The brain, though! The HQ, enabling rationality, intellect, decision-making, emotion, creativity, survival, life!
We have a triune brain. It comprises the primal 'reptilian' brain, the limbic brain and the neocortex. We need all three parts of the brain to function together, efficiently and optimally, if we are to thrive during our time on earth.
Good nurturing is key to enabling the three parts of the brain to work together efficiently. Problems arise when neglect, and avoidable stress, is experienced by the baby while the brain is still developing.
Here is why.
If a baby experiences stress consistently in its first twelve to twenty four months, then the three parts of the brain will not wire together efficiently. A resultant 'short-circuiting' will happen at future times of stress. This means that the 'survival' and 'emotional' parts of the brain will take precedence when stress is experienced, and reasoning (coming from the neocortex) becomes temporarily impossible.
Thus we can see tantrums from stressed toddlers, not to speak of bouts of temper, anger, and rage when, as adults, we become stressed beyond tolerable levels. I can recall countless moments of puzzlement and mortification at my behaviour under stress when my neocortex had finally been given time to catch up.
SO LOVE & NURTURING ARE CRITICAL IN GIVING OUR CHILDREN'S BRAINS A CHANCE TO DEVELOP FULLY AND OPTIMALLY.
THE BRAIN AND NUTRITION
As for the role of nourishment in nurturing, there is irrefutable evidence that 'healthy' fat is one of the most essential nutrients for the forming brain (which consists of nearly 60% fat).
A diet low in fat actually robs your brain of the materials it needs to function properly. Essential vitamins such as A, D, E and K are not water soluble and require fat to get transported and absorbed by the body. These vitamins are crucial for brain health and many of our vital organs.
Healthy fat continues, along with all the other important nutrients, to be essential for the brain and neurological health throughout life.
The question is: are Western nutritional practices fulfilling these needs?
Why was saturated (animal) fat demonised?
From Diet Doctor:
"For a while, in the middle of the last century, there was a scientific struggle. Was fat or sugar to blame for cardiovascular disease? Ancel Keys was the champion of the first theory; Professor John Yudkin of the other. Keys won, but not all of the data he used to make his arguments was a fair representation of reality.
"The left-hand graph above was famously used sixty years ago by Keys, to support his idea that fat intake was responsible for heart disease. But as the right-hand graph shows, the same data could just as easily have implicated sugar. Countries eating higher amounts of fat were simultaneously eating more sugar. It was just a question of what you were looking for.
"Since that time, we’ve spent half a century fearing natural fat, and instead eating more carbs. At the same time, an epidemic of obesity and diabetes has occurred. Even though the association in the graph on the right can’t show cause-and-effect anymore than the graph on the left, it may be time to reconsider: maybe Yudkin was right." (read here)
It is clear too that Keys 'cherry-picked' his data, by excluding countries which did not support his thesis. The book 'The Big Fat Surprise', by Nina Teicholz (Simon Schuster, 2014) goes into detail on this and the political dimensions surrounding the now widely-accepted and rarely questioned 'fact' that saturated fat is 100% bad for us. (buy here)
" ... based on a nine-year-long investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs ...
"The Big Fat Surprise upends the conventional wisdom about all fats with the groundbreaking claim that more, not less, dietary fat—including saturated fat—is what leads to better health and wellness." (Publisher)
The disregarded Professor John Yudkin went on to publish a book, Pure, White & Deadly (Viking 1986) (buy here)
"Using everyday language and a range of scientific evidence, Professor Yudkin explores the ins and out of sugar, from the different types - is brown sugar really better than white? - to how it is hidden inside our everyday foods, and how it is damaging our health.
"Brought up-to-date by childhood obesity expert Dr Robert Lustig M.D., his classic exposé on the hidden dangers of sugar is essential reading for anyone interested in their health, the health of their children and the health of modern society." (Publisher)
Speaking of Robert Lustig, here is a TED talk he gave in 2013 in which he 'assesses the health dangers of sugar and its link to Type-2 diabetes and the global obesity epidemic.' (watch here)
And here he is speaking about sugar added to low-fat products (watch here).
Did you know that, in order to improve the flavour of fat-free products, sugar is generally added? This includes Hellman's Mayonaisse ... my favourite ... and it, the low-fat version, tastes horrible!
Do a family-centric survey and look at some labels next time you are on a shopping 'trip'! A bit of added sugar here and there, you may think, surely doesn't make that much difference? If you add it all together, though, alongside the more obvious sugar-laden goods, and all the carbohydrates you are eating, then your overall sugar load may begin to alarm you!
As for NUTELLA!
How much sugar is in a jar of Nutella?
Based on the Nutella nutrition label that states each two-tablespoon serving has 21 grams of sugar, there is approximately 210 grams of sugar in a 13-ounce jar of Nutella. That's more than quadruple the sugar in a 16-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola.
"By weight, Nutella is 55% sugar," — Caroline Passarrello, registered dietitian
Here is a graphic to show you what you are eating!
Why do the Massai tribe of Kenya, among many others, whose diet comprises almost all animal products, very rarely suffer from heart disease or other metabolic illnesses?
Can we in the West, on the contrary, be seen to be a healthy one?
With an incredible increase in, not only mental health issues, but also degenerative disease such as dementia and Parkinson's, alongside heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, we cannot but ask whether this increase has gone hand-in-hand with a decrease in the quality of our Western nutritional choices.
Genetics can perhaps account for some of this, of course. But let's not stop at genetics. Let's carry on to the comparatively new (and liberating) field of epigenetics, which highlights the influence of lifestyle and environment (external factors collectively called 'the exposome') on the turning on/off of our genes. In other words, nothing is set in stone! A family's inherited physical and emotional tendencies and habitual choices ("Oh, he takes after his father ....") can be changed to a completely different trajectory by different lifestyle and environmental choices.
FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT. SUGAR DOES.
We do not need sugar. But we need fat.
We need fat for our myelin sheathes!
We need saturated fat for healthy functioning lungs!
"Our lungs are coated with a substance composed almost entirely of saturated fat. Premature babies who are lacking this substance are given something called “surfactant” to keep their lungs functioning properly.
"Without enough saturated fat, our lungs can be compromised. Some studies are now looking at the link between the low consumption of saturated fat and asthma as a result of the breakdown of this fatty layer." (source)
This perhaps explains the improvement in my asthma since adopting the keto diet. Actually, I am now favouring a more 'keto-carnivore' approach. I am conducting my own personal in-vivo experiment and will observe any further progress in a completely unbiased manner!
As mentioned above, fat helps the body absorb vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin E. These vitamins are fat-soluble, which means they can only be absorbed with the help of fats.
Fat converts to fatty acids, which are the building blocks for growth.
Why would you deprive your child of these important nutrients, all for the sake of an ideological/political/emotional conviction? Why?
Cambridge City Council excelled itself in 2022 with what was presumably one of those notorious committee-led decisions.
"Last year Cambridge City Council was lauded for deciding to phase out serving meat and dairy at events, switching instead to vegan catering. There was just one problem, people didn’t want to eat it.
"At the first event, council officials reported the vegan menu went down so badly they were left to deal with “significant food waste”. Only one in ten guests even tried the vegan food on offer and others left complaining they were still hungry. At a meeting to review the situation Green councillors claimed the council had set the initiative up to fail but a Labour member seemed to get to the heart of this.
“We cannot force people to eat food they do not want to eat,” he said. That is the big issue here. It’s all very well to sign pacts and agreements and set targets but what is being forgotten amidst all that is the fact that people will vote with their stomachs when it comes to deciding what they want to eat." The Scotsman, 27 January 2023 (source)
The Scots (those tough and hardy folk who've never hesitated to square up to invaders and fools), may well respond in the same manner if such fare is presented as they toss the caber and fling the hammer, but it seems nevertheless that Edinburgh is making a good job of forcing schools, hospitals and care homes to serve only plant-based fare. There is, apparently, a thing called The Plant Based Treaty, and Edinburgh is the first European city to endorse it. I will leave you to find the link. I am afraid I cannot quite allow myself to place it here.
Are they serious? Well, yes, I suppose they are. But have they balanced the picture by examining regenerative farming, in which responsible rearing of animals actually revitalises the earth? Do they tell us how much land would be needed, how much fertiliser would be used, to grow enough plants to feed the world's population? Do they know how many species of animal and insect are destroyed in upholding their agricultural methods?
Does their conviction that plant-based living is the way leave them free to research, with open minds, the nutritional pros and cons of a plant-based diet, particularly for growing children?
Does not all this strike you as rather heavy-handed and lacking in scientific rigour, let alone rather sinister? We are, after all, going along with this zero carbon thing in a rather obedient manner, particularly when you consider that many scientists absolutely refute the computer modelling that is leading us in this strange, rather dystopian direction. Patrick Moore, joint founder of Greenpeace, could tell you more if you were interested.
We seem to be allowing ourselves to be herded, like so many sheep, into a pen constructed, not with wood, metal and wire, but rather with fear, credulity and a tendency to laziness.
One more thing ...
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
The body possesses an extraordinarily complex immune system, housed not in one place but in many. One of the largest centres of this system, housing 70% of its total, is the gut.
We know that gut health issues are increasing hugely in Western society. This may, among other things (like the over-use of antibiotics, stress, alcohol and smoking), be caused by the poor food we are increasingly consuming.
And if our gut health is compromised, then our nutritional intake and health is affected, and so is our immune system! A double whammy!
Our God-given immune system is, of course, of utmost importance, particularly when we are faced with an unforeseeable ‘pandemic’ as we did with Covid-19. In spite of some scientists and the media declaring otherwise, those with strong immune systems are less at threat than those without.
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