Healthy Brain – Healthy Gut

The episode and this theme is about the brain and the gut.

And that wasn't so known many years ago, but now we see that there is a connection there.

But I thought we go to from scratch.

And let us start with the British author, Nigella Lawson.

I love her cooking books.

And she long ago published the book, How to Eat.

But I think that the eminent question in this episode is, first, is why do we eat? What is actually the purpose of eating and has not only the food, but also the pattern of eating of mankind changed over time, that we do eat in a different way than our ancestors when they were collecting berries and hunting for mammoths.

Can you say something about that? Why we eat and how we eat today? I thought, Susanne, I challenge you on that first.

Sure.

Well, as a foodie, I

love this question.

I mean, of course, we eat to sustain life.

It's one of the basic physiological principles, and it's absolutely necessary.

Our physiology is set up to sustain life.

It provides the energy for all our body processes, everything, powering the brain, the muscles, and building and repairing tissues.

So we need a constant supply of nutrients and we need diverse nutrients in order to maintain our internal balance for our vital functioning.

Regarding how it's changed over time, well, I mean, of course, what our ancestors ate, Nigella is quite right, and what we eat today is really quite different.

Our ancestors would have eaten rather opportunistically, depending on what food is available.

And, you know, they're going between times of famine and feasting.

And, of course, we're evolved to survive famine by overeating when food becomes available.

And today, of course, in our modern lifestyle, food is available 24-7.

And globalization means that we have a huge diversity of nutrients available to us.

The pattern of our eating can also be considered because we can decide when we eat, whereas our ancestors...

I mean, if they find a wild animal and they kill it, that's their main energy source and they will overeat and store energy for a future famine.

We don't need to do that today, fortunately, in the Western world.