Memories of the 28th Century

I’m not a foody, but I have the misfortune of running into foodies frequently, and I find it annoying to listen to them describe how they are poisoning themselves with all sorts of strange things that humans shouldn’t eat or, in some cases, even be near. Mostly for my own edification, I decided to put together a high intelligence diet, a diet that would lead to better brain function. I started by researching what materials are necessary for a healthy brain, and I discovered that a few people had already dreamed up similar diets, but even the best one had flaws. Then I noticed beside a cash register a thing that is intended to be eaten, even though I wouldn’t dream doing that, that was labelled Caveman food, or something like that, so I looked into what cavemen (and cavewomen also) would have eaten. That brought to mind the matter of cooking and dentition that I wrote about a few months ago, and I looked for more along those lines, and someone has created “The Paleo Diet”, which has some good features, and a few bad ones.

With a few alterations the Paleo Diet would be very good. I agree with the basic premise that humans should eat what we have evolved to use, but I have a few disagreements as to what that means, and the Paleo Diet includes the meat, animal fats, fresh fruits and vegetables that fit into the High Intelligence Diet, but The Paleo Diet excludes Dairy, which is part of the High Intelligence Diet. I highly approve of its exclusion of legumes and grains, but I think that any seeds that need cooking should be excluded.

To turn the Paleo Diet into the High Intelligence Diet it is necessary to add in Dairy and to emphasize foods that are high in choline, uridine and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA. Choline can be found in meats, nuts and eggs, and omega-3 fatty acids are found in a variety of sources, including fish, eggs, flaxseed and meat from grass-fed animals. Uridine is produced by the liver and kidney, and is present in some foods, especially meat, as a component of RNA. Choline, uridine and DHA are the things from which brain cells are made, so if you want to build a brain or repair one, then you will need them.

Repairing brain cells can lead to the reversal of Alzheimer’s Disease and some other forms of dementia, but I won’t go into that, because there are several theories of what causes such diseases. Regardless of the cause, the cure is to repair the brain. In addition to eating foods that can replace damaged brains cells, it might be a good idea to use nicotine to encourage the building of more synaptic receptors. And the same things that repair brains extend interconnections that lead to better thinking.

Other things that promote growth and repair of brains include:
Phosphatidylserine is a phospholipid substance that is a major building block for brain membranes. It has been proven to boost energetic and electrical activity across the entire brain; dietary sources are livers and kidneys.
Phosphatidylcholine, found in Beef liver, eggs, salmon, cod, etc., readily converts to acetylcholine, the memory neurotransmitter in the brain.
L-Glutamineis used as an energy source by the brain and is converted into glutamic acid, which is essential for cerebral function, and GABA, an important neurotransmitter. It is available from meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.
Acetyl L-Camitine is essential for converting fatty acids into metabolic energy, capable of readily crossing the blood brain barrier where it promotes the synthesis of acetylcholine, available from meat, eggs, fish, and dairy.

It is completely fair to say that meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products are what you should eat for your brain’s health, and those are also components of the real Caveman and Cavewoman Diets. In addition to simply eating things, drinking certain beverages can also help, especially coffee and red wine. Beyond these, a variety of vitamins are found in fruits and vegetables, including nuts.

The human body is set up so that huge quantities of any particular food will usually make one ill, and deficiencies will also make one ill, so the idea of moderation is built in. On the other hand, the human body is an excellent chemical factory; it can make most of the chemicals that are required, and it usually only needs the basic building blocks of those chemicals as starting points, but it is preferable to void things that are counterproductive, such as soy, and to eat things that are completely safe and healthy, such as meat, fish, and dairy.

Considering that Pythagoras, the Ancient Greek, forbade the eating of beans in his religion, it appears that the debate over legumes has been going on for a considerable time, but soy is a different matter, because raw soy is toxic to humans, while most legumes will just make one gassy if they are eaten uncooked.

At the beginning of this piece, I mentioned the matter of dentition. It appears that humans have been eating cooked meat for more than 1.8 million. The smaller, modern teeth are that old, so the conditions that led to it predate the change in dentition. There are people who claim that humans are vegetarian by evolution, but they are mistaken. The great advance of cooking allowed meat that was a little more spoiled could be eaten without making people sick. It wouldn’t surprise me if refrigeration was discovered in the same general period of time. Early refrigeration would have been in caves, where the temperature might be constant fifty degrees, or cooler, year round, and that is cool enough to make a significant difference in how long the tribe might eat a mastodon, or whatever. It wouldn’t surprise me if using caves as food storage encouraged people to live in caves also. And caves still make good housing.

In addition to eating, intelligent people and Paleo-people exercise, but Paleos especially are not enthusiasts of those machines that gyms have these days. Exercise is something that people simply do in the course of their daily activities: walking, chasing rabbits, swimming, fighting off predators, and so on. We don’t worry about having to fight lions very often, but walking is still possible, especially if you are situated in a place where one can walk and get some place useful by walking. Alas, many people live In places where foot traffic is discouraged or is just impossible. There are advantages to living far from the maddening crowds, but is makes it difficult to walk to get food and other necessities.



Soy debate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1823052.html

Improving Brain Function
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/o...mproving1.html
omega fats
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?t...trient&dbid=84
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supple...HATIDYLCHOLINE
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melanieh...ever-heard-of/
sources-of-phosphatidylcholine
http://www.livestrong.com/article/34...atidylcholine/
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocente...rnuts/choline/
phosphatidylserine
http://health.howstuffworks.com/well...idylserine.htm

http://health.howstuffworks.com/well...idylserine.htm
Alzheimer’s nutrient mixture
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/a...ture-0709.html

Then there’s the matter of cavemen having eaten anything that they could shovel in and hold down : carrion, leaves, seeds, and anything else that didn’t escape.