In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan is a great writer, and In Defense of Food is my second favorite of his books (The Botany of Desire is my favorite).  This book helped further cement my view that the typical western diet is terrible. This case study summarized by Pollan is illuminating:

The Aborigines divided their seven-week stay in the bush between a coastal and an inland location. While on the coast, their diet consisted mainly of seafood, supplemented by birds, kangaroo, and witchetty grubs, the fatty larvae of a local insect. Hoping to find more plant foods, the group moved inland after two weeks, settling at a riverside location. Here, in addition to freshwater fish and shellfish, the diet expanded to include turtle, crocodile, birds, kangaroo, yams, figs, and bush honey. The contrast between this hunter-gatherer fare and their previous diet was stark: O’Dea reports that prior to the experiment “the main dietary components in the urban setting were flour, sugar, rice, carbonated drinks, alcoholic beverages (beer and port), powdered milk, cheap fatty meat, potatoes, onions, and variable contributions of other fresh fruits and vegetables”—the local version of the Western diet. After seven weeks in the bush, O’Dea drew blood from the Aborigines and found striking improvements in virtually every measure of their health. All had lost weight (an average of 17.9 pounds) and seen their blood pressure drop. Their triglyceride levels had fallen into the normal range. The proportion of omega-3 fatty acids in their tissues had increased dramatically. “In summary,” O’Dea concluded, “all of the metabolic abnormalities of type II diabetes were either greatly improved (glucose tolerance, insulin response to glucose) or completely normalized (plasma lipids) in a group of diabetic Aborigines by a relatively short (seven week) reversion to traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.”

I was amazed to learn how much four key seeds (corn, soy, wheat, and to a lesser extent rice) dominate the western diet, and how the general shift from eating leaves to eating seeds has ruined our health:

Corn contributes 554 calories a day to America’s per capita food supply and soy another 257. Add wheat (768 calories) and rice (91) and you can see there isn’t a whole lot of room left in the American stomach for any other foods… Of all the changes to our food system that go under the heading “The Western Diet,” the shift from a food chain with green plants at its base to one based on seeds may be the most far reaching of all. Nutritional scientists focus on different nutrients—whether the problem with modern diets is too many refined carbohydrates, not enough good fats, too many bad fats, or a deficiency of any number of micronutrients or too many total calories. But at the root of all these biochemical changes is a single ecological change. For the shift from leaves to seeds affects much more than the levels of omega-3 and omega-6 in the body. It also helps account for the flood of refined carbohydrates in the modern diet and the drought of so many micronutrients and the surfeit of total calories. From leaves to seeds: It’s almost, if not quite, a Theory of Everything.

Towards the end of the book, Pollan offers a few simple rules for eating.  One central rule, he suggests, is to define what to eat by turning back the clock:

DON’T EAT ANYTHING YOUR GREAT GRANDMOTHER WOULDN’T

Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying

Book #2 was a complete mind-rogering. The book is a summary of the fourth Mind and Life conference.  These conferences are a series of encounters between His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL) and prominent western scientists/philosophers in various fields.  Check out this enticing opening paragraph:

ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE, humans have faced two major life passages in which our habitual mind seems to dissolve and enter a radically different realm. The first passage is sleep, humanity’s constant companion, transitory and filled with the dream life that has enchanted cultures from the beginning of history. The second is death, the grand and gaping enigma, the final event that organizes so much of individual existence and cultural ritual. These are ego’s shadow zones, where Western science is often ill at ease, far from its familiar territory of the physical universe or physiological causality. In contrast, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is fully at home here; in fact, it has accumulated remarkable knowledge in this area.

This mind and life conference was of particular interest because the West is not nearly as focused on or interested in death as Buddhists are.  In the Buddhist tradition, sleeping is sort of a nightly rehearsal for dying. The stages of sleep mimic the stages of the BIG sleep (or “the ultimate frontier” as the book calls it). Sleep and death are the two main occasions when we surrender our sense of self and drift into some sort of enigmatic abyss. Other less significant surrenders include sneezing, fainting and orgasm (the French for orgasm is petite mort, which translates as little death).  As I read, I kept thinking how contradictory it is that I often can’t wait for sleep, but am horrified by the prospect of death.

The most interesting topic in the ‘dream’ section of the book was lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams are dreams where you realize you are dreaming an can then control the dream.  58% of people in the United States have had a lucid dream, and roughly 21% have a lucid dream at least once a month.  But by comparison, those who have had training in Buddhist or transcendental meditation have an average of one lucid dream per week! Some of these enviable practitioners are then able to meditate within the dream. I wish I could do that.

I won’t go into the Tibetan views of death, because that is the reason to read the book.  I will highlight an interesting sub-topic: near death experiences.

“In summary, of the near-death population, 60 percent experience peace; 37 percent body separation or out-of-body experiences. Twenty-three percent entered the darkness, 16 percent saw the light, and 10 percent entered the light. The percentages follow the narrative. In other words, people abort the journey at different stages.”

                …

Most people don’t want to come back. In fact, they get angry at the people who have resuscitated them. They’re irritated, confused, and feel that they’re being forced back into their body.  It seems that these experiences have a very beneficial effect on people. The researchers report that people who have survived clinical death or near death have greater zest for life; their concern for material life is much diminished; they have greater self-confidence; and they feel a real sense of a purpose in life. They become spiritually enthusiastic, more interested in nature, and develop a tolerance and compassion toward others. Also, they have a reduced fear of death because they have become convinced that death is a great ride!

As I was finishing this book on a business trip, I was getting my shoes shined and overheard another patron telling the shoe shiner that his wife was clinically dead for 3 minutes following childbirth.  He described an experience identical to the one described in the book, and said it took her a long time to accept that she could not experience a similar peace, clarity and timelessness in ‘this world.’  These studies and stories indicate that just maybe, something more is waiting at the edge of the ultimate frontier - our transition into non-being may be more than just turning off the light. I remain highly skeptical, but also very curious.  The good news is that we will all find out someday, the bad news is that we won't be able to discuss it. HHDL shares my skepticism:

The most striking observation of the turn of events was the Dalai Lama’s skeptical reception of the Western studies on NDEs. He seemed to be saying that these studies are misdirected. The trauma and shock that initiates these accounts and the ensuing events do not correspond to the sequential processes charted by centuries of observation of natural death. Furthermore, the qualitatively different experiential content also suggests, in his view, that NDEs are a process that is distinct from the stages of dissolution at death. His reflections on this issue are a strong caveat to many Westerners who have taken NDE accounts as predictive of what awaits them in their inevitable future 

The author of the book, who also served as the moderator of the discussions at the conference, offers his final thoughts:

I think that the issue runs even deeper, for an understanding of these levels of subtle mind requires a sustained, disciplined, and well-informed meditation practice. In a sense, these phenomena are open only to those who are willing to carry out the experiments, as it were. That some form of special training is needed for firsthand experience of new realms of phenomena is not surprising. A musician also needs special training to have access to the experiences of, say, jazz improvisation. But in traditional science such phenomena remain hidden from view, since most scientists still avoid any disciplined study of their own experience, whether through meditation or other introspective methods. Fortunately, contemporary discourse on the science of consciousness increasingly relies on experiential evidence, and some scientists are beginning to be more flexible in their attitudes toward the first hand investigation of consciousness.

More than anything, the book reminded me that through hard work and practice, one can experience and enjoy different levels of consciousness.  I think daily meditation will be a part of next year’s pledge.

The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil’s Dictionary, written by Ambrose Bierce in 1911, is book #1 and it only took a day or so to read. It is nothing more than a long list of words with alternative definitions.  The definitions are excessively cynical and snide.  Here are my ten favorites:

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.

PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.

RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

 CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.