Historical Approaches to Weight Loss and Healthy Eating
Here are a few interesting facts:
Today, we have made nutrition a science; we think that our experts know the secrets to healthy eating.
A much wider variety of healthy foods are available to us today than ever before.
However, in modern society, more of us have weight problems and become ill or even die from conditions related to being overweight than ever before!
Maybe it’s just possible that we have something to learn from the way that people ate in the past – throughout much of human history, in fact. One thing goes without saying, and is probably the most important factor – in the past, food was more natural. While it may be true that people ate more fat and even more calories, they acquired them from food that was close to its natural state, and therefore better for health.
But here’s something else – something that may surprise you. People in most ancient societies – and right through the Middle Ages and Renaissance – did not follow the advice that most nutritionists would give today. They hardly ate any breakfast at all, though we are often told that breakfast is the ‘most important meal’. In fact, they were likely to eat only one large meal a day – or two at the most, in which case one would be larger than the other. And here’s another thing that would make modern nutritionists shake their heads in despair – quite a lot of the time, it seems, that one big meal was eaten rather late in the day – often after the sun went down and the day’s work was done!
This is, of course, the direct opposite of what we hear nowadays. We are told never to skip breakfast, and that numerous smaller meals are better than fewer large ones. According to traditional societies, though, that’s just not true. People in ancient Greece and Rome would eat very little in the morning – a small piece of bread, maybe, or a fig or two. They would work throughout the day, eating little or nothing. Then, when work was done for the day, they would sit down to a great meal. What it consisted of would vary according to how well-off the people were, and the precise region they lived in – but for everyone, the evening meal would be comprised of most of their daily calories. They would go to bed on a full stomach, digest during the night, and be energized – and have little need to eat – next morning.
As time went on, some farming cultures varied this basic plan somewhat, and had their main meal in the middle of the day. They would then have a light supper – rather like our lunch – late in the evening. In fact, there are people in some European cultures today who eat exactly like this to this day.
Today, breakfast is sacrosanct, but it actually was not even invented until the seventeenth century. At that time, the idea of breakfast was popularized by the British royal family – and their ‘breakfast’ consisted of several courses, including meat, salads, and even dessert. In fact, the royals and aristocrats were the ‘deviants’ all along. They didn’t eat like most people did – they increased the amount and frequency of their meals, and ended up with much of the health and weight problems that we have today!
By contrast, the peasants’ meals seemed to be, for the most part, just right – as long as there wasn’t a drought or famine in the area, that is. Of course, part of it might have been the simple food and hard labor, but evidence suggests that people in bygone times had very few weight problems, despite (or maybe because of?) their tendency to eat most of their calories at one meal, which was often an evening meal, at that! Should we follow their lead? It goes against conventional wisdom, but it seems worth thinking about. If nothing else, we should appreciate the fact that this type of eating has been around a lot longer than modern diets and eating plans, and seems to have been successful, for the most part. So if you’re not a breakfast person, don’t despair – chances are you weren’t bred to be!
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Why We Do Not Sell Coral Calcium
Since coral calcium is one of he hottest products on the market for the treatment of arthritis you would think that a site that is called the Arthritis Store would sell it. So why don’t we sell coral calcium. It is simple we care too much for our customers. We do not sell products just because we can make money from them. We can offer coral calcium for one fifth of what it sells for on the info-mercials. But the simple truth is it is a scam.
Coral Calcium is not the best Calcium.
Coral calcium is calcium carbonate, the most common type of calcium on the market. It is no different than any other calcium carbonate. It is not more bio available. To say so is a lie. It does not work any different, it does not adjust your body’s pH any differently and to say so is just a lie.
Coral Calcium cannot cure or prevent over 200 types of diseases including arthritis.
This is a flat out lie. There has never been one study to support this claim, not about this type of calcium or any type. Yes there is much research to support that calcium is good for you and everyone probably should take a calcium supplement. But there is no research anywhere that shows it can cure disease.
Coral Calcium will not keep you young
You hear the sellers say that the people in Okinawa live to be older, in fact they say that the highest percentage of people in the world over 100 live there. What they do not tell you is that the people in Okinawa do not eat coral and that researchers attribute there long lives to their mainly fruit and vegetable diets. There have been hundreds of research studies on calcium and not one has ever suggested that it will make you live or look longer.
Coral Calcium may actually be bad for you.
It is true that coral calcium contains trace elements that other forms of calcium do not carry. Some of these may be good for you. But what the sellers do not tell you is that among these trace elements are cadium, aluminum, mercury, thallium, uranium, lead and other toxic metals. It is hard for your body to cleanse itself of these types of metals and even small amounts tend to accumulate and over time can cause health problems. Maybe this is why no living sea creature eats coral.
What is Coral Calcium good for?
Coral calcium is good for one thing, lining people’s pockets. That is why the title for the article on coral calcium in the Berkley Wellness Letter is “How to Sell a 5
Healthy Aging – A 21st Century Possibility
We are the “older” generation. We love our life and we want to hang around for a lot
more of it. So we ask ourselves what can we do to engage in healthy aging.
When we were young we heard what are called “old wives tales” about health and
food…We rolled our eyes and looked at our mothers as if they were aliens…Now we
are learning that our mothers were correct. Maybe they knew what Hippocrates
said:
“Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food.”
“Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.”
Or maybe they read Maimonides:
“Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.”
Or maybe they knew this Chinese proverb:
“He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician.”
Whatever knowledge they had – those old wives – our parents and grandparents –
they seemed to know a lot about nutrition.
My mother was adverse to seeing a physician unless absolutely necessary –
something I took note of as she lived to 95. She believed in eating well and letting
one’s body take care of itself. She fed us well and grew most of the vegetables we
ate. But – and it’s a big BUT…. the soil was in better shape when I was a kid…. and
that was in NYC!
Today we have depleted the soil and no matter how organic our food – it is missing
what it used to have way back when – and what is missing are many essential
nutrients. The environment is more toxic than it was, food is more processed, and
it is usually picked before it is ripe and very often cooked to death.
If the soil and environment have worsened, is there anything we can do to grow
older better? Yes – we can supplement our diets with glyconutritional products.
“Glyconutritional products will play a leading role in the 21st century’s emerging
wellness industry. The driving determinant will be the growing realization that
optimal cell-to-cell communication is one of the most critical functions of the life
process and is fundamental to immune system health. “
And if our cells do a better job of talking to one another, who knows what they can
start talking about! So listen to your body now – it talks to you and tells you what it
needs – and it can do a lot more communicating if given the appropriate equipment.
I’m a skier so let me use a ski analogy. Skiing can be tiring and it’s even more so
with older bodies and older equipment. When I first skied we had leather boots with
laces and very heavy long skis with heavy bindings. But I was a lot younger then –
in my 20’s and I hardly noticed how tiring it was – it was too much fun. As I aged –
into my 50’s – I began to think there had to be a solution to all the work skiers
knees do and I fell in love with what were called shaped skis or parabolic skis. I was
the first I know to buy a pair and it made all the difference to my body. The skis do
the work! I’m into a newer shorter pair these days and will continue to monitor
newer models of skis as it makes more sense to let the equipment do the bulk of
the hard work.
At the same time I learned of the new ski equipment, I also came across new inner
body equipment – glyconutrients. For sports fans, think of glyconutrients as the
nutritional version of shaped skis, lightweight bikes or titanium softball bats. It’s all
about that new equipment helping us do what we do better and to doing it as we
age.
The ingredients in glyconutrients are not “new” – they have been around probably
forever and used to be found in our daily food – but no more. The ingredients have
been re-discovered and combined into products; products that protect and nourish
our cells and regulate our organs and organ systems.
Way back when we were in school the up-to-date science of the time was adequate
for then but it was missing a lot of information we now know about. I know from my
own field of Developmental Psychology that advances in technology lead to
advances in developmental knowledge. The same is true of all sciences, including
glycobiology. In this new field, over 20,000 articles have been written in a few short
years. Why so many and why so fast? “This breakthrough discovery exposed the
missing link that has the scientific community, health researchers, and
pharmaceutical companies scrambling to get up to speed on this incredible science.
“
Science and medicine have long tried to break the code by which the cells of the
body communicate with one another in order for its complex functions to occur.
Just as biochemistry is the chemistry of life, this mysterious code is the language of
life. For years, scientists focused on proteins as the primary communication
molecules. Early in this century however, a theoretical mathematician at the
Weisman Institute calculated the number of molecular configurations possible with
protein molecules and the number of known chemical command signals needed to
run the body. She concluded that there were not enough protein configurations
possible to supply all the messages. Another code was required -a sugar code.
Of the 200 monosaccharides [sugars] that occur naturally in plants, eight are known
to be components used in cell-to-cell communication. These eight sugars are
glucose, fucose, mannose, galactose, xylose, N-acetylglucosamine, N-
acetylgalactosamine and N-acetylneuraminic acid. Only two of these, glucose and
galactose, are commonly found in the foods we eat. The others need to be put into
our bodies in the form of nutritional supplements.
Glyconutritional products will play a leading role in the 21st century’s wellness
industry. The driving determinant will be the growing realization that optimal cell-
to-cell communication is one of the most critical functions of the life process and is
fundamental to immune system health. And it is what will allow us to be healthier
as we age.
Lynn Dorman has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is a published author in the field of
Developmental Psychology. She also teaches Lifespan Development where she goes
into more detail on health aging – an interest that has grown as she has aged!
Aside from teaching and writing, she skis, plays squash, kayaks and bikes. All with
no aches or pains. After a lifetime on the East Coast, she moved West where she
can enjoy more of her favorite activities all year long.