A few years back I bought the newest book by Author Tim Ferriss entitled “The 4 Hour Body”. I started following his suggestions and recommendations and was overwhelmingly pleased with the results. Over a relatively brief period of time, I ended up losing over 20lbs. I felt better and looked better. The problem was that I felt like I was missing out on nutritious foods – namely fruits, juices, and grains. All foods can be part of a healthy diet, so I went back to the drawing board and started making smoothies with fruit in them. Well one thing led to another and I went overboard. I read about the benefits of foods like beer and peanut butter (no really there are some) and went a little crazy consuming them nightly. Pints of Beer make you strong, as the song goes, and I found out that it also makes you fat – along with pints of peanut butter. I also didn’t know what to cook outside of 4hb because I had gotten used to eating grilled meat, beans, and steamed vegetables – which gets old – which leads to late night burger runs. The result? I gained back 20 pounds and then some. While I was never very heavy – I noticed the increase, and didn’t really know what to do about. I basically gave up on having a set diet – because I don’t believe that they really work well – it’s a constant battle to avoid certain foods and even when the temptation to eat foods not on the diet are over, It still complicated eating out.

Why I quit the 4 hour body:

The Four hour body has a ton of research behind it, but it does advocate the use of supplementation (something I’m not a fan of) and creates a diet to follow that is missing some key nutrients. While it may result in weight loss, I do not believe it’s healthy to miss out on fruits, veggies, and grains. I’ve read a lot about the great gluten debate, celiac disease, etc – It’s rare. My theory about what leads to gut problems is the over-prescription of anti-biotics, the prevalence of genetically modified crops – specifically corn which according to one (criticized) study showed led to elevated blood levels of BT Toxin in a group of women from Canada, and the fact that the western diet is full of pasteurized, irradiated, and otherwise dead food. My theory on what causes people to gain weight in this country is along the same lines – High Fructose Corn Syrup, bad guts, and a diet filled with dead food, bleached and modified grains, and bad fats.

But before I continue – a note on BT Corn. Basically BT Toxin is produced by bacteria that naturally occur in the soil. Farmers have used BT toxin as a “natural” pesticide for a substantial amount of time. However, Monsanto took it upon themselves to take genes from the BT Toxin producing bacteria and implant them into corn plants. Now corn can make it’s own BT Toxin without a farmer needing to apply it. BT Toxin was believed to be destroyed by the digestive system and that being the case should not show up at all in blood samples. The study was criticized because the levels were so elevated that the debunking scientists claimed that the study was flawed and did not consider other possible contamination sources. However, the only study ever done on the safety of GMO foods found that gut bacteria that had come into contact with round up ready soy products began producing the same proteins creating round up ready gut bacteria. So if bacteria can learn to produce toxic substances from foods we ingest – it’s a theory that the women in this group may have had elevated BT Toxin in their blood because their gut flora had begun producing it. How BT Toxin works is that its ingested by the worm that feeds on corn and ruptures their stomachs. Do some research on food allergies, celiac disease, and digestive conditions like Chrohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis and you’ll see that lots of people don’t feel well and nobody knows why.  So while there is no “proof” that BT Toxin gets into our bodies through GMO Corn, it is uncertain how so much toxin got into these pregnant women’s bodies and that the findings were so high that scientists debunking it suggested that it had to be due to false positives, and ignoring other contamination sources. This is just one example of why eating “products” and not “produce” can be so potentially harmful to us. A logical person would conclude that corn does not naturally grow BT Toxin producing cells, and that since GMO corn can be avoided it should be avoided. However if you eat any packaged bread products chances are you’re exposing yourself to GMO corn and BT Toxin.

On the Road To Flavor Baron Nirvana: How I Discovered a Healthy Way of Eating in the Pursuit of New Flavor Combinations

When I discovered this new way of eating, I had no intention to lose weight, but it was only to seek out new flavor combinations – in a eating practice I call “Flavorbaroning” To be a Flavor Baron one has to follow 2 principles and 2 rules:

Principles:

1: There are no new flavors – only the experience of new flavor combinations.

2: There are no bad flavor combinations, only unexpected flavor combinations.

Rules:

1: Forget everything you know about flavor

2: Apply flavor recklessly.

Healthy Eating Basics:

I cannot believe that there are foods we should never eat. All foods can be a part of a healthy diet – the key is moderation. I think there are a lot of reasons why Americans are so unhealthy – and largely it’s because of a poor diet and poor eating habits like eating too many of the wrong foods at the wrong time – which results in a huge surge of insulin and insulin insensitivity. When I came to the idea of the “Flavor Baron” It was in the pursuit of better living – not necessarily of health – although I found that the most flavorful foods are often times the healthiest foods.

Product based diet vs produce based diet:

I was reading an article the other day and it was making suggestions as to which “products” we should avoid. I realized that people were not meant to eat products, but meant to eat the produce of the land. I started making more of the foods I wanted to eat – soups, stews, breads, by making them myself from scratch. It is a simple process to make bread. I bought organic stone ground wheat, yeast, organic molasses mushed it all together with some water and popped it in the oven. I wanted to have a soup or a stew but instead of purchasing a can of BPA lined, MSG seasoned cancer water (broth) I went  to my local grocer and bought some beef bones, organic free range bone in chickens, and boiled up my own. I used to buy all natural chicken breast in a big giant 10lb bag at Costco but now I just buy a whole chicken for $11 roast it, peel all the meat off the bones, and then make a broth out of it. I eat soups and stews just about every day and I feel full when I’m done but not bloated or heavy. I eat carbs, protein, fats, and all things full of flavor.

Some believe it’s more expensive to eat organic foods, but I’m telling you it’s much more expensive to buy inferior products. For example, I purchased 2 bags of organic stone ground wheat flour for about $8 and made enough bread to last a month – if I had bought store bought bread I’d have eaten half of it and thrown it away and probably spent twice as much to keep it in stock in case I wanted some. Now I make a loaf, cut it in half, put half in the fridge and half in the freezer. I eat the first half and thaw out the second half when I’m done – and because I know there are no preservatives in it I just keep it in the fridge to keep it fresh.

The same goes for beans. Buying a can of beans will run you about a buck – not expensive by any stretch. However you’re also buying a can – which needs to be recycled and a plastic lining made with BPA which causes unknown detriment to our environment and your body. I bought a 25LB bag of beans for $20 at Costco. Beans are not especially nutritious – but they’re a great source of complex carbohydrates, fiber, and a few vitamins. Some dietary experts argue that beans are unhealthy because they contain antinutrients, but they can be cooked and drained in such a way so that they do not cause any problems. Lectins are destroyed by heat – so I boil for 10 minutes and then drain and then rinse 3-4 times – Then I put them in a big pot and boil them for an entire day. Beans can be delicious if you sprinkle on some cheese and add a ton of garlic. So I use beans as a delivery vehicle for spices which have other benefits than beans by themselves.

Bone Broth:

The top reason I eat soups and stews is because of the broth. Bone Broth has tons of minerals and beneficial compounds in it, because it’s made from the stuff skeletons are made of. If you take a look at a can of chicken broth, it’s going to be liquid at room temperature, but if you look at one that I make, it’s going to be like a big bowl of Jello. The reason why is because mine contains much more gelatin. Gelatin contains proteins – Glycine and Proline which play an important role in the makeup of our bodies. Think about it – people have eaten broth daily for thousands of years until MSG was invented. The glutamate receptors on our tongues cannot tell the difference between the glutamate in natural brewed bone broth or the artificial glutamate in a packet of Mono-sodium Glutamate. So we get the same savory taste without any of the cost of shipping gallons of water around, or of the energy cost of boiling bones for 3 days straight or of the cost of meat. Imagine a package of instant noodles that didn’t have that little flavor packet but instead came strapped to a package of broth. Ridiculous right? So what are our bodies missing out on by not having broth every day?

Probiotic Foods:

Before refrigeration, people kept food fresh through preservation. This was accomplished through Lacto-fermentation and other means. Today, even traditionally fermented foods like Sour Kraut and Pickles are pasteurized to ensure a consistency of flavor and to reduce any risk of infection by bad bacteria. Americans supplement their diets with “probiotic” yogurt and dairy drinks which contain carefully selected cultures. These probiotic strains die out on the shelf and contain far less active ingredient than old fashioned homemade kefir and yogurt and the same goes for the probiotic pills people take – Chances are they’re not shelf stable, and even the ones that are tend to lose their potency – even in a refrigerator. What’s known about our gut flora is that not a lot is known. There are over 100 trillion bacteria in the average gut – which comes in at about 3lbs. 10x more bacterial cells than human cells inhabit our bodies. You could think of humanity as basically sacks of meat that carry around bacteria and yeasts.

Antibiotics, many produced naturally by “good bacteria” and fungi in the human body have been copied by pharmaceutical companies and prescribed in many cases because it’s cheaper than simply doing a test to see what’s wrong. This over prescription of antibiotics has created a generation of people with bad gut flora – because as we know, antibiotics eradicate good and bad bacteria and our gut flora is made up of bacteria often times that we’ve come across in our environment. So for instance if you had good bacteria growing from infnacy that came from our mothers and then take an antibiotic – you won’t be able to come back into contact with the same strains of bacteria unless you have a good source of breastmilk from a healthy mother or raw milk from sheep and other animals that have given humans beneficial bacteria and complex sugars with which to feed them.

This allows opportunistic bacteria (like C. Diff) to take root in our guts and take over. The good news is that it’s not difficult to obtain raw probiotics. Foods like Kim Chi, Ginger Beer, Lacto-fermented vegetables, Yogurt, Kefir, and yes – even some supplementation can help get us all back on track.

Healthy fats:

Omega 3 this, Omega 3 that – we hear about this “healthy” fat – meanwhile we shun saturated fats as unhealthy. Truthfully, I believe ALL fats are healthy in moderation. I should take that back as some unhealthy fats exist – like Transfat. Coconut oil is an example of a saturated fat that is healthy. Coconut oil is rich in ketones which can replace insulin spiking sugar as a fuel for the body. In addition saturated fat found in coconuts exhibits antiviral properties and can even help prevent kidney stones.  Science does not know enough about fats and the roles that they play to rule out an entire category of fat. I get my healthy fats from grassfed butter (Kerry’s gold), Grassfed Beef (Sunfed) and milk from Grassfed cows (St. Benoit). I get a healthy dose of fat from Sardines (Wild Planet) and occasionally a slab of salmon.

The results:

So far, I feel better, look better, and have lost 14lbs while still indulging in ice cream, cookies, and even eating unhealthy food products from time to time. I eat foods like oatmeal, maple syrup, and tons and tons of grass fed butter. The weight continues to fall off. I had so much more energy that I also started a new exercise routine, and started carrying around a glass jug of water to help me ensure enough intake. This is just a fraction of what I learned in the last few months and I plan to write more about these, so bookmark this blog and check back often. I’ll be updating this post with new links in the future. You can also follow me on twitter.