Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food (25 page)

Chilies are native to Mexico and were brought to the rest of the world by the Portuguese 400 years ago, to places like India and Thailand. There, curries and hot dishes were enthusiastically developed. The reality is that the human body is not adapted to hot spices and they have a number of serious drawbacks. Chilies and other hot red peppers are not human foods.

The body deals with infections and injury with a reaction called inflammation. This is a not only normal but necessary for healing to take place. Inflammation is characterized by heat, redness, swelling, and pain. In part, this reaction is set in motion by special immune system cells called mast cells. Many mast cells line the intestine, where they stand guard watching out for harmful foreign bodies trying to enter the bloodstream. Mast cells deal with infections by releasing chemicals that have the effect of increasing the permeability of blood vessels (leading to swelling), contraction of smooth muscles, and increasing mucus production.

Antigens in the diet wreak havoc on our bodies by causing a savage malfunction of mast cells. Antigens can trick the mast cells into thinking they need to start an inflammatory reaction. So, consumption of food antigens can lead to increased swelling and constricted muscles (for example, those involved in asthma), and cause mucus membranes to discharge (such as in the nose). In other words, by malfunctioning, mast cells cause an allergic reaction.

Also under the action of antigens, the tiny, delicate villi lining the intestinal wall are withered or destroyed. The colon is lined with millions of tiny pockets called crypts, which are in turn lined with stem cells. Antigens provoke abnormal growth of the stem cells, increasing the risk of cancer. An important function of the colon wall is to secrete mucus, potassium, and bicarbonate and to absorb sodium and chloride. Antigens disrupt the transport of these substances across the intestinal wall and the colon becomes more porous. What foods contain these antigens? The biggest culprits are grains, particularly wheat, and dairy products.

Villi

Villi (singular, villus) are tiny hair-like projections in the intestine wall. There are 6,000 to 25,000 per square inch, giving the wall a velvety texture. Each villus is supplied with a microscopically thin artery, vein, and lymphatic capillaries and 600 tiny projections called microvilli. These incredibly delicate and precisely adjusted structures are responsible for absorbing nutrients and fluid from the digestive system into the bloodstream and lymphatic system. They are remarkably fine-tuned to take in just what is right for the body and to act as a barrier to harmful substances. Any disruption to their proper functioning undermines the health of the whole body.

Food Choices and the Health of the Colon

Do you ever wonder why the contents of your bowels sometimes smells like sewage sludge? Researchers found that this was due to the abnormal presence of alien, harmful bacteria known as sulfur-reducing bacteria.
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They flourish on sulfur-containing foods, mainly animal proteins. These alien bacteria create the gas hydrogen sulfide, the compound that gives rotten eggs their overpowering smell. To humans, hydrogen sulfide is as toxic as cyanide; in water, it rapidly becomes corrosive sulfuric acid. Ulcerative colitis, a serious inflammatory bowel disease, is directly linked to the dominating presence of sulfur-reducing bacteria in the colon.
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Worse, the toxic sulfides released by these bacteria promote cancerous changes in gut cells by damaging their DNA. All this helps to explain why heavy meat eaters are more vulnerable to colon cancer. Proteins from plants usually do not contain sulfur.

The other major source of sulfur in the Western diet is the food preservative collectively known as “sulfur dioxide.” Sulfur, in many forms, is found everywhere in processed food—in packaged salads, jams, hamburgers, sausages, instant soup, beer, and wine. People who eat a lot of processed foods not only promote sulfur bacteria in their gut, they also raise their sensitivity to allergic reactions.

The human gut clearly needs a plentiful supply of plant foods to operate healthily. The San consumed a very high-fiber diet and their plant matter was naturally very fibrous. In Chapter 1, we saw how the examination of 11,000-year-old fossilized feces showed that our ancestors were consuming 130 grams per day of plant fiber. The average American only consumes a tenth of that amount, 13 grams per day, and way below even the modest target set by various authorities of around 30 grams per day. Most of today’s salads, vegetables, and fruits are less fibrous and contain around 2 grams of fiber per 100 grams, and nuts contain around 8 grams per 100 grams. Thus, one way to get to 30 grams per day is to consume, for example, 1 pound (450 g) of salad, 1 pound (450 g) of vegetables, 1 pound (450 g) of fruit, and 1/4 pound (4 ounces, 100 g) of nuts.

In this book, we will argue that we need to be aiming higher. When the intake of plant fiber is up to at least 60 grams per day, then passage of food through the digestive tract is prompt, and the friendly bacteria get a rich, nutritive diet. Friendly bacteria are methanogens, producing methane in the gut. Under the right conditions, they thrive, multiply fast, and greatly increase the bulk of the feces. They also gobble up the “bad” sulfur-releasing bacteria.

Let us now look at what happens when we eat starches and sugars. Under normal, healthy circumstances, starches and sugars are mostly digested and absorbed into the body before they reach the colon. However, with the way we eat today, starches and sugars reach the colon in significant quantities. Because “bad” gut flora, particularly fungi like
Candida
, thrive on them, they quickly overgrow and flood into the bloodstream through the “leaky gut.” Plus, the high insulin reaction from all the sugar provokes a condition called “digestive neuromuscular disease,” in which the gut muscles go haywire, leading to cramps, diarrhea, and bloating.
¹³⁷

Today, our dietary errors vastly increase both the porosity of the gut and the microorganism load flooding into the body. In this way, abnormal quantities of digestive toxins, bacterial and fungal toxins, and the bacteria and fungi themselves, pass into the bloodstream. They can be the origin of various allergies, autoimmune responses, poisoning of various bodily functions, headaches, arthritis, tiredness, irritability, and depression.

The colon is a hive of activity—in hundreds of ways, it affects the health of the whole body. Our guts are also the scene of intense warfare between “friendly” organisms and unfriendly ones, but it does not have to be like this. We can be reasonably sure that the San’s colons functioned as nature intended. All is not well with the way we eat today. We are sending down residues that our intestines do not recognize and that promote malevolent gut flora. Passage through the intestines is slow and consists of foods that destroy the delicate gut wall and undermine the immune system.

The Immature or Baby Digestive System

Mammals, such as cows, sheep, goats, chimpanzees, and humans, give birth to their young, in a sense, prematurely. The newborn bodies are underdeveloped and not yet fully functional, they do not have the full range of digestive arrangements, and the nutrients required to develop their bodies are impossible to find in the external environment. For example, a human baby’s brain has to double in size in just a few months—to do this it needs a massive intake of specific kinds of fats, some of them saturated. Similar needs have to be satisfied for bone building, energy, muscle building, nerve building, and the growth of various organs.

For this reason, the baby of the species has special needs for substances like calcium, lactose (a sugar), fatty acids, and protein. They get these things from their mother’s milk. Moreover, the mother’s milk has a composition that is right for that particular species.
For example, cow’s milk is formulated to build big horns and small brains. It might seem obvious to say so, but nature designed milk for mammal mothers to feed their
own
young.

However, the differences go much deeper than the ingredients. A human baby has immature organs, notably kidneys and liver. It has a different biochemistry and digestive arrangements compared to a person over 4 years old. Curiously, a baby’s throat is so arranged that it can breathe and suckle at the same time. After about 12 months, the breathing tube descends to the position it will keep for the rest of its life.

Only a baby’s stomach can secrete the special enzyme, rennin, which is responsible for separating the mother’s milk into curds and whey. The curds are composed chiefly of fats and the milk protein called casein, and digestion of the curds takes place slowly in the baby’s stomach. Only babies secrete the special stomach enzymes to digest the fats and protein in the curd. The whey, freed by the rennin from the curds, passes quickly into the intestines for absorption into the body. Whey is a watery mixture containing dissolved compounds essential for a baby’s growth. It is rich in micronutrients, immune system antibodies, a soluble protein similar to egg-white called lactalbumin, and the milk sugar called lactose. The baby’s intestine secretes a special enzyme, lactase, to digest the lactose. After the age of about 4, all these processes stop. In other words, we should think of an infant up to the age of 4 as requiring a different feeding pattern to older children and adults.

Human bodies over the age of 4 are not designed to absorb human milk. What, then, about the milk of cows, goats, sheep, and other creatures? The effects of dairy consumption on the human body will provide important clues when we assemble the evidence for the “Owner’s Manual,” the guide to the true eating pattern for human beings.

Proper Food Combining

Our forager forebears only ate from two food groups, non-starchy plants and animal matter. Even their fruits, being fibrous, oil-rich, and with a low sugar content, were included with the non-starch plant foods. The digestive system has to break down a variety of foodstuffs, each requiring a different process, into their useful component parts. Remarkably, it can perform this feat, but not simultaneously, because the processes are conflicting.

This leads to the concept of eating food in batches that require the same chemical and mechanical treatment in the digestive tract. It is known as the principle of proper food combining. The question never arose in our formative past because the two food groups that humans ate—non-starchy plant material and animal matter—combine just fine. Today, we have complicated and confounded the process by introducing new types of food into the diet, notably starches, dairy products, and fruits with a distorted sugar profile.

Most of us picture our stomachs as a kind of cauldron into which we can haphazardly toss a variety of ingredients at random. The mixture bubbles away and the body gradually absorbs it all. We now know that this is quite wrong. We would all be a lot healthier if we did not put our digestive system through these gymnastics and returned to sending down just the two foods groups for which it is designed. With regard to modern fruits, we can make small adjustments so that we extract their health benefits without compromising digestion. We begin by describing in some detail the gruesome truth of what goes on in your guts when you send down bad food combinations.

Starch/Protein Combinations

The digestion of starches begins in the mouth with the enzyme ptyalin secreted in saliva. Starch digestion is stopped by the acid in the stomach and is then continued in the small intestine, under the action of enzymes like amylase secreted by the pancreas down the pancreatic duct.

Proteins, and particularly animal proteins, undergo a prolonged churning and exposure to the acids and enzymes present in the stomach. It can be several hours before the stomach releases the resulting chyme into the small intestine. The digestion then continues in the small intestine under the action of enzymes like protease, again secreted by the pancreas.

Unlike the chicken, which has three pancreatic ducts, the single human pancreatic duct is a bottleneck. The pancreas has to choose which enzyme to secrete first.
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If the starch/protein combination contained predominantly starch (90%) or predominantly protein (90%), then the choice is easy, and digestion proceeds as nature intended. If the meal is an equal mix of starch and protein, then enzyme secretion by the pancreas is perturbed.

The imperfectly digested remains travel with difficulty through the digestive tract. The highly sophisticated machinery of enzyme activity, hormonal feedback, and nutrient absorption is impaired. The balance of the intestinal flora is disturbed—bad bacteria multiply and helpful bacteria are discouraged. The intestinal wall can become porous and bacteria, fungi (such as
Candida
), and undigested food particles travel through the bloodstream, creating mischief wherever they go. Dyspepsia, ulcerative colitis, liver disorders, demineralization, depression of the immune system, candidiasis, allergies, and general bad health can be the result.

Proteins, like starch, also provoke the secretion of insulin. When starches are ingested at the same time, insulin secretion is multiplied. All the bad effects of abnormal insulin levels are multiplied, increasing the risk of heart disease, atherosclerosis, obesity, and cancer. Worse, in the Western diet, fat is usually present in large proportions with protein. This fat gets stored immediately and preferentially into the fat cells.
So, starch/protein combinations multiply the fattening effect of fat!