Religion is in our DNA podcast

 

It’s strange: as paleo people, we believe that our diet evolved along with us, making us what we are.  For instance, there has never, ever, been a vegetarian or vegan tribe or culture. Humans have always eaten animal products, some more than others, but ALL rely on the amazing nutrition in animal derived foods.  Eating animals and products taken from animals made us what we are- you can’t take animals out of our evolution and arrive at modern humans.

This is widely accepted amongst those who believe in an ancestral diet and lifestyle.  But, though most of us see ourselves as grounded in science in our beliefs, many of us at the same time deny the truth, or meaning of religion in our lives!  We denigrate the idea of a god, or of any universal laws outside of man’s own laws.  Many believe that science has displaced the idea of God, gods, or even religion itself.

But just because there has never been a culture that didn’t eat animals- there has never been a culture without religion.  Never.  Even the Neanderthals had burials of their dead, with flowers heaped on the departed.  There is something deep within us that requires us to believe in a spiritual world, a place beyond the mortal sphere in which we reside today.  And so it has always been!

To live without a notion of a spiritual realm, a place of higher goodness and ultimate laws and reason, is akin to eating processed foods developed in the past 50 years or so, and thinking that we now know better than nature itself, and can replace wild game, vegetables, fruits and nuts with chemically made ‘Beyond Burgers’ and do just as well, health wise.  

This is completely delusional!  To live on fast food, processed grains and vegetable seed oils is disastrous for our physical health and well-being, and is a fast track to auto-immune diseases and even mental health.  We all know this as followers of various renditions of the Paleo Diet, and we all experience first hand the amazing benefits of red meat, seafood, pastured dairy and fermented vegetables.  The Paleo Diet is nothing short of life changing!

But what about religion?  Aren’t we beyond that now, since after all we know there are no supernatural beings on Mt. Olympus, and doesn’t Heaven seem, well, unscientific?  

Well, only if you also believe that eating natural animal products and seafood is ‘unscientific’, and that a low fat, soy based diet of lab grown food-like substances slathered in chemically extracted seed oils is the epitome of true science and all-knowing enlightenment…  

We evolved eating and living a certain way- in Nature, in a circadian cycle with the sun of light and darkness, sleep and waking.  Ancestral types of foodstuffs,  cooked by fire and thus made bio-available with maximum nutrients.  In tribes of similar humans, working together for survival, and with good health as pretty much a birthright.  

The tribe had a center though, it always did, and that center was religion.  It is as much a part of us as our need for protein and fat- we need a higher plane to relate to, something above and beyond our daily lives.  

This was true all over the world- whether one god or many, whether Socrates’ daemon (literally a ‘divine something’) that warned him of right and wrong, or the many Hindu gods or those of the Egyptians or Babylonians.   It’s true, there are always some who do not believe in a particular god or gods, but there is always something that is worshipped.  Always.  

Just because, right now, certain groups (Communists spring to mind) that vehemently deny and denigrate any sort of religion- this only confirms that they are very wrong.

Mankind can, at certain times and places, put himself as ‘above and beyond needing to believe in a higher power than himself’.  He can even believe it, just as he believes that heaven can exist here upon earth, and if we just elect the right people, Utopia can be here forever!  

You can believe it, you can convince yourself that Science is God, and mankind is ALL, we just need to be modern and believe in ourselves…

But you’ll be wrong.  The need for religion, a higher power, is there.  It is in our very DNA.

Track Your Activity, Nutrition, and Sleep all at ONCE- With Dan's Plan!

Since a picture says a thousand words, I thought I'd just start off with Dan's (of Dan's plan) info-graphic!    Here is Dan: he kind of looks like my own little brother, also named Dan!  

But, he has come up with a great way for you to track your health variables, i.e. how much you Eat, Move, and Sleep!

Believe it or not, those three little variables have more to do with your health than anything else- 

more important than all the drugs you have been prescribed??

Yes indeedy- WAY MORE!  

Chris Kresser is fast friends with this guy- they see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and as you know if you have read much here before, I also see eye-to-eye with Chris... and, since Dan looks a lot like my little brother, and I like his info- I like him too!

So, do yourself a favor- sign up for Dan's plan.   It's free!  You will learn a lot about your current state of health, and more importantly how to dramatically improve it.

And, if you suffer from autoimmune disease, or any other serious problem that a basic "Paleo Prescription" can't cure, go directly to Chris Kresser- 

 If he can't fix it, nobody can!

Before you embark on your "makeover", just be reminded what Thomas A. Edison said at the turn of the last century, about 1902:

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease"

And let's not forget the founder of Western medicine, Hippocrates:

"If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health. "

That sounds exactly like Dan's Plan!!

Here is Dan's info-graphic for your intense study and perusal:

J

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Healthy eating, Paleo style, on the road!

Here are the hands of your own PaleoJay, cradling the sumptuous supper of lamb, sweet potatoes, zucchini and sausage at the Trempealeau Hotel in the small Mississippi river town of Trempealeau, Wisconsin!  The menu was replete with shrimp, steaks, salads etc., all ready for a traveling Paleo person to have a tasty meal packed with nutrition!

It seems that there are still many places to go where good, ancestral types of food are readily available.  Just as in buying our food, the very best quality food is available from small, independent restaurants; places where great pride is still taken in excellence of ingredients, and in careful preparation- quite the opposite of the big "Chains" that are all about cutting corners, using the cheapest ingredients to maximize profits, and spending most of their extra money on advertising to seduce you into patronizing them.  

The Trempealeau Hotel is one of these small eating places of excellence.  If you are passing by La Crosse on I90, it is well worth your while to get off at hwy 157 in Onalaska and head north to the Trempealeau sign, and then west to the Hotel!  You will even pass within a mile of the fabled home of yours truly...  be sure to wave!

My point, besides being a brief travelogue, is that of bypassing what has become the degraded nature of  the Mass American diet and culture of today, and seeking out those places that are more like what our culture embraced 50 and more years ago.  Small independent restaurants, small and independent farmers- this is where we need to be spending our dollars!  Not on fast/crappy food, or big/crappy chains, but to those who have traditional or ancestral values of quality.

I believe one of the most important figures today in a sustainable farming model of excellence is Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.  A working farmer, Joel is also an excellent speaker, and a convincing role model for traditional agriculture.  Joel's most recent book, Confessions of a Lunatic Farmer, is must reading for any modern person seeking health and sanity in our crazy modern world!

He shows a real, viable alternative to the failing Big Agribusiness model prevalent today...

Bottom line:  Caring about your health, and the health of the land beneath your feet, and the animals and plants under your care, is the essence of Good Stewardship, and is really what we were created to accomplish.  To quote John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement:


“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” 

I think Polyface farms is following that tradition.

J

J, Phil and Holly at our last nursing home "gig"