tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6640298770028582012.post9113228557228405838..comments2024-02-07T09:58:57.969-08:00Comments on exorphin junkie: Fasting from Bread: My 15 Day MilestoneCellarguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11650364701367341204noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6640298770028582012.post-44572904620150645302013-07-22T06:44:54.999-07:002013-07-22T06:44:54.999-07:00Thanks for your reply. I'm aware of the artic...Thanks for your reply. I'm aware of the article you cite. This was actually the article where I first encountered the idea of exorphins, and why I named my blog 'exorphin junkie.' In the several years that I've been making and eating bread, and studying how to make it as healthy as possible for myself, I've also been thinking and researching this question of whether western agriculture (specifically grain) was a nutritional benefit to the human race. There is no doubt whatsoever that it has been a cultural benefit, and civilization and science and all higher thought would not have appeared without it. But nutritionally: what was it about agriculture that changed the record of our bones? Cordain and others have supposed that it is because we gave up eating as much meat, and started eating more starches, especially grains. <br /><br />The proof is lacking. It could even be that the reverse is true. Dominy's work shows that we are starch eaters, always were, even before and through the paleolithic. In the next blog entry, I discuss the work of Wrangham, who has begun to work out the implications of human social evolution when we learned how to cook using fire. The order could have been fire first, tubors second, tools third, brain increase fourth, language fifth, hunting sixth. Meat wasn't the primary reason why our brains grew. As McDougall points out somewhere, the brain's primary fuel is glucose, and we need a lot of it and we get more from starch, zero from meat. Dominy and researchers of hunter-gatherer tribes suggest that meat was only eaten rarely, because it wasn't dependable. At least -- it wasn't dependable until humans domesticated animals, and that only happened when we had stable agriculture. A little (wild) meat doesn't apparently hurt humans. Constant (domestic) meat like what we consider normal in a western diet will kill us (via cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, osteoporosis, arthritis...) Occasional meat like what a hunter-gatherer might be able to get might give evolving humans enough B12. In times of less meat, B12 may be secured in the body. Graham actually suggests somewhere in his talks or books that we don't find as much B12 in the bloodstream of a vegan as in a meat eater because it is retained in the cells of the body (thus it isn't in the bloodstream). McDougall repeatedly points out that neither plants nor animals make B12 -- it is made by bacteria. But animals get it from bacteria, and we get it from their stores. McDougall suggests that our modern insistence on over-cleaning our food has lessened the amount of B12 producing bacteria we eat, compared to our distant ancestors, from which we evolved. McDougall also points out that we have flora in our body that produce B12 (but he also says somewhere that it exists in our lower intestines, so absorption from it is unlikely, since most of our digestion occurs in the small intestines). Clearly, I do not know the final answer to this B12 mystery, and I have yet to find the answers in good science. The more we know the less we know. Our questions appear exponentially, our answers rarely.<br /><br />It is possible that something you are eating is causing a chronic B12 deficiency. The eons have juggled our genes to the point where anything is possible. I work with a person who has a similar chronic B12 deficiency despite eating meat regularly; whether it is due to a food tolerance or sensitivity has yet to be determined. I'd be interested in how you would propose to find out. I would wager it is a metabolism quirk: it would seem that she can't metabolize B12 through the GI tract for some reason, and needs intermittent injections.Cellarguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11650364701367341204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6640298770028582012.post-79660413673987354142013-06-30T20:01:29.778-07:002013-06-30T20:01:29.778-07:00Overall, great post. I am trying to figure out wh...Overall, great post. I am trying to figure out whether I have I tolerances or other sensitivities that are causing a chronic b12 deficiency and attendant symptoms, and find your experience helpful.<br /><br />Re: your comments on our evolutionary forebear ears, it's not weird at all to want to know what they ate, and why. There is significant evidence that the rise of agriculture is implicated in the nutritional and other diet-related issues that modern civilized humans face. Eg,<br />http://www.ranprieur.com/readings/origins.htmlozobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13598422526040192981noreply@blogger.com