Boring is another word for satiating

Satiety is a common topic of discussion on this blog. In the last few posts it came up several times in the comments’ sections. Also, in my interview with Jimmy Moore, we did talk a bit about satiety. I told him what has been my perception and that of many people I know, which is that the least satiating foods tend to be foods engineered by humans.

(Source: Wellnessuncovered.com)

There is another component to satiety, which applies to natural foods, or foods that are not man-made. That other component is the nutrition value of those foods, and whether they meet our nutrition needs at a given point in time. If our body needs certain essential amino acids for tissue repair, subconscious mechanisms will make us crave those foods from which those amino acids can be extracted. In this context, eating is generally a good idea.

The problem is that we have not evolved mechanisms to differentiate “true” from “fake” nutrient starvation; one example of the latter would be fat starvation due to transient hyperinsulinemia induced by refined carbohydrate-rich foods.

Foods engineered by humans tend to lead to overeating because humans are good engineers. In modern society, business drives everything. Food business is predicated on consumption, so engineered foods are designed so that one person will want to consume many units of a food item – typically something that will come in a box or a plastic bag. There is no conspiracy involved; the underlying reason is profit maximization.

When we look at nature, we typically see the opposite. Prey animals do not want to be eaten; often they fight back. Eggs have to be stolen. Plants do not want their various parts, such as leaves and roots, to be eaten. Much less their seeds; so they have developed various defense mechanisms, including toxins. Fruits are exceptions to this rule; they are the only natural foods that are designed to be eaten by animals.

Plants want animals to eat their fruits so that they can disperse the plants’ seeds. So they must be somewhat alluring to animals. Sugar plays a role here, but it certainly is not the only factor. The chemical composition of fruits is quite complex, and they usually contain a number of health-promoting substances, such as vitamins. For example, most fruits contain vitamin C, which happens to be a powerful antioxidant, and also has the ability to reversibly bind to proteins at the sites where sugar-induced glycation would occur.

Many modern fruits have been bred to be resistant to diseases, more palatable, and larger (usually due to more water retention). But, fundamentally, fruits are products of evolution. So how come we don’t see fruits that are pure sugar? Watermelons, for example, are often referred to as “bags of sugar”, but they are only 6 percent sugar. Ice cream is 25 percent sugar.

Two things must be kept in mind regarding fruits and their evolution. One is that dead animals do not eat fruit, and thus cannot disperse seeds. Sick animals would probably not be good candidates for fruit dispersion either. So the co-evolution of fruits and animals must have led fruits to incorporate many health-promoting attributes. The other is that seed dispersion success is correlated with the number of different animals that consume fruits from a plant. In other words, plants do not want all of their fruits to be eaten by one single animal, which must have led fruits to incorporate satiety-promoting attributes.

Often combining foods, adding spices, and so on, is perceived as making those foods exciting. That is so even with natural foods. If you read the descriptions of the foods consumed by healthy isolated populations in Weston Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, you will probably find them a bit boring. A few very nutritious food items, consumed day in and day out, frequently without heavy preparation. Exciting foods, requiring elaborate and time-consuming preparation, were consumed in special occasions. They were not eaten regularly.

The members of those healthy isolated populations were generally thin and yet lacked no important nutrients in their diet. They were generally free from degenerative diseases. Their teeth were normally strong and healthy.

Just before writing this post, I took six whole sardines out of the freezer to thaw. I will prepare them as discussed on this post, and eat them with a side of steamed vegetables for lunch. (I tend to eat fruits only on the days I exercise; typically 3 days out of 7.) This lunch will be very nutrient-dense. I will be very hungry before lunch, since I’ll have been fasting for 16 hours, and after I’ll not be hungry until dinner. Frankly, eating the sardines will not be very exciting, since I’ve been doing this for years.

Boring is another word for satiating.

38 g of sardines or 2 fish oil softgels? Let us look at the numbers

The bar chart below shows the fat content of 1 sardine (38 g) canned in tomato sauce, and 2 fish oil softgels of the Nature Made brand. (The sardine is about 1/3 of the content of a typical can, and the data is from Nutritiondata.com. The two softgels are listed as the “serving size” on the Nature Made bottle.) Both the sardine and softgels have some vegetable oil added; presumably to increase their vitamin E content and form a more stable oil mix. This chart is a good reminder that looking at actual numbers can be quite instructive sometimes. Even though the chart focuses on fat content, it is worth noting that the 38 g sardine also contains 8 g of high quality protein.

If your goal with the fish oil is to “neutralize” the omega-6 fat content of your diet, which is most people’s main goal, you should consider this. A rough measure of the omega-6 neutralization “power” of a food portion is, by definition, its omega-3 minus omega-6 content. For the 1 canned sardine, this difference is 596 mg; for the 2 fish oil softgels, 440 mg. The reason is that the two softgels have more omega-6 than the sardine.

In case you are wondering, the canning process does not seem to have much of an effect on the nutrient composition of the sardine. There is some research suggesting that adding vegetable oil (e.g., soy) helps preserve the omega-3 content during the canning process. There is also research suggesting that not much is lost even without any vegetable oil being added.

Fish oil softgels, when taken in moderation (e.g., two of the type discussed in this post, per day), are probably okay as “neutralizers” of omega-6 fats in the diet, and sources of a minimum amount of omega-3 fats for those who do not like seafood. For those who can consume 1 canned sardine per day, which is only 1/3 of a typical can of sardines, the sardine is not only a more effective source of omega-3, but also a good source of protein and many other nutrients.

As far as balancing dietary omega-6 fats is concerned, you are much better off reducing your consumption of foods rich in omega-6 fats in the first place. Apparently nothing beats avoiding industrial seed oils in that respect. It is also advisable to eat certain types of nuts with high omega-6 content, like walnuts, in moderation.

Both omega-6 and omega-3 fats are essential; they must be part of one’s diet. The actual minimum required amounts are fairly small, probably much lower than the officially recommended amounts. Chances are they would be met by anyone on a balanced diet of whole foods. Too much of either type of fat in synthetic or industrialized form can cause problems. A couple of instructive posts on this topic are this post by Chris Masterjohn, and this one by Chris Kresser.

Even if you don’t like canned sardines, it is not much harder to gulp down 38 g of sardines than it is to gulp down 2 fish oil softgels. You can get the fish oil for $12 per bottle with 300 softgels; or 8 cents per serving. You can get a can of sardines for 50 cents; which gives 16.6 cents per serving. The sardine is twice as expensive, but carries a lot more nutritional value.

You can also buy wild caught sardines, like I do. I also eat canned sardines. Wild caught sardines cost about $2 per lb, and are among the least expensive fish variety. They are not difficult to prepare; see this post for a recipe.

I don’t know how many sardines go into the industrial process of making 2 fish oil softgels, but I suspect that it is more than one. So it is also probably more ecologically sound to eat the sardine.

Eating fish whole: Sardines

Different parts of a fish have different types of nutrients that are important for our health; this includes bones and organs. Therefore it makes sense to consume the fish whole, not just filets made from it. This is easier to do with small than big fish.

Small fish have the added advantage that they have very low concentrations of metals, compared to large fish. The reason for this is that small fish are usually low in the food chain, typically feeding mostly on plankton, especially algae. Large carnivorous fish tend to accumulate metals in their body, and their consumption over time may lead to the accumulation of toxic levels of metals in our bodies.

One of my favorite types of small fish is the sardine. The photo below is of a dish of sardines and vegetables that I prepared recently. Another small fish favorite is the smelt (see this post). I buy wild-caught sardines regularly at the supermarket.

Sardines are very affordable, and typically available throughout the year. In fact, sardines usually sell for the lowest price among all fish in my supermarket; lower even than tilapia and catfish. I generally avoid tilapia and catfish because they are often farmed (tilapia, almost always), and have a poor omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Sardines are rich in omega-3, which they obtain from algae. They have approximately 14 times more omega-3 than omega-6 fatty acids. This is an excellent ratio, enough to make up for the poorer ratio of some other foods consumed on a day.

This link gives a nutritional breakdown of canned sardines; possibly wild, since they are listed as Pacific sardines. (Fish listed as Atlantic are often farm-raised.) The wild sardines that I buy and eat probably have a higher vitamin and mineral content that the ones the link refers to, including higher calcium content, because they are not canned or processed in any way. Two sardines should amount to a little more than 100 g; of which about 1.6 g will be the omega-3 content. This is a pretty good amount of omega-3, second only to a few other fish, like wild-caught salmon.

Below is a simple recipe. I used it to prepare the sardines shown on the photo above.

- Steam cook the sardines for 1 hour.
- Spread the steam cooked sardines on a sheet pan covered with aluminum foil; use light olive oil to prevent the sardines from sticking to the foil.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Season the steam cooked sardines to taste; I suggest using a small amount of salt, and some chili powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and herbs.
- Bake the sardines for 30 minutes, turn the oven off, and leave them there for 1 hour.

The veggies on the plate are a mix of the following: sweet potato, carrot, celery, zucchini, asparagus, cabbage, and onion. I usually add spinach but I had none around today. They were cooked in a covered frying pan, with olive oil and a little bit of water, in low heat. The cabbage and onion pieces were added to the mix last, so that in the end they had the same consistency as the other veggies.

I do not clean, or gut, my sardines. Normally I just wash them in water, as they come from the supermarket, and immediately start cooking them. Also, I eat them whole, including the head and tail. Since they feed primarily on plant matter, and have a very small digestive tract, there is not much to be “cleaned” off of them anyway. In this sense, they are like smelts and other small fish.

For about a year now I have been eating them like that; and so have my family (wife and 4 kids), of their own volition. Other than some initial ew’s, nobody has ever had even a hint of a digestive problem as a result of eating the sardines like I do. Maybe the Kock family members share a common crocodile-like digestive system, but I think most people will do fine following the same approach. This is very likely the way most of our hominid ancestors ate small fish.

If you prepare the sardines as above, they will be ready to store, or eat somewhat cold. There are several variations of this recipe. For example, you can bake the sardines for 40 minutes, and then serve them hot.

You can also add the stored sardines later to a soup, lightly steam them in a frying pan (with a small amount of water), or sauté them for a meal. For the latter I would recommend using coconut oil and low heat. Butter can also be used, which will give the sardines a slightly different taste.