Robert Paterson's Weblog

Why we are becoming more stupid - 2 ways to get smart again #health

For some two million years of our evolution our brains became larger. John Hawks, anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, says there has been a dramatic reversal. Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball.

This is major downsizing in an evolutionary eye blink. Hawks claims that If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc. (Link to more)

So here it is. The brain is shrinking. We are going back. 

What might have happened? I suspect two factors. After agriculture, most of us became domesticated. We literally became like sheep: animals who relied on our masters to shape our lives. We depend more and more on systems we don't control or understand to live. So we don't have to think. We stop being aware. We don't need as much brain. We were like wolves, then German Shepherds and now we are Pekineses. 

Then - The embodiment of wild and wisdom - Now the embodiment of the opposite

Two utterly different representatives of leadership!

And secondly we eat a very poor diet. At the advent of agriculture we lost 6 inches of height from poor nutrition.

Since 1980, we now eat an industrial diet. 

By 2050 nearly 100% of Americans will be obese.  We eat an Idiocracy Diet now like this one. 

It took a million years for us to lose our gut as a primate. The key to the new large brain was nutrition. When we learned how to use fire, we could eat more meat.

(The Gorilla is not fat - he has a huge gut to process all these veggies)

As we ate more nutritional dense food, our brain grew larger and our gut smaller. We became more smart and so better hunters and ate more meat and so on. 

We don't gain more gut - we just get fat. This is what most people will look like soon. 

Human Evolution is in reverse now. So what to do?

If you live like a sheep, you will become one. Become a "hunter gatherer" again. Work to control your own world and depend less and less on "THEM". Become "Wild" again. Largely support your self. Progressively disconnect from the system. 

Easier to do, eat more brain food - dense nutrition - eat more meat. eat real food. Cut back on the grains. We are not chimps or Gorillas. We have been designed for millions of years to eat food that is dense with nutrition.

Eat Real Food - Live a Real Life.

Type 2 Diabetes - The time bomb in our young! The Wrong Approach!

Doug Currie and any health minister will have to introduce cuts to the health care system because the costs are beyond what we can pay. We will just have to suck this up. For there is no alternative.

BUT he must also ensure that he sets in motion work that gets at what is driving the costs.

And it is Type 2 Diabetes that is the villain here. What Doug can control is the advice given by Health PEI and the nature of the programs that we have for wellness.

At the moment, these programs are set up to fail. They use the wrong dietary advice and then go right to drugs. The system is captured by this and so is inadvertently driving up our costs and expanding the epidemic. 

And it's no longer the old but the young who are at risk. 

Here are the US stats that I think would be close to where we are here on PEI. (NYT)

And some 17 percent of American children from age 2 to 19 are now considered obese, roughly half the rate of obesity among adults.

And how do we respond to this on PEI? The same way as they do in the US. Weoffer adivice on diet that is Wrong. And so revert to drugs. That don't work either. And of course, the epidemic gets worse. 

The new study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, tested three ways to attain durable control of blood sugar in youngsters between the ages of 10 and 17.  None worked very well. Almost half of the 699 youngsters had to add daily shots of insulin within a few years to lower their blood sugar. Metformin, the standard drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes in children, failed to control blood sugar in more than half of the children.

I have spoken to Health PEI's Diabetes counsellors. They advise eating according to the Canada Food guide.

This puts the emphasis on grains - grains are sugar and are at the core of the problem. When I challenged this, I was told that this is how people want to eat. This is what is driving the epidemic. This then dives the failed drug response. This then drives the costs. (Source Health PEI!)

When you get Type 2 diabetes you will be hospitalized 16 times more often for lower limb amputations than non T2D sufferers. 6 times more often with kidney disease. You will have 5 times more heart attacks. 4 times more heart failure. 3 times more strokes. You will stay 3 times longer in hospital. Have 2 times more visits to physicians and 2 times more to specialists. 

It gets worse. Most diabetics don’t just take one medication, but several. A typical regimen for an adult diabetic after a couple of years of treatment and following the dietary advice of the American Diabetes Association (eat more healthy grains!) includes Metformin, Januvia, and Actos, a triple-drug treatment that costs around $420 per month. Two forms of insulin (slow- and fast-acting), along with two or three oral medications, is not at all uncommon.

Now this is new information for many - especially in the health care system itself. The situation is made worse by the Diabetes Association that has been advising eat more grains and so cannot pull back without looking stupid.

But we the citizens pay the bills. We take the cuts. It is time to do the right thing. Time to set up a diabetes strategy that is based on what we know is the truth about metabolic syndrome. Time to look at our food system broadly - as we did with tobacco.

 

Did your Dr help you get like this?

Source: sciencedaily.com via Rob on Pinterest

You don't have to be like this but if you take your doctor's advice and eat up to 300 grams of carbs a day you will be

Why are governments so stupid?

The UK government is considering a 10% tax on soft drinks. They state that we all know that it is sugary drinks and saturated fat that is the cause of the obesity epidemic. And of course that we eat too many calories. Link here.

Another case of good intentions messed up by total stupidity and the avoidance of looking at the truth..

Yes soft drinks are terrible. Yes they do cause obesity. But so then is juice and milk. A 7 ounce shot of all three carry the same load of sugar. Skim milk is the largest contributor to the sugar load for kids today. But juice and milk are seen as being healthy alternatives. Simply not true and anyone who does a little research can see this. 

Saturated fats do not make us fat nor do they cause heart disease. We get fat by having elevated blood sugar. The most simple research will remind anyone that this is true. It is since we bought the fat makes us fat idea that the obesity epidemic took off.

Finally simply put more calories do not make us fat. It depends on what kind of calories. Back to blood sugar again. 

All governments are going to have to get behind helping us be more healthy and what we eat is the most leveraged part of this. So they are going to have to do their homework. For if they force the wrong action, they will get worse results and not be given a second chance.

Why should this matter on PEI? The new health deal is why. The Feds will pay for 6% increases until 2017. Then the provinces will get paid at a function of GPD. PEI's health care costs are already climbing at 11% so we are behind right now. What might the economy be like in 2017? I bet we will be lucky to have 3% growth. If we are unlucky 1% or less. We are going to be in big trouble.

We will have no choice but to start preventing illness. So we have the one chance - we have to get the science right.

Your Health - If you watch one video - it is this

 

Dr Wahls was utterly crippled by MS - she found the way home to health for her and for you and me. 

Ancestral/Paleo Health - Going Mainstream

HealthWatch: Caveman Diet Trend Starting To Catch Fire.

A growing number of scientists, medical doctors and nutritionists have argued that a Stone Age lifestyle could benefit human health and even cure chronic diseases. Dr. Kim Mulvihill reports on how the diet helped her shed 30 pounds.

The CBS journalist is doing this story because she tried this and it works. "CBS 5 medical reporter Dr. Kim Mulvihill was so intrigued by the UCSF research that she became a guinea pig for the scientists.

She was told that she could not lose any weight and was given a Paleo plan to follow.

Within 10 days, her cholesterol dropped dramatically, as did her blood pressure. She then asked if she could lose weight, and modified the diet to eat less. Dr. Mulvihill then shed 30 pounds and two dress sizes. Her cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels all continued to plummet in a healthful way.Dr. Mulvihill said she never felt deprived and never felt healthier."

And this weekend CBC covered this on Sunday Morning and the Current on Monday

I think what is driving this is that IT WORKS! After 40 years of telling us to eat more grains and take more exercise, we have the epidemic. If people try this for a month, they feel results. If they do it for a year, they are transformed.

Me in 2009 and me this summer 2011. It took a year to lose 35 pounds by eating differently. My arthritis has gone. I am back to my wedding weight. I did spin for 2 months but mainly I have just been more active. I have a standing desk and I work outside a lot - the garden, wood stacking etc.

My dad died at 55. My mum has been an invalid since her mid 40's. I have a very poor ancestry and I was on my way to join them. But I decided that I did not want that as my future.

So what about you?

Me back from the brink - What eating differently has done for me #paleo

Here I am in August 2009 - pre diabetic - a typical middle aged man. I thought that this was my destiny - that all men of my age had to be like this.

But after talking with Michael Rose and then 9 months of eating differently and being more active - this is who I am now

Not thin - but 35 pounds less and importantly most of my visceral fat has gone as have my man boobs.

With luck, I should be able to be healthy and fit and like this until I die. With luck I have pulled back from the normal on PEI where the average man aged 65 is disabled by ill health and then lives for another 10 years a drain on his family and the state.

My aim was not just to lose weight - this is so much more than just another diet. It was to return my body to its designed natural state which would allow me to plateau. To keep have a long "Healthspan". 

We talk all the time about Lifespan - but for me what counts is how long can I live and be healthy? My "healthspan". 

So how did I do this in such a short time?

Most of this has taken place as a result of a change in diet - I gave up most modern foods - grains - dairy - legumes. I do cheat now and then too. I am not perfect.  Routinely, I eat no processed food though - drink no pop or beer unless I am travelling and then very very rarely - I am only human!

I do drink a lot of wine. 3-4 glasses a day. 

I don't eat any kind of candy and no sugar at all.

I am never hungry. I rarely need to snack and if I do, I tend to have a few nuts.

I did spinning for 2 months in the late winter once a week - but most of my "exercise" is activity based. Why pay for a gym when I can stack 4 cords of wood!

I feel so much better. Lighter - not just in weight but in spirit. My knees don't hurt. You put a back pack on with 35 pounds of bricks in it and walk all day and you might see why my knees hurt.

My blood tests are of a 25 year old. I sleep well. 

I work at a standing desk and can do that all day now without getting too tired. It took 2 months to be my new normal and is now. I garden, move wood, use the stairs and walk the dog.

Now it helps also that I have a lot of control in my life. I work for myself and Robin and I have a hunter gatherer life. We do a bit of this and that. I don't have a lot of cash in hand but I din't rely on one key person to pay me. By giving up my expensive life and big mortgage in Toronto, I have no debt.

By living not in a rush, I have time for my friends and family and have time to do a lot of work for free - to spend weeks with my kids - to help others on what they want.

I go to bed early and rise with the sun. I work outside all year. If it is not mowing - it's shovelling. I walk our dog every day rain, snow, wind or shine.

I belong to a few great tribes of people that I love - who do the great work of our time. My life is an adventure again.

Changing my way of eating was in fact the easiest and fastest way back to health.

Leaving my old life in the big city and the big world was harder to do. It took maybe 10 years to complete the change and took me to the limit. I had to kill off the old me and leave my old life behind.

Coming to PEI saved me. And so did Michael Rose

True Health - Part 3 - The Rules of the New World#2 - The revolution of our time

This post is written in July of 2011 - The Murdoch New Empire, the Police in the UK and the Tories in the UK are being rocked.

I think that we are living through a period where the Network is destroying the Hierarchical power of the establishment.

We can see now that this revolution began in the Arab world but now, this July, we are seeing that the Network is a real threat to the most powerful in the west as well.

I think that history will show that power is shifting from the Machine Institution to the Network.

This will be a real revolution unlike 1917 that merely replaced one top down regime for another. 

This is more like 10,000 years ago when a new food system changed everything about how humans lived and their place in the world. 

I think that the forces that will take us there are now in motion. Not the least that millions of people have been cast out by the old system. That many of these millions are well educated and have the personal power to act. These are the kind of people that drove the French and the American Revolutions that in their own day also cast down the old power system.

They are likely people just like you my dear readers. We are the immigrants in the brand new world that we will make for ourselves  - not in a new place but in a new "Space" that we create ourselves.

Without knowing it, you have just left Ellis Island and you are in this strange New World.

How strange this all is. 

Fortunately the pioneers have been here for some time and this post will show you what the new rules are and how best to get around in this new place and to realize its potential. 

In essence - people here in the New New World - or New World#2 - live the lives of the Hunter Gatherers - they live lives much like all hominids and Humans have lived for millions of years. But with a difference, now we know how all of this works. We know the science and we have tools that empower us to be this old way anew.

So let's wander around NW#2 and see how they live and work. Let's see the models they use. 

And by the way - all of this exists for real today - just in a very small and scattered form. It just needs organization to come to life.

Home and Work - Home is that old fashioned Home where we all live and work.

For in NW#2 we mainly work from home for ourselves or in tribal groups - some partners are next door but some are the other side of the world. 

We don't just do one thing either - the bigger cash generating deals are like a hunter bringing home an elk and get paid in cash by the larger system. But we do a lot of gathering for no money. We trade services with each other - I do some work on your site, you give me veggies. We offer up our place for rent and move in with our sister who lives down the road and we split the money.  

We don't just sell services either. With our network of 3D printers and jigs we can make almost anything locally. Hey we even make cars using the Wiki Car Company - an open source design for cars that uses a series of chassis's that we then adapt to create unique one off cars. For less cost than a mega car plant - we don't have their fixed costs.

More than 50% of the things we need - we make locally. All are built using Open Source designs.

The result is that there is work here for all. 

What were hobbies become "Livings". Your weaving, your knitting, your soap making, your talent for music or knowledge of astronomy, your mechanical genius, your coding, your cooking, your green thumb, your strong back, your relationship with children - your real skills - the real you.

No one gets super rich but all can be very comfortable and secure. Secure because no outsider can take away your living. For we are so interconnected. The gap between producer and consumer has been closed. We are always both.

Our children grow up in the middle of all of this. They see what their parents do to make a Living. They participate early too - either to help the family or to play their own role. Many children have their own Living. The gap between helpless child hood and being a participant is tiny. 

For the kids too are not shunted off into a world separate from life called school or youth.

Nor are our babies and infants given away to strangers. In our physical community we help each other a lot with the little kids. We spend very little money on daycare or nannies. We have family close, we have other families in the same boat - we have a good system. The kids also have access to tremendous resources from all over the world. They have lots of mums and dads - as kids always used to have. There are lots of Eyes on the Street in our place.

Our teachers are very different too. They are not "professionals". They are largely us.

Our older kids meet in study groups and use materials from the web. If they have a question that they cannot solve themselves - they can access the local learning network for advice. This local Network extends all over the world. Our kids can talk to the best teachers in the world and they do. 

We used to pay a lot of money to educate our kids for not very good results. We now pay a fraction of this and our kids have learned to learn and they mix with really talented people. They don't need a piece of paper to show what they have learned. They have a reputation that has been earned.

Food

So where did all the teachers go? Where did all the people with non jobs go?

In the old country almost no one did any work to get or prepare food. In the NW#2 food and energy is where most of the work is done. Everybody contributes here. In 2000, less than 5% of people worked to produce food and most of them were no more than slaves.

Now 85% of us participate in one way or another in food and energy.

About 30% of the food we eat is grown locally - and we are in Montreal. There are gardens on roofs - front yards - back yards in public spaces. Small animals too - chickens are everywhere and there are goats and sheep in town.

Nearly everyone spends time on growing and preparing food - we grow a lot on our own or in local groups in the community and we also help out in the country.

The rail service to the surrounding farm land is working well again and 50% of our food comes in from the direct hinterland. Many also go out there and help work for food. We help with the cultivating and harvest - for the Community Ag Model that we use, integrates the customer into the producer. That way we we keep the costs down for all. No immigrant slaves here - we belong to farm groups as helper/consumers. CSA on steroids.

Consequently, we pay very little money for food. But food growers do well. We all benefit from the Network Effect.

Farming itself is very different too. We also work WITH nature and not against her. She does more and more of the work as a result.

Farms tend to be small - about 100 acres and worked by a family and by the neigbours.

Those growing veggies mainly use Permaculture that needs no external inputs and that has yields that rise every year and where the work also falls. In many of these mini farms, the main work of the year is harvest.

Almost no machines are required. Almost no external inputs and certainly no agri chemicals.

Those with animals use a pasture system made famous by Polyface farms where grass and woodland provide the base and we rotate animals on the grass thus building up the base year by year.

In our food system, vitality grows every year. The natural capital increases and our need for external energy reduces.

We used to have no time and so had to pay cash for everything - now we have time we don't need as much cash. THIS is the central big idea in New World#2.

Like Open Source Software we trade goods and services a lot for no money - we do have an exchange now - so the Ledger can be converted into currency of needed. This was how the old country store used to operate. 

Energy/Travel - You cannot replace oil as a convenient source of energy - but oil is very expensive in the New World#2. So how do we still have a great life? We have redesigned how we live to reduce the need for oil.

This is why the home and the local community has become the centre. We had to go far away every day to work and school and to get anything. Now most of those routine trips in the car are not essential any more. The need to drive everywhere has been designed out of the system.

Some of us do go to face to face distant meetings now and then - it is always vital to meet face to face. But these occasions tend to be rare and are often largely social - the point is to bond again.

When we travel we mainly take some time and we tend to stay with each other or rent a place from a person. Co Working places are ubiquitous. Few have offices that are exclusively theirs except at home. Why would you pay to have an office all for yourself?

The Global Co Working Network also allows you to have an office in any town, city our country. 

Energy/Climate

Heat in the winter up north and cooling in the summer in the south demand significant energy. Here design has helped too.

Much of the sunbelt, short of water and boiling hot has lost much of its population. Those that remain have gone back to building design that fits this climate. Adobe is common again. Even here permaculture works and, as was tested in the desert in Israel, is able to produce food and this practice is gaining ground on the desert itself.

Here up north in Montreal, the typical co-housing of Montreal East was designed with winter in mind. With neighbours alongside and above and below, heating demand has been reduced further by insulation.

Community heat and stoves using waste fibre are common.

Large scale and long Distance Energy

The truck is no longer the centre of the system. Most things are made locally - much is recycled locally - even steel. We trade things we can't grow or make.

As back in time - water is the way that really heavy goods are carried. The seaboards and river and canal systems are the new/old highways for heavy goods. 

We have time now so we too use the trains and ships. 

Health

Big Industrial food no longer makes sense with very expensive oil. In the old country we used to spend a fortune on health. But now we eat so much better, we are so much more active, so much less stressed, we are naturally mainly very healthy and fit.

Grains depend on factory farms, serfs or slaves. Oil is too expensive and no one wants to be a slave anymore. So very little grain is grown anymore. We eat meat, that is grass fed, veggies fruit and nuts. This was and is our ideal diet.

So Big Pharma has little place here either. We are all working hard at breeding better animals and seeds that fit our local enviroment.  We share this knowledge around the world. Big Ag has no place in this vast cooperative effort - for if we fail here, we starve. The IP issue has gone away for the system that could enforce it has collapsed.

Most research now uses an Open Source Model - for we all benefit.

So what about the  Medical professionals?

Of course, if you have an accident, we use the Dr's. Specialists operate all over the world too. Even a small community hospital can have a world class surgeon operate - for she is in her community and telemedicine is the norm now.

But there are not that many doctors - and the ones we have are oustanding. But we don't need a lot of them, because so few of us are ill. 

The frontline healthcare system is now run by Health Facilitors who help us in groups work out how to get control of our health back. We pay them to keep us healthy. Health is all about matching our lives to our design.

Media

We get our news and information from each other. The old highly centralized media system was show to be what is was a shill for ther old system. They were largely made irrelevant as their role was exposed. And then their costs brought them down.

Most people have a voice now. A profound shift in human consciousness.

There is still an entertainment business but it is more of an aggregator. We don't need as much distraction as we used to. With a more full real life, we need to depend less on a fantasy life.

So how did we get here?

No social engineering brought this about. Much of the pioneer work was done in the 1990's. But it will be desparation that takes us here. Cities that can go no lower such as Detroit are along the path now. 

We will get here because the people who were cleared by the landlords will have no choice. We have to eat. We have to have work. We have to raise our kids. We have to have our health. In the old world all of these things are provided by the institutions. They are shutting us out. We either cannot afford them - such as healthcare or what they offer - such as public school - is rotten.

So we will do what we have to and create an alternative world alongside the old world.

In this new world, by using the network effect and open systems we will dramatically undercut the sunk costs and rigidities of the old world. We will drive them out of existence.

This weekend as I write this - we can see this process in action. The Bastille has been stormed. It's early days but we can feel our power and sense the weakness of the regime.

BUT they will not go quietly and the attacks we see on local food systems and the massive effort to protect IP in things such as seeds is a sign of their fear.

In my next post - The Inquisition and how to defeat it.

The Paleo Attackers - The Power of the Legacy - But they will lose

Here is Dick Fosbury winning the gold in 1968. His new method - the Fosbury Flop - was a transforming approach that allowed high jumpers to enter a new world of height. Every jumper uses it now. 

You would have thought that all athletes and coaches in 1968 would have rushed to learn how to do this after his stunning victory. Actually not. 

Four years later, in Munich, only 28 of the 40 competitors used Fosbury's technique. By 1980, thirteen of the sixteen Olympic finalists used it. Of the 36 Olympic medalists in the event from 1972 through 2000, 34 used "the Flop". Today it is the most popular high jumping technique in modern high jumping.

Why did it take so long for the Flop to be adopted?

The Power of the Legacy.

All the elite jumpers had trained their whole lives to use the straddle. Their bodies had been attuned to this and their bodies could not re-learn a radical new approach.

Even more challenging, all the elite coaches who had made their careers on teaching the straddle could not give up their legitimacy. After all, what did they know about the straddle - their reputation was invested in the old system.

So they attacked it - they used fear - "you will break your neck!" They used derision. They used their influence on the system. 

This is where we are with "Paleo" and the new health revolution based on fitting our lives and diet to what we are evolved to do.

The new way of eating - fitting what we eat to our evolution works. Even they have to show that. 

On the U.S. News and World Report rankings Paleo diet page, more than 3,000 people said the diet had worked for them, while 80 said it did not. Compare that to the No. 1-ranked diet, Weight Watchers, in which 1,883 people said the diet worked for them and nearly 800 people said it did not. (link)

But the experts rated Paleo the least effective of all diets! Why?

While Keith Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., said he has "no problem with people eating plenty of lean protein and fresh fruits and vegetables," he did have a problem with the lack of whole grains and low-fat dairy.

"I can't recommend a diet that advocates exclusion of whole foods groups, and foods like low-fat yogurt and milk and beans and whole grains," Ayoob said. "As for dairy, a lifetime of no dairy and you're really risking osteoporosis and low bone density. Paleo man didn't have to worry -- he'd be dead by age 40, but the rest of us would like to hang out for considerably longer and have strength while we do."

So here is the Bull:

• Calcium and bone density - so our ancestors had to milk what animal to get milk. A wild auroch? It is laughable that a so-called scientist could think that milk is our primary source of good bone health. The facts are that milk and wheat leach calcium. That bone density is also a matter of activity and load and our ancestors were very active. And that we get our calcium the same way the cows do - by eating green plants. As it is large parts of ther world such as South East Asia still never drink milk and are allergic to it.
• So our ancestors ate whole grains? That would have involved farming and a settled way of life - this just did not happen until recently. As migrants with no modern grains how would harvest them. How would you store them? Why would you even try? And when we did settle and farm, we lost a foot in mean height and started to get all the diseases of modern civilization. What about our teeth! Grains not only have high sugar levels but Lectins that inflame our gut, joints and other parts of our system. The science is in folks, grains carry a lot of health risks
• Oh and we ate beans too - All modern beans have been bred in the last 7,000 years. Before then most were poisonous. They still are if eaten raw and over time. For they too carry lectins and other chemicals that affect our system
• And the final canard - we were all dead by 40 - A complete falsification of how mortality works. Infant mortality was high and because babies had to be carried. In thus context, infanticide was common. But if you were then not bitten by a snake, killed in an accident, killed in war, had an infection, you would live well into your 80's AND be healthy and an active contributor until your death. This is what has been the case with all traditional people even in our own time. Traditional people age well and naturally at a level of fitness in their 40's

I am excited by these attacks - they mean that "They" know they are in trouble.

They have to do this and look ridiculous because they have made their reputation by telling you that fat makes you fat. That whole grains and dairy are central to a healthy diet. Many of them are paid by the people who make these food. You paid them to tell you how to eat better. They sold books, got reserach grants and chairs all based on the old ideas - that are wrong.

The history of science is full of these stories. The establishment held up germ theory for years because they held that infection was spread by smells - The Misama Theory - millions died as a result. In the pre anesthesia era, the best surgeons were the fastest. So they told the public that suffering pain was good for us. Look at Galileo - the Church only finally approved him in 1992!

Why do I feel good about this attack - Because of the sequence of how a new paradigm wins. For as Gandhi said:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. 

We are in stage 2/3 - all in only 10 years.

The last laugh will be on them. They are the Spanish Inquisition

They have to fight but they will have to lose too.

Why are we so fat in rural settings - Part 4 - Because we don't fit the industrial world

In this last post of this series, I will explore the downside and the upside of our special tribal Gael and First Nations culture in rural Canada and America. 

We have seen that there are many physical reasons why those who live in big cities tend to be thinner/healthier than the rest of us who live in rural settings.

We have seen that a major factor is also status. In a city like Paris, London or New York you are part of the elite of the Industrial world. In rural areas like PEI or Louisiana we get the crumbs of this system. They tell us what we can have and it's not much.

We have seen that a factor for why we are fat is that we are influenced by our friends and family.

We have seen that our ancestry plays a role too. Most of us are Gaels or First Nations. We are the last of the Western Hunter Gatherers and so we are the least adapted to the modern diet.

Today we are going to look at our culture. This too is a factor in why we mainly live in places outside the best oportunities in the industrial system. It is why if we have to leave to go to the big city for work, we long to come home. To come home to a place where there are few jobs. It is why we like the seasonal nature of our system.

We don't want to make working for the man the centre of our life.

Our Hunter Gatherer culture is a powerful force that lingers on in us. Culture hard wires into behaviour. You can see this easily in dogs. A Border Collie that has never seen a sheep will still have all its cultural wiring in place to herd. Even a Pekenese will defend her owner as she was once a guard dog. 

So do we. For, underneath the veneer of modernity, we Gaels and Native North Americans are still Tribal Warriors.

This is a reason why we are not well adapted to industrial life. This is why if given a chance we want to live on PEI, in Appalachia or in a tribal setting. 

Not having been farmers for millenia we don't do "clock" very well. We don't like to be told what to do. We love working out doors and don't like the inside that much. We don't take well to roles that are not earned. We like to know who people really are by reputation. "Who is your father?" is not a stupid question. Nicknames based on character are common. Your name is very important. Your family is important. Your place is important.

This has meant that we make poor peons and serfs. 

So our health is further compromised by poor opportunity and poor fit with the prevailing system. We remain the outcasts and the edge dwellers. We are the butt of jokes and predjudice. We have among the lowest status in our nations. 

But I think that we are just the right people to get our power back when a new form of Tribal/Networked/Local/Dispersed econonmy takes over from the impersonal money based power based Industrial system.

We have the best chance to get our health back by going back to our traditional diet. And we are best suited to a new economy that is based on the personal, the trusted and the tribe.

Those who laugh at us now will find life outside their comfort zone very challenging.  

That is quite a statement. So I will post a series on this next week. I will explore the new emerging reality of the new Tribal Economy where people live again, but in modern circumstances, the lives of Hunter Gatherers. 

But in closing this post on Canada day weekend and with July 4th on Monday - I would like to show you how much we have in common with each other. I would like to show you what special people we are.

We love to dance.

We love music

Our women are tough and noble

My Great Great Aunt Marguerite (Mackenzie) Allan - who lost these,both her daughters, on the Lusitania, her son on his first mission and who stayed on and founded a hospital to look after wounded Canadians.

Our men are tough and noble

We are a warrior society

We love our place.

It stirs me to see these pictures - for they remind me of who we are.

I think that our future is in remembering our past.

It is in bringing our cultures back to the fore. It is seeing the principles that embody them and in applying them to how we live our lives again. 

The hunter gatherer and heroic society has been crushed by the Industrial culture - crushed but not broken.

The next economy will be Tribal - parts of it are here already. It will be possible - no essential - to master the culture of the hunter gatherer again. I don't mean live the exact life but the DNA of that life. 

A life lived where, once again, the kind of man and woman you are is your "brand". Where your wealth is your tribe and how your peers regard you. Where none of your economic eggs are all in one basket. A life where you have real skills. Skills that can't be learned in 3 years from a series of books but have to be absorbed by working alongside others. A life where there is no separation between work and family. An economy, where your kids grow up with you and your wider family and learn from your life and the stories of their family.

A life where the meal and sharing food is the centre of the system. Where we know where our food comes from. A life where home is a place we would die for.

Next week I will put flesh on these bones. But for now, as we take pride in our wider nations of Canada and America, let us also take pride in our tribes.