Das EU.L.E.® / Pollmers Mahlzeit

Nutritional chemist Udo Pollmer took a look at “Why bitter is healthy” and what everyone knows to believe thanks to nutritional advice.

by Udo Pollmer, New Year's Day 2025

We should eat more bitter foods, nutrition experts advise. Bitter substances have a "great effect": they stimulate digestion, contribute to deacidification and stop cravings. If you lose your appetite because of the bitterness, the tip was successful. But don't worry, the cravings will...

by Jutta Muth and Udo Pollmer

Original title: Die Bedeutung der „Küche“ für die Evolution des Menschen

=> Züchtungskunde, 82, (1) pp. 40-56, 2010, ISSN 0044-5401 © Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart

European Institute of Food and Nutrition Sciences e.V., D-27404 Gyhum, Am Kiebitzberg 10
(Based on a publication by JM & UP: Der Mensch - ein Coctivor. EU.L.E.n-Spiegel 2007, Issue 3-4, pp 5-13)
Der Mensch – ein Coctivor (177.77 KB)

Correspondence: Udo Pollmer, Scientific Director of the European Institute of Food and Nutrition Sciences e.V.,
Current Address: D-86456 Gablingen, Achsheimer Str. 6a, Upollmer(at)aol.com

Keywords: human evolution, coctivor, brain, digestive tract, food processing, fire

Summary

Due to the anatomic features of dentition and gastrointestinal tract, humans are coctivors compared to great apes. They depend on prepared, easily digestible food. High energy output from food at low digestion rate has only become possible by using fire and, later on, developing kitchen technology. It has generated resources to...

If you wanted to characterise glutamate with one word, "cheating" would have a good chance of coming out on top. It's not only in research that glutamate is cheated like a soup spoon, many companies also like to use the flavour enhancer as a trick, and the label is allowed to disguise the whole scam with clever wordplay. But it gets even worse.

by Udo Pollmer November, 2024

The Chinese restaurant syndrome is just the tip of the iceberg. Chronic effects, such as the aforementioned release of cortisol, have more serious consequences than headaches. The link between glutamate and depression, anxiety and dementia is now the...

Do flavour enhancers spoil your appetite? "Artificially produced glutamate", warns the German magazine Stern, "permanently disrupts the natural sense of flavour". WDR contradicts him in Quarks: "The fear of glutamate in food is unfounded". And Spektrum der Wissenschaft raises hopes: "Is glutamate perhaps even healthy?" A case for Udo Pollmer.

by Udo Pollmer October, 2024

The flavour enhancer glutamate ("MSG") hit the headlines decades ago. The cause was Chinese restaurant syndrome, a term coined by a Chinese doctor in the USA in 1968.¹ After a visit to a Chinese restaurant, guests repeatedly complained of...

Is our food still what it used to be? In part 2, Udo Pollmer takes a closer look at vitamins. Sometimes there are more than a hundred different substances to consider, with vitamin potency ranging from zero to 100. But nobody knows for sure. Fraudsters exploit this confusion: They trick people into believing that they absolutely need extra vitamins.

by Udo Pollmer September 12, 2024

After the minerals in the first part, let's now take a look at the vitamins. We start with the folates, a group of B vitamins. A few years ago, analysts realised that our food contains other, previously unknown variants of folates. They promptly found...