Many of us have been led to believe that we are born with disease, or tendencies to disease and physical maladies. In many cases it is possible to truly reverse the aches, pains, and suffering that we experience on a daily basis through something as simple as our lifestyle choices.  I am speaking of the food we eat, and the foods that we voluntarily choose to remove from our diet.

As fans of excellent massage, we know how important it is to engage in a regular regimen of proper care for the exterior of our bodies — for the fascia and the underlying muscles — but how much importance do we give to receiving a proper balance of fats, proteins and carbohydrates?

Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food, by Catherine Shanahan [MD] and Luke Shanahan. Reviewed by Norm Brekke, NTP, CMT

Is your genetic constitution the result of a genetic lottery? In other words, is your genetic makeup predetermined, and you are stuck with the results – good or bad? Many have been led to believe that a predisposition to alcoholism, diabetes, heart condition, and a variety of maladies is the direct result of genes passed along by our parents. In a sense this is true, but the field of epigenetics is opening our eyes to a startling array of possibilities – including the potential of our genes to reprogram themselves in ways never before imagined.

Catherine Shanahan, an MD and a molecular biologist, is the rare exception in the field of modern medicine.  Her journey into nutrition began as the result of her own unhealthy genes, the physical problems she was encountering, and modern medicine’s inability to provide answers to her problems. In medical school, Catherine saw that doctors weren’t taught to address the root of the problem, but to treat the problem. Medicine, she discovered, is a business, and its ultimate goal is the development of saleable product. Through her continued nutritional studies, Dr. Shanahan discovered a path to reclaiming her health, and principles to guide others as well.

Dr. Shanahan believes that each one of us can reclaim our health through following the principles outlined in Deep Nutrition. Further, building upon the work of Weston A. Price, Francis M. Pottenger, and a number her contemporaries, Dr. Shanahan builds a convincing argument that beauty, brains, and health are all the direct result of the things we eat. The foundation of her thesis is “The Four Pillars of World Cuisine.”

In the chapter on ‘dynamic symmetry,’ we are introduced to the work of Dr. Stephen Marquardt, a maxillofacial surgeon at UCLA. He is described as the man who found the perfect face. As he examined great works of art and studied “the rules of beauty in architecture, art, music and more,” a constant theme occurred that had a common link in mathematics – specifically the Fibonacci sequence described In the Da Vinci Code. Marquardt’s belief is that ‘beautiful people exist not because of luck, but because all DNA is naturally driven to create dynamically symmetric geometry as its generating tissue growth.” Nutritional deprivation hinders development of the symmetry that we so often see in people described as beautiful.

The search for and discovery of beauty is not limited to the 21st century. Weston A. Price was driven with a passion to discover the origins of perfect, cavity-free teeth. In the process he discovered something equally amazing: beauty. “The beautifully aligned teeth he’d been looking for belonged – with rare, if any, exception – to beautiful people. Beautiful faces with beauiful cheekbones, eyes, noses, lips, and everything else – the total package, the physical representation of physiological harmony.”

Why is this emphasis on beauty important, other than our society’s fixation on physical attraction? Simply put, it is a matter of form and function – physical beauty and health are related. Dr. Shanahan says that it is also a survival function, because, thought it may seem unfair, less attractive people have more health problems. The work of Dr Price bears this out.

Of great interest to prospective mothers is the chapter on “A Mother’s Wisdom: Letting Your Body Create a Perfect Baby.” Mothers-to-be need a great deal more information than is typically offered by modern medicine. While told to give up smoking and alcohol, they are not warned concerning the “consequences of not getting enough nutrients and the introduction of toxins [which] are primarily brought to bear through changes in the infant’s epigenome.” Dr Shanahan adds sugar and vegetable oils to the classic list of items to be avoided.

Returning to the topic of beauty, Dr Shanahan discusses how birth order affects our looks, and the importance of “giving mom’s body at least three, preferable four, years to refortify her tissues with a generous supply of nutrients” between the birth of each child. She makes a correlation between refortifying a mother’s body between births, and the need for the same with soil between crop cycles.
For an entertaining and thought-provoking discussion of why we need to ‘rethink our food,’ the chapter on “the great nutrition migration” provides much food for thought. Shanahan takes us from the “culinary Garden of Eden to Outer Space,” and along the way stops in the “dog food aisle!”

Take a look at the back of a bag of dog or cat food, and here are the ingredients you’ll see: corn meal, soy meal, (occasionally) wheat, partially hydrogenated soy or corn or other vegetable oil, meat and protein meal, and a few synthetic vitamins. But guess what? The animal pushing the shopping cart is buying foods with the same list of ingredients for himself. The main differences between donuts, breads, and Cheerios are the quantities of hydrogenated oil and sugar.

For reasons such as these, and more, we need to return to the diets of our ancestors – that which is found in traditional cookbooks – to find and appreciate the nutrition and nourishment found in properly prepared, nutrient dense whole foods.
After this rich introduction, the discussion turns to “the Four Pillars of World Cuisine – ‘the nutritional foundation of the species Homo sapiens – [which] can be said to have made us who we are.’” Following is a list, along with a brief exposition of each.

Pillar Number 1: Meat on the Bone. The art of making meat taste great is simple – leave it on the bone. Making sure that everything stays together – fat, bone, marrow, skin, and other connective tissue – makes it better for you. Shanahan includes four cooking rules.
-    First, in order to preserve nutrients, don’t overcook it.
-    Next, use moisture, time, and parts. It takes time to develop complex, good flavor. The additional parts [skin, ligaments, etc.] create additional nutrition, through releasing of glycosaminoglycans, which are instrumental in joint health.
-    Third, use the fat. As NTP’s we all know the benefits of healthy fats, including absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K.
-    Finally, make bone stock. This is critical to joint health which relies on health of the collagen in our ligaments, tendons, and on the ends of the bones. Shanahan reminds us that “glucosamine-rich broth is a kind of youth serum, capable of rejuvenating your body, no matter what your age.”

Pillar Number 2 – and one difficult for me to ‘stomach:’ ‘Organ Meat, Offal-y Good for You.’ A quick look at nutrition tables for liver and other ‘variety cuts’ reveals a wealth of benefits from these meats. Because of the ‘excess of protein, sugar, vitamins, and any mineral except calcium and phosphorus,’ liver is ‘nutritionally the most outstanding meat which can be purchased.’ Other organs are rich sources of lutein, omega-3, Vitamin A, and, again, glycosaminoglycans.

Pillar Number 3: ‘Better than Fresh, Fermentation and Sprouting.’ “Truly living food is more dynamic than salad leaves . . .  it’s food that has been awakened by the process of fermentation, sprouting, or both.” In this section, Shanahan tells us the truth about soy, and why we should avoid it. She discusses some benefits of fermentation – including boosting our immune system with probiotics – and tells why sprouted grain bread is better than whole wheat. If you don’t have the time or desire to sprout seeds and make bread yourself, you can buy breads make with sprouted grain in health food stores.

Pillar Number 4: Fresh, the Benefits of Raw. Shanahan’s first point addresses all the buzz and hype about the latest antioxidant miracles.  Her advice is: “if you want antioxidants, skip the latest fad products and use that money to buy fresh food.”  Her point, and the truth that she says runs contrary to the nutraceutical industry is, “all fresh fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants, flavinoids, and other categories of chemicals used as selling points on nutraceutical packages.”  There is, as we know, a tremendous difference between fresh and processed. To get the quality your body needs and craves, eat fresh.

The four pillars, Shanahan says, will make you healthy.  Just follow two simple steps: first, get the best ingredients, grown on the optimal soil; second, make sure your body can use these nutrients efficiently by preparing them according to principles in the Four Pillars of World Cuisine

The sections on “Good Fats and Bad” and “Sickly Sweet” address what Shanahan calls the toxic qualities of vegetable oil and sugar, which she has placed at the top of her “don’t eat” list. Her hope is that, after reading this book, we will be convinced that there is “little reason to fear cholesterol.”  These two chapters are an excellent review for the NTP, and would be good reference material for our clients.

“Beyond Calories” focuses on the problem of weight, discusses the importance of fat in our diet, and tackles the critical issue of exercise – not just any old exercise, but rigorous anaerobic big exercise – and why intensity matters. Read it and get a whole new perspective on your daily exercise regimen.

The appendices provide excellent documentation concerning sources, and also provide a simple blueprint for including the Four Pillars in your diet, along with some sample recipes and menu selections – including a recipe for homemade chicken broth/stock.
One final thought: “By denying our bodies the foods of our ancestors and severing ourselves from our culinary traditions, we are changing our genes for the worse. Just as corporations have rewritten the genetic codes of fruits and vegetables to better suit their needs, they are now in effect doing the same things to us. But there’s one thing they’ve overlooked.  Fruits and vegetables can’t fight back. We can”

Start the battle by grabbing a copy of this very informative, thought-provoking, and in many cases quite humorous, fun to read book!