Category Archives: Food

Review of The Happiness Diet

The Happiness Diet: A Nutritional Prescription for a Sharp Brain, Balanced Mood, and Lean, Energized Body, by Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey, is full of useful bits of information that are essential for making good, informed dietary decisions. It also covers the history of how processed foods are made, and uses plain scientific facts to explain why whole foods are usually superior sources of the nutrients we need.

The most important part of the book, in my opinion–and the reason why I chose to review it–is the “elements of happiness” portion. In addition to the essential nutrients that our body cannot produce and must acquire from our diet, the book adds a list of nutrients (like folate, vitamins D and B12, and others) that the body needs in order to synthesize happiness. This, of course, reminded me of a passage in the Letter to Menoeceus where Epicurus is expounding the hierarchy of desires:

among the necessary desires some are necessary for happiness, some for physical health, and some for life itself.

While the food industry does not consider nutrients necessary for happiness to be essential in the same way that nutrients necessary for health are essential, an Epicurean who is interested in applying the knowledge in this book will likely consider the “elements of happiness” to be as important as the nutrients needed for health, since both are considered natural and necessary in Epicurean doctrine.

In Tending the Epicurean Garden, I suggested that we know more about the science and diet of happiness now than the ancient Epicureans did, and that it might be possible to start considering what an Epicurean diet might look like for us–one that considers happiness, moods and pleasure, as well as health, in its calculus. For those who are serious about reassessing their dietary choices along Epicurean lines, the book The Happiness Diet fills the knowledge gap that must be filled to pursue this project, and invites a deeper study into the foods and ingredients that contain the essential elements of happiness. If you’d like to conduct your own research online on the essential elements of happiness, and what the best food sources are for each, they are:

Vitamin B12
Iodine
Magnesium
Cholesterol
Vitamin D
Calcium
Fiber
Folate
Vitamin A
Omega 3 oils
Vitamin E
Iron

These are the vitamins, molecules, and natural elements that the body requires from a dietary source in order to be able to synthesize happiness and good moods. Because these ingredients are required for happiness (one of the three “necessary” goods in the Letter to Menoeceus, and a separate priority from “health”), they fall within the “natural and necessary” category in our hierarchy of desires, even if only a small measure of them is needed for happiness.

It’s my view that the dietary science of happiness invites a reform, or at least the addition of specificity, to Epicurean ethics. Epicurus argued that we only need a little food, not much more, to sustain our bodies. But the three categories of what is considered natural and necessary add nuance to this natural measure of food: we now know that our intake of food must contain enough of certain essential nutrients (for health) and enough of the elements of happiness in order to enable our bodies to experience health and happiness.

Therefore, we know that we don’t just need enough food: we need enough of these particular nutrients.

The Happiness Diet reminds us that happiness and moods are physical, natural things. Somewhere encoded in the molecules of our bodies there are hormonal changes and chemical reactions that account for our moods and states. As an Epicurean, the physicality of happiness makes sense to me. It rescues happiness from speculative discourse, and helps to ground our dietary and lifestyle choices and rejections in concrete, scientific, empirically-informed data.

The book does more than provide guidance concerning how diet relates to happiness, knowledge which is useful in our dietary choices and rejections. It also warns us–with many examples–of the dangers of processed foods to our health and moods.

The Happiness Diet is not preachy, or vegan, or very restrictive. It supports, for example, the consumption of some measure of pork, lard, and dairy products. The book presents hard scientific facts. The science lends the book authority, and the reader is left to decide what to do with all the information provided. Many recipes and ideas for using the ingredients it recommends are provided towards the end of the book.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book. It presented my mind with new and useful perspectives concerning my choices and rejections at the table, it influenced my culinary adventures in a positive way, and gave me the power of knowledge.

Further Reading:
The Four Foods Epicurus Enjoyed

Vegetarianism as a Life Choice for Epicureans

What follows is a recent discussion on vegetarianism as a life choice for Epicureans. Please read Hermarchus on the Ethics of Vegetarianism and Treatment of Animals for context.

Hiram. We’ve been wondering what thoughts people have on vegetarianism from an Epicurean philosophy perspective.

Ron. If death is nothing to us, it is nothing to the animals. However, they are sentient beings and while they are alive they deserve from us a pleasant life.

Lena. I think being involved in animal slaughter is a harm for the people involved. We can make this better by improving conditions for animals and people, but the physical and emotional danger to us must be part of the calculus.

Eileen. I don’t recall him ever saying killing is nothing, though. Epicurus believed we are not unique among the animals. Since we wouldn’t want to be killed, I can imagine he might think we should forgo killing them, especially since we can be healthy as vegetarians. I assume he was aware that people can be vegetarians because there were some in ancient Athens in his day. Maybe I’m assuming too much.

Anthony. I think as in all things hedonic calculus needs to be performed. In some situations, such as human starvation or malnutrition, there is less pain if the human, who has the blessing and curse of foresight (knowing they will starve to death or at least suffer much pain from hunger and malnutrition), the killing of an animal for food in my opinion is an obvious choice. I believe eating fish and insects may be more morally acceptable as those animals, as far as I know, are less aware of their fate and so have less anxiety about death.

Is it not natural and correct for the individual to first consider their own essential needs before another’s as we who understand nature would expect others to do?

Hiram. I suppose a more scientific approach to this from an ethical perspective that takes into consideration how much pleasure vs pain our choices and avoidances generate is to think in terms of the neural complexity of the creature that we kill for food. This has always seemed intuitively correct to me: like you said, a cricket is much less complex in his neural system than a cow or pig, and therefore getting protein from them is less cruel. I think the amount of unnecessary suffering generated is part of what generates discomfort and guilt in us.

Lena. Some Jains don’t eat potatoes because it destroys too many microbes, and I’ve seen an argument that the push to farm insects as protein isn’t a moral improvement over current livestock, because the quantity of lives and suffering would become so significant.

Hiram. The Epicurean Scholarch Hermarchus seems to be putting forward ecological management arguments in the cited article. If too many of certain creatures breed they should probably be eaten. On the other hand many species of fish will be depleted by 2050 because of over-fishing and will likely become protected species soon.

Matt. The best advice on this subject I ever have heard came from a Theravada Buddhist monk…though he himself was a vegetarian living in Sri Lanka, he admonished others that took a position that vegetarianism is the “correct” thing to do. He would say that Buddhists living in places where it is inhospitable to grow crops like Tibet and Mongolia … those monks must subsist on meat and dairy in lieu of a strictly vegetarian diet. So it can’t be a universal precept. It may be right for an individual but it can’t be proclaimed as universally orthodox since there are societies that have been subsisting on animal products since time immemorial and the reasoning has to do with necessity.

I have also made serious attempts to be vegetarian in my life, specifically when I adapted to a Hindu/Eastern philosophy years ago. I find the reasoning within eastern philosophy to be pretty flimsy, based on metaphysical idealism that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I have finally settled on the fact that meat eating is good for me, as a personal position. I have hunted and I have killed animals before for food and I am comfortable with this decision from an ethical perspective, even if I don’t personally kill the animal that produces the meat I consume or my family consumes on a regular basis.

Si. Personally I think that looking at what you eat and why is a part of the analyzed life. The industrial meat industry is a lot different than in the Hellenistic era. So even if Epicurus has the occasional meat, it’s very different now. With environmental considerations as well as ethics, I personally made the choice to be vegetarian and move towards having a mostly plant based. I try and cause as least pain as possible in an imperfect world.

Marcus. Evidence points to the ancient Epicureans being flexitarians, eating meat on occasion but mostly encouraging vegetarianism as healthier. Desire for meat was considered natural but not necessary.

Beryl. Biologically we have the dental apparatus of omnivores therefore we have adaptations to eat everything. That is our true nature as human beings. I have worked in medical research and seen the morally corrupting influence of using animals as vessels for our own natural urges and unnatural urges and interests Killing does seem to change people and reduce their empathy for living things. I turned my back on this type of medical research in my twenties viewing it as barbaric and pollutional for me.

Shahab. I think our nature or our natural body is more adapted for consumption of plants, rather than meat. Historically, people used less amount of meat. Eating meat was considered to be ceremonial, and somehow, a privilege for kings and their courtmen. Moreover, maybe by comparing the shape of our teeth to other non-human animals we can draw the conclusion that we are less adapted to eating meat than to plants.

Plus, the veganism is a modern subject, or let’s say, a reaction to the modern problem of over-production of meat, and kinds of diseases related to over-consumption of meat, and also the development of ethical framework which takes non-humans as subjects of ethical discussions.

When I remember my own childhood, or see other children’s affection toward animals, and their deep opposition to killing them, I can draw the raw conclusion that beside eating meat, killing animals regularly and on a mass scale is an outright deviation from our nature.

Hiram. Philodemus says that people who suffer from chronic, out-of-control rage are “like wild beasts”. Similarly we could argue that people who enjoy causing suffering to innocent animals are also “like wild beasts”, and that they remain in a wild, pre-civilized state. Whenever a creature complains or cries while being mistreated, it is understood that the animal is not giving its consent to how it’s being treated, that some form of communication of denial of consent is being given. Therefore, the act is unjust (as per Doctrine 32), and if animals have to be slaughtered for food, they should be killed in the least painful way possible.

Matt. This particular study shows evidence that human evolutionary progress was the result of an exceptionally high protein diet. Even our facial structure has been changed. Early humans have gone through multiple phases, but the reality is that humans have in fact had high protein diets in prehistoric times and even today. Agriculture is a fairly modern invention in the history of humankind. Human biology shows evidence that early humans became what we are now from a divergent lifestyle of pure herbivory.

This is not a condemnation of Vegetarianism or Veganism on philosophical or health grounds. I believe that a person chooses that lifestyle for many good reasons. I cannot say the vegetarianism of the Hindu Indian is ethically more correct than the traditional heavy protein rich diet of the Inuit in Nunavut. Both lifestyles arose organically and are currently being practiced, and there are many, many cultures that fall in between these two extremes that also arose entirely organically.

Beryl. I attended a conference six years ago now which looked specifically at new diagnostic methods to link human genome to food benefits with many researchers saying that individual diets for health optimization were being developed, so I agree what is natural and necessary for one person is not natural or even healthy for another. Ultimately hedonic calculus helps to determine the actions that make one healthy bodily and psychologically and which cause oneself and those about us least suffering.

Ultimately though I do believe we must evolve to develop greater empathy and connection with our fellow species on this planet and to step aside from our egotistical drives for survival which are now hurting vast swathes of the world’s populations and is causing global temperature. There are 7 billion of us on the planet and some animal species are down to their last 50 individuals. As an individual, I am starting where I am, taking responsibility for what I do and influencing where I can. I am not wedded to that though. If our species died out then that would mean nothing to me, however the future suffering of the upcoming generations does trouble me and perhaps that’s a topic for further discussion sometime.

Nate. If it works for you, it works for you. Nature gave us a variety of teeth, a variety of micro-bacteria in our guts, and a variety of digestible items in our environments from which to choose. It would be odd for an omnivorous, opportunistic mammalian species to exhibit anything less than diversity in diets.

The Four Foods Epicurus Enjoyed

To the Epicureans, the Twentieth of every month is a time for friends and for feasting. There are no traditional recipes (yet) for modern Twentieth celebrations. We encourage individuals to develop their own culinary traditions around the Twentieth, but a generally good guideline is to follow the Mediterranean diet, which has been declared by UNESCO an “intangible heritage” of all of humanity. Here are some guidelines for how to incorporate the Mediterranean diet into our cuisine. Epicurus and his companions must have enjoyed most of the foods that were part of the Mediterranean diet in his day, but there are four foods that are mentioned in the chronicles that we know with certainty they enjoyed.

Water

When guests walked into the Garden, Seneca reports that they were welcomed with bread and water. This is typically treated as a testament in favor of a simple lifestyle. But let’s apply the canon to this: what evidence do we have for the usefulness of drinking plain water? I can speak for myself. Drinking one large glass of very cold water, first thing in the morning, is extremely refreshing and energizing. Not Gatorade. Not Yerba maté (as much as I love it): just plain water. Citing multiple studies, this article on the importance of hydration by Healthline says that lack of hydration

can lead to altered body temperature control, reduced motivation, and increased fatigue. It can also make exercise feel much more difficult, both physically and mentally … can impair many aspects of brain function … impaired both mood and concentration. It also increased the frequency of headaches. … fluid loss of 1.6% was detrimental to working memory and increased feelings of anxiety and fatigue.

Notice that both physical stamina and mental health were affected by lack of proper hydration, according to the studies cited. It’s estimated that about 60 % of our body is made up of water. It also helps to avoid constipation and hangovers.

So perhaps offering water to everyone at the Garden was a way to ensure that not only did people have access to at least one non-alcoholic beverage, but also that people remained hydrated and healthy.

Bread

Bread is so common that, in the Bible, it’s a euphemism for food. Many ancient mystery religions either involved “barley cake” (which was enjoyed at Eleusis) or worshiped gods who made themselves useful to humanity in the form of communion bread (Orpheus, Osiris, Dionysus), and the Christian eucharist is a modern version of this belief and practice. To us Epicureans, bread is simply a particular combination of atoms and void, but it was also enjoyed by everyone who was welcomed in the Garden, and so we can imagine that the first Gardens would have had their bread recipes and traditions.

I grew up eating soft, still-warm French bread, a tradition that the French brought to Puerto Rico and which evolved into two forms of French bread that we call “pan criollo” (Creole bread) or sometimes “pan sobao” (kneaded bread): one is a hard, long loaf of bread (has a harder exterior) and the other looks similar but is soft bread, which is sweeter and has no hard exterior. This last one was by far always my favorite, eaten warm with requesón (soft cheese) or Gouda cheese, or in a sandwich. Every region has its own local variety of bread made with local yeast and local ingredients, which is why I have not been able to find this type of bread in all my years in Chicago.

The art and history of bread-making (tied to the history of beer, which is really liquid bread) is fascinating, and I’ve had many adventures over the years with both beer-brewing–including gluten-free quinoa beer, which was my best and healthiest homemade beer ever–and bread-making at home. I’ve made naan bread, cricket bread, and yuca bread (or tortillas) with yoghurt, and also made pizza, which is just bread with cheese and a sauce and other ingredients.

Ancient Greeks had a huge variety of breads, and some were made specifically for some holiday or religious occasion–like they still do for Easter and Christmas. When the Vesuvian eruption happened in the year 79, there was a baker who left his bread in the oven in order to escape the cataclysm. Almost 1,900 years later, this bread (which would have likely been similar to the bread that was enjoyed by the Epicurean Guide Philodemus of Gadara and his associates) was re-discovered in the remains of Herculaneum. This video shows us how to make ancient Herculaneum bread. It was likely enjoyed with olive oil.

Of course, we do not have to try to replicate the ancient way of making bread, although it would be a fun experiment. Bread can be made from a wide variety of roots and grains. It’s truly one of the most universal foods, and fun to make (even if it takes patience), particularly if the finished product is tasty and becomes a source of pride. Perhaps in the future some Epicurean communities will celebrate the Twentieth by developing their own bread-making traditions.

If bread was made from scratch on the Twentieth in the Gardens, it’s possible that the preparations for the holiday started the day prior to the Twentieth, where bakers would have made sure to have a sourdough starter for the next day. They may also have fermented grapes or other fruits overnight together with a portion from a previous batch of bread, or used beer-foam or beer as a starter. If there were children in the Garden, this would have been a great educational experiment in chemistry for them, as well as in the culinary arts. They could have provided additional hands for kneading.

Cheese

According to this page in celebration of Greek gastronomy,

Greek cheeses are a plenty. I am almost certain that Greece consumes more cheese than any other nation. Cheese is such a rich part of Greece’s history; the ancient Greeks even designated a god to this wonderful food.

Aristaios (Αρισταιος), the son of Apollo, was the god that brought Cheese making (and honey, olive growing, medicinal herbs) to ancient Greece. No wonder his name is a derivative of the Greek word “aristos,” meaning “most useful.”

Notice that the god was associated with medicinal herbs and honey (which also has antibacterial properties), and we will begin to understand how, in the Mediterranean diet–as Hippocrates said–we let food be our medicine and medicine be our food. There is no boundary between the culinary and the medicinal. In order to understand why Epicurus loved his cheese so much, it may help to understand the history of cheese-making in Ancient Greece. According to this webpage on the history of Greek cheese,

The single most distinguishing characteristic of Greek cheese is that most of it is made with sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or a combination of the two. Cow’s milk cheeses exist but only a handful of Greek islands.

The page also explains that Greek cheeses went well beyond feta and were incredibly varied (including “cheeses that are sun-dried; aged in lees; and those that are preserved in olive oil“, pastries that incorporated cheese, and “roasted cheesecakes“), and made a great offering to the gods. It also says:

Cheese played a role, not only as a staple, but also as a luxury item in ancient Greek gastronomy.

… which reminds us of the autarchy (self-sufficiency) portion of Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus where Epicurus explains that, in order to better enjoy the occasional luxury, it’s good to save those luxuries for special occasions.

We regard autarchy as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate oneself, therefore, to a simple and inexpensive diet supplies al that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.

Hence, when Epicurus told one of his friends in a letter:

Send me a pot of cheese, that I may feast.

it is understood that this was not an everyday luxury for Epicurus. Each island and region of Greece made its own cheese varieties, so this friend probably brought a luxury (or rare, local) item from afar, from wherever he was from or from wherever he visited.

Since we use the canon, let us look also at the science behind cheese, and how it relates to happiness. Fermented foods in general (like cheese and yoghurt) are good for keeping a healthy balance of gut bacteria. Gut flora has been tied to mood regulation / mood disorders. Only recently have scientists been able to identify and isolate the specific bacteria in cheese and other products that aid with happiness, digestion, and mood regulation. According to this essay,

Not all cheeses contain live bacteria, as they can be killed off during the making process but those that pack the biggest probiotic punch include brie, cheddar, cottage cheese, edam, feta, roquefort and stilton.

The gut needs a variety of bacteria, which is why fermented foods do not need to be eaten daily, or even frequently. Epicurus’ choice of enjoying cheese only on occasion shows that he had a healthy, intuitive approach to listening to his belly.

Wine

In the chronicles, we learn that Epicurus had casual discussions with Polyaenus about the nature of the particles that were in the wine that they were casually drinking. At the time of his death, Epicurus also had a bit of wine mixed with water in order to help him manage his pain. Wine is tied to Dionysus–whose cult, according to anthropologists, include rich and poor, men and women, and encouraged temporary liberation from the restrictions of cultural conventions through drunkenness.

However, most wine consumption was not for the sake of drunken stupor. That was only on special occasions. Typically, Greeks mixed wine with water so that it was more like a grape juice. According to Lemon & Olives,

The oldest Greek wine (2,000 years old) served today is the famous white wine, Retsina. The very same wine that the ancient Greeks drank can be tasted today. To be honest, it kind of taste like a pine tree. The reason for the pine taste was do to the ancients and their method of sealing wine barrels with pine resin to keep air out. It is good but an acquired taste. Best served cold with sharp cheeses.

As for the health benefits of wine, so long as it’s not consumed in excess: we know that the benefits are similar to those of grapes (and raisins), and berries, which have a very high anti-oxidant value. This helps to fight cancer and other degenerative diseases, and helps to slow aging and the general deterioration of the body.

If our readers develop particular culinary traditions for the Twentieth, please let us know via email or in our FaceBook group. We’d love to document the emergence of these traditions.

Also, a big thank you to my supporters on Patreon and Substack.

Cacao Bliss: the Food of the Gods

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The Food of the Gods

Did you know that money grows on trees? No kidding! It’s not just a cynical retort used by misers. Ancient Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and even had a deity, Ek Chuah, who presided over both cacao and trade. These are the same beans from which today chocolate, in all its varieties, is made.

Aztecs considered cacao the food of the Gods, hence its scientific name theobroma cacao. As for the Maya, they believed that the Gods discovered the cacao plant in a sacred mountain where other food items were also found, and later the Feathered Serpent gave it to humankind to cultivate. Numerous ancient tablets contain medicinal, ceremonial and culinary references to it. It was also made into a powder that was smoked.

Cacao consumption has always been favored by the most refined, being enjoyed by both ancient Aztec kings and high-society Europeans during the 1800’s. Today it’s synonimous with Valentines’ Day and is often used by lovers who wish to express their adoration.

Serotonin, Dopamine, Anandamide: the Bliss Cocktail

The brain on cacao secretes the same chemicals and feel-good hormones that are produced when we make love, or when an athlete experiences the runner’s high. Prominent among them is serotonin, the chemical of wellbeing, which is known to helps regulate sleep and moods. It contains anandamide, which translates literally as the chemical of bliss. It also has so many minerals that it’s nature’s own mineral supplement. Many of these minerals are often lacking in the standard American diet.

In its raw form, cacao has anti-depressant properties, increases pleasure and alleviates stress. There are very few foods this highly auspicious. Cacao has been used successfully as a mood-booster by the authorities in London with youth leaving the club scene late at night, where it was proven to reduce the rates of violent crimes and unruly behavior.

Cacao keeps the heart healthy. It’s a brain food that supports memory and learning, relaxes the muscles and alleviates menstrual pain. This is why women naturally crave chocolate when pregnant or during menstruation. The human body has the wisdom to recognize that super-foods like cacao and maca help to regulate the hormonal system.

I should warn my readers that all these benefits are optimized when we consume cacao in its unprocessed form, the way nature intended. Most commercial chocolate not only has lost much of the nutritional value of cacao, but also has been adulterated with caffeine and processed sugars. In its raw form, cacao has more than twenty times the antioxidants that processed chocolate has, and has little to no caffeine.

Cacao Powder Recipes

Use raw cacao in powdered form on smoothies or drinks. My favorite recipe is what I call the ‘raw cacao elixir’. This is a very easy-to-make drink. It uses very cold baby coconut water, cacao and maca powders, and a sweetener: blend and serve. Sometimes during the summer I also add crushed ice to make it even more refreshing.

Make and serve all-natural homemade dairy-free chocolate ice cream in two minutes by blending cacao powder, a sweetener and a couple of frozen bananas. Maca powder is optional and adds a malty flavor to it. There’s a beautiful synergy between cacao and maca, as well as between cacao and coconut water.

Alternatively, if you don’t have two minutes, just eat a handful of raw cacao nibs in the morning, sweetened with honey, agave nectar or stevia, as an easy way to keep the spirits high all day.

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Society of Friends of Epicurus

… for we need not the appearance of health but true health