Phytochemicals

you are what you eat

When I heard the word "phytochemicals" on a blog I just thought they sounded cool so I decided they were "postable". Marketing 101 says you can charge for a cool name. I hope you agree.

Have you ever heard the expression “I don’t subscribe to what he/she is saying?”. One of the things I subscribe to is nutritionfacts.org. A number of years ago (I wish it had been sooner), I chose to radically change my diet and outlook for health reasons. I subscribe to the subject website and it pushes videos related to the topic of plant-based eating. My post today was inspired by such a video titled “Fighting the Ten Hallmarks of Cancer”.

What each of these videos I receive has in common is the annotation of Dr. Michael Greger and lots of references to scientific studies about the topic of the day. For those that know me well, this is the kind of story I enjoy. I do not believe these are definitive but for me, they are better than fad-based opinions encouraging me to eat like a caveman or consume pulverized beets in a capsule of gelatin made from animal hooves. This morning my walk on the treadmill started with Dr. Greger.

My favorite fad diet from the past was the grapefruit diet. I have never followed a diet in my life prior to my recent lifestyle change. I love grapefruits but the diet of the same name makes me laugh. It was just simply eat the equivalent of half a grapefruit at EVERY MEAL along with other stuff. I’m guessing that for those who experienced weight loss it was mostly due to developing canker sores in your mouth that made it difficult to eat other stuff. As I sad, I like grapefruits but I find myself just laughing at the stupidity of it as I try to type this sentence.

The surefire way to lose readers is to be a firebrand and preach to others. Most of you don’t know me and you should be cautious to assume anything that I state is sensible. Today I will be on my soapbox but I encourage you to think about what is right for you. If you decide to watch the video I linked you will be introduced to Dr. Greger. He is not a Hollywood-style spokesperson with a spray-on tan and flowing locks. He is a physician and reminds me of a couple of professors of my youth. I recognize that bias is always inherent and I am sure it pervades his point of view at times also. However, I also know that his approach is to provide evidence and not hype. I have faith in that approach compared to a maniacal ranting of a person selling a juicer or a pillow on late-night television.

My life has been touched by cancer. I think if we live long enough, it may come knocking on many of our doors. Today’s video is instructive in describing the methods, indications, and mechanisms of cancer. It also provides the human pharmacological approach to counteracting it. I found the video helpful in my understanding and my personal approach to facing and understanding cancer.

How have my thoughts evolved since I started writing? I entered this journey with some understanding but no formal training or background in biology. Some of the rabbit holes I explored and found interesting were about life and our commonality across the kingdoms of living things. One of the pivotal posts I worked on was “Nature’s Cookbook”. The takeaway from exploring that post was the humbling understanding wherein if something is alive on this planet (plant or animal), it must construct proteins to remain alive and thriving. These proteins are ALWAYS made from amino acids and those amino acids are crimped together using a recipe book in our DNA to get the order of the amino acids correct. Every plant or animal on earth follows the same script. Think about that the next time you see a blade of grass.

The recipe book differs for each living thing but the building blocks are largely the same. The result of a string of amino acids is a protein and that protein is put to work to do something for the plant or animal. A turtle keeps its shell in shape the same way we keep growing hair. Things are much simpler and more elegant than we might imagine.

Have you ever watched a nature show where the narrator in a serious voice talks about simple amino acids in a ”primordial soup” bonding and making proteins as the start of how life began to emerge? When I first saw those videos, I was skeptical because it sounded crazy that something so basic could lead to such a diverse and amazing world. Now that I understand that EVERYTHING ON EARTH THAT LIVES does this with a cookbook, I have a less jaded opinion of those videos. The story now is wonderful, not so impossible sounding, and is a rather logical and sensible explanation.

When I began considering plant-based eating I read about phytochemicals. I was overwhelmed by the science but eventually became more familiar. The easier way for me to focus on benefits was to eat the rainbow (THIS IS NOT SKITTLES). It turned out that some simple principles like eat the most colorful became a watchword for me. What does that mean? Eat red cabbage, not green, Eat red onions, not yellow, What is the BEST thing about this approach? The 11 o’clock slice above encourages me to eat dark chocolate every day. I can live with that.

The video I linked eventually discusses compounds called phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are ONLY MADE by plants. Their function is to promote growth and provide defense for the plant against disease. The ONLY WAY to get phytochemicals is to eat plants. Phytochemicals resist the formation of foreign invaders and this is perhaps why they are suspected to be anti-cancer agents. Ridiculous infomercials encouraging the heavy consumption of pulverized beets or Jetson-like pills of “fruit and vegetable essence” are the pseudo-scientific / huckster approach to eating cauliflower in a tablet. In a prior post titled “Free the Radicals“, I provided some light-hearted references to how much is too much of a given thing. While writing this post I ate a handful of mixed nuts. I noted a couple of brazil nuts in the mix. This brought a smile to my face because I now know that eating more than 4-5 brazil nuts a day leads to neurological effects due to selenium poisoning. Who knows how many brazil nuts a late-night carnival barker might refine into a “great supplement”.

Let the Buyer Beware

Why is this ridiculous to me? Because I now know that even steaming a head of broccoli RADICALLY changes the profile of phytochemicals that end up in your bloodstream. Eating fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and grains in their originating form is intrinsic to their benefit.

My opinion is if you are watching or listening to some particular show or opinion piece, and these ridiculous advertisements keep popping up, you can conclude that you are being targeted as a likely buyer of this nonsense. It is not a great leap to conclude that the primary content (the show itself) is equally unlikely to be focused on thoughtfulness. So my rule of thumb is if the show you are watching has ridiculous advertisements for dumb stuff, it is safe to switch the channel unless you are they just to suspend reality and be entertained. If your news show of choice is full of crazy advertisements, you may have landed in another section of Oz and should continue your search for a rational option.

So here is where this tangent is going. I think this is pretty sensible. Whatever it is that you are watching or listening to or clicking around on, just take note of what is being advertised. I think it is SAFE TO SAY that if the products being advertised on the show you are watching are absurd, it may be wise to be careful accepting what the TV Show, radio program or website is trying to tell you.

Just for fun, and without revealing the show in question, I did a Google search for its top five advertisers and revealed three were supplements of some sort and another was an amazing pillow:

• Relief Factor — a natural supplement for “joint pain” relief. {about $95 a month}

• “Tommie Copper” — compression clothing with thin copper wires in it to provide “relief from inflammation” {now offers pillows for $80 too but not sure if it also contains “tiny” copper wires}

• Qunol — a combination of CoQ10 and turmeric {pretty pricey and I’m still not quite sure what this is supposed to accomplish. A large shaker bottle of turmeric at CostCo (you know it’s LARGE) is about $4}

• myPillow {they now also offer men’s mocassin slippers for $140}

Time for a Hearty Laugh

When I was a kid, you realized you were up too late when advertisements for Chia Pets started appearing. Nowadays, with so many channels, I guess there is an audience for almost everything. While the ridiculous advertisement is nothing new, I now believe that crazy advertisements for unlikely products can be our canary in the coal mine to warn us that the main course (the show that hosts it) is likely suspect.

Here is my FAVORITE CRAZY commercial from the past. For those with a great memory, we are talking about GLH. You have to click now.

My favorite part of the ad is when the voiceover says (while painting), “GLH is not a paint or a coverup”.

In the recent Superbowl, I did not expect there will be many advertisements for supplements and pulverized fruits and vegetables. Tonight’s music is a STRETCH. I was listening to this song and just decided to shoehorn it into my post. The author’s prerogative. When I began adjusting to plant-based eating, I downloaded an application on my phone called The Daily Dozen. It was a way to be aware of what I should be trying to include in my diet on a daily basis. While not a mandate, it was helpful on the slow transformation from discovery to eventual love. I stopped using the application nowadays as the practices have become second nature. In the beginning, there were things I was being cajoled to eat that I JUST DIDN’T LOVE. Most habits become sustainable when it isn’t work anymore. That finally brings us to a wonderful song I could listen to almost anytime. Here is a remake from my 20s. Phil Collins's “hand/dance moves” are worth the trip all by themselves. Believe it or not, this was cool once. I think it is safe to say that being able to make music will always be cool.

WHAT’S NEXT

Each of my sons is a joy of a person. While I am biased, they are engaging and interesting in different ways. One of my sons happened to study ‘the dismal science’ aka Economics. My next post is about The Tragedy of the Commons which is an interesting principle worth talking about. I think it will be more interesting than it sounds and CERTAINLY not dismal.