My intention is to be a guide to help people find abundant health through the magic of indigenous Australian wild foods.
Every day, I get more passionate about them as I read of new research about components that are in large amounts in the wild foods of my health and wellness range.
No Point Focusing on Problems
Focus on the Solutions
A Guide to Abundant Health
My early work in pharmacology (way back in the 1970s - yep, I'm that old) delved into the dopaminergic neural pathways and while this was more specifically aimed at a solution to the loss of effects of L-dopa supplementation for Parkinson's Disease and why it stopped working after about 5 years, we also touched on schizophrenia and Huntington's Chorea. An early brush with fame was my meeting Arlo Guthrie's late Mum, Marjorie Guthrie, who funded the research for a few years.
Decades later, I still work with dopamine in helping people recognize why they might be less healthy than they would like or for some, why they are carrying so much excess weight around. Both of these tend to shorten our lives and reduce the quality of life we live. It comes down to the addictive nature of modern foods and why we are drawn to sugars and fats repeatedly.
Neuroscientists seem to delve into what they understand and so they talk about addiction and neuroplasticity and about the release of dopamine being pleasurable; This article identifies their misunderstanding. However, even here, the real reason for obesogenic foods (those that make us fat) being the principle problem, is wrong.
Dopamine release from consuming fat and sugar does not increase any level of pleasure which might induce us to eat more of these nutritionally poor foods. If fats and sugars were truly addictive, we would need more and more to feel any pleasure as we build a tolerance for their effects over time. We would also go through withdrawal symptoms whenever we went 'cold turkey'. I mean stopping with the sugar and fats, not switch to eating turkey.
OK. There might be some indirect pleasure effect as dopamine appears to stimulate opioid receptors which definitely respond as a feeling of which we want more and more.
Anyway. Moving right along.
The dopamine > addiction discussion is a case of focusing on the problem and not the outcomes that arise from the best solution(s).
Sure. We are eating more processed foods and a pastry crust in a ready-made pie is not just flour and salted butter anymore but a collection of stabilizers, thickeners, preservatives, emulsifiers, refined oils, possibly some refined sugar all mixed into semi-dwarf, gliadin-laden wheat flour - all of which no traditional culture ever ate through history. Most processed and ultra-processed food and quick-service outlet offerings are similar to the pastry example.
Even our produce is bred to be sweet, juicy, large, durable post-harvest, (flavourless) and phytonutrient-poor.
The real reason we over-consume sugars and fats is that our instinctive taste drives used to help us get quality nutrients and phytonutrients in the process of finding sweet foods and hunting animals.
Read more about all this here: Do Prehistoric Taste Drives Still Rule our Lives?
Just to remind you that the 3rd type of Hidden Hunger is for phytonutrients and this is the reason we crave sweet and fatty foods in a pointless hunt for these elusive micro-nutrients.
Your Mission, should your choose to accept it:
I am currently looking for someone to take the role of Warehouse Operations and I feel this position would be most suitable for an Indigenous person with a mechanical bent and the strength to handle the occasional 20kg carton or bucket.
More details on my LinkedIn page.
We have an amazing opportunity to expand our collaboration with First Nation Australians to raise health levels for us all while we create more opportunities for remote communities as well as Indigenous city folk.
However, there is an urgency in preserving wild food resources because the 65,000 years of knowledge of Elders and our access to suitable functional wild foods is threatened.
We are dealing with
- unrelenting cultural disruption and loss of traditional knowledge and languages
- a lack of ecosystem management policies
- the Climate Crisis/Catastrophe
- over-development and loss of biodiversity
- mining and ‘renewable’ energy production
- conventional farming and water ‘management’
- land clearing, weed infestation and feral animals all out of control
- the growing over-population which is far and above the country’s carrying capacity
- useless career politicians and a vacuum of political leadership
- a 'green' party more focused on gender and social issues than the environment
But if we focus on our Most Wanted Outcome - now that's a far better way to go.
The amazing thing to me is that we are still able to access a portion of the dwindling wild food resources which are like an Aladdin’s lamp of health and wellness. These are a goldmine for the quality of life of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and we may be able to rehabilitate degraded and endangered ecosystems if we act quickly.
Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to embrace wild and near-wild foods, their sustainable wild harvesting and appropriate plantation production, as the keys to a better healthspan and lifespan for ourselves and the environment.
This opportunity will self-destruct within the next decade or less, if it is not more widely supported.
Thank you for your support of my Aussie Superfood range. It goes a long way in helping sustain the wild resources and our network of Indigenous Australians and is equally valuable for your own wild health and wellness.
I hope to see you in our online store soon.
Kindest regards,
Vic Cherikoff
Here's an Update: De Quervain Tenosynovitis Cured
I have previously recounted my experience with this irritating condition (pardon the pun) and now no longer need to change my profession to washerwoman (DQTS was called Washerwoman's sprain or strain).
I have cured the cause of the swollen tendons and/or the tendon sheath and am pain-free.
My approach was 2 capsules morning and night of my Karuah Activated Turmeric™ and cycles of 6 capsules of Karuah ChancaPlus™ for 4 days then down to 2 capsules for a week then repeat. I continued these elevated servings and maintained a scoop of Karuah Active Magnesium™ and one or two heaped teaspoonfuls of LIFE on-going. The pain in both my thumbs near the wrist disappeared after about 4 weeks.
It feels great to regain the use of my thumbs and a reminder as to what normal is all about. You really appreciate being pain-free after you experience the inconvenience of restricted movement and excruciating pain with any strenuous or repetitive involvement of my thumbs. Ever tried to twist off a jar lid when you can't use your thumbs?
It's essential that you treat de Quervain tenosynovitis if you start feeling the pain at the base of your thumbs. If left untreated, it can cause permanent damage to the movement of your wrist and thumb or cause the tendon sheath to burst. Nasty.
Incidentally, the same protocol also reduced a swollen prostate and probably cleared out my arteries and other soft tissues of calcium deposits. Bargain.
Did you know that an active component in our ChancaPlus™ also lowers uric acid in the blood? That's good news for anyone predisposed to gout. A high uric acid has also been implicated as a causative factor in atherosclerosis. No claims here. Just some observations on the qualities of ChancaPlus™.
