garyhudsonposts - Tumblr blog

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/beyond-diet-doesnt-recommend-calorie-counting/

Why the Beyond Diet Doesn't Recommend Calorie Counting...

Do You Count Your Calories?

Yes? No?

Should You?

Let us have a look at how do people exactly go about Calorie Counting.

2500 Calories daily for a man. 2000 Calories daily for a woman.

These are the recommended values for the average man and woman. They vary slightly according to factors like your daily physical activity, your metabolism as well as your age.

Say, we have a Linda who applies calorie counting to maintain her weight and health.

Linda believes that if she consumes 2000 calories and not exceed it by much every day she will be able to maintain optimum weight and great health.

When Linda wakes up – 0 Calories had. 2000 to go!

She starts her day by having french fries. About the quantity of a medium McDonald’s serving.

400 Calories had. 1600 to go!

Within an hour she starts feeling empty. So she thinks of having something that will make her feel full.

She opens her fridge to find a bottle of Coke.

She gulps down half of it. 500 Calories had. 1500 to go!

After a zillion burps and a few episodes on the television, hunger comes knocking again!

She does the math and is glad that she still has 1500 calories to go until bedtime.

She has two huge slices of pizza from Domino’s down the road. 1100 Calories had. 900 to go!

She has a long siesta and wakes up as her mom is back from office.

They have a talk and her mom serves her the donut she got for Linda.

1400 Calories had. 600 to go!

For Supper, Linda has some chicken broth along with salad and a tuna sandwich.

Exact 600 calories according to her math!

She couldn’t be happier! 2000 Calories were consumed throughout the day and recommendation was achieved.

She goes to bed and dreams how she will have a perfect figure soon if she kept up the good work of eating not more than the recommended calories.

Trust me, she will have gained at least 2 pounds if she consumes the same foods she had every day for a week.

This, despite the fact that she isn’t breaching the recommended calories mark even once!

Why?

What did she do wrong?

Calorie Counting is a technique that has so many loopholes that I am surprised people fail to spot!

1. Calorie Counting Is Not Accurate

How can you say that the apple in my hand and the apple in your hand carry the same amount of calories?

A large apple typically contains 50 more calories than a medium sized one!

And it’s not just about the size. A lot of factors go into counting the calories a food is capable of supplying!

If this difference seems insignificant to you, imagine 10 medium apple and 10 large apples!

The difference becomes from an insignificant 50 to a mammoth 500 Calories!

2. You may not absorb all the calories from all your foods.

100% efficiency is something that is particularly impossible.

If you ‘think’ you have consumed 2000 calories, and say you could absorb only 60-70% calories (this is how much you absorb on an average) from the said foods, that means you have actually consumed somewhere between 1200-1400 calories instead of 2000.

I do not think I need to stress enough on how dangerous it is to consume less than the recommended calories constantly for days and months.

3. Hips don’t lie! Labels Do!

Companies are aware that customers do read the labels and the more the calories people see, the less the product sells!

So, to get that figure to a minimum companies used crooked ways and make you believe that you aren’t consuming as many calories as many you actually are!

Never trust the labels!

4. Calorie counting has produced hundreds and thousands of people like Linda

See, dieting is tough! Really tough!

If you have been eating according to your desires and haven been a slave of your tongue all your life, dieting is next to impossible for you!

I am not here to discourage anyone, but just to show you the reality.

So people, like our dear Linda here, find ways to convince people around her more than themselves that they are taking good care of themselves.

Calorie Counting is one such way!

Any sane person would say that Linda’s diet is completely wrong!

Pizza, Coke, Fries, Donuts?

Seriously?

How can you consume junk all day and say you were within your limits and dream of an enviable figure, all at the same time?

You just can’t! If reaching your desired weight, health and body shape was this easy, everyone would have a kickass body!

Now that we have established that Calorie Counting is the most illusionary method of losing weight or maintaining health, let us have a look at what works and what has worked for thousands who signed up for the Beyond Diet Program.

HEALTHY EATING.

You can click or tap on the two words above to discover the right way of nutrition, the way of nutrition that has worked for so many people to achieve their desired weight and health.

Always Eat Healthy and NEVER Count Calories!

Calorie Counting is dangerous!

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/vitamins-a-c-d-e-k-deficiencies/

All the What's and How's of Vitamin Deficiencies Answered

To Read About Vitamin B Complex, Visit These Two Links –

Part 1

Part 2

This blog post is about the Vitamins A,C,D,E and K and the deficiencies associated with them…

Vitamin A and Night Blindness

The orange and yellow colors of carrots and other brightly colored fruits and vegetables are due to beta-carotene and several other related chemicals called carotenoids.

Your body can convert some of these carotenoids to retinol, which is the form of vitamin A that your body uses.

Human beings can easily get all the vitamin A they need by eating dark green and deep yellow or orange fruits and vegetables.

Cats, on the other hand, need to get their vitamin A in the form of retinol, which comes only from an animal source.

If you wanted to develop a plant-based diet for a cat, you would have to supplement it with some synthetic retinol (among other things).

One of the symptoms of mild vitamin A deficiency is night blindness, or the inability to see in low light conditions.

Severe vitamin A deficiency causes permanent blindness and problems with the immune system.

The safest way to meet your need for vitamin A is to eat dark green or deep yellow or orange vegetables and fruits.

Your body converts the carotenoids from those foods to vitamin A only on an as-needed basis.

Even if you overdose on carrot juice, the worst that’s likely to happen is that your skin will turn yellow.

On the other hand, an overdose of retinol can cause severe side effects, such as permanent blindness or even death.

Many Americans aren’t getting the recommended amount of vitamin A, but that’s mainly because most of us need to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Unfortunately, our agricultural subsidies are being spent on corn and soybeans instead of on fruits and vegetables. These subsidies are promoting the production and consumption of animal-based foods and processed foods.

So our tax dollars are being used to make dangerous food cheap, instead of making healthy food affordable.

Although most Americans would benefit from eating more fruits and vegetables, a severe vitamin A deficiency is actually rare in the United States.

Most cases occur in people who do not or cannot eat properly (such as alcoholics) and in people with digestive diseases (such as cystic fibrosis) that prevent them from absorbing vitamins from their food.

In contrast, vitamin A deficiency is a major cause of blindness and death among children in poor countries. Today, children in poor countries may receive a periodic high-dose vitamin A supplement, often in coordination with vaccination programs.

When people get a lot of beta-carotene from their diet, it is because they’re eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. This tends to make them healthier than the people who are eating the standard American diet.

Some people hoped that they could get the same benefits by adding beta-carotene in pill form to the standard American diet, instead of switching to a healthy diet. However, the beta-carotene supplement seems to do more harm than good.

One large clinical trial (the CARET study) involving people at high risk for lung cancer showed more lung tumors, more heart attacks, and more deaths among the subjects who received pills containing beta-carotene and retinyl palmitate (another form of vitamin A) than in patients who received placebo pills.

Why did the beta-carotene supplement do more harm than good?

In nature, there’s no such thing as a concentrated dose of pure beta-carotene. Fruits and vegetables provide beta-carotene in combination with other carotenoids.

Your body probably needs a balanced mixture of several carotenoids, not a concentrated dose of only one of them. The results of the CARET study reinforce a message that I have seen in every nutrition textbook I have ever read.

You should get your vitamins from foods, not from pills.

Vitamin C and Scurvy

When most people think of vitamin deficiency, the first thing they think of is scurvy, which results from a deficiency of vitamin C.

Scurvy became a particularly serious problem for sailors on long sea voyages. The food that could be stored for long periods on ships included a dried bread called hardtack and salted meat or fish.

None of those foods contain much vitamin C. In general, dried seeds such as stored grains don’t contain vitamin C. Of course, as soon as a seed sprouts, the sprout starts producing its own vitamin C.

All plants and most animals make their own supply of vitamin C. Human beings, gorillas, and guinea pigs are among the few species that cannot make their own vitamin C.

Lack of vitamin C causes severe problems with the connective tissue. The gums bleed and the teeth become loose and eventually fall out. The person bruises easily.

If the condition goes untreated, the person will eventually die of massive internal bleeding. Yet scurvy can be cured rapidly if the person starts eating fresh fruits and vegetables again.

Even sprouted beans or grains would have worked. To prevent scurvy, the British Royal Navy added citrus fruits to their sailors’ rations, which is why British sailors were called limeys.

A serious outbreak of scurvy occurred among bottle-fed babies in the United States in the 1890s, when dairies started pasteurizing cow’s milks.

Although the pasteurization killed dangerous bacteria, it also destroyed the vitamin C in the milk The scurvy could be prevented or cured by giving the baby a little bit of fresh fruit juice.

The take-home lesson is not that children should be drinking raw cow’s milk, which poses many serious health risks. It’s that babies should be breast-fed by their well-nourished mother.

The fact that we human beings have lost the ability to make vitamin C is a clue that we should be eating fruits and vegetables. Somewhere along the line, our ancestors lost the genes that would enable them to make vitamin C.

They could afford to lose those genes because they could always get plenty of vitamin C from the fruits and vegetables they were eating.

It wasn’t until people started trying to get by on nothing but stored grains and preserved meats that they ran into trouble with scurvy. Today, scurvy is rare in the United States.

Most cases nowadays occur in alcoholics and in elderly men who live alone and cook for themselves. The best way for most people to ensure that they get enough vitamin C is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is not a true vitamin.

Instead, it is a hormone that is produced when ultraviolet light strikes the skin.

Unfortunately, an indoor lifestyle and overuse of sunscreen can pose a risk of vitamin D deficiency.

Furthermore, many Americans live much further north than their ancestors did. Thus, many Americans may have darker skin than is optimal for the climate where they now live.

The result has been cases of vitamin D deficiency among African-Americans in the North, especially among breast-fed babies.

Vitamin D is involved in how the body handles calcium. In children, a severe deficiency of vitamin D causes a bone deformity called rickets.

In adults, severe vitamin D deficiency can cause osteomalacia, which is a softening of the bones. The traditional cure for rickets was cod-liver oil, which is rich in vitamin D.

Eventually, people realized that sunlamps, which produce ultraviolet light, could also prevent and cure rickets. Yet the best way to get vitamin D is by getting reasonable exposure to natural sunlight.

For a white person in Boston, that means about 5 minutes of midday sunlight on the face, arms, and hands twice a week during the spring, summer, and fall. If you stay out in the sun too long, you could get a sunburn or increase your risk of wrinkling and skin cancer.

However, nobody has ever gotten an overdose of vitamin D from sunshine. In contrast, many people have gotten sick from vitamin D supplements.

To evaluate a patient’s vitamin D stores, doctors often use a blood test for 25-hydroxy-vitamin D, which is the form of vitamin D that is stored in the liver.

However, there is a lot of disagreement about what the normal level should be. Also, the results of the test can be misleading, for several reasons. One is that inflammation can suppress the amount of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D that is circulating in the bloodstream.

Also, vitamin D dissolves in body fat. As a result, the body fat of obese people tends to pull the 25- hydroxy-vitamin D out of the bloodstream

Thus, a low vitamin D level in a blood test does not necessarily mean a shortage of vitamin D in the body.

For these reasons, the results of vitamin D tests are hard to interpret. Dr. John McDougall recommends that people get as much sun exposure as they can tolerate without skin damage. He also recommends that people eat a starchy, low-fat, purely plant-based diet.

Such a diet will help to prevent the diseases (such as osteoporosis) that people hope to prevent through vitamin D supplementation. By relieving inflammation, this diet may also cause vitamin D levels in the bloodstream to rise to the levels that are considered normal.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E was discovered by feeding rats an extremely abnormal diet. When young rats were fed a diet whose only fat source was lard, they lost the ability to reproduce.

The problem could be solved by adding wheat germ or lettuce to the diet. Eventually, the vitamin E effect was found to be the result of a family of fat-soluble compounds that were named tocopherols (from die Greek words meaning “to carry a pregnancy’) because of their importance in reproduction.

Unlike die other vitamins, vitamin E does not seem to play an important role in any of the body’s metabolic functions.

Instead, it seems to work as an antioxidant, preventing reactive chemicals called free radicals from causing a dangerous chain reaction.

No actual cases of vitamin E deficiency have ever been seen to result from people eating normal foods that are low in vitamin E.

The only known cases have been in people who cannot absorb fat-soluble vitamins from their food (because of a digestive disease) and people who have abnormally high requirements for vitamin E (because of an inherited metabolic disease).

Since vitamin E acts as an antioxidant, many people hoped that large doses of vitamin E would help prevent atherosclerosis (the buildup of crud in the arteries).

However, the results of trials of vitamin E supplementation for this purpose have been confusing.

In contrast, studies of a low-fat, plant-based diet for preventing heart disease have provided consistent, clear, excellent results. The less fat you eat, the less vitamin E you probably need.

Unless you have one of those rare digestive or metabolic diseases, you have no need to worry about getting enough vitamin E from a diet based on unrefined plant foods.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K was discovered because it plays an important role in blood cloning (the K comes from the German word Koagulation).

It was later found to have an important role in bone formation. Vitamin K isn’t just one chemical. A large number of similar compounds can all have vitamin K activity.

The ones produced by green plants are called vitamin K1. The ones produced by the bacteria in our intestines are called vitamin K2.

There’s also a synthetic version, called vitamin K3, which our liver can convert to vitamin K2.

When people have a deficiency of vitamin K, their blood won’t clot properly. This increases the risk of major bleeding, even from a minor injury.

Fortunately, vitamin K deficiency is rare (except in newborns!) because human beings can get vitamin K from the bacteria in their intestines.

Most cases of severe vitamin K deficiency occur in people who have no bacteria in their intestines. Thus, it tends to occur in people who have been on powerful antibiotics. It used to be common in newborn babies.

But nowadays, most newborn babies receive a shot of vitamin K at birth.

All babies are born with a deficiency of vitamin K. Vitamin K does not pass easily through the placenta. Also, there is very little vitamin K in breast milk.

Babies have no bacteria in their intestine at first. Thus, they have no source of vitamin K. Because of this natural deficiency of vitamin K, babies are at risk for severe, life-threatening bleeding, including bleeding into the brain or other vital organs.

This condition is called classic hemorrhagic disease of the newborn.

The bleeding can happen very quickly, and the results can be devastating.

Nowadays, babies in the United States are routinely given a shot of vitamin K at birth. The vitamin K is given by injection because giving the vitamin K by mouth sometimes fails to provide adequate protection.

Vitamin K also serves as the antidote to warfarin (Coumadin), which is a commonly used blood thinner. People who are taking warfarin have to keep their intake of vitamin K stable.

If they make a change in their diet, their warfarin dosage will have to be adjusted. The sad part is that in many cases, people are taking the warfarin because of the damage that their bad diet has done to their heart muscle and blood vessels.

If they had kept their cholesterol low and avoided constipation, many of them would have avoided the disorders that led to a need for warfarin.

So now you realize that Vitamins are simply vital and it is important that you eat foods rich in vitamins and not only protein or good fats as popularized by the fitness frenzy!

Also, eating a completely plant-based diet will not rob you of any Vitamins; rather some plant sources are the best sources of particular Vitamins!

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/vitamin-b-deficiencies-2/

All the What's and How's of Vitamin B Deficiencies Answered - Part 2

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)

Pantothenic acid is essential for human health, but it is so widely available in so many foods that it’s practically impossible to find anyone who has a deficiency.

To prove that pantothenic acid is a vitamin, scientists had to feed volunteers a special purified diet that was artificially low in pantothenic acid.

Even then, it was hard to sort out what problems resulted from the lack of pantothenic acid, and what problems resulted from some other abnormality of the diet.

In short, pantothenic acid deficiency is nothing to worry about.

Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)

Pyridoxine (vitamin B6) is found in a wide variety of foods.

A deficiency of pyridoxine is extremely rare, even in poor countries.

However, it can be caused by the use of some drugs that increase the body’s requirement for the vitamin. Examples include the tuberculosis drug isoniazid.

There are also some rare genetic disorders that increase the person’s requirement for pyridoxine.

Vitamin B7 (Biotin)

Biotin deficiency is also extremely rare because we generally get more than enough of this vitamin from the bacteria in our intestines.

To study the effects of biotin deficiency, scientists had to feed volunteers large amounts of raw egg white for a long period.

Raw egg white contains a substance called avidin that binds to biotin, keeping it from being absorbed.

Other cases of biotin deficiency occurred in patients who were being fed intravenously before biotin was added to the intravenous feeding solutions.

Vitamin B9 (Folate)

A deficiency of folate (vitamin B9) causes a form of anemia that looks a lot like the pernicious anemia that results from vitamin B12 deficiency.

Unlike pernicious anemia, however, the anemia related to folate deficiency was common among poor pregnant women in India in the 1930s. It was also found in British patients with digestive diseases, such as celiac disease.

A commercial yeast extract called Marmite, which was widely used as a dietary supplement, rapidly cured the problem.

The nutritional factor responsible for curing the anemia was eventually found to be a form of folic acid, which was originally isolated from spinach leaves.

Folic acid, as such, does not normally occur in nature. Folic acid is a fully oxidized version of the chemically more complicated folates that are found in leafy greens and many fruits, such as oranges, tomatoes, and cantaloupes.

However, the oxidized version is more stable, which is why it is the form that is used as a food additive and in vitamin pills.

Vitamin B9 provides another example of why it’s better to get your vitamins from food than from supplements, and why the use of supplements can have risks as well as benefits.

The story is a bit complicated. I’ll just give you the highlights.

In 1998, the FDA started requiring folic acid to be added to enriched grain products. The goal was to eliminate folate deficiency in women who might become pregnant, thus reducing the risk of serious birth defects of the spinal cord or brain.

The damage occurs very early, before most women even know that they are pregnant. Adding the extra folic acid to the food supply has substantially reduced the number of babies born with these defects, but it raises concerns about pernicious anemia and other health problems.

Although folic acid can be used to meet the body’s need for folate, the human body does not handle folic acid in the same way that it handles naturally occurring folates.

If you take too much folic acid, you overwhelm the body’s ability to convert it to its natural form. Thus, you can end up with some of the unaltered oxidized form of folic acid in your system, which could have unwanted effects.

Nutrition experts are also concerned that folic acid supplementation could hide the evidence of pernicious anemia, which is a potentially deadly disease.

The extra folate might cure the telltale blood disorder associated with vitamin B12 deficiency—but without preventing the vitamin B12 deficiency from causing permanent nerve damage.

In other words, the person could be suffering progressive, permanent damage to the brain and spinal cord without having any early warning signs. This wouldn’t be a problem if people were being monitored for vitamin B12 deficiency, but many people are not.

People who don’t eat animal products probably should get their vitamin B12 levels checked periodically, as should elderly people.

There are also important concerns that abnormally high intakes of folic acid could increase the risk of heart disease and cancer.

In contrast, people whose intake of natural folate is high because they eat lots of vegetables and fruits have a low risk of heart disease and cancer.

The folic acid supplements are found in foods made from refined grains. If you eat whole-grain foods instead of refined foods and eat lots of leafy

Vitamin B12 and Pernicious Anemia

The only true vitamin that is not made by plants is vitamin B12, which is made by bacteria.

A deficiency of vitamin B12 causes a potentially deadly disease called pernicious anemia. However, most diagnosed cases of pernicious anemia result from an inability to absorb the vitamin from the food, not from the lack of the vitamin in the diet.

Because plants don’t contain vitamin B12, people who stick to a purely plant-based diet for any length of time are generally advised to take a vitamin B12 supplement.

It may take up to 3 years for a person’s vitamin B12 stores to run out. Even so, a study of people who had supposedly been following a purely plant-based diet for years found that they didn’t necessarily have a vitamin B12 deficiency. Still, it is better to be safe than sorry.

A deficiency of vitamin B12 can cause not only anemia but severe, permanent damage to the central nervous system. If people eat a lot of folate or take a folic acid supplement, they might end up with the brain and nerve damage without getting anemia first as a warning sign.

There has been a lot of discussion about alternative sources of vitamin B12 for people who don’t eat animal products.

One problem is that the test that is normally used to measure the amount of vitamin B12 in foods can sometimes react to substances that do not have vitamin B12 activity in the body. To be on the safe side, just take a proper vitamin B12 supplement.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/vitamin-b-deficiency-1/

All the What's and How's of Vitamin B Deficiencies Answered - Part 1

Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) and Beriberi

Beriberi is a disabling and potentially deadly disease that occurred mainly in societies where people depended heavily on white rice as a staple food. The disease had been known in East Asia for centuries, but serious outbreaks of it started in the 1880s, when steam-powered machines for milling rice were introduced.

Most people in East Asia had always preferred white rice, which is produced by polishing the bran and germ off the kernels of brown rice. Although white rice is not as nutritious as brown rice, it keeps better.

Because of the tiny amount of fat in the rice germ, brown rice easily goes rancid. Also, many people simply prefer the look and taste of white rice.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the thiamine in a rice kernel is in the bran and germ. When people eat a diet based too heavily on white rice, which lacks this bran and germ, they are at risk for thiamine deficiency.

Beriberi is horrible disabling. In fact, the name beriberi came from a Sinhalese word meaning “I can’t, I can’t.”

At first, beriberi was mistakenly believed to result from protein deficiency, because people who were wealthy enough to eat some meat or fish didn’t get beriberi. When millers started adding back the vitamins that were being lost in the milling process, beriberi was practically wiped out.

Beriberi is rare nowadays. However, people can still end up with a thiamine deficiency if they have trouble absorbing vitamins from their food. Examples include people with celiac disease and people who have had intestinal surgery.

Thiamine deficiency is a particular problem in alcoholics, partly because alcoholics are often generally malnourished and partly because alcohol makes it harder to absorb thiamine from food.

Many scientific authorities believe that a devastating, incurable brain disorder called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (“wet brain”) that occurs in alcoholics could be prevented if an effective vitamin B1 supplement were added to alcoholic beverages.

Unfortunately, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has the final say on that issue, and they have refused to allow any alcoholic beverages to be fortified with any vitamins for any reason. The American Medical Association has tried to reason with them, but to no avail.

Thiamine is easily available from a wide variety of plant-based foods. Unless you have an intestinal disease or are a malnourished alcoholic, you are almost certainly getting enough in your diet. On the other hand, a fat-soluble thiamine analogue called benfotiamine might be useful for helping to prevent the complications of diabetes.

It may also be useful in preventing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, which is sometimes called type 3 diabetes. As we’ll see, however, type 2 diabetes is easily reversed through a switch to a low-fat, plant-based diet, and most cases of type 1 diabetes could be prevented if people stopped giving cow’s milk to children and made sure that the children got enough vitamin D from exposure to natural sunshine.

I am normally skeptical of the value of vitamin supplements. However, I think that there should be more research on the use of benfotiamine for the prevention and management of Alzheimer’s disease and the complications of diabetes.

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)

Although riboflavin (vitamin B2) is one of the essential nutrients, it was never associated with a major deficiency syndrome, like scurvy or beriberi. Vitamin B2 is so widespread in foods that it is hard to get a vitamin B2 deficiency, unless you are having trouble absorbing vitamins from your food.

The most obvious sign of riboflavin deficiency is chapping of the lips, with cracking at the corners of the mouth. Other signs include a sore, red tongue and an oily, scaly rash on the genitals and the upper lip.

Riboflavin deficiency during pregnancy can cause birth defects, such as cleft lip or defects of the arms or legs.

Some people may need more riboflavin than others do, because of genetic differences in how their bodies handle riboflavin.

One preliminary study found that people with Parkinson’s disease tended to have abnormally low levels of riboflavin, even though they were eating a normal diet. Correcting the riboflavin deficiency and eliminating red meat from the diet actually helped to reverse the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Some critics of this study complained that the riboflavin treatment was not being compared with a placebo treatment. Yet the riboflavin was being used to correct a documented deficiency.

Thus, it would have been unethical to have a placebo group.

The only morally acceptable comparator would have been some sort of historical control group. It would be interesting to see whether other researchers also find a high incidence of riboflavin deficiency in people with Parkinson’s disease.

Yet even before that research is done, doctors can order a simple and inexpensive blood test to see whether their patients with Parkinson’s disease have a riboflavin deficiency that needs to be corrected.

Vitamin B3 (Niacin) and Pellagra

During the first half of the 20th century, a severe epidemic of pellagra, which results from deficiency of niacin (vitamin B3), raged in the United States, particularly in the South. It sickened as many as three million people, killing perhaps 100,000 of them.

The epidemic ended abruptly in the 1940s, when food processing companies started “enriching” their refined grain products. “Enrichment” means that the manufacturer adds vitamins to compensate for the nutrient losses that occur when a whole-grain product is refined, such as when whole-grain corn is turned into degerminated cornmeal. Pellagra causes the “Four D’s”: dermatitis (skin disorder), diarrhea, dementia (loss of memory and thinking skills), and death. Although small outbreaks of pellagra had been occurring in the United States for many years, the Great Pellagra Epidemic broke out after new machinery for processing corn (maize) was introduced.

This machinery produced large corn grits that were lower in fat and fiber but also extremely low in niacin. Among people who were eating virtually nothing other than cornmeal, flavored with molasses and a little bit of fatback, the decrease in the niacin content of their cornmeal was a disaster. Although pellagra was common among people who couldn’t afford to eat much meat or milk, it was not caused by protein deficiency.

At first, many people thought that pellagra was contagious because there were severe outbreaks of it in prisons and mental institutions. However, the staff who worked at these institutions never caught the disease from the inmates, because the staff members were eating a better diet.

People who could afford to eat meat or milk or eggs didn’t get pellagra. That’s because these foods contain niacin or at least some disease from the inmates, because the staff members were eating a better diet. People who could afford to eat meat or milk or eggs didn’t get pellagra.

That’s because these foods contain niacin or at least some tryptophan, which the body can convert to niacin. However, you don’t need to eat animal-based foods in order to get enough niacin or enough tryptophan.

The diet in Mexico and Central America has always been based heavily on corn. Nevertheless, pellagra is rare in those countries, even among the poor, because of the traditional way in which corn is processed. The dried corn is soaked in an alkaline solution, which makes it smell and taste better and makes it easier to grind.

This process also makes the corn easier to digest (so that people absorb more of the niacin) and helps to destroy common toxins produced by mold.

Today, niacin deficiency is rare in the developed countries. It tends to happen only in people who cannot or will not eat a normal diet, or who cannot absorb nutrients from their food.

Niacin is easily available from a wide variety of plant-based foods and is added to refined grain products. So unless you have an intestinal disease or are getting most of your calories from booze, you are probably getting enough niacin from your diet, even if you don’t eat any animal products.

Abnormally high doses of niacin are sometimes used as a drug to boost the levels of “good” HDL cholesterol in the blood. Unfortunately such hi doses of niacin can cause side effects ranging from skin flushing and itching to severe liver damage.

It’s odd that people are willing to take potentially dangerous doses of niacin to deal with a problem that could easily be solved by taking the fat and animal-based foods out of the diet.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/sure-youre-not-vitamin-d-deficient-vitamin-d-deficiency-symptoms/

Are You Sure You're Not Vitamin D Deficient? - Vitamin D Deficiency Symptoms

Vitamin D is one of the vital nutrients that our body requires. But due to various reasons the body lacks in these essential nutrients and this leaves one with several health issues.

So today in this article we will be discussing a few of the signs that are evident among women when they lack in vitamin D.

The major function of vitamin D in the body is to enhance the absorption of calcium from the food that we eat and other supplements as well. When the body fails in this process, it goes on to affect the bones.

In addition to this, vitamin D is also required to build up the immune system. In comparison to men, it is the women who are mainly affected by lack of vitamin D.

In order to maintain the level of vitamin D in the body, and make up for the deficiency, there are certain foods like fatty fish, egg yolk, mushrooms, milk and yogurt that help.

This apart, sun is yet another important source of vitamin D. Getting sun-bath for about 10 minutes every day helps in preventing vitamin D deficiency.

Listed in this article are a few common signs in women that show their body lacks in vitamin D. Take a look.

Weakness: When the body is not able to absorb the calcium due to lack of vitamin D, this leaves you exhausted and weak. Having an adequate amount of vitamin D in the body is essential to provide you the needed energy to go ahead with the day’s work.

Severe Bone & Muscle Pain: One of the commonly observed signs of vitamin D deficiency in women is severe bone and muscle pain. As one tends to age, weakness of the bones could be a common issue but when muscle pain occurs among young adults, then this could be due to lack of vitamin D in the body.

Frequent Bone Fracture: When the bones become weak, even with the slightest of fall you will tend to have a fracture in the bones. This is yet another major sign that shows the body lacks in vitamin D.

Get Sick Often: Lack of vitamin D in the body can weaken the immune system. Due to this one tends to fall sick quite often. Vitamin D enhances the body to produce the antimicrobial compounds that actually help in fighting the infections and keep you disease free.

Depression: Several studies have shown that lack of vitamin D in the body can cause depression, especially among women. It has been pointed out that vitamin D is important for the proper functioning of the brain. So when the body lacks in vitamin D, it causes depression and other related mental health issues.

Wound Healing: Lack of vitamin D in the body can cause slow healing of wounds in women. When the healing of a wound is slower than normal, make it a point to get yourself checked for vitamin D deficiency.

Severe Hair Loss: Stress can cause loss of hair. But in addition to this your diet also plays a significant role when it comes to hair loss. Lack of certain nutrients in the body, with vitamin D being the major one, leads to significant hair loss among women.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/the-goodness-of-blackberry/

The Goodness of Blackberry!

Have you jumped on the exotic-berry bandwagon, with goji, acai and a whole bunch more? Berries are little antioxidant bombs, but they don’t always have to be sourced from miles away and bought at exorbitant prices.

Score the same (plus some) benefits from the locally-grown, often underrated blackberry. From June to August, it is filled with juicy goodness and plays an important role in preventing diseases.

But first…

There’s a reason seasonal fruit works for our bodies: the phytochemicals that protect the plant against disease during a particular season also give us protection.

They work against inflammation and help in the detoxification process. Flavonoids, one of the main phytochemicals in blackberry, “are synthesised by plants in response to microbial infection, and hence are very effective antimicrobial substances against a wide array of micro-organisms,” says a paper published in the Indian Journal of Scientific Research.

The polyphenols present are anti-cancer and protect the body from free radicals that damage cells.

Blackberry is hypoglycaemic. This means that eating it helps keep your blood sugar stable, so it’s a great snack.

It also has micronutrients: calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, sodium, vitamin C, and B vitamins. It is heart-protective, thanks to its high potassium content. And it’s low-cal: 100 gms delivers just 62 calories.

It’s your stomach’s friend and aids in digestion, is a carminative and a diuretic.

Blackberry is one locally-grown fruit that is mostly organic and can be added to your armoury of health foods. Nick Duncan, corporate chef, The Roseate, Duke City, finds blackberry a very versatile food. Here are some of his favourite recipes.

Blackberry Idli

Ingredients

50 g rice

25 g idli rice

25 g shelled black gram

3 tbsp blackberry puree (churn in mixie)

Salt to taste

Method

In a bowl, mix rice, idli rice and black gram, and soak for 4 hours. Then grind the mix to fine consistency. Add blackberry puree.

Keep the batter overnight at room temperature to ferment. In the morning, pour into idli steamer and steam for 13 minutes. Makes 8-10 pieces.

Nutrition: Energy 234 kcal; carbohydrates 50.4 g; protein: 605 g; fat .5 g; fibre 2.2 g; sodium 1168 mg

Blackberry panzanella salad

Ingredients

1 tomato

1/2 cucumber

1/2 large bell pepper

6 olives

1 tbsp capers

12 blackberrys, sliced

10 leaves basil

1 slice bread made into croutons

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Salt & crushed black pepper to taste

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp lemon juice

Method

Make vinaigrette by mixing olive oil, salt pepper, Dijon mustard and lemon juice. Whisk it to a slightly thick consistency. Now mix all the ingredients together and toss them in a bowl with vinaigrette. Top the salad with bread croutons and basil. Serves 2.

Nutrition: Energy 119.5 kcal; carbohydrates 12.1 g; protein: .9 g; fat 8 g; fibre 1.7 g; sodium 1252.5 mg

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/much-walk-effective-weight-loss-know/

How Much Should You Walk For Effective Weight Loss... Know It Here!

There is no person on Earth who has ever been satisfied with his weight. There are several methods for weight loss out there and and most of them do not seem to be as effective.

There is a very efficient method to lose weight fast with ease. Wouldn’t it be great if you could lose weight with ease? In this article, we have mentioned one of the very best ways to lose weight with ease.

You just need to tweak your habits a bit and that’ll do.

You just need to walk a bit more and this guarantees you with fast weight loss! So, when you start walking, you need to know how many steps you must walk to lose weight effectively.

The number of calories we burn while walking depends on two factors – walking area and body weight. You’ll burn about 400 calories, if you walk for one hour. This can happen if you walk with an average speed of four miles per hour.

To be more specific, you need to know that in order to burn 100 calories, you need to take 2000 steps. That would be about 1 mile of walking. In order to lose 1 pound, you need to burn 3500 calories. The best and the healthiest way to lose weight is to lose 1 pound in 1 week.

This means that you need to burn 500 calories in a day and you need to walk 5 miles on a daily basis. So, read further to know more about some of the simple tips that you can adopt to walk more.

Tip 1: You Can Walk Kids To School

If you have kids, then you can walk your kids to school, if it is at a considerable distance from your place, you could opt to walk.

Tip 2: Walk Home & Avoiding Taking A Bus Or Cab

Avoid using the bus or cab every day or at least for the home-bound journey. You can walk to your home instead.

Tip 3: Park Your Car Away From The Destination

Park your car at some distance away from your place where you need to get out. You can walk till that place.

Tip 4: Use The Stairs

Always use the stairs, instead of the elevator, and in this way, you can burn more calories.

Tip 5: Go For Morning/Evening Walks

Few of you might not be able to implement any of the above tips. For such people, we would advise deliberate morning/evening walks.

During the first three days, you can walk for 15 to 20 minutes, in order to adjust to that routine. You can gradually increase the time to 30 or 60 minutes per day.

Happy Walking! :D

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/dont-need-animal-based-food/

You Don't Need Animal Based Food To Survive/Grow! Read On...

Eating food that comes from plants is a far different experience (and for human beings, a far healthier experience) than eating food that comes from animals.

Animal-based foods contain cholesterol but no starch or fiber. Plants contain starch and fiber but no cholesterol.

When people talk about nutrition, they usually talk about individual nutrients, not about foods.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking can lead to serious mistakes.

For example, many people will refer to beef or chicken as “a protein,” even though beef and chicken also contain fat.

Most people would never dream of referring to a potato as “a protein,” even though potatoes provide as much protein as you need, along with plenty of other essential nutrients as well as energizing starch.

Yet in all of this discussion of isolated nutrients, most people have somehow missed the point about the fundamental differences between eating food that comes from plants and eating food that comes from animals.

When you look at plant tissue and animal tissue under a microscope, you can see some important similarities, and a few crucial differences.

All living tissue, whether from a plant or from an animal, is made of smaller units called cells. Each of these cells is basically a blob of jelly surrounded by a membrane. This membrane keeps the cell’s insides in, and it controls what can enter or leave the cell.

Unlike animal cells, every plant cell is encased in a tough shell called the cell wall. This cell wall is important. It explains why plants contain fiber but no cholesterol, and why animals contain cholesterol but no fiber.

Plant cells have cell walls, which are made of fiber. Because animal cells don’t have cell walls, they need cholesterol to strengthen their cell membranes. Plant cell membranes have other kinds of sterol, instead.

The cell walls of plant cells are made of cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin. Technically, these substances are carbohydrates, but animals lack the enzymes to break these complex carbohydrates down into simple sugars.

As a result, these carbohydrates are not broken down before they leave the human small intestine. That’s why we classify them as dietary fiber.

The term fiber is a bit misleading. Not all forms of dietary fiber are made of tiny bits of string. Instead, some of them dissolve in water to form a soft gel.

However, both the coarse and stringy insoluble fiber and the soft, jelly-like soluble fiber provide bulk to the stool. As a result, they help to relieve constipation. The normal bacteria within our large intestine break down some of this fiber.

In the process, they release short-chain fatty acids, such as butyric and propionic acid. Butyric acid is the favorite fuel of the cells that line our large intestine. Propionic acid is carried to the liver, where it has a cholesterol lowering effect similar to that of a station drug.

Although all plant tissue contains fiber, some of the foods that are made from plants contain little or no fiber. Some foods are made from sugar or oil that was extracted from the plant, leaving the fiber behind.

Thus, sugars and oils contain no fiber at all. The refining of grains, such as turning whole wheat into white flour, removes much of the fiber. Juicing of fruits and vegetables removes or at least disrupts a lot of the fiber. To get enough fiber in your diet, you must eat plant foods that are unprocessed or minimally processed.

Animal cells never have a cell wall. For that reason, animal products never contain any fiber. Since an animal cell has no cell wall, it needs a strong cell membrane. To strengthen their cell membranes, animal cells make cholesterol.

Plant cell membranes don’t need to be so tough. They don’t need cholesterol. As a result, plants contain practically no cholesterol. Instead, the cell membranes of plants contain other sterols, called phytosterols. These phytosterols compete with cholesterol for absorption.

So if you eat a purely plant-based diet, you will take in practically no cholesterol. You will even have some trouble in reabsorbing the cholesterol that you secrete into your intestine. As a result, your blood cholesterol level will be so low that your arteries will be clear.

Since plants contain practically no cholesterol, plant-eaters would normally need to be good at conserving the cholesterol that is produced in their liver.

As a result, they would be likely to suffer from a build-up of cholesterol if they ate food that contains cholesterol.

In human beings, cholesterol tends to build up as gallstones in our gallbladders and as atherosclerotic plaque in our arteries.

In societies whose members eat a lot of animal foods, heart attacks due to atherosclerosis are a major cause of death.

Likewise, heart attacks have been a major cause of death among captive gorillas that were fed an unnaturally rich diet.

In contrast, natural carnivores or omnivores are good at getting rid of excess cholesterol. For example, dogs never get atherosclerosis unless they have hypothyroidism, which interferes with their normal cholesterol metabolism.

If you put a human gallstone into a dog’s gallbladder, the stone would dissolve.

In East Asia, bile from bears has even been used as a drug for treating gallstones in human beings. (A synthetic form of the active ingredient in bear bile is available, so there is absolutely no excuse for taking bile from a bear.)

The fact that human beings are prone to atherosclerosis and cholesterol-containing gallstones suggests that we are not carnivores or even omnivores.

Another important fact about plants is obvious even to the naked eye: plants have pretty colors. Green plants contain a green pigment called chlorophyll, which works like a solar panel to harness the energy from sunlight.

The plants then use this energy to make sugar out of water and carbon dioxide. The plants then burn some of that sugar for energy.

They use the rest as raw materials for making other things, such as starch, cellulose, fats, and amino acids.

Photosynthesis involves some high-energy chemical reactions. As a result, some highly reactive chemicals called free radicals are produced.

Free radicals have a powerful oxidizing effect. To protect themselves against the oxidation caused by free radicals, green plants make their own antioxidants.

Some of these antioxidants are brightly colored, which explains why so many vegetables and fruits are bright green, red, yellow, orange, or purple.

Unlike animal-based foods, bright and colorful fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of antioxidants that can help protect us from the free radicals that our own bodies produce.

Perhaps the biggest difference between plants and animals is that plants stay “planted” in one spot while animals are “animated”—they move around under their own power.

As a result, animals have to use up some of their energy to carry their energy stores with them, just as an airplane has to burn fuel to carry around its own fuel supply. Like an airplane, an animal needs to store its fuel in a form that provides the most energy for the least amount of weight.

If you look at the calorie counts of different kinds of food, it’s obvious that fat is the most concentrated source of energy in food. A gram of pure fat provides 9 calories, while a gram of dry sugar or starch provides only 4 calories.

Of course, the sugar or starch found in plant tissue is seldom dry. Starch tends to absorb water, which is heavy but provides no calories. As a result, boiled rice or potatoes end up providing only about 1 calorie per gram of food. In contrast, fat repels water.

As a result, fat stores are light and easy to carry around. That’s why most of an animal’s energy stores are in the form of fat. The only kind of plant tissue that commonly contains a lot of fat is seeds. But like animals, seeds are built to travel.

For a potato, carbohydrates are the most sensible way to store energy. Since the potato stays planted in one spot, the weight of its energy stores doesn’t matter. What does matter is how much energy gets wasted in converting one kind of fuel to another.

Plant cells can convert carbohydrates to fat; but when they do so, some of the calories get wasted. So if weight doesn’t matter, the plant might as well keep its energy stores in the form of carbohydrates. That’s why so many plant foods are high-carb and low-fat. It is also why many plant-eating animals are adapted to a high-carb, low-fat diet. When you eat animal-source foods, you are eating a diet that is high in fat and cholesterol and that contains far more protein than you need. It also means that you are eating little or no digestible carbohydrate. The only carbohydrate that you find in large amounts in animal foods is the lactose, or milk sugar, in dairy products. Even then, most of the world’s people lose their ability to digest lactose after infancy. Being able to digest lactose is a mixed blessing. A molecule of lactose consists of a molecule of glucose bound to a molecule of galactose, which is another simple sugar. Small amounts of galactose are found naturally in the human body. The unnaturally large amounts of galactose that result from drinking cow’s milk could increase the risk of cataracts, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

Several human populations do eat an extremely low-carbohydrate diet, more or less all the time. Examples include some cattle-herding people in Africa and the Inuit (Eskimos) of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.

From their example, we know that human beings can survive on a low-carbohydrate diet for years on end. We also know that their diets, which represent an adaptation to a harsh environment, aren’t particularly healthy.

Those populations pay a heavy price for that diet, in terms of high rates of osteoporosis and short life expectancy.

Another disadvantage of eating animal-based foods is a higher risk for food-borne parasites and bacterial infections. If you look at the various kinds of parasitic diseases that can be food-borne, you’ll see that nearly all of them come from eating some sort of animal-based food.

The few rare exceptions are typically the result of contamination by the droppings of snails, dogs, or other people.

That’s because the germs and parasites that can infect people are specifically adapted to living in animals. Animal bodies are their ecological niche. These germs and parasites typically cannot survive and reproduce without spending at least part of their life cycle in or on another animal.

Food-borne bacterial infections follow the same principle. The bacteria that cause human disease are adapted to living in an animal host.

Typically, they depend on their animal host to provide nutrients that they cannot make for themselves. If you want to grow them in a laboratory, you typically have to feed them some animal product, such as blood.

Thus, animal-source foods readily provide a breeding ground for infective bacteria, while plant-based foods rarely can.

If you caught Salmonella from eating peanut butter, the peanut butter was probably contaminated by rat or pigeon droppings. Salmonella can survive in peanut butter, but it cannot grow or reproduce in it.

If you caught a dangerous strain of E. coli from spinach, it was probably contaminated by manure from feedlot cattle.

If you caught infectious hepatitis from eating at a restaurant, it’s likely that one of its employees failed to wash his or her hands after going to the bathroom. A plant-based diet and basic sanitation would eliminate most cases of food-borne infectious disease.

Notice that I said “food-borne infections,” not food poisoning. Most of the gastrointestinal infections that people refer to as “food poisoning” are really infectious diseases, not true cases of poisoning.

Some plant-based foods can produce true cases of food poisoning. The classic example of true food poisoning is botulism, which results when bacteria release a dangerous toxin into the food.

This problem typically results in canned foods that were not heated to a high enough temperature for a long enough time.

Another dangerous toxin is aflatoxin, which is produced by a mold that likes to grow on peanuts. Fortunately, both of these problems are rare in countries where the food industry is tightly regulated.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/go-vegan-animal-protein-can-make-sick/

Go Vegan Because Animal Protein Can Make You Sick!

Our major causes of illness and death in the United States are linked to a diet heavy in animal-source foods and refined food.

Animal-source foods provide too much fat and cholesterol and too much animal protein. Refined foods provide too much fat and sugar and too little fiber.

To solve these problems, we need to switch to a low-fat, high carbohydrate, plant-based diet.

Animal Protein: The Culprit

Our main cause of death in the United States is really “lack-o’-protein-o-phobia.”

We are so worried about the imaginary problem of protein deficiency that we gorge ourselves on meat and dairy products and eggs and fish.

In turn, this rich, fatty diet results in our major causes of death and disability: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, and so on.

Nowadays, many people are aware of some of the dangers of fat and cholesterol in the diet, but they are still unaware of the risks posed by eating too much protein, especially too much protein that comes from animals.

The ancient Greeks had a concept called the Golden Mean. Like Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears, they understood that too much of something could be just as bad as too little.

You want things to be just right.

However, Americans find it hard to grasp the concept of too much protein. We think that if something is good, then more is better and too much is just right.

The idea of protein overload just makes no sense to us. But it is important to understand what happens when people eat too much food that comes from animals, including too much protein.

We human beings obviously do need some dietary protein to provide the amino acid building blocks for making our own proteins.

So we need to eat some protein in order to build or repair tissue and to make other proteins, including some hormones and our digestive enzymes.

However, if you eat any more protein than you need for those purposes, your body just burns the excess protein for fuel, as it would any other source of calories.

Unfortunately, protein doesn’t burn “clean.” To use an amino acid from protein for fuel, your body must first convert it into a form of sugar.

This conversion involves removal of the amine group (-NH2), which is a waste product that gets turned into ammonia and then urea.

The breakdown of some of the amino acids produces other waste products, including sulfuric acid. That’s why some people say that excess protein in the diet is just “dirty sugar.” The load of waste products from this “dirty sugar” can put a strain on your liver and kidneys and is bad for your bones.

Your body can convert some protein to sugar, to be used as fuel. That is why people do not die of low blood sugar even when they are eating no carbohydrates (sugars and starches).

However, your body cannot convert enough protein to sugar to meet all of your body’s energy needs. In fact, when people have tried to survive on nothing but extremely lean meats, they ended up with a problem called protein poisoning.

It has also been called fat starvation or rabbit starvation. Thus, it is not surprising that people who live on practically nothing but meat prefer the fattiest meats. They are trying to avoid protein poisoning.

Isn’t Plant Protein Overload Bad As Well?

An overload of animal protein is worse than an overload of protein from plants, for several reasons. The proteins from animals contain a particularly large amount of the sulfur-containing amino acids, so they are a particularly dirty source of sugar.

Also, animal proteins come along with cholesterol and too much fat and salt. Furthermore, animal proteins look similar to the proteins from the human body. As a result, they could trigger autoimmune diseases.

A diet rich in animal foods increases your risk of heart and kidney disease, and a diet that eliminates animal foods has long been known to help in managing those diseases.

Back in the 1930s, there were no effective drug treatments for high blood pressure or adult-onset diabetes. To help patients who were at death’s door because of those diseases, Dr. Walter Kempner from Duke University decided to try a dietary intervention.

Kempner realized that high blood pressure and diabetes were rare in populations that eat rice as a staple food. So he started recommending a diet consisting of rice, fruit, and juices, plus some vitamin and mineral supplements, but no added salt.

If patients lost too much weight on this low-fat diet, or if he wanted them to restrict their protein intake even further, he told them to add more sugar.

Although Kempner’s diet was boring, it produced dramatic improvements in his patients’ health.

Their high blood pressure came down. Hearts that were enlarged because of severely high blood pressure went back to normal size.

The blood vessels in his patients’ eyes improved. The results were so dramatic that some of Kempner’s critics thought at first that he was faking his results.

Kempner’s patients also lost weight and had less trouble with diabetes. They also had less trouble with a host of other diseases, such as psoriasis and arthritis.

The good news, of course, is that people don’t have to limit themselves to a diet of rice and fruit. Since many of the world’s traditional cuisines are largely plant-based, people who want to switch to a health optimizing diet have an enormous variety of delicious foods to choose from.

Since the 1920s, we have heard lots of propaganda about the “high quality” of protein in animal-based foods, such as meat, dairy products, eggs, and fish.

Yet this “quality” simply means that it helps fast growing species, such as rats, pigs, and chickens, grow really fast. For a slow-growing species like human beings, the high “quality” of animal-based proteins provides no advantage. Instead, it can create problems.

Plant foods don’t overload you with the sulfur-containing amino acids. That’s why people who are on a plant-based diet are less prone to bad breath and body odor.

They are also much less likely to get osteoporosis, because plant proteins generate less of an acid load. While animal-based foods provide a heavy net acid load on the system, fruits and vegetables tend to be mildly alkalinizing.

That’s the major reason why fruits and vegetables help to prevent osteoporosis.

Another worrisome effect of too much animal protein is its possible effect on cancer cells. Like rats, cancer cells can grow and multiply really fast.

On a high-protein diet, they can grow and multiply even faster. They might even multiply so fast that your immune system cannot keep them under control.

In fact, one of the effects of eating the standard American diet, with its heavy emphasis on animal protein, is an increased risk of many forms of cancer.

One of the main culprits in cancer promotion seems to be the amino acid methionine. Many kinds of cancer cells seem to need a lot of methionine in order to grow.

A low-methionine diet seems to be helpful in the treatment of cancer.

Methionine is one of the essential amino acids. You need to get some methionine from your food. But even sweet potatoes provide as much methionine as a person needs.

Broccoli and asparagus provide a lot of methionine, relative to their calorie content, but they are low-calorie foods. You’d have to eat half a pound of broccoli to get the amount of methionine in one egg.

In other words, if people are getting too much methionine in their diet, they’re not getting it from pigging out on broccoli or asparagus. Besides, if they ate a lot of broccoli, they would get a big dose of cancersuppressing phytonutrients along with the methionine.

In short, the low methionine content of a plantbased diet may help explain why people are so much less likely to get many kinds of cancer if they eat plants than if they eat the methionine-rich standard American diet.

Cancer is not the only kind of serious disease that has been linked specifically to eating animal proteins. So have the autoimmune diseases, a class of diseases that result when the body’s immune system attacks the body itself.

Examples include type 1 diabetes, in which the immune system destroys the insulinproducing cells in the pancreas, and arthritis, in which the immune system attacks the joints.

Some autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, attack tissues throughout the body. Nobody really knows why these diseases strike some people but not others. Unfortunately, the role of diet in causing these diseases is frequently overlooked.

Many cases of autoimmune disease are triggered by something that the person is eating. The likely suspects are proteins.

Ideally, the proteins in our food should be broken down completely to their individual amino acids inside the intestine. Then, the individual amino acids get absorbed into the bloodstream. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen in real life. Sometimes, the protein is only partly broken down before it makes its way into the bloodstream.

This problem is especially likely to happen if the person does not produce enough stomach acid to help break the proteins down quickly or if the person has a “leaky” intestine, which allows abnormally large bits of protein to make their way into the bloodstream.

The immune system then treats these foreign proteins as it would treat a dangerous germ, such as a virus or bacterium: it makes antibodies to attack the foreign protein.

Unfortunately, if that foreign protein looks too much like one of our body’s own proteins, those antibodies can then end up attacking the body’s own tissue. The results can be devastating.

Since we human beings are mammals, our body’s proteins are similar to those of other mammals.

The resemblance is stronger between species of mammals than it would be between a mammal and a chicken or a mammal and a fish.

In contrast, the proteins from plants have far less resemblance to human proteins.

The similarity between human proteins and the proteins from other mammals explains why people who eat red meat and dairy foods are at particularly high risk for autoimmune disease.

They are eating proteins that are similar to, but not exactly like, the proteins in their own bodies. These foreign proteins are different enough that the immune system recognizes them as foreign.

However, they are similar enough that the antibodies that the immune system makes against them can sometimes attack the body’s own tissue.

This problem explains why people who eat a lot of red meat have a high risk of arthritis.4 Children who drink cow’s milk have a higher risk of type 1 diabetes, probably because one of the proteins in cow’s milk looks a lot like one of the proteins that is normally found in the human pancreas.

To learn more about the role of dairy foods in causing type 1 diabetes, see my book Thin Diabetes, Fat Diabetes:

Prevent Type 1, Cure Type 2.

Although the proteins that are most likely to trigger autoimmune disease come from animals, there are a few plant proteins that can cause problems for some people.

For example, in about 1% of the American population, the protein in wheat, barley, and rye causes the immune system to attack the small intestine.

This causes a problem called celiac disease.

The “cure” for celiac disease is simply to stop eating anything with wheat, rye, or barley in it. Likewise, a simple elimination diet also holds a great deal of promise for treating other devastating autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. If something is making you sick, stop eating it.

The take-home message is simple. If you want to reduce your risk of many common health problems, ranging from sudden death to chronic pain, switch to a plant-based diet.

If you are still having problems such as joint pain or other mysterious symptoms, ask a dietitian for advice about an elimination diet, so you can exclude the possibility that some plant-based food is causing trouble for you.

Simply eliminating a few troublesome foods from your diet is a cheap and often surprisingly effective way to improve your health.

The results can be so fast and powerful that you may need to reduce or eliminate your dosage of prescription medications.

If you are taking prescription medications, talk to your doctor as well as a registered dietitian before you make a major change in diet.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/plants-can-supply-enough-good-protein/

Plants Can Supply You Enough Good Protein!

Proteins from plants provide enough of all of the amino acids that are essential in human nutrition.

Human beings grow so slowly that the quality of plant proteins is not a problem in human nutrition.

You don’t need to eat beans along with your rice to get a complete protein. People do not get deficiencies of any of the essential amino acids from eating a plant-based diet.

Scientists have known for more than 150 years that some protein sources are less nutritious than others.

For example, gelatin is not useful as a protein source in human nutrition.

Gelatin is protein that has been extracted from the bones and hides of animals.

However, the extraction process destroys some essential amino acids. Gelatin is therefore an incomplete protein: it does not supply all of the amino acids that you need to get from your food.

In contrast, the proteins that come from plants are complete, as far as human protein requirements are concerned. Plant foods supply enough of all of the amino acids that human beings need.

As I explained in Chapter 3 proteins are made up of smaller building blocks called amino acids. To make all of its proteins, your body needs all 20 of the amino acids.

However, it does not need to get a ready-made supply of all 20 from the food. For a healthy person, only 8 (some say 9) of those amino acids have to come ready-made from your food.

They are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, and lysine (and possibly histidine).

Your body can make the other amino acids, sometimes out of one of the essential amino acids.

For example, your body can make cysteine out of methionine, as long as you are getting enough methionine from your food.

Thus, methionine is an essential amino acid, but cysteine is not Six more of the amino acids, including cysteine, are classified as conditionally indispensable, which means that under some conditions, the body cannot make enough of them to meet its needs.

For example, premature babies cannot make enough cysteine, even if they are getting more than enough methionine.

For that reason, premature babies must get some cysteine from their food.

Fortunately, even premature babies can get plenty of cysteine from breast milk or even from ordinary formula. Their need for cysteine becomes a concern only if they are being fed intravenously.

Ordinary diets would provide enough of even the conditionally indispensable amino acids, as long as the person is eating enough food to get enough calories.

The foods in the table above were sorted according to their protein content, as a percentage of total calories.

Since broccoli and asparagus are low-calorie foods, it would be hard to overdose on protein from eating too much of them.

However, it would be possible to get too much protein from eating a lot of steak and eggs or even too many beans.

In contrast, nobody gets sick from protein deficiency from basing their diet on the lower-protein foods at the bottom of the table.

Fortunately, the only incomplete protein that people are likely to find on their plate is gelatin, which is manufactured from animal bones.

In contrast, the proteins in plants are complete, as far as human nutritional needs are concerned.

The data in the table came from the work of a group of researchers led by William Cumming Rose.

Not only did he discover threonine (the last of the essential amino acids to be discovered), but in the 1940s he led the research to figure out which amino acids are essential in human nutrition and how much of each one people need.

The row labeled Rose’s minimum shows the smallest amount that was sufficient for all of the volunteers in his study.

Just to be on the safe side, Rose recommended that people should eat at least twice that amount, which is a generous margin of safety.

A shortage of protein, or of any of the essential amino acids listed, would be a problem.

In the late 1970s, dozens of people died suddenly of heart rhythm problems after eating nothing but a liquid protein supplement made from gelatin.

Gelatin contains practically no uyptophan. In contrast, the proteins in ordinary plant foods are complete.

As a result, you can easily get enough protein, and enough of all of the essential amino acids, as long as you are getting enough calories from any sort of reasonable plant-based diet.

Therefore, you can stop worrying about the annum or quality of protein in plant-based diets.

In other words, on any reasonable plant-based diet, if you take care of the calories, the protein takes care of itself. You don’t even need to eat beans with your rice to complement the proteins.

As you can see now, rice provides a complete protein. So do beans. You don’t have to combine the two to get a complete protein.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/okay-eat-unhealthy-oh-absolutely/

Is It Okay To Eat Unhealthy Once In A While? Oh Absolutely!

I know the title of this post is shocking. But keep some patience, we are not kidding here!

Let us talk weight loss and my experiences with people who were sincerely trying to lose weight.

Amanda, a mother of 3, had put on so much pregnancy weight and was slowing being swallowed by depression.

But she was not a quitter and made herself strict eating and exercising routines and followed them to the T.

You know how the first day at gym is? You aim to reach there at 6 am but find yourself reaching 10-15 minutes early.

You have this enthusiasm, this will to make things happen. You sincerely complete your routine and go back home.

For one full week, you are diligent at the gym. All’s good? Wait!

Wait till the 10th day.

On the 10th day you wake up and all your motivation, inspiration, will, enthusiasm and all those positive vibes are just not there. You snooze the alarm and wake up at 9 am.

At breakfast, you promise yourself that tomorrow you will hit the gym. But the same thing happens tomorrow and day after day until your gym subscription is over.

Did you see what happened?

You were diligent, you were sincere, you wanted to make things happen. But in the end you simply failed.

Why?

Because you forgot to cut yourself some slack. You went to the gym 9 days on a trot without breaks, without rest days and you started, perhaps, with too much enthusiasm.

Now bring Amanda back into the picture. She is as diligent, as sincere and as motivated, if not more, as you were when you signed up for it.

So, for an entire week she has a diet of salads, soups, green tea, smoothies and all the right items.

But not once does she have a bite of nutella, her favourite food in the world!

A week later, she craves for nutella so much so that she finishes two entire jars of the thing!

Result? The gained more weight than she lost.

So we have always professed the theory of healthy eating. (What is healthy eating?)

If you eat healthy, you do not exclude entire food groups out of your diet rather you eat everything you should and want and balancing things out.

Now, if Amanda had had a spoon of nutella once every other day, she would have been able to continue with her routine. Which is what is exactly happening right now! :D

So, it is alright to give in to your desires every now and then.

Rather you should look at them as rewards for working hard on yourself.

For example, I eat a pastry every week because I simply love them. But I skip my weekly pastry if there has been even a single day when I did not work out.

This has done wonders for me and doing wonders for Amanda right now.

All I want to say as I conclude this article – Eat Healthy, always.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/basic-food-groups/

The Basic Food Groups - Eat From Them All!

The members of the nutrition committees at the big nonprofits seem to be convinced that human beings need to eat foods from all four of the Basic Four Food Groups.

In contrast, wild gorillas eat only vegetables and some fruit. But if a wild gorilla entered the weightlifting competition at the Olympics, it would win by a huge margin. It would win despite having eaten practically nothing from the meat group, nothing from the dairy group, and nothing from the grain group.

That’s because gorillas don’t hunt; they don’t fish; they don’t raise cows or chickens; and they don’t plant corn, wheat, or rice.

The vegetables and fruit that a gorilla eats provide enough of all but two of the nutrients that are essential in human (and gorilla) nutrition. The exceptions are vitamin B12, which comes from bacteria, and vitamin D, which comes from sunshine.

All animals can be classified into one of three main groups, according to what they are designed to eat.

Carnivores (meat-eaters) are built to catch and kill other animals and to eat and digest animal tissue.

Herbivores (plant-eaters) are built to eat and digest plant tissue.

Omnivores (everything-eaters), such as bears, are mainly built to capture and eat other animals.

However, they also have adaptations that allow them to get a lot of their nutrition from plant sources.

The herbivores can also be classified into several different groups, depending on the type of plants or plant tissue that they are built to eat.

Folivores are animals that mainly eat leaves. Frugivores mainly eat fruit. Browsers mainly eat shrubbery. Grazers mainly eat grasses. Gorillas are folivores.

A wild silverback male gorilla may eat about 60 pounds of salad per day, without dressing. Gorillas happily spend many hours a day chewing and swallowing leafy green vegetables.

However, human beings are simply not built to eat a gorilla-style diet. Our jaws are not strong enough, and our stomachs are too small.

If you tried to eat a wild gorilla’s diet, you too would have to spend too many hours a day simply chewing and swallowing.

It would be hard to chew and swallow enough food to get enough calories. You would lose too much weight, and you would be unhappy. That is why people cannot stick to a diet of nothing but “rabbit food” for very long.

Even people who try to eat a wild chimpanzee’s diet of leaves and fruit end up putting a lot of their food in a blender, which does the work of chewing for them.

They also tend to rely heavily on dried fruits and nuts, which are concentrated sources of sugar and fat. However, a diet of smoothies, raisins, and nuts is unnatural. Apes don’t have blenders. Nuts are high in calories, but they are not available year-round.

Dried fruits do not occur in the rain forests where apes live. Thus, no wild apes and no human societies have ever based their diet heavily on smoothies, nuts, and dried fruit.

Although a gorilla would outcompete human beings in weightlifting, human beings would beat them in the marathon.

Human beings are among the world’s elite long-distance runners. In fact, human beings are the only creatures that run long distances voluntarily, for fun. Human beings are also much smarter than gorillas, thanks to our abnormally large brains. To feed our enormous brains, we need a lot of glucose.

The most reliable natural source of glucose is the starch in the roots and tubers of many plants. Cereal grains, which are the seeds of members of the grass family, also contain lots of starch.

Unfortunately, these starchy foods are hard to eat, and the starch is hard to digest. In a potato or a grain of rice, many of the starch molecules are stored in the form of hard, nonreactive crystals.

Within these crystals, the starch molecules are held together by hydrogen bonds. If you bake a potato or boil rice, the heat and water will break those hydrogen bonds.

Then, water molecules attach to the hydrogen bonding sites. As a result, the starchy material swells and softens. Because of this process, called gelatinization, baked or boiled starches are much softer and easier to digest.

Of course, even a gelatinized starch is still a starch. Before that starch molecule can be used as a source of energy, the body must break it down into separate molecules of glucose. To convert starch to glucose, you need an enzyme called amylase.

Apes have only two copies of the gene that provides the recipe for amylase: one copy from each of their parents. In contrast, human beings have a few extra copies of the amylase gene.

As a result, human beings are better at digesting starches than apes are. These extra copies of the amylase gene are clearly a genetic adaptation to a starchy diet.

All of the populations of slim, healthy people throughout history have obtained the bulk of their calories from starchy staples, such as rice, wheat, corn, or potatoes.

The populations that eat a starchy diet have low rates of obesity and other chronic degenerative diseases.

Unrefined starchy foods, along with vegetables and fruit, truly are health foods. Many people are shocked to hear that they would be better off eating conventionally grown grains and produce, including plenty of “carbs,” than eating organic grassfed beef and dairy products. Like most people in the United States, I was taught that children need to eat foods from the meat group (meat, eggs, and fish) and the dairy group (milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter) in order to grow up big and strong.

I was encouraged to believe that human adults need to continue eating meat and dairy foods to maintain good health and athletic performance.

So when I started reading nutrition textbooks, I was relieved to discover that vegetarians (people who don’t eat meat) and even vegans (people who refuse to consume any animal-source products) are not at risk for a deficiency of protein, calcium, or iron.

Rather, the scientific studies showed that eating even small amounts of foods that come from animals poses an unnecessary risk to human health.

Many people decide to become vegetarian or vegan because of how they feel about animals. For them, the question about whether to eat meat or wear fur or leather is a moral question.

However, I did not write this book to talk about moral questions. In this book, I deal with the scientific questions about how your food choices are likely to affect your health. If a plant-based diet posed health risks to human beings, I would explain those risks in detail and would describe how to minimize that risk.

Fortunately, the plantbased diet that many people have been promoting because of concerns about animal welfare or the environment also happens to be the diet that is best for human health.

My point is that you do not need to sacrifice your health in order to protect animals and save the environment.

On the other hand, if you switch to a plant-based diet to improve your own health, you will also spare the lives of animals and cause less damage to the environment.

Although the health-optimizing diet for a human being consists of plant-based foods, I try to avoid calling it a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Many people who call themselves vegetarian eat a lot of dairy foods and eggs, or even a lot of fish. (A fish is an animal, not a vegetable!) Also, many vegetarians and even many vegans are eating far too much fat (especially too much omega-6 fat in the form of seeds and vegetable oils) and drinking too much alcohol. Bourbon and potato chips are vegan, but they aren’t health food!

The rules of thumb that I listed above (e.g., eat plants, not animals) are general rules that apply to the average person. However, there are a few people who need custom-tailored advice from a trained professional.

For example, people with some hereditary metabolic diseases, such as phenylketonuria, need special diets. People with fructose malabsorption may get diarrhea if they eat too many apples or pears.

People with celiac disease need to avoid wheat, rye, and barley. If you need a special diet for health reasons, you should talk to a registered dietitian.

Note that even a sudden change to a healthy diet can cause problems. If you have any serious health problem or are taking prescription medications, you need to talk to your doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant before you make a major change in diet.

A sudden switch to a healthy diet can cause rapid improvements in circulation and insulin sensitivity.

As a result, people may need to stop taking some of their blood pressure medication. Diabetics may also need adjustments in their diabetes medications.

If you correct your diet without allowing your doctor to adjust your prescription medications, you could pass out from low blood pressure. You could even end up in the hospital or dead from low blood sugar!

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/scientific-advantages-vegan-diet/

The Scientific Advantages Of Going Vegan!

By reading the scientific literature, I found strong evidence that the best diet for human beings is low in fat (<10% of calories) and high in fiber and contains no foods of animal origin. This kind of diet cures constipation, practically overnight. It can make people heart-attack–proof in about a month. It can cure type 2 diabetes in a matter of weeks. It stops multiple sclerosis in its tracks. It can cure several common forms of arthritis, and it is the best way to prevent osteoporosis. It reduces the risk of the most common forms of cancer. The list of benefits goes on and on. Best of all, it can do all these things at the same time, with no bad side effects. It can even help people save money on food. Nutrition and health are complicated subjects. It is hard to write simple truths about them. Nevertheless, what most consumers need to know boils down to these simple lessons:

Eat plants, not animal products.

Get the bulk of your calories from starchy foods, such as whole grains and starchy vegetables.

Eat plenty of vegetables and some fruit.

Go outside and play in the sunshine.

It is generally okay to add a little bit of salt to the surface of your food.

Do not eat refined fats or oils.

If something is making you sick, stop eating it.

If you don’t eat any animal products at all, take a vitamin B12 supplement.

Together, these simple rules will help most people solve most of the common health problems that plague people in the United States and other Western industrialized countries.

A few people also need to avoid certain plant-based foods. For example, people who are allergic to strawberries should avoid strawberries.

Also, people with celiac disease need to avoid wheat, rye, and barley. However, those foods are fine for most people.

The scientific evidence all points to the same basic conclusion. The human body runs best on a diet based on low-fat, high-fiber plant foods, including a lot of starchy foods.

When people eat that kind of diet, they become practically immune to heart attack. They also have a lower risk of other chronic degenerative diseases, such as osteoporosis, arthritis, and many kinds of cancer.

Unfortunately, the nonprofit organizations that are supposed to be educating the public about heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, or cancer are not telling the public about the value of a low-fat vegan diet for preventing and sometimes even curing these problems.

The scientific evidence clearly shows that coronary artery disease goes away when people keep their total cholesterol below 150 mg/dL—a goal that most people can easily reach if they eat no animal products and no oils.

Yet the American Heart Association is still telling people that a cholesterol level of up to 200 mg/dL is “desirable.”

The American Heart Association keeps encouraging people to eat meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products. They even urge people to eat vegetable oils!

The American Heart Association has been telling Americans to make only minor changes in diet. Unfortunately, Americans who make only minor dietary changes get only minor health benefits.

Other big nonprofit organizations seem to be doing the same thing. They keep encouraging you to continue to eat the foods that make you fat and that cause the disease that they are supposedly trying to prevent or cure.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/protein-deficiency/

Protein Deficiency - Are You Protein Deficient? Find Out...

Hospitalized patients who are being fed nothing but glucose (sugar) intravenously for a long tim.

Babies who are being fed some bizarre substitute for breast milk Alcoholics who are getting too many of their calories from liquor.

In contrast, we never see protein deficiency among people who are eating enough food from any practical plant-based diet to get enough calories.

Theoretically, you could get a protein deficiency from eating nothing but apples, but nobody would eat a diet like that for any length of time.

No wonder vegetarians and vegans get annoyed when someone asks, “But where do you get your protein?”

After all, where do gorillas get their protein?

From the nutrition textbooks I edited, I learned something even more disturbing about calcium.

As a woman in the United States, I have been bombarded with advice to eat huge amounts of calcium. The only practical way to get that much calcium is to eat dairy products or take calcium supplements.

Yet according to the books I edited, the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis is most common where people consume the most dairy products.

A high-protein, high-calcium diet increases your risk of getting osteoporosis. In contrast, low calcium intakes, per se, did not seem to be a problem.

Female gorillas manage to get enough calcium from their plant-based diet to grow a big, strong skeleton. Also, female rhesus monkeys go through menopause, but they do not get osteoporosis after menopause.

The lessons that I learned from nutrition textbooks were wildly different from the lessons that I was taught in school and from the messages that were being spread by the commercial media.

Naïvely, I figured that the scientific truth would eventually trickle down to consumers or at least to medical doctors.

But over the following 25 years, the state of nutritional knowledge among the general public and even the medical profession seemed to be getting worse, not better.

People seemed to be learning a larger number of “facts” that were actually false. The Internet seemed to be a mixed blessing. It gave me access to an enormous amount of scientific information, often for free. Unfortunately, it was also being used to spread total nonsense.

Many Americans have been led to believe that the common forms of heart disease and diabetes are genetic. But if that were true, heart disease would be just as uncommon among Japanese immigrants in the United States as it is among Japanese in Japan. I

n reality, people of Japanese ancestry start getting heart disease like Americans when they start eating like Americans.

If type 2 diabetes were really genetic, then type 2 diabetes would be no more common today than it was 50 years ago.

The fact that the incidence of type 2 diabetes has been rising sharply tells you that type 2 diabetes should not be considered a genetic disease. (As I explain in my book Thin Diabetes, Fat Diabetes, there are some truly genetic forms of diabetes, but they are rare.)

If you look at old family photograph albums or at crowd scenes from historical documentaries, you will probably be stunned by how thin most people were 50 years ago.

Since then, Americans have become fatter and fatter. This epidemic of obesity is even spreading to Asia and Africa, as Asians and Africans start to eat more like Americans.

Because of the low-carb diet craze, most Americans believe that obesity is due to diets that are high in carbohydrates (starches and sugars). However, the Asians and Africans who are continuing to eat a traditional high-carbohydrate diet remain slim.

The promoters of low-carbohydrate diets have been spreading the idea that heart disease and type 2 diabetes result from eating starchy foods.

In reality, heart disease and type 2 diabetes are rare in societies that eat a heavily starch-based diet. They can even be reversed by eating a heavily starch-based diet.

Nowadays, many of the people I meet are convinced that they need to avoid carbohydrates (starches and sugars).

They are convinced that they would be less likely to get heart disease if they ate more fish or added some sort of magical fat supplement to their diet. Most of the middle-aged and elderly women I know take calcium supplements, and some of the vegetarians still worry about protein deficiency.

In other words, most of the people I talk to are not just uninformed about nutrition—they have been wildly misinformed. My goal in writing this book is to help people find the truth amid all that nonsense.

It is hardly surprising that so many people are misinformed about diet. The problem is serious even in the medical profession.

Every few years, some expert panel delivers a disturbing report, warning us that medical students are not learning enough about nutrition and dietetics in medical school.1-5 Unfortunately, the problem never seems to get solved. Years go by, and eventually another alarming report gets issued.

Over the years, I have met a few people who studied nutrition or epidemiology in college or graduate school. Nearly everyone else gets their information about diet and nutrition from magazines, radio programs, books, and Web sites.

Unfortunately, the dietary advice that you get from the commercial media is usually just an attempt to get you to buy something, not an attempt to help you improve your health.

The people who get airtime on the radio and the people who write books and produce videos and Web sites for a consumer audience seldom have any formal training in nutrition and dietetics.

As a result, they tend to spread dangerous nonsense, rather than helping people learn the truth.

A shockingly high percentage of the bestselling books on nutrition are full of total nonsense. The companies that publish these bestsellers are not scientific or educational institutions. Nor are they public health agencies.

Instead, they are businesses that make money by publishing books that are likely to sell, even if those books are not good for public health.

The books that show up on the bestseller lists have not gone through the kind of scientific review (“peer review”) that is routine in scientific publishing. In contrast, I send everything I write to scientific experts for review.

All of the populations of slim, healthy people throughout history have obtained the bulk of their calories from starchy staples, such as rice, wheat, corn, or potatoes.

The populations that eat a starchy diet have low rates of obesity and other chronic degenerative diseases. Unrefined starchy foods, along with vegetables and fruit, truly are health foods.

Many people are shocked to hear that they would be better off eating conventionally grown grains and produce, including plenty of “carbs,” than eating organic grassfed beef and dairy products. Of course, the ideal would be to eat organic grains and produce.

Like most people in the United States, I was taught that children need to eat foods from the meat group (meat, eggs, and fish) and the dairy group (milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter) in order to grow up big and strong.

I was encouraged to believe that human adults need to continue eating meat and dairy foods to maintain good health and athletic performance.

Rather, the scientific studies showed that eating even small amounts of foods that come from animals poses an unnecessary risk to human health.

Many people decide to become vegetarian or vegan because of how they feel about animals. For them, the question about whether to eat meat or wear fur or leather is a moral question.

Fortunately, the plantbased diet that many people have been promoting because of concerns about animal welfare or the environment also happens to be the diet that is best for human health.

My point is that you do not need to sacrifice your health in order to protect animals and save the environment.

On the other hand, if you switch to a plant-based diet to improve your own health, you will also spare the lives of animals and cause less damage to the environment.

Although the health-optimizing diet for a human being consists of plant-based foods, I try to avoid calling it a vegetarian or vegan diet. Many people who call themselves vegetarian eat a lot of dairy foods and eggs, or even a lot of fish. (A fish is an animal, not a vegetable!)

Also, many vegetarians and even many vegans are eating far too much fat (especially too much omega-6 fat in the form of seeds and vegetable oils) and drinking too much alcohol. Bourbon and potato chips are vegan, but they aren’t health food!

The rules of thumb that I listed above (e.g., eat plants, not animals) are general rules that apply to the average person.

However, there are a few people who need custom-tailored advice from a trained professional. For example, people with some hereditary metabolic diseases, such as phenylketonuria, need special diets.

People with fructose malabsorption may get diarrhea if they eat too many apples or pears. People with celiac disease need to avoid wheat, rye, and barley. If you need a special diet for health reasons, you should talk to a registered dietitian.

A sudden switch to a healthy diet can cause rapid improvements in circulation and insulin sensitivity. As a result, people may need to stop taking some of their blood pressure medication. Diabetics may also need adjustments in their diabetes medications.

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/protein-deficiency-uncommon-problem/

Protein Deficiency - An Introduction To An Uncommon Problem...

Americans are worried about getting enough protein from their diet.

Yet it is practically impossible to avoid getting enough protein if you are eating enough real food to get enough calories.

Meanwhile, the high-protein foods that many Americans think are nutritious are really our main causes of death and disability.

To live a longer, healthier life, Americans need to stop worrying about protein!

When I was in sixth grade, my classmates and I were taught about the Basic Four Food Groups.

We were told that a balanced diet would include at least two servings a day from the meat group, three servings a day from the dairy group, four servings from the fruit and vegetable group, and four servings from the bread and grain group.

We were told that the meat group and the dairy group are crucial sources of protein. If we did not get enough protein, our growth would be stunted.

We would not be able to grow proper hair or fingernails. The meat and dairy group were also supposedly important sources of minerals.

If we did not eat red meat, we would end up anemic from lack of iron. If we did not drink our milk, we would not grow healthy bones and teeth.

Like everyone else in the class, I accepted that lesson at face value.

However, I started to have doubts about the need for all four of the Basic Four Food Groups after a family from India moved into our neighborhood.

Because of their Hindu religion, none of them had ever eaten any meat whatsoever. They even drank far less milk and ate far less cheese and fewer eggs than we did.

Yet their growth was not stunted. They were of normal height. They also had normal hair and fingernails.

Later on, I met some Seventh Day Adventists who had never eaten any meat. They, too, looked perfectly normal.

Eventually, I even met some vegetarians who were athletes and some who were blood donors, even though they never ate any red meat.

My doubts about the need for meat and dairy foods grew even stronger after I learned something about gorillas.

Wild gorillas eat nothing but salad, without dressing. About 85% of their diet is leafy green vegetables.

They also eat bark, roots, flowers, and fruit.

The only “meat” they normally eat comes from termites and other creepy crawlies, which make up about one tenth of one percent of their food intake.

In other words, their diet is 99.9% plants. Nevertheless, an adult male gorilla can weigh 500 pounds and is probably ten times as strong as a man.

So even though wild gorillas eat foods from only one of the Basic Four Food Groups, their growth is not stunted.

They even grow plenty of hair. In other words, gorillas are big, strong, hairy proof that a plant-based diet can easily provide plenty of protein, calcium, and iron.

If human beings try to eat a gorilla-style diet, protein would be the least of their worries.

Their real struggle would be in eating enough leaves to get enough calories! Our bodies are simply not built to digest that much salad!

I learned even more about nutrition and health after I got a job with a publisher of medical and veterinary textbooks.

In the late 1980s, I had the good luck to work on some books on nutrition and dietetics. I had to check all the grammar and spelling, which means that I had to read the manuscripts word for word.

From those books, I learned that it is practically impossible to design a diet that would provide enough calories from plants without providing enough protein for a human being.

To get a protein deficiency, you would have to eat so little food that you would not get enough calories, either.

On the other hand, you would starve to death if practically all of your calories came in the form of protein.

This problem is called fat starvation or rabbit starvation because it usually happened when people were eating nothing but very lean meat, such as rabbit meat or the meat from horses that had died of starvation.

Your body can burn some protein for energy. However, your body cannot burn enough protein to fulfill all of your body’s energy needs.

For years, many people suspected that a form of starvation called kwashiorkor resulted from eating a diet that provided plenty of calories in the form of carbohydrate but not enough protein.

But if you look at actual cases of kwashiorkor, you generally find that the children were not getting enough calories, either.

If you do not get enough calories, you will burn up your dietary protein for energy, instead of using it to build and repair tissue.

For that reason, nutrition scientists often talk about protein-energy malnutrition. To this day, nobody really knows why a few starving children get kwashiorkor, whereas most starving children get a condition called marasmus instead.

Kwashiorkor does not occur in people who are getting enough to eat, even if their diet is high in carbohydrates.

To find people who are suffering from protein deficiency, as opposed to a general lack of calories, you would have to look at some extreme situations as we shall in the next article…

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/need-improved-digestion-need-go-pro-biotic/

If you need improved digestion, you need to go pro-biotic!

Not all bacteria are bad.

Oh! Did you think that bacteria are bad? All of them? Not at all! Behold…

Probiotics

Probiotics are friendly bacteria and yeasts living in our intestines and are required for the well-being of the body, especially the digestive system.

They occur naturally in the body and can be supplemented through food that are rich in probiotics. We must make sure to add some of the best probiotic foods to our daily diet.

Humans share a symbiotic relationship with them-they feed on the food we eat and we benefit from the byproduct of their life processes.

They improve digestion, aid in absorption of minerals, help fight harmful microorganisms and improve immunity.

Lactobacilli is the most common of them all, and it takes care of the small intestine. Bifidobacteria live in the mucous lining of the large intestine and vaginal tract.

Streptococcus thermophilus kills microbes and is very resistant to antibiotics. The probiotics play a crucial role in warding off diseases like diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal disturbances.

The good news is that there are a lot of foods that can be taken as a part of our daily diet that are rich in probiotics-from dark chocolates to yoghurt.

Taking them on a routine basis can help us to keep probiotic supplements over the counter away. Read on to know more.

1. Yogurt: Yogurt contains live and active culture of Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophiles, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei and Bifidus.

Any sterilisation can kill these microorganisms. Even though yogurt from goat’s milk is considered to be extremely healthy, cow’s milk product is more popular.

2. Kimchi: Kimchi is a popular Korean dish made of pickled vegetables, especially cabbage. Lactic acid bacterium is the most predominant organism in this dish, making it a vegetable probiotic food as much as yogurt is a diary probiotic food.

3. Banana: Banana feeds the bacteria that are already present in the intestines. It is one of the reasons why these good bacteria and therefore banana help in maintaining a healthy gastrointestinal tract.

4. Pickled Vegetables: Fermented vegetables can turn into a healthy probiotic food. When a brine of salt and water are used to pickle vegetables, the salt reacts with the bacteria in the vegetables to create microorganisms that are good for our system.

5. Soy Milk: Soy milk is a good replacement for cow’s milk for people who are lactose intolerant. Soy milk naturally possesses some active culture, but the ones available in the market have added extra-live cultures.

6. Lassi: Lassi is a tasty version of yogurt and provides the same effect as that of yogurt. It helps boost the digestion process and aids in replenishing the natural bacterial flora in the intestine.

7. Coconut Kefir: It is a probiotic-rich drink made by fermenting coconut milk with kefir grains. It is easy to make at home and makes for an excellent beverage that contains yeast that can destroy certain pathogenic microorganisms.

8. Curd: Indians have this wonderful habit of incorporating curd in most of their meals. A nice bowl of curd with every meal and you will never have digestion related problems ever again! :D

0 notes

garyhudsonposts · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Diet Wok - Fat Loss, Nutrition and Diet Advice

New Post has been published on https://www.dietwok.com/want-quit-smoking-treat-anxiety-thing-best-bet/

Want to quit smoking and treat anxiety? This thing is your best bet!

Most of us would have heard of the popular proverb, ‘two birds, one stone’! Today we are going to tell you about one such stone that will kill the birds you are so worried about…

Well, it essentially means that two problems can be solved with one remedy! When we are suffering from a viral flu, doctors prescribe the same antibiotics which can work to treat many symptoms like fever, joint pain, etc.

Just like if you eat healthy, you will not only lose weight but also build and maintain a great health which is as important, if not more, than weight loss. Isn’t it?

Similarly, there are certain natural ingredients that can be found right in your kitchens and gardens, which come with many health benefits.

Now, anxiety is a common mental ailment that people suffer from, especially in this day and age, when there is a lot of work pressure and lack of time to relax.

Also, smoking is a habit that many people cannot get rid of and most of us already know the deadly effects of smoking cigarettes!

As we know, smoking can have a number of ill-effects on the health, including, respiratory problems, bleeding gums, restlessness, cavities, fatigue and even lung cancer!

Smoking cigarettes is a habit which can be extremely difficult to get rid of, as people develop a dependence on the nicotine found in cigarettes.

Many a times, people make a conscious effort to quit smoking, but they find it extremely difficult to do so. Both anxiety and smoking can come in the way of a person leading his life normally.

Did you know that black pepper essential oil has the ability to treat anxiety and also reduce cigarette cravings?

Well, find out how, in this article.

What is Black Pepper Essential Oil?

We are well aware of the popular spices like cinnamon, cloves and black pepper, right?

Just like we have oils derived from clove and cinnamon, an essential oil is prepared by heating black pepper too!

The black pepper essential oil is found to have amazing health benefits and has been used in certain health remedies since time immemorial.

However, not many of us may be aware of black pepper oil’s health benefits, after modern medicines took over the world.

Black pepper essential oil is known to have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and even diuretic properties! So, you can imagine how beneficial black pepper essential oil can be to your health.

How Does Black Pepper Essential Oil Help Treat Anxiety & Reduce Cigarette Cravings?

Black pepper essential oil contains a rich amount of antioxidants and also an enzyme known as piperine, which is known to increase the serotonin levels in the brain and correct the hormonal imbalance responsible for anxiety.

In addition, inhaling the aroma of black pepper essential oil on a daily basis can also reduce the craving for cigarettes, and may eventually help you quit.

The aroma of this black pepper oil creates a warming sensation in the nasal tract, which allows a person to reduce the craving for nicotine.

Numerous studies have been conducted and researchers have found that people who inhaled the aroma of black pepper essential oil have indeed reported reduced cigarette cravings.

So, in conclusion, adding black pepper essential oil to your diet or inhaling its aroma can help treat anxiety and reduce cigarette cravings.

0 notes