Part 4 (1/2)
Pressed with their individual limitations, people often ask my opinion on how important striving for a 100% raw regimen really is. I have two slightly different recommendations for two main kinds of eaters-compulsive eaters and normal eaters. I recommend that people try to fit themselves into one of these two types according to the following description: A compulsive eater is a person who eats more than he or she needs or wants to, not in response to signs from their stomach inciting hunger, but rather for other reasons.
A normal eater is a person who eats when he or she is hungry and stops when full.1 If you think that you fall in between these two categories, place yourself in the group you feel closest to.
I believe that only ”normal eaters” can manage to stay on a raw diet combined with small portions of cooked foods without sliding into a predominantly cooked-food diet. I would like to clarify that I don't recommend that; I only share my observation that ”normal eaters” would get minimal harm from eating some cooked food because they are capable of controlling their food intake.
For compulsive eaters I strongly recommend a 100% raw-food diet simply because it would be considerably easier for them to maintain. I have observed scores of compulsive eaters attempting to stay on the combination of 80% raw and 20% cooked food. I have witnessed these poor people yo-yoing all the time from 80% raw to 80% cooked, never settling on any particular plan, always feeling guilty and worrying about their health. At the same time I have observed countless instances when, after adopting an all-raw diet, compulsive eaters were able to successfully maintain healthy eating patterns, avoid overeating, and keep breaks between meals instead of continuously grazing and snacking. Most raw foods do not possess exceedingly stimulating taste, in contrast to many cooked dishes. I have encountered some people in my life who were able to consume several large portions of pizza in one meal, but I never met anybody who could eat several large salads. Even in cases when overeating of raw products occurs, it is considerably less harmful than overeating cooked foods. Being a compulsive eater myself, I used to envy normal eaters and often felt helpless over my cravings. Staying on a 100% raw-food diet has greatly improved my eating pattern and totally transformed my entire life.
Often people ask me how 1% of cooked food in one's diet can be so harmful. I believe that when we allow 1% we leave the door open to indulge when we desire. According to AA, we tend to overeat at the times when we feel hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or depressed. Giving up the last 1% of cooked food in the diet is closing the door on cooked food altogether. When we close the door on cooked food, we close the door on temptation.
On 99% raw food, we stay vulnerable to temptation and allow ourselves what we want, when we want it. I have met many people who spent a great deal of effort to achieve the 99% raw-food level only to return to completely cooked food months later. This tiny 1% may continue to lead us back to cooked food. I consider that going ”cold turkey” is much easier. Yes, one might have to suffer through the first couple of months because every temptation will create suffering. But after two months, life becomes easier.
From discussions with lots of raw-fooders I have concluded that not all cooked dishes are equally strong in triggering unnatural appet.i.te. One should definitely stay away from all stimulating and mouth-watering cooked dishes, as well as favorite snacks. Regardless of the amount ingested, such foods could induce a powerful urge to eat more. I have watched some persons coming off a raw-food diet as a result of just one tiny bite of a cooked delicacy, after successfully staying raw for many months or even years.
At the same time, I don't want anyone to become paranoid about occasionally ingesting insignificant amounts of cooked products, especially if they are not a.s.sociated with any ”nostalgic” memories. For example, a few drops of pasteurized vanilla extract in one's dessert, a sheet of toasted nori, a spoonful of miso, or a pinch of nutritional yeast are not likely to stimulate one's appet.i.te for cooked food; the body can easily handle such small occasional cooked ingredients. It is similar to a situation when an alcoholic who has quit drinking can still safely consume fried fish in a wine sauce or a slice of cake with b.u.t.terscotch-flavored cream.
I believe that adopting a 100% raw-food diet is a matter of everyone's personal preference. I have several close friends and relatives for whom I know adopting a raw-food diet would be next to impossible. They would have to compromise too many of their daily values. From time to time I have presented them with nice vegan books and even steamers to encourage lighter cooking. I have noticed that they use these books and steamers and do benefit from better eating. At the same time, my friends know that if they ever wanted to make further changes in their lifestyle, I would be there to help them.
I used to think that humans could form their eating patterns throughout their entire lifetime. In my research I came upon studies about childhood imprinting. I was amazed to learn that ”Flavors in mother's milk begin to shape a baby's later food preferences.”2 However, the most powerful imprint about food preferences for life that humans receive comes at the specific time of being weaned off mother's milk. This time is called the ”sensitive period” or ”critical period”3 and lasts for two to three months during which a profoundly strong imprint is formed in every child's mind based on what the child is eating, along with watching the dining processes of other people around them, especially their mother. This imprint is practically irreversible: ”A critical period ... is very short in duration, and the effects of specific events during this period are ... lifelong, and relatively immune to erasure by subsequent events.”4 That is how food preferences are shaped to make us vegetarians, meat-and-potato persons, or any other kind of eater. We can become normal or compulsive eaters based on the variety of food we are exposed to during our sensitive periods. I find it fascinating that a short period of sixty to ninety days shapes eating behaviors for one's entire life. The imprint mechanism is a truly sensible way of protecting us from extinction, by making sure that the child inherits the most vital knowledge-what to eat-from the most caring person in the world-mother. How unfortunate it is that modern humans have stepped away from natural ways of living. By doing so, we have perverted nature's most brilliant law and have turned the advantages of lifelong healthy eating into a frustrating spell of everlasting compulsive over-consumption.
Rooted in infancy, destructive eating patterns severely undermine many people's quality of life. According to statistics, there are already 58 million Americans who are overweight5 and these numbers are constantly growing. The scientific studies about imprinting clearly point out that it is almost impossible to overturn already existing obesity. We can see many instances where compulsive eaters desperately try to change their eating patterns. Some of them turn to such drastic solutions as undergoing gastric bypa.s.s surgery, an extreme measure that limits how much food a person can digest by stapling shut most of the stomach and cutting off ten inches of small intestine. However, nature proves to be stronger than human will power. Even after having their stomach stapled, many patients slide from the strict diet recommended by their doctors, start overeating, and regain all their weight back within five years.6 In other words, the imprint from childhood keeps fighting for its legacy till the end. Meanwhile, a great number of people have been able to recover from obesity using a raw-food regimen and other natural ways of healing. For example, my friend Angela Stokes lost 160 pounds. She recuperated from morbid obesity by adopting a raw-food diet with an emphasis on greens.7 I think that generally, obesity is much easier to prevent than to reverse. When the water is running from the faucet onto the floor, shall we keep collecting the water with a sponge from the floorboards or close the spigot? Instead of putting all our efforts into reversing already existing obesity, let us focus on helping our children develop imprints of healthy eating. Let us pay attention to the quality and quant.i.ty of food we serve our babies, particularly during their ”sensitive periods.” And for the sake of shaping healthy eating patterns in our children, let us be ever mindful of the food they observe in our hands.
Chapter 14.
THE ADDICTIVENESS OF.
COMMON FOODS.
”Forget love-I'd rather fall in chocolate!”
-Attributed to Sandra J. d.y.k.es.
I consider a cooked-food dependency to be the cruelest of all addictions because it stems from the most desirable and even sacred foods of all humans. Bread, milk, meat, sugar, and salt are probably the most addictive of all common foods. Ironically, that is why these foods have been used for millennia and have become an essential part of human life and culture. Throughout history, whenever humans discovered an addictive substance, they never voluntarily stopped using it; furthermore, its consumption progressively continued spreading among more people. That is why all addictive matter, be it tobacco, cannabis, chocolate, or other, once discovered by one person in one country, eventually makes its way to the rest of the world. As a result, today we know of so many addictive substances that altogether they kill thousands of people and present immense social problems. We have acc.u.mulated so many foods with addictive properties that our eating choices are largely ruled by the amount of pleasure we derive from food as opposed to nutrition.
With the rapid development of new technologies, scientists have become aware of progressively more new particles in different products, including a number of addictive substances in some common foods such as sugar. Sweets taste good because eating them literally makes us feel good-sweets induce pleasurable sensations in the body. ”Research indicates that sweet receptors in the mouth are coupled to brain areas that release endogenous opiates-those natural morphine-like chemicals that induce a sense of pleasure and well-being. The taste of sweet in itself is enough to activate pleasure centers in the brain.”1 That is why most people like to consume foods that contain sugar, such as chocolate, candy, ice cream, cola, cake, and others. White sugar (or sucrose) is an unnatural molecule completely devoid of any nutritional value. At the same time, white sugar has concentrated energy and is often referred to as a source of ”empty calories.” Over time, ingestion of large amounts of refined sugar can lead to a ”nutrient debt” wherein a person has sufficient energy to fuel the body but lacks other essential nutrients. This can result in undernourishment even in overweight persons.
In addition to eating white sugar, most people consume sucrose from cooked starchy vegetables. ”In the process of cooking sweet potatoes ... nearly all of the starch present becomes converted into sugar. Thus our concept of the sweet potato as a starchy food should be revised, since when consumed by man it really is sugary rather than starchy.”2 Starchy vegetables such as potatoes, squash, carrots, broccoli, and others in a cooked form add even more sugar to our diet.
White bread, cereal, pasta, and other foods made from white flour also contain a lot of sucrose.3 Bearing in mind that these three sources of sugar const.i.tute the most popular fragment of the typical human diet, our consumption of sucrose is extraordinarily high, especially considering that human consumption of table sugar alone increased 4.2 times in the last hundred years.4 The human body tries to cope with such an enormous consumption of sugar by increasing its insulin production just after eating begins.5 The continuous overeating of sugar inevitably leads to the condition known as hypoglycemia, when we constantly have increased levels of insulin present in our bloodstream keeping our body ready for sugar consumption at any time. Having additional insulin pumped into the blood causes abnormally low levels of blood sugar. Hypoglycemia is dangerous for the brain, which constantly needs an adequate supply of glucose. People who have hypoglycemia continuously feel the urge to eat sweets in order to level the blood sugar. Attempts to stop eating after consuming a relatively small amount usually fail due to the voracious appet.i.te caused by this insulin-produced hypoglycemic state, thus making a binge almost inevitable. As you can see, consuming sugar in the form of sucrose inevitably leads to a dependency on sugar.
However, the body cannot function without any sugar at all. Simple sugars from fruit and honey are very easily digested and provide energy along with valuable nutrients. Ingestion of these natural sugars does not trigger the hyperglycemic response in the body.
Recently my daughter Valya and I conducted some interesting research. We decided to investigate what foods people crave in response to stress. We interviewed sixty people with specially made questionnaires. The majority (52 out of 60) of the partic.i.p.ants reported that they crave sweets in stressful situations. However, I was more interested in the additional, unexpected information we received from our experiment. We discovered that there is a strong correlation between how people were brought up and their methods of coping with stress: The partic.i.p.ants in our research who were reared on a mainstream diet admitted strong cravings for cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and other potentially hazardous sugary foods.
People who were brought up on a vegetarian diet craved raisins, dates, and other dried fruits along with some light vegetarian desserts such as vegan whole grain m.u.f.fins and licorice sticks.
A small number of our partic.i.p.ants grew up on a raw-food diet. I was thrilled to hear that in moments of distress, these people craved sweet fruits, such as grapes, figs, and bananas.
This investigation reminded me of the great role that childhood education plays in the development of our lifelong food preferences. My own sweetest childhood memories are always blended with pictures of eating with my family. When we look at certain food, the desire to eat it stems from our recollections of previous experiences with this food. Enjoyable memories may reinforce undesirable cravings with the longing to re-live pleasant moments once more. For example, at times when I see advertis.e.m.e.nts for pancakes, I remember my childhood and how pleasant it was to wake up on Sunday mornings to the smell of mamma's freshly made pancakes covered with melting b.u.t.ter. I cherish these memories, but every time they pa.s.s through my mind I experience momentary pain. I briefly feel the conflict between the subconscious urge to revive the sweet moments from the past and the notion that I won't have pancakes again because I have been eating solely raw food for many years now. It amazes me how many strong emotions can be triggered by the mere thought of food. I asked my daughter if any of her happiest childhood memories were tied to food. With a smile, she began recalling how we picked delicious grapes together in Michigan, and how the California persimmons were so yummy that even our ba.s.set hound Dashka ate so many that it was difficult for her to move, and the taste of our first durian fruit, and so on. Clearly, even though humans are programmed to crave sweets in response to stress, the sweets don't have to be made with white sugar. Fresh fruits are perfect fuel, packed with nutrients, and they don't have any negative consequences.
When I began collecting scientific data on bread I experienced a big shock and even felt pain from discovering how addictive bread really is. I lived most of my life in Russia, where bread is considered a sacred food. One can never find a piece of bread lying on the ground or on the street in Russia, because it would be considered disrespectful to all those who suffered from the shortage of bread, as in Leningrad's Blockade.* Traditionally, a sufficient supply of bread is one of the most important promises that the Russian government makes to its people. Throughout history, various breads have been a staple food for the majority of people. In the United States, November is designated National Bread Month, in recognition of the importance of this product. ”More than 75 million Americans enjoy a piece of toast every day.... In fact, Americans like their toast so much that nearly 10% of adults surveyed indicated that they would rather eat toast in the morning than have s.e.x. More than half (52%) of respondents would choose toast over candy in the morning, and nearly 40% over chocolate.”
Have you ever wondered why bread is so popular? It may be hard to believe, but scientific research demonstrates beyond any doubt that even raw wheat contains addictive substances: ”A novel opioid peptide was isolated from ... wheat gluten. This peptide was named gluten exorphin C.”7 ”... peptides derived from wheat gluten proteins exhibit opioidlike activity in in vitro tests.”8 ”Gluten exorphins from wheat normally reach opiate receptors in the central nervous system and trigger their function.”9 Scientists have measured the amount of opiates in wheat: ”0.5 mg of the most active peptides were equivalent to 1nM (nanomole) of morphine.”10 While 1 nM is only a trace amount of morphine, its quant.i.ty is still significant to the central nervous system. For example, 1 nM of morphine can be compared to the amount of opiates in our hormones such as endorphins that are synthesized by our body to combat pain or to create a feeling of pleasure and well-being. Let us also keep in mind that this amount of opiates was extracted from a very small amount of wheat.
In addition to being dependency-forming, opioid peptides from wheat also notably influence our hormonal functions: ”... it has long been known that opioid peptides cause marked changes of pituitary hormone secretion in both animals and humans, via cla.s.sical opioid receptors.”11 I now understand why bread has been such a popular survival food for people. Due to its high sugar content, even a small piece of bread can supply one with enough energy for many hours of work. At the same time, bread has a profound calming effect through its opium-like sedating action, thus bringing satisfaction to its consumers. In addition, opioid peptides penetrate the walls of the intestines and slow down the digestion, which results in our feeling of fullness. That is why people who are accustomed to the regular eating of bread have a hard time reaching satiety without it.
However, bread, especially its white varieties, is not a nutritious food. That is why a majority of breads on the market are enriched with synthetic vitamins and minerals. Truly nutritious products don't have to be enriched. For example, I have never encountered an enriched mango or stalk of celery. Wheat contains no vitamin C, no vitamin B12, no vitamin A, and no beta-carotene.12 In countries where cereal grains comprise the bulk of the dietary intake, vitamin, mineral, and nutritional deficiencies are commonplace. Two of the major B-vitamin deficiency diseases (pellagra and beriberi) are almost exclusively a.s.sociated with the excessive consumption of cereal grains.13 In addition, I question the biological availability of most of the nutrients contained within raw grains after milling, processing, and baking.
Instead of cooking wheat and other grains, we should be sprouting them. Sprouts are living foods ”enriched” by suns.h.i.+ne. Sprouted seeds are lower in fat than they were before germination, but have a much higher vitamin and mineral content. Most of my readers probably remember when the rumors of Y2K appeared in the late 1990s. While other people were stuffing their pantries with preserves of all kinds, my family bought only one product-a bag of organic wheat. I calculated that my family of four could have survived for approximately one year on this 50-pound bag if we consumed it in the form of sprouts.
Meat, poultry, and fish are another category of food that contains opioid peptides.14 Some time ago, when I ate animal foods on a regular basis, I remember grilled fish and barbequed meat being my favorites. When I looked through some of the latest scientific studies on meat, I was absolutely stunned by the research conducted by Professor Matsumoto of Kanazawa University of j.a.pan.15 In addition to opioid peptides, AGEs, and other toxins, grilled meat contains two other toxic substances: 2-amino-9H-pyrido[2,3-b]indole; 2-amino-3-methyl-9H-pyrido[2,3-b]indole.
These toxic particles (abbreviated ”AC” and ”MeAC”) are normally present in cigarette smoke. Professor Matsumoto determined that grilled meat has much higher concentrations of these extremely addictive substances than cigarettes. According to this research, 1g of grilled beef contains 650.8 ng of AC and 63.5 ng of MeAC, which is the equivalent of approximately 8 cigarettes. The smoke condensate of one blended cigarette contained 79.7 ng of AC and 6.2 ng of MeAC. This means that the amount of addictive toxins in one rather small 100-gram serving of barbequed meat is equal to 800 cigarettes! It is no wonder grilled meat has been the most desired human delicacy since the beginning of cooking.
For the same reason, people tend to prefer roasted nuts over raw nuts, fried veggies over a salad, and toast over bread. We roast our cacao beans to make chocolate, and our coffee is also made of roasted beans. Some people enjoy the burning flavor of their espresso; others prefer latte, which essentially is an espresso with steamed milk added.
Milk is another product that is extremely addictive. All milk from different mammals, including human milk, naturally contains opioid peptides: ”Human and bovine caseins in most species have been shown to contain, in their primary structure, peptides with opioid activity ... present in the milk of all species studied so far, and is the major component of human casein micelles. It accounts for 30% of the total protein, and 70% of the casein content.”16 The presence of addictive components in milk naturally helps build a stronger physiological connection between a mother and a baby. Such a bond is vital for the survival of a little one because it ensures that the child or the newborn nursing animal will always want to consume the most nouris.h.i.+ng food (milk), to sleep more, and to closely follow its mother during the most vulnerable period of its life. As soon as the baby can serve itself and doesn't need to be constantly cared for by its mother, it gets weaned off mother's milk. After being weaned from milk, most existing mammals never again consume milk from their own mother or from other animals. The human is the only specie in the world that continues consuming the milk of different animals, along with other milk products, throughout life.
Due to the presence of opiates in milk, people who continue to consume milk and dairy products develop a dependency on them, especially on the most concentrated forms of dairy products, such as cheese. Most varieties of cheese also contain another addictive ingredient, salt. I continuously hear from people that cheese is one of the hardest foods to give up.
I appreciate that milk has been a survival food for millions of people throughout centuries and that without milk many would have died. I can still name a village or two in the Russian forests where there are no roads and no stores. In such conditions people depend on a cow for staying alive through the long winters. Yet that doesn't make milk the preferred nutritional choice for those who have access to more nutritious foods.
Most people add salt to every meal. While sodium is necessary for the proper transmission of impulses in every nerve in our body, and for muscle contraction, deficiency of sodium is difficult to achieve. Sodium salts are plentiful in the soil, and all plants grown in such soil are sufficient in sodium. No supplementation is necessary.
We should not worry about a deficiency of sodium, but rather become concerned about its excess. While the daily requirement for sodium is 50 mg, the average adult consumes 5,000 mg, a hundred times more than is needed.17 Love of salt is an addiction similar to addictions to alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and caffeine. I found from my own experience that quitting the consumption of salt is easier than limiting it. Please note that most store-bought foods already have salt added. Being unnatural, sodium chloride impairs the salt-sensitive taste buds on our tongue to such an extent that we cannot sense most of the natural flavors of food. When one decides to quit eating salt, it usually takes only two to three days of eating bland-tasting meals before plain food seems incredibly flavorful. That is why I love eating without salt. For the same reason I believe that taking salt out of one's diet makes staying on a raw diet a lot easier.
Bread, sugar, meat, milk, and salt have been staples in the human diet for centuries, and we have become used to them. I recognize the fact that these products have played a big role in history. These foods, especially cereal grains, have enabled the survival of humans on this planet and have ultimately become responsible for the vast technological and industrial culture in which we live today. However, abundant scientific studies worldwide show us that there are better nutritional options available for humans.
In addition, there are millions of people in our world who are fortunate to have the availability of almost any food they like. I cannot find any reason for those people to continue consuming survival food. n.o.body needs to wear a raincoat on a sunny day.
*On September 8, 1941, a little over two months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops surrounded Leningrad. Unable to take the city by direct a.s.sault, they set about starving it into submission. Before the siege was ended on January 27, 1944, as many as a million civilians had died from sh.e.l.ling, cold, and/or hunger. The Fascist blockade of Leningrad lasted nine hundred days but the city did not surrender.
Chapter 15.
LOOKING FOR COMFORT.