The Language of Health – Part I

If we’re going to talk about food, let’s define the terms of the debate. It may have occurred to you that the same words can mean very different things, depending on who is speaking. If you think all Milk is the same or that all Eggs are now suspect, then get ready for a surprise (which may or may not be pleasant, depending on where you stand). There are so many hot topics nowadays, I’ll let this post serve as a tentative first draft for the introduction to the book I’m planning.

Salt Allow me to be blunt. When it comes to hypertension and cardiovascular disease, I believe refined Sodium Chloride, “table salt,” as we see here, plays a prominent role. This salt, as well as all other salts that retain their crystalline structure and their full complement of trace minerals, are innocent.

It’s a common thread that will run through all the definitions and clarifications that follow, but a traditional process that was once carried out slowly, exclusively on a small scale, has been subverted in favor of global exploitation of a substance that is essential for human health. People are looking for flavor in their food, and one of the most common ways to add flavor is with salt. And the more pure, refined salt we add to our food, the more disease we will create. Sadly, I predict we’ll be seeing a lot more “innovations” like this in the years ahead, as industry tries to walk the tightrope between balancing flavor and contributing to degenerative illness.

You guys can have your tightrope, I’ll take true flavor with no risk of illness, thank you very much. Picture a mountain landscape, similar to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. You see mountains in the foreground, then another set of mountains beyond that, and then another, and another, until the color of the highest peaks far off in the distance merge with the sky. It’s a beautiful landscape, you could gaze at it forever, and you can’t wait to climb down from the lookout and hike among those rolling hills. The impact that this scene has on the senses, that’s how your body responds to unrefined sea salt. “More please!”

Now picture an immense spire, stretching high into the sky. You tilt your head back, but you cannot see the top. It just goes on forever. The spire is smooth, so there’s no way you could climb it. And it takes you less than a minute to walk around the base. “Even if I could climb to the top, the wind up there must be outrageous!” And the spire is to massive, there’s a real risk it might fall over. That’s about how the body reacts to industrial, refined salt, which is almost pure Sodium Chloride. With absolute Horror.

And yet we have been taught that all varieties of salt are equally detrimental to health. Odd.

Beta-Carotene Here, the confusion comes from a completely different direction. I want to shout this from the mountaintops so everyone can hear… ahem… Beta-Carotene is not the same thing as Vitamin A, never has been, never will be! Ah, that felt better. I think it’s hilarious when the nutrition panel for a raw vegetable lists Vitamin A with a non-zero value. Or when a supplement manufacturer states that their mutli-vitamin formula “contains 5000 IU of Vitamin A, 50% of which is Beta-Carotene.”*

I want to laugh, but it’s tragic at the same time. Don’t get me wrong. Beta-Carotene can be beneficial for human health, to be sure. That is, if you have enough real animal fat in your diet. If you consume large amounts of Beta-Carotene without the fat, you might just turn orange. Seriously.

Vitamin A is not Beta Carotene. Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and you may also know it as Retinol Palmitate. See how “Retinol” looks a lot like “Retina,” which is the part of our eye that contains all the photoreceptors? It’s not a coincidence. When people say to consume more yellow and orange veggies for eye health, think twice. They think Vitamin A and Beta Carotene are the same. They aren’t. And in this case, wishing doesn’t make it so. I once asked my optometrist what I could do to increase the amount of Vitamin A in my diet. She recommended I take a multi-vitamin. She didn’t say which one, so her advice meant nothing. I was looking for another answer, and she whiffed. I was hoping she’d surprise me; too bad. We’ll get to the surprise below.

The body can make Vitamin A out of Beta Carotene about as easily as I can make an Origami Swan out of a piece of cardboard. The process is not easy, and it requires the presence of several other nutrients, which we usually don’t have enough of in the first place. Like real animal fat. That’s why carrots cooked in butter AND served with butter taste so much better than chomping on raw carrot sticks. And it’s why raw carrot juice with raw cream is heavenly, but raw carrot juice alone… uhhhh… looking a little orange today, are we?

The surprise answer that I was hoping my optometrist would know… is LIVER. My liver, your liver, the liver of every animal on this planet MAKES Vitamin A. The liver has an impressive resume, and making Retinol Palmitate is what it does best. So then, the way to get more Vitamin A…. is…. to eat more Liver. Simple. Notice I did not say mango. Every animal on this planet does not have a mango inside of them churning out Vitamin A. Mangos and Pumpkins and Carrots make Beta Carotene. Only LIVER makes Vitamin A. And please, do your body a favor. When you shop for Liver, make it 100% Grassfed Liver. Part II of The Language of Health will cover the two different versions of the word ‘cow.’ One has a healthy Liver, the other does not. (Hint: the one standing knee-deep in manure is not healthy.)

Sure, there are other sources of Vitamin A besides liver. Raw Butter and egg yolks from pastured chickens come to mind. Incidentally, the definitions of these also need clarification (but that’s for Part II). But when it comes to Vitamin A, Liver is King. Also, notice how all of these foods are rich in fat? Meanwhile, the foods we are told to take for Vitamin A, like carrots, are practically devoid of fat. Remember the nutrition panel from before? We see a respectable Vitamin A content of 11% RDA. But Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and I don’t see any fat listed, so that means someone is either ignorant… or lying. Either of which means that we are being lied to.

Part II, which will cover Eggs and Whole Grains, is coming soon.

*I took stab in the dark and actually came up with two misleading statements for the price of one! 50% is Beta-Carotene (which is not Vitamin A), and the other 50% is Retinyl Acetate (which is synthetic and doesn’t behave like Vitamin A in the body).

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