vegan diet Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Where Do Gorillas Get Their Protein?

The Glycemic Index Won’t Help You Lose Weight

Lately, many nutrition gurus have been trying to tell me that eating a diet with a low glycemic index is the secret to losing weight. But if that were true, then carrots would be more fattening than fudge is.

Unfortunately, the glycemic index is being used to steer people away from the sort of food that can really help them lose weight and control their blood sugar: unrefined starches and vegetables. If you survey the world’s populations, you’ll find that the people who are eating diets based on unrefined starches and vegetables have low risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and breast cancer—even though the glycemic index of their diet is high. In contrast, the people who are eating the most fat and protein—both of which tend to decrease the glycemic index of a meal—are the ones who are getting fat and sick.

The glycemic index was originally developed to fine-tune the system of carbohydrate exchanges that people with type 1 diabetes use to calculate how much insulin they will need to inject after a meal [1]. The glycemic index measures the effect that 50 grams of carbs from any given food has on your blood sugar. For example, if you ate 50 grams of carbohydrate from beans, your blood sugar wouldn’t go as high as if you ate 50 grams of carbohydrate from potatoes instead. In other words, beans have a lower glycemic index than potatoes do.

Like potatoes, carrots have a high glycemic index. However, you’d have to eat about 4 cups of shredded carrot to get 50 grams of carbohydrate. Thus, if you ate just one carrot, it would have only a small effect on your blood sugar. To correct for this problem, some people use the glycemic load, which is the glycemic index multiplied by the total amount of carbohydrate in the food.

The glycemic index and glycemic load are of surprisingly little value to dieters. One reason is that the glycemic index of any given food is so hard to predict. For example, you could increase the glycemic index of a potato by mashing it. Then, you could decrease the glycemic index of the mashed potato by adding milk and butter. Fats and proteins tend to decrease the glycemic index of a food. Although adding butter to a food decreases the food’s glycemic index, the butter does not make the food less fattening!

Even if you eat a meal that has a high glycemic load, that doesn’t mean that your blood sugar is going to go dangerously high. It all depends on your insulin sensitivity. People who habitually eat a low-fat, starchy diet tend to have much smaller blood sugar swings than people who eat a high-fat, low-carb diet. Scientists have known that fact since the 1930s! In fact, a diet based on high-glycemic-load vegetables and unrefined starches can restore the body’s insulin sensitivity, thus curing type 2 diabetes, within a matter of weeks.

Reference List

Jenkins DJ, Wolever TM, Taylor RH et al. Glycemic index of foods: a physiological basis for carbohydrate exchange. Am J Clin Nutr 1981;34:362–366. http://www.ajcn.org/content/34/3/362.long

Note: For more information about the control of weight and blood sugar, see my book Thin Diabetes, Fat Diabetes: Prevent Type 1, Cure Type 2.

Big Lunches, Skinny Body

Back when I worked in an office, I’d sometimes bring my lunch to work. My lunches were physically much larger than the lunches my coworkers brought, and it took my entire lunch break to eat most of mine. I still had food left over for a snack around 3 pm. So why was I skinnier than most of my coworkers? It’s because my lunch was made of up of low-fat, high-fiber plant foods.

My typical lunch included of a container of rice pilaf or maybe a sandwich with a spicy low-fat bean spread. I’d also have a couple of containers of cut up raw vegetables, such as carrots, cauliflower, celery, or broccoli. Sometimes I’d bring a big container of salad or coleslaw with nonfat dressing. I’d also have a few pieces of fruit, such as some cut-up cantaloupe or some apples or peaches, depending on what was in season. Once in a while, I’d bring a few nuts, in the shell, along with a nutcracker.

My coworkers, on the other hand, usually based their lunch on some sort of meat or fish. Often, there was some sort of greasy dressing. They usually had some sort of dairy food as well. Many of them had been through some sort of commercial weight loss regimen that encourages people to continue eating animal-based food but supposedly teaches them “portion control.”

The fact that people are trying to learn “portion control” tells you that they’re eating an unnatural diet. Wild animals never try to limit their food intake. They never count calories. They never sign up for step aerobics. They eat as much as they like of their natural food, and they do whatever activity they feel like doing. Their weight gets controlled naturally by their appetite. The same thing also works for human beings if they eat a low-fat, high-fiber, plant-based diet.

No Acne, No Body Odor

A while back, I told a new friend of mine that I was writing about how people could make themselves heart-attack-proof, just by eating plants instead of animals and cutting way back on their fat intake. I mentioned, in an offhand sort of way, that this same diet also cures obesity. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was in the “down” phase of a pattern of yo-yo dieting. She was very interested and wrote down the Web sites I recommended.

About a month later, when we were talking on the telephone, she said, “I switched to a plant-based diet, and I’ve lost some weight without feeling hungry. I’ve also noticed that my acne cleared up. Is that because of the diet?” I said that it probably was. The fat in animal-based foods and the huge dose of estrogen that occurs naturally in dairy products, even “organic” dairy products, both contribute to acne. She said, “Well, why didn’t you tell me that? It’s a major selling point!”

Another month or two went by, and we were talking on the telephone again. My friend said, “Laurie, I’ve just noticed that I don’t have body odor anymore. I used to have to use heavy-duty deodorant. Now I don’t stink, even if I sweat heavily. Is it because of the diet?” I told her that it probably was. Not only do animal-based foods contain far more protein than you need, but the proteins in animal-based foods are particularly high in sulfur. Burning those proteins for energy releases stinky sulfur compounds. She said, “Well, why don’t you tell people about that! Young people care far more about that than about their risk of heart attack!”

So there you have it. Switching to a plant-based diet can make you look better and smell better.

Photo by Saluda UdeA

No, It’s a Low-Fat, High-Fiber Diet That Keeps Gorillas Lean!

A recent article in the New York Times argued that gorillas stay slim because they eat a high-protein diet. While I’m glad to see someone else point out that a plant-based diet provides adequate amounts of protein, I’m annoyed to see scientists and journalists misunderstand and misrepresent the real significance of this fact. It’s as if they haven’t read the basic literature on nutrition and can’t understand arithmetic.

Yes, the gorilla’s natural diet is high in protein, as a percentage of calories. However, the gorillas’ natural food tends to be low in calories, because the calories are diluted by water and fiber. Gorillas have to eat an enormous amount of food every day to get enough calories. When human volunteers tried to eat a gorilla-style diet for a short period of time to see how it would affect their cholesterol levels, they had to spend more than 8 hours a day eating, just to get enough calories to keep from losing weight during the trial. Gorillas stay slim because of the high fiber content and low fat content of their food, not because of the balance of protein to carbohydrate in their food!

The biggest dietary challenge for a gorilla, as for any leaf-eater, is to get enough calories. When they eat a relatively high-protein diet, they just end up converting the excess protein to sugar and burning it for energy. Unfortunately, protein is “dirty sugar.” Burning protein for energy produces waste products such as urea and sulfuric acid.

People can stay very slim on a high-carbohydrate diet, if it is also high in fiber and low in fat. For example, when Chris Voigt of the Washington State Potato Commission decided to go on a potato-only diet as a publicity stunt, he figured that he had to eat 20 potatoes a day. In practice, he found it really hard to eat his entire potato ration, because potatoes are so filling. As a result, he lost a lot of weight. Even when he made an effort to eat his entire potato ration every day, he continued to lose weight. That’s because a starchy diet improves insulin sensitivity and thus revs up your metabolism. People who eat starchy diets burn more calories than people on fatty diets. Voigt lost 21 pounds during his 60-day potato diet. His cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and even his blood sugar levels decreased!

According to the New York Times, Dr. Raubenheimer claimed that modern societies “are diluting the concentration of protein in the modern diet. But we eat to get the same amount of proteins we needed before, and in so doing, we’re overeating.” What nonsense!

Nutrition scientists have known for more than 100 years that human protein needs are modest and are easily met by any reasonable plant-based diet. Also, the societies with the biggest problem with obesity are also the ones with the highest protein intake! Modern societies are consuming too much fat and too little fiber. Animal foods are a big offender, because they contain fat but no fiber and usually no digestible carbohydrate. Refined foods are also a big offender, because they represent the concentrated calories from plants–with the fiber and other wholesome things stripped out.

The take-home lesson from the gorilla story shouldn’t have been that people need to eat more protein. It’s that people need to eat plants. If people don’t want to spend 8 hours a day eating leafy vegetables, they can eat some nice, filling potatoes or other starchy staples along with plenty of vegetables and fruit.

Coronary Artery Disease Is Not a Mental Disorder

Many laymen and even many doctors like the idea that people can give themselves a serious physical disease just by having bad thoughts, unpleasant feelings, or annoying personality traits. Yet it’s hard to find any scientific evidence that these psychological phenomena have any real effect on health. Nevertheless, the attempt to “psychologize” physical illness persists.

Although many people like the idea that their thoughts can influence their health, people can be amazingly resistant to the idea that their food choices matter. If I were a psychologist, I would use my training to figure out why our doctors in the United States ignore the overwhelming evidence that the standard American diet is the underlying reason for our major causes of death and disability. I’d try to figure out ways to help people realize that they’re eating their way into an early grave. I’d try to find ways to help people improve their diet, so that they can improve their health. Instead, psychologists have been trying to prove that coronary artery disease is a mental disorder. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic!

By the end of World War II, anyone with common sense and access to the scientific literature should have realized that coronary artery disease results from the foods that people eat, not from the kinds of thoughts and feelings that go on in their minds. For example, heart disease became rare in Norway after the Nazis stole their farm animals and the Norwegians had to switch to a low-fat, plant-based diet. Rich, fatty foods were also in short supply for the civilian population in Germany during the war. As a result, German civilians stopped dying of heart attacks, despite all the stress and terror of Allied bombing raids.

After seeing these data, Nathan Pritikin realized that heart disease results from the foods people eat, not from the emotional stress in their lives. When he got a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, he cleaned up his own diet and encouraged others to do the same.

Nevertheless, Americans still clung to the idea that heart disease is a mental disorder. First, people thought that the cause was “emotional stress.” Then they blamed “type A personality.” Then they blamed “pessimism.” It’s all a crock. Lots of people in China had emotional stress, type A personalities, and pessimism. Yet research showed that they weren’t dying of heart attacks, because their average cholesterol was shockingly low by American standards, thanks to their low-fat, high-fiber diet.

PCRM’s Plate Is Better Than USDA’s

The US Department of Agriculture has replaced its Food Pyramid with a plate and cup graphic, which is far better at conveying what they think people should eat. Unfortunately, USDA is still encouraging people to eat meat and dairy products, which contribute to the risk of heart disease, cancer, etc.

The Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine has a much better idea: a plate graphic that shows a truly healthy diet. They call it The Power Plate. It encourages people to eat a purely plant-based diet—the sort of diet that has been shown to be optimal for human health.

The Plate’s Not Much Better Than the Pyramid

The United States Department of Agriculture has ditched its creepy Food Pyramid, which for many people conjured up grisly images of Aztec human sacrifice.

Unfortunately, the USDA’s new “plate and cup” graphic still provides deadly nutritional advice. It still urges people to eat far more fat, cholesterol, calcium, and animal protein than is good for them. Thus, it will contribute to our major causes of death and disability in the United States, without doing much to solve any of our real public health problems.

The new “plate and cup” graphic is simply a way to communicate the lessons from the most recent edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Federal law requires these guidelines to be reviewed, and updated if necessary, every five years. The guidelines are created by a joint committee of the USDA and the US Department of Health and Human Services, with input from other federal agencies and the public. The 2010 edition was issued in January 2011.

Unfortunately, the guidelines are designed to address two nonexistent problems, while failing to help people avoid or recover from our biggest causes of death and disability. The guidelines are designed to ensure that Americans consume “enough” protein and calcium, even though it’s practically impossible to find any real human beings who have a true deficiency of either one. Meanwhile, the guidelines actually encourage people to eat foods that increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, low back pain, osteoporosis, and autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and type 1 diabetes.

Nutrition scientists have known for more than 100 years that human protein needs are easily met by any practical plant-based diet, as long as people are eating enough food to get enough calories. For more than 50 years, they’ve known that all of our common staple plant foods provide enough of all of the essential amino acids. People would get plenty of protein even if they ate nothing but potatoes; thus, there’s no justification for urging people to eat animal-based “protein foods.”

The “protein foods” that come from animals pose serious health risks. They are devoid of fiber and digestible carbohydrates. Instead, their calories come in the form of fat and protein. Any overload of protein stresses the liver and kidneys. Worse yet, animal proteins also tend to promote cancer, osteoporosis, and autoimmune disease. The heavy dose of calcium from dairy foods actually seems to increase, rather than decrease, the risk of osteoporosis.

The current guidelines also encourage people to eat far more fat than is good for them. The current guidelines do encourage people to eat less saturated fat, but to replace it with polyunsaturated fats. The result would be only a slightly lower risk of heart disease, offset by a higher risk of cancer. Most people should keep their fat intake to 10% or less of calories.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans do encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables and to replace refined grain products with whole-grain products. However, they fall far short of telling people how they can achieve optimal health. That’s a scandalous failure, considering how many Americans lack health insurance and thus have limited access to professional guidance, including advice from a registered dietitian.

Like our government’s failure to provide an efficient, publicly-financed universal healthcare system, the shortcomings of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans represent our government’s failure to “promote the general welfare.” Instead, our food and healthcare policies promote the welfare of the powerful corporations that finance our elections and whose lobbyists stalk the halls of Congress.

These problems have persisted for decades. They are not going to solve themselves. These problems will be solved only if health activists work to elect Representatives and Senators and a President who care far more about human beings than about corporations and if health activists provide such pressure during the “public comment” phase for the next edition of the guidelines that USDA will have no choice but to serve the American people instead of the food industry.

Low-Fat, Plant-Based Diet Helps Prevent Skin Cancer

Every summer, we hear lots of advice to use sunscreen and wear hats and so on to help us avoid skin cancer. No one ever bothers to tell us that eating a low-fat, plant-based diet also helps to prevent skin cancer.

This article, which was published in 1994 in the New England Journal of Medicine, studied the effect of a dietary change (a switch to a lower-fat diet) on people who had had at least one non-melanoma skin cancer. The people who switched to a lower-fat diet were less likely to get new precancerous lesions. A follow-up study published in 1998 showed that they were also less likely to get skin cancers.

A proper diet might also help reduce the risk of melanoma, which is the most deadly form of skin cancer. Eating too much polyunsaturated fat increases the risk of cancer in general and melanoma in particular. People who drink too much alcohol and don’t eat enough vegetables are also at higher risk for melanoma.

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

Needless Tragedy: Multiple Sclerosis and Jacqueline du Pré

The movie Hilary and Jackie tells the tragic story of a little girl (Jacqueline du Pré) who grew up to be one of the world’s greatest cellists, only to have her musical career and then her life cut short by multiple sclerosis. The truly sickening part of the story is that the importance of diet in arresting the development of that debilitating and sometimes fatal disease had been published long before du Pré started having symptoms of the disease. Tragically, the medical profession is still largely ignoring the role of a strict, low-fat diet in arresting multiple sclerosis.

Photo by amadeusrecord

To Cure Obesity, “Eat Less Fat and More Starch”

Here’s an interesting article about the Pima Indians of Arizona.

For about 2000 years, the Pima had been growing corn, beans, and squash on irrigated land in Arizona. As a result, their traditional diet was high in starch and fiber and low in fat (~15% by calorie). After white settlers diverted the Pima’s irrigation water, the Pima had to fall back on the lard, sugar, and white flour supplied to them by the U.S. government. After World War II, the Pima adopted a diet that closely resembles the standard American diet. It is low in fiber and gets about 40% of its calories from fat. As a result, they have horrifically high rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. In contrast, their blood relatives in Mexico who have kept more or less to their traditional diet have relatively low rates of obesity and diabetes.

Some low-carb gurus have tried to twist the Pima’s story into a justification for eating less carbohydrate and more fat. In reality, it provides strong encouragement for people to eat more starch and fiber and a lot less fat.