The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health (20 page)

Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. (Yes, even freshwater fish can contain traces of mercury.) If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces per week of fish caught in local waters, but don’t consume any other fish during that week.

In The Doctor’s Diet, about a third of your daily calories come from the protein in meat, poultry, seafood, beans and peas, eggs, dairy, nuts, and seeds. That balanced amount gives you all of protein’s benefits while leaving room in your diet for all the other nutrient-rich foods you need, including healthy fats and complex carbohydrates.

Some diets call for even more protein than that, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re on the wrong track. The weight-loss benefits of protein level off at 30 to 35 percent. There’s simply no benefit to super-high-protein diets, especially because they tend to be very low in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and all the other life-supporting foods that can help us stay healthy.

Excess protein can also put a strain on your kidneys, although that’s usually only a problem for people who have kidney disease or other health problems related to protein metabolism.

Although it’s fine to include some lean beef, pork, and lamb in your diet, you’re better off relying mostly on poultry, fish, dairy, nuts, and legumes to meet the lion’s share of your protein needs.

Various studies have found that people who eat a lot of meat tend to be less healthy than those who eat less meat. For example, in a Harvard study published in 2012 in the
Archives of Internal Medicine
, researchers found that red meat consumption was associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease, cancer, and other causes. The study also showed that substituting other healthy protein sources, such as fish, poultry, nuts, and legumes, was associated with lower risk of potentially fatal diseases.

The study, which followed 120,000 men and women for 28 years, found that one daily serving of unprocessed red meat (about the size of a deck of cards) was associated with a 13 percent increased risk of mortality during the study period, and one daily serving of processed red meat (one hot dog or two slices of bacon) was associated with a 20 percent increased risk.

Other studies have found connections between red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes.

What’s behind all this? According to the researchers, red meat,
especially processed meat, contains ingredients that have been linked to increased risk of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. These include iron (specifically, a type called “heme” iron), saturated fat, sodium, nitrites, and certain carcinogens that are formed during cooking.

But hold on—there may be much more to it than that.

The question of whether red meat is “good” for us has become more complex lately. Yes, studies of past meat intake, like the Harvard study I just mentioned, suggest a strong connection between red meat and disease. But when you think about how the red meat in those studies was raised, you have to wonder. The biggest problem with red meat may not turn out to be how much of it we eat, but what’s in the feeding troughs of the animals we consume.

Traditionally, cows, pigs, sheep, and other farm animals ate grass. During the past few decades, however, livestock feed has been made up primarily of corn. In fact, many cattle are also fed waste products left over from the manufacturing of human food. These can include bakery waste, potato-processing remnant, untreated starch, pasta, and even candy. This type of feed fattens animals up fast because some of this processed feed is high in sugar and low in overall nutrients. I believe animals raised on highly processed feed produce meat that may contribute to some of the food-related chronic diseases plaguing Americans today.

When animals eat food like this, it sure makes sense to me that the people eating meat from these animals have higher rates of disease. I’m telling you not to load up on processed foods, baked goods, white pasta, and candy—so doesn’t it make sense that the animals we eat shouldn’t be consuming these foods either?

Wild meat—meat from game animals that eat natural food rather than processed grains—also seems to be much better for us than conventionally raised meat. Like grass-fed animals, wild animals such as deer, wild boar, and elk eat a huge range of whole, unprocessed foods.

I agree with scientists and food experts who say wild meat and the meat from grass-fed farm animals is much healthier for us than meat from animals raised on processed feed. It makes so much sense to me: unlike an animal that is force-fed unhealthy food, an animal that eats grass in a pasture consumes a huge range of nutrients from an array of greens.

A growing number of studies support grass feeding. For example, a 2011 study published in the
British Journal of Nutrition
found that subjects who ate grass-fed meat for just four weeks increased their blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and decreased their levels of pro-inflammatory fatty acids. We don’t usually think of meat as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, but when animals eat grass, they get more omega-3s in their diet.

And in 2009, researchers from Clemson University and the US Department of Agriculture looked closely at the effect of grass-fed beef on human health. Their study, published in the
Journal of Animal Science
, found that grass-fed beef is far healthier than conventionally raised beef. I don’t ordinarily read studies in animal science journals, but believe me, that one caught my interest. The study found that compared with conventional beef, grass-fed beef is:

Lower in total fat

Higher in beta-carotene (an antioxidant found in vegetables)

Higher in vitamin E

Higher in the B vitamins thiamin and riboflavin

Higher in the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium