Nutrition and the 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics
by Gary Cahn Nutrition is embarrassingly simple; how true. It
is very simple. We here at LSL have one criterion to determine if a food is allowed in the
natural order of things; could B.T. Man have eaten it?
Man Before Technology, man before he learned to control fire. If
pre-technology man could have used his intelligence and ingenuity to exploit a food from
his environment then it is allowed and provided by God or nature or the force or the
creator or whatever, for his use.
This includes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains. This also
includes dairy products raw and/or cultured that he may have been ingenious enough to
exploit. This includes fermented fruits, which may explain our cravings for sweet
carbonated beverages and wine and beer which can be made without the use of heat.
This also includes fermented vegetables such as pickles and
sauerkraut. This also includes any raw meat that he may have found, or been skilled enough
to kill; surly a hungry primitive man would not pass a slab of meat on the ground and
refuse to eat it.
This includes the oceans of salt that nature has provided us with
along with the craving for the taste of it. In a pre-fire world our tastes and cravings
are our reliable guides to good nutrition. They will lead us to healthy, available sources
of good, usable nutrition, just as all the other animals in this world are lead to healthy
sources of nutrition by their tastes.
The fundamental mistake of post fire man, is the application of heat
to his food. This is a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The 2nd law says you
can not create order, you must get it from somewhere. If you want to achieve a task of any
kind you must have a sufficient supply of energy and order. The heat destroys most of the
order in the food making it unavailable to the consumer. It is lost and can not be
regained. It is unavailable to maintain a healthy body and it is unavailable to run our
social interactions and institutions. We are literally throwing away most of the order we
need to accomplish our goals.
The exact amount can be readily determined by methods described in
any elementary thermodynamics text book. It is done for all substances critical to various
engineering processes; it is not being done for food!
No wonder governments struggle to achieve their goals. No wonder the
richest nation in the world cannot figure out how to provide healthcare for all it's
citizens. No wonder we cannot figure out the best way to levy taxes. No wonder we cannot
agree on how to raise our children or run our schools. No wonder human interactions are so
strained and contentious.
We are running on a deficit of order. We do not have sufficient
order to run our society and it's institutions. We do not have sufficient order to
maintain healthy disease-free bodies and minds. |
