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Your Toilet, and You (Part 1)

Imagine if you will, Steppen (from the introduction, Steppen is an “ancestor” from about 10,000 years ago) pausing to answer nature’s call ten thousand years ago. He stops, leaves the main path, and squats down on his haunches. He ‘hunkers-down’ flat-footed (maybe rocking up on his toes), he poops, he stands up, and he walks away.

Only a few minutes have passed. Steppen is a happy guy – he has parted ways with a prior meal, and he now feels light, alert, and ready to go help hunt down his next one. He would do this once, maybe twice a day.

That flow of events is not much different from how ALL Humans have dealt with Natures Call (#2) for over 3 million years. For everybody, everywhere, all along.

ALL of your own ancestors (probably until only about 200 years back, even though some can claim a few thousand years), squatted to poop. It is huge part of the evolution of the Human design.

Here are a few notes about the actions involved in Steppen’s squat:

As he lowered his body to the squat position, he became aware of his weight and his hip joints. It was just like doing a deep-knee bend, and then going on down until his weight could rest on the tops of his thighs.

Balancing his body, once in ‘the position’ was easy. Any excess weight or other health issues might have created stability problems.

While passing the Poo, certain back muscles, which are only activated by the natural squat position, help straighten his colon to aid with the evacuation.

His thighs naturally compress the abdominal cavity, helping the process. Almost like the squeezing of a toothpaste tube.

His Colon empties ENTIRELY because it is designed to be at this angle during evacuation.

Raising back up from the full squat position always requires a little effort, even for Steppen. Balance (core) and thigh muscles are all involved.

And Steppen, without planning to, has just run a partial-body diagnostic check.

If something had come out badly, he would think back to the ingredients of his latest meals and probably eliminate something from his future diet. Something would have to be pretty tasty to be worth the risk of his health. Was that any truer then, than now?

“So…” you might say, “What has that got to do with me?”     I say everything.

Because we don’t do any of that any more, we have become removed from all the information that was just given to Steppen about his health.

Almost half of our current American population would have trouble just getting into, and holding, the basic squat position. We proceed to sit on a pedestal that never lets our ass descend lower than our knees, we can turn on a fan, read the newspaper, pass whatever, flush, and walk away.

We are removed from doing a daily weight and muscle check. We are bypassing information from our body about balance and joint movement. We are unaware of what our body had to say about the food we ate at the latest meal. And we are unaware of how “cleanly” everything left the system. As in – Did everything leave the system?

I recently read a fascinating article (book) posted on the Web by Jonathan Isbit called The Health Benefits of the Natural Squatting Position. A meticulous gathering of data regarding the medical maladies that can be a result of the incomplete emptying of the colon – physical ailments that can be traced directly to bad toilet posture because their appearance in medical writings, seems to follow the adoption, in time and place, of the ‘Throne’ position.

Appendicitis, Bladder Incontinence, Colon Cancer, Constipation, Diverticulitis, Hemorrhoids …I suggest giving it a read.

The information that exiting Poo carries regarding the meal you put in, and your systems ability to deal with it, is priceless. You don’t have to touch it. You can learn quite a bit from just how it exits, (looking is optional). It might even be the most direct indicator of your general health available to you.

A brilliant little book titled What’s Your Poo Telling You by Josh Richman and Anish Sheth, M.D. (2007), gives colorful descriptions to various textures, and their possible dietary causes. It is actually a decent medical, scientific, and genuinely informative study of why certain foods come out certain ways. They explain why some meals leave you gassy, solid, fluid, with haste, or why some might hesitate to leave at all. Some of these things I will cover in later chapters regarding diet history, and certain specific foods.

Research led me to understand that the whole concept of ‘sitting down, on a seat, to poop’ is a pretty recent event in Human history – and, that it is associated with “Western Civilization” in particular. The concept of the “out-house” away from the main living quarters is certainly not new, and when people started gathering into cities, the need for organized sanitation became evident quickly. The toilet design that the United States embraced is a wonderful tool – it gets our asses further from the cold hard ground, and then takes away our waste with the mere flick of a wrist. I’m all for it, and I use it, but… does the higher sitting position, versus the squat, have any drawbacks? I think so, starting with potty-training (Freud had a few things to say about that battle), and ending with older people and their need for colonoscopies.

The rest of the world has differing views on the subject – all aspects of it. I will return with parts 2 and 3 which are, respectively – “Other Places, even Now” and “Compromise”.