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That which does not kill us …

In the late 1800’s, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” It is a phrase often used to explain the resilience of people who have endured hardships. It turns out that it certainly contains more than a grain of truth. My interest in this subject arose from undergoing a […]

March 16, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Health, Health and Wellbeing, Nutrition

For or Against the Grain?

There is so much in the media and the blogosphere about cutting out grains and living a life similar to that of the caveman through a Paleo diet. Although some of the claims of the Paleo community don’t stand up to good scientific scrutiny, there are many people who have seen incredible results including weight […]

January 1, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Health, Health and Wellbeing, Stress

That which does not kill us …

March 16, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Health, Health and Wellbeing, Nutrition

For or Against the Grain?

January 1, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Health, Health and Wellbeing, Stress

That which does not kill us …

In the late 1800’s, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

It is a phrase often used to explain the resilience of people who have endured hardships. It turns out that it certainly contains more than a grain of truth.

My interest in this subject arose from undergoing a course called Air 427 in 1998, whilst serving as an officer in the British Armed Forces. The course was 10 days of rigorous combat survival and resistance to interrogation training, which involved walking 100’s of km over 10 days, with very little sleep due to sleeping rough in freezing conditions, and the only food over the entire 10 days was a chicken between 4 people – and it was alive when we got it. To ramp up the pressure, the final 5 days was an ‘escape and evasion’ phase, where we were to evade a Hunter Force that was equipped with helicopters, vehicles and dog teams.

At the end of the 10 days, we underwent interrogation training, which consisted of alternating bouts of highly uncomfortable stress positions (blindfolded while exposed to very loud ‘white noise’), with interrogations of increasing intensity.

Once the course was over, the first thing that struck me was that I had a new-found appreciation for things that I took for granted – as well as the obvious such as food, shelter and warmth, there were lots of little things that I appreciated much more, such as a toothbrush, clean underwear and toilet paper!

It wasn’t until a few weeks and months later that I noticed something more long lasting – my view of what was stressful had completely changed and my resilience was greatly enhanced. I realised that this phenomenon was very well explained by knowledge from my first Master’s Degree in Sports Science – that of training adaptation. Exposing the body to training stresses, such as sprinting or lifting heavy weights, induces changes in gene expression which result in an adaptive response – and the body ultimately becoming bigger, faster, stronger.

This knowledge led to me reframing potential stress in my life as something that would make me stronger. When I left the Armed Forces and became more of an academic I looked deeper into the research in this area, and that is when I uncovered a topic that has real relevance to many areas of our life – that of hormesis.

Hormesis is a biological phenomenon whereby a beneficial effect results from low doses of a stressor or toxin that a higher dose is harmful or even lethal. As you will see over the next few blogs, we can harness this biological phenomenon in a systematic and deliberate way to improve many aspects of our health and move us beyond resilience to being what I call ‘stress adapted’.

If you choose to adopt the hermetic lifestyle, you will likely be changing how you eat, what supplements you take, how you exercise and your view of stress to enhance production of protective genes and enzymes that will protect you against disease and increase your lifespan.

I’ll explore how anti-oxidant supplements can be bad for you, the truth about why vegetables are good for you, and the best type of exercise for health.

This is not the lifestyle equivalent of a fad diet, but the application of years of research into areas as adverse as gene expression, exercise adaptation, dietary polyphenols, ageing, resilience, toxicology, radiation, immunotherapy and special forces training – all under the same fascinating umbrella called hormesis.

March 16, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Health, Health and Wellbeing, Nutrition

For or Against the Grain?

However, we are not here to advocate giving up grains. If you can tolerate them (and lots of people can) then there is little reason to give them up. Our approach at Ritualize has long been to eat grains sparingly, putting more emphasis instead on other nutrient-dense foods via the 80/20 Food Pyramid (see below). It’s interesting to note that nutrition Australia has very recently released a new food pyramid which is moving towards the 80/20 food pyramid by putting vegetables at the bottom rather than grains (we still think they have some work to do J).

Let’s talk about what we at Ritualize believe when it comes to eating grains:

In traditional cultures, grains are soaked and some sprouted before baking with them – as are beans and lentils. Even our grandmothers soaked oats before they made porridge. However, modern lifestyles have demanded that everything be instant, so we now skip that process. The thinking behind the soaking of grains (as well as beans and lentils) is that it makes them easier to digest, and removes some substances that the Paleo community refer to as ‘anti-nutrients’. If you think about it, grains are seeds, so in nature, they don’t want to be digested, they want to be planted! The plants probably created these ‘anti-nutrients’ within them to make them difficult to digest, which would persuade creatures not to eat them. There are also certain compounds that stop the active enzyme activity of germination. So, if grains are soaked for a certain period of time, the sprouting process is started, which helps you digest them more readily – and makes them more nutrient dense.

In ‘western diets’, we consume far too much of 3 crops – wheat (in bread, cereals, pasta, etc., etc.), corn and soy (mostly through vegetable oils in processed foods). There are many ways to make better choices when it comes to grains and carbs in general. Eat a variety of natural, unprocessed grains, such as quinoa (strictly a seed), barley, couscous and oats. Wild rice, for instance, has almost twice the amount of fibre as brown rice. If you cook potatoes, cool them before eating. This increases levels of resistant starch, which bypasses the small intestines and goes straight through to the large intestines, where it feeds your good bacteria. There is evidence that if you cook rice with a tablespoon of coconut oil, then cool it right down, the resistant starch is increased and the calories are decreased by 50-60% – that’s a win on 2 fronts!

And what about bread? I think even the most loyal of Paleo followers must crave a piece of toast at some stage (ok, maybe not, but many of us do). There are many grain-free bread recipes out there, but if you are eating wheat bread, we highly recommend buying authentic sourdough bread made the artisan way. The gluten, which is very high is mainstream bread, is consumed away in the 12+ hour fermentation process, so much so that up to 90% of the gluten is gone by the time and bread is baked. Not only that, it’s delicious! Next time you’re buying a loaf, consider spending a little more and get a true artesian sourdough bread, which you will find them at most good deli and farmers markets.

The bottom line is that Government guidelines have traditionally promoted unprocessed whole grains for their fibre intake, but most of the grains that we eat are the highly processed, nutrient-depleted type. Instead of this, follow the Low HI (Human Interference) principles of our 80/20 food pyramid and get your fibre and resistant starch from vegetables and fruit, soaked beans and lentils and a moderate amount of unprocessed whole grains in different varieties – and prepare and cook in a way that optimises their health value.

January 1, 2017/0 Comments/by Ritualize

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That which does not kill us …

For or Against the Grain?

That which does not kill us …

For or Against the Grain?

That which does not kill us …

For or Against the Grain?

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