Food – Nutrition or entertainment?

In the ”good old days” when food came straight from nature and had no list of ingredients, it was just food and not much more. The discovery of a good mushroom place or a successful hunt obviously gave rise to joy and gratitude. However, I do not believe that food was an end in itself or a pleasure as it has become today, in the wake of the industrial food revolution.

Today, food seems to have more to do with entertainment than a way to feed our bodies and secure our survival. Hundreds of new cookbooks are published every year. On the web you can find countless sites on every possible diet and the TV chefs continue to tempt us with new recipes and good wines.

Food as high stimulants

Much of what we eat today is so processed that we get lured up to the top steps of the reward staircase. Food has become a high stimulant! It contains sugar, refined flour and additives that manipulate or even destroy the appetite centre of the brain. When several of these refined ingredients are combined it makes the impact even greater. Sugar, fat, salt, flour and milk, additives and designer packaging that just can't be resisted. It becomes the jackpot for the reward system. Pleasure is total, the suffering is minimal and the resources in the form of energy flow in. It is difficult for a root from a plant in the forest to compete, even though it may have a much better nutritional value in terms of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, phytochemicals and fibres. In experiments with rats, which have a reward system like ours, it has been shown that refined sugar is more addictive than cocaine (1.The predominant carbohydrate in wheat flour is called amylopectin-A. This little creation is an even faster carbohydrate than refined sugar *2. It therefore gives a stronger blood sugar increase with elevated insulin levels and elevated blood lipids as well as fat deposits in the tissues as a result.

Food today is so highly stimulating that some drugs fade in comparison. Today's modern foods also do not contain the same nutrition per calorie they did before and can in this way force us to overeat which we will come to later.

Social conventions and peer pressure

Another difficulty that arises when one tries to control their behaviour and wants to avoid high stimulants such as refined sugar, coffee or alcohol is social convention and group pressure. It must sound like we are talking about teenagers who sneak smoke but I am thinking of people who are invited for a meal and feel that it is rude not to eat what is offered. In my world this is a matter of incorrect focus. Are we meeting to hang out or to eat? Focus on enjoying the company! Let your host know about your eating habits in advance, while showing appreciation that you have been invited. Compliment the chef for their fine work with the food even if you do not eat the same thing. You will be surprised to find how far that goes.

Relative nutritional deficiency

There are divided opinions about whether crops from organic farming have significantly better nutritional content than food grown with fertilizer and sprayed with pesticides. While research *3 will hopefully progress in this area, I choose to rely on the power of logical reasoning. Plants and animals are made up of organic and inorganic matter. They need sufficient amounts of a number of nutrients (how many different substances is also a matter of divided opinion) to grow, thrive and function optimally. In my world, it is a substandard strategy to almost exclusively enrich the soil with artificial fertilizers such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium alone. Strong plant growth is of course a good thing, but to create the conditions for the long and healthy life of plants, animals and humans, more nutrients other than just artificial fertilizers are needed. The mere fact that organically grown food often tastes better, tells me that its composition of nutrients is more favourable to me as a biological being. Our taste buds are there to guide us to the food we need most right now, not for the sake of pleasure.

Even if you do not agree with the opinion that modern agriculture with artificial fertilizers and pesticides creates depleted soils and less nutritious food, one must accept that the concentration of nutrients becomes lower when the crops are refined. White bread with flour and sugar does not contain as much nutrition as a raw food salad or a mixture of nuts and berries. As these refined ingredients creep into more and more of our food, the effect is that they dilute the concentration of nutrients in our food. If you also fill yourself up with products that are almost exclusively made up of refined ingredients, such as soft drinks and sweets, your diet becomes even more unbalanced. The energy content goes up while the nutritional value per calorie drops.

Nutritional Saturation

-”I feel fuller between meals now", says the woman I am coaching about food who sits down in the armchair opposite me. -"Since I started adding more good stuff to my diet, I don't often get hungry between meals anymore.” When you make the food more nutritious and the physiology gets what it needs, your feelings also change. It's as simple as that!”

When we do not get enough of a specific nutrient, we begin to crave food. This is quite natural for everyone who eats. When we have a lack of micronutrients such as minerals and vitamins, we experience a longing for stimulating macronutrients: fat, carbohydrates and protein. In the past, these came in the same packaging as the nutrients you were lacking, perhaps from the root of a plant in the forest. The system worked as it should. But what happens when you eat macronutrients in the form of processed fast food? Do you get enough micronutrients then? If you don't get them, you start longing for more food. So the circus is up and running. You eat but are never really satisfied. You risk becoming overfed but undernourished.

A little morphine with that?

Bacteria live in our intestines. We live in symbiosis with these bacteria and would actually not do very well without them. While we are growing in mum's tummy everything is fine but as soon as we get out into the world we need their help. Intestinal bacteria help us to break down the food we eat and to train our immune system. An invaluable help. Everything in exchange for board and lodging. Quite reasonable expectations I think. What we eat determines the composition of our bacterial flora, our microbiome. Some things promote the beneficial bacteria, other things promote stronger strains of bacteria that are bad for our health.

Some of these bacterial strains produce enzymes that help us break down proteins such as gluten *4 (common in our cereals). If these bacterial strains were knocked out or decimated by a one-sided diet, antibiotics or other unfavourable circumstances, what would happen then? Degradation, or should we say the degradation attempts of gluten can then result in chains of amino acids that acquire morphine-like properties. They are called glutomorphins. If we add increased intestinal permeability (so-called "leaky gut"), these incompletely degraded foods can get into the bloodstream and into the nervous system. The brain then gets a shower of morphine-like substances. Morphine as everyone knows can be addictive. It is also a high stimulant. Other opiates, for example in milk products, have similar effects on our nervous system. This may explain why many people find it so hard to stop eating cheese, which contains high levels of casain *5 that can be converted into casomorphins.

Same same but different

How food affects us is very individual. A diet that works for one person does not necessarily work for someone else. That's okay! What we are trying to do here is to identify foods that constitute false needs or that even act as high stimulants for you. This could be gluten for me but something completely different for you. To find out, all we need to do is to review the effects after eating the food in question. That is, the secondary effects, as it is the secondary effects that reveal the false needs and the high stimulants.

Good food!

And then there is one more thing about food: if you want to eat well, you must spend time in the kitchen! It is not possible to rely on semi-finished products, ready meals and lunch restaurants. Good food is created by you from good raw materials in your own kitchen!

Referenser

1. Lenoir M, Serre F, Cantin L, Ahmed SH (2007) Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward. PLoS ONE 2(8): e698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000698
2. William Davis MD, Wheat Belly, 2014, ISBN: 1609614798
3. David Thomas, Nutrition and Health, 2007, Vol. 19, pp. 21–55 0260–1060/07
4. Caminero, A., Herrán, A. R., Nistal, E., Pérez-Andrés, J., Vaquero, L., Vivas, S., Ruiz de Morales, J. M. G., Albillos, S. M. and Casqueiro, J. (2014), Diversity of the cultivable human gut microbiome involved in gluten metabolism: isolation of microorganisms with potential interest for coeliac disease. FEMS Microbiol Ecol, 88: 309–319. doi:10.1111/15746941.12295
5. Neal Barnard, Breaking the Food Seduction (2003)