JAN 24

3. JAN 24

Assigned Work

• Sonnenbergs, C 5, "Trillions of Mouths to Feed" (111-136) (25)

In-class

• Review of food biographies
• The N, S, P model

The NSP Model for Dietary Change: Comparing notes on variety expectations

• Today we will start discussing how the NSP model helps us think about dietary change.

• Nutrition, Satisfaction, Practicality and Dietary Change

• General “false practicality” point: How practical is the drive-through fast food option? How much time does it take? How does it makes you feel while eating, after eating? Do you notice blood sugar spikes from ff? How long until you feel hunger again?

• Small group exercise. Today we’ll focus on some “Satisfaction-Practicality” connections relevant to designing / re-designing your diet. Specifically, consider these questions as you head into small group discussion to hear others’ approaches and thinking.

• Is there any “false practicality” in your diet? Place where you tell yourself something is practical, but maybe only because you aren’t solve the problem another way.

• How much variety do you expect from breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

• How many different dinners would you need in your repertoire to feel like you had plenty of good choices?

• Types of variety:

• I want to come home knowing that I can choose from X different dinners depending on mood and conditions. (Home menu model)
• I want my shopping to give me X dinners to choose from. It’s ok if variety decreases as the week goes by. (Variety Shopping model)
• I’m ok scheduling each dinner by the days of the week. (Days of week meal planning.)

• Other variety considerations:

• I don’t want to repeat meals much within a week.
• I’m fine eating the same thing for 2-3 nights or alternating 2 dinners over 4 days.

• Other sources of variety

• Seasonal rotations
• Make shift dinners. (I can sometimes just make a salad and side veg for dinner.) Note the nutrition/practicality issues here. Easy to do and very practical if you are on top of your nutrition.

Sonnenbergs, C 5, "Trillions of Mouths to Feed"

Microbiota extinction

• Not just from change in foods, fewer fermented foods, more sterile food and sterile environments.
• To improve gut diversity, eat fermented foods, foods with active cultures, and fiber. whole grains and rice. Don't sterilize your home environment. Pets and gardens help with our microbiota. (Elsewhere, food provokes an immune response. That's a good thing.) Variety is important. Different MB species like different things.
• Introduces acronym: MAC -- microbiota accessible carbs -- these are really complex carbs.

Our Microbiota: Recyclers

• Microbiota mechanisms: You are what you eat. You are what your microbiota eats and metabolizes.
• Nice metaphor of intestines to waste management. Note diffs bt small intestine and large in function.
• Life is hard for our M germs: no oxygen down there (must use anerobic processes, unlike our cells) and transit time is fast (hopefully!). So they make short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that can metabolize in the blood stream where there is oxygen. You do get some calories from them once they are in an aerobic environment. But they are more important for us now (given that we don't have food insecurity) for their pharmacological and metabolic functions. (A reason why the "N" in NSP, should be an "H" for health.)
• Why feed the gut? Isn't that just more calories? (116) - No. people with high SCFA diets lose weight (Why? Satiety), decrease inflammation, less Western diet disease. Back to the connection between satiety and nutritional health. (N - S - P). For S, think of mouth satisfaction, stomach satisfaction, and gut satisfaction.

• Sig. claim: 117: "Providing more dietary fiber for MB fermentation would likely result in weight loss, lower inflammation, decreased Weatern diseases..."

History of research on fiber

• Field doctors: Thomas Cleave, 70s "The Saccharine Disease" "Bran Man" - his theory met with skepticism in medical community; Denis Burkitt (and Hugh Trowell) studied Westerners and Africans on fiber, stool quality, and health. 5x fiber, 2x transit. Overconsumption of refined carbs. (S&S mention here that public health attention didn't stay on refined Carbs. fear of fat, elsewhere "lipidphobia" took more attention.) "If you pass small stools, you have to have large hospitals."

• Early researchers didn't have the mechanisms. Now we do, sort of.

Carbohydrates' Bad Reputation

• Carb chemistry/metabolism basics -- 120: mono, di, poly-saccarides. also in our nutrition textbook chapters. Starches usually break down in small intestine, alot like sugar.
• Oligosaccharides: 3-9 monosaccharides. Oligosaccharides (found in legumes, whole grains, fruits and veg. also pectin and inulin (in onions) ferment in gut).

• Insulin resistance. Sugars and many starches cause insulin spikes leading to resistance. Big point here. At the level of MACs, plant chemical diversity is reflected in diversity of M. and it's products.

• 122: glycemic index and glycemic load. (We'll cover this later.) show how to look up food values. note that glycemic index isn't really an issue with most whole fruits and vegetables. Example: pumpkin has a high glycemic index, a low load. You want low load, high-MAC.

Measuring MACs

• Nitrition labels don't give you information about glycemic load or MACs no standard measure of dietary fiber (note discrepancies from above.) 124. So author’s prefer MACs as a term since it focuses on what the MB can eat from your carbs.
• Undernourished gut bacteria can start eating the mucus lining of the gut. (This was also in a segment of one of the gut movies.). Feed them or they'll eat you!

• RDAs: 29/38 grams. Actual Americans average: 15 grams/day. (Recall our African brothers and sisters at 100+ /day!) 126: Notes that not all complex carbs are available to the MB. Take away: More MACS, more fermentation, more SCFAs.

• Research discovering enzyme in nori, a seaweed based sushi wrapper: found in Japanese guts. Helps digest fish. Note: Terrior. Local adaptation of the M.

Rich and Poor MB

• 128: Dutch research on rich and poor M. richness of M correlates with anti-inflammatory effects, thinness, low insulin resistance, metabolic potential for pro-carginogenic compounds. French study interesting because it suggests that dietary change can quickly alter M diversity (richness).
• Gordon's twin study on obesity. also famous 2013 FMT mouse research: need M and M-supporting diet, not just the bacteria. Note caveat 129. Can't just benefit from the microbes alone. Fecal transplant with poor diet killed off beneficial bacteria.

Refining MACs out of the diet.

• What's wrong with refined cereal seeds (130). Wheat bread vs. Wheat berries. The form of the food matters to the fiber count. Highly milled whole wheat flour will behave differently in your gut that rough milled. Much industrial whole wheat is very finely ground.
• Industrial bread products even if they are called "whole wheat" must removes oils for shelf life.
• CF. whole wheat bread: 2g fiber. Cooked unmilled wheat berries (like my Farro/veg salad).
• What about the Inuit?
• What about excess gas? Interesting consolations.
• 135: Note their dietary advice. A high MAC, non-industrial omnivorous diet.