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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Our bodies do a lot of work. From a microscopic perspective, each of the 100 trillion cells is a seething, roiling, bubbling dynamo of activity, manufacturing, processing and secreting countless chemicals per second. At the macro level, the various systems and structures of body are endlessly organizing, metabolizing, growing, dividing, respirating, pumping, digesting and excreting.

If you throw mental and emotional activity into the mix, it’s understandable that, after a certain amount of time, the system will just get burnt out. Under normal conditions, that occurs at the end of the end of the day, at which point we’ll head to bed, turn down our blankets, plump up our pillows to renew and refresh with a good’s nights rest. Or maybe, if it’s the middle of the day, we can replenish our energy stores with a little catnap.

But for many people that’s not enough. There are millions of men and women who are always exhausted. They go to bed tired and wake up that way even after a full night’s sleep, remaining weary throughout the whole day. These unfortunate folks are chronically fatigued, sometimes so severely that their ability to participate in life activities can be dramatically reduced. Some are so affected that they have trouble keeping jobs and relationships. Others can be severely disabled and even bedridden. Doctors call this condition Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS, and in addition to feeling persistently pooped 24/7, it’s marked by a complex of health issues including headache, flu-like symptoms, muscle soreness and joint pain.

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Pica: The Urge to Eat Dirt

It's been said proverbially, that every man must eat a peck of dirt before he dies. While the metaphorical wisdom which refers to humility and endurance may be undeniable, many people take its meaning literally. That’s the message of filmmaker Adam Forrester, whose movie “Eat White Dirt” tells the story of practitioners of the bizarre behavior. In fact, Forrester claims that hundreds of thousands of people around the world participate in the strange ritual of eating dirt.

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Bitter Food

Eating is terrible! It'll ultimately kill us!

Oh I know... you have to eat or you'll starve to death, and perhaps that may be true. But that doesn't dismiss the fact that how we eat today and how our bodies have evolved over the course of millions of years are as different as John Q. Public is from a caveman. And as far as going paleo, that’s a bunch of marketing gibberish. There’s little available in our modern food supply that our paleo ancestors would recognize. Does anyone think our prehistoric forbearers ate coconut flour or bacon?

Yes, it’s true that prehistoric man, was omnivorous and would eat anything, even the dreaded carbs. A recent University of Chicago study suggests that starchy tubers were an important component of the paleolithic diet and critical for speeding up proto-human brain development. But whatever they ate, it was always wild and fresh. And there was a feast or famine aspect for much of our history.

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