Blood, Dirt, and Water

This is something I wrote last year, but I like it and I am re-posting it here.  Food for thought (about food).

This is Personal

My personal story with nutrition goes back to a family with all kinds of health problems and really no compass for how to eat properly.  Between ignorance and misinformation, we tried our best but failed.  I dealt with my own experiences of food intolerance, ideological diets, weight gain, and weight loss before diving deep into the practice of nutritional discipline that got me on a better track in terms of health and fitness.  Then, I went through it all again.  Seeing how difficult it was to find a straight direction in nutrition discipline and stick with it, but also seeing how great the benefits could be, I acquired nutrition certifications and began to teach others these practices.  In description, the practices of ideal human nutrition sound simple: Blood, Dirt, and Water.  In action, however, things are much more complex, and it all begins with mental buy-in (trusted information and lived knowledge).

Blood

Protein is an essential nutrient for human beings.  More accurately, amino acids are essential nutrients and there are many reasons why animal proteins are the best source of amino acids for humans.  Amino acids from animal sources are more complete and easier to digest and absorb.  There are also emotional and psychological benefits to smelling, tasting, and chewing meat.  These animal-protein sources are also great sources of healthy fats, which provide an energy-dense alternative to excess carbohydrates in the diet.  Amino acids and fatty acids are not only essential to the human diet (as in, we cannot make them endogenously), they are also used to create tissues, enzymes, and hormones, and they provide energy in the form of calories to fuel our thinking and physical activities. I call this principle “blood” because these things bleed and should be cooked before consumption.

Dirt

Though meat is important, at our core, human beings are plant-based eaters.  I promote meat, but I also emphasize a plant-based whole-food diet from organic sources.  Vegetables, fruits, roots, and leafy greens all provide essential micronutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals, as well as beneficial plant phytonutrients.  Then, there’s the fiber, which helps us move our bowels and keeps our digestive tracts clean. On top of that, these foods provide water that assists our hydration.  Getting plants in their purest, freshest, rawest form ensures that they are in a highly nutrient-dense state and devoid of toxins such as preservatives, sweeteners, or dyes.  Getting plants from close to home ensures seasonality and freshness.  I call this principle, “dirt” because these things come out of the dirt and should be washed before consumption.

Water

Water is water.  It is what we are mostly composed of and what most of the world is made up of.  Water is essential to life.  Water in its purest form is our ideal source of hydration, providing hydrogen and oxygen molecules for innumerable physiological processes in the body, and providing the H2O inside our cells and between our cells.  Dehydration is a deadly disease that kills rapidly.  Minor dehydration creates numerous performance deficits both medically and physically.  On the other hand, the act of hydration is a powerful medicinal tool that cures many ills.  Water should be an integral part of every human being’s lifestyle every day.  However, there is a vast conspiracy against free, clean water in favor of selling us expensive sugar-products such as juice, soda, coffee, tea, and alcoholic beverages.  We need to reclaim water and reclaim our health.

Optimizing Human Health

Today there is a war against human health.  This war is being promulgated by industrial concerns and commercial industries which benefit from the weakness of human beings.  By exploiting our natural cravings and neurotransmitter feedback loops, the food & drink industries make money off us as they sicken us, then the medical industry makes more money off of us as they treat the symptoms of these self-imposed diseases.  There is a tremendous social cost, as well as personal costs, to this system that generates sickness at our personal expense, then removes sickness at even greater expense.  Optimizing human health will reduce these costs and allow us to reallocate resources to thing that are more important and beneficial to human beings.  Optimizing human health will also help to optimize human performance and happiness.  While the fake-protein industry and ideological dieters wage a war against meat, the processed grains industry wages a war against vegetables, and the sugary drinks industry wages a war against water.  We health-conscious human beings have to wage war in return, to defend natural human health and fitness.  Our weapons are blood, dirt, and water.