Oxygen, we need it obviously, its great for ripping apart chemical bonds, how to use it wisely to minimise the premature ageing of our own tissues is possibly the foundation of bio-hacking.
In preceding posts I have described how Mitochondria use oxygen to to produce energy.
Oxygen is basically missing 2 electrons and will try to "steal" or share them with another molecule.
This chemical "re-arrangement" causes electrons to move. Mitochondria are an organelle that originally evolved as a unique organism, and still retains their own DNA. They are specialised to harvest these electrons and store them chemically as ATP. ATP is the transportable unit of energy that powers the cells in our body.
This process of using oxygen leaves residual oxygen species ROS, that must be prevented from damaging healthy tissues, especially within the mitochondria themselves.
Sugars and Fats can be used for fuel but sugars require about 28% more oxygen to produce the same amount of ATP as fat does. This increases our cellular demand for anti-oxidants.
Sugars come from plants, our bodies can also make sugar from protein as required and will do so when their is insufficient fat in out diets. We can get anti-oxidants from plants but nobody knows if they will make it through our stomach acid, past our liver enzymes and into our mitochondria. So it is best to minimise the demand for them in other parts of our body.
Seeds are a dense energy source
Grains are grass seeds. Grass must grow tall quickly enough to reach light and start producing energy from the sun. Grass must out-compete shrubs and trees to remain dominant, they must be the first to grow the tallest. This requires them to have enormous stored energy and to be able to protect that energy source until it is ready to be used.
Chemists in the Garden of Eden
Plants may require animals to carry their seeds, but they do not want them to consume them, so they coat them in resilient chemical compounds and wrap them with additional features. Plants will often wrap seeds in fructose, a sweet tasting treat that actually causes proteins to fold incorrectly, which is why we do not feed it to live-stock. Plants may often provide a laxative so that their seeds are dumped quickly in a nice pile of fertiliser before they can be digested.
Plants can also protect their investment by creating inflammation within animals that do manage to digest their seeds. Animals that have inflamed joints, compromised skin or confused internal hormone signalling are more easily caught and eaten by predators. Many of the problems that plague our health can be completely alleviated by removing plants from our diets and then introducing them back one at a time to find which are safe. Many people prefer not to eat plants at all, even though they can be quite delicious.
Seeds and Oxidative Stress
Polyunsaturated fatty acids - is a term that refers to the chemical bonds that interact with surrounding molecules. Seeds are very high in Omega 6 PUFA. These Fatty acids appear to behave like oxygen and can rob the surrounding tissues of electrons. To prevent this damage, precious anti-oxidants or electron donors must be used.
When we are deficient in these precious anti-oxidants, we become damaged, the part of our biology that most needs those anti oxidants are our mitochondria. When they are damaged, we must revert to fermenting sugars to produce energy and can not use fat for fuel as well as used to. That damage to our metabolic functionality sets the stage for cancer.
Too much energy
Grass seeds are energy dense so that they can grow fast, if we consume them, our blood sugar level rises very quickly forcing our body to either store that energy or burn it.
If we burn it, we are going to be using 28% more oxygen than if we were using fat, so we will produce more ROS and require more antioxidants to prevent damaging our mitochondria. If they are already damaged, we will ferment it, creating lactic acid that in excessive amounts may lead to further cellular damage.
To store that extra energy, our liver converts sugars to triglycerides which get moved into our fat cells to be used later. Of course if we never stop trickling carbohydrates into our bodies, we will never burn this extra fuel. When this fat is stored in our organs, such as the liver, we have fatty liver disease.
We have about 1 kg of sugar loving bacteria in our digestive tract that uses our own nervous system pathways to tell us when it is hungry. So we binge even more on these toxic but sweet crisply delicious plant products.
Is fat our friend?
Many people much more experienced and talented than myself can help you to learn about re-addapting to fat as a fuel.
I recommend searching for Low Carb High Fat or Ketogenic groups on facebook or perhaps within STEEMIT.
Plants and our environment
From what I have read, many people still think that a plant based diet can save us and the environment. From what I have seen, agriculture is the biggest threat to wilderness and to pasture raising animals.
Ruminants are grazing animals that have 4 stomaches, they eat grass and weeds and turn them into the building blocks of life while locking up carbon in the soil. Grass and weeds grow for free without any need for fertiliser on 20% of the dry surface area of this planet. Thats right, no energy input requirement - no chemicals needed. No GMO required.
I really hope I have not made any mistakes in this presentation and that it is clear and readable. Please do share it if you know somebody who could benefit from being exposed to this line of enquiry.
I am not university trained, I am a surfboard salesman, so please do your own research and experiments.
Thank you
=8-P