Isn’t it amazing how life turns death back into life?

A quick quantum lesson in bioenergetics and the transformation of food (dead things) into life

Happy Halloween! Happy Autumn!

One of the great mysteries of life is how we eat dead matter (call it food) and turn it into life. This daily transformation is amazing when you really think about it! There is still so much we are learning about digestion and how we turn food into energy.

“The thing is, we are all, in a sense, supper. Walking, talking, breathing suppers, that’s what we are. Take you, for instance. YOU are about to be eaten by ME, so that makes you supper. That’s obvious. But even a murderous carnivore like myself will be supper for worms one day. We’re all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.”

-Cressida Crowell

While it may be true we need to eat to live, there’s a shift in our understanding of bioenergetics happening that is changing the way we look at food. This is beyond the idea of empty calories. This is getting at the idea that the MAIN purpose of food is to provide bulk materials, and not to provide energy at all. How could this be? This is an idea that has the potential to completely transform the way we view the food web. But first, let’s start with energy that is measurable in the lab.

One of the ways to quantify energy in the body is by measuring the redox potential of cells. Redox sounds really complicated, and it can involve a lot of calculations. However, it can also be very useful for understanding ourselves and what we need to do in order to feel energetic.

Redox is a balance: a potential. Information about this kind of cellular energetics is missing from most wellness education—even most nutritional education. In the conventional paradigm, we eat to get energy. But what even is Energy?

If we go beyond the current conception of food as a source of energy, we can open up a much more complete view that includes more of the definitions above.

The most common “quanta” of energy is the electron—or possibly, the attraction between the electron and the proton.

Looking at subatomic forces like protons and electrons may seem too reductionist to be of practical concern, but at closer inspection, it reunites biology into a whole unit again.

Through cellular bioenergetics we can look at how energy flows through a whole being, not just from organ system to organ system.

In this bioenergetic view, by the time an organ or organ system shows signs of dysfunction, we know the cells that make up that system have already been in trouble for a long time.

With organ dysfunction, the organ can’t heal unless the cells that make up the organ have enough energy.

Nutrition can be a good start for energy, but it is not enough and the reason is purely physical. It takes energy to digest in the first place, and through modern convenience, most industrialized humans have isolated themselves from the ultimate sources of biological energy: the Sun and the Earth.

In today’s scientifically-minded world, no one disputes that all life on Earth comes from Solar energy (with the exception a few rare lifeforms that subsist on Geothermal energy alone in the deep sea vents). Yet somehow, many people and industries have bought into the idea that the Sun is harmful to humans.

By rejecting the primary source of life (the Sun) and ignoring the proven fact that animals, like plants, photosynthesize, we humans have been missing out on energy that should be ours by our birthright of inhabiting the Earth.

“Theoretically, the power to the inside of the cell depends on ATP, but in the light of our discovery of the intrinsic property of melanin transform light energy into chemical energy by means of the water molecule dissociation, we think that the levels of ATP, in turn depend almost completely from the energy that emanates from the melanin.”¹

Herrera, et al (2015)

How is it we can believe that plants are superior in their ability to utilize energy than animals? Thanks to the new knowledge coming from the field of quantum biology, we can understand the energizing effects of solar energy at a greater level of detail than ever in the past.

And furthermore:

“Melanin is thousands of times more efficient to dissociate the water molecule of chlorophyll, it suffices to note that chlorophyll does so irreversible and can only use purple and red light, visible both, for our side, melanin absorbs the entire electromagnetic spectrum, apart from splitting water, also has the amazing ability to re-shape it, which is a unique example in nature. And just as in the plants until the last leaf of the tree stems, depends on and is governed entirely by photosynthesis, in humans is the same.”

Herrera et al (2014)²

This water splitting is how the theoretical water-powered cars would work. However, due to the polar nature of water, in biology we already have the power to store physical energy! Water is polar, meaning it has a side that is more positive and a side that is more negative. Since cells have a net negative charge, that means cells “structure” the water in a particular way. This cellular water takes on the form of H3O2 (rather than H2O).

Here’s what that looks like in a lab:

And this special water (called a “liquid crystal” because of its orderly format) is how collagen, which touches every part of the body, can deliver energy in the form of protons and electrons.

Collagen and cellular water, sometimes called the “ground matrix” in biology, are both boosted by infrared light (which is always present in sunlight). [cool weather sunbathing]

But if we spend all day inside, we don’t get this energy.

Not only that, but out of comfort and stylistic sensibilities, we have wholeheartedly embraced electrically-insulated shoes, thus denying ourselves the second major source of bioenergy that the Earth offers freely when we do go outside.

So, here are the two sources of energy most conversations around nutrition and wellness neglect: the Sun and the Earth.

To summarize: from a quantum biologic perspective, we are looking to food for the bulk material to build and repair, but we are looking to our bioelectric potential for the ability to turn the dead matter of food into life energy.

Along these lines, I am starting a new program called the Circadian and Quantum Childbearing Year to explore how all of this can inform pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences and care. Early bird pricing through Nov. 1st and the first lesson comes out Nov. 5th:

1. Herrera AS. The unsuspected capacity of melanin to transform light energy into chemical energy and the surprising anoxia tolerance of chrysemys picta. MOJ Cell Sci Rep. 2015;2(3):74-79. DOI: 10.15406/mojcsr.2015.02.00031

2. Suchkov, S., & Herrera, A. S. (2014). The role of human photosynthesis in predictive, preventive and personalized medicine. The EPMA Journal, 5(Suppl 1), A146. https://doi.org/10.1186/1878-5085-5-S1-A146