Firstly, and most importantly, remember it’s your body, your life,
your choice.
As with everything else in life to make a good choice you
firstly need a sufficient level of knowledge and understanding to make an
educated choice. Knowledge most certainly is power so go get some! Read books,
blogs, papers, listen to podcasts, audio books, etc. You will find that the
more you learn the more there is to learn, and once started, your journey will
never end and will take many paths and changes of direction.
Now the more knowledge you gain the more conflicting
concepts and ideas you will be exposed to. You will find yourself having to
assess and critique to sort the wheat from the chaff and decide what is worth
investing your precious time and money into. This is not always easy but it is definitely
important.
I’ve put my engineering hat on and tried to systemise the
methodology I use when assessing a new food, exercise, lifestyle choice, etc.
To keep things simple I have used the word Thingamabob to describe any new
food, exercise, lifestyle choice, etc that you are evaluating.
It’s a 5-stage process and described briefly in the
following high quality flowchart. Lengthier descriptions of each follow. In reality this systemisation
is an oversimplification and you’ll need to adapt it to suit a particular
problem. Hopefully it is a useful framework though to encourage you to make
informed decisions about what you do with and put in your body.
1. Check the Science
Check the current
science/medical advice. Here you need to do your research and look for any
positive or negative results. If there is convincing evidence pointing to
negative effects then this Thingamabob should be carefully considered and the
Thingamabob may need to be thrown in the bin. If the current science suggests
there are benefits outweighing any potential negatives then go to the next
stage. If the current science is inconclusive or non-existent then I would also
suggest proceeding to the next stage, don’t worry there are other filters
coming up to help remove the rubbish!
2. Evolutionary Lens
This is my favourite filter and I would argue the most
effective, this will definitely stop any rubbish sneaking through. What I do
here is look at the idea from an evolutionary perspective. Assuming that our
genes have evolved based on lifestyle and dietary models that have been
practised for 200,000 years and in order to be all we can be and get the most
out of our genetic code we should honour this heritage, does this new idea fit
this model. Have ‘we’ as a species always done this, eaten this, etc in some
form, and is this Thingamabob likely to result in a positive expression of my
genetic code based on the above. If the answer is no then bin it, if not,
proceed.
3. Cost/Benefit
balance
This will depend on personal preferences and circumstances
as everyone will be in a different position, with different priorities. This is
where you weigh up the potential benefits based on everything you currently
know against the expected costs (could be time or money) and decide whether
it’s worth the initial investment, if the answers no then out it goes, if it’s
a yes then please continue.
4. Test it
If your Thingamabob has passed through all of the filters
then it’s probably worth trying. With anything new I recommend you give it an
initial trial and be as scientific as possible in order to help decide whether
this new Thingamabob has rocked your world or not. Try to start from a
baseline, decide on some metrics you can record and then give the Thingamabob a
go for a period of time. The required period of time will vary and you may be
able to get some guidance from your earlier background research. As a general
rule of thumb 30 days is a good time period to start to see some differences
form diet/lifestyle choices. So you give it a go and see what it does. If you
experience any negative side effects then you may need to call it a day and
send the Thingamabob to the bin and this is a result in itself. If you complete
your initial test then it’s time to try and assess your results and decide
whether to incorporate this Thingamabob into your life. You can revisit the
cost benefit balance now that you have first hand experience and a new piece of
n=1 scientific research to consider.
5. Adopt it
If the Thingamabob has passed through your filters and your
initial test then it’s probably worth adopting it into your lifestyle. I say
probably because everything is a choice and sometimes you may just feel that
even with everything you now know and the actual benefits experienced you just
can’t be bothered, and that’s ok, so long as you’ve made that conscious choice.
You’ll want to decide how you are going to adopt this Thingamabob, is this
going to form part of your daily routine, is it once a week/year/month
Thingamabob, or just something for a rainy day. Again you can make this
decision based on everything you now know, and you can change your decision
whenever/wherever.
That’s it! I’ve tried to keep the described system as
generic as possible so you can apply it to whatever Thingamabob you may wish to
consider, but in order to demonstrate the system in action and maybe describe
my ramblings a bit more specifically I’ll run through an example below, I’ll
use the example of a nice cup of bone broth.
Example
So you were at your friend Dave’s house recently and he
offered you a cup of his latest favourite drink, bone broth. After you’d
recovered from the initial shock of being offered boiled up animal remains you
politely declined and the conversation moved on. Later during a period of
reflection you started to wonder whether ‘crazy’ Dave had found a magic bullet
(or was in-fact crazy).
Stage 1 Check the
Science – You get online and do some searching. You soon discover that bones
contain an abundance of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium,
phosphorus, zinc, and amino acids such as collagen, gelatine, glycosaminoglycans,
glycine, proline, glutamine. You also find research that suggests there may be
benefits such as improved skin elasticity, bone and joint health, gut health
and brain health. Sounds good, in fact the more you research the more you
discover but you’ve got enough to satisfy your curiosity for now, what’s more
you haven’t uncovered any negative effects other than the same risks associated
with poorly raised meat and you’ve already cleaned up your supply.
Stage 2 – So
there seems to be a bit of science suggesting potential benefits, and certainly
no published negative effects to be concerned about so time to apply the
evolutionary lens. Does this fit in with our traditional lifestyle/dietary
model as per the last 200,000 years or so. Upon consideration it seems
perfectly believable that ancient man would have wanted to extract all
nutrients from the animal we know he would have been eating, and boiling the
bones is a simple effective method of doing this so yeah this sounds like a
fit. A bit of additional research quickly highlights the fact that it is widely
accepted that bone broth has been an integral part of many if not all
traditional societies and cultures so yes you’ve looked at this idea through an
evolutionary lens and it holds up, on with the process..
Stage 3 – Time
for a quick cost/benefit analysis. So you have an idea from stage 1 that there
are a number of potential benefits and the nutrients in the broth should
provide your body with some of the building blocks it requires. You price up
the cost of some bones form the local butcher and the means to boil them in
water for a day or two and it looks like the cost is pretty low. So low cost
with benefits that appeal, sounds good so lets continue.
Stage 4 – You’ve
given this some careful consideration and decided there’s no good reason not to
give this a shot so it’s time to put your body on the line. You call in at your
local butchers and ask for a few offcut bones, you’re in luck, he’s just
butchered a cow so gives you a bag for free. Back home with your kill and you
check online for a good recipe. Before you know the kitchen is filled with the
smell of boiling bones (I’m not going to lie this isn’t for everyone!). Two
days later your broth is ready for tasting. You pour yourself a small amount
and SLURP it all down. You may at this point decide that this is the most
disgusting thing you have ever tasted and there is NO WAY you will ever be letting
that cross your lips again! I that’s the case then that’s your result, you’ve
tried but its not something you can adopt. Lets assume for the purposes of this
example that you find it surprisingly tasty and fulfilling (which I assure you
that you may) so you decide to incorporate it for a month. During the next month
you have a mug of boney goodness each day and make a note of how you feel
before, after, any changes to your body and bodily functions you may notice
during the month, etc.
Stage 5 – A month has passed and now it’s time to decide
whether to incorporate bone broth permanently into your life and if so how best
to do it. You reflect on your trial period, in summary you conclude that you
now really like the taste of bone broth but you haven’t noticed any significant
benefits or effects positive or negative.
Your research suggested though that any benefits would be long term and
as such likely hard to measure directly. You weigh up everything you now know
and decide that the potential long-term benefits are worth having, you have
suffered no ill effects, and the costs (other than a bit of time in the
kitchen) are minimal. So its decided, it’s going to be a new part of your
lifestyle, furthermore as you like the taste so much it’s going to be a
permanent feature in your fridge as you can imagine not having your mid-afternoon
liquid bone snack!
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