A Balanced Diet: What Is It?
I have been a student
of human biology for about (45) years and of human nutrition for about 15 years. I must
admit I do not know what a "balanced diet" is.
Next time you meet a
nutrition "expert," ask him what he considers a balanced diet. His answer is
likely to be this: It is a diet composed of all four major food groups — of dairy,
meat, cereal, and fruits and vegetables; it has 50 to 60% of its calories in
carbohydrates, 20 to 25% in proteins, and 20 to 25 % in fats; and it contains 60 mg of
vitamin C, 1 mg of thiamine and
RDA: Rats, Drugs and
Assumptions amounts of other vitamins and minerals. If he is very
"knowledgeable," he might add that the fats should be one part saturated, one
part monosaturated, and one part polyunsaturated.
A sad, sad state of
affairs. These nutrition experts are blissfully ignorant of almost all critical
nutritional issues we face today. They know nothing (or act as if they don't) about the
issues of molecular roller coasters caused by supermarket foods, food incompatibilities,
abnormal bowel responses to foods, allergy to molds included in food items, toxic fats,
denatured proteins, agricultural fumigants that coat our vegetables, pesticides and
fungicides that cover our fruits, the toxic heavy metals that poison our foods,
environmental pollutants that contaminate our water, and the industrial toxins that poison
our air. Our nutrition experts do not seem to understand much about the molecular
consequences of disrupted bowel ecology. I discuss the scientific aspects of the full
impact of food and environmental toxicants upon our immune system and molecular defense
systems in my monograph The Molecular and Immunologic Basis of Environmental Illness
published by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
Here is simple test
to distinguish between the "experts" of worthless knowledge of nutrition and
practitioners of nutritional medicine: If a physician, a nutritionist, or some other
health professional talks about RDA values, know that he cannot help you much. He is not
even close to the real problems in nutrition.
Here is second simple
test: Ask the professional if he has ever reversed any chronic diseases with nutritional
protocol. If his answer is no, he is obviously not your man. Some of my
physician-colleagues might snicker at this and say,"Of course, I treat anemia with
iron and pernicious anemia with vitamin B12. I am sorry, but that, as the expression goes,
does not a nutritionist-physician make.
THE FOLLY OF FOOD GROUPS
I sometimes wonder
where did the notion of including dairy and meats in the four basic food groups come from?
Meat is not a part of the food in the Hindu culture, clearly one of the oldest and most
durable among the cultures of the world. Dairy is excluded from the foods of many people
in the Far East, a circumstance that reflects a considered position based on their
understanding of the relationship between food and the human condition rather than a
ritualistic abstinence. How did dairy and meat earn the right to be included among the
four basic groups in America? The answer is that here in America foods become great only
when the smart money says they are great. And the dairy and meat industries in the United
States. have a lot of smart money.
Cow's milk is an
excellent food for a baby cow. Man is the only living organism that drinks milk all his
life, and not of his own mother. In my choice of beverages which follows in this chapter,
I include cow's milk in Choice Three drinks and goat's milk among Choice Two Beverages.
Why do I include cow's milk in Choice Three beverages? Because cow's milk is a highly
allergenic food. We are taught that milk is essential for our children. We are told by the
"experts" on the payroll of the dairy industry that milk is the best source of
calcium. Nothing could be further from truth. I have cared for a very large number of
children who were literally raised on antibiotics for throat and ear infections. Almost
all of these children were allergic, and most of them were allergic to milk. Diagnosis and
treatment of their food allergy and incompatibilities and mold allergy followed by
nutrient therapy restored the integrity of their molecular defenses. We were able to
completely avoid the use of antibiotics in most of these children. If the cow's milk is an
excellent food for baby cows, then goat's milk must be an excellent food for baby goats?
Why is goat's milk included among Choice Two beverages? The difference between the cow's
milk and the goat's milk is frequency of drinking. Allergic individuals become allergic to
cow's milk because they drink it every day. Indeed if a person with food allergy drinks
goat's milk every day, he will very likely become allergic to goat's milk.
If we cannot go by
the conventional wisdom about a balanced diet and the RDA experts, what are we to do? The
answer is really quite simple: We must turn to the labor of learning, understanding and
knowing. My discussion of the basic chemistry of life, life span and aging-oxidant
molecules in the early part of this chapter is a good beginning.
Supermarket foods
cause obesity. This stands to common sense. These foods are usually rich in oxidized and
denatured fats, loaded with salt, and laced with toxic byproducts of food processing. All
three factors lead to buildup of excess fats in fat cells. It is well-known that Europeans
consume larger quantities of butter and cold-pressed oils, which contain unoxidized and
un-denatured fats, than we Americans. From this one would expect that obesity should be a
much smaller problem for Europeans than it is for us Americans. This indeed is true. It is
a common observation for those who frequently travel in both continents. Of course, Europe
is being rapidly polluted with industrial and agricultural toxicants. Also, it is being
invaded by the American fast food industry with French fries laced with salt and soaked
with toxic fats. And with its milk shakes and cheeseburgers. Given time, severe obesity
will be as common in Europe as it is in America, unless we all wake up to these
destructive trends.
I am not aware if the
above observation about obesity patterns in the United States and Europe has been
documented with any statistical studies. What is well-established with statistical studies
is similar phenomena in experimental animals. Studies have shown that when two groups of
rats are offered cafeteria-type and natural foods with equivalent caloric value, rats
eating cafeteria-type foods become obese while those in the natural group do not (Clin
Endocrinol Metab 13:437;1984). Similarly rats offered
sugar-rich fluids get
"addicted" to
sugar (much like our children do) and become obese (Fed Proc
36:154; 1977). Needless to say, rats offered fat-rich diets become obese (J Nutr 102:1187;
1972).
Life span nutrition is a study of our foods and
their relationship to our lives. Life span nutrition is about knowing food and the way it
sustains life or truncates it. The key word in this statement is knowing. There are three
steps in life span nutrition. First, we learn about foods. Next, we understand the
difference between foods that sustain us and the materials with which we stuff our bowels
but which do not preserve our health. Third, and this can come to us only after we learn
and understand our foods, is knowing the relationship between our food and our lives.
LIFE SPAN AND AGING-OXIDANT FOODS
In our simplified
life chemistry language, we may use the term life span foods for foods that support the
life span molecules. These, as I indicated earlier, are molecules that nature designed to
assure that all living things can live their normal life spans in good health.
Aging-oxidant foods, by contrast, are foods which support the aging-oxidant molecules, the
molecules that nature designed to age all living things and make sure no form of life
lives forever. The balance between the life span and aging-oxidant molecules is the
essential chemical equation of life.
(Here) I include
lists of beverages and foods that I have divided into four categories: three categories of
life span foods and one category of aging-oxidizing choices. These categories are intended
to show the relative nutritional values and desirability of these food items from a life
span perspective. I give below the specific molecular, electromagnetic, empirical, and
clinical criteria I use to divide foods and beverages into these four groups. I have
carefully examined the ancient as well as well as current literature describing the
empirical observations about the healthful and adverse effects of foods and beverages on
human health and disease. I have had extensive personal experience with micro-elisa blood
test and electrodermal conductance technology for detection of
food incompatibility and
allergy and abnormal bowel responses to food. Above all, I have been guided by the
principal of holistic molecular relatedness in human biology. The knowledge of the
structure and function of individual nutrient molecules must be integrated with the known
molecular dynamics of health and disease in an holistic fashion, and from a long-term life
span perspective.
Five Essentials of Life-Span Foods
First,
the life span foods must support the
full life span of the individual. These foods should do so in one or more of the following
four ways: 1) provide food substances that are composed of life span molecules; 2) provide
food substances that support life span molecules; 3) provide substances that neutralize
aging-oxidant molecules that threaten life span molecules; and 4) provide substances that
serve as fuel and building materials for various body tissues without causing undue
oxidative stress.
Second,
the life span foods must be able to
prevent or suppress a host of molecular roller coasters that generate AOMs or destroy LSMs
and so cause disease. These include rapid bursts of oxidative molecules (oxyradicals and
other free radicals), rapid acidotic shifts, sharp hypoglycemic-hyperglycemic shifts,
quick releases of catecholamine surges (adrenaline and its cousin molecules), large
cholinergic pulses, and sudden fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels.
Third,
the life span foods must fully support
the internal ecology of the bowel. These foods must facilitate the digestive and
absorptive processes in the bowel, and sustain the normal bowel flora. Further, the life
span foods should restore the bowel transit time, bowel perfusion (blood supply), Ph
(acid-alkaline) changes and digestive enzymatic functions.
Fourth,
the life span foods must not trigger
allergic food reactions and abnormal bowel responses to foods. Evidently, foods that cause
allergic and incompatibility reactions and abnormal bowel responses for a person are
powerful aging-oxidant foods for him even though they may be life span foods for others.
Food incompatibility is a paradox: It is a complex subjects full of inconsistencies for
physicians who do not receive the necessary training for diagnosis and management of food
allergy; and it is a patently simple matter for physicians who make the necessary effort
to become familiar with the diversity of clinical symptoms and patterns of suffering
caused by it. To properly diagnose and manage food allergy, we need knowledgeable
professionals and accurate testing procedures. See the Appendix for a listing of
professional organizations devoted to environmental and nutritional medicine.
Fifth,
the life span foods must bring the total
caloric intake to a level consistent with the level of physical activity. Strong clinical
and experimental evidence supports the viewpoint that caloric restriction is necessary for
living a full life span. People often think of achieving this by limiting the caloric
intake. I prefer to achieve the optimal balance between caloric intake and physical
activity by focusing on limbic exercise rather than by dieting.
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