Nutritious

I got to thinking today about nutrition. I reckon that nutrition, as I am thinking of it, is the process of putting things into our bellies—and thus permeating our cells, organs, and inside-eco-systems—with stuff from outside. Along with the (what I am positive will forever remain correct) advice to eat a lot of different colors as much as possible, I figured that our analysis of eating is destined to be based upon a balance (like colors) of four varyingly important themes: our humanity, our gender, our great grandparents, and our selves.

I have two unoriginal hunches that, together, might could be a book that I’m not going to write (feel free to mention me in the dedication, budding nutrition PhD): one, we need to pay attention to individual genetics, and development, when considering dietary needs; two, those elements (genes and individual) need to be considered fairly equally with the more universal elements of species and gender.

There are things we should or should not eat, and ways we should prepare or not prepare those things. Maybe eat raw shark, maybe eat cooked shark. Maybe eat shark that has been buried for a year to rot beneath sand.

I got to thinking that we probably have positive or negative reactions to foods based on what we’re used to eating and what our family tree was used to eating. Clearly our human species has some preferred intake to providing energy and functionality. Our gender-based hormones have their own martian and venetian desires.

In my armchair nutritionist world, though, I have heard less about my body’s reaction to sushi based on my English/Scotch/Irish heritage. I have heard similarly little about that reaction based upon my eager consumption over the past 10 years of deliciously red tuna and steak…in other words, have I gotten my body adjusted to raw meat?

My little brother went to Russia once and had no beef for a summer. A burger would have made him ralph had he welcomed himself back with angus. Our individual habits and actions inform our appetites...Discovery Network teaches me this with the lizard penis eating, get over it it’s just your mind telling you it’s gross, travel to a new culture, shows. Beyond psychology, my brother’s post-Russia tummy cautions confirm something more gastronomical to our individual situations. Where we are, and who we are, means something when we bite.

My family has long enjoyed slow smoked pig. We’re from eastern North Carolina, and southern Virginia. My early American kin ate pigs, usually preserved to last a good spell. I bet that my genes somehow anticipate that pork, and use it to their advantage. I have absolutely no evidence or scientific reason for so betting…but it just makes sense.

Anyway—the family (and I mean deep-down, ancestor layers that give our genes meaning), and our personal places and times probably go a long way in telling our bodies how to react to what we eat. I am thinking, though, that those factors, along with our human and gender needs, have different weights in each person.

Like, my body might react especially to the groove I’ve been in lately. My friend’s body might be more geared to long-term genetic needs. Thus, a diet based on Paleolithic Man might be good for so and so with a nutritious system that reacts to those two factors (ancestry and gender). My hunch, though, is that we can never really be sure which of those four general factors (species, gender, ancestry/genetics, and individual) are most relevant to our bodies at a given time. Perhaps my individual body-eco-system can overcome its anglo-saxon genetic disposition and adapt well to a sushi-heavy intake. Further, perhaps that adaption is because of changes that occur in my body during my life, or perhaps it is because of a larger , human species reaction to sushi. I don’t know. The hunch is simply that these different factors all have some say toward whether our cells smile or frown when they meet the newcomers we bring to the party.