[The following can be
read independently, I wager it is stronger brew if one also reads the blog
entry The Empirical Fighter: Rules for the Serious Combatant, particularly
the sections on “self-refutation.”]
Paleo?
Vegetarian?
If so, lacto-ovo?
Is the “Zone” still a
thing? Atkins? Food-scales? Calorie counting?
Meal-Timing? Six scheduled
meals per day for maximum nutrient absorption, perhaps?
Organic? Grass-fed? Local-Sourced?
Gluten-Free? All-Natural? Unbleached? Decreased Sodium? Zero Trans Fats? Protein
Shakes? Supplement Popper? Steroid User? Low-Testosterone Augmenter?
If you said yes to any
of these, likely, you are…
A] Concerned with
weight control,
Or,
B] Concerned with the
increasing impurities in our industrialized diet,
Or,
C] Concerned that
turning our backs on “how we used to eat” is anathema to health and
performance,
Or,
D] Concerned that environmental
toxins decrease the normal hormonal production of our bodies,
Or,
E] Any combination of
the above.
Whether an athlete or
the standard Jack or Jill on the street, many of us give a loooooooot of thought
as to what we put into our bodies. We are convinced that if we get the right
octane of food composition or proportion the weight will come off and/or the
performance will go through the roof.
If you are reading this,
I presume you want yet more advice on how to tweak your current intake to gain
these vaunted results.
Just what
did the old-timers consume to get legendary results pre-Steroids?
What did the hosses
who settled the rugged mountains, tamed cascading rivers, braved dense forests
eat to perform with such dogged vigor?
Well, the historical
record tells us—they ate what was available, when it was available and kept
right on chugging.
Not one Camelbak in
Lewis & Clark’s Corp of Discovery. Not one protein shake for the unflagging
Apache warrior. Not one gluten-free tortilla for a Tarahumara runner. Not one
tub of creatine on the Oregon Trail. No ready supply of steroids in a Union
Pacific “Hell on Wheels” town.
Here’s one noted
non-steroid user who seems to have had no issues with body-fat or muscle-growth
on the subject of diet. [Any photo of Mr. Sandow tells the tale.]
“I am
myself no believer in a special diet, still less in a rigid one, as necessary
while training. The old nonsense on this subject, about raw eggs and underdone
meat, seems to be passing away, and more rational views now prevail. I eat
whatever I have a taste for, without stinting myself unduly; nor do I restrict
myself seriously in what I drink. Commonly, I abjure anything intoxicating,
confining myself mostly to beer and light wines. Tea and coffee I never suffer
myself to touch. All I impose upon my appetites is that they shall be
temperately indulged.” – Eugen
Sandow, System of Physical Training
So, the man who spawns
the modern era of bodybuilding, who was in turn inspired by the Greek ideal
sees no special mojo in diet.
Well, he does think
over-indulgence an issue.
“What has
struck me, in the case of American living, is its generousness – a quality
which however good in its way, is not always wise in itself, or fairly dealt
with by those who are permitted to minister to it. In matters of the table, the
popular habit appears to be, to get the best that money can buy, and have lots
of it.” Eugen Sandow, System
of Physical Training
So, quantity is the
main issue here, as in, too much quantity consumed and not enough quantity in
expelled activity.
To be indulgent to the
restrictive side of dietary arguments, Mr. Sandow in the same work offers his preference
for “wholesome” foods.
“Aha, Mark!
Got you! See? Even Sandow says ‘wholesome’ foods!”
He does indeed say
that, but let’s place “wholesome” in context. Mr. Sandow was writing and exhibiting
himself in the late 1800s to early 1900s.
“Wholesome” then was
not our “wholesome” now.
Consider Upton
Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle which sought to expose the working conditions
of those who labored in the slaughter and meat-packing industries.
The novel hit the mark
a wee bit with workers, but most readers were appalled at the details of how
what they consumed was handled.
“All day long the
blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon
tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and
steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks, and
huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a
breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there were not merely rivers of hot
blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering vats and soap caldrons, glue
factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell—there were
also tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the
workers hung out to dry, and dining rooms littered with food and black with
flies, and toilet rooms that were open sewers.”
Passages such as these
spurred improvements in how food was processed and delivered. These changes
were not wrought overnight and even when implemented the improvements were nowhere
near the level of sanitized deliciousness we enjoy today.
Also, pay attention to
that timeline. Sinclair’s novel appears on the scene in 1906. Mr. Sandow built
that heroic physique sans drugs and pre-“wholesome” regulations.
Clearly,
magnificence can be built on what we would now consider far below par.
We could continue on
with the publication The Food Defect Action Levels: Levels of Natural or
Unavoidable Defects in Foods That Present No Health Hazards for Humans published
by the USDA.
We could delve into
the food industries “Filth Indexes” which details the allowable limit of
insect parts, rodent hair, and mammalian feces that are permitted in food
items.
Yuck? Sure, but…
If you’ve eaten food,
you have consumed all of the above—and guess what? You’re
still here.
The message is, the
purity and quality of food has been improving exponentially since Sandow’s day
and yet…
We still lament at “How
much the food and environment is affecting our bodies.”
I will now turn the
stage over to a lengthy, well, rant, from “Paul Wade” on the topic. This is
extracted from C-Mass.
[I warn the delicate,
the style is profane, but is well-used profanity to drive home the emotional
content of silly-reasoning.]
THE MODERN
TESTOSTERONE MYTH
“Before I
finish I want to take on one increasingly popular defense for steroids and TRT
[Testosterone Replacement Therapy.] This argument goes as follows: Modern men
live in a world full of environmental pollutants and toxins, and are forced to
eat food which has been stripped of its nutrition due to industrial agriculture
and food processing. For these reasons, it’s impossible for the average man of
today to possess normal levels of testosterone, like previous generations of
males did. Guess what I say to this? It’s flat out nonsense! In fact, it stinks
worse than a hobo’s cock cheese. If athletes choose to take steroids, that’s
their business. But this argument is totally full of shit—it’s a justification
many lazy athletes have jumped all over though, and as a result I’m sure you’ve
heard this horse-crap somewhere. Even athletes who consider themselves “old
school” or “Spartan” admit to using testosterone, because they have bought into
this shit! These weakwilled pricks wouldn’t know old school if it kicked them
in the ass. For what it’s worth, I got no doubt that as time goes by male testosterone
levels are dropping. No doubt at all. In fact, I think the current generation
is pretty much testosterone-starved. I just have to walk the streets and see
these lazy-ass, Xbox playing, metrosexual, Justin Beiber-looking motherf***ers
strutting all over to realize that. My problem is not with the suggestion that
men have lower test levels than their forefathers did, my problem is with the
theory as to why.
…Think
about this: Our ancestors worked hard manual labor jobs with their hands—they
got the equivalent of a tough workout every damn day. These days, more and more
guys let machines do the work, or they sit behind desks. That’s why their
bodies aren’t producing enough testosterone….
This is
exactly why men have less testosterone these days. It’s got jack shit to do
with this limp-green bullshit that the environment is all f***ed up and full of
toxins and pollutants. For those of you concerned with modern toxins, I say
this: don’t be such a f**ing pussy. Jesus, cowering in the corner, quivering
over every little chemical in the air and the food chain? No wonder your
testosterone is low, you’ll be braiding your f***ing hair with pink ribbons
next, you friggin’ cream-puff! Newsflash, Kermit. There have always been toxins
in the air; in the food we eat, the water we drink. Christ, when life first
flourished, the planet was a seething volcanic chaos of poison gases like
ammonia and methane. Times have been tough for life on earth since day one.
That’s what makes us evolve. Modern fitness writers jaw on and on about the
healthy “paleo” lifestyle as if it was some kind of toxin-free paradise, but if
you actually ask an archaeologist they’ll tell you that this is just bullshit.
Lungs of mummified bodies from the Paleolithic era are typically black. This is
because many of our ancestors lived in caves choked with smoke and soot from
constant fires, kept going for cooking, warmth, and to keep away pests and
predators. Our ancient ancestors were victims to all kinds of pollution. A
surprising number of early humans have been found who died from lead poisoning,
for example; if there was a seam of exposed lead in the pond you drank from,
that was it. You wuz pushing up flowers. And you’re telling me today’s
environment is too “polluted” for us to match these hairy dead bastards?!
Folks also
argue that our modern food is too contaminated with toxins to allow us to get
the nutrition we need to make the right hormones. It’s true that in the past,
our forerunners had more natural food (when they could get any food), and they
weren’t force-fed synthetic high-carb foods all day. But if you reckon foods
back in the day were somehow perfect, you are not in possession of the facts,
my man! Much of the food consumed by bodybuilders and strongmen of the Golden
Age, a hundred years and more ago, would not pass FDA approval today—in fact,
it would be illegal. In Victorian England bakers added alum—aluminum poison—to
bread, as a preservative. To hide the stench when milk went rancid, dairy
farmers often poured generous amounts of boracic acid into their product.
Highly toxic carbolic acid was added to almost all soap. Food was stored in
lead cans, gas lighting gave off choking sulphuric vapors, and practically
every building had lethal asbestos in it. Yet the men who ate this food and
lived in this environment thrived and achieved things which the modern
generation wouldn’t even attempt without help from a pill or syringe.
It makes me laugh when modern writers go on
and on about how industrial-level food production has left us with a
devastating lack of nutrition in modern food. As if our ancestors somehow all
had these fantasy diets. My ass! These writers don’t seem to realize that
before the last century—yeah, before the Industrial Revolution made food
cheaper and more plentiful—one of the most common causes of death in our
species was malnutrition! Huge swathes of the population struggled to get
enough quality food in their diets to make their brains, hearts and lungs work
another day, let alone grow eighteen-inch arms. It’s still the same in much of
the world right now. We are one of the first generations of our entire
species—of any species, ever—to have such ready access to virtually limitless
amounts of varied, nutrient-dense food. (That’s why everyone is so friggin
fat...our caveman DNA still can’t quite believe we’ve done it.) True
malnutrition in the First World is so rare today as to be virtually unheard of.
So stop wringing your hands worrying if you are getting enough nutrients. Eat a
steak, have a Coke and a smile, and shut the f*** up!
Bravo!
In short, eat well,
live well, work hard, work smart and leave the superstition out of the kitchen.
Kitchens, like bedrooms, are made for pleasure and leisure not worry and
hand-wringing.
In
The Black Box Project we provide old-school combat nitty-gritty straight
from the historical record, and yes, it is empirically verified or it ain’t in.
For skinny on The Black Box Project itself.
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