Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine ● Longevity Nutrition

Monthly Archives: October 2009

Bugs…Don’t Kill ‘Em, Eat Em!

“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”  Jonas Salk

In the previous posting I discussed protein requirements for present-day humans and questioned the inefficiency of the ecological model with respect to evolution. 

A couple of years ago, while pondering a failing in my second attempt at a biodynamic garden, I was looking at an infestation of insect eggs on my collard greens.  Reflecting back on an involuntary, three-day survival situation I also pondered that, by day three, those insect eggs would have looked pretty appetizing.   Sitting there, I realized that before the advent of modern farming, the plants we ate and water we drank would have been full of the products of all life stages of insects.  This is a well of protein and other essential nutrients that we have now virtually eliminated from our food supply. 

The general consensus is that, despite the ability to hunt, hunter-gatherer societies still obtained 80% of their food calories from gathering.  To help incur the survival advantage, all species in the food web (other than present-day humans) have retained the universal law of the conservation of energy.  However, the transfer of energy in the form of calories is quite inefficient.  As we move up each trophic level in the food chain only about 10% of the energy is transferred.  

For a species to skip a trophic level is an incredibly inefficient utilization of resources and is an idiosyncrasy in the natural laws.  Like lions attacking an elephant (which is rare), a species has to be under an incredible amount of stress and scarcity to expend the energy to harvest higher in the food web.  Nonetheless, due to communication, cooperation, the ability to make tools, and the ability to be omnivores, this idiosyncrasy allowed humans to expand beyond their niche and take over the Earth.  Coyotes (also omnivores) are one of the few other creatures that have managed similar success.  The difference between coyotes and humans is that coyotes remained part of the ecological web whereas humans moved beyond it.

Because insects are a much more abundant and energy-efficient protein source, they likely acted as an evolutionary bridge for humans.  Insects would have provided the all the essential amino acids as well as the essential nutrients choline and omega-3 fatty acids.  Access to these nutrients would have enabled humans to move away from coastal food dependency and more inland.  It’s possible that this protein source was more passively obtained through the consumption of plants which, as I already mentioned, would have contained insect eggs and larvae.

Insects also provide various chemicals that help to treat and prevent disease.  For example, their exoskeleton provides chitin, a key source of glucosamine which is now taken as a dietary supplement to help prevent joint tissue degeneration. Perhaps if we still ate insects we wouldn’t need to take their exoskeletons in pill form.  Several “bugs” are used medicinally in Traditional Chinese Medicine.  For example earthworms, which contain the enzyme lumbrokinase, are used to treat blood clots and congestion of tissues when there is lots of inflammation and phlegm present.  I can speak from experience that asthma patients respond profoundly better when earthworm is included in a formula.  Other medicinal insects that actually work when used appropriately include cicada skin for dry, itchy skin, and mantis egg case for urinary leakage and incontinence. 

It’s time that we move from viewing insects as pests to viewing them as a resource.  We evolved eating them.  Efforts to transcend the stigma of eating insect products in our society offer an array of benefits.  Reduction of consumption of fossil fuels to produce protein, reduction of need for pesticides in some crops, recovery of species numbers which depend on various insects as a primary food source in areas like the country’s mid-section where pesticide use results in incidental insect elimination.  In an effort to work with the natural laws I say the “Don’t kill ‘em, eat ‘em!” policy should be implemented immediately.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinby feather

A brilliant entrepreneur/ body builder came to our clinic from South Carolina for a longevity evaluation. A walking oxymoron, this man was truly an outlier in both mind and body. He was not only a genius, but perhaps the only human to have literally been banned from Gold’s Gym for pushing their equipment beyond its capabilities. Continue reading

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinby feather

Have a philosophical discussion with any good atheist or God-fearing man and he will present many arguments for why there is or is not life after death.  No one can definitively answer this question.  Perhaps this is because we are not asking ourselves the right question.  There are endless examples of daily universal events that demonstrate that there cannot be life without death.  Let’s look at the elements that make life possible.

In the previous post I discussed the (what I am proclaiming) universal law of Yin and Yang.  Everything in the Universe moves between the states of expansion and contraction.  As stars evolve they contract. They become progressively denser, smaller and hotter. As the spin and contraction of the star accelerate, it creates (becomes) a sequential cascade of elements each one more short-lived than its predecessor.  Hydrogen begets helium.  Helium begets carbon and oxygen…sodium, neon, magnesium…and so on.  Finally, for a brief moment before the star’s death, silicon becomes iron.  The star moves from contraction to expansion in a spectacular explosion forming a supernova and giving birth to the elements that make up our existence.  Supernovae are the key source of oxygen and the progressively heavier elements.  Is it any coincidence that the lightest key element that comes from a star’s death forms is oxygen?  It’s the essence of water and the essence of life on Earth.  Is it any coincidence that the final step in the death of a star creates iron, the very substance that enables us, and all the other animals, to hold life-giving oxygen in our blood?  

We are not a beginning nor are we an endpoint. These are concepts necessitated by the illusion of time existing in mass.  We are simply part of an ongoing process of expansion and contraction.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinby feather