SUNDAY PALEO / December 4, 2011

Pulling the mooring line. Puerto Natales, Chile.ANTHROPOLOGY

Archaeologists land world's oldest fish hook: First deep-sea fish supper dated to 42,000 years ago.
“The team also found more than 38,000 fish bones at the site, dating the oldest back to 42,000 years ago. Some were from inshore species, but almost half were from 'pelagic species' — fish that dwell in the open ocean, providing the oldest known evidence of humans fishing far from shore.” - Nature

MODERN DISEASES

Fish in diet may ward off Alzheimer's
“In the study, people who ate baked or broiled fish at least once a week had larger volumes of gray matter in areas of the brain known to be involved in memory and learning. Moreover, people with larger volumes in these areas reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease five-fold over a five year period.” - MyHealthNewsDaily

Apple juice's other health risk: It'll make you fat
"‘If it wasn't healthy in the first place, adding vitamins doesn't make it into a health food,’ and if it causes weight gain, it's not a healthy choice, said Karen Ansel, a registered dietitian in New York and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.” - TODAY HEALTH

That Tasty Taste: The rise of Obesity in America - Why it’s ACTUALLY happening
“While, on the surface, obesity seems to be the result of a potent amalgamation of cultural, personal, and other environmental stressors that dominate the American lifestyle and society, the Obesity Epidemic, at the most fundamental level of human biology and psychology, is caused by food addiction.” - @CTheFlow

NUTRITION

Why Eating Animals Makes Everything Easier  
"Bottom line: if you’re overweight, you’re not utilizing the energy stored on your body. Switching over to the Fat Paradigm and a fat-based diet will unlock that stored body fat and allow you to use what you’ve already got (plus carbohydrates, when and if you eat them). But if you remain entrenched in the Carb Paradigm, your body never gets the message to start accessing body fat for energy." - Mark's Daily Apple

7 easy ways to boost your immune system 
Leave out the beans and soy and you have pretty good Paleo advice. - TODAY HEALTH

The Best Dark Chocolate: Our Taste Test Results 
“Though dark chocolate is officially defined as having at least 35 percent cocoa solids, we tested a range between 50 and 85 percent in our quest for chocolatey perfection. We tested only solid dark chocolate bars -- that means no nuts, no fillings, and no added flavors.” - Kitchen Daily

RECIPES

Holiday Brussels Sprouts and Garlic Roasted Sweet Potatoes
“I have several holiday recipes on the blog that you can find here, here, and here; but what’s wrong with a couple more!” - Everyday Paleo

Slow Cooked Cinnamon Curry Steak
For this recipe we decided to play with some interesting flavors to (hopefully) create a tasty dish. The end result was pretty great. Cinnamon is surprisingly delicious when paired with steak, and the warm sweet flavor goes well with curry. - Primal Palate

URBAN FARMING

Urban farming growing in popularity
“Welcome to the new era of urban farming. Residents within the limits of many U.S. cities are learning that some neighbors want to make more full use of their property. And that has put some pressure on municipalities to revisit local laws that regulate the occupancy and management of animals and crops.” - Main Today Real Estate

Penn State Launches Urban Farming High Tunnel Project with Community Partners in Philadelphia
“‘If the trucks stop bringing food into any major metropolitan area in the United States, for whatever reason, in a short period of time there will not be any food available,’ he said. ‘We want to give people in Philadelphia an appreciation for the value of food, its nutrition and what goes into growing it. They need to realize it doesn’t just grow on the shelves of grocery stores.’” - Seedstock

SLEEP

Dreaming Takes the Sting out of Painful Memories, Research Shows
"The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences." - ScienceDaily

 FROM THE ARCHIVE

Becoming Paleo, Part 1: The Yale Food Addiction Scale 
"Society’s strong motivation to lose weight combined with the tremendous amount of energy and resources spent on the “obesity epidemic” suggests that the problem of obesity is not driven by a lack of motivation or effort." 

Changes in brain architecture due to altered sleep/wake cycles

Our physiology is linked to the planet through circadian rhythms. Specifically, our sleep/wake cycle is synched to the 24-hour light/dark cycle of the Earth. What happens to the brain when the light/dark cycle is shortened from 24-hours to 20-hours?

Researchers at Rockefeller University studied this in mice. Mice exposed to a 20-hour light/dark cycle gained weight and some became obese. More bothersome and surprising was the development of alterations in brain architecture: dendrites (the projections that transmit information from other nerve cells to the body of the neuron) became shorter and the organization of nerve cells “in the prelimbic prefrontal cortex, a brain region important in executive function and emotional control” became less complex. The author's conclusion:

How our findings translate to humans living and working in chronic circadian disruption is unknown, but we believe that this model can provide a foundation to understand how environmental disruption of circadian rhythms impacts the brain, behavior, and physiology.

What is not known is whether these changes correct themselves after the mice are returned to the endogenous 24-hour cycle. Possibly this will be the subject of a subsequent study.

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