I feel a diet around 80% vegetables, fruits, and grains, and about 20% meat proteins, including eggs is best. Meat proteins do have the advantage of having B12, which is virtually impossible to get from plants. The fats you need will be provided in the foods I mentioned.
As for the long life span thing we must keep in mind the majority of people with very long life spans do not get there from diet, but rather lack of stress.
Chewing food throughly does have various benefits. First of all of course is greater surface area for increased absorption of nutrients. Along the same line is the breaking down of plant cell walls to release their constituents. Then there is better digestion of carbohydrates as the amylase in the saliva has more time to mix with and break down the starches. This also slows eating down, which actually decreases total caloric intake. It takes time for our stomach to tell our brain we are full. The reason we tend to over eat when we eat fast is that we are shoveling the food down so fast that the stomach does not get the chance to say stop until it is too late. When the stomach finally tells the brain we are overstuffed and really uncomfortable. When we eat slowly by chewing thoroughly the stomach fills up slower and the stomach tells the brain that it full before we overeat. This can also help to control blood sugar for the same reason. Studies have shown that overeating can lower life expectancy due to elevated blood sugar. Slower eating also helps us to not overeat as it gives the brain more time to convert tryptophan, released from the ingestion of carbohydrates, in to serotonin, which kills the appetite. And of course it allows us to enjoy our food more if the food tastes good.
As for water or not with meals I am a firm believer of water with meals. There are several reasons for this. First of all is it allows the food to mix better with the acids and enzymes. Consider putting a bunch of dry in ingredients in to a blender. If you turn the blender on the ingredients do not mix very well. Now add some liquid and do the same thing. The ingredients are now blended properly. Water is also essential for the extraction process. Remember from chemistry that water is the universal solvent. It helps to extract the vitamins, minerals, alkaloids, etc. from our foods. And the water helps to expand the food we ingest, which again helps to prevent us form overeating.
As for the claim it dilutes stomach acid, this is kind of misleading. If you give the body what it needs to produce its stomach acid properly then the stomach will just increase its output of stomach acid if diluted to restore the proper pH. If age, or some other issue, is reducing the stomach's ability to generate enough stomach acid then bitters can be used to stimulate the secretion.
wow, this is so interesting, as the water with meals is so condemned all over! I'm very glad I asked you this, as I had noticed myself how better I feel when I drink water while eating. Does it make any sensible difference whether the water is hot or room temperature?
Not really. Regardless of being hot, cold or room temperature the temperature of the water will quickly reach body temperature. One advantage of cold water though is that the body has to burn a lot of calories to bring that water up to body temperature. So I prefer cold water myself even though I don't need to lose weight.
cold water! that's another broken dogma!
ah ah!
Here is a link on the subject:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm
About grains
If i want museli for breakfast, do i need to soak overnight in a bit of water, or is it apple juice? I know alot of people say to do that because of the phytic acid??
The trouble is i forget to do that, so do we really need to?
I would not bother. People don't really understand phytic acid. It is not dangerous, it is beneficial. I have write up somewhere on this I will see if I can find and post later.
Especially considering the Eskimos have great lifespans and health (as far as I recall) and they consume a diet dominant in fish.
I always thought they had a short lifespan.
Just the ones the polar bears get
Hee Hee! Very good.
Hv, i'm stiff and achey from exercise, what is good for getting rid of lactic acid?
Thanks
Want the good news or bad news first? Just kidding. Actually the stiffness the day after exercising has nothing to do with lactate (not lactic acid). The stiffness occurs from micro tears in the muscles. The lactate that builds up when we are exercising heavily causes the burning sensation during that exercise. But when we stop the exercise we continue to breathe heavy for a short period of time. This is the body's removing the high levels of lactate with the oxygen. When the lactate levels drop so does our respiration. So it is not lactate causing the stiffness. If you want to reduce lactate during exercise though to increase endurance nettle leaf works great. You can drink the tea steeped overnight throughout the exercise.
As for the stiffness there is not a whole lot you can do. Those micro tears need time to heal. If you want to speed the healing rate plantain leaf is good. You can also apply a warm compress with comfrey root powder over the muscles to speed healing. For the pain you can apply a pain reliever like White Flower oil, Tiger Balm, or an arnica cream topically.
Could you explain why my boyfriend never gets sore muscles after a workout, no matter how much weight he uses or how hard he pushes himself.
Your muscles can become accustomed to the workouts. It is like when you first start running the first few weeks are really had. Then you get accustomed to the distance as the muscles build and adapt. As the muscles grow they also take the stress off of other muscle fibers as they share the load.
He doesn't grow much as compared to another doing the same weights as him.
Muscle mass has a lot to do with testosterone levels. There is an herb called tribulus terrestris that elevates testosterone. But it should be taken with a dihydrotestosterone (DHT) blocker like saw palmetto.
Another odd thing with him is that he can drink many cups of coffee....a typical day would be drinking 16 cups of coffee and never getting tension and he can drink it before bed and it will put him to sleep. His mom is the same.
They have shot their adrenal glands with the caffeine. Caffeine stimulates the release of epinephrine (adrenaline), which gives us that stimulant effect. But the body only produces small amounts of epinephrine at a time, and is only supposed to be released in small amounts on occasion. When we are constantly stimulating epinephrine release with stimulants our epinephrine stores get used up and our energy levels crash. When they take the coffee they stimulate the release of the tiny amount of epinephrine remaining leaving insufficient levels of epinephrine to give them energy, so they go to sleep.
This is a bad thing as the adrenals regulate so many things in the body.
You said:
"Your muscles can become accustomed to the workouts. It is like when you first start running the first few weeks are really had. Then you get accustomed to the distance as the muscles build and adapt. As the muscles grow they also take the stress off of other muscle fibers as they share the load."
I agree with what you said, except in his case he never gets the soreness. It doesn't matter what muscles he decides to work on or how much strain he wants to work with. He never even got it when he first started getting into weights again. As with me, it is the opposite. I can work out on an excercise and feel the soreness for about 2 days and do the exact same exercise the next week and get the same soreness again. But I do make gains in my body doing it.
It could also be that he has higher endorphin levels. This is common with people that do intense exercise. The endorphins kill pain, so the soreness can be there and you will not notice it. When I use to race triathlons and do cross country bicycling I did very intense daily workouts and almost never got sore. One time I had to be somewhere in two days that was 300 miles away. So I loaded up my bicycle and did 200 miles the first day through the desert and mountains. Got up the next day and did the final 100 miles to my destination. I was never sore the following days. I know part of this was from being accustomed to long days and the extra weight on the bike as I went everywhere on by bike and carried everything I needed on it. But it was also the endorphins that helped a lot. In fact if I had to rest from injuries I would actually start to get withdrawal symptoms. So I would often continue racing and training when sick or injured. In fact my favorite trophy was the one I got for last place I won in a half marathon I ran when I had a cold and strep throat. I really felt like dying through the whole race but I finished. Endorphins are also released by many drugs, and are substituted for by narcotic pain killers. They can do a great job of masking pain, and they can be very addictive just like the narcotic pain killers.
Because the excess epinephrine (adrenaline) contributes to the nervousness. If his adrenals are being taxed more he will not put out as much epinephrine as you.
You say that their adrenaline is shot. The funny thing is that my boyfriend never gets the tension that I can get from drinking coffee.
Again, lack of epinephrine.
He is always really relaxed. Also, he has so much more energy than me. He can get up a four thiry am and go to work from 6am to 4pm or later, and then go work out and get 4 or 5 hours sleep, while that is impossible for me. Even on the weekends he gets up at 5am and is not grumpy. I just don't get it. And he is diabetic and still has more energy than me.
For one, some people can naturally get by on less sleep. I have known people that have always gotten by on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. Everyone's system is different. Then there are also other factors that affect energy levels. Thyroid function is one. And women tend to be a lot more prone to hypothyroidism than men. So this could be a factor. Liver function is a factor. Diet is a factor. Red blood cell levels and function are a factor. How we utilize our fats will play a role. Again people who do radical exercise will have systems that will spare glycogen and burn fat more efficiently, which is the best fuel source for the body. They also utilize oxygen more efficiently. So his higher energy levels could be from a number of things.
When I was in Iceland I talked to a doctor over there and we were discussing the lifespan. It is actually very good despite eating a LOT of sugar and doing quite a bit of drinking. But again the lifestyle over there was for the most part very peaceful. No traffic jams except for waiting for the sheep to cross the road. Crime is almost non-existent. It is clean and no artificial chemicals added to the food to worry about. Plenty of things to get out and do.....
ah, you do have a link to Iceland! that's why the name!
Yes, I was over there for two and a half months backpacking. Hveragerthi was a real neat little town I traveled to several times and spent several days there. There are geothermal greenhouses where they grow everything from cacti to bananas, a geyser that the name translates out to "bug bear" (don't have a clue what that means), and an interesting little indoor carnival. Definitely the most interesting town I visited.