Week 15: Nutrition = food's chemical reactions within our body
There's a rocking symphony inside each of us. 🎶
In the next several weeks, we’ll unpack 8 principles at a high level that best summarize human health and wellness according to a godfather in human nutrition, T Colin Campbell.
PRINCIPLE #1:
“Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” - T Colin Campbell, 8 Principles of Food and Health
T Colin Campbell is one of my favorite health/food/nutrition educators. Through his books, articles, online interviews, and online course, he’s taught me so much that ultimately boil down to these 3 things:
Trust your body (it knows much more than we may ever know, and it knows what to do for optimal health). It is an optimizing machine and knows nothing else but to optimize (one of my absolute favorite words)
Nutrition and the human body - like nature - is incredibly complex. When we try to simplify things and/or focus too much on a single nutrient (like vitamin C being ‘good for covid’), or one particular food, or a specific metabolic pathway, we can miss the forest for the trees
Eat whole plant foods. We’ll never know all there is to human nutrition but the empowerment Dr. Campbell’s passed on to me is this: just eat a variety of whole plants and rest assured that you’re giving yourself optimal (ie. it just doesn’t get better than this!) nutrition
For this first principle, Dr. Campbell goes on to say:
“The main message I’m trying to get across is this: the chemicals we get from the foods we eat are engaged in a series of reactions that work in concert to produce good health. These chemicals are carefully orchestrated by intricate controls within our cells and all through our bodies, and these controls decide what nutrient goes where, how much of each nutrient is needed and when each reaction takes place.
Our bodies have evolved with this infinitely complex network of reactions in order to derive maximal benefit from whole foods, as they appear in nature. The misguided may trumpet the virtues of one specific nutrient or chemical, but this thinking is too simplistic. Our bodies have learned how to benefit from the chemicals in food as they are packaged together, discarding some and using others as they see fit. I cannot stress this enough, as it is the foundation of understanding what good nutrition means.” (Bolding is my own to stress how often Dr. Campbell stresses the importance of whole plant foods.)
As a concept, our bodies know precisely which chemical components of the piece of raw broccoli I just ate go within my body. And in the perfect amount.
Despite the complexities of our biological makeup, the hardest thing to grasp is how stupid simple it is to nourish ourselves.
How can eating one floret of broccoli result in trillions of chemical reactions in my brain, body, bloodstream, bones, and who knows what else, to create health?
I guess nature, or Nature, or God, or the Universe is good to us, making it easy to get the nutrients we need to be well, vibrant, and strong.
When we look at something like cronometer.com, we see our macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, protein) and our micronutrients - a list of 11 vitamins and 10 minerals.
Campbell teaches that food does not just compose of these 24 things - there can, in fact, be hundreds of nutrients in the food we eat. (He’s stated we’ll likely never know the full extent of our nature; I have to agree!) Some doctors state there could be millions of phytonutrients in plant foods!
As a practicality, every single time we eat a whole plant food - whether that be a crisp raw apple, or apples baked in apple pie - know that your body is taking the 24, or hundreds, or millions of nutrients in those apples and transporting those nutrients to the exact locations throughout your body where you need them, and in the exact amounts you need them. 🤯
🥳
Weekly High
It takes a village to raise a child.
It sure does and if you’re like me, for most of our child’s life, it’s almost entirely been on us to raise our kid. (That’s not a complaint, I love taking care of her.)
This week we’re at my parents’ house - 2,000 miles away from our daily life in southern California.
Leaning on my ‘village’ here means watching my Dad take lil Elle on a walk while I finish up some work, and letting my Mom give Elle a bath (which Elle LOVED) giving me more time to… work. When I asked Elle why she’d like Umma to give her a bath, she said, “I want to see what it’s like.” 😆 I don’t know why that cracks me up - such a curious kid! I love how open she is to new experiences.
Low
As we get older, we’re going to see more of the older generation start to pass away. With my parents aging so much over the last few years, that’s always top of mind when I’m with them.
It’s grim to think this may be the last time we take a simple walk to the grocery store together, or share a meal around our family dining room table together… I want to stay as present as possible and enjoy our time together as fully as I can.
This week I learned of very serious situations and limited time for some elderly loved ones. I can only hope that they feel as if they’ve lived a great freaking life here, and that they’ll be welcomed into their next stage of existence with pure love and joy.
Lesson
There are credible scientists today (like this dood) who after reviewing the thousands of studies on human health state there’s no one diet that’s best for human health and there are two very important things to note:
The common denominator in the diets that healthy people follow is they all include whole plant foods. Bottom line (surprise, surprise): eat your veggies, ie. any whole plant food which includes not just things you don’t want to eat like kale but rice, potatoes, corn, wheat, fruit, and anything that grows from the ground
An ultra processed food diet is the one diet that doesn’t lead to good results. Like eating exclusively fast food and other ultra processed food-like products like Oreos and Coke
This gives me great joy for so many reasons.
It makes me happy since as long as we get our optimal nutrients in (whole plants!) and get some sun, some exercise, and have love in our lives, we’ll be alright. 💓
Best thing I ate this week
My mama consistently under seasons her food and it’s a shame because she uses a beautiful array of plants that would otherwise shine if given the chance (with a lil salt).
My elderly parents came to pick Elle and me up at the airport and my Umma always has food ready for us. 💓 Even though her kimbap could’ve used more seasoning, this was the most nourishing and therefore the best thing I enjoyed this week. The effects of our mama’s food just can’t be beat.
Week 15: Keeping my cool (and keeping it stupid simple)
Alongside my mama’s love and nourishment comes the relentless badgering of you name it, she’s got something to say about it. Such is the beautiful balance of life.
I’m going to load up on my Mom’s epic backyard garden full of lettuce, kale, sesame leaves, potatoes (!), arugula, parsley, and more.
Are you down to keep a meal period stupid simple this week to keep things consistent and optimally nourishing?
Sending you love and good energy for a great week ahead.
💓 Jamie