Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (46 page)

In-patient facilities or health retreats:
If you do not succeed, or are not able to do so on your own, you are not a failure. Some individuals require a structured environment to get them started on the road to success. For others it is imperative for their health that they succeed at taking weight off relatively quickly. If you are committed to success, there is no reason you should be satisfied with anything less than spectacular results in your health, wellness, and physique. Some individuals may require an initial period of supervision that offers a more disciplined and structured program in which all the food they eat is prepared for them. These people are soon reeducated in proper eating and learn to adjust to the changes they must make. They can taste many different ways to prepare healthy food and learn healthy food preparation.

I do not know for sure. A preponderance of the evidence suggests that either a near-vegetarian diet or a vegetarian diet is the best. In the massive China-Cornell-Oxford Project, a reduction in cancer
rates continued to be observed as participants reduced their animal-food consumption all the way down to one serving per week. Below this level there is not enough data available. Some smaller studies suggest that some fish added to a vegetarian diet provides benefit, which is likely a result of the increased DHA fat from fish.
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This same benefit most likely could be achieved on a strict vegetarian diet by including ground flaxseeds and nuts that contain omega-3, such as walnuts. If you want to get the benefit from the additional DHA contained in fish yet remain on a strict vegetarian diet, you can take algae-derived DHA.

Whether or not you are a strict vegetarian, your diet must be plant-predominant for optimal health and to maximally reduce your cancer risk. A vegetarian or vegan diet may be healthy or unhealthy, depending on food choices, but a diet similar to the one most Americans consume—i.e., one containing a significant quantity of animal products—cannot be made healthful. For those not willing to give them up, animal products should be limited to twelve ounces or less per week. Otherwise, the risk of disease increases considerably. Many of my patients choose to eat only vegan foods in their home and eat animal products as a treat once a week or so when they are out.

I do not recommend the same diet for everyone, but the H = N/C formula never changes. On very rare occasions I come across an individual who requires some modification to this diet. There are some illnesses, such as active inflammatory bowel disease, for which this diet would have to be adjusted because the patient may not tolerate a large amount of raw vegetables and fruits. I do adjust and customize eating plans and nutritional supplements for individuals with unique medical and metabolic needs. If you are one such person, or if you need a healthful way to gain weight, I would hope you would contact me, or another physician with expertise in this area, for more specific advice.

Only those eating an American-style diet, so high in salt and so low in the high-water-content fruits and vegetables, need to drink that much water. On my fiber-and fluid-rich diet, your need for extra water decreases. Three glasses a day is usually sufficient; but if you are exercising or in the heat, then you obviously need to drink more to replenish those liquids lost through perspiration.

I believe the diet we currently feed our children is the reason we are seeing so many frequent infections and such high levels of allergies, autoimmune disease, and cancer in this country. Unfortunately, what we eat early in life has a more powerful effect on our eventual health (or ill health) than what we eat later in life. I have four children and understand the difficulties of trying to raise healthy children in today’s insane world. It seems we are in an environment in which parents are enthusiastically and purposely breeding a nation of sickly and diseased adults.

In my community, parents and neighbors unknowingly attempt to poison their children at every opportunity. They don’t merely feed their own children a diet chock-full of sugar and fat, but at every birthday party, athletic event, and social occasion they bring sugar-coated doughnuts, cupcakes, and candy for the entire crowd. I would expect that as parents, we all have the same goal of trying to get our children to eat more nutritious foods: more vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, and legumes and beans. However, no child will eat healthfully if he or she is allowed to eat unhealthy foods on a regular basis.

The only way to have a child eat healthfully is to clear all unhealthful foods out of the house, so that when the child is hungry, he or she is forced to pick from healthy choices. Children
will at least eat healthfully at home if they are presented with only healthy food choices. For more information, consider reading my book
Disease-Proof Your Child.

The dietary rules in this book are too calorie-restricted and too fat-restricted for a child or thin athlete. However, the principles for healthy eating and longevity do not change. All that has to be done to increase the caloric density and fat density of the diet is to add more wholesome sources of fat and calories, such as raw nuts and seeds, nut butters, and avocados. Starchy vegetables and whole grains can be consumed in larger amounts, and vegetable and grain dishes can be flavored with sauces and dressings made with nuts and seeds.

If you want to gain weight, eating more—or eating differently to bulk up—will add mostly fat to your body. It is exceptionally rare for a person to gain more muscle just from eating more food. Forcing yourself to consume more food than your body wants is not in your best interest. If you want to gain weight, lift weights to add muscle; then the exercise will increase your appetite accordingly. When you eat a healthful diet, nature has you carry only that mass you need; your muscles will enlarge only if additional stress is placed on them. Of course, this book is designed for those who are overweight and desirous of losing weight. Those who are truly excessively thin and need to gain weight may have to modify this eating plan somewhat to meet their individual needs.

The effects of ingesting pesticides in the very small amounts present in vegetation are unknown. Bruce Ames, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of California at Berkeley, who has devoted his career to examining this question, believes these minute amounts pose no risk at all.

He and other scientists support this view because humans and other animals are exposed to small amounts of naturally occurring toxins with every mouthful of organically grown, natural food. The body normally breaks down self-produced metabolic wastes and naturally occurring carcinogens in foods, as well as pesticides, and excretes these harmful substances every minute. Since 99.99 percent of the potential carcinogenic chemicals consumed are naturally present in all food, reducing our exposure to the 0.01 percent that are synthetic will not reduce cancer rates.

These scientists argue that humans ingest thousands of natural chemicals that typically have a greater toxicity and are present at higher doses than the very minute amount of pesticide residues that remain on food. Furthermore, animal studies on the carcinogenic potential of synthetic chemicals are done at doses a thousandfold higher than what is ingested in food. Ames argues that a high percentage of all chemicals, natural or not, are potentially toxic in high doses—“the dose makes the poison”—and that there is no evidence of possible cancer hazards from the tiny chemical residue remaining on produce.

Others believe a slight risk may be present, though that risk may be difficult to prove. There certainly is a justifiable concern that some chemicals have increased toxicity and are potentially harmful at lower doses than are used in rodent experiments. No scientist believes that this means we should reduce our consumption of vegetation, but many (including me) believe it prudent to reduce our exposure to the multiple toxic residues present in our food supply. I certainly advocate avoiding the skins of foods that are reported to have the most pesticide residues. And, of course, all fruits and vegetables should be washed before eating.

If you are concerned about pesticides and chemicals, keep in mind that animal products, such as dairy and beef, contain the most toxic pesticide residues. Because cows and steers eat large amounts of tainted feed, certain pesticides and dangerous chemicals are found in higher concentrations in animal foods. For example, dioxin, which is predominantly found in fatty meats
and dairy products, is one of the most potent toxins linked to several cancers in humans, including lymphomas.
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By basing your diet on unrefined plant foods, you automatically reduce your exposure to the most dangerous chemicals.

According to the Environmental Working Group,
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these are the “Dirty Dozen” consistently most contaminated fruits and vegetables, ranked from highest to lowest:

1. celery
   

2. peaches
   

3. strawberries
   

4. apples
   

5. blueberries
   

6. nectarines
   

7. bell peppers
   

8. spinach
   

9. cherries
   

10. kale
    

11. potatoes
    

12. imported grapes
    

It would make sense to purchase organically grown versions of these foods.

Onions, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes are the vegetables least likely to have pesticides on them. Avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwifruit, papayas, watermelon, and grapefruit are the fruits least likely to have pesticide residues on them.

It makes good sense to peel fruits if possible, and not to eat potato skins unless you are able to purchase pesticide-free potatoes. Remove and discard the outermost leaves of lettuce and cabbage if not organically grown; other surfaces that cannot be peeled can be washed with soap and water or a commercial vegetable wash. Washing with plain water removes 25 to 50 percent of the pesticide residue.

Every study done to date on the consumption of food and its
relation to cancer has shown that the more fruits and vegetables people eat, the less cancer and heart disease they have. All these studies were done on people eating conventionally grown, not organic, produce. Clearly, the benefit of conventional produce outweighs any hypothetical risk.

The slight yellow-orange tinge to your skin is not a problem; it is a marker that you are on a healthy diet. On the contrary, any person who does not have some degree of carotenemia in his or her skin is not eating properly, and such an eating pattern places him or her at risk of cancer—including skin cancer. I drink no carrot juice; however, my skin has a slight yellow hue, especially when contrasted with the skin of people eating conventionally. When my patients eat a nutritionally packed diet, their skin changes color slightly as well. Tell your doctor it is he who has the dangerous skin tone. However, I still do not recommend taking vitamin A or high doses of beta-carotene in supplements. Both vitamin A and beta-carotene in supplement form have been linked to increased mortality.
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Of course there were primitive populations who ate high-meat diets and there were primitive people who ate plant-predominant diets. Humans were desperate for calories, so they ate whatever they could get their hands on. The two questions we have to look at are these: How long did they live on that diet? What diet for humans gives them the best protection against disease and the greatest chance for longevity in modern times?

Personally, I want to do a lot better than our prehistoric ancestors did. A comprehensive overview and a sensible interpretation
of the scientific evidence support the conclusion that we can increase human longevity and prevent disease if we make specific food choices. We still retain our primate physiology—a physiology that depends on high vegetation consumption—which is relevant to explain our ability to thrive on a plant-predominant diet.

Dr. Katharine Milton, at the University of California at Berkeley, is among the few nutritional anthropologists in the world who has worked with and studied cultures and primitive peoples not influenced by modern technology. She has concluded that the diet of both primitive people and wild primates is largely plant-based.
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The main difference between primitive diets and our own is their consumption of nutrient-dense wild plants and the lack of access to low-nutrient, high-fat foods such as cheese and oil, as well as refined grains.