Understanding our evolution through the lens of diet and nutrition

The Community Nutrition Forum (CNF) in my home state of Kerala in India organized a “Webinarathon” in celebration of National Nutrition Month in September. 15 days of 1 hour sessions conducted by expert dieticians and nutritionists about a range of topics such as basics of good nutrition, diet for different diseases and diet for different age groups. I missed the first few sessions but since then have been listening to topics such as diet and nutrition for Alzheimer’s disease, women suffering from PCOS, lactating mothers and adolescent kids. One common factor has stood out in all the sessions. From children to elder people, every category of people has one basic requirement the lack of which is creating a host of health issues in them.

Vitamin D.

Where do we get Vitamin D from? Simply go stand in the sun. But there is a catch. Our body creates maximum Vitamin D when exposed to early morning sun, between 7-9 am. This is why most Indian temples are open till 9:30 am. What happens after 9:30? Sun’s radiation becomes stronger as it gets hotter and we get exposed to more UV rays which in the long run can cause cancer. But simply standing in the sun is not enough. With brisk walking we inhale more oxygen and the increased pumping of the heart sends oxygenated blood to all parts of the body triggering cell regeneration. More oxygenated blood flow rejuvenates the brain which in turn helps improve focus and concentration. Many schools are adopting 10-15 minutes of workouts or yoga before beginning of classes every morning. Circumambulation of banyan trees is common in Indian temples because banyan trees produce the best oxygen in the morning. Most traditions are rooted in science but people would ignore if they are asked to walk for the sake of health but would walk readily in the name of Gods, so Gods have been used to build healthy communities for thousands of years.

The dominant genes in all of us contain genetic information from our ancestors who were active and predominantly outdoor people. Our present lifestyles are in direct contradiction with the information contained in our genetic makeup. Moreover, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, etc all exist in a certain balance in our body. Imbalance in one of them can have ripple effect on the others. Such imbalances result in the release of hormones that can do the exact opposite of the so called happy hormones, making people moody and pushing them into spirals of negative thoughts. This in turn reduces our body energy known as prana and when that battery dies we die.

Vitamin D manages a host of body functions and is even said to protect us from cancer. But we are too busy for morning walks. Many people take Vitamin D capsules, unknown to the fact that absorption of Vitamin D through the gut is very less compared to creation of Vitamin D from sunlight through our skin. Then there are people deriding others for walking in the sun because it will make their complexion dark. Pitting staying healthy against looking white and (supposedly) good is not smart and it is born out of ignorance of our own anatomy.

I have observed dietitians advising people to shun junk food completely and eat only healthy food. We resist just like animals when we are forced to change something we like or adopt something we don’t want to. People who like eating junk food, especially the ones in the adolescent age group are going to laugh off such advices. The question here is how did we reach the point of addiction to junk food?

Animals eat food for nutrition and not based on taste. When we see a pride of lions hunting and devouring a wild buffalo, there are two aspects to note. Herbivores extract proteins from the vegetation they eat but protein content is low in vegetation which is why they need to eat a lot to satisfy their protein needs and consequently developed large appetite and large physique. Carnivores eat herbivores to get the proteins from them. Also, lions hunting a large animal means every member of the pride can eat to their full and they don’t need to eat again for some days. Hunting is an exhaustive and risky affair, zebra’s hind leg kicks have broken jaw bones of lions and starved them to death.

Our taste buds are far more in numbers and far more evolved than that of animals. Our preference for taste grew with time and this is how we started using spices. There were times when food was made with the balance of nutrition and taste, like the biryani. What changed those dynamics was the industrial revolution, concept of money and office jobs. Working for long hours became the norm and there was no time for sumptuous meals. This heralded the emergence of a new food industry, the fast food industry. Food items that can be prepared quickly, are tasty and can be eaten fast or on the go became the need and the fast food industry catered perfectly to the new dietary requirements. A large proportion of fast food items are fried and deep fried, have milk products such as cheese and butter and adding a sedentary lifestyle with little to no exercise has become the recipe for health disasters.

Dietitians have to understand the short and long term adverse impact of eating junk food and prepare totally new diet charts with healthy food items that can reduce the adverse effects of junk food. Fast food has become an integral part of the global food industry and junk food an integral part of our diet. Restaurants in India heat oil for deep frying a variety of vegetarian and non vegetarian food items in the same oil, reuse the same oil the next day and add fresh oil to it. Every food item fried in such oil is junk food for me. Dietitians have to accept this reality and evolve with their diet plans accordingly.

I have had problems digesting meat from my childhood so I never liked eating meat. My great grandfather was a Brahmin so I used to think my dislike to meat was genetic till my mom told me that she ate very less meat during her pregnancy. This is when I realized being not used to meat from my mother’s womb could be the primary reason. My friends keep telling me the need to eat meat for meeting my protein requirements but I believe everybody’s nutrient requirements are different based on many factors and my body may not have similar protein requirements like others.

Precision nutrition is an evolving and exciting area of study where one’s DNA, microbiome, and metabolic response to specific foods or dietary patterns are analyzed and evaluated to determine the most effective eating plan to prevent or treat disease. According to many religions, each human being is made up of genes from 7 generations. Considering 7 generations of genes on both father’s and mother’s side of each one of us, we are all made up of genetic soup and our genetic structure must be as unique as our fingerprints.

They say the way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. Healthy hearts are the key to our overall health and dieticians are best positioned to ensure this. The need for healthy diets are on the rise in every aspect of our lives so dietetics is an emerging field with immense potential. Looks like dietitians have a major role to play we move towards our next stage of evolution.

Comprehending human violence – why we are so brutal to our own kind

Haven’t we all wondered at least once in our life why we are such a violent species? What are the origins of humanity’s seven sins? Or have we even pondered over these, ever? Rapes, cold blooded murders, looting, arson, hooliganism, the comprehensive list ends with the use of atomic weapons. Right from bullying and ragging in schools and colleges, we have all accepted violence as part of our societal life to the extent where men who cry and cannot endure physical pain are ridiculed and looked down upon. What is important here is, we have been incomprehensibly brutal to our fellow beings. Why?

Animal world is brutal without doubt. Animals have evolved to survive all conditions on our planet. But animals do not kill their own kind other than for mating rights and on extremely rare occasions. Territorial disputes do occur but that gets over in fights and not deaths. Moreover carnivores exist to control the population of herbivores which in turn prevents wanton destruction of vegetation. The perfection of nature’s design is in the fact that carnivores have taste buds that are evolved only to eat meat and not evolved enough to understand the taste of flesh and blood or rather the lack of it.

Human history is replete with violence against its own kind and if we look at our history closely, our evolution has been more significant for the destruction of fellow beings. From wooden to nuclear weapons, we have spent bewilderingly copious amounts of time, energy and intellect in creating and perfecting weapons to use against ourselves. We glorify ourselves for the manner of our evolution from cave dwellers to the technological advances we have been able to achieve in present times, but we do not talk about what we have done against ourselves in the same breath. From Egyptian civilization where soldiers were killed to supposedly travel with their dead Pharaohs in their afterlives to how the entire group of people and soldiers who dug Genghis Khan’s grave was butchered to keep his grave a secret (for reasons still unknown) to the Crusades to African slavery to all the wars especially World War I and II and the atomic bombs we dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our brutality against our kind is dumbfounding. What is more mind boggling is, we use our superior intelligence to annihilate ourselves whereas less intelligent animals know how to protect and conserve their species. Have we ever wondered why or what drives us towards this unexplained behavior?

The primary issue is in the understanding about the origins of humanity. The conflicting theories of human creation and evolution makes it all the more confusing. If we believe in the theory of evolution, there is a massive gap in our evolution that science has not been able to explain. Our intelligence has literally exploded in our evolutionary timeline in a very short period of time and more bewildering is the development of our communication skills especially our speaking ability. There is also the question of how apes evolved into humans all over the world at the same time. There are no more evolved and less evolved humans among us. If we believe in the creation theory, the story begins from Adam and Eve and they supposedly had 3 male children. Now hold on to this thought and then look at the whites, blacks, orientals and all the numerous types of human beings. What is the probability of such humongous human evolution from 3 siblings and that too without any women to procreate with?

Ancient Sumerian texts explain in detail how the less evolved versions such as neanderthals were genetically manipulated by aliens to create us in our present form. That can explain our evolution in intelligence and communication. But how did we start looking so different, developed different societal ways of life and most importantly, where does this violent streak towards our own kind come from?

Looks like the secret lies in the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. There were just humans at the time and not different types of humans. The story goes that the humans decided to build a tower that would rise so high that it would touch the sky and be the bridge between earth and heaven. What does this story indicate? It could be a metaphor for the fact that human development had reached a point where it was at the threshold of becoming equal to that of the creator Gods. So the Gods decided to punish the humans by corrupting their minds and destroying their unity. This video explains it all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_mTsX6jovc). Now this could also explain why we ended being whites, blacks, orientals etc because the same Gods must have manipulated us genetically, created different versions of humans and scattered us all over the world. To add to this, corrupting our minds against one another is where the origins of our violent streak could lie. The premise must have been that the Gods did not want humans to become their equal or it could be that they believed humans were not ready for what they were aspiring for at that time.

Question is, do we need to believe in yet another fable? We do not need to, but the results are before us in our history. Have we ever wondered why we have so many religions? We could say that newer religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam have more and improved rules for human existence in society but what have they ultimately done? Fragmented humans even more. Now what we have is situations like white Christians fighting white Muslims. Lower caste Hindus cannot drink water from wells “owned” by upper caste Hindus even in the 21st century. Same skin color so caste became the divisor. Psychological assessments of hardcore criminals have revealed that they are themselves not able to explain how they committed the gruesome acts of violence and have no comprehension of their state of mind at those moments. We are all supposedly having genetic information from 7 previous generations. What if the violence was coming from an ancestral gene acting up? Money and wealth tops all other divides now and two new groups of humans are getting created, the haves and the have-nots.

So what can we do about it? Understand ourselves first. We are endowed with unlimited intelligence and resilience. We have always been able to absorb all the after shocks of violence and move on which is why we are where we are now. Every problem has at least one solution but to find the solution the first step is to accept that the problem exists. We have to accept that though we are segregated by many factors, we belong to one species called Homo Sapiens. We have to consciously start look beyond monetary, political, religious and all other differences that separate us.

It could also be that the creator Gods have put us to our ultimate test. Overcoming all our differences and uniting as one species could take us to our next stage of evolution. Maybe that is when we will be able to successfully build the tower of Babel or whatever it represented. Advanced civilizations like Atlantis supposedly failed because even though it achieved technological heights it may not have had a united population of people. All ancient texts talk about the return of someone, Kalki in Hinduism, Jesus in Christianity and so on who would return to unite all humans. If we use our intelligence and commonsense we do not need to wait for anyone to come and remind us that we are humans above everything else. The choice is and has always been ours.

An objective look at terrorism

The Charlie Hebdo massacre and the latest wave of terrorist attacks has rocked the citadel of fashion and love. As the world mourned the loss of innocent lives and prayed to the Almighty for peace, the social networks became inundated with different ways of showing solidarity with the people of Paris. I did not change my Facebook profile photo as many of my friends did because the definition of terrorism has become “random people killing random people randomly” and humanity as a race has become irrational and our existence in itself is becoming irrelevant.

We need to first understand what terrorism is. It is any activity that creates terror in people and traumatize them. The hidden agenda of terrorism lies in the word itself. To understand where it comes from, we need to dig at it’s roots. Its building blocks are difference of opinions. We are all unique in our own ways and that is the most defining characteristic of humanity. Our mind neither represents the brain nor the heart. When we are conceived, we have no mind. The mind gets built up from the information that is supplied to the brain through our five senses. The mind captures the knowledge and wisdom from this information and keeps remodeling our character and personality continuously. This is what gives us the ability to think uniquely and act differently based on our experiences. This high level of uniqueness would have had never allowed us to evolve as a species, that is why we created a society, we have religions and we have castes. The primary objective is to make people conform to a certain set of rules and suppress our need to think uniquely. Everything that is meant to divide us, like religion, caste, etc. is also meant to unite us in very subtle ways. What we basically have is diversity within a bigger ambit of unity. Our world would have had been a paradise of peace if we had focused on the larger aspect of peace than knit picking on the diversity and differences within it.

When difference of opinion or diversity can no longer coexist, it creates situations of conflict. But then, we have the uncanny ability to survive conflicts and thrive through them. All the people we revere and call as greats have risen from the clouds of conflicts. This is a throwback to evolution and our cave dwelling days. We were living in constant uncertainty and conflict with nature. Will we find food for the day, will we be able to survive the hunting of animals or fishing in the sea, will our kids survive the onslaught of diseases and grow up, the list goes on. We still live in the same uncertainty. But now, the uncertainty is not from our conflict with nature. What is making our lives uncertain are our own creations. A speeding car can come and knock me down when I am crossing the street. A kitchen knife can become a murder weapon. Social networks can destroy lives. We have evolved into a situation where we need to be in some kind of uncertainty and conflict all the time to survive and evolve.

Terrorism is an extreme and demented form of conflict. For that matter, any conflict that results in taking another human’s life is terrorism because people’s lives get scarred the most when our lives are taken away by a fellow being. Revenge and retribution will never let us be in peace again. All wars are and should be considered as acts of terrorism. It cannot simply be washed away because countries are involved in wars. Every living being has it’s own value and reason to exist and we are accountable for every life we take. So how does a conflict nose dive into the monstrosity of taking the lives of fellow beings? What fuels such hatred towards each other? For the longest time, it has been in the name of God and for the sake of religions. The Crusades is a great example of this. The Vatican brainwashed the Kings of England and France into believing that Jerusalem, the holy land is flowing with milk and honey and it was their duty to free it from the hands of infidels (Muslims). When the Crusaders entered the gates of Jerusalem after long and costly battles, they found it to be a barren place. Why did the Vatican initiate all the bloodshed then? Popular belief is that they wanted to find out about the Ark of Covenant and many other artifacts that were believed to be in Jerusalem. There were hidden agendas behind the veil before and there are hidden agendas now as well.

Religion is still used as a front, that’s why the terrorists in Paris called out to Allah before starting indiscriminately pumping bullets into innocent people. But now all of the bloodshed is for money because money has become the supreme controller over authority. Who benefits the most when a conflict starts or a country goes to war with another? The greatest beneficiaries are the financial institutions and weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers supply weapons to parties on both sides of the conflict so their profits shoot up. Any conflict or war drains a country’s economy and it’s resources so financial institutions get to play a pivotal role in rebuilding the country. These are enough reasons for these stakeholders to incite conflicts. The very next day after the Paris massacre, share prices of weapons manufacturing companies soared up (http://theantimedia.org/stocks-prices-for-weapons-manufacturers-rise-sharply-after-paris-attacks/). What does this indicate? The cloud of suspicion now hangs over every conflict and war in the 20th century, from the World Wars to Cold War to Vietnam and more recently to 9/11, it’s fallout in Afghanistan and Iraq, what happened now in Paris and every other conflict in future.

The history of humanity is shrouded in mystery to the normal people. Governments and organizations are hiding many secrets in their cupboards that can redefine humanity and human history. We need to be aware that the information that is being fed to us through the media outlets is what the powerful elite wants us to know. We need to be very objective in our understanding and judgement of people and situations. Terrorist attacks are happening in Africa, Asia and the Middle East every day. All of them have been fomented by the western countries on behalf of the corporate, sometimes for oil and mineral resources, sometimes to gain control over governments and sometimes to sell weapons. We need to show solidarity with the entire humanity, not based on country, race, skin color, religion or any other reasons. The destiny of our survival and evolution into higher beings is in our hands. No God is going to come down from the sky and solve the problems which we have created. The faster we accept and reconcile with this fact, the faster we can get out of the rut we are in now.