Chapter 52: The Digestive System and the Palaeolithic Diet Test
Abstract: a simple review of the digestive system reveals the type of foods that we should eat and the Mathematics of the Mind allows an extremely simple ‘numeric’ indicator of how ‘suitable’ is your current diet, which leads into understanding the ‘obesity epidemic’ and providing a solution based on state of mind, nutrition and exercise.
The previous two chapters led us into the understanding that a reality requires measurement and this simple statement is at the core of understanding modern problems because there are many problems that we don’t really understand how to deal with, and that is why the Mathematics of the Mind is necessary. A recent example is the ‘death gene’ and in this chapter we build on this because it points the way into understanding the ‘obesity epidemic’ and we need the Mathematics of the Mind to numericalize or otherwise put a figure on the question ‘how good is my diet?’.
To restate the previous chapter, we haven’t been able to understand what has been going wrong with the ‘obesity epidemic’, ‘global warming’, ‘over population’ and so on, because they are not part of our reality. Of course we can measure the temperature, the number of obese people, the number of people etc. but we are using mathematics that is exact and we have to use the Mathematics of the Mind to establish a ‘true’ reality. We might say that obese people are obese because they don’t exercise and/or don’t eat properly and we would be correct, but not ‘completely’ correct. This is part of the answer, but we don’t know ‘how’ it fits together, and until ‘sufficient’ attractors are used, we are literally ‘in the dark’.
A general mathematics of concepts can never be exact, if for no other reason, than that there are things that we don’t know, and we don’t know things because we haven’t measured them and so they are nor in our reality. The best that we can do is to use enough attractors, but is there an attractor that we don’t know about? If we knew everything, we would know the exact answer, which is, of course, the ‘in the limit’ answer. Let’s consider the statement that ‘we evolved reality out of the possibility of existence’ and the word ‘evolved’ means that we found a niche in which we can live.
As mentioned many times before, we evolved because iteration is a Truth and a measurement is made when iteration is used and that produces a reality for the measurer. Our mind/brain uses iteration and that is why we can move from Survival of the Fittest (iteration) to Survival of the Best (using a mind/brain), and we have done just that using mathematics, but unfortunately, we have made a mess of a lot of things because we did not measure them properly! We used mathematics, which is a special case of the Mathematics of the Mind, instead of the Mathematics of the Mind itself. In other words, our reality is flawed!
So the statement that ‘reality requires measurement’ is dependent on Truth, which in this case is iteration and if the reality is not good enough and something eats us, iteration occurs, and we become food. If our reality is good enough, we survive, procreate and iteration occurs. The whole statement ‘reality requires measurement’ is based on iteration and can never be exact and so mathematics, which is exact, has to be used with care.
From the above, it appears that it will be a difficult task to numericalize or otherwise put a figure on the question ‘how good is my diet?’, but using the Mathematics of the Mind, it is surprisingly easy, providing that the attractors are kept in mind. This has been done for us by iteration/evolution and Survival of the Fittest and obviously our diet is the hunter/gatherer of the Palaeolithic. Needless to say, when we used our mind/brain our reality changed and problems emerged because we did not fully understand how things fitted together. However, I think that everyone would agree that we are better off today, but would be even better off if we could solve more of the problems.
One problem is that the reality of the body is the Palaeolithic but the mind and the environment have a ‘modern’ reality and we need to align the two. I believe that successfully aligning the two will overcome the ‘death gene’ and modern diseases such as Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, cancer, obesity etc. However, as mentioned before, that state of mind, nutrition and exercise are together, the means of attaining success in eliminating these ‘diseases’, but the question is ‘how many people will succeed in averting them?’, and those that do will be able to call themselves, the ‘best’, because that is, literally, Survival of the Best!
Many chapters in this book have been devoted to talking about nutrition, but everyone that I have met says that they ‘eat very well!’, and they undoubtedly do believe that, but there is an apparent lack of reality because no one measures ‘how good is their food!’. So, the question to numericalize or otherwise put a figure on the question ‘how good is my diet?’ we need to simplify and to do that, we need only look at the part that we don’t use, so, let’s look at the digestive system.
‘We know that the gut’s automatic workings are actually governed by the enteric nervous system (ENS), or “gut brain”, with its complex network of nerves, hormones, and neurotransmitters coordinating the job of digestion. An intricate nerve complex in the intestinal wall that communicates with the brain via the spinal cord. Although called the gut brain, the ENS is not a real brain in itself, since it likely does not store information. (The Sensitive Gut, Harvard Medical School, p 168) Whether the ENS is a ‘real brain’ or not, it does a job and it is similar in that regard to the mind/brain, but I would like to point out that the mind/brain is plastic and can change if necessary, whereas the gut brain is apparently ‘fixed’ in its function.
This distinction is important because the mind/brain can deal with many environments, whereas the gut brain is a component that has a wide enough ‘scope’ to handle whatever comes its way, within reason. Reality shows up again because if something could not be eaten by something else and returned to the world as the building blocks to build a new animal, the ecosystem would ‘grind to a halt’, as has been mentioned earlier. Thus there is no reason for a plastic ENS to exist because the food supply will not change because it is part of a wider reality.
The digestive system obeys the Rule of Life, where the chemistry is complex, but the organization is simple and has remained unchanged, in principle, for a very long time, so it is a component and should be able to do its job based on its effective reality, which is the Palaeolithic. ‘As we have seen, chronic gastrointestinal disorders are not only quite common, but also cause an amazing amount of pain and suffering for millions of people worldwide. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), functional dyspepsia (FD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and chronic diarrhea, constipation, and gas, as well as food allergies and intolerances, can wreak havoc on the gut. Complicating the problem is the fact that most of these disorders occur in the absence of any observed anatomical or physiological abnormalities. In other words, when doctors check, they can find nothing wrong. That’s why they are termed “functional” disorders.’ (p 184)
This is interesting in that ‘most of these disorders occur in the absence of any observed anatomical or physiological abnormalities’. Added to this, I have said that the digestive system is a component and can handle ‘normal’ food because reality only exists if everything can be eaten by something. The answer is, of course that ‘normal’ modern food is NOT the food of the Palaeolithic, which we know, but nevertheless expect our gut to handle it! Clearly, from the paragraph above, it cannot handle it! So, the sensible thing is to change the food that we eat to that of the Palaeolithic, but people lack reality in this regard because they can’t measure their food intake. We measure it in calories, glycemic index etc., but clearly these are not adequate units, so let’s press on.
‘Most people who believe they suffer from food allergies actually have food intolerances. The most common of these are lactose intolerance and wheat intolerance; others include difficulty tolerating citrus fruits and spicy foods. I have said above that the digestive system evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and is a component that doesn’t break down if used in its ‘design’ range, which is defined by the necessity of reality, so I would like to point out that milk is a ‘modern’ second-grade convenience food, as mentioned earlier, wheat has been ‘selected’ and processed as ‘white flour’, citrus is an Asian fruit only recently introduced to the world and spicy fruits were developed in the New-world.
Meat is almost inedible unless cooked and fire has been used for about 400,000 years and I imagine that the cooking of meat and vegetables would have been one of the primary reasons for the use of fire, apart from the benefit of protection from predators, as has been mentioned previously. So, is there meat intolerance? There are a large number of vegetarians and eating meat could be the result of addiction to fat, as, unlike wild animals, farm animals are bred to contain high levels of fat, especially those that are feed-lotted. So, it would not surprise me that a goodly number of the overweight and obese members of the population are meat-eaters, and this will become apparent as we proceed.
It is apparent that our digestive system, as a component that evolved hundreds of millions of years ago is having problems with modern foods, so a digression is in order to explain the concept of Survival of the Best with regard to, or in the context of, the digestive system. Clearly, our digestive system is a result of Survival of the Fittest (a product of iteration) evolution over a very long time, so how can we bring it into line with modern foods. The answer is to move to Survival of the Best by using the mind/brain and the Mathematics of the Mind to give answers to the specific problem of changing our digestive system quickly to eliminate food intolerances. This will be done, but first, how does Survival of the Fittest handle the problem? From above, many people have digestive problems and they have to be bad enough to stop the worst affected people breeding.
Survival of the Best is based on the success of the ‘herd system’ throughout evolution and several chapters have been devoted to it. The ‘herd system’ is simple (as expected by the Rule of Life) and allows the female to choose the male that she prefers to mate with, presumably to produce the ‘best’ offspring that she can and that choice is made under Survival of the Fittest of the male. In other words, the male presents himself to the female with some show of strength that is superior, whether it be plumage, can hold a herd together, has a superior ‘bower’ etc.
To simplify in regard to the digestive system, the female chooses to mate with a male that does not have evidence of food intolerances. That was easy, and whether it occurs genetically or by lifestyle knowledge is irrelevant and is done by the mind/brain and not iteration by survival. Within a few generations, food intolerances disappear because we have used a much faster method of selection by a higher-level system of iteration.
Continuing, there is the question of probiotics and prebiotics, but to place these in perspective we first need some background. ‘We all cohabit with trillions of these teeming little creatures. Estimates of as many as 90 to 100 trillion have been bandied about … This colossal quantity is generally believed to be made up of between 400 and 500 different types of both helpful and unhelpful micro bugs, although more recent investigation suggests that the number could be much higher…. At any one time, you’re lugging around anything between 1 and 2 kilos of bacteria.’ (Good Gut Bugs, Kathryn Marsden, p 30)
Probiotics is the practice of introducing good bacteria into the gut and the method is commonly through capsules or yoghurts containing several, and up to eight, varieties. Given that there are over 500 varieties, above, it suggests that the gut should be left to sort out its requirements on its own. Furthermore, the gut is ‘an incredibly intricate ecosystem that supports the trillions of microorganisms that live in or on the gut wall and in the gut contents, especially the colon.’ (p 57)
‘Finally, the remaining unused or unusable material arrives in the colon, or large intestine, a four-foot-long muscular tube about the diameter of your fist … Bacteria that reside in the colon help in the digestive process by feeding off whatever remains of our meals – the glycoproteins and carbohydrates not absorbed in the small intestine. The bacteria also produce hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane gas, as well as fatty acids, which provide energy for cells lining the colon… What comes out is primarily water and colon bacteria, plus bile, mucus, and cells normally shed from the intestinal lining. Undigested food makes up very little of the average one-quarter- to one-half-pound stool. Nature does not waste food.’ (The Sensitive Gut, Harvard Medical School, p 23)
This leads into prebiotics defined as ‘non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon, and thus improve host health. (p 71) In other words, the prebiotic component of food is that part that passes through the digestive system unchanged to provide food for the bacteria in the colon. ‘Dietary fibre is found only in foods of plant origin: cereals, fruits, pulses (peas, beans and lentils), seeds, nuts, vegetables and wholegrains are rich in fibre…. Refined grains, such as those used to produce white flour, have little or no fibre. Animal-sourced foods such as meat, fish, milk, eggs, butter and cheese contain none.’ (Good Gut Bugs, Kathryn Marsden, p 89)
From above, it is obvious that ‘the colon, or large intestine, a four-foot-long muscular tube about the diameter of your fist … Bacteria that reside in the colon help in the digestive process’ is a large part of the digestive system and bacteria play a large part and they do this by fermentation ‘a really important part of the workings of the human digestive system. Its something we don’t often hear about but is vital to our health and survival.’ (p 80) Further, ‘dietary fibre is found only in foods of plant origin’ suggests that our diet in the past was predominantly from plants, especially as only eggs were likely to be eaten raw and be readily available from animal-sourced foods. Further, ‘vital to our health and survival’ suggests that the colon is the place to look for the ‘key’ to measure our survivability, and this ‘key’ has to be a measure of the prebiotics in the colon and be easily measured to define a reality.
The contents of the colon are available for inspection when we go to the toilet. ‘Once a day is regarded by most people as healthy, but you might be very surprised to know that large numbers of people go to the toilet three times a week or less. This is really dangerous because constipation is one of the biggest risk factors for colon cancer.’ ( p 41) That defines our measurement system. One large motion a day 1x1x100=100%, two medium motions a day 2×1/2×100=100%, One large motion every second day 1×1/2×100=50%, a medium motion every third day 1/2×1/3×100=17% etc. Clearly, we have set 100% as a norm and we have set up a measuring system.
The Mathermatics of the Mind is iterative and by considering more factor/attractors, the answer becomes more accurate. The next step might be to keep a record and keep a ‘running’ total. Then you could consider the consistency (solid, runny etc.), then the colour and so forth to get a better picture. However, a very simple measurement will prompt people to increase the prebiotic/fibre content of their food and decrease the meat/white-flour/ fat/sugar etc. in their diet and provide a quick ‘snapshot’ of the ‘value’ of their diet. This measurement produces a reality that allows comparisons to be made to a reference point and leads to understanding the modern diet in comparison to the gut’s reality of the Palaeolithic.
darrylpenney 