• The Life Force of Foods
• Phytic Acid and Health
• Coconut Oil for Cooking
• Summer, Soft drinks, and Children
• Summer Recipes:  Easy, Healthy Summer Dips

“If disease has causes, so does health…

Successful doctors in the future will do more teaching than prescribing.” …Henry Lindlahr

Of the many images that come to mind when we think of food and health, least likely perhaps is the idea of “life force.”  We often judge foods by the calories and macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fats) outlined on today’s standardized food labels but pay little attention to a food’s underlying energy and vitality.   Meanwhile, when we think of health what often comes to mind are fitness, longevity, allopathic medicine, and the prevention of pain and disease, without considering ways to support and strengthen the body’s natural healing powers and inherent life-force energy.

Before the days of modern medicine, naturopathic doctors viewed all disease as one disease, a product of weakened vitality.  By unburdening the system and supporting the underlying life force of an individual, nature doctors believed that good health and wellness would in due course be restored.  Rausse, Kneipp, Khune, Felke,Lust, Lindlahr and other naturopathic pioneers  employed a variety of therapies including fresh air, sunshine, water therapies, and herbs to restore good health.  Of course, they also relied upon the life force of whole foods to support the healing process.

Of the short topics covered in this summer issue, the first two concern the life force of foods.  If you do not already, consider life force when shopping for food and think of foods in terms of how many steps are involved from garden to table.  I also want to comment on coconut oil and soft drinks.  Unrefined organic coconut oil is one of my favorite oils for cooking because it is highly saturated to hold up to heat, yet has no cholesterol.  Unrefined coconut oil retains its natural antioxidants and, along with first-cold-pressed olive oil, is one of the least processed of all oils.  The subject of soft drinks is also a short subject mentioned here because it is the summer season when reaching for a cold drink to restore energy is often a temptation.  Caffeine and soft drinks are topics I plan to cover at greater length in newsletters this coming fall.

Attuning to the Life Force of Foods

A good friend and reader recently asked me about the health benefits of canned chickpeas.  My immediate thought was to explain to her what I believe canning does to the life force of foods.   If the consideration is just calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates, a canned chickpea will be essentially equivalent to a dried chickpea that has been soaked and cooked.  But the energy of a canned chickpea, which has been processed at high heat and then vacuum-sealed in an oxygen-sterile environment to withstand months or even years on the shelf, is lifeless compared to a dried chickpea that has been freshly cooked.  Think of it this way, if both were planted in the ground, the dried chickpea with an intact life force would be the only one able to germinate into new life.  It is the phytic acid concentrated in the outside husk of a dried chickpea that preserves the life force nestled away in its endosperm (see phytic acid discussion, below).

Across a broad spectrum, we can witness firsthand the life force of foods by simply strolling down the produce isle of any grocery store.  Beets and carrots with their fresh green tops feel alive and firm to the touch.  Compare these to loose beets, turnips, and carrots.  These usually look dull and “give” when squeezed, a sign of dissipating life energy.   I hope you are as fortunate as I—my neighborhood grocery sells not only produce shipped from around the world but also fresh-picked-daily produce, especially local greens.  If you have such an opportunity, next time compare the wilted kale shipped from California with produce picked fresh from a local garden.

Thinking of foods in terms of their life force adds a new dimension to shopping.  Of course, we will continue to buy and use canned foods for their convenience and ready availability, but when the time and opportunity offer, consider buying foods that are fresh.  Think of how many stages of processing and storage are involved from garden to table—the fewer will usually mean the greater vitality of a food.  Also think of using dried foods such as grains, beans, and legumes, with their dormant life force intact, by preparing them from scratch.

[Interestingly, due to something called “biological transmutation,” many dried foods are more nutritious than those that are fresh-picked because the drying process removes hydrogen and oxygen to increase nutrients.  For example, raisins are high in iron, but this is not true of grapes; dried peas have three times the phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium of fresh peas; and dried figs, with three times the phosphorus and magnesium, have more than five times the calcium of fresh ones.¹  Perhaps biological transmutation was part of nature’s design to support our survival during the dormant winter food season.]

To Defuse or to Use Phytic Acid?

What is phytic acid? Most of the phosphorus of plant foods is stored in the outer husk of grains, beans and legumes, nuts, and seeds in the form of phytic acid.  Phytic acid protects the life force (the endosperm) of a seed from germinating until it is planted in soil and watered.  Phytic acid, then, like biological transmutation, is a rather miraculous gift of nature to support our survival:  Phytic acid allows us to store grains and legumes for years and be assured that the inner life force of a seed food will be preserved.  Then, whenever a seed is planted, all that is required are soil and water to break down the phytic acid to allow the endosperm, fed by the starch stored in the seed, to unfold into new plant life.

Phytate as a nutrient and enzyme inhibitor. Phytic acid (phytate) blocks the absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and zinc as well as the digestive enzymes pepsin and amylase.  Because some phytate is water soluble, we usually try to diminish its effects by soaking beans and grains before cooking.  Soaking grains and legumes is especially appropriate for modern vegetarians and people in Third World countries where an over-reliance upon phytate-rich grains, beans and seeds can lead to serious vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  Curbing phytic acid for people who rely upon beans, legumes, and grains for protein can prevent serious mineral deficiencies that include  folate (birth defects); iodine (neurological development and growth); iron (brain development and child mortality); vitamin A (immune function); zinc (growth, healing); and vitamin B-12 (neurological development).

Phytate as an antioxidant, a moderator of metabolic stress, and a chelator of heavy metals. Phytic acid’s positive role is not just as the protector of plant life.  While phytic acid presents a problem for mineral absorption and can lead to deficiency, it also performs several positive functions in the body—working  as an antioxidant to offset free-radical damage; lowering the glycemic index of carbohydrates; and binding toxic metals such as uranium and nickel.

Using phytic acid to personal advantage. An understanding of phytic acid and its tradeoffs means we can use or diminish it to fit our own personal health conditions.  If the digestion and absorption of food generally and minerals specifically is an issue, then you will want to soak grains and beans before cooking.

However, if you are worried about blood sugar issues, you might decide not to soak grains and beans in recognition of the inverse relationship between phytic acid and the glycemic index (GI) of foods—lowering phytic acid raises the GI of carbohydrates.  The same non-soaking strategy could be used if you are concerned about heavy metal toxicity.

Interestingly, using probiotics is a way to consume foods high in phytic acid while still benefiting  from much of a food’s mineral nutrition.  This is because probiotics are rich in lactobacilli, a major source of phytase.  Phytase is the enzyme that releases phosphate from phytic acid, thereby altering the structure of micronutrients to enhance mineral absorption.

In contrast to conditions in the less-developed world, most Americans have access to a wide variety of high-quality organic fruits, vegetables, and animal products that can supply rich mineral nutrition.  Today, for many people, more pressing considerations than mineral deficiency may be metabolic stress, insulin resistance, and metal toxicity.   Modern science, by outlining the tradeoffs and choices surrounding phytic acid, enables us to use or to defuse phytic acid in ways that are in keeping with our own unique personal profile to support our health and vitality.

Coconut Oil—the Most Stable Oil for Cooking and a Aid to Metabolism and Weight Loss

Unrefined, extra virgin coconut oil is one of my favorite oil for cooking because, of all generally available oils, it is the most highly saturated.  Coconut oil is 90 percent saturated, which means it holds up well to high heat, thus limiting the risk of free radical damage.  Coconut oil is also an extremely rich source of anti-microbial lauric acid (a protective component also found in mother’s milk).  In addition, unlike animal fats, coconut oil contains no cholesterol (coconut trees, of course, have no liver, hence, no cholesterol).

Why is it that coconut oil so highly saturated?  Most likely in hot tropical climates nature had to design the coconut tree for the leaf to have sufficient body to withstand intense heat.  Tropical oils—coconut and palm kernel oil—are, therefore, in a category all their own:

Of all fats and oils, coconut and palm kernel oils are the only available sources of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs).  In contrast to long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) found in most animal fats and in seed oils like corn, soy, and canola, MCFAs metabolize rapidly as a quick source of energy, so their calories are less likely to be stored as fat.  Studies show that MCFAs aid in weight loss because they boost energy and metabolism.³   Because coconut oil can increase energy, body temperature, and metabolism, it can be an effective therapy for people who are hypothyroid.  A tablespoon can also be added to a cup of hot water to provide heat and energy, an especially soothing remedy for cold winter days or in over-chilled buildings during the summer months.  Apart from cooking, coconut oil can be used at the table—simply drizzle it over vegetables, grains, and soups to boost metabolism, sustain energy, and add extra flavor.

Coconut and palm kernel oil were given bad names by the food industry in the early decades of the postwar period when food companies wanted to switch to cheaper hydrogenated vegetable oils.   Palm kernel oil is still used by the food industry, usually as hydrogenated palm kernel oil.  When you purchase coconut oil, be sure to select unrefined, extra virgin coconut oil.  Reliable brands are available at most health food stores.

Summer, Soft Drinks, and Children

Caffeine and soft drinks are topics that are too lengthy for a short summer newsletter, but they deserve a brief comment here because during the hot, “on-the-go” summer season, it is especially tempting to reach for a chilled soft drink for ourselves and our children.  The short message here, for further elaboration in the fall, is that soft drinks are not benign, particularly for children and teens…

In recent decades, the greatest increase, some 70 percent, in caffeine use has been by children and teens.   Caffeinated sodas are not just the ones that are brown in color such as Coke and Pepsi.   Twelve ounces of Mountain Dew (a favorite of three and four-year-olds) has 54 mg of caffeine and a Sunkist Orange has 41 mg—both exceed the 35 mg in a 12 ounce Coke Classic.

Caffeine, a psychoactive drug that excites the central nervous system, is the most popular of all neuro-stimulants.  Studies illustrate that consuming caffeine during periods of rapid brain development in the childhood and teen years can have long-lasting effects on brain function.  Caffeine, by exciting the central nervous system, can act as a gateway to addictive drugs and other stimulants such as nicotine. The caffeine in soft drinks is also to be avoided because of its heavy pesticide load:  it is the residual product from decaffeinating coffee, with coffee being the most heavily sprayed food/beverage commodity in the world.

Caffeine and sugar, as delivered in soft drinks, are self-reinforcing.  Have you noticed how a donut or a piece of pie demands a cup of coffee?  Children and adults prefer caffeinated to non-caffeinated beverages—from an early age, we teach our children to seek the “buzz” delivered by the combination of sugar and caffeine.  Soft drinks not only disrupt sleep, but also make children more jittery, anxious, and impulsive, to say nothing of the implications for diabetes, obesity, and the health of bones and teeth.

Sugar activates the “natural reward” centers in the brain in a similar fashion to nicotine and cocaine.  Caffeine in combination with sugar works to stimulate the release of dopamine, thus reinforcing the natural reward of consuming sugar in combination with caffeine.  When we give caffeinated, sweetened soft drinks to children and teens in the years when the brain is developing rapidly, we program them to rely upon the psychoactive “lift” of caffeine and sugar.

Preliminary research suggests that soft drinks may be a gateway to substance abuse (more research on caffeine, sugar, and teens is now underway).  What we do know already is that soft drinks pave the way in later years to diabetes and obesity.  It is alarming that the typical American drinks more than 600 12-ounce servings a year (almost 2 cans per day), while the average male teenager daily consumes over one-half gallon of soft drinks.⁴

This summer, think of giving your children water when they are thirsty and pack juicy fresh fruits for energy.  My empirical experience when shopping suggests that water is actually more expensive than soft drinks—what does that tell us of the cheap ingredients in soft drinks and the efforts of soft drink companies to “lock us in” to a habit that can be debilitating?   Soft drinks are not benign.  When you and your children are on the go and thirsty, if you do not bring water from home, it is well worth the greater price to buy bottled water.  Drinking water is a one of the best investments in long-term health.

Reading Resources:

Friedhelm Kirchfeld & Wade Boyle, Nature Doctors:  Pioneers in Naturopathic Medicine

Henry Lindlahr, Philosophy of Natural Therapeutics

Matthew Wood, Vitalism

Louis Kervan, Biological Transmutations

Stephen Cherniske, Caffeine Blues

Jennifer L. Temple (2009).   Caffeine Use in Children:  What we know, what we have left to learn, and

why we should worry.   Neuroscience Bio-behavior Review, 33 (6), 793-806.

Merideth Addicott, Lucie Yang, et al. (2009).  The effect of daily caffeine use on cerebral blood flow:

how much caffeine can we tolerate?  Human Brain Mapping. 30 (10):  3102-3114.

Summer Recipes: Healthy Dips

Guacamole

3 ripe avocados, preferably Haas

1-2 T. freshly squeezed lime juice

1/3 cup finely diced scallion, including some greens

1/3 cup cilantro

Salt to taste

Scoop the flesh from the skins of halved avocados and mash thoroughly.  Reserve 1T. each cilantro and scallion for garnish.  Add remaining ingredients.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill if you are not serving immediately.  To serve, place guacamole in a bowl and sprinkle top with reserved cilantro and scallion.

Black Bean Hummus

2 cups cooked black beans

¼ cup tahini

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. ground cumin

½ t. salt

3 T. olive oil

3 T. warm water

Juice of one lime

Juice of one lemon

Soak and cook ¾ cup of dried beans to make 2 cups.  Set aside a few whole beans for garnish.  Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until a smooth paste.  Place in a small bowl.  Garnish with parsely or cilantro and a few black beans.  Serve with pita.

Source:  Trish Ross

For more dip recipes, see:  Vacation Dips, http://pathways4health.org/2010/07/14/healthy-dips/

Copyright 2011 Pathways4Health.org

1. Louis Kervran, Biological Transmutations, 104. [↩]
2. Many of these oils are not available in healthy, unrefined versions.  Listing them here does not suggest we recommend their use. [↩]
3. St-Onge, M.P, & Jones, P.J.H, 2002.  Physiological effects of medium-chain triglycerides:  potential agents in the prevention of obesity.  Journal of Nutrition, 132 (3): 329-332. [↩]
4. National Soft Drink Association [↩]

Testing,

To read this newsletter in its .pdf  form, click here to download the file: June 2011 Newsletter. Thank you.

As a sequel to my April and May 2011 newsletters on blood sugar and metabolic stress, this a short June piece on the liver. Spring and summer are the perfect seasons to think of revitalizing the liver. Spring brings bitter greens to cleanse the liver following the rich heavy meals of winter. Meanwhile, summer provides antidotes to detoxify and de-stress the liver with its vast array of rainbow-colored fresh, nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits. It is these nutrient-laden whole foods that provide the liver with the tools—vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients—needed to convert toxins for their safe elimination from the body. Because summer also brings a more leisurely pace of living, there is perhaps no better time to alter dietary and lifestyle habits for a healthier liver.

A well-functioning liver is vital to good health because of the many important functions it performs in the body. Among its jobs, the liver helps to regulate blood sugar and the burning of fat; and, it processes and helps the body discard many toxins—drugs, pesticides, food additives and chemicals, environmental toxins, caffeine, alcohol, and toxic metals. Thus, it is the liver that bears the brunt of many of our modern dietary and lifestyle habits.

Over the past weeks in researching blood sugar and reading the lead article in the Spring 2011 Weston A. Price Foundation Journal on fatty liver disease, I think of one primary theme to emphasize in this newsletter—we need to think of the impact of processed foods on the liver.  The key idea to take away from this letter I would summarize as follows:

Our modern diet that relies upon refined carbohydrates and refined vegetable oils—so often consumed in convenience foods—takes a heavy toll on the liver. Refined carbohydrates and omega-6 vegetable oils such as corn, soy, and canola provide concentrated, inflammatory, empty calories but without the fiber (to slow and assist digestion) and essential neutralizing phytonutrient cofactors to allow the liver to do its job well. The speed with which empty calories are consumed—particularly from the sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in soft drinks—exerts an enormously heavy burden on the liver. It is the calorie load, the speed, and the lack of nutritional cofactors needed by the liver to effectively process toxins that underlie the current epidemic of fatty liver disease.

Fatty Liver Diseases

Current research suggests that fatty liver disease is not just a disease troubling alcoholics. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease affects more than 70 million Americans and is fostered by the modern American diet. The following factors are worth enumerating and repeating again. All are particularly detrimental to the liver…

1. Refined carbohydrates such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), especially when consumed as soft drinks. These high-glycemic carbohydrates tax the liver because of the speed with which the liver is forced to deal with the rapid-metabolizing calories and because they lack the nutritional co-factors required by the liver for their processing.
2. Refined vegetable oils such as corn, soy, safflower, and canola. These are polyunsaturated, inflammatory oils that are subject to oxidative stress/free-radical damage due to their fragile double bonds. As in the case of refined carbohydrates, processing strips refined oils of their natural protective antioxidants.
3. The relative absence of choline in the modern diet. Choline, found in egg yolks, liver, and organ meats, is necessary for the proper transport of fats from the liver.

The dynamics of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is clearly explained in A Silent Epidemic of Nutritional Balance from the Spring 2011 WAPF Journal, which is available on line at http://westonaprice.org/health-issues/2162-nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease. If you do not have time or the inclination to read it in its entirety, much of the flavor is captured in the following excerpts:

Over seventy million Americans may have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The disease begins with the accumulation of fat within the cells of the liver, but can progress to inflammation, the development of scar tissue, and in some cases death from liver failure or cancer.

Simple accumulation of fat within the liver generally proceeds without producing any overt symptoms, but it is not necessarily harmless. The liver regulates blood glucose and blood cholesterol levels, plays a critical role in burning fat for fuel, helps eliminate excess nitrogen, contributes to the metabolism of endocrine hormones, stores vitamin A, protects against infections, and detoxifies drugs and environmental toxins.

Any damage to the liver is thus likely to impact whole-body health. Indeed, fatty liver disease increases the risk of cardiovascular disease three-fold in men, fourteen-fold in women, and seven- to ten-fold in type one diabetics. Fatty liver is thus a dangerous silent epidemic, and… it is likely caused by the overabundance of calorie-rich, nutrient-poor refined foods and the banishment of traditional sources of choline like liver and egg yolks from the modern American menu.

…numerous studies have confirmed the relation between fatty liver, obesity and diabetes…the disease is present in up to three-quarters of obese people. Similar studies have shown that 45 percent of type-one diabetics and 70-85 percent of type-two diabetics have fatty liver. Moreover, even in the absence of diabetes and obesity, those with the lowest insulin sensitivity have the highest accumulation of liver fat.

…fatty liver disease occurs in two distinct stages. In the first…fat accumulates within the cells of the liver. In the second, inflammation, the proliferation of fibrous connective tissue (fibrosis), and eventually the formation of scar tissue (cirrhosis) ensue.

The totality of the evidence suggests that the initial accumulation of fat in the liver is triggered by nutritional imbalance…fatty liver seems to occur as a result of too much energy flowing through the liver without sufficient nutrients to process it. The accumulation of delicate fats, especially polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) [like corn, soy, safflower, and canola oils]increases the vulnerability of the liver to oxidative and inflammatory insults in the form of infections, toxins, or poor metabolism. These insults launch the progression from the first stage of simple fat accumulation to the second stage of inflammation.

The key culprits, then, are nutrient-poor refined foods, choline deficiency and polyunsaturated oils.

…dietary protein, methionine, and choline …protect against sucrose-induced fatty liver disease. [This suggests, just as protein “anchors” alcohol to prevent a hangover, it is also a necessary component when we eat sugar. See May 2009 Newsletter on sugar cravings].

…unrefined foods supply a wide variety of interacting vitamins, minerals, and other nutritional substances that aided in the metabolism of the sugar, helping the liver to burn it for energy, store much of the excess as glycogen, and export any fat made from it into the bloodstream… supplying extra choline in the diet provides powerful protection again fatty liver, whether induced by sugar, alcohol, or fat.

…while there are special roles of including egg yolks, liver, and other organ meats, and spinach in the diet, as well as avoiding polyunsaturated oils and refined foods—especially sugar—there is likely to be a wide range of different diets that can promote liver health. What they all have in common is that they are ancestral diets, rich in nutrient-dense foods that we are well-adapted to…The emergence of fatty liver as a silent epidemic in the modern era is a call to nourish our livers with age-old traditional wisdom as we pursue the vibrant health of our ancestors.

Strategies for a Healthy Liver

The primary way to support the liver is through a diet rich in nutrient-dense whole foods. Bitter greens, now in season, are especially effective in cleansing the liver. Other strategies to support the liver include consuming fresh, organic (to avoid pesticides) fruits and vegetables and organic animal proteins rich in choline, while avoiding sugar, HFCS, refined vegetable oils and other refined, processed foods. So, too, will eating hearty meals early in the day, with a light supper consumed at least several hours before bedtime time. The liver cleanses the blood between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. when it is at its peak activity. Late-night eating prevents the liver from doing its job efficiently and well (see November 2010 newsletter, The Body Clock).

Another aspect of liver health involves avoiding modern environment and lifestyle toxins. Do we give sufficient thought to how convenience foods combine with drugs and medications compound, creating an ever greater toxic load for the liver? Layer upon layer, toxins that burden the liver are everywhere—from synthetic prescription drugs, over-to-counter medications such as Tylenol and Nyquil, caffeine, alcohol, food additives and food colorings, pesticides in foods, and chemicals in cleaning agents.

Summer provides a time to pause, take stock, and alter dietary and lifestyle habits. Try to read labels and think of the factors in your present lifestyle that might be placing an unnecessary load on your liver. If you do not eat them already, try some cleansing bitter greens and think of shopping for fresh, organic food at a local farmers’ market. For sustainably grown foods, see www.localharvest.org and to find a local farmers’ market, go to www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets.

June Recipe: Watercress Bisque

• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 1 parsnip, chopped fine
• 8 cups filtered water or rich vegetable or chicken stock
• 2 bunches watercress with stems, washed and chopped
• 2 tablespoons light miso or umeboshi vinegar, to taste

Simmer onion and parsnip in stock 20-30 minutes, covered, until very tender. Add watercress and simmer 3-5 minutes, uncovered. Add miso and puree with an immersion wand or in a blender. Serve with favorite garnishes. This is delicious topped with a broiled or poached fillet of fish.
(For a thicker soup, add some cooked grain with the miso and puree. Or, add 4 T. agar flakes when cooking, for increased mineral nutrition.)

Source: Pathways4Health, derived from Elson Haas.

Reading Resources

• April 2010 Newsletter, Managing Inflammation
• November 2010 Newsletter, Living by the Clock
• Unsaturated Oils: Structure and Food Sources
• Composition of Nut and Seed Oils

Copyright 2011, Pathways4Health.org