Category Archives: books

Book Summary: Disease Proof Your Child, Part 2

Part 1 of this book summary can be found here.

Chapter 4 – Feeding Your Family for Superior Health

  • A mother’s diet 12 months before conception can influence the future child’s health (!).
  • The following are risky for pregnant/nursing mothers:
  1. Caffeine
  2. Nicotine
  3. Alcohol
  4. Medications
  5. Herbs & high-dose supplements, Large doses of Vitamin A
  6. Fish, mollusks, shellfish, sushi
  7. Hot tubs/saunas
  8. Radiation
  9. Artificial Colors/Nitrates
  10. Household Cleaners, Paint Thinners
  11. Cat Litter
  12. Raw Milk/Cheese, soft cheeses, blue cheese
  13. Deli Meats, Hot dogs
  • Take a multivitamin daily plus a DHA supplement
  • Dr. Fuhrman includes a plan of how to introduce a baby to solid goods, stressing not to introduce it earlier than 6 months.
  • Concerning Picky Eaters: 25% of children eat fast food french fries daily.
  • Only permit healthy food in your home.
  • Food preferences are formed by one’s food environment
  • Don’t coerce children to eat.  They will eat when they are hungry.
  • Many clients come to Dr. Fuhrman with concerns that their child is too thin.  His answer: they aren’t.  Children are born with innate instincts on how much to eat.  Some children take a while to fill in to themselves.  If they are growing and thriving, they are not too thin.
  • This is his recommended Food Guide Pyramid.  I LOVE this.

 

5 Healthy Treats
1.  Date nut poppers – dates, ground nuts, cinnamon, carob powder

2.  Soaked Dried Fruit – dried apricots, apples, mangos, soaked overnight in nut milk

3.  Frozen Banana Whip – frozen bananas w/ soy or nut milk

4.  Baked Apples – cored apples filled with applesauce, cinnamon, raisins.  Bake 20 minutes

5.  Fruit Smoothies

The rest of the book is filled with healthy recipes, and I am seriously considering buying it just for those alone.  Loved the book, highly recommend it, and I’m definitely reading his other book, “Eat to Live”as soon as I get my hands on it!  If you have young children, are planning on children soon, or are pregnant, this is an awesome read.

Book Summary: Disease Proof Your Child, by Dr.Joel Fuhrman (part 1)

Folks:  I read this book in one day.  Mostly because the library told me it was due the next day, but STILL!  It was a good book, and I’m so glad I checked it out.  I’ve been hearing all kinds of great things about Dr. Fuhrman, and when we were in New York I set out to read this.  Unfortunately there was a 50 year wait at all 44 branches of the libraries in Manhattan.  I guess that proves this guy is legit.  So I was lucky enough to get it back here in Utah pretty quickly.  A great read.  He’s also got a book that I am going to read next called “Eat to Live.”  So glad I found this stuff when I still have young kids (and maybe more to come) when I can give them the best shot at staying disease free.

Lots of this book was review, but I’ll share some of my notes on the things I found interesting/new.

Disease Proof Your Child (found here)

Intro

  • Problem: children are chronically sick with ear infections, colds, allergies, etc.  These lead to chronic adult problems like Lupus, Ulcerative Colitis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc.
  • The modern diet most children eat causes a fertile environment to house cancer in the future.
  • Most parents do not know what to feed their children (YES!  This was me a few years ago!)
  • Kids love healthy food, and healthy food loves them back.  We have to give it to them!

Chapter 1: Understanding Superior Nutrition

  • Low consumption of fruits and vegetables before and during childhood causes many childhood cancers (!!).  pg. 8, “Junk food isn’t cheap.  We pay a steep price for it years after consuming it.”
  • Instead of eating better, many parents turn to supplements.
  • Allergies to nuts comes from early exposure/misuse of antibiotics, brief/lack of breastfeeding, introducing solid foods too early, and roasting nuts.
  • Intelligence is greatly influenced by nutritious eating (he spent a lot of time on this.  Interesting stuff).
  • You can enhance a child’s health in the kitchen by:
  1. Stocking the home with a variety of fresh fruit, raw vegetables, raw nuts, and seeds
  2. Replacing animal foods with plant foods: bean burgers, vegetable/bean soups, fruit centered desserts.
  3. Using only white meat poultry, eggs a few times weekly, and other animal sources infrequently.
  4. Limiting sweets.  Remove white sugar, salt, and white flour.
  5. Reducing dairy, and using nut milks.  Cheese should not be kept in the home.
  6. Serving cooked vegetable main dishes every night.

Chapter 2: Preventing and Treating Childhood Illness Nutritionally

  • In medical school, Fuhrman learned that all drugs have toxicity.  Patients should first be treated with lifestyle and dietary modifications.  It seems very few of his colleagues follow this advice (That has been my experience too).
  • Symptoms of illness are a body’s natural response to deal with causes of disease: A fever promotes interferon production in the brian, which activates white blood cells to fight the virus; Coughing aids in expelling mucus and ridding the body of it;  Don’t be so quick to treat symptoms.  Rather let your body ride it out for a few days.
  • When you or your child has a virus, rest, drink water, avoid cooked food, eat produce when hungry.
  • ADHD can be greatly treated with diet.  One cause is excessive TV watching early in life.  He has seen up to a 90% success in his ADHD patients which he treats with diet modifications.  He goes into great detail about this, including an anti-ADHD plan.
  • Antibiotics are bad!
  • Childhood ear infections are a multibillion dollar industry.  Most are viral, and should not be treated.  In the US, patients are almost always given antibiotics.  This makes the next infection more likely to be bacterial.  It is a cycle.  We are given antibiotics, which decreases the good bacteria in our bodies, which causes another bacterial ear infection.
  • Milk, cheese and wheat are frequent partners in crime (for ear infections).  I’ll insert my own commentary here – This is infuriating to me!  How many of our pediatricians are almost violently adamant that we are giving our children several servings of dairy a day, and then raise an eyebrow and give you a lecture if you try to push back a bit?  It’s making our kids sick!  Ok done. :)
  • Dairy is the leading cause of food allergies in children.
  • Childhood diabetes is linked to cow milk consumptions.  Babies given formula are 52% more likely to develop diabetes.
  • The following disorders are strongly linked to milk consumption:  Allergies, Anal Fissures, Type 1 Diabetes, Chronic Constipation, Chron’s Disease, Ear Infections, Heart Attacks, Multiple Sclerosis, Prostate Cancer

Chapter 3: Understanding Causes of Cancer/Illness

  • We need to stop treating symptoms and start treating causes of illness.
  • Saturated fat, refined sugar, white flour all contribute to cancer.
  • Root vegetables and whole grains provide minimal protection.
  • Unrefined plant foods prevent cancer.
  • p. 81 “Childhood exposure has the largest impact on adult health.”
  • It takes 10 lbs.  of milk to make 1 lb. of cheese.  Cows are given bovine growth hormones.  Their milk contains: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, prolactine, and other natural cow hormones.
  • Pesticides: Are they a serious health hazard?  Yes, especially around the home, lawn, and plants. There are links between farm workers who are exposed to large amounts of pesticides, who have higher levels of brain cancer, Parkinson’s, leukemia, lymphoma, cancer of the stomach, prostate, and testes.
  • What about pesticides on food?  It is unclear how hazardous they are, but eating produce with pesticides is better than avoiding produce all together.
  • Basically the younger you are, the more your cells are susceptible to damage from toxins.  It seems wise to try to feed young children organic whenever possible.

Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!

 

Book Summary: The China Study, Part 3

Wow, did you think I would ever get through that book?  Neither did I!  Now I can finally watch the Documentary: Forks Over Knives with an objective view.  Here’s the last of the summaries, and my favorite thus far.  (Parts 1 and 2 here, here, here, and here).

Part III – The Good Nutrition Guide

Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits.  He is trying to eliminate confusion on nutrition.

Chapter 11:  Eating Right.  Eight Principles of Food and Health

  1. Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
  2. Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.  Nutrients are better when consumed as food.
  3. There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants.
  4. Genes do not determine disease on their own.  Genes function only by being activated or expressed, and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed.
  5. Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.  One surprising thing he said: ”You aren’t doing yourself much good by eating organic beef instead of conventional beef that’s been pumped full of chemicals.  The organic beef might be marginally healthier, but I would never say that it was a safe choice.  Both types of beef have a similar nutrient profile.”
  6. The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages (before diagnosis) can also halt or reverse disease in its later stages (after diagnosis).
  7. Nutrition that is truly beneficial for one chronic disease will support health across the board.
  8. Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence.  All parts are interconnected.  Being a runner, I see this often, so I was happy to hear him put it straight: “People wonder if they can erase bad eating habits by being a runner.  The answer to this is no.”
Chapter 12: How to Eat
  • Supplements are not needed, except B12 and vitamin D for those who spend no time outside or live in cold climates.  That’s it.
  • Try to eliminate meat, but do not obsess over it.
  • Try to do it cold turkey.  It is easier to quit smoking all at once instead of cutting back to 3 cigarettes a day, and then 2 and then 1.  Just do it cold turkey.
  • Some tips to help with the transition:  eating plant-based it cheaper!  It’s worth it.  Eat well – you will feel satisfied.  Eat enough.  Weight loss will be a natural side effect, but don’t go hungry.  Eat a variety.
Part IV – Why Haven’t You Heard This Before?
  •  p.249 “There are powerful, influential, and enormously wealthy industries that stand to lose a vast amount of money if Americans start shifting to a plant-based diet.  Their financial health depends on controlling what the public knows about nutrition and health.”  Scary.
  • p. 250 “The entire  system - government, science, medicine, industry and media-promotes profits over healthy, technology over food and confusion over clarity.  Most…of the confusion about nutrition is created in legal, fully disclosed ways and is disseminated by unsuspecting, well-intentioned people.”
Chapter 13: Science – The Dark Side
Campbell shares a personal experience about being hired by the FDA to be chair of a committee of scientists investigating the potential hazards of using nutrient supplements.  He was early in his career and had no strong opinions about nutrition.  He just wanted to promote honest and open debate.  He quickly found that he was the chicken in the wolves den.  He wanted to expose truth, but the committee wanted more to promote what they needed to for their organization, including publishing fraudulent health claims.
Chapter 14: Scientific Reductionism
It has been a longstanding trend that the media focuses in on individual nutrients
The emphasis on low-fat has promoted the invention of all kinds of “healthy” low-fat foods, so now you can still eat all the junk you wanted before and not feel guilty about it, because it is “good for you.”
He exposes several flaws in the famous Nurses’s Health Study.  Virtually all the subjects under the study consumed diets that cause disease.  It focused on fat consumption, which was low, but the foods being consumed were anything but healthy.

Book Summary: The China Study, Part II Continued

If you only read one part of this, read the Osteoporosis section.  Shocking!

 

Chapter 8: Common Cancers

Breast Cancer

  • Exposure to excess amounts of female hormones leads to an increased risk of breast cancer.
  • Women who eat more animal-based foods and less plant foods reach puberty earlier and menopause later, thus exposing them to hormones for a longer period of time.
  • Breast Cancer is genetic, but about half of the women who carry these genes do not get cancer.
  • Many environmental chemicals do not metabolize when consumed, and therefore are not excreted from the  body.  90-95% of our exposure to these chemicals comes from consuming animal products.  Another group called PAHs (in auto exhaust, factory smoke, and petroleum tar products) can be excreted if ingested.  However, they produce products that react with DNA, which is the first step in causing cancer.
  • Instead of using Hormone Replacement Therapy, try eating a plant-based diet.  The following will happen:
  • Hormone levels will not be as elevated during the reproductive years.  At the end of reproductive years, hormones will drop to a base level, however the crash will not be as hard.

Large Bowel Cancer (Colon and Rectum)

  • Colorectal cancer is the 4th most common cancer in the world, and 2nd in the US.
  • Environmental factors play the most important roles in this cancer.
  • One of the strongest links between any cancer and dietary factor was between colon cancer and meat intake.
  • Fiber containing diets significantly reduce the risk and are much better than taking a fiber pill.
  • Whole, complex carbohydrates and fresh fruits and vegetables contain fiber.
  • Exercise plays a big role.
  • In rural China were calcium consumption is modest and almost no dairy is consumed, colon cancer rates are much lower.
  • Get colonoscopies at the recommended times.

Prostate Cancer (something very dear to my heart because my sweet Grandpa beat this!  Love you, Gramps!)

  • As many as half of all men seventy years and older have latent prostate cancer.
  • Diet plays a key role, and one of the most consistent links between prostate cancer and diet has been dairy consumption.  (My personal question is this:  is it the dairy?  Or is it the hormones and antibiotics that are in pumped into the cows and therefore into us?   It makes me want to go read the study…maybe I will!)
  • There is a possible link tied to calcium and phosphorus consumption.
  • The breakdown mumbo-jumbo:  Animal protein causes the body to produce IGF-1 (a growth hormone), which throws cell growth and removal out of whack, stimulating cancer development.  Animal protein suppresses the production of “supercharged” D (how the sun helps your body produce vitamin D- it’s a good thing).  Excessive calcium (in milk) also suppresses “supercharged” D.  Persistently low levels of this create an environment for different cancers, autoimmune disease, osteoporosis, etc.
  • P. 181 **”Our institutions and information providers are failing us.  Even cancer organizations, at both the national and local level, are reluctant to discuss or even believe this evidence.  Food as a key to health represents a powerful challenge to conventional medicine, which is fundamentally built on drugs and surgery.  The widespread communities of nutrition professionals, researchers and doctors are, as a whole, either unaware of this evidence or reluctant to share it.  Because of these failings, Americans are being cheated out of information that could save their lives.  There is enough evidence now that doctors should be discussing the option of pursuing dietary change as a potential path to cancer prevention and treatment.”**
Chapter 9: Autoimmune Diseases
  • Autoimmune Diseases occur when the body systems attack itself.  Ex.  Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Type I Diabetes, Rheumatic Heart Disease.
  • Autoimmune Diseases become more common the greater distance from the equator.
  • Antigens that trick our bodies into attacking itself may be in our food and remain in our bodies as undigested proteins.
Type I Diabetes
  • There is strong evidence that this is linked to dairy products.  He talks about babies being weaned too early and being fed formula made from cow’s milk, and Dr.s pushing dairy products on young babies (this was completely true with my kids.  My pediatricians hounded me about yogurt, cheese, and milk to make sure they were getting at least 3 servings).  This idea is difficult for people to accept, and is controversial, even when a person reads scientific articles on the subject.  He goes into detail on a few studies, trying to show significant links.
Multiple Sclerosis/Other Autoimmune Diseases
  • It is commonly thought these are due to genetics, viruses, and environmental factors.  Once again, cow’s milk appears to play an important role.
  • Dr. Roy Swank conducted studies on 144 MS patients over a 34 year period.  He advised them to consume a diet low in saturated fat (less than 20 g daily).  He found that in those 34 years, 80% of patients with early-stage MS who consumed higher fat diets died of MS.
  • Some studies have found a link to MS and cow’s milk that might be due to the presence of a virus in milk.
  • Autoimmune diseases are more common at higher geographic latitudes where there is less sunshine.
  • Today, almost no indication of the dietary connection to  autoimmune diseases has reached the public.
Chapter 10:  Wide-Ranging Effects: Bone, Kidney, Eye, and Brain Diseases
Osteoporosis
  • Americans consume more cow’s milk per person than most populations in the world, so wouldn’t it make sense that they also have the strongest bones?   No.  American women aged 50 + have one of the highest rates of hip fractures in the world!
  • Why?  Animal protein increases the acid load in the body, which means blood and tissues become more acidic.  The body tries to neutralize it by releasing calcium (a base) from the bones, thus weakening them.
  • Advertising is aggressive in the dairy industry, especially pertaining to women, pregnant women, and nursing women.  However, claims are not justified.  One study showed that a higher consumption of calcium was actually associated with a higher risk of bone fracture.  Increased animal consumption increases risk of Osteoporosis.
  • To lower risk:  Stay physically active, eat a wide variety of whole plant foods, keep salt intake to a minimum.
Kidneys
  • Kidney stones are common in developed countries and rare in developing countries – a Western problem.
Eye Problems
  • Cataracts and Macular Degeneration can be decreased by 70-88% if the right foods are eaten.
  • Eye health can be maintained by eating broccoli, carrots, spinach, collard greens, winter squash, and sweet potatoes.
Mind-Altering Diets
  • Animal-based foods lacked antioxidant shields and tend to activate free radical production and cell damage, while plant-based foods, with abundant antioxidants, tend to prevent such damage.
  • For every 3 additional servings of fruits and vegetables a day, the risk of stroke will be reduced by 22%.
  • The food you eat can drastically affect the likelihood of mental decline.

Book Summary: The China Study, part II

Part I found here and here.

I’ve been reading The China Study, and it’s taken me longer than usual with all of our weddings and vacations (plus my m.i.l.gave me two addicting books to read and I can’t put them down).  This last week I finally picked up The China Study again.  The main driving point of the book is: High protein diets from animal sources will cause debilitating disease.  Try to switch over to a whole-foods, plant-based diet.  He mostly covers many studies (including The China Study) and their results to prove this point.

I think T. Colin Campbell (and his son) has some interesting things to say, but is a little extreme.  I think there is a broad spectrum between being vegan and eating animal products multiple times a day, and the extremes are just that – extreme.  There is a perfect balance in there somewhere and I’m trying to find it.  Nevertheless, it’s an interesting read.  There’s a lot of information here, so I’m going to break it up into a couple posts.

***

The China Study: Summary Part II

Diseases of Affluence

  •  Americans eat like kings and have completely different diseases than underdeveloped countries: We suffer from heart disease, cancer, strokes, Alzheimers, diabetes, etc., and underdeveloped countries battle mostly infectious diseases.
  • There is not a “Cancer Diet” or “MS Diet,” but there is one diet that will counteract all of these diseases – a whole foods, plant-based diet.
Chapter 5: Broken Hearts
  • Over the next 24 hours, 3,000 Americans will have heart attacks.
  • P. 111 “Women’s death rates from heart disease is 8 times higher than their death rate from breast cancer.”
  • A study was done at the end of the Korean War on the hearts of 300 male American soldiers who were killed in action.  The average age of the soldiers was 22 years.  77% of their hearts had “gross evidence” of heart disease.  This was startling since these were very physically fit and young men.  It was now evident that young Americans are largely at risk for heart disease.
  • It turns out that large plaques  (a large build up/blockage of proteins and fats in an artery) are not the cause of heart attacks, but rather smaller, thin placque accumulations which break, causing the thick fat to mix with the blood until it forms a large clot and therefore a big blockage. It is the plaques that block less than 50% of an artery that are the most dangerous.
  • The Framingham (Massachussetts) Heart Study came up with risk factors for heart disease: They found a strong correlation between high blood cholesterol and heart disease.
  • In the late 50′s, reasearch expanded to include world populations.  P. 115 “American men died from heart disease at a rate almost 17 times higher than their Chinese counterparts.”  It is not genetic; it’s lifestyle.  As soon as people relocate from their native country to America, they fall into western living practices and their  risk increases.
  • Animal foods are linked to higher blood cholesterol, and plant foods are linked to lower blood cholesterol.
  • Dr. Lester Morrison conducted research in LA on his patients in the late 40′s.  At the time it was thought heart disease was a result of aging and nothing could be done.  He discovered a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet would extend his patients’ lives.
  • The research has been working, because the death rate from heart disease is 58% lower than in 1950.
  • Surgery is a phantom fix – Within 3 years of bypass surgery, 1/3 of patients will suffer chest pains again.  Within 10 years half of the patients will have died, had a heart attack, or had chest pain return.  The shocker: Patients who undergo bypasss do not have fewer heart attacks than those who do not have the surgery. (Remember the stuff about small placques causing the attacks…it is often not the huge blockage, which is what is operated on).
  • Angioplasty is temporary too: Within 4 months of surgery 40% of arteries will close up again.  (Side note - This reminds me of stomach bypass surgery as well.  Many people end up gaining the weight back and even more than before, because they have not fixed the root cause of the problem – eating habits).
  • We are missing the most important treatment:  FOOD.
  • Dr. Esselstyn tested plant-based diets on his patients and took before and after pictures of their arteries.  18 patients all with bad hearts (49 coronary episodes between them) participated.  Cholesterol levels dropped dramatically and after 11 years, there was only one coronary event.
  • Now we know the effects and need to implement this type of diet.
Chapter 6: Obesity
  • It’s obviously a big problem.
  • The solution is a whole-foods, plant-based diet (get used to that phrase), coupled with a reasonable amount of exercise.  This is a long-term lifestyle.  Anything shorter than that will not work.
  • One mistake people make – they cut out meat and animal products, and replace them with pastas, sweets, pastries, and refined foods thinking that this is “vegetarian.”  He calls these people “junk-food vegetarians.”  The key is whole foods.
  • Stop counting calories.  As long as you eat the right type of food, calories do not matter.  (Side note - I am a huge believer in this.  I have not looked at calories in years and years.)
  • Stop expecting sacrifice, depravation, and blandness.  Eating whole foods is a worry-free way to eat.  Allow your body to tell you what it needs and then do it.
  • p.  141 – “Vegetarians consume the same amount or even significantly more calories than their meat-eating counterparts, and yet are still slimmer.”  They also have a higher rate of metabolism at rest.
  • Campbell did an experiment on rats and found that the ones eating 5% casein (the main protein in cow’s milk) diet exercised twice as much as the ones fed a 20% casein diet.
Chapter 7: Diabetes
  • 1/3 of those with diabetes don’t know they have it!
  • There are many complications from diabetes: heart disease, stroke,  blindness, kidney disease, nerve damage, amputation risk.
  • Dr. James Anderson experimented with a high fiber, high carb, low protein diet in his patients.  His Type I Diabetics (this is the genetic type)  were able to lower their insulin medication by an average of 40%.  He had 25 Type II patients, and 24 of them were able to discontinue their insulin medication.
  • Another group of scientists has 40 diabetic patients all on medication, and prescribed a low-fat plant-based diet and exercise.  34 were able to discontinue their medication after only 26 days.
***

I’ve been meaning to watch the documentary “Forks Over Knives” for some time, but I want to finish this book first since his research is featured in it.  Stay tuned!

Book Summary – The China Study, Part 1 Continued

Chapter 4:  Lessons from China

  • In the early 1970′s a survey was conducted in the entire country of China, which revealed that cancer was geographically localized.  In some areas, cancer rates were 100 times the rates of the lower areas (in the U.S. we see at most 2 to 3 times, so 100 times is enormous).
  • Why?  This was the beginning of “The China Study.”
  • In the USA, 15-16% of total calories comes from protein (80% of that protein is animal protein), and in rural China, only 9-10% total calories come from protein (only 10% of that is from animal sources).
  • The Chinese are consuming an average of 2641 calories, with 14.5% fat, and Americans are consuming 1989 calories with 38% fat.   The Chinese eat higher calories, less fat, less protein, less animal protein, more fiber, and more iron.
  • Diseases of Affluence (Nutritional Extravagance): Cancer, Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease
  • Diseases of Poverty (Nutritional Inadequacy and Poor Sanitation):Pneumonia, Ulcers, Digestive Diseases, Tuberculosis, Parasitic Diseases, Rheumatic Heart Disease.  Notice no cancer!
  • One of the strongest predictors of Western Diseases (diseases of affluence) is blood cholesterol.
  • Lower blood cholesterol levels are linked to lower rates of heart disease, cancer, and other western diseases.
  • Many prominent heart doctors have never seen a heart disease fatality among their patients with a blood cholesterol level below 150.
  • Nutrients from plant-based foods are associated with decreasing levels of blood cholesterol.
  • There is a lot of confusion among scientists regarding questions with dietary fat – how much, what kind, Omega-6 or 3, what kinds of oils are okay, etc.  When details are studied in isolation, results can be misleading.  We need to look at how networks of chemicals behave instead.
  • Only 2-3% of all cancers are attributed to genes.  The rest are strongly influenced by diet.
  • There is an interesting relationship with dietary fat and breast cancer.  Higher fat can influence early menstruation, high cholesterol, late menopause, and higher exposure to female hormones.  This can extend the reproductive life from beginning to end by 9-10 years.  This extra decade of exposure to hormones can greatly influence a woman’s risk of breast cancer.
  • A large survey in China revealed that the average age of a woman’s first period was 15-19 years old.  In America, the average age is 11.
  • The more colorful your produce, the higher antioxidant levels, which shield you from free-radicals (cancer-causing agents).
  • Again, the benefits do not lie in an individual nutrient or mineral, but in the whole food.
  • Don’t reach for a vitamin.  Eat it in a fruit or vegetable instead.
  • The Atkins diet reaks havoc on your system.  Don’t do it.
  • The low-carb diet craze is unfortunate.  Carbs are our friends.  Just make sure they are from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.    Many people think they are eating a healthy vegetarian diet by eating lots of pastas, highly processed crackers and chips, white flour, etc.  This is the reason carbs have gotten a bad rap.  That is the stuff that puts on weight and doesn’t add nutritional value.
  • Chinese are more physically active than Americans.  Their calorie intake is 30% higher, yet their body weight is 20% lower.
  • They are eating the right foods (plant-based protein, fruits, vegetables, whole grains) and riding their bikes!

Book Summary: The China Study, Part 1

Guess what happened this weekend?  I went on a plane ride all by myself.  I sat in a chair all by myself and read for an hour and a half without shoving snacks in anyone’s mouth, or getting out new toys every 2 minutes, or changing diapers.  So I finally got to read a bit of “The China Study” by T. Collin Campbell.  I’ve been meaning to read this for years now, and finally found a chance to crack it open.  It’s a little extreme in some parts, but interesting research.  Here’s the first section’s summary.

Introduction

  • We are more confused than ever about how to be healthy, and many of our doctors don’t even know what we need to do to achieve optimum health.
  • Many diseases can be reversed through healthy diet and lifestyle (duh).
  • Collins grew up on a dairy farm and drank two quarts of milk a day.  In his early career he worked at MIT trying to figure out why millions of chicks were dying from an unknown toxin in their feed.  He helped discover dioxin, which is part of Agent Orange (BEING FED TO CHICKEN, PEOPLE!).
  • He then went to the Philippines to discover why there was a high prevalence  of liver cancer in Filipino children.  His team (backed by a government organization) aimed at getting those  kids as much protein as possible, thinking this was healthy for impoverished children.  However, he discovered that children who ate the highest protein diets were the ones most likely to get cancer.  They belonged to wealthy families.
  • This led to research (using rats) about protein, and the role of nutrition in cancer.  In his research he discovered he could turn cancer on and off simply by changing the level of protein consumed.
  • Casein (87% of the protein in cow’s milk) strongly promoted cancer.  Protein from plants was safe.
  • People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease, and people who ate mostly plant based foods avoided chronic disease.
  • This research went against everything he knew growing up, and his colleagues scoffed at him.  He had to tread carefully since his research was being paid for by the government.  Yet, he knew they would not like the results…and possibly pull his funding.
  • p.8 “The distinctions between government, industry, science and medicine have become blurred.  The distinctions between making a profit and promoting health have become blurred.  The problems with the system do not come in the form of Hollywood-style corruption.  The problems are much more subtle, and yet much more dangerous.  The result is massive amounts of misinformation, for which average Am4erican consumers pay twice.  They provide the tax money to do the research, and then they provide the money for their health care to treat their largely preventable diseases.”

Chapter  1 – Problems We Face, Solutions We Need

  • If you are male, you have a 47% chance of getting cancer.  38% for females.
  • Heart Disease kills 1 out of 3 Americans.
  • Leading Causes of Death in ranking order:
  1. Diseases of the heart
  2. Cancer
  3. Medical Care (Scary), and we pay for our healthcare than any other country in the world.
  4. Stroke
  • We need to stop focusing on isolated nutrients, and look at the larger context instead.
  • Cancer can be turned on and off by nutrition, despite very strong genetic predisposition.

Chapter 2 – A House of Proteins

  • Back to the research in the Philippines:  This particular type of liver cancer was only occurring in Western countries after age 40.  In the Philippines, children under10 years were getting it.
  • Children who got liver cancer were from the best-fed and wealthiest families. They were consuming more protein than anyone else in the country, and yet they were the ones getting the cancer.
  • Back to the rats: He fed one group a diet made up of 20% protein and one group only 5% protein.  Every single rat on the 20% diet got liver cancer.  Not a single one in the 5% group got it.  This is a 100%  versus 0% result.  Almost unheard of in scientific research.
  • More observational research led to his advocacy for a whole foods, plant-based diet.

Chapter 3 – Turning Off Cancer

  • Cancer-causing agents have been added to our food (nitrites, dyes, toxins).  These chemicals increase cancer rates in experimental animals.  These often get a lot of press and explode in the media.
  • Another chemical that causes cancer but gets no press is protein.
  • Getting cancer is like growing grass.
  1. Initiation is like putting the seeds in the soil
  2. Promotion is when grass starts to grow
  3. Progression is when it gets completely out of control.
  • With cancer, the initiation phase is irreversible.
  • The promotion phase can last many many years.  It is reversible depending on whether it is given the right conditions to grow or not.
  • The third phase usually ends in death.  The goal is to take away optimum conditions for cancer cell growth in the promotion phase.
  • Many studies were done with Casein (in Cow’s milk).  When animals ate more protein than their body growth rate, disease onset began.  Animals that ate 20% protein were either dead or nearly dead from liver tumors at 100 weeks.
  • Protein from plants did not promote cancer growth, even at higher intake levels than casein.
  • Nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development.

To be Continued…

Book Summary: In Defense of Food, Part 3

First two summaries found here and here.

This is where the book got good. It talks about HOW we should eat.

Part 3:  Getting over Nutritionism

1 – Escape From the Western Diet

  • It is tempting to get hung up on individual nutrients (like certain fats, or carbohydrates, or antioxidants), but we need to view food as a whole.
  • Stop eating a western diet!  People eating this way are prone to all kinds of disease.
  • p. 143 “Instead of worrying about nutrients, we should simply avoid any food that has been processed to such an extent that it is more the product of industry than nature.”
  • The problem is that industrialization has now invaded whole foods too, so be careful!  Ex: A steak that came from a cow fed a diet of corn, industrial waste, antibiotics and hormones is not a “whole food.”

2 – Eat Food: Food Defined

  • Don’t eat anything your Great-Grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
  • Beware of things you think she might recognize (like bread) but which is actually filled with ingredients that she would not recognize.
  • Avoid Food Products Containing Ingredients That Are a) Unfamiliar, b) Unpronounceable, c) More Than Five in Number, or That Include d) High Fructose Corn Syrup.
  • Avoid Food Products That Make Health Claims
  • Shop The Peripheries Of The Supermarket And Stay Out Of The Middle
  • Get Out Of The Supermarket Whenever Possible (and shop at Farmers Markets, join CSAs, or Buy Local Produce)

3 – Mostly Plants: What To Eat

  • Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
  • You are what you eat eats too (you are essentially eating what the animal ate, or what nutrients were in soil of plants, or what was sprayed on crops).  Pg. 167 “For most of our food animals, a diet of grass means much healthier fats in their meat, milk, and eggs, as well as appreciably higher levels of vitamins and antioxidants.  Sometimes you can actually see the difference, as when butter is yellow or egg yolks are bright orange.”
  • If you have the space, buy a freezer.
  • Eat well-grown food from healthy soils
  • Eat wild foods when you can.
  • Be the kind of person who takes supplements.  Those who take supplements are typically more health conscious, better educated, etc., but save your money.  For the most part it doesn’t do much for you if you are eating a healthy diet…that is until you are 50, then it is probably a good idea to take a multivitamin-and-mineral pill and possibly a fish oil pill as well.
  • Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks.  That is, make food a social event, take your time to feel full, and make portions smaller.
  • Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
  • Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.  Don’t waste time looking for the one food that produces good health.  Just try to eat a wide variety of whole foods.

4 – Not Too Much: How to Eat

  • Pay more, eat Less.  There is a trade-off in eating between quantity and quality.  The better the food, the less of it you will have to eat to feel satisfied.
  • Eat meals.  One-fifth of all eating occurs in the car!  Snacking is a huge problem, and a source of a large amount of empty calories.
  • Do all your eating at a table.
  • Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.
  • Try not to eat alone.
  • Eat slowly.
  • Cook, and, if you can, plant a garden.

Book Summary: In Defense of Food, Part 2

If you missed the first review, it is here.

Part 2: The Western Diet and The Diseases of Civilization

1 -  The Aborigine In All Of Us:

  • A very interesting study was done on 10 Aborigines who lived in Derby, Australia.  Since leaving their villages and adopting a western style of eating, they became overweight, had elevated triglycerides in their blood, developed Metabolic Syndrome, and diabetes.  Their diet consisted of sugar, rice, soda, alcohol, powdered milk, meat, potatoes, onions, and a few vegetables and fruit.  In the experiment, they agreed to leave civilization and return to the bush to see if their health would improve.  For seven weeks their diet consisted of seafood, birds, kangaroo, grubs, larvae, fish, yams, figs, honey, and crocodile.  After the 7th week, there were striking improvements in almost all areas of health.  All ten participants had lost weight, had lowered blood pressure, lower triglycerides in their blood, and most interesting – some of them no longer had diabetes, and the ones who still did were showing signs of reversal.
  • Shows an interesting link between diet and health.

2 – The Elephant in the Room

  • Those who eat a Western Diet (much of the world) have higher rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
  • People who come to the west and adopt this style of eating also suffer from these problems.
  • Another interesting study done by a dentist who had a theory that poor nutrition caused cavities.  He studied all cultures and different respective diets.  He discovered:
  1. Populations eating a wide variety of foods had no need for dentists at all.
  2. Refined flour, sugar, canned/chemically preserved foods, and vegetable oils negatively impacted tooth decay.
  3. There was no single diet that proved superior.  Some tribes consumed no produce at all, but ate only meat. Others consumed no dairy, but the common thread was that they were eating plants and animals that were fresh and from good soil.
  • Soil has been highly processed due to fertilizers.  Most of it now has synthetic nitrogen, which strips nutrients from plants.

3 – The Industrialization of Eating: What We Do Know

  • What we need is a broader view of food – don’t think of it as a chemical, but as a system.
  • Start thinking of food as a relationship between the ecosystem, plants, animals, and us.  We are all helping and influencing each other.
  1. From Whole Foods to Refined: The history of refining and processing grains.  A whole food is more than the sum of its nutrient parts.  Studies were conducted where parts of a grain were isolated.  Those who ate the whole grain compared to those who ate this isolated part showed more benefits.
  2. From Complexity to Simplicity:  Foods start out as a complex set of nutrients and antioxidants, but by the time they get to us they are simplified/un-nutritious.
  3. From Quality to Quantity:  We are now concerned with producing food as cheaply as possible.  Foods are so depleted that we have to eat more to get the same amounts of nutrients.  We now have to eat 3 apples to get the same nutrients in one 1950′s apple.  Farmers produce 600 more calories per person per day, prices have fallen, portions have increased, and we are eating more.  Basically we are overfed and undernourished.
  4. From Leaves to Seeds: We are eating more seeds than leaves.  Omega-3 fats are found in leaves.  These are important to the diet.  Omega-6 fats (also important), found in seeds, block the absorption of Omega-3 fats.  They compete for the space in cell membranes and for certain enzymes, so too many Omega-6s can be just as much a problem as too little Omega-3s.  The introduction of seed oils (soybean oil especially) now results in Omega-6s outnumbering Omega-3s ten to one.
  5. From Food Culture to Food Science:  Cultural food traditions are dying.  We are no longer taught about food harvesting and preparation from our Grandmothers, but from science, journalism, and government.

I finished this book tonight and will sum up the rest soon.  I don’t want to overload your brains (or mine) with too much mumbo jumbo in one night. :)

**Just a side note that the No Processed Food Challenge will start next Monday, January 9th.  Excited for the next week!!**

Book Review: In Defense of Food Part 1

I’ve been reading this book for a while.  I’ve skimmed through it lots in years past, but decided I really needed to read it in detail this time around.  Man alive, sometimes it takes me MONTHS to get through a tiny book and it’s mostly because I have young babies and by the end of the night I see a book on the nightstand next to the ipad, and let’s be honest – sometimes you just really need to veg (I catch up on tv shows).  Hulu anyone?  Anyway, this last week I plowed through a big section of this book (and took NOTES and EVERYTHING!), and I need to sum it up for you: It’s awesome.  Read it.  It will change the way you look at food forever.

Here’s the first third: In Defense of Food -”Eat (Real) Food, not too much, mostly plants.”

Part 1:  The Age of Nutritionism

  • Pollan’s aim is to help us reclaim health and happiness as eaters.
  • Most of the nutritional advice we’ve received has made us less healthy and fatter.
  • We are orthorexics (people with an unhealthy obsession with eating).
  • He blames industrialization, advertising, and nutritionalism.

1 – From Food to Nutrients: 

  • We have stopped looking at foods as a whole, and instead focus on nutrients.  Ex. milk is not a food, but viewed as protein, calcium, fat, and water.

2 – Nutritionism Defined:

  • Viewing food as a collective whole made up of chemical parts, and putting emphasis on those parts.

3 – Nutritionism Comes to Market:

  • Margarine was the forerunner as the first manufactured fake food.
  • A series of laws passed.  First, a pink dye was placed in manufactured foods so the consumer was well aware that it was not natural.  After that didn’t do wonders for sales, labels then had to include the word “imitation” if something wasn’t real.  This obviously put a damper on consumers’ excitement to buy the products, so things evolved until as long as a product was engineered to have the same nutrient qualities (ex. had 20 g of carbohydrates), they didn’t have to use the word “imitation.”
  • Enter Hydrogenated oils.  Much cheaper, and in EVERYTHING.

4 – Food Science Golden Age:

  • Food manufacturers reign supreme!  At this point, anything is possible with food.
  • Foods that formerly had two or three ingredients now had additives to increase shelf life, or entice consumers (ex.  more fiber!).
  • Depending on dieting trends, food scientists alter foods to fit the demand.  (ex.  during the Atkins trend, bread and pasta became low-carb and high protein).
  • Whole foods remain for the most part unchangeable, but can be marketed according to trends to play it up (ex.  pomegranates are high in antioxidants).
  • Sugary Cereals  now say “Whole Grain Goodness,”  and people think it is healthy.

5 – The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis

  • Lipid Hypothesis:  Fat is responsible for chronic disease.  What has this claim done to America?  Nothing health-wise, and has made things worse.
  • pg.  41 “Hold on just a minute.  Are you really saying the whole low-fat deal was bogus?  But my supermarket is still packed with low-fat this and no-cholesterol that!  My doctor is still on me about my cholesterol and telling me to switch to low-fat everything.”  Basically, yes. (Makes me think of this song).
  • Nutrition Scientists at Harvard School of Public Health have been researching this for years.  In 2001 they reported:  “It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences.”  (??????!!!!!!)
  • Trans-fat is the exception.  That is poison.  Get it out of the house.

6 – Eat Right, Get Fatter

  • We did cut down on fat, but as a result at a larger amount of food in the form of low-fat carbs.
  • The message was “Eat more low-fat foods.”  Food companies had a hay day.

7 – Beyond the Pleasure Principle

  • It is getting increasingly harder to know what to eat.  When you try to, you have to stay up to date on science, know what all the ingredients mean, and learn to enjoy engineered foods.
  • It has taken the pleasure out of eating and added in worry, guilt, overindulgence, confusion, etc.
  • Eating healthy is not following our palate, but conventional scientific “rules” we should live by.

Chapters 8, 9, 10 

  • Give Nutritionists and Food Scientists a break – studying nutrition is way harder than it first appears.
  • Goes into detail about the different kinds of research methods, their praises and their flaws
  • Reveals some interesting data of the layperson’s view of “nutrition” or “health.”

***

So the first section is a bit more science based, but don’t discount it for that reason.  I am starting to get to some really juicy stuff in the next section.  Stay tuned for the rest of the summary next week.

Hope you have a great weekend.  Ours started off with a bang when we went to a smashing “Ugly Sweater Party.”

Yes, those are rhinestone snowflakes I glued on all by myself.  Crafty, eh?