for less than oblivion through cryonics and the developing concepts of cell repair machines, but going into detail would take too much space.

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Even if we can’t do much now about the spread of creation memes or with those who are infected with these memes, it is useful to know what we are facing. The knowledge may eventually lead to really effective programs, but even if it does not, it may keep us from wasting our time on futile activities. At least for us, we are less upset by the irrational behavior all around us now that we know it has an understandable origin in our evolutionary past.

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(Editors’ note: Keith Henson was one of the founders of the L5 Society, which was dedicated to preparing us for space colonization. He now devotes some of his considerable energies to political and legal action in defense of cryonics. Arel Lucas is also involved in the cryonics movement and works with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.)

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Extropian people protect their health both for its immediate benefits and because it increases their chances of living to a time when science has conquered aging and death. But extropians are also busy enjoying their lives to the fullest, and staying healthy takes precious time. In this article, Dr Harris’ describes a breakfast that will not only save your time - it could save your life, as well!

A Truly Instant Breakfast

by Steven B. Harris, M.D.

Most people who have been on a health food kick at one time or another have attempted to make some sort of blenderized health food drink a part or their dietary regimen. This phase usually lasts about a week. It seems that although recipes for such concoctions abound in every book on the subject of health, they all have one thing in common: they taste just awful.

The main reason for this sad fact seems to lie with the ingredients that health advisors insist on choosing for such drinks. There is, for instance, brewer’s yeast — a nauseating substance that was a favorite of the late Adele Davis. If the truth were told, brewer’s yeast has little to recommend it now that any vitamin or mineral is available in pill form, yet it is still finding its way into health food drinks today as though Glucose Tolerance Factor were the elixir of life. Another favorite drink component

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for those with a Calvinist approach to nutrition has been less than a granular, fatty material derived from soybeans. Lecithin has been touted for its effect on cholesterol, an effect which is similar to (but no more potent than) that of corn oil. Unfortunately, lecithin’s peculiar taste for many people grows rapidly intolerable and impossible to disguise. Yet another frequently recommended additive to ‘health’ drinks is protein supplement powder, a stuff which seems to come in as many different forms as it does terrible flavors.

Add to the use of all these substances the faddist’s impulse to put in his blender any vegetable which looks like his mother may have wanted him to eat as a child, and you have a recipe for what doctors call ‘nutritional noncompliance’. Faced with such messes, it isn’t surprising that, before long, the well-intentioned folks who swore to eat healthily are found back at their old habits of coffee for breakfast, and a trip to vending machine at 10am.

This is a shame, for there are compelling reasons for having some sort of nutritional breakfast drink. The obvious one is that many people have little time in the morning, yet would benefit from breakfast. Few people operate at top efficiency at the end of a 16-hour fast, yet that is the time between the average supper, and lunch the next day. Then too, people who ‘skip’ breakfast often snack before lunch, and when they do, they invariably snack on ‘snack foods’ that are nutritional disasters. Breakfast, on the other hand, because it is a meal which is often invariant (at least during weekdays), affords an ideal chance to easily put together one meal of the day which has the right things in it.

So what to do? A few years ago, the people at Carnation Company came up with a partial answer: the ‘Carnation Instant Breakfast™’. The thing that distinguished the Instant Breakfast was this: it actually tasted good. The product was billed by Carnation as being complete nutrition in a single glass. ‘Makes milk a meal!’ they said.

Of course, it didn’t. Although an instant breakfast has a third of the RDA for vitamins and minerals, it is marginal in protein (15 grams, or about 30% of the RDA of milk protein for a 70kg man), and is way short on calories. A mixed Instant Breakfast has only 280 Calories. In fact a recent product variation containing Nutrasweet (a sop to the mistaken public

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view that sugar is unhealthy) has only 220 Calories when mixed.

And calories aren’t the only problem. While there is very little evidence that simple sugars in the diet cause any harm for the average person (beyond increasing the chance of dental decay for those who don’t brush carefully), there is much evidence that the big killer in the Western diet is saturated fat. Percentage of calories in the diet as saturated fat correlates better with blood cholesterol levels and heart disease incidence than any other factor. Unfortunately, a “low-sugar” instant breakfast mixed with the recommended whole milk delivers 20% of its calories as saturated fat - a ratio worse even than average for the American diet, and on a par with the most atherogenic diets in the world, such as those of Finland and Ireland.

Fortunately, some manipulation can be done fairly easily to make things come out better. Carnation Instant Breakfast can be mixed with skim milk, and the missing calories and even some extra protein added by appropriate supplements. The following recipe uses powdered milk to add protein, and maltodextrin (a kind of soluble, nearly tasteless, partially broken-down corn starch) to add calories. The resulting fortified drink tastes pretty much like a regular Instant Breakfast (a bit thicker), but is more impressive nutritionally. It has 470 Calories, 27 grams of protein, and an insignificant amount of fat (1 gram). It also (for what it may be worth) shares the Instant Breakfast’s good micronutrient nutrition.

Fortified Instant Breakfast

Prepare 4 to 8 cups of 1:1 dry mixture of Carnation powdered milk and maltodextrin powder. Maltodextrin may be purchased from Vitamin Research Products, 2044 Old Middlefield Way, Mountain View, CA 94043. (I’m going to be on the lookout for a cheaper source of this, and will advise). Keep this mixture at room temperature in a small flour can (or sealed bag if you don’t have one) with a measuring cup, ready for use.

For Fortified Instant Breakfast, add to a 16 oz. glass:

1. One pkg. regular (no Nutrasweet) Carnation Instant Breakfast.
2. 2/3 cup maltodextrin/powdered milk mixture.
3. 10 Oz. skim (NON-fat) milk.

Preparation and mixing time (with a spoon) is less than 60 seconds. (Real morning spped freaks who like only one flavor of Instant Breakfast can even add an an appropriate number of envelopes of Instant Breakfast dry to the other ingredients beforehand, and simply measure out a cup of the resulting dry mixture in the morning.) Although Fortified Instant

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Breakfast isn’t quite a third of your needed daily calories, it is almost guaranteed to get you through until lunch.

Questions

Q: Is this the optimal breakfast?

A: No, but this is about the best you can do at low expense (less than $1.50), if you require good taste and almost no preparation or eating time. It lacks fiber, and could be improved by adding a bran muffin (no butter) or a piece of fruit. A banana can even be added to the drink itself for those who insist on using a blender. Perhaps an even better breakfast is hot oatmeal, dry toast and jelly, fresh fruit, and skim milk - but of course all that takes time.

Q: Why bother adding all the calories? I don’t need an extra 470 calories in the morning.

A: Yes you do. Humans regulate their total caloric intake to a remarkable extent over the course of an average day. The idea that one is cutting down on calories by missing meals is usually wishful thinking. Rather, every hundred Calories you eat in the morning at home is likely a hundred Calories you won’t eat at work, where nearly all the available food is nutritionally sub-optimal. A larger breakfast discourages snacking before lunch. Low-fat diets contribute to weight loss, since studies have shown that dietary fat is somewhat more efficient at promoting weight gain than its caloric value would suggest. And low saturated fat diets drastically cut the risk of atherosclerosis and death.

Q: What about drinking this stuff at other times?

A: As it is nutritionally balanced, you can substitute a Fortified Instant Breakfast for a meal anytime, probably to your health advantage. For instance, one fast meal a day which contains 27 grams of high quality protein (as this one does) can make the planning of vegetarian diets a snap.

(Editors’ note: Steve Harris works with Roy Walford at UCLA on life extension research and is an expert in the field.)

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