Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants

Here is a question one of my readers recently asked me:
Q: I’m a 37 year old male. I suffer from erectile dysfunction, memory loss and depression. I’m looking for supplements to address my deficiencies. I think I have a manganese deficiency. What do you recommend?

A: I’m all for your desire to treat yourself. But thinking that a specific nutrient is the key is the wrong approach. Thats taking the conventional medicine way but instead of treating symptoms with drugs youre using nutritients. If you do want to ascertain what if any deficiencies you have, you must seek a qualified health professional (not your typical doctor) who can assess your nutrient status via blood, hair and other testing procedures.

For yours, and anyone else’s issues that are not life threatening or signs of more serious disease, you can always start some lifestyle changes yourself in addition to seeking professional care. If going solo, its best to start with the basics. A healthy diet, exercise and some form of mindfulness training are the foundation of your health and life.

Mindfulness training goes by many names; call it what you want, spirituality, religion, meditation, cognitive therapy, personal growth etc. Its a process by which the undisciplined, emotional, ego-centered voice in our head we commonly think of as ‘self’ starts to lose control to a more disciplined, balanced, rational, awakened self free of the dark energy and negative thoughts our common self lives on.

You diet must be more aligned with your evolutionary design. The recent advent of processed food, genetically modified foods, and even cooking have all ravaged the nutrient profile in modern human diets, leaving us vulnerable to a plethora of dysfunction. Combined with the modern environment full of increased toxins, increased information overload and chronic stressors from many sources and you have a recipe for disaster. So its probable that most of us will develop some type of disease and/or health concerns.

How did our ancestors eat? Usually whatever they could pick or kill from their local environment. They picked fruit, nuts, greens, and roots, and killed local game like rabbits, seals, deer, and bison. This ‘pick/kill’ diet varied all over the globe. As omnivores, humans are remarkably capable of adapting to all sorts of diets. People have thrived on high fat, low carb diets to low fat, high carbs. The macronutrients are not the key – its the fact that all these foods were raw and fresh. From whale blubber to Yucca these foods were eaten with their nutrient contents intact.

I’m not saying any cooked food is bad. Certain nutrients are made available from heating. But in general nutrients are sensitive to degradation from 4 sources: heat, light, oxygen and time. It’s not easy making the shift to more raw foods, unless you have your mind on your side. Thats another reason to make regular practice of awakening a daily ritual. If you do need to cook, use lower temperatures as this is less destructive than high temperatures.

In general – a diet rich in greens, moderate in everything else is best. Moderate grains, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, and meats. Reduce dairy, and whatever dairy you consume should be raw – not pasteurized or homogenized. Eat organic where possible, especially animal products where toxins accumulate in higher amounts. Grass fed beef, wild salmon, organic eggs are great sources of protein. I eat my eggs raw, and my beef and salmon pan seared on the outside and raw inside. Avoid wheat, eat brown rice, millet, spelt, or sprouted grain products instead.

When I first started eating raw eggs and beef, I gagged several times. It was simply a mind game I realized and quickly eliminated that silly fear. The key is to take small steps, make changes in comfortable ways that do not stress you out. For example, getting off milk – do it in stages. Go from whole milk to 2%, then 1% then mix almond milk with 1% milk at 50-50 ratio, then shift to pure almond milk. Its easy that way.

To offset modernity and its associated toxins – the use of broad spectrum nutritional products is warranted. Think of nutrition as music – the more varied the instruments are the better. Together the symphony sounds more complete. This variety of instruments is identical to nutrition – take in a variety and in general never go for one single instrument (nutrient), unless directed by as health professional. With that said let me contradict myself and give you the other side: there is good science to support the use of certain nutrients that most people are short on.

Magnesium for example is one. Most people get far too much calcium and too little magnesium. And multi-vitamins are short on it as well, so some extra magnesium is a good idea. And of course a high quality multi-vitamin.

One more thing – try to decrease caffeine, sugar and bad fats found in processed/fried foods. These items are toxic to varying degrees. Drink green tea instead of coffee.

Start with these basics and give it three to six months. See if your conditions improve. In the short term, you can take a natural PDE-5 inhibitor like the herbs cnidium and a nitric oxide agent like L-Arginine for the impotence. St. Johns Wort or L-Theanine could work for the depression, and the memory loss may be more complex than this article can go into.

How does one make these changes? Mindset – you need to have a warrior mind. Call it what you want, only a focused, clear and disciplined mind will rise above the odds. Work on your mind and the rest will follow.

Erectile Dysfunction, Depression are Testosterone Issues:
I encourage all my male clients over 30 to get their testosterone levels checked. There is a silent epidemic of male hypogonadism (low testosterone) in men now for a variety of reasons. If you test low, contact me and I will share my natural, safe testosterone program for men.

PS: the title of this article is a reference to the subtitle of “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollen