As someone who lives down under in New Zealand, I’ve been to America many times — to deliver medical lectures, on book tours, to visit friends or family — and believe that there’s no holiday embedded into the DNA of American families more than Thanksgiving!
Firstly, I found it interesting that the US and Canada have different dates for their Thanksgiving holidays. The American version dates back to the 1600s when the first settlers discovered pumpkins. Encyclopaedia Brittanica has a firm date of 1621 when the Wampanoag people shared a harvest feast with English colonists in Plymouth. The feast was said to contain fowl, and historians are divided whether these birds were geese or turkey. The Canadian version is said to be a thanksgiving meal shared by Martin Frobisher, an English explorer, and his crew after discovering the Northwest Passage in a quest to find minerals — he found gold, and land. They gave thanks with salt beef, biscuits, and mushy peas for their safe arrival in what is now the Canadian Territory of Nunavut.
I have always said that “genes are our blueprint, but not our destiny.” My new book, Biohacking Your Genes, is about “health hacks” — things you can do within your diet and lifestyle to live fitter, healthier, and smarter. I’m going to look at the two foods that come to mind when one thinks of the American Thanksgiving: turkey and pumpkin.
Turkey
One can buy turkeys raw or brined/basted. In the latter, turkey is injected with a saline solution intended to make it more tender and juicy. Brining is essentially bathing the turkey in salt-water solution for 24 hours before roasting to prevent the meat from drying out. The problem with adding salt to turkeys is it changes the nutrient composition, especially increasing the sodium (salt) and phosphorus content.
The National Academy of Medicine suggests 1,500 mg of sodium per day as enough for the average American and recommends limiting sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day. However, the average American consumes 3,600 mg per day. Ninety percent exceed the recommendation for salt.
A study of turkeys bought raw and brined and found that eating salt-added turkey can cause high sodium and phosphorus levels that could in turn have adverse health effects in people with high blood pressure, heart or kidney diseases.
One’s genetic makeup determines how this can affect you as an individual. As I mention in my book, the ACE gene directs the body to produce the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), which regulates blood pressure in relation to our salt intake. This is why some blood pressure medications are called ACE-inhibitors. If you possess the GA or AA variant of the ACE gene, you’re at a greater risk of getting high blood pressure from eating salted turkeys. If you want to find out your own gene type, you can do it here.
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie is as all-American as Thanksgiving. Pumpkin is native to the states. Like chocolates, Europeans only discovered pumpkin after Columbus returned from his voyages. In England when pumpkins first arrived, people experimented with layers of sliced pumpkin that was baked between crusts after adding sugar and spice. However, according to the Library of Congress, the modern pumpkin pie made its appearance as a “Pompkin Pudding” in 1796, when Amelia Simmons first published American Cookery, the first cookbook ever written by an American.
More recently, especially after Covid-19, pumpkins have had a resurgence in medical research circles as virus-busting superfoods. Pumpkins contain vitamins A, C and E which play a vital role in helping our immune systems fight viruses. Pumpkin soup, dried pumpkin powder, pumpkin bars and various pumpkin recipes have been considered beneficial as a “pharma food” in scientific papers.
Essentially, Biohacking Your Genes is about eating and exercising for your gene type — doing things that may appear simple, but in combination can be super-effective, especially when targeted by understanding our individual genes.
What have pumpkins got to do this this? Do we really have pumpkin genes? Pumpkins are rich in vitamin A. Carotenoids are pigments in plants and what give pumpkins (and other vegetables) their colors. Essentially, vitamin A comes in two forms: preformed and readily absorbed such as the retinol from animal sources in our diet, especially from liver, cod liver oil, milk, and eggs. Plant sources such as pumpkin contain pro-vitamin A carotenoids that need to be converted into active forms by the body. These are beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lycopein, lutein, and zeaxanthin. Animal retinol is 12-times as potent as plant forms: 1 microgram retinol = 12 micrograms beta-carotene = 1 RAE (retinol activity equivalent).
Pumpkin pies pack a punch. One slice of a pumpkin pie bought from a store has been estimated to contain an average of 488 RAE per serving!
This is where one’s genes come into play. We now know that there are genetic variations among people to do with the enzyme that converts vitamin A from plants. Beta-carotene monooxygenase 1 (BCMO1) is involved with converting beta-carotene into the active form of vitamin A and comes in variants AA, AG, and GG. If you are a GG version holder, you’re a poor converter of vitamin A and therefore need to ensure you get enough preformed vitamin A from either animal sources or supplements if you’re vegan. Or you can binge on pumpkins.
You can find out your gene type at www.biohackingyourgenes.com
Author Bio
Sharad P. Paul, MD, is a skin cancer specialist, family physician, evolutionary biologist, storyteller, social entrepreneur, and an adjunct professor at Auckland University of Technology. Born in England, with a childhood in India, he’s a global citizen and a noted polymath. He received the Ko Awatea International Excellence Award for “leading health Improvement on a global scale, and his work towards patient-centered medicine across several countries.”
He has authored works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and medical textbooks. His new book is Biohacking Your Genes: 25 Laws for a Smarter, Healthier, and Longer Life (Beyond Words Publishing, Oct. 14, 2024). Learn more at skininyourgameblog.
