The Book of Values

Vegan, Schmegan!

When it comes to fresh whole food, calling oneself a "vegan" or "vegetarian" is besides the point. It's about an attitude, a mindset, a lifestyle. If one is committed to good health, one endeavors to study as much as possible about the elements of good health, and not blindly accept what the mainstream is dishing out. Whether you wish to follow a ketogenic diet or a whole food diet, learn the foundational principles of each; read books; watch videos; ask questions; immerse yourself in the subject matter.
In my case, I prefer a whole-food, fresh, food as grown way of eating. That means minimally processed food, no ingredients list, nothing in a box or package. I prefer my food to come from the garden or the farm. I prefer my diet to consist of rich stews and salads brimming with colors and spices, herbs and zesty flavors, and the yummy natural tastes that whole foods provide. Of course, I am very fortunate to have been born in a country where processed food was nonexistent in my youth. After-school snacks consisted of a fresh tomato or cucumber sprinkled with some salt!
Being a "vegan" does not mean subsisting on "rabbit food." On the contrary: You can eat delicious, filling, even fattening foods that are deeply satisfying and rich, like potatoes and squash, nuts, lentils, garbanzos, curries and rice.
You can even be a "vegan junkie"!!!!! Yes, you can fill your stomach with jelly beans and call yourself a vegan! You can feast on deep-fried French fries and call yourself a vegan! But whom are you kidding?!
Eat whole food. Fresh food. As grown food.
If it comes in a box, it's NOT food.
If it has an ingredients list, it's NOT food.

Thanksgiving Feast Without Fear

Thanksgiving dinner is traditional in America, and folks typically tend to overdo it. I know, I used to do so, too. It really wasn't the turkey - it was all the goodies around it: the stuffing, the sweet potatoes, the rolls with butter, the pecan pie, and whatever Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Bob brought to the party. 

Then I came to my senses. Whether I was cooking or feasting at someone else's home, a moment's pleasure simply wasn't worth the misery of worrying about my expanded waistline! Because it really didn't stop at "The Meal." Gorging just kept on going through the weekend with leftovers, and through the next week, then looking forward to the office Christmas party, and Christmas dinner at my in-laws', and it all just seemed for naught. 

What's the point? 

I did come to my senses. I discovered that eating well did not mean deprivation; it did not mean "rabbit food"; it did not mean going hungry and white knuckling it while everyone around me stuffed their faces with "goodies." I, too, could have "goodies," if I tweaked them a tad and focused on my health instead of the dopamine I craved. 

I never especially loved turkey. Oh, to be sure, I've had some delicious turkey in my time, but it never held a candle to other things I loved even more. This year, our Thanksgiving was spent hiking in a park. It was officially closed for the holiday, and thus was devoid of people, except for the most ardent nature lovers. We followed a trail deep into the woods, listening to the rustling breeze and song birds in the branches, feeling the soft air on our bodies as the sun-dappled dirt road crunched under our feet. The silence was penetrating and deep. 

Later, we found a Chinese restaurant that was so crowded, we didn't get served! So home we went to forage our fridge. This is what we concocted:

In the foreground is tofu cooked with white navy beans and potatoes, Indian style, with curry, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, garlic, and more; above it to the right are steamed broccoli to be dipped in the peanut butter sauce mixed with oyster sauce and a dash of Tamari; to the right and a bit off the image are steamed asparagus topped with toasted almonds and dried bonito flakes. 

The Skinny on FAT

Insulin and Fat Breakdown - Peter Attia

Here is the SKINNY on FAT

When you eat food, any food, it must be digested. The function of digestion is to break down food into glucose molecules that can be transported to your cells by your blood. One of those processes involves your pancreas producing insulin, a hormone, in response to any carbohydrate ingested. One of the hormones involved in digestion is insulin, produced by the pancreas.

Insulin: That is the job of insulin – to effect the cells’ receptivity to glucose. Insulin is like a key that opens a gate in the cells to allow glucose to get inside to be used as energy. Our cells need energy for everything from breathing to keeping our heart beating, from digging ditches to washing dishes. Food is converted into glucose to be used for quick energy. But our bodies know that we may also need energy later, such as while we are sleeping when no food is available, so any excess glucose is stored in the cells as fat, more specifically, as free fatty acids. This occurs if we eat beyond our needs, say, at holidays. If we consume too much food for our needs, the excess glucose that is not immediately used for energy is stored in our fat cells as free fatty acids to be retrieved later, when food is not available.

The cycle goes something like this: Food enters the body, insulin is pumped by the pancreas, glucose is transported to the cells and out of the bloodstream. Insulin then decreases as it is no longer needed until it is completely gone, and our cells, having been fed and the excess glucose having been stored away in our fat cells, insulin now closes the doors to our cells. During the night, when we are asleep and not eating (fasting), our cells still require glucose to function. When we fast, it is the liver that becomes the source of the glucose, rather than food. The liver releases glucose from its storage area into the bloodstream to keep blood glucose in the normal range. So, insulin is necessary to help transport glucose to cells, and insulin also prevents the liver from dumping glucose into the bloodstream at inopportune times. All these processes help blood glucose levels return to normal after meals.

Another important function of insulin is to store fat. Take any diabetic with a blood sugar of 300. Give him or her a shot of insulin, and the blood sugar goes down to 100. Terrific. But where did those 200 points of blood sugar go? They didn’t simply vanish into thin air.

They got stored in the liver for later use as fat.

Stay with me here. When levels of blood glucose (and insulin) are high, the liver responds by absorbing glucose. It stores it in the form of glycogen. These bundles of glycogen now fill up the liver cells. The liver is like a warehouse for excess glucose. When glucose levels drop, so does insulin production. The shortage of insulin in the bloodstream is the signal the liver needs to start releasing its assets, sending its glucose stores back into the bloodstream to keep the cells well fed between meals and overnight.

If our body needs more energy (or glucose), such as during sleep or during a fast, if there is no food handy, the body turns to our fat cells that release free fatty acids as a source of energy that go into the bloodstream to feed our other cells. Fatty acids do not need insulin to open the cell doors; that’s why they are called “free” fatty acids.

When we consume a meal high in refined carbohydrates, like a doughnut, we get a sugar spike and the natural response is for the pancreas to produce insulin to mop up that sugar. This means that the insulin facilitates the transport of that glucose into our cells and out of the bloodstream. Our cells are fed, and any excess glucose is stored in our fat cells. But here is a wrinkle: The blood sugar level goes down fairly rapidly, but not the insulin itself: it remains high longer than the glucose it is meant to mop up. This creates a problem: As long as there is insulin still floating around in our body, we cannot access the free fatty acids from our fat cells. Remember, free fatty acids do not need insulin to get into the cells for energy; they need insulin to be gone from the bloodstream before they can leave the fat cells. In other words, as long as insulin is still present in the blood, the fat cells retain their free fatty acids, and you are not burning fat as energy.

Insulin Resistance: Refined carbohydrates raise blood sugar quickly and dramatically, while complex carbohydrates raise blood sugar more slowly. It’s blood sugar, regardless. When food enters the body, it must be digested. When the pancreas senses glucose in the blood, it sends out insulin, the hormone responsible for transporting glucose to any of three types of cells: liver cells, muscle cells, or fat cells. Insulin’s job is to act like a key, to open up the cells’ gate to allow glucose to go in. The result is twofold: It gets rid of (mops up) excess glucose in the blood, while simultaneously delivering glucose to your cells where it can be stored as energy. When you are insulin resistant, your cells do not respond to insulin as they’re supposed to: they do not open their gates, and glucose cannot get in. Consequently, glucose accumulates in the bloodstream, and remains high. Your cells are deprived of their energy source, you feel low energy and fatigue, and you now experience cravings for more carbs (sugar) because the sugar that is already present in your body is not allowed entry into your cells. Moreover, the pancreas now redoubles its effort to clean up the excess glucose that has been accumulating by producing even more insulin, and now what you have is hyperinsulinemia (high insulin in the blood) and high blood sugar levels.

Diabetes: Diabetes does not happen overnight. It is a disease that has been incubating and smoldering for years of bad eating habits. At the beginning, you may be one of the one hundred million people in the United States with what is known as metabolic syndrome: a constellation of conditions including high blood sugar, elevated blood pressure, increased waist circumference and abnormal cholesterol or triglycerides levels that put you at increased risk of developing diabetes, stroke and vascular disease. Blood vessels are especially susceptible to damage from sugar, leading to neuropathy, cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney failure, and many other terrible complications.

In the early stages of diabetes, the beta cells in the pancreas work harder and harder to produce more insulin to deal with the excess glucose in the blood. Over time, the pancreas cannot keep up, causing a buildup of glucose and insulin in the blood. You have a condition of high blood sugar and hyperinsulinemia – and your cells are still not being nourished.

Type 2 diabetes is a disease of too much insulin - not too little. The disease manifests as too much sugar in the blood, but that's not the cause of the disease; the reason there is too much sugar in the blood is that the cells are resistant to absorbing the glucose.

This is no surprise: The more exposure to an item, the less impact it has; or the first notes of a siren may be bothersome, but if it continues, after a time it fades into the background. In the case of insulin, we become resistant to its effect because of the continued spikes of refined carbohydrates demanding persistently higher doses of insulin to be produced.

When you eat – especially refined carbohydrates, your blood sugar spikes, and the pancreas produces insulin in response to the spiked blood sugar. Insulin also communicates with the cells and stimulates the glut4 receptors in the cells to come to the surface of the cells to allow glucose to get through the cell wall. The message is we are getting glucose to use for energy now, store it, or use for energy later.

If you consume an overabundance of refined carbohydrates, your blood sugar level spikes rapidly and requires insulin to be produced quickly as well.  The cells get to the point where they resist letting the glucose in. This happens over years. The cells themselves no longer allow the glucose in, and glucose accumulates in the bloodstream, desensitizing the cells to insulin over time.

Treatment with insulin to reduce blood sugar is the opposite of what must be done! When taking exogenous insulin, eventually the pancreas simply shuts down and stops producing it on its own.

The problem with too much insulin in the blood is (1) the cells no longer respond to it (hyperinsulinemia), and (2) that condition triggers the liver to start converting sugar, specifically fructose, into fat.

This process – storing fat when you have too much glucose and burning fat when you do not have enough glucose – is how the body was designed to work.

Acquired Taste

You’ve heard the expression, “It’s an acquired taste,” yet have you ever thought about your own acquired tastes for the wrong foods? Sadly, the overwhelming American diet is the so-called SAD diet - Standard American Diet - consisting of massive amounts of refined flour and sugar, processed food, and frankly, “junk.” It’s unhealthy and the epidemic of obesity and diabetes is blooming out of proportion under our very eyes. In fact, over the past forty to fifty years alone, our rates of obesity have skyrocketed, and with them heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, vascular diseases, and many others.

And the trend does not look like it’s abating.

On the contrary.

More alarming still is how resistant people are to changing their eating habits. Suggest a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and a flurry of objections flares up, such as What about protein, or My husband likes meat, or Milk is good for bones, or My doctor said I should eat a balanced diet, and my nutritionist wrote down that I must eat [blank] pieces of bread every day.

You’ve heard them all before. You may even have used some of these excuses yourself. You may be one of those people who “hates” vegetables, or who thinks French fries is a vegetable. You may be kidding yourself that the sauce on the pizza last night was a vegetable, and did your body good.

No skin off my nose. But the suffering continues. You remain overweight and perhaps sick, loaded with medication by your obliging doctor (hey, he/she went to medical school; therefore, he/she knows, right?).

Look, I get it. It’s easier to stay in place. The status quo is more comfortable. Inertia. You like your sugar in your coffee. Heck, you like your Starbucks in the morning, and ain’t nobody gonna tell ya to stop.

I’m not telling ya to stop.

I’m just suggesting ...

Here goes.

Vegetables are those green and red and purple and orange things that grow out of the ground. They don’t come in boxes. They are perishable. You find them in the periphery of stores. No matter how hard you look, you can’t find an ingredients list on ‘em. You buy them fresh and have to cook them or refrigerate them or eat them right away. That goes for fruit, too. Some of those colorful things are familiar, like lettuce or celery, but some of them are downright strange, like weird types of squashes.

Ah, I can hear objections already: There ain’t no way you’ll get me to eat rabbit food for the rest of my life! or I’ve got no time to cook - I got seven children to take care of! or - and this is a good one - Fruit’s got sugar!!! Hmm. (I love this one!) (You don’t think of sugar when you eat a doughnut, do you? Do you think of sugar when you make mac & cheese?)

Here’s the thing: There is sugar and there is sugar. The sugar in fruit in complex and metabolizes slowly, not affecting blood glucose in the same way as processed food does. The sugar added to processed food has at least 56 different names, almost all chemicals, and raises your blood sugar (glucose) much more rapidly than any natural food you consume. By contrast, a slice of bread, which is made with refined flour and other processed ingredients, metabolizes (turns into) sugar (blood glucose) very rapidly.

Back to those colorful things you find in the periphery of the stores. Begin by buying a few familiar items. Launch into a simple, familiar recipe. Take small steps, such as a sprinkling of salt & pepper, some garlic powder, a drizzle of olive oil and put it under the broiler, then taste. Please don’t object the objections box with But, my nutritionist said to avoid oil!!! Your nutritionist wants you to succeed, and if succeeding means small steps, then so be it!

There is a lovely fable - The Tortoise and the Hare. Guess which one wins in the end?

Dare to surrender!

Bread for Diabetics?

Registered dieticians, certified nutritionists, even doctors specializing in diabetes are all schooled in the same traditions: those promulgated by the ADA, the FDA, the USDA, and the medical establishment as a whole. In fact, medical schools' curricula focus on anatomy, physiology and chemistry, and train their doctors in surgery, but do not include coursework in nutrition. Dieticians and nutritionists do study nutrition, and delve deeply into the chemistry of macro- and micronutrients and how they affect the body, as well as the biology of the human body, but their curricula are supported mostly under the auspices of the various governmental institutions that are charged with monitoring the public's health and make various nutritional recommendations. It is based on those recommendations that dieticians and nutritionists earn their certifications.

Enter diabetes, the current epidemic lifestyle disease rampant in the United States, and indeed, throughout the entire world. Diabetes and obesity have seen a skyrocketing rise over the past 50 years or so, ever since the war on fat was waged through the courtesies of one Ancel Benjamin Keys' "Seven Countries Study" who attempted to show that the healthiest people abstained from fat. The fallacy in his Seven Countries Study was that it was in fact a 22-country study, but he simply, and unscientifically, ignored the evidence obtained from the countries that did not support his own skewed ideas.

But the dye was cast, and the government jumped on the bandwagon, launching a campaign to reduce dietary fat. This was in the early 1970s. Since fat-reduced food was tasteless, manufacturers devised more and more clever ways to enhance the flavor, especially by adding chemicals and SUGAR in all its many (56) forms, especially high-fructose corn syrup, which incidentally came on the market at much the same time, the early 1970s. What a boon to manufacturing!

The supermarket shelves were now brimming with all manner of fat-free this, reduced-fat that, non-fat creams and sauces, and people clamored to buy more, eat more - and get FATTER and SICKER ever since.

Oh, and by the way, on the heels of Dr. Keys' "findings," the government recommended reducing dietary fat from 40% of daily calories to 30% of daily calories - hardly such a dramatic reduction. But as we see so often in any sort of government interference, things get skewed, distorted, misinterpreted, and the results are often disastrous.

Back to diabetes.

In spite of the horrendous and catastrophic rise in diabetes and obesity since the advent of these FDA recommendations, the American Diabetics Association has been endeavoring to make its own recommendations to diabetic patients, no doubt with plenty of participation from doctors, certified nutritionists and dieticians, all of whom get their education from the same place. The current ADA diabetic diet - and recommendations from the doctors, nutritionists and dieticians - is for diabetics to consume from 45g to 75g of carbohydrates PER MEAL. They do not bother to distinguish between refined carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Given the overwhelming lack of nutritional understanding among the public, the problem is massive:

1. How are people going to interpret 45g-75g of carbohydrates per meal if they do not understand what carbohydrates are in the first place?

2. The vast majority of people interpret carbohydrates to mean bread, pasta, or potatoes (or similar). A rare few will understand carbohydrates to include Brussel sprouts or cabbage or squash. So, given the recommendation to have 45g-75g of "carbohydrates" per meal, they will naturally gravitate to bread/pasta/pizza or the like.

3. Tragically, I have seen some sample diets where whole-grain bread is specifically recommended, and unless the patient is extremely interested in reading further, he/she will gobble it up - and expand from there.

Diabetes is an insulin-resistance disease. It is a complex mechanism where the tissue cells are no longer able to efficiently absorb blood glucose, and the pancreas is no longer producing sufficient insulin to mop up the sugar from the food.

This is where things get interesting. Everything we eat is digested and converts to blood glucose (blood sugar), from green pepper to a slice of bread. But the amount of blood sugar that is produced, and the amount of insulin required by these two sample foods vary enormously. The diabetic is already having trouble with his/her insulin, therefore, it is critical that he/she not stimulate insulin production too dramatically. That's why complex carbohydrates, those that metabolize slowly and release blood glucose slowly and steadily are much preferable to those that spike blood glucose, such as bread or doughnuts or pizzas.

Diabetic patients should be instructed in what constitute complex carbohydrates, and how satisfying and deliciously filling they can be, rather than be left with the impression that they are doomed to eating rabbit food for the rest of their lives. More to the point, diabetic patients must be educated on the deleterious risks of continuing to feed their disease with the very foods that got them sick in the first place!

Doctors make money from ongoing visits by sick patients; nutritionists and dieticians prolong the misunderstanding that diabetes is an incurable, lifetime "management" disease. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Diet And Your Brain

Did you know that diet has an effect on your brain?

You may read this and say "Duh" or raise an eyebrow about what I mean.  Here is what I mean ...

Your brain is the engine that runs your life: from your involuntary bodily functions, such as your heartbeat, to moving your muscles and regulating your appetite and your mood, your brain is in charge.  Don't you believe that it needs the very best care?

Enter your diet.  I don't mean your getting-skinny diet.  I mean the way you eat on a regular basis.

Let's take a look at how your diet affects your brain function.

The global epidemic of diabetes is largely a modern-day malady, and our beloved United States is right up there at the top for the country with the worst dietary habits, and up there in incidence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.  What's the connection?

Your diet - what you eat, how much you eat - is the fuel your body uses for life itself.  Your body includes your brain.  In fact, your brain is probably the single most important organ that sustains your life.  Without a functioning brain, your heart would not beat; your lungs would not inflate; your muscles would not move, and your digestion would not proceed as it's supposed to.  Your brain, therefore, is your God.  It is the giver and sustainer of life.

How do you maintain good brain function? By keeping it healthy, by nurturing it.  One of the ways to nurture your brain and keep it healthy is with the fuel you put in your body.  You know the simple analogy of incompatible gas in your car - your car will simply not work as it's supposed to.  Put the wrong gas in, and your car will sputter, stall, emit fumes, or much worse.  So it is with your brain, except your brain is far more important and complicated a mechanism than your car.  If you habitually consume pizza, ice cream, sugared sodas or flavored lattes from Starbucks, you will affect your brain negatively.  Note, I said habitually.  Nothing says you cannot indulge once in a while, even once a week.  If all week long you engage in moderate exercise, say, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and eating healthfully, including lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, then indulge on the weekends, you would not be harming your body/brain.  But if Starbucks and Pizza Hut are your usual daily hangouts, you are behaving in a manner contrary to your best interests.

By far the best diet is the Mediterranean Diet.  Studies upon studies have been conducted with results pointing solidly to the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet.  In fact, a this CNN report even touts the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet in contributing to a "younger" brain! There are just as many reports that speak of possibly reversing or preventing Alzheimer's disease with the Mediterranean Diet.