Click here for: Printer-friendly version

Vol: 10.06

The Bond Effect The Bond Effect The Bond Effect
The Science and Art of Living the Way Nature Intended
www.TheBondEffect.com
Private Subscription Newsletter: $18.00 Annually
10^th Year of Publication
We are independent of commercial pressure and say exactly what we think.

Publisher's Note
Our First Ezine

Quote of Month
Churchill on Truth

Questions

How Much Protein?

Breast Feeding at Will

Coconut Oil

Water for Baby?

Chemicals on our Skins

Childhood Skin Problems

Sensitive Scalp

Boosting Vegetable Taste

Meal Idea

Peabody's Breakfast

Hints & Tips
Microwave OK for Brassicas

Doom Decided in the Womb
Pregnancy Weight Gain Decides Baby's Future Obesity

Diet in Pregnancy Decides Child's Asthma and Allergies

Second Guessing Nature

Babies Overfed to Meet Flawed Ideal

Disease Connections 
More Prostate Cancer Insights

Feedback
Partner with Attitude

Deadly Harvest Plaudit
Kathy Wade 

Book Review
The Dig Tree, part VI

Laughter
Microsoft Haikus

Always consult your doctor before undertaking any health program

Publisher's Note
Our First Ezine
The Bond Effect Newsletter goes web-based
As foretold in our May newsletter, we are trialling alternate months with this ezine format for our newsletter. It will have some advantages both for you and for us. By using hyperlinks we will lever in the power of the Web.

We will continue to experiment and adapt the format as time goes by -- and as we receive your feed back. Let us know your thoughts! Write to us at: geoffbond@naturaleater.com 

Quote of the Month

"Men occasionally stumble across the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened."  -- Winston Churchill

Questions
How Much Protein?
Q. I seem to need protein (fish or chicken) twice a day or I begin to feel anemic.  I exercise quite a bit.  How much protein is necessary per day? 

A. Our ancient ancestors adapted us to consume about 25% protein-rich food to about 75% plant food (a ratio of 1 to 3). Put another way, research suggests about 0.36 g of protein per lb of bodyweight. That works out at 55g for a 150 lb person. But mark: that is pure protein. 

As for physical activity, that can play a role at the extremes. But only endurance athletes need to get into that kind of fine tuning.

Chicken, fish and nuts
So called "protein-rich foods" like chicken, fish and nuts contain only about 25% protein maximum - so we  have to multiply by 4 to get the actual weight of chicken, fish or nuts. That is to say, about 1.5 g per lb of bodyweight which yields, for a 150 lb person, about 225g (approx 8oz) per day. This chimes perfectly with our ancestral hunter-gatherer intake of animal matter (Deadly Harvest, p. 17.) 

Eggs
Eggs have only about half the protein of chicken, fish and nuts, so when you eat these, make the appropriate adjustments. 

Plant Food
Don't forget that plant food (salads, fruits and vegetables) also contains protein, averaging about 1.5g per 4 oz.  Assuming  you are eating 24 oz of plant food (as you should be to respect the 1 to 3 ratio) then that will provide some 10g pure protein per day. (Gorillas, horses and chimpanzees build big muscles entirely by eating huge quantities of  plant food.) 

That means only 45 g of pure protein needs to come from protein-rich foods.

Conclusion? Yes, for a 150 lb person (for example) two portions of fish or chicken per day of about 3 to 4 oz each are fine. No need to be too precise. Just get used to eye-balling these quantities.

See a more complete discussion in "Daily Protein Intake" in April 2006

Breast Feeding at Will
Q. My health visitor tells me that I should limit breast feeding to 3 hourly intervals. I feel unhappy about this, since my baby is clearly distressed when I refuse him access for 3 hours at a time.

A. Listen to your instincts -- and your baby! All we know about our ancestral past indicates that babies should have access to the breast at all times. Modern hunter-gatherers do it, even chimpanzees and gorillas do it (Ref 2). That was the norm for eons of our evolutionary history, so we can be sure that our bodies -- and mentalities -- came to depend on it.

Healthier Mother and Child
We now know that the more a woman breastfeeds, the better her general health will be. For example, she will be less likely to contract breast cancer in later life (Ref 3). As we describe in Deadly Harvest, a baby's biggest fear is one of abandonment. They are hardwired to panic if they sense loss of contact with a their mother or other trusted person. So a high proportion of the suckling is "comfort sucking". Any close surrogate will do. In primitive tribes, even a man will allow a baby to suckle his dry nipples.

Night Nursing
Moreover, hunter-gatherer mothers sleep with their infants. The father is nearby. Nursing, especially at night, promotes an abundant milk supply (Ref 4). In addition, your baby will be much more contented. There is nothing more guaranteed to push his panic buttons than insisting that he sleep alone in an adjacent room. Research on American mothers who adopt mother-infant sleeping arrangements confirm the huge benefits for both of them (Ref 6). The mother's sleep is much less disturbed because the baby is not whiny and fretful.

Coconut Oil Not so Great.
Q.  I have heard a lot lately about the benefits of cooking with coconut oil.  In your book, Natural Eating, you say that this is a bad oil.  I always seem to agree with you... so are 'they' wrong?

A. In a word - "yes!" Coconut oil has been heavily promoted recently using junk arguments. Coconut oil is unusual in containing a high percentage of the fatty acid, "lauric acid". However, lauric acid is a saturated fat and has similar health harming properties as other ones. We wrote about coconut oil, coconut milk, etc. at greater length in News June 2006. AVOID.

Chemicals on our Skins
Q. What about the chemicals in creams and lotions we put on our skins? For example the parabens and the cinnamates which are found in many lotions. Not to mention the sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste, shower gel, bubble bath, shampoos etc.

A. In the great scheme of things, these chemicals are not our biggest worry. However, you are right to be alert to this question. Individually the chemical companies have shown these compounds to be safe in "normal" use. Even so, some sensitive people have a reaction to them. On the other hand some, like cinnamate (from cinnamon), are "good" micronutrients. 

Last month we talked approvingly about face creams that contain retinol (vitamin A). In such cases we want our skins to absorb the added compound!

Cumulative Effect
Our greater concern is that no one knows what the cumulative effect is of exposing ourselves to thousands of artificial chemicals over a lifetime. For this reason, like you, we avoid non-essential products entirely and choose the rest, where possible, for their naturally-occurring ingredients.

Childhood Skin Problems
Q. We follow the Bond Effect as closely as we can. However, my 11 year old son has 3 small verrucas on his foot. He also frequently gets ringworm and wonder if it's from playing football. Lastly he has had a toenail fungal infection for over a year. Is he suffering mineral or vitamin deficiency?

A. Almost certainly not. The verrucas are just warts on the sole of the foot. They are caused by a papilloma virus of the wart-causing variety. After a while his immune system will keep a lid on it, but it could break out from time to time.

The ringworm (a fungal infection) is easily spread in changing rooms and in contact sports. Your health professional will have a handout on preventive measures (but don't stop your son playing football!). The same remarks go for the nail fungal infection.

Water for Baby?
Q. We are on holiday in a hot place. Should I supplement breast- feeding by giving my young baby water?

A.  We begin by observing that ancient tribes (e.g. San Bushmen) who live in hot places like our ancestral homeland, do not give water to their young babies. Seemingly, women's bodies are designed to supply all the fluid necessary through breast feeding on demand. (See Breast Feeding at Will)

Bottle Feeding Makes for Bad Breast Feeding
In fact, bottles of water are harmful to breastfeeding success. According to some authorities they lead to "nipple confusion", "nipple preference", and even breast rejection (Ref 5). 

They point out that a baby must learn to suck from the breast, which is different to sucking from a bottle. The water flows freely out of a bottle, but a baby's jaw and tongue must work diligently to get milk out of a breast. Some babies give up. Others will develop a poor suck and don't get any milk; some learn faulty suck patterns which cause the mother to have sore nipples. Either way, they fail to stimulate the mother's milk supply.

Nocturnal Nursing
All this is conditional on behaving like our ancestors and keeping baby fed on demand -- including feeding through the night.

Sensitive Scalp
Q. I have a sensitive scalp and rely on medicated shampoos. Organic, additive-free shampoos irritate my scalp. Do you think a Natural Eating approach can help such skin conditions?

A. We offer the following observation. Shampoo was unknown to our ancient ancestors. The natural state for our scalp is to be unwashed! At any rate, nature did not design our scalp to have its natural oils stripped out with detergent.

Some people try not using shampoo at all. They simply rinse their hair regularly in water and then comb it or brush it out. In the first few weeks, the hair is unusually greasy. That is due to the oil glands working overtime to compensate for all the prior shampooing. Finally they slow down, hit an equilibrium and the scalp rediscovers its true health.

The Westerners who do practice this behavior find that the rinsing, toweling dry, brushing and combing keep the hair clean enough.

Boosting Vegetable Taste
Q. I do find it difficult to live without butter and salt on all these vegetables I am eating - some are so very bland! What is an acceptable amount of olive oil every day?  I have not acquired a taste for canola, but like walnut.

A. We could take the hair-shirt attitude which says "yes, our ancestral food supply was on the whole bland and uninteresting - and we should just get used to it!" 

However, we do live in an age when wondrous herbs and spices are readily available. In addition, a good unfiltered olive oil can bring a pleasant nutty flavor to your vegetables and salads. In health food stores you can also find cold pressed unfiltered, organic Canola oil. If you are worried about weight gain, it is best to just use these oils in condiment quantities.

Meal Idea

Peabody's Breakfast

While we were on the speaking tour in southern California, we enjoyed meals at Peabody's'. This is a casual restaurant in the center of Palm Springs (Palm Canyon Drive) owned and managed by Natural Eating enthusiast, Debbie Alexander. Debbie has introduced some conforming dishes to her menu which are proving to be very popular. Here is one of them:

L.A. Mike Breakfast

• scrambled egg

• grilled chicken breast

• sautéed chopped tomatoes

• avocado slices.

This is a simple dish which assembles all the right ingredients. A good balance of protein-rich foods and plant food. 

Hints & Tips

Microwave OK for Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, green cabbage)

Researchers at Warwick University, UK have investigated how cooking method destroys brassicas' wondrous, cancer-fighting compound called "glucosilonate" (Ref 7).

Microwaving for 3 minutes gave no significant loss of glucosilonate. Steaming for 20 minutes and stir-frying for 5 minutes were equally good. 

However, up to 70% of goodness was lost when they boiled the vegetables for 30 minutes.

Our View? If you can't eat your vegetables raw, then microwave (or steaming or stir fry) is fine. Avoid boiling for hours -- as was the habit in our grandparents' time!

Organic Kiwi Better than Conventional Kiwis

Dr Maria Amodio of UCDavies shows that organically grown kiwi fruit have higher levels of all kinds of great micronutrients (Ref 12). Levels of polyphenols, antioxidants, vitamin C and important minerals are all much better than in conventionally grown fruits.

Even so, both types of kiwi are quite glycemic so we go easy on them.

Doom Decided in the Womb

Pregnancy Weight Gain Decides Baby's Future Obesity 

Dr Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School finds that women who plump up during pregnancy doom the child to struggle against obesity in later life (Ref 8). Worryingly, this applies even if the mother restricts the gain to that recommended by official guidelines. Dr Lucilla Poston of King's College, London says that mothers' gorging reprograms genes that control appetite in the fetus (Ref 9).

Our View? Our ancestral mothers ate parsimoniously even when pregnant. Understandably, nature's programming goes awry when today's mothers allow themselves to plump up on on an uncontrolled appetite.

Diet in Pregnancy Decides Child's Asthma and Allergies

Women who eat apples and fish during pregnancy reduce the risk of their children developing asthma or allergic disease (Ref 10). Researcher Dr. Saskia Willers concludes that a mother's diet during pregnancy is more influential on a child's health than the child's own diet.

Our View? Asthma and allergies are, in large part, deficiency diseases. It is a new and disturbing twist to discover that the pregnant mother's nutritional "sins" can irrevocably determine the health prospects of her child.

Second Guessing Nature

Babies Overfed to Meet Flawed Ideal

Many new mothers come to dread the growth charts produced by baby clinics to check whether their baby is gaining weight properly.

Now research confirms what many mothers have long suspected: the charts wrongly classify lean but healthy babies as under- weight (Ref 11). Worse, by encouraging mothers to overfeed their babies, the charts are setting perfectly healthy children on the road to obesity. 

What went wrong? These 30-year-old charts are based on babies that were atypically heavy: almost all of them had been bottle-fed and came from white, middle-class families in Ohio.

Our View? Two generations of mothers have been bullied by health visitors working unthinkingly to artificial charts to overfeed their babies. Now we are seeing the consequence in a youth population unable to repress its obesity. But we rejoice that at last the role of nature as guide is now recognized. See also "Breast Feeding at Will" earlier.

Disease Connections

More Prostate Cancer Insights

Sometimes a man gets prostate cancer in spite of all the precautions. There can be several reasons. One is that his lifestyle habits in the early part of his life has programmed him with a much higher risk whatever he does. Another is if he carries genes that make him more vulnerable. For example, researchers at USC have identified a cluster of genes that increase the risk five-fold (Ref 13).

Broccoli Again
On the other hand, some of the classic lifestyle habits help to overcome the risk if he has been dealt a bad hand. For example, yet more research indicates that eating broccoli, especially the sprouts, provides essential nutrients to prostate cancer-fighting immune cells (Ref 14).

Heavy Multivitamin Use Makes it Worse
On the other hand, in a curious twist, heavy multivitamin users are twice as likely to accelerate the progress of advanced prostate cancer (Ref 15). Over-consumption of selenium, beta-carotene and zinc were major culprits. The researchers speculate that that high-dose vitamins have little effect until a tumor appeared, and then could spur its growth.

Our View? Sometimes we have an uphill struggle to fight against our inheritance. From our mother's lifestyle while we are fetuses to how we lived the early part of our lives can all deal us a bad hand. But there is hope. We stack the deck of cards in our favor, live our lives in the best cancer-fighting mode we know (See www.beatcancernaturally.com), and hope for the best. 

Feedback
Partner With Attitude
Last month we advised a reader about how to approach a partner who resisted the new lifestyle (News May 2007). Here he lets us know how he got on...

"Your response has been a great help. I think I always have this problem of subconsciously expecting everyone else to change their attitudes just because I have; and your response helped me to see my own prejudices a bit more clearly. I’ve gone from just over 14 stone (196 lb) to 12 stone 9 (177 lb) in three months; and rather than nagging her to do more I really should lead by example... Your words all make sense.

"The last few times she cooked for me she actually skipped the spuds [potatoes], which was great even if she is still eating them herself. She doesn’t even ask me if I want fizzy drinks, sugar, bread, sweets, milk anymore. 

"Now we have an unwritten compromise: if we eat at home I only touch the good stuff, but if we eat out I’m slightly less strict. Not perfect, but considering that about  90% of my diet is natural I don’t think I’m doing too badly."  

Deadly Harvest Plaudit

"I have to congratulate you for a well written and interesting book. Most books of that nature are boring, but not yours, it moves the reader along and can be called a page turner." - Kathy Wade, Rancho Mirage, CA

Geoff's Review of Books
The Dig Tree
by Sarah Murgatroyd
Bloomsbury, London, 2002

We will finish the Dig Tree review in our next newsletter. For those who cannot wait, the full reviews are available on www.TheBondEffect.com or on Amazon: click on this direct link.

Laughter the Best Medicine
More Microsoft Haikus (see comments last month)

 Your file was too big.
 It might be very useful.
 But now it is gone.
 ------------------
 Having been erased,
 The document you're seeking
 Must now be retyped.
---------------------

FOOTNOTES
2. Deadly Harvest, p. 216. BACK

3. Trichopoulos, D. What Causes Cancer?; Sci Am 275:3 (1996): 80-87. BACK

4. Gussler, J.D. and Briesemeister, L.H. The insufficient milk syndrome: a biocultural explanation. Med Anthropology 1980 (spring); 4(2):145-74. BACK

5. Zimmerman DR; Mothers who formula feed do know that "breast is best'': education is not enough. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1996: 150(4). BACK

6. McKenna JJ. 1997. Culture, infant sleep, and SIDS: An experiment in evolutionary medicine. American Journal of Human Biology 9:146-146. BACK

7. Song L, Thornalley PJ. Effect of storage, processing and cooking on glucosinolate content of Brassica vegetables.Food Chem Toxicol. 2007 Feb;45(2):216-24. Epub 2006 Aug 30. PMID: 17011103. BACK 

8. Oken E, Taveras EM, Kleinman KP, Rich-Edwards JW, Gillman MW. 
Gestational weight gain and child adiposity at age 3 years. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2007 Apr;196(4):322.e1-8. PMID: 17403405. BACK 

9. Nathanielsz PW, Poston L, Taylor PD. In utero exposure to maternal obesity and diabetes: animal models that identify and characterize implications for future health. Obstet Gynecol Clin North Am. 2007 Jun;34(2):201-12.PMID: 17572267. BACK

10. Willers SM; Maternal Food Consumption During Pregnancy and Asthma, Respiratory and Atopic Disease in 5-year-old Children. Thorax; in press. Presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, May 20, 2007. BACK

11. Koletzko, B; Conference on the impact of infant and maternal nutrition on childhood obesity; Budapest, Hungary, 20 April, 2007. BACK

12. Gauthier, C; Society of Chemical Industry; http://www.soci.org/SCI/general/2007/html/ge608.jsp . BACK

13. Haiman, CA; Multiple regions within 8q24 independently affect risk for prostate cancer; Nat Genet. 2007 May;39(5):638-44. Epub 2007 Apr 1. BACK

14. Myzak MC; Sulforaphane retards the growth of human PC-3 xenografts and inhibits HDAC activity in human subjects. Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2007 Feb;232(2):227-34. PMID: 17259330. BACK

15. Lawson KA; Multivitamin use and risk of prostate cancer in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study; J Natl Cancer Inst. 2007 May 16;99(10):754-64. BACK

HOME