Methylation Chicken - a food first approach to nutrigenetics
The idea that our food can radically influence our genes is one of the most fundamental shifts in healthcare thinking since we discovered that sliced bread really wasn't a good idea at all.
This is the week that we really start digging down into nutrition for nutrigenomics and I’ve deliberately kicked things off with a recipe because I want to remind us all that food is where it all happens. The theory is useless without the practice.
Nutrigenomics is a complex topic and you’ll need your body and brain to be firing on all cylinders to get the most out of your reading. And that relies to a large extent on the process of methylation.
As you know, I’m an ardent fan of getting the nutrients we need from food rather than supplements - at least as a starting point. Apart from anything else, the process of preparing a simple meal has got to be better for you than opening a bottle and swallowing a pill.
So while I beaver away behind the scenes preparing some interesting posts for you, I want you to slave away in the kitchen making this wonderful recipe to make sure you are in tip top condition to take it on board. Methylation Chicken provides all the nutrients you need to support this vital gene support function - and next time I’ll start to explain why that’s so important.
Methylation is an important concept to grasp for cancer nutritionists and their patients. It plays an important role in gene expression. And like everything else in human biochemistry, it exists in a delicate balance. Cancer cells are widely considered to be undermethylated (or hypomethylated) which has been linked to genomic instability. On the other hand they have also been found to have regional hypermethylation. This, of course, tells us that there’s more to correcting this process than simply providing a whole lot of methyl supplements and everything will be fixed. There is something at a higher level that decides what gets methylated and what gets de-methylated.
How wonderful, then, that we can trust good food (and lifestyle) to take care of that for us! While supplements can be heavy handed, foods like beetroot, mushrooms, rosemary, turmeric, garlic, liver etc can cope with the dichotomy as a result of the different nutrients they contain.
So that’s what this recipe is all about, in case you were wondering: a bowl full of methylation nutrients to support antioxidant availability, help balance your hormones and neurotransmitters, and send the right messages to your DNA.
It’s also delicious, you’ll be pleased to know!
