At the crossroads of Tradition and Modern

I have been thinking about why as a generation we are so confused about what to eat, how to live and are constantly looking up to media and advertising and sometimes even our doctors to almost tell us exactly what to do.

?"Just tell me, doctor, how many servings of rice per day; give me a food prescription of what I should be eating every meal?"

"Is twice a week red wine OK, they say it has heart protective polyphenols!"

"Should my child have 2 or 3 snacks in a day so his blood sugar doesn't drop too low affecting his concentration level?"

"Which fasting is most effective - time restricted, calorie restricted, intermittent, pre-load ?"

?Even if you haven't asked these questions out loud, does it sound familiar when it comes to the crossroads we constantly find ourselves at to make decisions after decisions and feel exhausted at the end of the day and that slice of pizza or donut looks even more yummy as a pick-me-up ? The gap between intentions vs actions is very real when it comes to health!

?But wait, isn't eating the most fundamental activity of living and shouldn't it come very naturally to us ?

Shouldn't we all know what is good for us in a very intuitive way and follow that?

Why should we succumb to biased third parties who tells us what to buy as food and how to live for profits sake (when we know they don't care for our health) ?

?Do animals in the wild ask what to have for dinner: fat-free, low-fat, full-fat, diet of low carb - high fat or is it the other way around?!

On the other hand, the squirrel in my deck makes the poorest of choices by hogging on caramel popcorn from trash just because it is available, accessible and let's face it - tastes good! So yeah to give humans some credit we are similar to that poor squirrel swayed by what is in front of us overriding what is good for us. Good intentions in the back of our head but bad actions when in the heat of the moment resulting in sub-optimal outcomes.

?The science of behavior when it comes to diet and lifestyle is a very fascinating topic and something we can explore more closely another time.

?Going to back to the initial question, how am I supposed to know what is good for me ?

?Well one way we are often told is to listen to your body. That is a good way only if we don't have these super-busy lives of running around and not a moment to pause and think. Not to forget that we now have a messed up body signaling that our hunger cues are erratic (remember you told yourself 'Yes, I am super hungry for that pizza now!'), our circadian rhythm is insulted so often that we no longer know what to listen to and even if we paused to listen, chances are we are listening to the conditioned messaging we have been spoon-fed all along that did not have our health in their best interests. If adults are struggling with this conflicted environment and choices spaghetti, imagine what our children are up against. They may or may not even have an older relative imparting some good old wisdom to refer back to later in life and ask critical questions of what is presented to them. How are they going to keep up their health and do all the wonderful things they are capable of in this world ?

?What did we do before this lifestyle came about ? One thing that is clear from evolution is that human beings love to be in a community and co-habitat together, share and eat same/similar things that gives us an advantage as a species to thrive in the environment we live in. Our genetic make-up also co-evolved with us to give us the best advantage to survive as a fittest gene pool. The ecosystem around us co-adapted with the evolving environment and gave us some of the best bets when it comes to healthy food. When I say our gene I also am including the ecosystem within us, the garden of our gut microbiome and their collective genes which 'pulls the strings' to get us to eat the right things that in turn helps them have a healthy host to live off of (our body). Of course not to forget that the soup we bathe our genes in orchestrates them towards health or illness - Epigenetics.

?I believe many cultural beliefs also came about to preserve this method of gene selection that best suits that particular tribe. Whole family had the same meal together because it was advantageous for us as a group to co-thrive as we had similar adaptations to our environment - genetically and biologically speaking. Some of the best kept secrets were our grandmother's recipes because they were the secret sauce (quite literally) to our genetic advantage compared to another tribe from a different region. Even today, culturally we all take immense pride in our traditional ways of cooking because it is what works best for our bodies in many ways.

?However as an outcome of globalization we are separated from our original tribes, moved and found homes in the farthest places, became individuals and population of mixed multi-ethnicity origin. What used to hold true for our forefathers in their particular environment may or may not hold completely true when it comes to our unique lifestyle and gene make-up which depending on your lineage can be a crossover of multiple ethnicities. Does this mean we have to now re-adapt ourselves to find the best fit for our gene composition Vs environment where we live in and what is naturally available around us to give ourselves the best chance to live a healthy life? Or should we stick with what our ancestors did because we haven't evolved too far from there? Or are the environmental stressors so strong now that we are evolving into a new realm of possibilities as a species with even higher cognitive abilities and pushing the brink of nature with gene-editing like technologies that what we knew say 1000 years ago are not relevant now ?

?I don't know all the answers however I do think this is why the idea of bio-individuality is here to stay and although all the science around it seems primitive or over-hyped, it holds the answers to our long-term existence.

?I pick the side of future which is here now where personalized testing to create a 'biomarker fingerprint' and the personalized recommendations from it will become more and more accessible plus reliable for individuals and families to empower themselves with data to make/support the right choices in their lives. The fields of Nutrigenomics, Functional Medicine testing, Epigenetic testing, Longevity studies, regenerative farming are all catching up very quickly. Hopefully the noise of meaningless messaging of one size fits all based on bad research will slowly fade away and give rise to the right messaging of how to use the power of data to derive inferences and support our individual needs. If technology is what will enable a healthy dialogue among ourselves and our children to cut through bad science and biased inferences from nutrition studies to be able to re-discover what we should eat, individually and collectively, how we should live in tune with our bodies, then that is what we will use. If this shift in paradigm is what it takes to steer clear of bad choices and form long-lasting habits that preserve the species and this planet then that is what needs to happen. If a mobile app with personalized data is what will keep score of my decisions and nudge me towards health, reduce my decision fatigue of what to eat for dinner, then that is what I should leverage for forming a new habit.

?We should remain open to the modern tools and a common language they give to speak with our next generation of children to pass on what we always knew - Believe that Food is medicine, trust in good science and most importantly how to trust their bodies more than anything else to make smart, informed decisions in their lives. May be also teach them how to stock up the cabinets with the right things and hopefully to cook and relish a traditional recipe or two to keep the legacy going…for food is what culture and lifestyle is built upon and we can cultivate for it to be second nature to choose wisely without confusion!