Quotes About Nutrition

So the question of our origins concerns the forces that sprung Homo erectus from their australopithecine past. Anthropologists have an answer. According to the most popular view since the 1950s there was a single supposed impetus: the eating of meat.

Are we just an ordinary animal that happens to enjoy the tastes and securities of cooked food without in any way depending on them? Or are we a new kind of species tied to the use of fire by our biological needs, relying on cooked food to supply enough energy to our bodies?

In 1995 Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler proposed that the reason some animals have evolved big brains is that they have small guts, and small guts are made possible by a high-quality diet. Aiello and Wheeler's head-spinning idea came from the realization that brains are exceptionally greedy for glucose—in other words, for energy. For an inactive person, every fifth meal is eaten solely to power the brain.

the implication is clear: there is something odd about us. We are not like other animals. In most circumstances, we need cooked food.

However, among people who eat cooked diets, there is no difference in body weight between vegetarians and meat eaters: when our food is cooked we get as many calories from a vegetarian diet as from a typical American meat-rich diet. It is only when eating raw that we suffer poor weight gain.

When we eat, our metabolic rate rises, the maximum increase averaging 25 percent. The corresponding figures for fish (136 percent) and for snakes (687 percent) are vastly higher, showing that humans pay less for digestion than other species, presumably due partly to our food being cooked. But the cost of digestion is still significant for humans and can be reduced or raised depending on the food type.

Recent studies of the digestion of eggs are starting to resolve the argument, showing for the first time that cooked protein is digested much more completely than raw protein.

The amino acids of chicken eggs come in about forty proteins in almost exactly the proportions humans require. The match gives eggs a higher biological value—a measure of the rate at which the protein in food supports growth—than the protein of any other known food, even milk, meat, or soybeans. Raw eggs have other natural advantages. Their shells make them safer from bacterial contamination than cuts of meat.

Assessing the energy value of foods is a difficult technical problem. Nutritionists cannot calculate the value of foods directly because foods are too complicated in their composition and structure, and digestive systems treat different foods in different ways. So instead of making precise calculations of exactly the number of calories people can obtain from a given food, nutritionists make rough guesses.

The control of fire and the practice of cooking are human universals.

Among women eating totally raw diets, about 50 percent entirely ceased to menstruate. A further proportion, about 10 percent, suffered irregular menstrual cycles that left them unlikely to conceive. These figures are far higher than for women eating cooked food. Healthy women on cooked diets rarely fail to menstruate, whether or not they are vegetarian. But ovarian function predictably declines in women suffering from extreme energy depletion, such as marathoners and anorexics.

wild fruits are not nearly as rewarding as those domesticated fruits. The edible pulp of a forest fruit is often physically hard, and it may be protected by a skin, coat, or hairs that have to be removed. Most fruits have to be chewed for a long time before the pulp can be fully detached from the pieces of skin or seeds, and before the solid pieces are mashed enough to give up their valuable nutrients.

resistant starch" is vivid testimony to the deficits of a raw starch diet, explaining why we like our starch cooked and contributing to the weight loss that raw-foodists experience.

That information motivated me to get to a healthy weight so I could have a healthy mind.

60 percent of your brain is made from fat, specifically DHA.

The heirloom biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.

Our philosophy is that if it was grown on a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, leave it on the shelf.

The Daniel Plan will help you find a personal fitness strategy that you will enjoy.

If you want French fries, then make them yourself from whole potatoes and unrefined, unprocessed oil.

Real food has the power to give you your life back and more fully engage in the purpose for your life.

The Daniel Plan focuses on the core food groups of healthy carbs, healthy fats, healthy protein, healing spices, drinks, and super foods.

The Daniel Plan is a high-carb diet. In fact, carbs are the single most important food you can eat for long-term weight loss and health.

Cruciferous vegetables are the super detoxification foods.

Curcumin is found in the yellow spice called turmeric and is used in curries and mustards.