Whole Foods and Your Metabolic Needs

Roman healer and philosopher Lucretius observed 2,000 years ago that "One man’s food is another man’s poison." Like other great medical thinkers, he recognized the importance of physiological individuality.

Just as human beings are unique in their external physical characteristics, so are we all unique on an internal metabolic/physiological level. As a result, we all process foods and utilize nutrients differently. These individual nutritional needs explain how some people lose weight and feel completely energized on a diet high in protein and fat, while others experience the exact opposite. They only feel healthy and energized on a diet higher in carbohydrate and lower in fat and protein.

Our individual dietary needs were partly determined by our ancestral heritage: people in different parts of the world lived on their indigenous food supply and so fulfilled their nutritional needs from food sources. Those living in cold, harsh climates tend to burn fuel quickly. They require heavier foods to sustain them. Inuit, for example, are can easily digest and assimilate large quantities of fat and protein. In more temperate climates, however, people survive on lighter, vegetarian food.

Today, our need for certain foods may be influenced by lifestyle and environment as well as determined by our biochemical/ metabolic individuality. All peoples, however, thrived and survived on whole, unprocessed foods grown without chemical aid.

Biochemically You

The idea of biochemical individuality is a theory that made its humble beginnings in the 1930s and 40s with research into the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the important role it plays in regulating the body’s metabolism and predicting the types of foods and nutrients people require for optimal health. What this research revealed is that while good health is dependent on a balance between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system, which are the sympathetic and the parasympathetic systems, most of us exhibit a dominance of one of the two.

Some of the characteristics which are found to be associated with sympathetic nervous system dominance include conditions such as heartburn, insomnia, hypertension, high blood pressure, low appetite, irritability and hyperactivity. Parasympathetic dominance, on the other hand, demonstrates tendencies to allergies, low blood sugar, chronic fatigue, excessive appetite, tendency to procrastination and lethargy.

Finding what your metabolic type is actually quite simple. Before making any changes to your current diet, keep a "diet diary" for one to two weeks in which you write down all the foods you eat and in what proportions. A few minutes before eating, note how you feel both physically and emotionally and then how your energy and/or your mood may have changed following that meal.

Be aware that our metabolic individuality is dynamic and can be influenced by environment (such as high-stress periods or change of seasons). Remember to keep reassessing and fine-tuning your diet as needed.

Our bodies were designed to be healthy. By consuming the right foods for our unique metabolism, we are providing our bodies with the raw materials it needs to regulate, regenerate and repair itself daily.

Your Metabolic Type

1. People who do well on protein are considered fast oxidizers or "parasympathetic dominants." They tend to have strong appetites and gravitate towards rich, fatty foods. They are predisposed to low-blood sugar problems and need a diet comprised of relatively larger amounts of high-density proteins as well as liberal amounts of natural oils and fats. This metabolic type requires lower amounts of carbohydrates than the other metabolic types. The protein type can best achieve optimal health by eating the following ratio of nutrients at each meal:

• Forty percent of the meal should come in the form of high-density proteins such as meat, fowl, seafood, eggs, dairy, legumes and nuts or seeds.


• Thirty per cent from fats and oils (often from the proteins).


• Thirty per cent from carbohydrates, specifically from non-starchy vegetables, high-fibre fruits and whole grains.

2. Mixed types dominate society and fall somewhere in between the protein and carbohydrate types on the metabolic scale. They exhibit physical and biochemical qualities from both groups. They are neither fast nor slow oxidizers and neither parasympathetic nor sympathetic dominant. As a result, they require equal ratios of protein, fats and carbohydrates. At each meal, mixed types must ensure they have equal amounts of fat and animal or vegetable proteins as well as starchy and non-starchy vegetables.

Fruit on its own is tolerated by the mixed type, as long as it is only on occasion. Ideal meal proportions are:

• Thirty per cent protein (mixture of dark and light meats, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts and seeds).


• Twenty percent fat from, fowl, dairy, seeds, oils and butter.


• Fifty per cent carbohydrates from low as well as high starch vegetables (like potatoes and squash), whole grains and whole fruits.

3. Those who can handle grain (carbohydrate types) do best on a diet that includes protein and fat but is high in carbohydrates. They are considered slow oxidizers or "sympathetic dominant." Carbohydrate types tend to handle starchy foods (high carbohydrate foods) quite well as they are able to metabolize these foods into energy much more slowly than any other types. Since they are slow oxidizers, excess protein and fat usually leaves them feeling drained and sluggish or even hyper and irritable. The energy of carbohydrate types tends to come in spurts. They have a tendency to feel satisfied on one or two smaller meals a day with several smaller snacks. But while they tolerate carbohydrates, they must still ensure they incorporate light protein and low-fat foods into their diet. A typical carbohydrate type meal should include:

• Twenty-five percent from protein, choosing from fowl, fish,eggs, some low-fat dairy and nuts.


• Fifteen percent from fat (derived from protein source) and natural oil (olive, nuts, seeds).


• Sixty per cent from carbohydrate derived from whole grains, low to high starch vegetables and any kind of fruit.

Cooking Kills

Cooking is an invention that does not improve our nutrition. It does just the opposite. It lowers the nutritional value of food considerably in many ways. Cooking especially destroys vitamins C and B, both of which are vulnerable to heat. Cooking also changes the biochemical structure of proteins and fats and makes them more difficult to digest and assimilate.

Heating our food before we eat it not only destroys many valuable nutrients, it can also upset our digestive systems. Heated vegetables contribute to gum bleeding; roasted coffee depletes the body's deposits of minerals: and smoked fish causes high cancer rates in people who eat quite a bit of it.

Eating too much cooked food causes digestive leukocytosis. a temporary increase in the number of white blood corpuscles (leukocvtes) in the blood, as usually caused by an infection. Temperatures above 104°F (40°C) damage many nutrients from several foods in the same way that this temperature could damage our human body–fatally. Cooking kills food and people.

Only rice (unpolished), potatoes (unpeeled), corn, beans, eggplant and some other foods need cooking. But cooking these foods does not destroy their essential nutrients, although enzymes and some nutrients are always destroyed when heated.

The more a food is heated and treated, the less nourishing it is. Natural vitamins can never be replaced by synthetic ones.