Category Archives: Healthy Eating

Processed food – why we must avoid it

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What is “processed” food anyway? We’re talking about foods that have changed form, and are therefore different from how they occur in nature.

The more processed foods you eat, the less nourished you become.

Why are foods processed? To protect them from bad bacteria and to make them more visually appealing, packageable, marketable, and shippable. It’s all a matter of convenience.

American “cheese” isn’t made from curds and whey – it’s a nightmarish mix of what was once milk, along with artificial flavors, colorants, preservatives, and gummy texturizers.

White bread is made from flour so processed that it is almost pure starch, and it is barely recognizable as a wheat product – but it’s fluffy and white, and that’s what everyone uses to make PB&J!

These products are so fake that classifying them as “food” is quite a stretch.

Even whole healthy foods are processed. Vegetables are sprayed so that they can be stored longer – potatoes may be six months old before you eat them!

They’ve been treated to stop them from sprouting “eyes.” Chicken is dipped in chlorine bleach to kill surface bacteria and make it turn white when cooked. Apples are waxed for storage and shine.

Read the ingredients list – how many things do you recognize? How many are “extracts,” “from concentrate,” or just scary scientific words?

Processed foods are bad for the body and mind in so many ways. For one thing, they contain all sorts of artificial ingredients like preservatives and colorants that cause reactions in the digestive, immune, and nervous systems.

Furthermore, processed foods lack many crucial nutrients found in whole foods.

Common Highly Processed Foods

Bleached and Highly-refined Flour

Refined grains are devoid of fiber, vitamins, and minerals, leaving nothing but starch and a small amount of protein in these products. White bread, pasta, and baked goods are the main culprits. It’s these refined, simple, high glycemic carbs that you need to avoid. They’re quickly digested and cause your blood sugar to spike, and your body immediately either uses or stores them (as glycogen and/or fat).

A better option is to opt for whole, complex, quality carbohydrates such as bajra, rajgira, buckwheat, or you can try minimally processed whole-grain breads and pastas.

Refined Sweeteners

Too much sugar stresses your body – your pancreas struggles to produce insulin, and your body stores excess glucose as fat. Artificial sweeteners exacerbate cravings, disrupt gut bacteria, and cause glucose intolerance.

Minimizing your sugar intake is the first step, but changing the way you choose to appease your sweet tooth can make a big difference in how you feel! Ditch the aspartame, high-fructose corn syrup, and even agave nectar.

Refined, Trans-fat or Partially-hydrogenated Vegetable Oils

Many oils are hydrogenated, a process that makes them solid, but also creates trans-fats. These are the unhealthy fats that increase bad and decrease good cholesterols and cause heart disease and diabetes. They’re unsaturated, cheap, and processed, and they are used in most fast foods, take-out, and fried foods.

A better option is to toss the canola. Stick to extra virgin olive oil (which is extracted by machine only), animal fats like butter, lard, ghee, and unrefined coconut oil.

Processed Meat

The main culprits are salt and nitrates, which are used to preserve pinkness. These two items have been extensively linked to an increase in risk of colorectal cancer. Processed lunch meats have so many other bulking agents, additives, and preservatives that it’s better to avoid them altogether.

The Bottom Line

By focusing on consuming whole foods with little processing, you will minimize your intake of artificial additives and preservatives, some of which can be dangerous.

The best advice I can give you is to make time to read ingredient labels and make sure you understand what you’re eating.

If you don’t recognize something, don’t buy it! Go to the store more often and stick with the KISS method – minimally-processed, natural, whole foods. Your body will thank you for it.

How to Fix Your Gut Bacteria and Lose Weight

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 Mark Hyman, MD

“I read somewhere that a high-fat diet can damage your gut bacteria and promote weight gain,” writes this week’s house call. “Should I be concerned if I’m eating a high-fat diet?”

It is true that what you eat can affect your gut bacteria, for better and for worse, and changes in your gut bacteria or microbiome cause weight gain.  Indeed, some studies demonstrate that high-fat diets can adversely affect your gut flora and promote inflammation and weight gain. However, it’s important to note that the type of fat you eat matters!  Most of these studies are focused on diets that incorporate high levels of inflammatory, refined omega 6 vegetable oils like soybean oil. 

Refined omega-6 rich vegetable oils fall into the “bad fats” category and should be avoided. While most of us have been convinced, by the food industry and our government, that vegetable oils are safe and a heart-healthy alternative to saturated fats, we now know differently.

Polyunsaturated fats from soybean, canola, and other seed oils are inflammatory. Avoid them if you want to be healthier. Even if you consume some omega 3 fats while consuming these inflammatory oils, you won’t reap the healthy fat benefits.

For most of human history, we consumed a much higher ratio of omega 3 fats to omega 6 fats. Wild foods like grass-fed beef and wild-caught fish provide a great source of omega 3s, but these foods are not a big part of our modern diet. Unfortunately, the factory-farmed animals that do make up much of our modern diet have almost zero omega 3 fats.

The vast quantities of omega 6 fats in our diet contribute to heart disease, diabesity, and cancer. Studies also link high omega 6 fat consumption to depression, suicide, and other major health problems due to increased inflammation.

To reverse these and other problems and create optimal health, replace these damaging omega 6 fats with healthy ones – like coconut oil, avocados, grass-fed butter, fish rich in omega 3s, and extra-virgin olive oil.

Interestingly, when we look at studies that use the healthy, anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats, we see just the opposite effect. These healthy fats promote healthier gut bugs, lower inflammation levels, and increased weight loss.

I said it before and I’ll say it again:  the types of fat we eat matters. The wrong fats increase inflammation, promote the growth of bad bugs, and create resistance to weight loss. The right fats decrease inflammation and help with weight loss.

Why Is Gut Health So Important?

Optimal gut health has become a prominent focus in 21st century health. Having too many bad critters hanging out in the gut has been linked to numerous problems – including autism, obesity, diabetes, allergies, autoimmunity, depression, cancer, heart disease, fibromyalgia, eczema, and asthma. The links between chronic illness and an imbalanced microbiome (or gut bacteria) keep growing every day.

Many scientists have begun to refer to the gut as our second brain, an idea that is reflected in amazing books like The Good Gut, Brainmaker, The Microbiome Solution, and The Gut Balance Revolution.

Having a healthy gut should mean more to you than being annoyed by a little bloating or heartburn. It becomes central to your entire health and connected to everything that happens in your body. That’s why I almost always start treating my patients’ chronic health problems by fixing their guts first.

You can begin to understand the importance of gut health when you consider there are 500 species and three pounds of bacteria in your gut. There are trillions of bacteria in your gut, and they collectively contain at least 100 times as many genes as you do. The bacterial DNA in your gut outnumbers your own DNA by 100 times. You have about 20,000 genes, but there are 2,000,000 (or more) bacterial genes!

Altogether, your gut is a huge chemical factory that helps to digest food, produce vitamins, regulate hormones, excrete toxins, produce healing compounds and keep your gut healthy.

Intestinal health could be defined as the optimal digestion, absorption, and assimilation of food. But that is a big job that depends on many other factors. For example, the bugs in your gut are like a rain forest – a diverse and interdependent ecosystem. They must be in balance for you to be healthy.

Too many of the wrong ones (like parasites, yeasts or bad bacteria) or not enough of the good ones (like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria), can lead to serious damage to your health.

Optimal gut balance begins with your diet, which directly affects that balance. You want to eat a diet with lots of fiber, healthy protein, and healthy fats.

Good fats, including omega 3 fats and monounsaturated fats – such as extra-virgin olive oil, avocados or almonds – improve healthy gut flora, while inflammatory fats, like omega 6 vegetable oils, promote growth of bad bugs that cause weight gain and disease.

Even obesity has been linked to changes in our gut ecosystem, resulting from an intake of inflammatory omega 6s and not enough anti-inflammatory omega 3s. Bad bugs produce toxins called lipopolysacchardies (LPS)  that trigger inflammation, insulin resistance or pre-diabetes and therefore, promote weight gain.

Lack of sleep and chronic stress also contribute to gut imbalance, In fact, your gut flora listens to and becomes influenced by your thoughts and feelings.  So be sure to get 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep and remember to practice your favorite stress reduction activities daily. 

9 Ways to Fix your Gut Bacteria and Lose Weight

The best way to grow a healthy inner garden and make your gut bugs happy begins with your diet. Here are 9 ways to build healthy gut flora starting with your next forkful:

  1. Eat whole, unprocessed, unrefined foods. One of the best ways to maintain gut health involves cutting out the sugar and refined carbs and jacking up gut-supporting fiber.
  2. Make 75 percent of your plate be vegetables and plant-based foods. Your gut bugs really love these high-fiber plant foods.
  3. Eat good fats and get an oil change. The good fats we mentioned earlier (like omega 3 fats and monounsaturated fats, such as extra-virgin olive oil) will help with decreasing inflammation, giving healthy gut bugs a chance to flourish.
  4. Supplement smartly. Beyond the numerous benefits (including reducing inflammation), studies find omega 3 fatty acids can support healthy gut flora.  You should definitely supplement with an essential fatty acids formula, if you’re not regularly eating wild-caught fatty fish. Take a good probiotic supplement. This helps reduce gut inflammation while cultivating health and the growth of good bacteria.
  5. Add more coconut. Studies demonstrate anti-inflammatory and weight loss benefits from adding Medium Chain Triglyceride or MCT oils. One of my favorite fats, coconut oil and coconut butter, contains these fabulous fat-burning MCTs.
  6. Remove inflammatory fats. Cut out bad, inflammatory omega 6 rich fats like vegetable oils. Replace these with healthier oils like extra-virgin olive oil and coconut oil.
  7. Add fiber-rich foods. Nuts, seeds, and a fiber called inulin provide prebiotics and feed our healthy bacteria.
  8. Add fermented foods. Sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, and miso contain good amounts of probiotics so your healthy gut bugs can be fruitful and multiply.

The above recommendations are not miracle cures.  They are the actions that lead to normalized gut function and flora through improved diet, increased fiber intake, daily probiotic supplementation, the use of nutrients that repair the gut lining, and the reduction of bad bugs in the gut with herbs or medication.

Yes, inflammatory fats will definitely damage your gut bacteria. But the right fats, including omega 3s and extra-virgin olive oil combined with a whole, real food diet can actually repair your gut and even increase good bacteria.

Be Healthy.

Is it possible to exercise while fasting?

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Is it possible to exercise while fasting? This is a common question we hear all the time. People think that food gives them energy and therefore it will be difficult to fast and exercise at the same time. Some people with physically demanding jobs feel that they could not fast and work properly. What’s the truth?

Well, let’s think about this logically for a second. When you eat, insulin goes up telling your body to use some of that food energy immediately. The remainder is stored as sugar (glycogen in the liver). Once the glycogen stores are full, then the liver manufactures fat (DeNovo Lipogenesis). Dietary protein is broken down into component amino acids. Some is used to repair proteins but excess amino acids are turned to glucose. Dietary fat is absorbed directly by the intestines. It doesn’t undergo any further transformation and is stored as fat.

Insulin’s main action is to inhibit lipolysis. This means that it blocks fat burning. The incoming flood of glucose from food is sent to the rest of the body to be used as energy.Macro oxidation

So what happens during a fast? Well, it’s just the process in reverse. First, your body burns the stored sugar, then it burns the stored fat. In essence, during feeding you burn food energy. During fasting, you burn energy from your stored food (sugar and fat).

Note that the amount of energy that is used by and available to your body stays the same. The basal metabolic rate stays the same. This is the basic energy used for vital organs, breathing, heart function etc. Eating does not increase basal metabolism except for the small amount used to digest food itself (the thermic effect of food).

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If you exercise while fasting, the body will start by burning sugar. Glycogen is a molecule composed of many sugars all put together. When it comes time to use it for energy, the liver simply starts breaking all the chains to release the individual sugar molecules that can now be used for energy.

As mentioned before, short term storage of food energy (glycogen) is like a refrigerator. The food energy goes in and out easily, but there is limited storage. Long term storage (fat) is like a freezer. Food is harder to get to, but you can store much more of it. If you eat 3 times a day, it’s like you go shopping for food 3 times a day and any leftovers get stored in the fridge. If there is too much for the fridge, it goes into the freezer.

So what happens during fasting and exercise? Well, the body simply pulls energy out of the ‘fridge’. Since you have enough glycogen stored up to last over 24 hours on a regular day, you would need to do some serious exercise for a long time before you could exhaust those stores.

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Endurance athletes occasionally do hit this ‘wall‘, where glycogen stores run out. Perhaps there is no more indelible image of hitting the wall as the 1982 Ironman Triathlon where American competitor Julie Moss crawled to the finish line, unable to even stand. Athletes also term complete exhaustion of short term energy stores ‘bonking’. I know some of you may think ‘bonking’ refers to other activities done on all fours, but this is a nutritional blog!

So, how do you get around that? Glycogen stores are not enough to power you through the entire IronMan race. However, you know at the same time, that you are still carrying vast amounts of energy in the form of fat. All that energy is stored away and not accessible during exercise. But the only reason it cannot be used is because your body is not adapted to burn fat.

By following a very low carbohydrate diet, or ketogenic diet, you can train your body to burn fat. Similarly, by exercising in the fasted state, you can train your muscles to burn energy. Now, instead of relying on limited by easily accessible glycogen during competition, you are carrying around almost unlimited energy drawn directly from your fat stores.

Studies are starting to demonstrate the benefits of such training. For example, this study looked at muscle fibres both before and after training in the fasted state. This means that you fast for a certain period of time, usually around 24 hours and then do your endurance or other training. The combination of low insulin and high adrenalin levels created by the fasted state stimulates adipose tissue lipolysis (breakdown of fat) and peripheral fat oxidation (burning of fat for energy). Other studies had already shown that breakdown of intramyocellular lipids (IMCL – fat inside the muscle) is increased by training in the fasted state.Six weeks of training in the fasted state also induced a greater increase of fatty acid binding protein and uncoupling-protein-3 content in muscle.

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What does this mean in plain English? It means that our bodies have the wonderful ability to adapt to what’s available. When we fast, we deplete much of the stored sugar (glycogen). Our muscles then become much more efficient at using fat for energy. This happens because muscle ‘learns’ how to use the fat as energy by increasing the amount of proteins that metabolize that fat. In other words, our muscles learn to burn fat, not sugar.

Looking at muscle cells before and after exercise in the fasted state, you can see that there are more muscle bundles, but also that there is a deeper shade of red, indicating more available fat for energy.

Legendary exercise physiologist and physician Tim Noakes of Cape Town, South Africa has led the way in understanding the benefits of low carbohydrate diets for elite level athletes. Many national level teams (such as the Australian cricket team) are now applying these lessons to crush their competition. Legendary NBA players such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony are turning to low carbohydrate, high fat diets to slim down and prolong their careers.

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You can be damn certain that these elite level athletes would not be doing this Low Carb mumbo jumbo and training in the fasted state malarky if it had any detrimental effect on their athletic performance. Quite the contrary. Hall of Fame NBA player Steve Nash does not eat simple carbs at any cost. Drinking sugary Gatorade? Not bloody likely to help.

Another study looked at the effects of a 3.5 day fast on all different measures of athletic performance. They measured strength, anaerobic capacity and aerobic endurance. All of these measures did not decrease during the fasting period.

The body simply switches from burning sugar to burning fat. But, for endurance athletes, the increase in available energy is a significant advantage, since you can store infinitely more energy in the form of fat rather than sugar. If you are running ultra marathons, being able to utilize your almost unlimited fat energy instead of highly limited glycogen energy will mean that you won’t ‘bonk’ and might just win you that race.

During the period where you are adjusting to this change, you will likely notice a decrease in performance. This lasts approximately 2 weeks. As you deplete the body of sugar, your muscles need time to adapt to using fat for energy. Your energy, your muscle strength and overall capacity will go down, but they will recover. So, LCHF diets, ketogenic diets and training in the fasted state may all have benefits in training your muscles to burn fat, but they do require some time to adapt.

fuel

Consider an analogy. Imagine that our bodies are fuel tankers. We drive these large tankers around, but only have a limited amount of gas in the gas tank. After the gas tank runs out, we are stuck on the side of the road calling for help. But wait, you might say. That’s ironic. You are carrying an entire tank of gas, but ran out of gas. How is that so? Well, that gas is not accessible.

In the same manner, we carry around huge stores of energy as fat. But our muscles are trained to run on sugar, and run out of energy, so we need to continually refuel despite the large tank of fuel stored as fat.

So, what my best advice on physical exertion and fasting? Don’t worry about it. Do everything you normally do during fasting. If you normally exercise, or even if you don’t, you can still do it during fasting. Whether you fast for 24 hours or 24 days, you an still exercise. Your muscles may take up to 2 weeks to become fat adapted, though. During the first 2 weeks of fasting, you may need to take it a little easy, but you should quickly recover after that.

Jason Fung, MD.

How to Do Intermittent Fasting

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If you’ve been wondering how to do intermittent fasting, this is your go-to guide.

Intermittent fasting is possibly the least expensive and at the same time, the most powerful healing method available to us.

Every religion has an element of fasting—whether it’s the 30 days of Ramadan or the various one day Hindu fasts. Our ancestors definitely knew what they were doing.

Our ancestors ate whatever was freshly available.

But often they couldn’t find anything to eat, and their bodies adapted to be able to function without food for extended periods of time. Today, we still have this same biology – we haven’t evolved at all.

And, if anything, fasting from time to time is more “natural” and healthier than constantly eating 3-4 (or more) meals per day.

So let’s look at some of the questions people have about Intermittent Fasting.

1. What is Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is a way of eating where you eat for a short period and then you don’t eat for a longer period. It’s not so much about what you eat but rather about when you eat.

When you don’t eat, you give your body time to spend more of its energy on internal healing and repair—which that cannot happen if it is constantly working on digestion.

2. Who should do it?

Intermittent fasting is for anyone who wants to optimise their health, to lose weight, to lose their belly fat, to improve immunity and to improve their clarity of thought.

It is relatively easy because you are not starving and nor are you changing your food preferences. At the same time it is completely safe.

3. What Are the Benefits of Intermittent Fasting ?
Longer Life Span:

Studies show that animals age slower and live longer when they consume fewer calories. This can be achieved by eating less each day, or by fasting on intermittent days. Eating less every day, on the other hand, is like starving and the body will kick in the starvation response, ie, it will conserve fat, making it very difficult to lose fat.

Balanced Hormones:

Fasting helps lower blood sugar and insulin levels, and leads to an increase in human growth hormone. These help in losing weight, maintaining muscle mass, and reducing the risk of insulin resistance, diabetes, and heart disease.

Faster Weight Loss:

Many studies have shown that both people burn more fat and lose weight with intermittent fasting.

4. Why is Intermittent Fasting Effective?

It helps reduce oxidative damage, inflammation and optimizes energy metabolism. This helps the body deal with stress better.

During fasting, the body breaks down and ‘eats’ damaged proteins and cellular debris, a process called autophagy. So this is like cleaning up the house – keeping the house clean and shiny.

5. How does Fat Burning happen?

Not providing the body with food for some time forces it to access its fat stores for energy, leading to fat loss.

6. What are the Types of Intermittent Fasting?
Alternate Day Intermittent Fasting:

You eat one day and then fast the next. It can be slightly difficult to sustain.

16/8 Daily Fasting:

You fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours. So for example you eat an early dinner at 7 pm and then you skip breakfast the next day and eat lunch at 1pm. And the you can eat for next 8 hours, ie until 9pm.

You can do this every day or twice a week, depending on your need, your health status and your willingness.

It doesn’t matter when you start your 8-hour eating period. You can start at 8am and stop at 4pm. Or you start at 2pm and stop at 10pm. Do whatever works for you.

24 hr fast

You fast once or even twice a week. Fasting on a predetermined day makes it easy to follow, as it does not require a decision each time. Having religious sanction makes it easier, as followed by Hindus on various days of the week.

Whichever type of intermittent fasting you choose, it works and also gives you flexibility with your diet.

You don’t need to be extremely strict with what you eat but don’t be lax either.

7. How to Start?

To start, you can simply delay your meal by an hour beyond the regular time. And increase daily till you reach the desired interval.

8. What Should I Eat After My Intermittent Fast?

Once the fasting period is over, simply go back to normal eating. No compensation, no reward and no binges.

You will find yourself spontaneously choosing to eat healthier foods during the eating windows.

9. How does Intermittent Fasting Affect My Blood Sugar?

Intermittent fasting is a great way to get your blood sugars under control. But if you are taking pharmaceutical drugs to control diabetes, you are at risk of developing hypoglycemia. You need to see a doctor trained in Intermittent fasting to guide you.

10. Can I Exercise When Intermittent Fasting?

Yes you can. Both during the fasting and during the Eating windows. In fact, high intensity exercise during the fasted state will accelerate fat loss. tre

11. Why Do I Get Hungry When Intermittent Fasting?

Well, you’re not eating any food so naturally you may feel hungry. But if you hear your stomach rumbling, that is just ‘housekeeping’ – or cleaning of the intestines.

Hunger pangs usually reduce after your first 2-3 fasts as your body adapts.

12. Can I Drink When Intermittent Fasting?

Yes you can drink water, bone broth or green tea. No calories.

13. Can a hypothyroid person choose intermittent fasting?

Yes they can.

Intermittent fasting helps the body stabilise blood sugars and hormones, as it mimics ancient eating patterns on which our biology is based.

And another benefit? You don’t have to prepare food so frequently! The kitchen can take a rest!

Stay Healthy.

6 Charts That Show How The War On Fat Was A Gigantic Mistake

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The war on fat is the biggest mistake in the history of nutrition.

As people have reduced their intake of animal fat and cholesterol, the incidence of many serious diseases has gone up. We are now in the midst of worldwide pandemics of obesity, metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.

Studies conducted in the past few decades conclusively show that neither saturated fat nor dietary cholesterol cause harm in humans. Scientists are now beginning to realize that the entire low-fat dogma was based on flawed studies that have since been thoroughly debunked.

Here are six graphs that clearly show how incredibly damaging it has been to advise people to reduce their consumption of animal fat.
1. In Europe, the Countries that Eat the Most Saturated Fat Have the Lowest Risk of Heart Disease

saturated-fat-heart-disease-in-europe
Saturated fat heart disease in europe – Data from: Hoenselaar R. Further response from Hoenselaar. British Journal of Nutrition, 2012.

 

The reason for this is simple, actually … the truth is that saturated fat simply has NOTHING to do with cardiovascular disease. There is no paradox. It was a myth all along.

Thanks to Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt for the enhanced graph.
2. The Obesity Epidemic in the USA Started at Almost The Exact Same Time the Low-Fat Dietary Guidelines Were Published

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Low fat guidelines – Kris Gunnars – Source: National Center for Health Statistics (US). Health, United States, 2008: With Special Feature on the Health of Young Adults. Hyattsville (MD): National Center for Health Statistics (US); 2009 Mar. Chartbook.

Although this graph doesn’t prove anything (correlation does not equal causation), this does make sense because people started giving up traditional foods like butter in place of processed “low-fat” foods high in sugar.

Since then, many massive studies have been conducted on the low-fat diet. These studies show clearly that the low-fat diet does not cause weight loss and has zero effect on cardiovascular disease in the long term.

Despite the poor results in the studies, this diet is still recommended by nutrition organizations all over the world.
3. Diets that Are High in Fat But Low in Carbohydrates Cause More Weight Loss than Diets that Are Low in Fat

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weight loss graph low carb vs low fatKris GunnarsSource: Brehm BJ, et al. A randomized trial comparing a very low carbohydrate diet and a calorie-restricted low fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in healthy women. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2003.

If animal fat was as bad as they say, then diets that contain a lot of it should be both fattening and harmful to your health. However, the studies do NOT back this up.

In the study above, women eating a low-carb, high-fat diet until fullness lost more than twice as much weight as women eating a calorie restricted low-fat diet.

The truth is, diets that are high in fat (but low in carbs) consistently lead to much better results than low-fat, high carb diets.

Not only do they cause more weight loss, but they also lead to big improvements in pretty much all the major risk factors for diseases like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
4. The Diseases of Civilization Increased as Butter and Lard Were Replaced with Vegetable Oils and Trans Fats

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fat consumption in usa – Kris Gunnars – Source: National Center for Health Statistics (US). Health, United States, 2008: With Special Feature on the Health of Young Adults. Hyattsville (MD): National Center for Health Statistics (US); 2009 Mar. Chartbook.

In the 20th century, several serious diseases became common in humans.

The heart disease epidemic started around 1930, the obesity epidemic started in 1980 and the diabetes epidemic started around 1990.

Even though these diseases were almost unheard of before, they have now become the biggest health problems in the world, killing millions of people per year.

It is clear from the graph above, that these diseases have skyrocketed as animal fats have been replaced with shortening, margarine and processed vegetable oils.
5. The Obesity Epidemic Started as People Reduced Their Intake of Red Meat and High-Fat Dairy Products

fatty-food-consumption-from-1980-1990

fatty food consumption from 1980 to 1990 – Kris GunnarsSource: Hu FB, et al. Trends in the Incidence of Coronary Heart Disease and Changes in Diet and Lifestyle in Women. The New England Journal of Medicine, 2000.

It amazes me that some people still blame traditional foods like meat and butter for the diseases of civilization. These foods have sustained humans in good health for a very long time and blaming new diseases on old foods just doesn’t make sense.

All the data shows that people actually reduced their consumption of these foods as these diseases went up.

The graph above, from the Nurses Health Study, shows that Americans were reducing their intake of red meat and full-fat dairy at the same time the obesity epidemic was starting.
6. In the Framingham Heart Study, Heart Disease Goes up as People Replace Heart-Healthy Butter with Toxic Margarine

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butter vs margarine

Stephan Guyenet  Kris GunnarsSource: Gillman MW, et al. Margarine intake and subsequent coronary heart disease in men. Epidemiology, 1997. Photo source: Whole Health Source.

In the graph above, based on the Framingham Heart Study, you can see how heart disease risk goes up as people eat less butter and more margarine instead.

For some very strange reason, many health organizations are still recommending that we avoid heart-healthy butter and replace it with processed margarine.

It’s simple: eat the way grandpa and grandma used to. And you’ll enjoy the health quality they did.

From Kris Gunnars