ACORN – Autumnal Causing Obesity Rapidly in Nature

The humble acorn is a major part of Don’t Eat for Winter’s messaging.

Why?

Well besides being the food of squirrels and bears in autumn, and the food that fattens up iberian pigs to make them succulent and tasty, it also symbolises autumn itself. More than that, it actually has the exact signature of the foods I ask people to consider avoiding as part of an anti-autumnal eating pattern…

That means avoiding a high proportion of simultaneous carbs + fat, with low proportion of protein…

50%fat 40% carbs and < 10%protein is The DEFoW Squirrel Formula

Many junk foods follow this signature in an uncanny way!!!

Acorns used to make up a big part of the diets of old cultures in autumn and winter, e.g. native Americans, Irish Celts and many others. In Ireland, for example, the country was once almost 100% forested and a huge portion of those trees were fabulous oak trees, which would have supplied a huge amount of food to critters and humans alike (before modern farming) and most importantly, could be stored away over the winter…

From Wikipedia:

“In years that oaks produced many acorns, Native Americans sometimes collected enough acorns to store for two years as insurance against poor acorn production years.”

“…The stored acorns could then be used when needed, PARTICULARLY DURING THE WINTER (my emphasis) when other resources were scarce.”

If we adapted to surviving winter we would have had to put on weight for 2 reasons: energy backup and thermal insulation, so I believe the acorn served that purpose and it’s no coincidence that gorge inducing junk foods follow almost the exact same formula.  It wasn’t limited to acorns though, the combination of fats and carbs from grains, fruits, nuts and the staple fats in the diet from animal meats, fish etc., would combine to approximate this formula in autumn and would not have been possible at any other time of the year as there is no starch in march (trees are bare, fields are barren).

So if you’re looking at foods to eat, think about the squirrel formula i.e. that of acorns, and remember that it’s in terms of calorie percentages…

For example, if you see approx 11g fat (100cals), 20g carb (80cals) and very low protein e.g. 5g (20cals), or any multiple or fraction close to that, you know it is approximating the autumnal gorge formula.

A: Autumnal
C: Causing
O: Obesity
R: Rapidly
N: in Nature

see what I did there 😉

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Cian Foley is a Software Engineer from Waterford, Ireland and also a 2 time European, pan-American and World amateur kettlebell champion. Cian was a 115kg (256lb) obese 35 year old and has completely transformed into to a fit and healthy 78kg athlete through his 8 year journey of discovery around nutrition and exercise. He now competes as a natural bodybuilder at the age of 43 to prove that it is never too late to get into great shape without the use of steroids.