Super Nutrients

What are the best, highest-octane foods you can choose for you body? They’re the naturally occurring, nutrient-dense foods Nature has provided for millennia - of course, grown in sunlight and infused with the energy of soil and rain. Then, as now, these foods power our genetic predisposition at the highest performance levels possible.

S. Boyd Eaton, MD detailed, in The Paleolithic Prescription (HarperCollins, 1988), how our ancestors foraged for plants, fished, and hunted, thriving on the most abundant and compatible foods - fruits, wild greens, nuts, seeds, vegetables, sea veggies, herbs, fish, fowl, wild lean animals, berries, and roots. Our biological ancestors instinctively learned to use natural antioxidants from freshly gathered plants to protect their oxygen-based, life processes. Phytonutrients restored the body’s cells, brain, vital energy, digestive tract, organs, and communication networks from daily wear-and-tear, and protected it from ever-lurking bacteria, viruses, parasites, yeast, and carcinogens.

It was during Paleolithic times that our digestion, absorption, distribution, and elimination processes developed, thousands of years before the cultivation of grains and the domestication of animals - a time warp away from the processed foods, fast-food chains, and chemically enhanced flavours we eat today. Our genes and body systems have remained unchanged for several thousand years, but our diet is radically different, to the detriment of our health. A return to ancient eating patterns and a more balanced, plant-based diet can have amazing health benefits.

A Balanced Plate

Begin thinking of food in three major categories: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. To keep our supply lines full of the proteins, carbohydrates, and essential fats our mitochondria—our cell’s power source - need for a steady energy supply, we must eat a “cell friendly” diet to boost our radiant good health to peak performance levels.

Portion A: Start every meal with an adequate serving of low-fat, high-quality protein from animal or plant-based protein sources. Your body needs a constant supply of protein.

Eat your protein first to release the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK), which acts as a braking mechanism - a powerful appetite suppressant that tells the brain when to stop eating. Protein also slows the “gastric emptying rate,” curtailing rapid rises in blood sugar and insulin.

Portion B: Balance the protein portion of your meal with a colourful, low-density carbohydrate, primarily one or more vegetables cooked “crunchy-tender” and dribbled with hemp or flax seed oil. Use a stainless steel food grater and grate raw vegetables over your protein choice. Raw foods are full of enzymes, add colour, and offer soluble fibre content. Add flavour and interest with fresh or dried herbs and spices.

Portion C: Add a heaping amount of fresh, zesty, organic salad comprised of a variety of lettuces, yellow, red, and orange tomatoes or peppers, cucumbers, celery, carrots, sunflower sprouts, beets, red cabbage or radicchio, onions, and avocado. Only use extra virgin olive oil on your salads with fresh lemon, salt-free herbal seasoning, and several drops of oils of oregano and rosemary.

Portion D: Add condiments such as yam, sweet potato, whole rice, or a grain such as millet. These satisfying foods round out the ancient diet, but are medium-density carbohydrates so should be eaten in moderation. Too much of them causes the body to store long-term energy as body fat.

Eat Five Balanced Meals for Superior Energy, Stamina, and Mood

Our biological ancestors lived by the seasonal availability of food, something Canadian endocrinologist Dr. Hans Selye of Montreal calls “feast or famine.” He explains, “When we skip a meal this causes the body enormous stress.” The body interprets a skipped meal as a sign of pending famine and instinctively stores extra fat from the next meal as a future energy source to see us through the next famine.

Filling our breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates with premium-grade food offers high-octane fuel and a good way to satisfy the natural nutritional demands of our bodies. What was good for our ancestors is genetically good for us, too.

The Protein-to-Carbohydrate Ratio

Visually divide your plate into thirds.

Portion A = lean protein

• 20 to 25 grams per meal for women
• 30 to 35 grams per meal for men
• 15 to 20 grams per meal for children

lean animal source - size and thickness of your palm plant-based source - 2 cups (500 mL) vegetable protein

Portion B = colourful, crunchy-tender vegetables

Portion C = colourful, crisp salad with olive oil

Portion D = condiment such as yam or whole rice

Searching for Supernutrients

Good eating habits will offer you all the super nutrients you need, if you do the following:

• Eat three meals a day, eating the protein portion of the meal first.
• Always eat breakfast.
• Eat two preplanned snacks (e.g. homemade trail mix), one at mid-morning and, the other, mid-afternoon.
• Drink six- to 10-full glasses of clean water daily with some of this in the form of herbal teas and green teas.
• Eat at least two and one-half hours before you go to sleep. Digesting a late supper releases glucose, causing a late-night spike in blood insulin levels and preventing the deep rejuvinating sleep for which dark cycle is intended.

Meal 1 = Well-balanced breakfast Meal 2 = Preplanned snack Meal 3 = Well-balanced lunch Meal 4 = Preplanned snack Meal 5 = Well-balanced supper