What's the deal with sulfur?

What’s the deal with sulfur (again)?

To review, sulfur is a most critical nutrient and some medical/health geology. It is as cholesterol sulfate that the steroid works its magic. Sulfur is, in fact, widely discussed in medical geology. Others discuss it in biodynamics, as the silky element, wise and enduring. Environmentalists call it one of our most serious pollutants (due to the volume). Chemists need it for virtually every reaction involving a change in pH. Ecologists invoke it in biogeochemical cycling – they find it in sedimentary cycles, locked in rock and utterly dependent on life-mediated processes for its release. For farmers, it is a prized ingredient in manure. But for Stephanie Seneff, it is the greatest antibody-clotting- glomming (my words) agent there is. It is a freeloader par excellence, and it is sorely needed in the blood so as to provide the negative charges needed to keep nutrients and medium (aka blood) moving freely. Its carboxyl (COOH-) groups that are more than willing to oblige. Seneff believes that the lack of sulfur in our diet is the main reason why we get sick and die, creaky and forgetful when we get older. Could its deficit be the cause of both cardiovascular and joint dysfunction? Alzheimer’s and other Central Nervous System compromise? Certainly, the sugar  (as a real-food0substitute) we consume on a daily basis doesn’t get us anywhere near our daily sulfur requirement.

Seneff and the saturated fat argument

Stephanie Seneff argues tirelessly that substantive changes in lifestyle over the past 40 years, in particular, reduced sun exposure and avoiding dietary fat, have led to an almost unshakable belief that avoiding fat and sun are healthy. And even with a lot of sun exposure, if saturated fats and Vitamin D (which we get form saturated fats) is lacking, vital cholesterol will not be synthesized.    SS3.7,SS3.8. Part of that lifestyle is eating high amounts of high-glycemic index carbs, i.e., highly processed foods that digest quickly, and cause blood sugar to spike. This leads to insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes (part of what’s often referred to as “the metabolic syndrome,” also associated with high weight and abdominal fat).

Even in 2005, I wrote about some of this phenomena,

Seneff notes that Americans eat a lot of low-fat foods – yet fatty acids are essential for constructing the brain’s neural connections (although the brain itself only utilizes glucose for fuel) p 1 SS5. So this is what she then posits: What if the fat accumulation that one associates with obesity was the solution to a different problem – not enough saturated fat in the diet? What if obesity and the metabolic syndrome (abdominal weight gain, high LDL, TG s, blood sugar, and blood pressure – and low Vitamin D) was the result of the creation of massive fat cells so as to provide needed fat?

Seneff posits that obesity is the consequence of eating too little saturated fat -- for if, in fact, there is a fat deficit, then even more fat cells are needed ( for the vital functions that fat has in the body), and they actually will then proliferate. Getting sufficient essential fat is the problem. If deprived of saturated fat, the body will squirrel away as much fat, and also cholesterol, and vitamin D as possible. Why? Cholesterol is the precursor to Vitamin D, strongly implicated itself in fighting cancer and sepsis. That cholesterol’s important to Vitamin D supply can be seen with studies showing an increased risk of bone fractures for menopausal women with low levels of LDL. P 7 -- even to the extent that incidence of cancer has been shown to be lower in sunny places. The Vitamin D, produced by the skin when exposed to sun, shows a protective effect. P 7.

Sulfur and fire geography

A little speculation of my own (with a little help from my friends)

SULFUR. Stephanie Seneff, waxes eloquent on the virtues of sulfur, and Michael Medler, a physical geography at Western Washington University who works with fire, literally and figuratively. Besides his fire ecology work, he also is the father of there girls (19 and 17 years, and 8 months), who keep him on his toes. Also, he is a brilliant scientsist.

Medler links fire geography with human development, after Wrangham’s excellent work, and I quote:

I believe a far more compelling argument for hominin adaptation to fire is Wrangham’s (2009) argument that, without fire, these small toothed, short intestined creatures would simply have trouble chewing and digesting enough uncooked food to sustain themselves (Carmody and Wrang- ham 2009, Wrangham 2009). (p 16)[2]

Medler argues specifically that our consumption of cooked foods provided more efficient digestion, leading to shorter intestines, smaller mouths, smaller teeth, and ultimately freeing caloric resources to support increased brain sizes.[3]He proposes that, around two million years ago, a group of Australopithecines achieved enough savvy to keep the homefires burining (like protecting burning coals) so that they could start eating cooked foods. That meant easier access to calories and also freed up a lot of time that previously had been spent in chewing. This is speculation, of course, but it is at the core of this type of hypothetical thinking. (pp 16 and 17).

Though Wrangham’s cooked food hypothesis was first proposed in 1999, more evidence supporting many of the key arguments of his cooked food hypothesis (Carmody and Wrangham 2009).  P 17

Medler argues that

…eventually, large brained, bipedal, cooked-food eating, tool using, Homo erectus emerged and mastered the quintessential human technology when they learned to make fire itself. This technology allowed them to move out into the rest of the world, taking a new kind of fire with them that would change the ecosystems everywhere they went. P 21[4]

According to Medler, if Wrangham is correct (that a population of Australopithecines achieved control of fire and were consistently eating cooked food by about 1.9 million years ago, leading to the emergence of Homo erectus), and Medler is correct, then we should expect to see extensive lava flows into basins in the Olduvai Gorge region at the time of this transition. Fortunately, expectation rose to the category of a reasoned hypothesis with the publication of a paper by (2009).  

What does this all mean? As Medler writes (2011), [5] such a lava flow would have provided 200000 years of continuing access to fire for small isolated groups of hominins that may well have eventually become Homo erectus, mastered fire, colonized Europe and Asia, and created Chicken McNuggets and crocs. Armed wight this powerful tool, they would have changed ecosystems everywhere they brought their fire. 21-22

So here’s my thought: As they moved closer to these lava flows, they would also have been very close to sulfur emissions.

Um, isn’t sulfur a pollutant? Like, one of the EPA’s criteria pollutants for air contamination? Growing up in LA, in the San Fernando Valley even less, in the 1950s and 1960s (i.e. during a huge car boom in LA), and not living near the ocean (where ozone seems to be more of a problem than sulfur, another story), I suffered from all sorts of respiration ills, although not as much as my friends.

Could it be the protective fats I was eating in my Italian home? Is that why my friends begged to come to my house, not for the conviviality of the meals, but for the fat of it all (organ meats in the sausage, and plenty of ground meat and cheese, eggs in the ricotta, and nuts in my cannoli, etc. – lots of saturated fat and cholesterol, protecting against oxidative damage done by sulfur, which, at the same time was a valued nutrient – indeed – most cells can only use cholesterol sulfate in their membranes).

In graduate work at Cornell, I found the manure and farm smells of the open countryside most inviting. I was so enamored with both, I decided to  make the organic agriculture world a research area. Off I went to the sulfurous Allegheny mountains, and Kenya’s famed great African rift, to volcanic Alaska, and now Washington state with sulfurous Baker. We can all trace similar personal bio-geo-chemical life cycles. Little did I know, that my own research would be following sulfur flows.

So, back to the Neanderthals (metaphorically speaking), they would have found fire – but also, in the lava flows, they would have found life-giving sulfur as well.

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[2] -Fire Ecology Volume 7, Issue 1, 2011 doi: 10.4996/fireecology.0701013

Wrangham, R. 2009. Catching fire: how cooking made us human. Basic Books, New York, New

York, USA. Wrangham, R., D. Cheney, R. Seyfarth, and E. Sarmiento. 2009. Shallow-water habitats as

sources of fallback foods for hominins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 140:

630-642. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.21122 Wrangham, R., J.H. Jones, G. Laden, D. Pilbeam, and N.L. Conklin-Brittain. 1999. The raw and

the stolen: cooking and the ecology of human origins. Current Anthropology 40: 567-594.

doi: 10.1086/300083

[3] And, of course, that goes with being smart, and, of course, that’s what we humans are, Madagascar notwithstanding.

[4] You’d think this would be pretty much a no brainer – hauling little burning embers around with them. However, I noted that on one of the Survivor shows last week, entitled “Naked,” it took an ex-marine, on his own, about ten days to figure out how to get (and keep) a fire going.

[5] Fire Ecology Volume 7, Issue 1, 2011 doi: 10.4996/fireecology.0701013

Slow-down diet

The variety of Wansink’s work is quite impressive – in part, because each research question he asks generates many more. Also – he tries quite hard not to take sides. Everyone thinks Wansink is in his or her pocket, like Sandor Katz (of Wild Fermentation fame says). They think he’s low fat or vegetarian or a raw foods diet person. But, he is just one thing: A proponent of eating mindfully, by tricking yourself with the same kind of external cues that too easily move us into mindless eating.  This is necessary until you develop the internal ones. So, avopid the signals that tell us to overeat --milk soaked fruit loops in a  bowl, stale popcorn in a theater (even when it doesn’t taste good), and pay attention to the signs of hunger. There is no doubt that a slow-down diet, either based on Wansink’s research or on prosaic versions (Marc Davis’s Slow-down diet or popular posts about it, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elisha-goldstein-phd/mindful-eating_b_1500903.html), helps us to enjoy eating more, as a FoodWISE person.

Food choice and consumption

Clearly, food choice and consumption is related to how much is wated on school trays.

 Source: Net

Of course, Wansink is not alone, and other scientists have entered into the sensory studies and food waste arena – in particular, Erminio Monteleone of the University of Florence. Monteleone heads the European Sensory Sciences Association and is a favorite consultant for organizations such as Slow Food.  Often partnering with Caterina Dinnella and others, he shows what has happened to the decline of the structure of the classical Italian meal – from a primo, and secondo (a pasta and fish dish, for example)

to “single-plate” meals – but with less waste. In terms of tray waste in Italian schools, he feels this is an important direction to be moving in, children prefer this “new innovation.”[1]

Source: plate images, net. More typical single-plate Italian meal.

One very important aspect of Wansink’s work is the role of emotions in food consumption. If you’re in a lousy mood, you just may eat more (B 19).[2] People eat raisins when happy but M+Ms and buttered popcorn (i.e., hedonic or “happy, comfort” foods foods) when sad (Study: Am Marketing Association)

[here] And so we sometimes overeat to manage moods – and what are people overeating?  Now this overeating of comfort foods, at least in some clinical trials, was interesting:  (189, B 22, B 25). People preferred potato chips, then ice cream, then cookies, then candy.

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[1] See my review of The Italian Way, for more on this [GB website].

[2] See FN 19 re: When food is love.

More about Brian Wansink

For Wansink, we can influence behavior by the kitchenscape, tablescape, platescape, foodscape – using placemats as boundaries, changing serving bowl sizes, avoiding eating directly from packages. With even food transfer implements (serving spoons with a round shape, REF: B 44, 132) causng larger food intake, it is not difficult to see how all of these external factors trump “nutrition information,” in terms of food consumption.[1]

Wansink has been very active in redesigning school lunchrooms, one of his major initiatives. REFS: B 9, B 54 Interesting research on this includes restricting paid lunch cards to healthy choices, using cash vs. debit cards for sweet and processed foods, and also making sire that there is plenty of choice B 66. From his work, he is able to identify the behavioral triggers that lead to selection and consumption of healthier foods.

How to rearrange the lunchroom?  

            *Move the fruit

*Move salad bar to closer to cash register

*Offer a choice of carrots or celery

*Encourage to use a tray so as to be likely to add side dishes

*Change defaults…peas on the tray is the default, have to ask for tater tots

*Pay cash for desserts

*Preselect meals form a menu board rather than waiting until you get to the food line.

*Add a convenience line that offers only healthier food options

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[1] Project M.O.M.: Mothers & Others & MyPyramid. Wansink also talks about the gatekeepers B26-28, B26 parenting practices can really influence behavior choices by obese children. Brian’s research on women, from 50s on  Kitchen Literacy. Moms can make a difference in terms of what gets purchased B28

Food Hero: Brian Wansank -- so what makes us overeat?

So, what makes us overeat?

Even early in his academic career, Brian Wansink was researching how and why it was that people just didn’t like to eat vegetables. He earned a PhD at Stanford looking at consumer choices for fruits and vegetables, and the role of marketing, in particular.

Cafeteria fruits, Wansink website

He later took on the fast-food chains, and soda manufacturers (as “real food” substitutes), both of which in either their environments and/or marketing encourage people to overeat. Back in the United States, he noticed that

He noticed that people don’t really eat. Some of us in the United States just shove food in our mouths until something makes us stop. For Wansink, it’s mostly external factors, in our obesigenic environment as he calls it, that influence our food intake more than anything else.

One of his major findings has to do with internal cues (hunger) vs. external stimuli (who you’re eating with, size of serving bowls, etc) in controlling food consumption – basically, that people eat for volume (the volume that is set before them), and not for specific calories. In English: People eat whatever is put in front of them), i.e.,  they are influenced more by plate volume, size, and eating environment than by whether they are hungry or not. Ergo, we end up eating when we’re not really hungry.

Wansink claims that although people identify hunger and taste as the main factors in determining what they eat, the evidence shows otherwise: one’s eating partner can be just as influential, as well as environmental influences (level of lighting),[1] [2] as well as labeling of foods (such as wine[3]). Labeling can be very persuasive. For example, low-fat labels can strongly influence food buying, even when the calorie content is not much different than other foods (190). A table of his gargantuan work (at one time, I figured he and his team were publishing about five refereed articles a month) follows. I should note that his is a most gracious laboratory, taking interns, fellows, post-docs, and even a marauding professor (such as myself). Observing his work in August 2012, I witnessed at work a multi-disciplined set of researchers, creating excitement in all that they do. Wansink and his colleagues, unlike other researchers, are very happy to make recommendations and guide any and all (especially children) away from sugared and processed foods.

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[1] And others. Review Wansink’s Dining in the dark B45study – where people eat more in the dark….he quotes Tessla on the first page. Who said he wouldn’t eat anything that he could not visually judge the size of before he ate it…..Even Tesla was aware that physiological cues pale din comparison to visual ones. B46 --  visual cues are all important for estimating satiety.

[2] As well as food industry promotions (Brownell & Horgen)

[3] Brian Wansink says that being aware of “heuristics” (environmental cues that get us to overeat: big plates and bottomless bowls) can help us to mindlessly eat less, rather than mindlessly eat more. Beware especially of foods with “health halos,” and how consumer preferences can be shaped by any label, enticing as they may be (see “Fine as Dakota Wine” (REF)).