The New Optimum Nutrition Bible

by Patrick Holford

  Linus Pauling postulated that we used to make vitamin C but, through eating a fruit-rich diet, lost the ability because we could get enough from our food. Indeed, one characteristic shared by us and other species that have lost this ability is our previously high-fruit diet. Now, however, most humans live in a concrete jungle and are prone to vitamin C deficiency, as illustrated by the high incidence of infections and diseases that are associated with poorly functioning immune systems. While a gorilla can eat up to 3,000 mg a day (the equivalent of sixty-six supermarket oranges), many children eat, on average, one piece of fruit a week, giving 30 mg of vitamin C, and the average adult intake of vitamin C is around three pieces of fruit, or 90 mg. This low level contradicts our evolutionary design and is simply not enough for optimal health. Since humans in all age groups are smaller than gorillas, eating twenty-two oranges might be more appropriate—but taking a 1-gram vitamin C tablet is certainly a lot easier!

  Homo aquaticus

  One of the great mysteries of human evolution concerns how we became upright and developed complex brains, manual dexterity, and the ability to use language. We have a brain that is ten times larger, in relation to body mass, than the brains of almost all other animals alongside which we have evolved. While it is accepted that we share many characteristics with tree-dwelling primates, for example, the gripping reflex of infant chimps and humans that is good for swinging on branches, how did we develop the characteristics that make us human?

  One theory that is rapidly gaining credence in scientific circles is that our early ancestors may have picked the best neighborhood as far as nutrition was concerned. According to Professor Michael Crawford and David Marsh, authors of Nutrition and Evolution, the environment in which a species develops is a major factor in determining its evolution. Derek Ellis, professor of biology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, believes that for a critical period in our ancestors’ evolution they exploited the nutrient-rich environment of the water’s edge, eating shellfish, crustaceans, and fish, and therefore consumed the high levels of essential fats and nutrients needed to develop our complex brain and nervous system, which is paralleled only in aquatic mammals.6

  This would certainly explain the one big chemical difference between human brains and those of other animals—the high concentration of complex essential fats that make up a large part of the human brain. These authors believe that early man may have needed to wade in water to access the food supply. This may also explain why we became upright, lost our hair, and developed a layer of subcutaneous fat, making humans one of the few species prone to obesity.7 In the course of time, these characteristics would have allowed us to survive better in a semiaquatic environment.

  This theory can also explain the extraordinary “diving reflex” of an infant in the first six months of life. If dropped into water, an infant will submerge, stop breathing, slow down its heart rate, then reemerge, turn its head to the side, breathe, and dive again. This reflex is similar to that of aquatic mammals like dolphins—whose flippers, incidentally, contain every single bone that we have in our arms and hands. The evidence suggests that they evolved on land, then returned to the sea to stay there. Ever wondered what it is you love about being in water?

  Clues from the past—hope for the future

  While these theories are now starting to gain scientific acceptance, supporters of the Homo aquaticus theory, such as Professor Michael Crawford, a zoologist now specializing in brain biochemistry, have shown that, for proper mental development, infants need a very high level of the essential fats found in fish. These fats, formerly excluded from formula milk for babies, are now being added after recommendations from the World Health Organization. Other sources of these essential fats are seeds and their oils, vital for both infants and mothers. Breast-feeding mothers who are “fat phobic” for fear of gaining weight need to eat seafood or seeds and their oils, both for their own health and to support the development of their children’s brains. If they don’t, their children’s mental development will suffer. Remarkably, the amount of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a type of omega-3 fat, in the umbilical cords of newborn babies correlates with their mental abilities at age eight, while supplementing either mother during pregnancy or child in early infancy has clear benefits on subsequent mental development.8

  Out of sync with nature

  In many ways, modern living goes against the grain of millions of years of evolution. For instance, if you jolt into action in the morning to the sound of the alarm clock and head on remote control for the kitchen, with neither brain nor body responding, to make a strong cup of coffee or smoke a cigarette, followed by two pieces of toast with jam and a glass of orange juice, you, like most people, are living out of line with your natural design. The result can be poor concentration, insomnia, fluctuating highs and lows, energy drops, food cravings, uneven weight, feelings of stress, and, inevitably, life-threatening illness.

  Our ancestors had no alarm clocks. At dawn, light enters through the eyes and translucent portions of the skull to stimulate the pineal and pituitary glands, which in turn stimulate the adrenal glands to release adrenaline into the bloodstream. As adrenaline levels rise, we wake up naturally, refreshed and alert. Not so if we wake in the dark to the sound of the alarm clock. Instead of allowing the body to respond naturally, we load in a stimulant like caffeine or nicotine. The effect on the body is adrenaline overload. Sure, you wake up—but the body’s chemistry scrambles to produce hormones such as insulin and glucagon to restabilize soaring blood sugar levels. So let the light in and get up early if you want to experience more energy.

  Grazing or gorging?

  Nor are we really designed to eat as soon as we wake up. Little digestion will have occurred when the body was asleep. It is better not to eat until you are totally awake, perhaps an hour after waking. Another way to encourage the body to wake up is to have a brief cold shower after a hot shower, which stimulates circulation and digestion. Even then, most people function better on easy-to-digest carbohydrate-based breakfasts such as fruit or cereal, rather than high-protein cooked breakfasts.

  Breakfast—in fact all meals—should be light. We are designed to graze, not gorge. Large meals are hard to digest and can result in indigestion and sleepiness. Our ancestors ate when hungry, not at set times or as emotional compensation. Studies comparing the effects of eating little and often with those of eating two or three large meals a day have consistently shown that better health is the result of small, frequent meals.9 Just as our jungle ancestors did, this means snacking on fresh fruit—three to four pieces a day between (smaller) meals. Doing this also helps keep our blood sugar levels even, resulting in more consistent energy, moods, and concentration.

  Exercise is another great appetite stabilizer. People with sedentary lifestyles tend to have poor appetite control and will actually eat more calories compared to their expenditure than those with active lifestyles. Physical activity appears to be essential to balance appetite in line with body needs.

  Against the grain

  Modern humans’ pattern of eating has totally changed, and so too has the food we select. Primates are designed to run on carbohydrates and have a natural sweet tooth. However, we have learned to cheat nature and isolate the sweetness from foods, as well as choose foods with concentrated sweetness, such as juice, dried fruit, and honey. These foods are too sweet for the body to deal with.

  One of the most common ways we now eat carbohydrates is in grains, especially wheat. Since wheat is such a staple food in our diet (with 600 million tons eaten annually, it makes up about half of the calorie intake of the average person’s diet) the idea that it isn’t good for you may be difficult to swallow. Yet two top medical experts, Dr. James Braly and Dr. Ron Hoggan, say just that in their groundbreaking book Dangerous Grains.10 The old view was that about one in a thousand people had celiac disease, a digestive disorder caused by sensitivity to gluten. What Braly’s research now shows is that celiac disease affects almost one
in a hundred people, while gluten sensitivity affects possibly as many as one in ten, often with no digestive symptoms at all. For some, gluten sensitivity means feeling tired all the time, for others, feeling depressed.

  What are the symptoms? The table below gives the most common symptoms of gluten sensitivity. While digestive problems are common among those sensitive to gluten, more gluten-sensitive people have no digestive symptoms at all. If you have a number of these symptoms, or risk factors, I strongly advise you to get tested.

  Common symptoms of gluten sensitivity

  Upper respiratory tract problems like sinusitis and “middle ear infections”

  Malabsorption problems causing fatigue, anemia, osteoporosis, weight loss

  Diarrhea, constipation, bloating, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis

  Depression, behavioral problems in children, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention-deficit disorder

  Why would this be? Well, our distant ancestors ate almost no gluten grains. Grains started to be cultivated only ten thousand years ago, and even then, only in some parts of the world. The American continent, for example, had no gluten grains until they were introduced a few hundred years ago. This is far too short a time to go from hunter-gatherer to “canary” and expect the body to genetically adapt. Many of us have simply not yet adapted to tolerate grains, unlike ruminant animals that live off grasses and grains.

  This may explain why grain allergy is so widespread. Of all the grains, wheat is the number one culprit. Modern wheat is also very different from the wheat that grew in the Bronze Age and before. A substance called gluten constitutes 78 percent of the total protein in modern wheat. There is now plenty of research that shows that it is the specific subset of gluten, gliadin, that is an intestinal irritant and causes allergic reactions. The body reacts to it as if it were an invader. When yeast reacts with sugar, it produces bubbles of gas that expand more easily the more gluten there is in the dough. So the higher the gluten content, the lighter the loaf, but the harder it is on our intestines. Adverse reactions to bread are far more common than to pasta, which is often made from hard wheat with a lower gluten content. This may also be because bread contains yeast (which pasta doesn’t), which is another common allergen.

  While gluten is the key protein in wheat, it’s also found in rye, spelt, barley, and oats. Generally, people who are gluten-sensitive should start by avoiding all gluten grains. Gliadin is not found in oats. Therefore, if you feel much better off all grains, it’s worth reintroducing oats and seeing what happens.

  The same story could be told for dairy products. Our ancestors certainly weren’t milking buffaloes. (More on this in chapter 8.)

  Raw or cooked?

  Another relatively recent addition to the kitchen is heat. Humans discovered fire four hundred thousand years ago, but even then still ate most of their food raw. For millions of years before then, everything was eaten raw. Cooking changes the molecules in food and destroys many valuable nutrients and the enzymes that break food down into components that can be used by the body, so a natural diet includes a lot of food that is raw or only very lightly cooked. Raw food requires more chewing than cooked food. This not only breaks down food, mixing it with digestive enzymes in the mouth, but also sends signals to the digestive tract to enable the right cocktail of digestive enzymes to be produced, depending on what is in the mouth. Most fast food is soft food that requires minimal chewing; as a result, the jaws of modern humans are smaller than those of our ancestors.

  The evolutionary diet

  What you have just read are a few examples of the principle of evolutionary dynamics, which is fundamental to the optimum nutrition approach. They also illustrate clearly how we are digging our own graves with a knife and fork, choosing high-sugar, high-fat, highly processed, and synthetic food. By investigating what our ancestors ate and how our bodies have adapted to these foods, we can pick up vital clues about the kind of nutrition that is likely to promote our health.

  Current theories suggest that early primate evolution took place in the jungle, which provided a carbohydrate-rich diet of fruit and other vegetation. This diet would have yielded substantially larger amounts of vitamins and minerals than our modern diet does. For example, the estimated intake of vitamin A in those times, principally from beta-carotene, was above 30,000 IU a day, more than twenty times today’s average. The meat our ancestors ate was also fit and organic, not fat and full of antibiotics, hormones, and pesticide residues.

  In addition, through the study of evolution it becomes clear that the environment we choose determines our diet, which alters our design and prospects for future survival. Humans now have the ability to manipulate the environment in ways never before possible, and we can choose exactly what we eat. Will we choose to nourish ourselves in a way that does not plunder the resources of the earth? Or will we continue to pollute, overpopulate, and plunder the earth? If we choose the latter option, the earth and those species best adapted to the changes will continue to exist, but humanity may not. If we opt for the former choice, what a wonderful world this could be. Good planets are, after all, hard to find!

  A few simple tips

  to help you conform to your natural design

  Get up earlier in summer and later in winter, in line with natural sunlight hours. Don’t eat late at night or before you’re fully awake.

  Eat when you are hungry, not out of habit. Graze rather than gorge. Eat little and often, with plenty of fruit as snacks in between.

  Eat a mainly vegan diet, with half your intake of food consisting of fruit, vegetables, seed sprouts, nuts, and seeds. If you do eat meat, avoid the intensively reared kind. Choose fish or organic game instead. Eat these foods only with vegetables.

  Eat food as raw and unprocessed as possible. Avoid synthetic chemicals.

  Avoid concentrated foods such as sugar and sweeteners. Dilute fruit juices. Drink plenty of water.

  Minimize your intake of dairy foods, refined wheat, and grains.

  Take frequent exercise and keep active.

  4

  You Are Unique

  There is nobody quite like you. There are many principles that apply to us all as members of the human race—for example, we all need vitamins; but the actual amount we need for peak performance varies from individual to individual. It depends on the evolutionary dynamics that you have inherited from your parents, together with genetically inherited strengths and weaknesses, and the interaction of your genetics with your environment right through fetal development and early infancy. The complex interaction of these factors ensures that each individual is born biochemically unique, although clearly similar to other individuals.

  This principle, called biochemical individuality, was first succinctly proposed by Dr. Roger Williams in 1956. Dr. Williams also discovered vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) and helped isolate folic acid. He was one of the grandfathers of optimum nutrition. True to form, he was actively teaching, writing, and researching into his nineties. In his book Biochemical Individuality, he showed how in each one of us our organs are different shapes and sizes and how we have different levels of enzymes and different needs for protein, vitamins, and minerals. A tenfold difference in the requirement for vitamins from one person to the next is not at all uncommon. For example, a comparison of the level of vitamin A in the blood of ninety-two individuals, most of whom were on a very similar diet, found a thirtyfold difference. Repeated testing revealed that individuals’ blood level of vitamin A stayed remarkably consistent, although the levels from individual to individual varied considerably.11 This suggests a wide range of need for vitamin A—a fact ignored by today’s recommended daily allowances (RDAs).

  Some of us have difficulty digesting protein or fat or need more of a particular vitamin than the average diet can supply. This is well illustrated by the vitamin-deficiency disease pellagra, whose symptoms include mental illness, sometimes accompanied by digestive and skin problems. For most people, a mere 10 mg a day of vitamin B3 (niacin) wi
ll prevent pellagra. That is the amount you would find in a serving of rice or a handful of peanuts. Yet Dr. Abram Hoffer, psychiatric research director for the province of Saskatchewan in Canada, found that many patients diagnosed with schizophrenia got better and stayed better only when given 1,000 mg or more a day.12 These people needed a hundred times more than the average level to stay healthy.

  Once again, this kind of information makes a mockery of RDAs, nicknamed “ridiculous dietary arbitraries” by Dr. Stephen Davies, a leading nutrition researcher in London. How do you know if these government-set averages, which vary from country to country, are the right amounts for you? I guarantee they are not.

  From the cradle to the grave

  What happens during pregnancy and early childhood has a profound effect on health in later life. In fact, the risk of cardiovascular disease increases substantially for those whose birth weight was low, according to research by Professor David Barker at the Medical Research Council Environmental Epidemiology Unit in Southampton, England.13 Professor Derek Bryce-Smith from the University of Reading in the UK found that, simply by analyzing the level of lead, cadmium, and zinc in placental tissue, he could predict with remarkable accuracy the birth weight and head circumference of a newborn baby.14 That means that if your mother was exposed to exhaust fumes containing lead, or to cigarette smoke that contains cadmium, or was zinc-deficient, it will have taken its toll on you. Professor Bryce-Smith concluded from his research that any child born below a weight of 6.9 lb. should be investigated for suboptimum nutrition.