#diet

The Health Benefits of Eating Early and Fasting LateThe old saying goes, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." The evidence is piling up that that advice is sound, and even more beneficial than we could have imagined. Of course, what we consume is important, but the time of day turns out to be quite important as well. In a series of experiments with both mice and humans, we've learned that both restricting our entire's day of eating to only around eight hours and putting those hours early in the day helps our bodies work more efficiency, reduces blood sugar, lowers blood pressure, and may extend our lives. The mechanism by which this works is allowing our bodies time to repair, which doesn't happen until several hours after our last meal. Digestion take a lot of energy, and repair functions are delayed until that energy is available. When a body is allowed more "repair time," our worn-out organelles get recycled, damaged cells are replaced, and faulty DNA is repaired. The result is more efficiency and less stress on our biological systems. Read about the experiments that confirmed what our ancestors already knew at Salon. -via Damn Interesting(Image credit: Larry & Teddy Page) #diet #fasting #repair #circadianrhythm

Ultra-Processed Foods are Harmful Beyond Their Lack of NutritionRecent studies show that people who eat more ultra-processed foods are at an increased risk of dying from all causes. Greater consumption is linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and colon cancer. Ultra-processed foods are products made more palatable by changing their makeup with industrial ingredients like emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial flavors, and artificial sweeteners. This processing often strips foods of their natural nutrients and fiber. A study in Italy found that even when a diet high in ultra-processed foods was supplemented by vitamins and other nutrients, the damaging effects on a person's health remained. Further study found that high ultra-processed food consumers also had markers of higher levels of inflammation. It's possible that the human body sees the artificial ingredients in such foods as invaders, which triggers the immune system to go into high gear. But with no biological invaders, such as bacteria or viruses, to fight against, the immune system puts chronic stress on the body. Read more about this research into ultra-processed foods at Real Clear Science.(Image credit: National Cancer Institute) #diet #nutrition #health #ultraprocessedfood

"Real-Life Wolverine" Attributes His Physique to Eating Testicles and BrainsIf Weam Breiche looks like a caveman, it’s because he eats like one. This Los Angeles-based bodybuilder is a sculpted, muscular beast of a man with a physique that fans compare to the Marvel superhero Wolverine. Breiche works out hard, but he claims that it's his diet gives him an edge in physical development. 90% of his diet is raw meat, mostly veal. And he’s specific about his preferred portions of the bull: its brains and testicles.Isn’t that dangerous? The New York Post quotes Breiche’s claims that the human digestive tract is fully capable of destroying any harmful bacteria in the raw meat. The bodybuilder asserts that his diet can cure diabetes, heart disease, and digestive problems.-via Dave Barry | Photo: Weam Breiche#bodybuilding #diet

How Ancient People Fell in Love with Bread, Beer, and Other CarbsConventional wisdom tells us that the world changed at the beginning of the Neolithic period, when people settled in a specific place and developed agriculture. Before that, nomadic bands of hunters survived mostly on meat. That is indeed a big change, but recent research suggests that ancient people ate grains long before they learned to cultivate them. Consider the ruins of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, a settlement dated to 11,600 years ago. The many fossil bones found there led scientists to conclude that it was the site of huge gatherings of hunters who celebrated by eating meat.Now that view is changing, thanks to researchers such as Laura Dietrich at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. Over the past four years, Dietrich has discovered that the people who built these ancient structures were fuelled by vat-fulls of porridge and stew, made from grain that the ancient residents had ground and processed on an almost industrial scale1. The clues from Göbekli Tepe reveal that ancient humans relied on grains much earlier than was previously thought — even before there is evidence that these plants were domesticated. And Dietrich’s work is part of a growing movement to take a closer look at the role that grains and other starches had in the diet of people in the past.In fact, there is some evidence of humans eating grains 100,000 years ago! Why are we just now figuring this out? It's because meat leaves better evidence behind than food made from plants. But new scientific techniques are enabling archaeologists to study remains of plants in ancient dishes. Read about these new and rather different methods for finding out about the everyday diets of our ancestors at Nature magazine. (Image credit: Dosseman)#beer #archaeology #carbs #food #grains #diet