Let Food Lift Life

(Preface: This post can be simplified as detailing of digestive breakdown, absorption into the blood stream, consumption by way of metabolism and the inevitable ‘storage’ of the surplus. Remembering this ‘model’ or simplification will help.) How food sustains life, an overview: An average office-going Indian adult needs about 2000 calories per day to enable him to do everything, maintain body temperature and keep his internal organs functioning. He needs about 60 grams of proteins to repair damaged tissue and build…

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(This spell of posts stems from our desire to make you familiar with the origin of some of the mainstream disease conditions and point out that only flawed food can play a partial role in causing them; smart food can actually help keep them at bay. Do read and re-read them; you will be rewarded with very useful info. After the first 4 obesity posts, we dive straight into the disease that is closest to our heart – the Coronary…

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In the previous two posts, we have seen how the feared and hated edible oils do so much for us when used smartly and can actually be life-saving. They are less insidious than sugar and salt, less compulsively used, consumed in larger quantities and their physical and physiological functionalities and pathogenic mechanisms are different. But it is obvious that, taken together, they represent food itself. And hence smart, disease-avoiding and health-promoting use of food is our right as well as…

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The edible oils perform multiple cooking/processing roles: as food constituents, as cooking/processing aids (which also makes them a part of the food) and as value-adders to consumption experience. That is how they reach our stomach. Their physiological role begins when they reach the blood after digestion into fatty acids and glycerol and the release of its micronutrients. This ‘fat entering the blood’ looks like an impending disaster; fact is: we would be crippled without its physiological functions. We already know…

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First, let’s dispel some common misconceptions about oils. The undeserved bad image of edible oils: Given the rampant prevalence of diabetes, everyone is wary of sugar. We can’t seem to cook anything non-sweet (except roti and rice) without salt, which is probably why we are reluctant to dwell over its serious dark side – why try to avoid the unavoidable?! But its insidious nature has been described in earlier posts. (Ref. Post 3: Health, happiness, life and food, Part II…

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(Refer Post 2: HEALTH, HAPPINESS, LIFE AND FOOD (PART I) : WHAT ARE THEY? (letfoodliftlife.com), Post 4: INDUSTRIAL PROCESSED FOODS: PART I, THEIR EVOLUTION AND PRESENT STATUS (letfoodliftlife.com) and, Post 16: OXYGEN, FOOD AND LIFE : PART II (THE DARK SIDE OF OXYGEN) (letfoodliftlife.com) to understand how they are vulnerable to harmful attack by air during storage, cooking and industrial processing.)  Introduction: ‘Oil’ is attached to many things in our life: petroleum oil, paraffin oil, lubricating oil, essential oil, spice…

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A few things stand out about oxygen: 1. It is practically everywhere; even in water in small quantities. 2. It owes its properties, life-sustaining ones included, to its reactivity. 3. It can be indiscriminate in its reactivity i.e. it will not spare anything crossing its path under the right conditions. 4. Its presence is not noticeable to senses and hence its effects look mysterious.  5. Air, its only natural source, must be kept as clean as possible. 6. Its adverse…

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(Note: Visit post no. 2: Health, happiness, life and food, Part I, What are they? to understand what is meant by ‘life’ in this post and the next post to understand how life-giving oxygen can be life-threatening.) Preamble: There are striking similarities between water and oxygen: (i) Both are chemically reactive and are found everywhere. (ii) Both make life itself possible in different ways. (iii) The properties and effects of both need to be controlled and modulated, failing which they…

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THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ROLE The role of water in digestion of food: Starch, the most abundant natural nutritive carbohydrate in our food, breaks down into simpler  glucose in our digestive tract with the help of water and enzymes generically called amylases. (Amylose = starch, ‘ase’ indicates ‘ability to breakdown’). Such water-mediated chemical breakdown is called ‘hydrolysis’ – hydro = water and lysis = breakdown. All digestion is hydrolysis. Proteins digest into constituent amino acids and oils, into glycerol (or glycerine) and…

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We have grown up grasping the many facets of water and air; they are everywhere, life is impossible without them and they are in awe-inspiring abundance. Ironically, they happen to be two of the most abused materials in life with the result that they are getting polluted at an alarming rate. Despite their abundance, many people on this planet don’t get enough water to drink and clean air to breath. Irresponsible wastage and pollution of water and pollution of air…

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