Dr. Alicja: Your life:
The Molecules of Life
Proteins
Fats
Your Breakfast
Good Breakfast No. 1
Good Breakfast No. 2
Good Breakfast No. 3
Notice:
You can
Healthier, Sexier and Longer 2.
Introduction to Grease-Free Cooking and a Healthy Lifestyle
I am a scientist who studies the nature and functions of plant chemicals - a phytochemist. In writing many papers reporting my research I learned that in the summary, or abstract, of a published paper a scientist has to include all the important points about the work described there, because most of his peers who look at the paper never read any further!
So, I decided that I have to write at the very beginning everything that is really important so that the reader could, after reading it, close the book with a basic understanding of the importance of diet to health. Here, then, are the bare bones of what this little book is all about:
1) We eat too much carbohydrate (sugars, saccharides), which better suit bacteria.
2) We consume too much carbonated drinks, containing sugar plus carbonic acid (dissolved carbon dioxide), which dissolves the calcium in our bones and may be contribute to osteoporosis.
3) We get too few minerals (= trace elements = micro- and macroelements), a subject that will be of greater interest in the future.
4) We use our limbs too little.
5) We have too little positive thinking (Our usual thought is, I am not a complainer, but....)
6) We do not know that we live healthy lives because of glutathione, about which we know so little. If we know what glutathione is and know how to stimulate its production in every cell, we have a chance to be alert and enjoy our life. Statistically speaking, we shall probably live to old age (75 to 90 years) and if we are already falling to pieces at 50, we shall have to anticipate several decades of chronic illness unless we change our ways. What is glutathione, anyway? How can we stimulate its biosynthesis in each and every cell? This is described in the pages to come.
So, if you want to know what you can do now to stay healthy until you die that is, to die healthy I advise you to read this booklet, and the next. Of course, if you do not care whether you enjoy health till your death, you should put it back on the shelf!
If you're still reading this, please note one important thing at the outset: I have tried to write so that this book will be comprehensible to anyone, but I haven't been able entirely to avoid technical terms, and some of them are introduced from time to time, mostly near the beginning. These are printed in bold type. If you don't understand one of these terms, please consult the Glossary at the end.
Before we get into specifics about diet, it is important to know something about the substances in living organisms that are basic to life. The most basic of all are the nucleic acids, the molecules that contain the information an organism needs to function and reproduce, and the most famous, of course, is DNA, the molecule of heredity. They are huge molecules, and therefore belong to the class known as macromolecules, as do proteins. However, we needn't consider them further in a discussion of diet. They are present in all functioning cells of the ingredients that make up our foods, and no one is deficient in nucleic acids, which are broken down and then rebuilt into the body's own particular forms that it needs. Instead let us consider the other three mainstream dietary components - proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
These are larger or smaller macromolecules, which are formed as long strings composed of amino acids and which, like spaghetti on plate, have to be folded back on themselves. Whatever their size, they are all called macromolecules, because even the smallest is much larger than, say, sugars, fats and glutathione. Although the folding pattern was once random in the early stages of evolution, some patterns proved over time to be particularly useful, either for building the protein structure of the organism or the enzymes responsible for greatly accelerating bodily processes. Thus, protein supplementation and amino acid requirements are highly specific for each species.
We have to eat proteins because we need over 20 of the amino acids they contain, but eight of these are essential, not being produced in human cells, and they must come from our diet. It is beneficial for a person to have at least eight grams of animal protein a day. As animal protein is sometimes more closely related to that of humans than is plant protein, more waste products could originate from plant material; thus we have to eat larger amounts of plant than animal protein to satisfy requirements for all amino acids in the right proportions. Also, the stored protein in a plant species, let's say a bean seed, doesn't need to have the right proportions of amino acids to satisfy human needs, but they are the right ones for the bean seedling. We eat them, of course, but we have to add other protein as well.
So, by using plant protein as a source of protein for our muscles we shall get the necessary variety, because all 21 of the amino acids are present in the plant's tissues, although not in the right proportions. The ones in excess will have to be detoxified, while those in insufficient amounts limit our input, or rather entice us to eat more, since a craving arises from the insufficiency.
We feel that if we eat more of a particular food it may be enough to fill our needs for a day, for this particular condition, or for this activity. However, this can lead to being overweight. But even if you have enough of the essential amino acids and too much of the common ones that you don't need at the moment, then you must get rid of the excess using glutathione as a detoxifier, since free radicals are formed during the different steps of this process. That's why we have kidneys, and waste products of secondary metabolites could be removed after detoxification. Glutathione helps to remove toxins from the cells.
When we humans want to have a well built body we have to deliver to our cells amino acids in the right proportions needed for a particular day of Ontogenesis (your development) under the particular environmental conditions. This is a quite complex situation, but our cells, given a choice, will select from the mixture what is best for them at a particular time. Timing is the most important thing for a particular process. The eight essential amino acids that we cannot produce in our bodies we must absorb from the digested proteins in our diet. I have always wondered why Nature designed us not to be self-sufficient. Perhaps it was so that we are more humble and less dangerous to the environment!
Lipids: There are structural, storage and active forms of fats, which are also known as ...... Structural, in the membranes of every cell,....... Storage, for energy, water and survival, being sources of water, carbon and hydrogen. (Storage forms are white and brown fat.)
Active, such as hormones. In membranes, fats are present as a double layer of semifluid molecules in which can be embedded proteins, and which are flexible at body temperature and contribute to cell shape, since proteins can change their shape while embedded in lipids. Liquid fats (oils) are better than solid, since the more solid fats contain saturated fatty acids. Heating at cooking temperatures converts the cis forms of fatty acids into the trans forms (which are dangerous in themselves, but more on this later).
We need fats, because fat molecules are the molecules of survival. In times of famine, people with fat deposited in their body survive longer than do slim people. One such example very familiar to me is my own mother's story. She, with many other Poles, was driven to Siberia at the outbreak of World War 2. Over the first winter the youngest, the oldest and the slimmest were gone. Also, during the digestion of fats water molecules are released that is what provides the water needed by a hibernating bear, which would otherwise die. And drying out was the greatest risk for animals during evolution. Plants were less at risk because of their unique ability to convert fat to carbohydrate and anything else needed at the time.
Fats or, as the chemist calls them, triglycerides, are made of two components -glycerine, more correctly called glycerol, combined with one or more fatty acids. The simplest fatty acid is acetic, familiar as the sour taste of vinegar, but only the larger, more complex examples are found in fats. The fatty acids in animal fat tend to be saturated, meaning that the molecule contains all the hydrogen atoms it can accommodate. But there are also fatty acids with varying degrees of unsaturation, and this means that under the right conditions more hydrogen atoms can be added to the molecule by a process called hydrogenation. Such unsaturated fatty acids; which form unsaturated fats when combined with glycerol, are usually liquid at ordinary temperatures, and are thus known as oils; they are common components of plant seeds such as those of canola, sunflower, flax and corn.
Some of these unsaturated fatty acids can t be made by the human body, and have to be obtained from the diet; they are considered essential fatty acids from a dietary standpoint. From the table at the end of the booklet choose the oil with the right amount of these unsaturated gamma-3 fatty acids. Flax seed oil is rich in them. Only a half teaspoon of flax seed oil in porridge, salad on top of food, is enough to satisfy the daily requirement for essential fatty acids.
Unsaturated fatty acids in oils exist in two forms that have a different geometry-cis and trans. The cis forms are changed in varying degrees into trans when margarine is hardened during the process of hydrogenation, especially if at high temperature, and to this extent beneficial oils are changed into hard fat.
Saturated, hard fat in large amounts is to be avoided in our diet. However, saturated fats, eaten in moderation as butter or in the form of sour cream with its dispersed fat molecules, are good for your cells. One tablespoonful of butter or sour cream is certainly not going to kill you, and it has the advantage that it contains cholesterol and vitamin D in the right form needed for animal and human cells. Egg yolk has plenty of fat and cholesterol, yet it's the perfect source of nutrients for the full development of the bird embryo into the fowl. But you should eat it without cooking it hard, or frying, because the yolk proteins are more readily broken down in the gut if they have not been denatured by high temperature.
One more thing to remember: the fatty acids of even good, liquid fat (oil), if cooked at a high enough temperature, will be changed, for better or worse, from the cis to the trans forms, and fats with too much trans fatty acids are bad. Of course, many molecules will remain unchanged, and that is why it is permissible to fry food in a better fat, i.e., oil, if you don't yet have titanium cookware, which allows you to cook without any fat added. But just be aware that frying does change some good fat into bad. As well, to be of greatest benefit, a good oil (e.g. flax or olive oil), should be consumed unprocessed (without heating and oxidizing) at room temperature without too much exposure to light; hence unprocessed, at low temperature, and stored in dark bottles. Butter may be added in small amounts (5 ml) for flavour, melted or, even better, just softened.
Remember: Essential fatty acids; essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals are compounds the body does not synthesize and you have to get them from the diet. If you have allergies, you have to be careful to get them from non-allergenic foods.
It has often been said, and I enthusiastically agree, that your breakfast is your most important meal of the day. But do most people treat it that way? How many persons do know whose only breakfast is a cup of coffee and a doughnut? Or maybe just the coffee? Doughnuts are full of fat and sugar, and are thus a poor component of a regular diet, but at least they are metabolized to yield energy. Black coffee, on the other hand, is only a stimulant a drug, if you will that only causes the body to draw on its existing reserves, and lacks any food value.
Let's look at some of the characteristics of a good breakfast, this most important of your meals:
1) The nutrients in it should last until lunch, or even the next day. Don t try to run your engine without the right fuel!
2) It should include all the essential ingredients: about 60 minerals, eight amino acids, a few long-chain fafty acids, vitamin C. All these have to come from food.
3) Although some other ingredients are not essential in the diet, we may still not produce enough of them for our needs, and hence we should take them as supplements, for instance vitamin D (in winter or if you're an older person), and cholesterol if you do not already have too much of it.
4) Food is your best and strongest drug, so you had better choose it carefully. If you only eat potato chips, what will you become if the saying You are what you eat is true?
Breakfasts can be divided into good and bad categories. Before we consider the good kinds, let's look at what constitutes a bad breakfast.
Picture the rush to any of the fast food outlets whose parking lots are so packed with cars in the early morning, and their patrons saying, Coffee (with or without milk) and double sugar, please. And, of course, the doughnuts. Why, if this tastes so good, is it bad?
Sugar, or table sugar is what chemists call a disaccharide. It is composed of one simple sugar, glucose, linked to a second simple sugar, fructose ~ that can be enzymatically transformed into glucose, to give a rapid but short-lasting boost of energy. Our brain works on glucose, so you feel good very soon after taking it, and as your brain is alert, you like it and sooner or later become addicted to it, because your brain keeps shouting at you, I want glucose, I want glucose!
But since bacteria also like glucose as an energy source in order to multiply, I suggest that you might get pimples as a result. Glucose as a small molecule is readily absorbed even in your mouth, and feeds staphylococcus (staph) bacteria in your skin, allowing them to proliferate and erupt from the skin as pimples. Moreover, after you drink double-sugared coffee some of the sugar is left around your teeth and gums. Just think what the bacteria are doing with it!
After short usage of glucose, the body experiences a dramatic drop in energy and can't wait for lunch. This roller-coaster of glucose causes a corresponding roller-coaster in insulin production leading to two detrimental situations: deposition of sugar in the cells and their conversion into fat, and the possibility of mature onset diabetes. The maltose, or malt sugar in beer (also composed of glucose), when taken on an empty stomach, produces a similar or even greater response.
So, the bad things about eating such a poor breakfast, with too much sugar are:
- Putting fat into storage in your fat cells
- Causing dramatic ups and downs in the insulin level
- Feeding your bacteria.
It's all right to have sugar (glucose or saccharose) before brisk exercise, or short, hard work. But before prolonged exercise use polysaccharides = poly carbohydrates, such as whole wheat pasta or whole wheat bread.
One cup of coffee or tea, sugar-free, may be good for you if you have low blood pressure because it dilate~ your veins, since caffeine in coffee and theme in tea are active natural drugs.
Now that we have seen an example of a bad breakfast, let's look at how you can do much better, and make this important meal a nutritionally sound one. Here, then, are three breakfasts that your body will really thank you for!
1) Whole grain porridge such as oatmeal, plus a cereal containing crushed whole grains of wheat and flax such as Red River Cereal, plus other crushed grains together with their seed coats so they are not white in colour. White flour and 1/2 white rice have had all layers of the seed coat removed, and as well the aleurone layer under the seed coat that contains the protein needed for the seedling to germinate and grow. What's left is only a little cytoplasm around the starchy storage material.
2) While cooking add nuts and seeds ~pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, walnut, almond, etc.) Variety is important. The greater the variety of nuts (a few of each), the more different phenolic compounds. These act as scavengers of free radicals, and antioxidants, since each species contains 300-500 different secondary metabolite~ synthesized for the plant's own defense against bacteria and free radicals.
Caution: Be sure you are not allergic to nuts, and use only those seeds and nuts to which you are not allergic.
3)After the grains have been softened to your liking (the less cooking the better), add fresh, frozen or dried coloured fruits. Frozen cranberries, for example, added three minutes before the end of cooking, will still keep their sensory appeal and acid taste when you crunch on them. Blueberries will give a wild taste, and both contain proanthocyanidins that act as antioxidants.
4) About 30 seconds before removal from the heat add half a banana to sweeten the cranberries and complex carbohydrates that will keep you going until lunch. Also, add trace elements, preferably in colloidal form.
5) Put the mixture in a bowl, add milk and a half4easpoonftil of flax seed oil.
You can make different modifications to the above steps every day and never get bored from lack of variety.
1) Whole wheat bread or rolls. Eat dark bread with seeds and, if possible, without dark food coloring, because these colouring dyes are oxidants, and our cells would have to deoxidize them. Good breads include whole wheat with grains including the bran, graham, ancient grains and seven-grain.
2) Cheese or cottage cheese, and yogourt.
3) Eggs cooked in the shell, poached or coddled (not fried) soft let the white set (denature) but leave the yolk soft, because since the yolk is the food for the developing embryo it is a complete source of nourishment for the young bird, and many of the hard, denatured proteins are less effectively used.
4) Juice with pulp, or better, pieces of vegetables or, less preferably, fruit. This is to be further explained in the second part of the booklet.
5) A glass of water with one drop of colloidal mineral elements containing about 60 essential micro- and macroelements. Always add trace elements to your drinking water.
1) Whey protein dissolved in lukewarm water; e.g. Immunocal, which is an animal serum protein from unpasteurized milk, after removal of casein that is difficult to digest, fats, which are giving additional calories and lactose, which can cause allergies. This is a protein food supplement made from unpasteurized milk that is very useful even to those people who are allergic to cows milk. Allergens such as casein, lactose and sometimes fats, which are found in cows milk; have been removed
2) Cereal and/or whole-grain breads (without added sugar). Proteins in multiseeds plus, unavoidably, phenolic compounds, giving us proteins and antioxidants. (This is complex enough to be worth further consideration later.)
3) Fresh vegetables or fruit.
4) A spoonful of flax seed oil for essential fatty acids.
5) One egg boiled until the white is set, but not the yolk. You could share this with someone else, since one half is enough for one person.
6) One thin slice of yesterday's pork or beef roast but be careful that it is small. We eat too big portions in North America.
7) Vegetable juice. The commercially available product has added preservatives, so avoid it. There is something in the statement that glutamate derivatives might possibly be related to the influx of calcium ion into cells and long term Alzheimer's disease caused by the death of nerve cells.
Follow this link to continue Alicjas main presentation.
This publication is intended for reference only, not as a medical guide or a manual for self-treatment. If you suspect you have a medical problem, please seek competent medical care. The information here is designed to help you make informed decisions about your health. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment prescribed by your doctor.
Contact Dr. Alicja by Email.
