Paleo Family: Raising Natural Kids in an Unnatural World

By JSB Morse and RN MSN Gina Morse

Raising healthy families should be as easy as walking upright, especially in such a technologically advanced society as we have today. Instead, technology has actually become a hindrance to optimal health. Engineered foods, superfluous pharmaceuticals, and addictive electronic devices are making it more and more difficult to raise healthy famili

• Language: English
• Publisher: Code Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088008287

Book preview

cover_Paleo-Family.jpg

PALEO

FAMILY

Raising Natural Kids

in an Unnatural World

JSB MORSE & GINA MORSE, RN MSN

Paleo Family: Raising Natural Kids in an Unnatural World.

Copyright © 2018 by Joseph Morse. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent by the author. Exceptions are granted for brief

quotations within critical articles or reviews.

This book was produced by Amelior Publishing Company, an imprint of

Code Publishing, Austin, TX. www.paleofam.com

ISBN 978-1-0880-1077-8

Contents

Paleo Family: Raising Natural Kids in an Unnatural World5

This is Not a Parenting Book11

Part Two: We’re So Healthy It’s Killing Us13

The Disease14

The Miracle Drug that Wasn’t18

The Cure22

The Human Ecosystem26

Part Three: Paleo Family Planning33

A Tough Pill to Swallow34

Paleo Family Planning41

Paleo Conception43

You and Your Baby are what You Eat51

Part Four: Vaccination Nation—A Miracle That Didn’t Scale63

Didn’t Die From Measles?

Haven’t You Herd?84

Paleo Immunity

Part Five: Breast or Bottle—A False Dichotomy95

Why is Human Milk Considered So Ideal?96

The Unnatural Policy of the Natural Process99

Part Six: —

Our Inner Hunter/Gatherer109

What We Were Designed to Eat117

The Fundamentals125

Grow Food Not Lawns146

Part Seven: Screamtime—The Dangers of an Electronic Age153

Part Eight: Matter Over Mind—Paleo Mental Health161

The Nature Cure170

An Artificial Prison170

Return to Nature172

Part Nine: Conclusion

Part Ten: Resources183

Part One

Paleo Family

Raising Natural Kids in an Unnatural World

When British documentary filmmaker Bruce Parry arrived at an Akie village in northern Tanzania, he wasn’t sure what to expect. The village headman greeted him from a distance. That’s one friendly face, Parry said. And as everyone from the small community joined, it was clear that he was no exception. They danced and sang and welcomed the foreigner with open arms.

The Akie (pronounced Ah-key-ay) are some of the world’s last remaining hunter/gatherer peoples. They don’t have much in the way of possessions—simple clothing, some mud huts—but they have something that most modern Westerners don’t have: free time. They have enough to relax, dance, cook, and converse with friends daily. As a result, they are remarkably happy. Studies place Danish people as the happiest population on Earth. Those studies clearly never considered the Akie. From the first genuine introductory grin to the consistent laughing and embraces, their happiness puts Denmark—and the rest of Western civilization—to shame.

The Akie hunting and gathering territory is shrinking so it’s getting more and more difficult for them to find game. They harvest maize, raise chickens, and collect wild honey, but the main source of nutrients comes from the diminishing wild game. At one point during Parry’s visit, he noted that the village hadn’t enjoyed large game for two weeks and everyone was hungry. Yet, despite their lack of material goods and sustenance, they were still in good spirits. Whether it be an ad hoc archery competition or spectator facial shaving of the Englishman, the Akie simply enjoy life. As Parry put it, I’m loving it here. Even if something really bad happens, the first reaction—every time—is to just burst into laughter. It’s such a wonderful way of living life. If it’s true what people say about happiness being the goal in life, the Akie have certainly achieved it whereas our technologically advanced neighbors living modern lives seem miserable in comparison.

By the looks of it, the Akie are also healthy. Without modern medicine or dental care, they did not look malnutritioned and all had healthy, if slightly crooked teeth. While no official data exists on the Akie life expectancy, it’s clear from observation that they have elders reaching into their 60s and it’s likely that even without a nearby hospital or pharmacy, they have equaled the longevity of at least their neighboring Tanzanians (around 63 years of age).

Granted, that’s 20 years fewer than the country with the highest life expectancy, Japan. But is the extra time in such a society worth the chronic stress and miserable quality of life they often endure? Many Japanese don’t seem to think so as the country has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. While Bruce Parry was dancing and enjoying life in the Tanzanian bush, 100 Japanese people were committing suicide a day—most of the time over work-related stress. How appealing would the relaxed Akie lifestyle seem to these tortured souls?

And it’s not just the workaholics in Japan that would appreciate a joyful hunter/gatherer lifestyle. In 1753, the ever-observant Benjamin Franklin pondered about the lack of success in civilizing the neighboring American Indians. He wrote, Almost all their Wants are supplied by the spontaneous Productions of Nature, with the addition of very little labour, continuing, they are not deficient in natural understanding and yet they have never shown any Inclination to change their manner of life for ours.

Franklin goes on to note that, When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. But the converse is not true:

When white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.

Franklin wrote that human nature is prone to a life of ease and freedom from care and labor and that people will tend toward that lifestyle except for necessity. Only when humans are cast out of their native lands by war or crowded into inhospitable conditions through overpopulation did they make a move toward what we call a civilized society today.

This probably resonates with the reader as well. The comforts of modern life may seem impossible to do without and you may wonder what in the world you would do without all-u-can-eat buffets or devices like a cell phone. But you probably still dread the system that affords you those things like your hour-long bumper-to-bumper commute and fret the mindless work that awaits you on Monday. There is an undoubted appeal to a carefree life in nature ingrained in our very souls. If we haven’t experienced the joy of living as we were designed to live, we certainly have felt the anguish of living counter to how we were designed.

Technology has allowed the human race to proliferate far beyond anyone’s dreams in just a few hundred years. But, paradoxically, it has the potential to make that extra life miserable, even to the point of death. The entire modern world is a paradox, from food to electronics to health. We don’t need to worry where we’ll get our next meal; now we have to worry that we most certainly will and that it will be full of delicious toxins. We can communicate with people around the world in an instant, but we avoid our neighbors. We live in some of the safest communities in the history of the world yet there are more panic attacks than ever. We’ve learned to cure almost any disease, yet healthcare is the number three killer in America. We have hundreds of time-saving devices and measures in place, yet we’re busier and more stressed than ever. We are the wealthiest we’ve ever been but we’re also the most depressed we’ve ever been.

This modern paradox is most apparent in children. Modern Western children are the most educated and skillful in the history of the species. But they are oftentimes disrespectful, unappreciative, and chronically depressed. They have all the health care they could ever ask for and yet they increasingly suffer from ear infections, allergies, obesity, and debilitating autoimmune diseases. On the other hand, the Akie children have an increased risk of dying from diarrhea, for instance, but are generally well-behaved; they help with the chores; and they are genuinely happy. There is no depression or ADHD in Akie kids, and they all have a healthy sense of self-worth.

It seems that there’s a dichotomy of existence between wealth and happiness, between life expectancy and quality of life. But what if this is a false dichotomy? What if you didn’t have to give up health, wealth, or happiness? What if you could have the life expectancy and conveniences of the Japanese and the joy of the Akie? We’re here to tell you that it’s possible through the modern paleo lifestyle.

Paleo Family

According to Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of a master craftsman, Daedalus, who had invented technological advances such as the labyrinth. Daedalus and Icarus got into some trouble with Minos, who threw them into their labyrinth, so they were forced to think of a way to escape. Being a prehistoric MacGyver, Daedalus made two pairs of wings with wax and feathers that they would use to fly away from their imprisonment. Before leaving, Daedalus warned his son against complacency and hubris, instructing him to fly neither too low or high. As we all know, Icarus was so giddy from the sensation of flying that he soared too high, melting his wings. He started flapping faster and faster but realized he was flapping only his arms as his wings were gone. He plummeted to his death in the sea.

In a way, this story reflects man’s search for the ideal life. We use technology to lift from the earthly bounds of our natural prison, but in our enthusiasm—and hubris—of what we have accomplished and can accomplish, we take it too far. We overeat, overmedicate, and become addicted to electronic devices. The result is that we harm ourselves, sometimes to the point of death. We aren’t killed by the metaphorical Minotaur in the labyrinth anymore, but rather by our own invention.

We saw this time and time again in the research for this book: mankind faces a problem like a disease, so some geniuses devise a solution, which works and everyone gets excited, thinking you can’t have too much of a good thing and everyone subsequently overdoses on the solution, causing a new problem. Unfortunately, in many cases of man made inventions, you can have too much of a good thing. Antiseptics and antibiotics can be lifesavers in water treatment and acute health care, but can cause a host of issues if overused in everyday situations. Vaccination helped eradicate the deadliest of all human diseases last century, but the latest vaccines may do more harm than good. Modern agriculture has made food cheap enough to feed billions of people but it also makes it far too easy to overindulge. Mobile devices can enlarge one’s social network to the entire virtual world but can also make one socially awkward and isolated in the real world.

We must understand that when we take up our father’s wings like Icarus, we must temper ourselves. We were not made to fly, but yet here we are hundreds of feet off the ground. We should take care not melt our wings too close to the sun.

For nearly two million years, humans and our hominid ancestors lived in the hunter/gatherer style, much like that of the Akie, consisting in foraging for a wide variety of healthy fruits and vegetables and then hunting and scavenging for large game. Our species was uniquely designed to live in this manner based on our place in nature and our ancestors were very successful at it—so successful that they were able to dominate the world in a matter of generations despite the lack of any substantial physical prowess. Our ancestors’ lives were replete with sunshine, time in nature, exercise, diverse non-pathogenic microbes, and whole foods yet devoid of chronic stress and noise pollution. This is the lifestyle we modern humans were adapted for—this is what our genes prepared us for.

A strict hunter/gatherer lifestyle, however, is no longer reasonable for a vast majority of the world, so we inevitably are forced to live lives that run counter to our design. For the most part, this unnatural lifestyle is beneficial because it saves us from mortality from basic diseases and protects us from hunger, famine, and the physical dangers of hunting. But by removing ourselves from nature, we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Today, there is a lack of natural life experience—a so called paleo-deficit disorder—that is affecting our physical and mental health and researchers have been concerned about this for decades. The modern, Western lifestyle has shown to be detrimental if taken too far resulting in food, electronics, and medicine as the cause of illness and disease.

We asked the question of how to solve this paleo-deficit disorder in our own family and found answers that extend far beyond merely following an ancestral diet. Paleo Family aims for the golden mean of technology that will help you and your family live long, healthy, and happy lives.

This is Not a Parenting Book

A friend of mine recently had a baby shower to celebrate her first baby. As is customary, all the guests who were parents took turns offering their pearls of parenting wisdom:

Go have a glass of wine.

Don’t worry about waking up the baby.

Never let her cry.

Spank her daily.

Don’t swaddle.

When she’s teething, rub whiskey on her gums.

Sleep when she sleeps. Do everything when she sleeps.

Get a baby carrier.

Do yourself a favor and stop at one kid!

I was quiet. I had three kids but I wasn’t going to interrupt the other parents’ advice. When I was chatting with the mom alone later I told her my advice was to forget all of that other advice. Well, maybe not forget it, just don’t expect for it to work with her child. Every child is different and every parent is different. Certain things that worked for our oldest were useless for our youngest. Each kid has a different personality, eating habits, and responses to discipline. And as such, we can’t give advice on how to get your kid to sleep or what the best method of potty training is because nine times out of ten it won’t work for your child.

This is not a parenting book.

It is a healthy lifestyle book. We’ve scoured the scientific literature and medical data to better understand what effect the environment—natural and unnatural—has on us as parents and our children. A lot of the material may be common sense but I guarantee that some of it will raise an eyebrow, and it is our hope that all of it will help you make better choices for the health of your family. We don’t expect you to adhere to all the suggestions based on the science here, but we know that you will find it interesting, thought-provoking, and time-saving. It is the book that we wish we had as we embarked on our familial adventure.

We will start with a history of the battle against infectious disease and what our ancestors have done to overcome it through sanitation and water treatment. On the flip side, we’ll show how those life-saving measures are also leading to diseases of their own, specifically related to our microbiome. Then, we’ll explore what it takes to start a family with paleo family planning and pregnancy techniques. Next, we’ll dive into the topic that’s sure to get you kicked out of any dinner party you’re invited to regardless of how you feel on the subject: vaccines. We’ll take a logical and common sense approach to the most illogical of topics in modern medicine. After that, we’ll approach the topic that launched a thousand mommy-ships: not Helen of Troy, but breast versus bottle feeding and why it’s not an either-or. Then, we will lay out the basic diet plan for the entire family based on the Zero to Paleo plan. Last, but certainly not least, we’ll explore the final frontier of the human mind through a history of psychiatric medication and mobile device technology and their impact on children today.

Unless you’re an Akie hunter/gatherer, your time is short, so let’s get started!

| Paleo Family

|

Part Two

We’re So Healthy

It’s Killing Us

In the early 1990s, a woman named Tamara visited her local doctor in Murfreesboro, Tennessee with a persistent sinus infection. Although her doctor did not think it was a serious infection, the common antibiotic erythromycin was prescribed to treat the infection and alleviate Tamara’s uncomfortable symptoms. Within twenty-four hours, she suffered cardiac arrhythmia and shortly thereafter died. Interestingly, Tamara had no history of heart problems and was healthy besides the sinus infection. The official cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest secondary to erythromycin-induced arrhythmia. Studies have shown that certain common antibiotics (erythromycin included) carry a two-fold increase in cardiac death and a five-fold increase in cardiac death when combined with a host of CYP3A inhibitors (a class of medications that includes popular trade names: Prozac, Zoloft, Prednisone, and Prilosec). Even grapefruit can cause an increased risk of arrhythmia when ingested with the antibiotics. How senselessly tragic! It is dreadful enough to die before one’s time, but what is most lamentable is that she died, not from a natural disaster or unavoidable casualty, but from a common medical prescription or procedure, what is known as iatrogenic illness.

Tamara is not alone. In an brief published by the Institute of Medicine in 1999, it was estimated that nearly 100,000 people died each year from errors in the hospital, which does not even include the iatrogenic deaths in the outpatient setting. If one were to add the number of iatrogenic hospital deaths (100,000) and deaths from adverse drug reactions (106,000), unnecessary procedures (37,136), and surgery complications (32,000), one would have higher mortality than Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza virus, and pneumonia combined. It is a doleful irony, but the third leading cause of death in America is health care itself!

While many modern health care practices and procedures do not kill us, the quest