Germ Culture, and meats or veggie-tables
Hah, I just realised that title is a sort of pun. In that case, no pun intended?
I was pointed to this article in the Georgia Straight.
“[Tom Glass,] [t]he professor of forensic sciences, pathology, and dental medicine at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences has plenty to say about how toothbrushes are a breeding ground for viruses, bacteria, mould, and yeast, and consequently can easily transmit disease. The adjunct professor of microbiology advises healthy people to replace their toothbrush every two weeks and those with compromised immune systems to do so even more often. And no, he’s not funded by manufacturers of the hygienic devices.”
While his findings make some sense to me, I find it’s a strong indication of our society’s obsession with germs. If it were really problematic, don’t you think we would be getting sick all the time? I think we have much bigger issues than using toothbrushes: fluoride and sugars in toothpaste (and who knows what else; they aren’t labelled); disposable toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss packaging; general household cleaners; and chemicals in soaps, shampoos and make-up. If anything’s going to make us sick, it’s that. And what about all the waste from disposing of SIX toothbrushes in 3 months instead of one? They’re made of plastic, after all, and not the biodegradable kind.
The interesting thing is the concept of brushing teeth to begin with. In “Politically Incorrect: The Neglected Nutritional Research of Dr. Weston Price, DDS”, Dr. Stephen Bynres gives an overview of Dr. Price’s findings from earlier in the 20th century.
“Dr. Price and his wife went just about everywhere in their journeys. They traveled to isolated villages in the Swiss alps, to cold and blustery islands off the coast of Scotland, to the Andes mountains in Peru, to several locations in Africa, to the Polynesian islands, to Australia and New Zealand, to the forests of northern Canada, and even to the Arctic Circle. In all, Price visited with fourteen groups of native peoples.
“… Price did what came naturally: he counted cavities and physically examined them. Imagine his surprise to find, on average, less than 1% of tooth decay in all the peoples he visited!
“He also found that these people’s teeth were perfectly straight and white, with high dental arches and well-formed facial features. And there was something more astonishing: none of the peoples Price examined practiced any sort of dental hygiene; not one of his subjects had ever used a toothbrush!
“For example, when Price visited his first people, isolated Swiss mountain villagers, he noticed right away that the children’s teeth were covered with a thin film of green slime, yet they had no tooth decay. What a difference this was from the children in Ohio!
“Dr. Price also noticed that, in addition to their healthy teeth and gums, all the people he discovered were hardy and strong, despite the sometimes difficult living conditions they had to endure. Eskimo women, for example, gave birth to one healthy baby after another with little difficulty.”
That brings me to a whole separate topic. The article goes on to describe their eating habits, as they relate to their dental, skeletal and overall health conditions (which are excellent). Their diets consisted mostly of meat — high fat meat, with lots of vitamins and protein. In fact, “the diets of these healthy peoples contained 10 times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins, and at least 4 times the amount of calcium, other minerals, and water soluble vitamins than Western diets at that time.” According to the research, the least healthy peoples were the ones eating the least amount of meat. No society was vegetarian.
“The Swiss mountain villagers subsisted primarily on unpasteurized and cultured dairy products, especially butter and cheese” and rye bread. Unpasteurized. I’d probably get shut down if I mentioned what unpasteurized milk will do for teeth. (Not that humans are supposed to be drinking milk after childhood, apparently, but oh well.) Unpasteurized milk is illegal in the States and probably Canada as well. Hmm, I wonder why?
So as much as I admire Michael Pollan, this research kind of contradicts the article I’ve been reading by him, called Unhappy Meals, which opens with, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I can understand this in our modern society where cows are bulked up on corn, not grass, and fed antibiotics and hormones unnecessarily. Where chickens are caged in so tight they can’t spread their wings, they can’t roost, and can’t dust-bathe, let alone run around. But I still wonder, why reading the article, back to humanity’s roots as hunter-gatherers with sharp teeth for ripping meat. The teeth don’t prove how much of it we ate, just that we ate it.
Anyway. Pollan says, “… A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main.” Given that people will eat a steak fit for a large animal, that’s pretty darn good advice. “Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.” I can back that up with Denmark’s rations on red meat, white bread and alcohol, when they ate rye instead. So that brings me to the question, is it the TYPE of meat we’re eating? Certainly we’re not really eating cariboo, but we still eat seafood, right? (Canned seafood? Fish-farmed salmon?) Err… well, Pollan definitely has one hugely good piece of advice I won’t even attempt to counteract with history: processed foods. Just… don’t… do it. “Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.”
*EDIT MARCH 28*: A classmate said during Environmental Ethics yesterday that the Inuit have evolved different blood that tolerates high amounts of fatty meat, where it would otherwise kill people. I assume this is the same with other similar populations. It’s also a different meat — not beef or chicken or pork. So I wonder, being Finnish/German (both sausage-loving countries … mmm, sausage) whether my blood type or origin says I tolerate fattier meat? I don’t know, but I sure don’t tolerate Safeway’s boneless skinless chicken thighs.*
“I have no time to cook every day,” you say. Alright — here’s where some good advice I heard kicks in. Cook more. Spread it out. And, eat a little bit less so you’ll have more for the next day. (Ahem, not something I did last night, but I made up for that with, ahem, frozen mixed veggies.) Cook a gigantic pot of chili, freeze a bunch and that way when you come home from work/school/volunteering/sports/a night out, you’ll have something to eat that only takes a few minutes and zero effort to prepare.
Next Wednesday, I may find out I have food sensitivities. I already suspect cashews and soy protein. (Sister says they lace chicken thighs with soy protein to prevent them from sticking together and to increase the protein count. Only Safeway’s main seller makes me sick, and it doesn’t say what’s in it!) If I’m allergic to wheat, dairy, corn, oats, and peanuts, I will simply DIE. If I keep eating them, I’ll be fine… for now… maybe.
It’s kind of tragic since I switched to 100% whole wheat bread, 95% of the time, although I realised I don’t really like it. It hasn’t got much flavour and it’s not dense or chewy enough. I feel better eating rye bread. I just discovered the multigrain bread from Superstore’s bakery, which has grains like kamut, spelt, quinoa, and rye, has a massive amount of protein, especially compared to the dismal amount in wheat bread. So if I have to abandon wheat bread, that’s not so bad. I kinda like spelt bread. But… if I stop eating wheat, I have to STOP EATING wheat. That is, no wheat cereal, no wheat pizza, no things that contain little bits of wheat. A different meatloaf recipe and no more wheat-based delicacies like shortbread and cookies and pulla. Noooooo!!!
On a side note, isn’t it tragically funny how white bread is dirt cheap and whole wheat bread isn’t? Shouldn’t we be rewarding good eating better than that? Wonderbread has some new “enriched” bread with “the goodness of whole wheat,” but it’s still white bread.
I think I’ve exhausted myself for now. If you have any comments, like rebuttals to my first topic, please share!
*UPDATE MARCH 28*: My appointment’s testing results weren’t conclusive just yet, but I’m pretty damn sure I’m allergic to cashews (I ate them a lot in first year), and possibly not wheat. (YAY!) I’m going back in two weeks and then I should know for sure, and I’ll find out my blood type as well.
I think I’ll die if I’m sensitive to dairy. I don’t like goat milk or goat cheese, except the cream cheese. I don’t like plain, unflavoured soy milk, but I refuse to drink flavoured, sweetened soy milk, so soy milk is out of the question. What does that leave me with? And would I still be able to eat yogurt? Hypothetically-speaking, of course, since I don’t know my results yet. Wish me luck.