Wizard Recipes

In 1874, England increased taxes for the imported sugar, the price has fallen by half, and at the end of the nineteenth century, a part of calories in the British diet came from sugar, and the rest came mostly from refined flour.

Because of the pure and cheap sugar was now accessible to all, the human metabolism must face not only a steady flow of glucose, but also a higher amount of fructose, because sugar or sucrose is half fructose. (The consumption of fructose per capita increased by 25 percent in the last 30 years) In nature, fructose is a rare and precious element, which is found, depending on the season, in the ripe fruit, “wrapped” in a whole food product full of fibers (which slows the assimilation) and important micro-nutrients. No wonder that natural selection has programmed us to be attracted to sweet foods: in form that is found in nature-in fruits and some vegetables - sugar gives us a slow-release form of energy accompanied by minerals and all kinds of micro-nutrients essential to us that we can not get from other sources. (Even honey, the purest form of sugar met in nature, contains some micro-nutrients.)

One crucial change occurred in the American diet after 1909 (when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began to notice the phenomenon) was the increase of the percentage of sugar calories from 13 to 20%. Add to this number the percentage of calories from carbohydrates (about 40%) and it results that at least half of the American diet consists of various forms of sugars -calories which provides nothing but energy. There are two ways that the energy density of refined carbohydrates leads to obesity. First, we are consuming much more calories per unit of food, the removed fiber from the food is the one which would have give us the feeling of fullness, making us so stop eating it. Also, the sudden fluctuations of glucose drives faster to high insulin levels which, after glucose is assimilated drops sharply, creating the feeling of hunger.

If the accelerated spread of western diets has given us immediate satisfaction of sugar for many people-especially for those recently exposed to this system-the speed of this industrial diet overcomes the capacity to process insulin, the consequence being the appearance of type 2 diabetes and all other chronic diseases associated to the metabolic syndrome. As a specialist in nutrition said, “we actually participate in a national experiment of intravenous glucose administration”. And let’s not forget the flow of fructose, which might be a much higher evolutionary novelty, and therefore much more difficult to manage by the human metabolism than glucose. Probably not accidentally the rates of type 2 diabetes are lower in European populations which have had a longer period of time than other groups to adapt their metabolism to the quick release of refined carbohydrates: these changes occurred first in their food environment. The first contact with such food, as it happens in case of ordinary people who have traditional diets and come to America or if the fast-food comes to them is a shock to the body. A shock that is called by experts a nutritional transition and it can be fatal.

This is the first major change in the Western diet which may explain the devastating effects they have on people’s health, replacing the known relationships with whole foods whom we have co-evolved for thousands of years. The Western diet force our body to connect and to face some nutrients that are efficient delivered and snatched from their diet context. Our ancient evolutionary relationship with the seeds of cereals and with the fruit from plants suddenly gave up the place to a rather shaky marriage with glucose and fructose

One of the most active voices of the prewar period was Weston A. Price, a dentist of Canadian origin who leaned on one of those questions of common sense, which today can not even ask us. Now, like heart disease, chronic dental problems are a part of our lives.

But if you think about it, it is strange that everyone needs a dentist and that so many people need braces, channel interference, the wisdom tooth extraction and other routine procedures necessary to maintain modern oral hygiene. The need of many remedial interventions for just one body part that is involved in the feeding activity, activity that is essential for our survival, reflects a defect in our design, a kind of omission of the natural selection? It is unlikely.

But what did Price found out? First, he found out that populations that eat traditionally have no need for a dentist.(Well, almost: the teeth of the “strong highlanders” in Switzerland, which have never seen a toothbrush, were covered with a greenish-filing but Price found that, below this layer, the teeth were well formed and had no cavity). Whenever he discovered a primitive population that hasn’t yet contact with “alimentary substitutes of modern trade” - as refined flour, sugar, vegetable oil, canned or preserved food trough chemical ways- revealed very few or none signs of modern degeneration - like chronic diseases, dental caries and dental arches with malformations. These problems were caused either by a certain element of Western diet either a certain deficiency.

Wherever Price went, he took pictures of the teeth of the populations that he met and took samples from their food and sends these to Cleveland for analysis so that he could determine the content of macro-nutrients and vitamins. He found out that the indigenous diets were much richer in vitamins A and D than the modern U.S. - in average about ten times higher. This was due in a large part to the fact that, as is it was noted in 1930, that by processing food, it loses nutrients, especially vitamins. Trade food are thought to be stored and transported over long distances and the only way that they can become more resilient and less vulnerable to pests is to remove some of the containing nutrients. In general, the calories are much easier to transport- in form of refined cereals or sugar-only nutrients that can alter or attract bacteria, insects and rodents, all extremely interested in these nutrients. (Even more than us, apparently.)

Price concluded that the modern civilization did sacrifice mostly the quality of the food in favor of the quantity and the length of the shelf-life.

Psychologists proved, the most of us eat according to external signals, especially the visual ones. The bigger the portion of food, so much more we will eat; the bigger the plate, so much more we pour soup, the more we buy if the wending machine is nicely arranged and the more we will eat, if the bowl with M&M’s is closer to us.

All of this makes us easy targets for the alimentary producers and advertiser that want just to sell us more and more food. Like many others branches of our modern life, the food industry, has become a visual culture. But for the eating process, it’s better to till also our other senses, which often provide more useful and accurate information that are useful for our own body.

Is the third bite of dessert better than the first?

Could I continue to eat? But am I still hungry?

It seems that the human brain needs 20 minutes to get the information that the stomach is full; unfortunately the most of us eat in less than this 20 minutes, as result the feeling of satiety is influencing in a little way or not at all, the quantity which is consumed.

This means that by eating more slowly and being more careful for the satiety sensation, we could learn to eat less. French’s know this better than us, Brian Wansink proved it. When asked when to stop eating, the French subjects answered “when I feel full” (what a brilliant idea! Americans answered “when there’s nothing else on the plate” or “when I’m fed up”)

Maybe that’s why the long and relaxed meals allow French’s to know when they are sated. When we will learn to eat slower and will pay attention to our senses, than we could change the external signs that guide us. The idea is that it’s better to self-manipulation than traders-manipulation.

You will find a lot of tips in the recent work of Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, but I prevent you that all will hurt your quality of free will. Eat little portions, in little plates, eat and drink from small recipients (even if it means to reassign the products from gigantic packages into little containers); leave your food rests on the table- empty bottles, bones and so on-  so that you can see how much you eat. Use tall glasses instead of the wide ones; leave the healthy food at sight and hide the unhealthy ones; leave the food containers from where you served in the kitchen so that you are not tempted for a second round

Every diet is perceived by the organism as a threat. When this threat is repeated, metabolic adaptation appears, as a defensive reaction as a survival strategy that represents slowing down your metabolism so that it uses ‘less fuel’ to keep all mechanism in function.

In other words, the less we give to our body, the less our body will get used to consuming less, and we won’t lose weight even if we’re consuming 700-800 kcal per day.

And the matter gets even worse! Due to the lack of results, we are tempted to go back to our old eating habits and, of course, the excess fat returns as well. Only this time it will be PURE FAT!!!

SO, after numerous diets our body composition changes so that, if we’re lucky and maintain our weight, the fat percentage will be higher, and because fat is lighter, weighting the same 60 kilograms will make us look worse.

Fat tissue is less metabolically active, so, our daily energy expenses will decrease. This means that, eating the same things, with the same amount of calories will result in our weight increasing.