The ancient Chinese acupuncturists say, "Eat breakfast like a Queen, lunch like a princess, and dinner like a pauper." Most people have heard a variation of this advice and know that breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, but they ask me, "I'm just not hungry in the morning. What should I do?" What I'm going to teach you today is why lack of hunger in the morning is a symptom of too little sleep and why you want to fix that.

Does your alarm clock wake you from the dead?
The problem with lack of sleep is that your body does not have enough time manage your hormones, especially melatonin. Among it's other jobs, melatonin is a master hormone that coordinates other hormones. When you go to bed too late, your melatonin levels peak right when they should be fading away, right about when the hated alarm goes off.

When your melatonin peak is shifted into the morning hours, the hormone controlling your appetite, leptin, is also high. (High levels of leptin at night keep you from waking up and raiding the fridge.) The elevated melatonin and leptin prevent hunger in the morning and explain why that lack of hunger is a serious sign that you are sleep deprived. Elevated morning melatonin also changes the timing of your natural cortisol spike which is your body's natural alarm clock. We are forced to replace our natural alarm clock with the much hated clock radio. Ugh!

Its all downhill from there!
So you drag yourself out of bed, forcing your body to wake up when it is just should be getting into deep sleep. You skip breakfast and sleep walk through the first part of the day. Because your cortisol levels are low, you cannot effectively deal with the stress of the day and your time perception gets warped and before you know it, the day has passed and you have accomplished little. Sound familiar?

The 5-element acupuncture body clock
The ancient Chinese understood the effects of these hormone waves. Even though they could not measure the hormones with blood tests, they could see the effects when normal sleep patterns were disturbed. They called this the Law of Midday/Midnight. If your internal body clock is off, not only do you have no hunger in the morning, but acupuncturists go on to say if your energy is not balanced, at 3:00 p.m. (bladder meridian time) you will crave sweets, get sleepy, irritable and stupid. Not exactly a recipe for success.

There are special 5-element acupuncture points to re-set your body clock called horary points. They help balance your energy through the day and help your hormones return to normal daylight patterns. So if you are feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, you will want to go to bed earlier and call for an acupuncture appointment!

Saturated fat is a marker for disease in the body, not because we eat saturated fat, but because the liver converts excess carbohydrates to saturated fats. The error logic is to assume that eating the same is harmful.

Here are a bunch of snippets from the Weston Price Foundation. They have abbreviated citations, but it should give you a start if you are inclined.

Myth: Heart disease in America is caused by consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat from animal products.

Truth: During the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), American consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically. (USDA-HNI)

Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.

Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are mostly unsaturated (74%) of which 41% are polyunsaturated. (Lancet 1994 344:1195)

Myth: Vegetarianism is healthy.

Truth: The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93% vs .89%); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86% vs .54%) (Am J Clin Nutr 1982 36:873)

Myth: Vitamin B12 can be obtained from certain plant sources such as blue-green algae and soy products.

Truth: Vitamin B12 is not absorbed from plant sources. Modern soy products increase the body's need for B12. (Soybeans: Chemistry & Technology Vol 1 1972)

Myth: For good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl.

Truth: The all-cause death rate is higher in individuals with cholesterol levels lower than 180 mg/dl. (Circulation 1992 86:3:1026-1029)

Myth: Animal fats cause cancer and heart disease.

Truth: Animal fats contain many nutrients that protect against cancer and heart disease; elevated rates of cancer and heart disease are associated with consumption of large amounts of vegetable oils. (Fed Proc July 1978 37:2215)

Myth: Children benefit from a low-fat diet.

Truth: Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities. (Food Chem News 10/3/94)

Myth: A low-fat diet will make you "feel better . . . and increase your joy of living."

Truth: Low-fat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide. (Lancet 3/21/92 v339)

Myth: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.

Truth: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters. (Nutrition Week 3/22/91 21:12)

Myth: Americans do not consume enough essential fatty acids.

Truth: Americans consume far too much of one kind of EFA (omega-6 EFAs found in most polyunsaturated vegetable oils) but not enough of another kind of EFA (omega-3 EFAs found in fish, fish oils, eggs from properly fed chickens, dark green vegetables and herbs, and oils from certain seeds such as flax and chia, nuts such as walnuts and in small amounts in all whole grains.) (Am J Clin Nutr 1991 54:438-63)

Myth: A vegetarian diet will protect you against atherosclerosis.

Truth: The International Atherosclerosis Project found that vegetarians had just as much atherosclerosis as meat eaters. (Lab Invest 1968 18:498)

Myth: Low-fat diets prevent breast cancer.

Truth: A recent study found that women on very low-fat diets (less than 20%) had the same rate of breast cancer as women who consumed large amounts of fat. (NEJM 2/8/96)

Myth: The "cave man diet" was low in fat.

Truth: Throughout the world, primitive peoples sought out and consumed fat from fish and shellfish, water fowl, sea mammals, land birds, insects, reptiles, rodents, bears, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, game, eggs, nuts and milk products. (Abrams, Food & Evolution 1987)

Myth: Coconut oil causes heart disease.

Truth: When coconut oil was fed as 7% of energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to untreated controls, and no difference compared to patents treated with corn or safflower oils. Populations that consume coconut oil have low rates of heart disease. Coconut oil may also be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. (JAMA 1967 202:1119-1123; Am J Clin Nutr 1981 34:1552)

Myth: Saturated fats inhibit production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.

Truth: Saturated fats actually improve the production of all prostaglandins by facilitating the conversion of essential fatty acids. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)

Myth: Arachidonic acid in foods like liver, butter and egg yolks causes production of "bad" inflammatory prostaglandins.

Truth: Series 2 prostaglandins that the body makes from arachidonic acid both encourage and inhibit inflammation under appropriate circumstances. Arachidonic acid is vital for the function of the brain and nervous system. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)

Myth: Beef causes colon cancer

Truth: Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US. Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists (Cancer Res 35:3513 1975)

© 1999 Weston A. Price Foundation All Rights Reserved.

Follow along with a little back story, before I get to my point. Ancient Chinese acupuncturists developed a theory of healthy eating based on five flavors, salty, sour, bitter, sweet, pungent. They believed these five flavors, found in foods created the right balance of energy to lead a long, healthy life.

When I was earning my Master's Degree at the Tai Sophia Institute (http://www.tai.edu), we had many discussions about the flavors, and would always get hung up on "pungent." What exactly does that mean? This is what the dictionary says: pungent |ˈpənjənt| adjective --having a sharply strong taste or smell : the pungent smell of frying onions.

In class, we left the discussion with the understanding that pungent meant spicy. I'd love to say that I wasn't satisfied with the answer and spent the next 20 years researching what the Chinese meant by pungent, but that would be a lie. Truth is, back then I didn't much concern myself with nutrition. As the saying goes, "That was then, tjis is now."

That's the back story, the point is there is a developing base of research showing that fats are critical to our immune system. The interesting thing is, the ancient Chinese say that the "pungent" flavor strengthens "wei qi" which is the protective energy of the body, guarding us from pathogens during the day, and nourishing our internal organs at night.

Take for example, this article from U.S. News and World Report. THURSDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Virgin coconut oil, added to antibiotic therapy, may help relieve the symptoms of community-acquired pneumonia in kids faster than antibiotic therapy alone, a new study finds. Children who received coconut oil therapy along with antibiotics had fewer crackles (a wheezing sound in the lungs), a shorter time with an elevated respiratory rate and fever, better oxygen saturation in the blood, and shorter hospital stays, according to the study.

I wouldn't be surprised if lard or tallow accomplished the same thing if researchers would have the courage, and funding, to do such a study. The same cannot be said of polyunsaturated fats however. Those are the supposedly superior vegetable oils. Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease; immune system dysfunction; damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs; digestive disorders; depressed learning ability; impaired growth; and weight gain.

So to tie this up in a nice little bow, I believe the translation from the ancient acupuncture texts has been influenced by the low fat folks. I believe pungent is the taste of fat in foods and is an essential component of any healthy diet.

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Wow. It's hard to grasp that three weeks have gone by since my last post. I'm working on being more consistent with the basic chores in my life with the hopes that the larger things will take care of themselves.

The photo is of a handful of our Buff Orpingtons before Sharon and the girls butchered them. (It's funny. The old meaning of the word "butcher" is to prepare to cook, now the meaning is to be unnecessarily cruel.) People talk about knowing where your food comes from and we've gone a few steps further and grow a lot of our own food. The difference in nutrition between a grass and bug fed heritage chicken out in the sunshine and a hormone/antibiotic fed mutant breed caged in a warehouse is calculable.

That said, I cam across an interesting article about cooking methods and nutrient retention in broccoli. (It wouldn't be too much of a leap to assume that the same goes for other vegetables as well.) The bottom line is that stir frying is perhaps the best method for locking nutrition in the broccoli. With microwaving, you lose nutrients, mostly vitamin C because it leaches out with any water you cook. I assume that steaming and boiling vegetables does the same thing. That's why the water has that green color when you are done! I suppose you could drink that water or put it into soups instead of pouring it down the drain. And one last thing, stir fry with heat resistant oils like extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil or lard. Some of the other oils don't lock in the nutrients as well and the high heat chemically changes most vegetable oils into toxic compounds.

One of the reasons local made products cost more is they are made with superior ingredients. Now this isn't always the case, but at least you can talk to the person who made the product and find out what went it to it.

Most products today are made in factories in China where the main focus is to win contracts with a low price. The same factory can be churning out products for many different manufacturers using basically the same manufacturing technology and same ingredients. If your neighbor is making goat milk soap that makes your skin feel wonderful, and you can see the goats in her yard, you know what's in the soap. The same holds true for candles, jams, chutney's cheeses etc.

The Chinese are having a crisis with the contamination of dog food and toothpaste. The next time you are in a farmers' market consider picking up a few items you don't usually buy to see if the high quality ingredients make a difference you are willing to pay for. You'll never know until you try.

Tonight I have to go home and hoe the corn we planted three weeks ago. We planted late so we can enjoy sweet corn after the supply from the local farmers have exhausted their supply. Corn has become the biggest cash crop in America. There are huge surpluses each year and the federal government spends billions of dollars subsidizing the agro business that grow and process corn. These companies are constantly looking for new ways to "add value" to corn so they can continue to turn this artificially low priced commodity into higher priced products. Ethanol anyone?

In his book Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan states we have more corn DNA in our bodies than even the Mexicans who call themselves "the people of the corn!" You see, every product they create out of corn, no matter how processed, is labeled "natural" because it starts out as corn. MSG is referred to on food labels as "natural flavoring" because it is derived from corn.

And then there is high fructose corn syrup. The average American eats about 42 pounds of this stuff a year. There is some pretty good evidence its not good for you. One of the biggest problems with high fructose corn syrup (other than it's just pure sugar with zero nutritional value) is that it doesn't trigger an insulin response. Insulin is required to transport sugar out of your blood stream, where too much can cause damage, and into your cells. Blood over saturated with sugar becomes acidic and damages whatever it comes in contact with. That's why diabetics are at risk for organ damage if they don't control their blood sugar. Obviously a can of Coke isn't going to burn your eyeballs out. But day after day, year after year, the micro damage can accumulate.

Bottom line, corn is good, corn products bad. I think I'll pop some corn after I'm done hoeing.