culture [kuhl-cher] (n): Anthropology . the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.
As it relates to food, I believe the above definition of culture will best apply to the practical understanding of a person’s food culture. Since anthropology is defined as “the science that examines the origins of biological characteristics, social customs and beliefs of a group of mammals”, the anthropological definition of culture seemed to be the most appropriate to defining one’s food culture.
As we combine both concepts this should allow us to see that one’s food culture could be defined as follows:
the sum total ways of eating built by families based on their social customs and beliefs transmitted from one generation to another.
This is the fundamental definition of our individual food cultures that have been ingrained into our beliefs systems which directly effect how we select and prepare food. Up until a few years ago I had very strong beliefs toward my food culture and any suggestions aimed at changing my habits and behaviors would be met with an aggressively defensive stance.
The main problem was that I was allowing for what I put into my mouth to define me as a person. Food had become an integral part of my identity, it affected how I would relate to people with food cultures different than my own and it kept me in a form of mental slavery. There were many times where I had the opportunities to try new foods and expand my food experience but I’d defensively decline.
Pondering on Changing His Food Culture
The Historical Origin of a Food Culture
To give a little background, my family originated from a small rural area in Alabama known as Marion. The town is so small that literally everyone within the rural region knew each other on a first name basis. My great grandfather was a farmer that owned acres of land and was in the business of growing and selling food. He was a blue collar worker with a blue collar family that developed a food culture based on a blue collar lifestyle.
Grazing cows eating grass like they were meant to.
Our family’s food culture primarily consisted of whatever was on the farm including freshly harvested or preserved produce, and meats that came from the poultry and livestock from the family farm. Starches (ie. breads and potatoes) made up a heavy portion of the culture because when you’re working 16 hour days on a farm, monitoring your carbohydrate and caloric intake wasn’t really a priority to a farmer in the 1930’s-1960’s.
On hot summer days a farmer could consume sweet (iced) tea and lemonade to replenish fluids and give you the much needed sugars your brain and muscles needed to maintain the highly active lifestyle. And if there was a bad lemon harvest Kool-Aid became a plausible substitute.
Foods prepared in animal fat, full-fat dairy products, boiled greens seasoned with various meats, grilled meats and any type of bread or potato dish, including dessert was made from scratch and consumed daily.
Samples of My Family's Food Culture
Over the years as our family’s blue-collar based food culture was passed down through the generations, they began their northern migration to Ohio where their daily work tasks moved from the farm fields to the factories and then eventually into desk jobs. The family work culture went from a blue-collar culture to a white-collar culture where their physical activity levels dropped by 75%. Because we still maintained a blue-collar food culture this yielded increases in health problems and fat around their waistlines.
Accepting the Need for Change
As I look back at my family’s food culture it recently became evident that not only did the decrease in activity affect their health and body composition but their food choices as well. Food selection shifted from farm fresh options to commercially processed varieties. And the big high carb low/no-fat marketing craze started to breed health problems including high blood pressure, high cholesterol cholesterol, Type-2 diabetes and sporadic cases of cancer.
In hindsight I clearly began to understand that in order to feel better, look better, move and perform better it is imperative that my family begin to redefine our family’s food culture. We needed to get back to consuming more fresh produce, grass fed farm fresh animal products while decreasing the starch and commercially processed sugars that was adversely affecting our family’s health, body composition and daily life performance. This also included my food beliefs and behaviors as well.
Physiology’s Affect on Body Type and Metabolism
My family’s inherent body type is what Dr. William Herbert Shannon would describe as an endomorphic somatotype (body type). We have very thick bone structures and hold most of our fat around our midsections.
What's Your Body Type?
But most of us, including me, also carry large amounts of lean muscle making us a hybrid mix of both an endomorph and mesomorph (muscular and athletic) body types. To get a better understanding of nutrition as it relates to somatotypes (body types) check out this great article on the Precision Nutrition site.
Understanding my inherent body type inspired me to do more research as it relates to hormones and body composition. What I’ve found is that fat/weight loss is primarily dependent on the management of a hormone called insulin. Insulin is responsible for regulating blood glucose (sugar) levels within a certain range to combat the toxic effects of high blood glucose (levels) by storing glucose in the muscles and liver in the form of glycogen or within adipose (fat) tissue in the form of triglycerides.
Due to my insulin dominant body type, in order for me to achieve my health and body composition goals I knew I would have to manage my daily insulin response levels by modifying daily food choices, especially my carbohydrate intake. According to Dr. Bryan Walsh in his Fat is Not Your Fault manual, he explains that keeping your blood sugar between a range of 80-120 (mmol/l) is considered to optimal for health and fat burning.
The two primary ways to manage insulin response, via blood sugar management, is through food choices and exercise/daily activity. This started to make more sense to me because I saw a direct correlation within my family’s changes in both food choices and activity. When they were the most active during their farming, managing their insulin responses was easier, even with the higher starch and sugar intake because they were extremely active. When their activity decreased and food habits didn’t change, they started to gain some fat. Since they were not as active their insulin responses rose because their high levels of activity were no longer contributing to the management of their blood sugar levels. So instead of being used for muscle and brain fuel, the sugar was stored as body fat since their glycogen (stored sugar) levels were full.
But then when their food choices went from farm fresh to commercially processed that’s when they started to have health issues. They started consuming more processed white flour (sugar) products (i.e. breads and pastas) and replaced saturated fats with more commercially processed polyunsaturated fats (i.e. corn and soybean oils). Since these “oils” are pro-inflammatory in nature this caused a hormonal increase in their cortisol levels which raised their blood sugar levels even more which continued to raise insulin. If you couple this vicious inflammatory response with their already high sugar diets this is what led to their health problems of high blood pressure, high cholesterol cholesterol, Type-2 diabetes and cancer.
The Experiment
So I decided to pursue a dietary experiment to see if I could make significant yet fast changes in health biomarkers and body composition. These are the following steps I took:
- Monitor blood glucose to control insulin: I started to use a glucometer in an attempt to keep my blood glucose levels between 80-120 (mmol/l).
- Maintain my normal training schedule: Maintaining my normal training was critical because I wanted to exclusively examine how my food choices would impact blood sugar levels. I don’t do any slow state cardio sessions and I train for only roughly 2 hours per week ( four 30-minute sessions or three 40-minute sessions).
- Decrease starch intake and avoid white flour/sugars and alcoholic beverages: Assuming I do have some carbohydrate intolerance as it relates to my insulin response to starches I made it a point to keep my starch intake to only 50 grams a day while making fruits and vegetables my primary source of carbohydrates.
- Increase saturated fat intake and avoid genetically modified polyunsaturated fats: I made sure that plant based saturated fats such as extra virgin coconut oil, cashews, avocados, pecans, walnuts, made up the bulk of my fat intake along with consuming animal fat from grass-fed bison, beef and naturally raised bacon (pork). Commonly most of us rely on starches to be our “satiating filler” (trigger of fullness) thanks to that good old food pyramid. So allowing for more fat, along with protein to be my new “satiating filler” could play a key role in managing my insulin and blood sugar.
Nature's Healing Thermogenic & Fat Burner
During a 12 day trial I noticed that these changes kept my blood sugar range between 85-107 (mmol/l). I would take my blood sugar measurements before each meal and then take two more measurements after each meal, 60 minutes and 120 minutes respectively.
I then chose to consume a white flour product (wrap or burrito) as a “control” meal just to see what would happen. After this meal my blood sugar spiked to 156 sixty minutes post meal and dropped to 131 at the 120 minute post meal portion. I felt very sleepy and drained of energy, which was confirmation for me that I do have a low tolerance to processed carbohydrates (starches), even when consumed in the presence of proteins and some dietary fat.
- Pre Treat Meal
- 60 Min. Post Treat Meal
- 120 Min. Post Treat Meal
Three days later I completed a workout and consumed the same “control” meal thirty minutes post workout and my blood sugar only rose to 115 sixty minutes post meal and was at a steady 94 one hundred twenty minutes post meal. This showed me that my “treat” meals are best consumed post training and if I choose to eat them any other time then I have to be sure to increase my fat intake with that meal in order to control the insulin response due to my elevated blood sugar.
Fruit is Your Friend
Due to the high concentration of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, living enzymes and fiber I consumed various berries (ie. bluberries, strawberrries, raspberries and blackberries), bananas, cherries, red grapes and apples during my trial as well. There’s lots of talk about avoiding fruit when looking to lose fat but I believe that this may not apply to all individuals.
The Results
After the 12 days of finger pricks to check my glucose I decided to stop the experiment. I was averaging 10 finger pricks a day, even during training sessions, in order to study my glucose levels and honestly the finger pricks just became annoying.So here’s the starting and finishing data after 12 days of implementation:
Biometric Starting Finishing Total Change
Bodyweight: 203.9 200.0 -3.9lbs
Bodyfat %: 15.4 13.7 -1.7% points
Lean Body Mass: 172.4 173.0 +0.6lbs
Fat Mass: 31.5 27.0 -4.5lbs
Blood Pressure: 133/81 118/75 -15/6
Resting Heart rate: 64 57 -7 beats per minute
Waist circumfrence: 35 34 -1in.
Abdominal Skinfold: 25 20 -5mm
To say I was blown away by the results is an understatement. With my past food behavior it would take me roughly 40 days or more to lose 4.5lbs of body fat. This experiment made me truly believe in the concept of different physiological responses to food based on one’s unique hormonal profile and carbohydrate sensitives. Modifying my food culture by controlling my insulin made a big difference based on my personal physiology.
These findings have really helped a lot of athletes and clients as well. When I advised that they eat more fat, there was initial resistance due to the mass media promotions of low-fat/no-fat eating approaches, but they moved forward because of their trust in me. And telling most of them to decrease starches and alcohol was like me taking away some of their first born children due to their ingrained food cultures.
The body composition plateaus most were suffering were due to carbohydrate sensitives and the inability to manage insulin responses and blood glucose levels. After successful implementation they felt better, had more energy and the pounds of fat just starting falling off.
So if your goal is to improve your health and/or body composition we must focus on managing our insulin responses to food. Training and activity is important but redefining your food culture is the foundational impact that cannot be underestimated.
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Loved this article! Pulling bad starch tomorrow
Glad you enjoyed Jane. Let me know if you have any questions.
I didn't know you were at this level, keep it up your on to something big.
Thanks Phil!