"The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison." – Ann Wigmore.
Ann Wigmore wrote the above in 1978, over 40 years ago. Michael Pollen presents a similar position in his book In Defense of Food, which he wrote in 2008. Gary Taubes expanded on this concept in his 2015 book Why We Get Fat. That's 40 years of habits and patterns we have known may be killing us. So the potential for food being one of the slowest forms of poison is nothing new.
This poison has two sides to its equation, when and what we eat. Today I want to look a little closer at the when we eat side of that equation. Research shows that many of today's preventable diseases, sleep issues, and social problems are partially the result of the timing of our eating, one of which is late-night eating. That equation between nutrition, sleep, and time is an ongoing field of research.
There is a newly emerging modifiable risk factor for chronic diseases called Chrono-Nutrition.
This risk factor includes the distribution of food intake, meal frequency and regularity. It also includes the duration of eating and fasting periods and the relative importance of these factors for metabolic health and chronic disease risk.
As is apparent in the name and the above description, the risk factor Chrono-Nutrition includes the timing of when we eat.
Chrono-nutrition image is property of Wiley Online Library
I discuss this timing in the Daily Dose newsletter and blog post entitled Intermittent fasting Versus The Magic Pill. I also recently discussed the life-threatening habit of late-night eating, one of those slowest forms of poison.
If our late-night eating habit exacerbates the Chroneo-nutrition risk factor, how do we break such a deeply rooted habit?
ONE DINNER AT A TIME!
Let's start making that change. Let's designate one dinner each week as your first Chrono-Nutrition Buster task. I will issue a monthly Bluerisa Longevity Calendar to help schedule this task and other suggestions for your long, healthy, happy life. Here is the Bluerisa calendar for October. A little sparse at the moment, but that will change.
I have scheduled this first Chrono-Nutrition Buster task to start every Sunday at 6 pm. Start early enough to finish no later than 6:30. Sunday works best for me. Feel free to pick a day that works best for you. And try not to eat anything the balance of the evening. And if you need a snack after 6:30, try making it as little a snack as possible. GOOD LUCK.
In November, we will add another night, and so on. But not to worry, as you build this schedule, you will always eat whatever you want at least one dinner per week. If you are already doing something similar, please let me know how it works.
And always be on time for this dinner. As Gerald Ford once said: Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time. Make it happen!
Do not change anything you are eating, only your schedule. But what you eat during this nutrition buster task, the other side of this equation can also be the worst form of poison. We will talk more about that part of the equation next time.
Your friend and fellow Bluerisa traveler,
Mark Block