Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life

A Painting of George Catlin

One of George Catlin's paintings of Native Americans

Shut Your Mouth And Save Your Life (1870)

George Catlin was an American Painter who lived around the time of the American Civil War (born 1796, died 1872). I had not heard of him before reading this book, but when I mentioned him to my mother she recognized him as a famous painter. Catlin began his life amongst modern (for that time) Americans but moved out west living amongst the American Indians after the Civil War. By the time he wrote this book, he claims to have more experience with Native Americans than any living person at that time. One of the things which struck him most about the natives was their freedom from the ailments of modern society. He wrote this book to teach modern people how they could become healthier.

George Catlin was a very feeble man during his younger years. He probably considered himself average amongst those living and felt lucky to be alive (not dead). He worked as a lawyer and then at the age of 34 in 1830 began his travels in the Western United States. Living out of doors was a shock for his body. A mouth breather, he often woke up with inflamed and bleeding lungs and his sleep was miserable. He managed to make himself a nose breather and dramatically turned his health around. When he wrote this book he was at the healthiest and strongest of his life and had no aches and pains. The purpose of this book was to convince Americans back home how to make the same changes he did and to inform them that many of the hard parts of life are not necessary.

At the time Catlin wrote, half of all children born in major American and European cities died before the age of 5. Half of those who survived died before the age of 25. Those who lived to adulthood often had deformities (approximately one half percent of the population had the problems of being a hunch back, an idiot, or deaf). I don't know what the rates of these diseases are now, but we place most of our young boys on Ritalin and our special education classes are overflowing. Those who lived to adulthood in those days usually had bad teeth. I think we are far better at treating the symptoms of our illnesses today, but the same underlying problems still exist.

When Catlin met the Indians he was struck by their fine physical features. At the time most whites thought the American Indians were sick and disease ridden, but Catlin says only the Natives living in close contact with Whites were sickly and diseased. He refers to several major plagues which swept across America but stopped when they hit the Native Americans who had not yet started drinking whiskey. The Natives did not loose any children to sickness or childbirth. When Catlin inquired about childhood deaths, Chiefs would relate a couple instances of children drowning or getting bitten by a rattlesnake. That was all. Caitlin does say that the Indians living in close contact with whites were sickly. He is not sure why this is but he seems to attribute it to whiskey consumption.

In the book Catlin explains his theory about why nose breathing is healthier than mouth breathing. The nose is especially designed to filter and warm air before it his the lungs. The mouth is not designed to filter air so the cold dirty air flows directly into the lunges without an safety mechanisms in place. The mouth is supposed to be an aqueous environment, but breathing through the mouth causes it to dry out making the teeth less healthy. Catlin had noticed that animals die quickly if they are forced to breath through their mouths and hypothesized that people do as well. Catlin also marveled at the fine ordering and lack of decay in the Indians teeth. He attributed this to the Indians habit of keeping their mouths closed at all times. The one time an Indian opened his mouth was to speak and that did not happen often.

The last part of the book is devoted to convincing people to take up nasal breathing and teaching to them how to do this. Catlin advocates making the switch through conscious thought. He recommends keeping your mouth closed at all times while awake and thinking about keeping your mouth closed as you fall asleep at night. He motivates people of all ages by reminding them of their friends who have died and urging them to consider the effects it will have on their future health, marriage prospects, and career.

The Vitamin Code by Massoud Arvanaghi and Mike Yorkey

The VITAMIN CODE The Breakthrough Discovery That Will Change The Way You Take Vitamins Forever

The Vitamin Code tells the story behind the Jordan Rubin's Garden of Life raw vitamins. The book is written in three sections giving the reader an understanding of why vitamins are needed, the story behind the development of these vitamins, and an analysis of the vitamins on the market today. Jordan Rubin has been endorsed in the past by the Weston Price Foundation, so I am inclined to believe that he is selling a legitimate product. I do not take nutritional supplements myself: I have other areas of my diet to work on first. However, I learned a lot about nutritional supplementation from this book. In any case, I like Garden of Life's method of trying to sell their product by educating the consumer.

Part I: The learning curve

The medical community has consistently denigrated nutritional supplements but is slowly being forced to change. Today even the Journal of the American Medical Association recommends taking nutritional supplements. The history of vitamins begins in 1747 with James Lind discovering a cure for scurvy and continues with Eijkman discovering a cure for Beriberi in 1886. Both cures involved nutritional supplementation although not using synthetic vitamins. Vitamins were finally officially discovered by Funk in 1912 and synthetic Vitamin C was first produced by Szent-Gyorgyi in 1931.

There are two categories of vitamins: fat soluble and water soluble. Fat soluble vitamins include A, D, E, and K. Excess levels of these vitamins can be stored in fat for future use, and these vitamin levels will be depleted by a low fat diet. The B series of vitamins are the primary water soluble vitamins. The body flushes out excess levels so they cannot be stored and must be replenished regularly.

Part II: Cracking the code

The second part of the book tells the story of Endre Szalay who started the Grow Company which produces the vitamins sold by Garden of Life. Szalay is a Hungarian pharmacist who avoided serving in the Second World War because he is part deaf. His freedom spared, he managed to survive the warfare and rampaging armies which rampaged back and forth across his country during the war. He became a successful pharmacist after the war but was worried about being denounced to the communists, so he escaped to the United States.

Once in the US, Szalay's genius demonstrated itself. He began at the very bottom level of the pharmacy profession and but he rose up the ladder to become the Vice President of three different pharmaceutical companies. Giving up the lucrative positions, he retired and invested his own money to follow his passion and create the Grow Company which grows vitamins inside of living organisms--yeasts. These vitamins contain all the necessary factors for the body to use them because they are constructed by a living organism. The Grow Company does not sell directly to customers it only sells to other companies, so Jordan Rubin approached Szalay to begin making nutritional supplements. The rest is history.

Part III: What the vitamin code means

There are five different levels of vitamins according to the authors of this book. From worst to best they are

1. Isolated Vitamins and Minerals: These are the cheapest and most common form. They often contain lots of sweeteners and the body has a difficult time absorbing them.
   
2. Isolated Vitamins and Minerals with Food Powder: These are the same synthetic vitamins as before but they contain some food powders which make them slightly easier for the body to assimilate.
   
3. Food Concentrates: These are vitamins extracted from healthy foods such as grasses. They were popular during the 1930s but were driven from the market by the cheaper isolated vitamins and minerals.
   
4. Fermented Vitamins and Minerals: To create these vitamins a food concentrate is mixed with a pro-biotic such as friendly yeasts. The fermentation makes the food concentrates easier to absorb.
5. Raw Food Created Vitamins: These vitamins are grown inside of yeast using the Grow Company's process which is described in more detail in the second part of the book. They are kept at low temperature to avoid denaturing from heat.
   

The World of Hair by John Gray

The World of Hair Colour (Hairdressing and Beauty Industry Authority)

online version

Hair is an indicator of health, a large part of a woman’s identity, and has played a large part in many famous stories (Samson, Rapunzel ...). Knowing the importance of hair is only a small part of the puzzle. It is important to know how hair works, what the signs of healthy hair are, how to care for your hair, and what dangers to avoid.

While researching hair I came across a good resource: an e-book called The World of Hair by Dr. John Gray. This book represents conventional science, so it must be read with a grain of salt. Its intended audience seems to be hair stylists, so it covers both the theory behind hair and how to care for it. I will summarize what I feel are the most important points of this book.

Hair Structure:
The two parts of a hair are the follicle which is below the surface of the skin where hair grows and the shaft which is outside of the skin. New cells are created in the follicle and pushed outwards to become the shaft. Hair pigment is created in the follicle. The shaft is composed of dead cells and lubricated by sebum which is secreted from the follicle. The center of the shaft is called the cortex and gives hair its curl and elasticity. It is made up of keratin and contains the in hairpigments. The outside of the shaft is called the cuticle is composed of between six and ten layers of cells and takes the form of a layer of scales covering the cortex. The cuticle gives hair its shine.

Hair Statistics:
People generally have between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on their head. The number of hairs generally peaks around the age of 16 years old while the density of hair decreases throughout life. A baby will have around 1,100 hairs/cm2; a 25 year old, 600 hair/cm2, and someone 40 or older 300 hair/cm2. Hair usually grows at the rate of 1cm/month. Consequently shoulder length hair has usually been growing for 3 years and waist length hair for 7 years.

Hair Life Cycle:
Hair has three stages to its lifecycle. Anagen is the first phase in which the hair grows; this stage usually lasts between three and seven years. Catagen is the second phase lasting two to four weeks. During this phase hair stops growing and becomes ready for shedding. Telogen is the third phase; here a new hair starts to grow and the old hair falls out. This final stage lasts three to four months.

Hair Types:
Asian is the first of the hair categories based upon genetics. Asian hair is black and very straight. The straightness is due to the straightness of the keratin bundles. The shaft of the hair is round and thick. Its diameter can be more than 120 microns.

Caucasoid is the second type of hair. It is possessed by Europeans and Indians. It can be wavy or straight and has a wide range of colors. A mix of straight and wavy keratin bundles is found in the hair. The shaft is usually between 57 and 90 microns in diameter and oval in cross section.

The third type of hair is African. African hair is black and very curly. It is flatter in shape and the cuticle has many kinks in it.

In healthy hair the cortex or central part of the hair shaft is undamaged and the cuticle or covering sheath of the shaft is intact. Keeping hair in this state is easier said than done because once hair leaves the scalp it cannot be repaired. Hair needs to maintain its pristine conditions for a long time: 3 years for shoulder length, 5 years for waist length, and 12 years for hair long enough to sit on.

Since not everyone owns a high power microscope to examine their hair for damage, it is important to be able to tell hair’s healthiness through observation with the naked eyeball. Here the useful correlation between health and beauty aids us because we can recognize healthy hair instinctively. This explains why men are attracted to hair even though most men know almost nothing about hair. Properties of healthy and beautiful hair include glossiness, cleanness, amount, and volume.

The glossier hair is the more light it reflects. This is the most obvious property of healthy hair. Dark hair is generally glossier than light hair (this does not mean dark hair is better) because of the contrast between the shine and the natural hair color. Hair’s glossiness depends on the state of the cuticle. If the cuticle is mostly gone or highly damaged, hair will not reflect much light.

Clean hair is free of debris and has a proper level of natural oils. Hair naturally produces oil and should have some; however, it should not be excessively oily. There should not be debris or caked hairspray in the hair. Dirty hair is not as glossy as clean hair.

The amount of hair depends on the diameter of the hair shaft and number of hairs. The diameter of a pony tail can vary by more than 100% based upon the diameter and number of hairs. Both number of hairs and diameter of hair shaft are related to genetics and healthiness of lifestyle. Even though modern science says that both of these are fully genetic, it admits that in the case of starvation or high stress hair is lost and changes color. The amount of hair varies with length as well, but most of the time people do not grow their hair to its limiting length.

Volume is amount of space hair takes up. It is dependent on “thickness” as described in the previous paragraph but not entirely so. Hair properties such as stiffness, curvature, cohesion, and friction play a large role in determining hair’s volume. These cause hair to flow and hold itself in ways that hold more air inside and make it look bigger. While the amount of hair depends on ones long term health (of yourself and your ancestor), volume can be vary from day to day based upon treatment and weather conditions.

Next I will discuss general Dr. Gray's ideas about hair care and not specific techniques. First I will discuss styling and then cleaning. Hair styling is temporarily or permanently altering the shape of hair. Temporarily changing the shape of hair involves setting and changes weak bonds between hair while permanent altering either “perming” or “relaxing” chemically changes the shape of hair. Cleaning hair involves both the method of cleaning hair as well as the materials used.

Setting or temporary styling involves drying hair into place. This needs to be done every time hair is wetted. This is the safest way to style hair and everyone does it without thinking. Having a good haircut can make this easier. Avoid is back combing. This can increase the friction of hair leading to more volume, but it pushes up scales on the cuticle damaging the hair. Be careful about blow drying hair. Everyone agrees that air drying is optimal, but this takes a long time. Heat damages hair, and if there is a lot of water remaining in hair when it is blow dried, the water on the hair can boil seriously damaging the hair. For this reason towel dry and air dry as much as possible before blow drying. Hair can also be temporarily colored; this colors the hair with pigments which will eventually wash out. I would guess that this is not healthy [but more healthy than permanent coloring] because the pigments will also be absorbed into the scalp.

Permanent styling of hair changes the structure of hair through chemical processes. Usually a chemical is applied to the scalp which alters the structure of the hair chemically and a physical force is used to reshape the hair either curling (perm) or straitening (relaxing). After a period of time a neutralizing agent is applied counteracts the original chemical and locks the hair into its new form. Hair may be permanently colored as well. Here the pigments in the hair are neutralized and permanent dyes are used to change the color of the hair. Conducting these chemical causes permanent damage to hair and the author repeatedly emphasizes the need to determine what treatments hair has already received before applying new treatments so that hair is not too heavily damaged. There are many pictures in the book captioned by a statement along the lines of “this extremely beautiful hair has never been touched by any chemical treatment.”

A shampoo and possibly a conditioner is used to clean and care for hair on a regular basis. It is important to know your hair type in order to pick the correct shampoo. A shampoo removes grease and dirt from hair while a conditioner prevents tangling and protects the cuticle. Dr. Gray says that hair is washed much more often now than it had been in the past because shampoos are not as harsh as they used to be. I infer that you do not need to wash your hair nearly as much as we do.

Let your hair hang naturally and not pile it on top of your head while washing. Piling the hair will causing tangling and other problems. Do not scrub the hair too vigorously either. Shampoo should be applied mainly to the scalp while conditioner needs to be spread evenly throughout the hair

A Culture of War by Martin van Creveld

The Culture of War

The Culture of War describes the psychology behind war and how most common perceptions of war are incorrect. War is something that nearly all people at all times in history have enjoyed and wanted to engage in. The most outspoken pacifists often become the biggest proponents of war when the opportunity to fight arrives. Martin van Creveld is one of the best military historians in the world and he does a good job drawings lessons about mankind from his vast array of experience.

The section of the book which I found most interesting was Section Five: Contrasts. In this section van Creveld describes how the culture of war can broken down in a society. This does not mean that people don't fight any more--that will never happen--it means that the rules and traditions governing combat are destroyed. He desribes four ways that this can occur: two of them were particularly interesting to me.

1. The Wild Horde: All discipline breaks down and so an army warriors or a society dissolves into a unruly mob which is only capable of pillaging not winning battles. Peasant revolts are an example of this.
   
2. The Soulless Machine: Here the culture surrounding war becomes more important than war itself and hinders the army in combat. This can come from placing too much importance on traditions or deciding that war itself is something to be avoided. The first case happened in Germany before its defeats to Napoleon and the second happened in Germany after World War II.
   
3. Men Without Chests: Here men begin to look down on themselves and refuse to defend themselves or their culture. An example of this is European Jews before World War II.
   
4. Feminism: Here women's wishes and actions destroy a culture's warrior ethic by demanding to fight themselves or demeaning men who fight.
   

Case 3: Men Without Chests

The Jews in Europe were brave, but they were brave at enduring suffering not defending themselves. They had suffered all sorts of tribulations from the Europeans before the Holocaust and decided it was better not to fight back. They held the same beliefs about themselves as the anti-Semites. This came to an end when the state of Israel was founded because the Zionists deliberately began building a culture for the new Jewish state which allowed fighting,honored warriors, and expected military success.

I can see this mentality in myself today. I don't think the US is worth defending. I don't begrudge anyone else the opportunity to risk life and limb for the government, but my loyalty is only to my family and personal friends. I think I could be a successful warrior, but I don't feel I there is much worth the risk of defending. It would be interesting knowing more about the mentality of these cultures: they seem to come from powerlessness and a lack of confidence.

Case 4: Feminism

Women are integral to any warrior culture. Women's sexual lust for warriors and disdain for men who won't defend them is a key factor in motivating men to fight to protect them. Two of the best documented cases I know of are the women of the Confederate States of America and the women of England during the First World War. In both cases the women promised not to marry men who didn't fight in order to shame those who saw the pointlessness of the wars into throwing away their lives. They purposefully wore articles of clothing signifying that they held these views.

One way women can destroy a warrior culture is to not love the men who fight to defend them. When being a warrior does not help get women, men won't become warriors. I think loving warriors is hard wired into women because on the most common turn-ons for women is a man in uniform.

The second way women can destroy a warrior culture is to demand equality in the military. Their demands will be met in one of two ways.

• First, men and women might are allowed to join the military but held to different standards. Women will enter the military forces, but they will not be seen as equal to men because they are not held to the same standards. They are given the same rewards as men for doing less which demoralizes the male soldiers.
  
• Second, men and women can be held to the same standards int he military. In this case all the women will be almost permanently on the injured list and never make it into the front lines. There are women who can meet the physical standards set for men but they are a very small fraction of the population.
  

America has chosen the first choice here. I know our military is demoralized, but I don't know how much of this is due to the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how much is due to gender relations in the army. The fact that it has taken us this long to "win" in Iraq and looks like it will lose Afghanistan shows that our military is not operating at close to its capacity.

Eastern Europe 1740-1985 by Robin Okey

Eastern Europe 1740-1985: Feudalism to Communism

There are two versions of this book. The original covers up to 1980 while the version I read goes up to 1985. Both of these dates are before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Before reading this book I had a few ideas about how Eastern Europe had developed, but they were mostly based on assumptions. While reading this book I found most of the assumptions were incorrect. The first chapter gives an overview of Eastern Europe before 1740 (I still don't consider myself an expert on the pre-1740 time period) and the rest of the book covers the time period in the title: 1740-1985.

Eastern Europe started out similar to Western Europe under the feudal system. It was located between Russia and Germany; however, Germany was not yet the powerful centralized state it became under Bismark. For most of this time period (1740-1918) Eastern Europe was split up between great powers. At first it was divided between Turkey, the Hapsburgs, and Poland. Later Poland fell and was partitioned between Prussia and Russia. Following the First World War many of these nations gained independence, but their governments did not fair too well. It seems to be Okey's belief, these governments were already tottering before the Russians and Germans invaded. Today this twenty year period between the world wars is often assumed to be the natural order of things, but it really is not or at least hadn't been for a number of generations. From the revised perspective the cold war does not appear to have been a particularly bad time for Eastern Europe: most nations had their own state although Czechoslovakia (Czechs and Slavs) and Yugoslavia (all the Balkan nations) contained several different peoples. The countries were largely autonomous and seem to be doing compared to pre-World War I history.

A question that often comes up is why Eastern Europe fell behind Western Europe. The first reason seems to be that the nobility in Eastern Europe realized the threat of the tradesmen to their governmental dominance in time to crush their competition. In Western Europe this did not appear to happen, by the time the nobles realized that the growing middle class wanted more political power, they were unable to suppress them. After the nobles reestablished their control, towns in Eastern Europe began to shrink again. I am unclear about why the difference occurred maybe it was because Eastern Europe was controlled by large foreign empires: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Russians while Western Europe was controlled by home grown dynasties.

In some ways it seems that Eastern Europe has always been playing catch up with the West. Its intellectuals sat in Paris Cafes. It was late joining the enlightenment and never really seems to have caught on to the idea. Still, the idea that they were completely behind everyone else is incorrect. Wages were higher in Western Europe than Eastern Europe during the period from 1850-1914, but Eastern Europeans were still earning more money than Russians and presumably Turks. The earning differential and outsourcing (yes this happened back then) which occurred because of it raised the standard of living of the East Europeans although many of them were still serfs. The Eastern Europeans experienced the problems of many today: there will always be someone with more capital (earning more than you) pushing from above and someone working for less money (with a lower standard of living) pushing from below.

In the period leading up to the first World War, the governing empires were forced to spend more and more energy playing different factions off against each other and suppressing nationalistic feelings. Bismark, the unifier of Germany, made a point of avoiding involvement in the Balkans [advice America would do well to follow today]. During the First World War the Eastern European nations did not rise up to fight for independence. Afterward the region was split up into different countries based upon the haggling of the German, French, and British government. Except for the Czechs, all of these countries drifted from democracy into fascism or communism. The Czechs were the most politically stable of all the countries both before and after the First World War which explains why they are the most prosperous former Soviet Bloc country today.

Following the Second World War, the countries were each liberated again although they quickly moved under communism. Most of the prewar national leadership was eliminated either through being voted out, dying in the war, or execution. Romania and Poland both avoided the show trials which happened in all other countries (it never pays to be the second place dictator). Although all countries were under the sway of the Soviet Union, they each resisted in their own way. Ceauşescu in Romania and Tito in Yugoslavia were able to gain a certain degree of autonomy although they were not very kind (read brutal) to their own people. Polish, Hungarian and other citizens fought and protested but suffered for this at the hands of soldiers.

As the soviet period continued, the Eastern German governments gradually took more and more capitalist ideas. The population moved into the cities and their diets included more meat and sugar and less bread and potatoes. When writing this book, Okey was unsure whether the countries would continue to liberalize or revert to hardcore communism. Thankfully, the former took place.

After reading this book, I am more optimistic about the future of Eastern Europe but more uncertain about the future of mankind. Eastern Europe is happily on a long term upward trend. Unfortunately, I now have a better understanding of how rare and fleeting liberty is in this world.

The Modern Diet Review by John Barban

The Modern Diet Review

I downloaded The Modern Diet Review by John Barban from The Fitness Black Book. The free download source is also located on The Fitness Black Book's website. The author, John Barban, maintains a blog where you can read more of his work. In his summary of the book Rusty Moore of TFBB says that Barban has worked successfully for some time in the fitness industry, a strike against him in my mind.

Barban breaks modern diets down into seven types: four of which can work, two of which are bad, and one is not yet evaluated. First, I will discuss John Barban's conclusion and then critique his description of each diet.

Barban says that all diets boil down to calories in minus calories out. He says that less processed foods can provide the most satisfaction [read nutrition?] per calorie, but this is a minor factor in comparison to your calorie deficit.

There are no such thing as ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods. There is just food and how much of it you choose to eat.
Finding a diet style that helps you eat less total food without going insane is the key to lasting weight loss.

I completely disagree with this. I believe food quality and nutrition is the number one factor in health and consequently weight loss. The volume of food/calories is of secondary importance and the amount needed depends on food quality. While I agree with many of the things Barban says in this report, I cannot agree with his conclusion. I would encourage you to read this report, but take it with a grain of salt.

Diet categories

• Low fat (potentially good)
• Low carbohydrate (potentially good)
• Intermittent fasting (potentially good)
• Balanced nutrient ratios (potentially good)
• Cleansing/Detox (bad)
• Blood type (bad)
• Paleo (unknown)

Based upon Barban's findings low carbohydrate and low carbohydrate diets work but very poorly. They work by lowering the caloric intake and neither of them show significant weight loss after a year; however, low carb diets do show weight loss after three months and so are an improvement over low fat diets. I think both of these diets are starvation diets which only work as long as you are short of food through willpower or scarcity. Barban follows the standard party line that most fats are bad (saturated and trans) and that only unsaturated fats are good. I think this is incorrect based upon the lessons I have learned from the Weston A. Price Foundation and Eat Fat and Grow Slim. Animal fats are an essential part of your diet (although olive and coconut oil can replace them to a certain extent) and very healthy. You cannot eat too many of these healthy animal fats.

The intermittent fasting diet has been shown to work over the course of a year. I follow a combination of the Warrior Diet (a version of intermittent fasting) and Weston Price Foundation guidelines, so this is where I have the most experience. Barban approves of this method saying that intermittent fasting has been shown to maintain weight loss over the course of a year proving its effectiveness. He attributes this to calorie cutting because people will often skip another meal or day of food when they notice they are gaining weight. I disagree with him about intermittent fasting only working because of calorie deprivation. Ori Hofmekler has shown that metabolism increases with intermittent fasting so that you will lose weight even if your caloric intake remains constant.

John Barban's favorite is the balanced nutrient type diet because it trains you to eat a balanced diet (read: count calories/read nutrition labels) and prevents the need to eliminate any dietary group from your diet. Low fat and low carb diets fail because a dieter cannot give up eating foods he loves. This diet allows a reduction in calories without eliminating any foods. If you believe diets boil down to a calories in versus calories out equation, this is the best diet for you. I think this diet has potential but I would not favor it over intermittent fasting.

Cleansing and detox diets differ in that the former attempts to clean your intestinal tract while the latter tries to clean toxins from your body. Barban says that both of these lack scientific evidence and do not make sense logically. The intestinal tract can be viewed in videos and apparently most people do not have any intestinal buildup. I have not looked into this matter, so I will not comment on it. John then says that the concept of toxins is vaguely defined and that your body detoxes itself naturally and there is nothing you can do to aid the process. While I have not investigated detox diets, I disagree with Barban's conclusions. The liver and kidneys can obviously detoxify faster if they are healthy. They are filters and might need to get cleaned and rested from time to time. I don't know what a "toxin" is either but we get plenty of toxic substances that build up in our body like mercury in a Great Lakes fish. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that foods and drinks such as beet kvass can speed the rate of detoxification, but I am unsure if any scientific studies have investigated this.

John Barban calls the blood type diet an interesting idea with no basis in fact. People all over the world have different blood types and different diets and are healthy. Barban is probably correct about blood types, but I would guess that there is a genetic component to what makes a diet successful. On the whole, I would agree with Barban that the blood type diet does not work although I have not studied the matter thoroughly.

No studies have been conducted on the paleo diet, so Barban does not give a recommendation on this diet. He does say that the paleo diet seems to be a combination of the intermittent fasting and balanced nutrient diets.

White Devil by Steven Brumwell

White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America

I finished reading White Devil by Stephen Brumsell a while ago, but it was very interesting so I read through my notes in order to review it. I have already made one post from this book about Robert Rogers getting scurvy on my primary blog. White Devil tells the story of Robert Roger's raid on St. Francis during the French and Indian War. Although the focus is on one particular battle, Brumwell tells the story within the context of the war as a whole.

While there are a vast number of lessons that can be drawn from this book, the interactions between and differences among the interacting cultures was the most interesting to me. In a way it hearkens back to a hierarchy of cultures I have proposed earlier. The groups discussed will be

1. French and English gentry and officers
2. Town dwellers in the new and old world
3. English farmers
4. French and English woodsmen
5. Native Americans
   

1. French and English gentry and officers

English and French officers and political leaders were at the top of the social ladder. In general they held everyone else in disdain and demanded unquestioning submission from military subordinates. Penalties in the British army were severe; I do not know about the French army. This led the officers to try and replace the independent frontiersmen with more controllable regulars as scouts and skirmishers. Today these officers are are stereotyped as being stupid and having bad tactics (see the movie The Last of the Mohicans as an example). This was sometimes the case as with Thomas Gage who did not perform well during either the French and Indian War or the American Revolution, but he was an exception not the rule. A few examples of skilled leaders who died leading their men are Wolfe, de Montcalm, and Howe. These men were not familiar with the American wilderness having grown up in Europe, but this lack of experience does not mean the lacked in intellect. In any case, it is undisputed that this caste controlled the grand strategy and strategic levels of the war.

1. Town dwellers in the New and Old World

These men formed the backbone of the armies. They were not the best fighters in world history, but modern opinion does not give them enough credit. These people did not live out on the frontier and most of them had spent their entire lives living in urban areas. They were not a warrior caste raised from the cradle to handle a gun and they were not skilled woodsmen; however, they went into battle with arguably the most hardened tribal warriors in the world and the best light infantrymen of all time. American soldiers face similar tribal warriors in Afghanistan today, but the modern Americans have a vast technological superiority. The English line troops had only muskets and so were on a technological parity with their opponents. These men fought realizing that they would most likely be tortured to death if captured. I do not think many from this group served in the ranger units, but their bravery cannot be questioned.

3. British farmers

I don't think Brumwell really distinguishes between the farmers and city dwellers in his book, but I think there is a difference. This category of men were farmers from America or recently conquered highlanders from Scotland. These men had a more martial spirit and were physically stronger than the city folk, but they did not have experience in the back woods. As the British began to field regular light infantry units in hopes of replacing the rangers, this category of men volunteered to fill the ranks. They learned their skills from Robert Rogers and went out on long ranging trips away from the safety of the army. Many of these men met their deaths during these excursions, but the fact that they reached the point of being able to battle the natives on close to equal terms is a wonder in itself. The Highlanders were brought to the colonies by the English for two reasons: first, to kill them off so they would not rebel again and second, because they were a tribal people they might be better able to deal with the natives. This did not turn out to be the case because the highlands were not a dense forest; the Scots were no good in the woods (without training).

French and English woodsmen

These men grew up on the frontier. They were in many ways as the same as the Native Americans, but there were some differences. First, I don't think they ever attained parity in wilderness fighting with the natives. The English at least did not have the cultural background of the Natives and came down with scurvy, a nutritional disease the Indians knew how to avoid. The English officers hated their rangers because of they were rebellious, but knew the officers could not do without them. Like the Indians, there were not many of these frontiersmen. It was impossible to replace casualties and my guess is that most of this class was just about exterminated during the war. The French were friendly with the Native Americans and traded with them as opposed to the British frontiersmen who were their enemies and usually trying to take their land. Consequently, the French woodsmen often went out to fight as one war party with the Natives.

Native Americans

The Native Americans drew upon a much smaller population base than England and France. They were impressed by the bravery of the European soldiers who made frontal assaults while taking lots of casualties, but the Indians would not risk their lives in this manner themselves. Each native death was a tragedy for the small Indian populations, so they quickly broke from contact whenever they were on the losing side of a fight. Even in such British victories as the Battle of Bushy Run, the British suffered more casualties than the Indians. One thing that the Indians could not do was empathize with their white opponents. They depopulated the Colonial countryside killing women and children without remorse, yet they are angry to this day that the English soldiers attacked their women and children at St. Francis. What was an weekly occurrence (having houses torched and families slaughtered) for the Colonists, was a once in a war happening for the Indians. The natives also tortured their captives to death frequently, so our modern image of the noble savage is not entirely true. Their fighting and wilderness skills were second to none. They often defeated vastly superior numbers of European soldiers and the main reason the raid on St. Francis was successful was that most of the Native warriors were gone. The native warriors of the Eastern North America may have been the best light infantry warriors in the history of the world.