We Are What We ___

Forgotten Common Wisdom

“We are what we eat” – a phrase so common that we don’t even think about what it means.

Of course, I’d like to add “We are what we think” as well as “We are what we do”.

Sharyl Attkisson has written another excellent article: “Vanishing Nutrients”. I’d highly encourage you to read it. As this is a subject upon which I’m an expert, I’d like to reinforce and expound on her article. She makes three key points at the beginning:

• “Rice: Processing to get white rice removes 90% of natural thiamine, 85% of natural niacin, 60% of natural iron”

• “Corn: Degermination cuts 60% fiber, 50% magnesium”

• “Flour: Refined flour loses 80% fiber, 70% iron and nearly all of it’s B vitamins”

To this I’d like to add:

Leafy plants like lettuce will lose 90% of their vitamin C content within 36 to 48 hours. This is one reason our modern diet is insufficient. We need fresh food or supplementation. Likewise canned vegetables have usually been cooked and most minerals lost in the water they were cooked in.

Vitamin E losses, after storage of rice bran, for 35 days runs from 32.9% to 57.5%. After one year of storage 73% of total vitamin E content is lost.

An excellent paragraph of Sharyl’s:

“What if labels disclosed: “90% of nutrients removed for shelf life,” would consumers rethink their choices—at least part of the time? Might parents opt for brown rice or other whole grains for their kids, if they knew the stakes?”

Me: What if basic nutrition was a fundamental of early education (grade school)?

Many people point to human health decline as a recent thing due to nutrient depletion of processed food and the addition of toxins since the 1970s or 1990s. But in reality this has been a gradual process more or less from the 1850s as food producers sought more and more profit from their industry. We have long forgotten what a healthy life could actually be.

Aren’t supplements the solution? No, even though supplementation is essential for optimal health, even the best supplements aren’t a substitute for ancient healthy fresh food consumption.

Which side are you on?

---

How to make John’s Rice:

Combine in a rice cooker:

• Real natural grass fed butter

• Lentils

• Wild Rice

• Forbidden Rice (purple rice)

• Organic Brown Rice

add purified water, garlic, onions, turmeric, natural salt, celery seed and cinnamon. Add whatever else you like such as fresh peppers. Let cook for roughly two hours (the beauty if a rice cooker is that it takes care of itself). Slow cooking is good, flavorful cooking. If you are living alone, one cup of “rice” can result in meals for a week.

Many of us are “preppers”, we value being able to survive through a disaster or hard times. Unfortunately most of the “prepper foods” are chosen for shelf life and not nutrition. These are emergency rations, not something you should plan to live on!

As much as I focus on nutrition, let’s get back to “We are what we think”. Our thoughts have a profound impact on our health as well as our enjoyment of life. I’m inclined to believe that good thinking starts from good sleep. Meditation is also extremely healthy.

Of great importance is “We are what we do”. My career has been sitting on my butt using my brain. However I have always made a point of taking the stairs, never using an elevator, parking a little further away, and doing strength training. Since giving up dancing, I’ve put even more emphasis on walking and other forms of physical activity.

This article ties back to my previous article on “relevance”. A couple friends of mine, that are models, recently have made a point that they will not follow anyone that posts “politics”. Those posts inspired me to take a moment to scan the “likes” on my posts. Virtually nobody bothers to “like” my posts of these articles (on other social media platforms) while photos of beautiful women receive lots of likes.

Now, I love beautiful women as much as anyone but shouldn’t it be more relevant that we post thoughts and not just images of nude women?