THE ORIGINS OF SAPIENT
Luke Comer was raised in the Deep South on a diet of health food, southern cuisine, including lots of Gulf Coast seafood, and the frequent indulgences pizza and cheeseburgers. His mother, however, never allowed him to eat sugary drinks or junk food—thus instilling into him, early on, the importance of diet to his health.
However, he latter attended prep school and then college, and lost his way into crappy, institutional food and restaurants. Through most of his twenties, he lived an intense life, working in the wilderness, writing novels, and pursuing various extreme sports while not paying much attention to his self-care. About the age of thirty, his physical and mental health started to suffer considerably.
He turned to various modalities to heal himself—while focusing most of all upon food and nutrition. He read about different diets and experimented with them; he additionally studied the anthropology and bio- chemistry of food, as well as the evolution of the primate and human diet. In the process, he launched two projects: The First Supper as well as On the Origin of Being—on which he continues to work.
During this time, he also fell in love with slow cooking in ceramic pots. In the colder months, he walked most days to his local grocery store to collect meats, tubers, vegetables, herbs, spices and the like. In preparing his meals, usually with his favorite music and companions in the background, he never followed any recipes, only his creativity, instincts and various techniques—as aromas from his pot filled his house. He soon concluded that slow cooking provided the most nourishment for many reasons. He reduced his waste as most of his ingredients did not require much packaging. The prolonged cooking deactivated plant antinutrients and toxins, as well as bitters and astringencies; dissolved bones, skin and tendons into collagenous broths; aided and soothed digestion while the lower temperatures prevented the damage of nutrients. The meals also easily combined foods and nutrients in proper ratios for the best utilization. And finally, the meals were delicious, rich in layers of flavor and most of all deeply nourishing, generating both calm and well-being even into the next day. Decades later he still cooks in this way most chilly nights.
Also during this time, he conceived of the project, Sapient, which was mostly motived by the idea of creating the “ultimate meal” for the general public. So through further meticulous research in nutrition, he worked out the nutritional ratios and parameters for these meals, created the software to make his recipes conform to his nutritional parameters, and then generated the first prototype for his stews.
However he was not able to develop the idea for fifteen years because he was working as a writer, director and producer on other projects, mostly live events, including The Portal as well as Arise Music Festival. However, in 2022, he decided to shift the focus of his career in the direction of Sapient. After developing his business plan and production process in detail, he then hired the recipe developer, Barr Hogen, to take his prototypes to the next level through multiple drafts and tests on friends, family and strangers. At one point in the late summer of 24, he woke in the middle of night, realizing he was fully committed to taking this project to the public.
Sometime in 2025, he will release his next book, also entitled, Sapient: How to design the ultimate diet for your lifestyle.