olive oil tasking opportunities, and cultivate your ability to tell good oil from bad, virgin from non-virgin and extra from not-so-extra.

Extra-virgin olive oil in small quantities is the foundation of the Spartan Diet. But if you want truly extra-virgin olive oil, you can't just passively accept what labels are telling you. You've got to fight for high-quality olive oil -- but it's worth the battle.

Farmer's market discovery: green almonds!

I love this time of the year. The weather is mild and the Farmers’ Market is teeming with life. I’m not talking about the big crowds with families enjoying their morning shopping at the market, or the joy of watching young children tasting fruits and learning about real food. I’m referring to the incredible varieties of produce and rare seasonal treats that appear at farmer's markets and which you will never see at the supermarket. What really caught my eye today were the beautiful freshly cut, right off the tree, green almonds.

The almond is native to, and was first domesticated in, the Mediterranean Middle East -- present day Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Jordan and nearby countries. However, almond trees spread throughout the region, and have been a major food in Greece for thousands of years. In ancient Greece, almonds were eaten in a wide variety of states, from dried and roasted, as we eat them, or green and right off the tree. Green almonds are still eaten in Greece. The Greek word for green almond is tsagala.

The fuzzy green shell is still very soft and can easily be cut with a paring knife all around like an avocado. Inside you’ll find the kernel, which is surrounded by a thin skin, the one that becomes brown once matured. The inner kernel is translucent and soft to the bite. It tastes like it has tannins (slightly astringent), which makes sense as it's still young and green. It's hard to describe the flavor, but think of an un-sweet cross between grape and cucumber.

The farmer I bought these from told me that green almonds can be eaten whole with fuzzy shell and all or shelled -- just the tender kernels by themselves. They can be steamed or sautéed with olive oil, garlic and herbs to enjoy them by themselves or put into salads or throw them into soups.

Almond season starts late April and lasts through mid June. - Amira

How to protect your skin from sun damage -- with food

Researchers at the UK's University of Newcastle found that eating tomatoes helps prevent sunburn.

The volunteers in the study who ate five tablespoons of tomato paste every day were on average 33 percent more protected against sunburn than the control group. Researchers calculated that this quantity of tomatos is the equivalent of constantly wearing a 1.3 SPF sunblock.

The scientists attribute this effect to an antioxidant present in tomatoes called lycopene, which is also responsible for giving tomatoes their red color. It's also found in red carrots, watermelons and papayas.

Lycopene has also been linked in the past with protection against age-related events like macular degeneration, the formation of skin wrinkles, prostate cancer and the rise in bad cholesterol.

The research suggests that we should re-think our understanding of sun damage and skin cancer as not just about exposure, but also diet.

In the past few decades, we have seen dramatic rises in both Vitamin D deficiency and skin cancer, one thought to be caused by not enough sun, and the other by too much sun.

Of course, individual cases vary -- and statistical changes can be partly determined by the immigration of people to climates incompatible with their skin types -- but in general the rise in skin cancer may be closely linked to the degradation of diet.

In the past ten years, an enormous number of discoveries have been made about the link between diet and skin cancer. Broccoli, green tea, grapes, pomegranates, onions, red kidney beans, blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, rasperries, strawberries, apples, pecans, cherries, plums and black beans, tumeric (every single one of them a Spartan Diet superfood) have all been found to contain compounds that "fight" skin cancer.

Even extra-virgin olive oil applied to the skin after sun exposure -- a practice the Spartans started in Ancient Greece more than 2,600 years ago and something they did every day -- reduces the risk of skin tumors.

These breakthroughs are typically reported in the media as "this food fights skin cancer" or "that food linked to cancer protection." In reality, humans are designed to both get a lot of sun and also eat the foods that "fight" skin cancer. It's the removal of these foods from our diet that may be a leading cause of the the skin cancer epidemic.

Talk to your doctor about your personal skin cancer risks, based on skin type, climate and other factors. But also don't wait for a cure to come in pill form. Prevention is the best medicine, and the best food is the best prevention.

The Spartan Diet is loaded with all the foods researchers have found to prevent skin cancer. We also call for plenty of outdoor excercise. Doing both wisely in consultation with your doctor is your best approach to optimal health free of vitamin D defficiency and cancer of any kind, including skin cancer.