Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Heath and Our Food (30 page)

In making this blanket condemnation, we hear protests in the background. What about whole grains? What about oats, which the manufacturers sell as lowering cholesterol? The reality is that marketing forces have distorted the true perspective. Whole grains may contain useful nutrients, such as wheat germ, but they are just as glycemic, the bran contains even more antinutrients and antigens, and their content of harsh insoluble fiber is not what the intestines need.

Oats, of all the grains, contain rather more soluble fiber than average, a quality that manufacturers promote as cholesterol-reducing and therefore heart healthy. This, nevertheless, is not a valid argument: they are still glycemic, contain antinutrients and antigens, and are deficient in micronutrients. Oats are no alternative to proper plant food like lettuce and avocado.

The human diet is far better off without any cereals and their products. However, not all grains have all the same drawbacks and the way they are prepared modifies, for better or for worse, these drawbacks. The criteria used to categorize the Grains Group are: their effect on blood sugar surges, their antinutrient content, their gluten content, and their allergen content. They are all classified as “Red” in some degree. The purist will not have them in the house.

Starchy Plant Foods

Starchy plant foods are high glycemic (they cause unhealthy blood sugar surges), and for this reason alone you should avoid them. In addition, the most important of these foods in the Western diet, potatoes, are exceptionally bad for you: they are not only highly glycemic, they are highly insulinemic and also contain “background” poisons. Other starchy plants are parsnip and rutabaga, and these are best left out of the diet too.

There are some vegetables that are sugary, notably carrots and beets (beetroot). For this reason, they were included with the starchy vegetables. The glycemic index of carrots can vary considerably, but if they are raw and mature, they have only a modest impact on blood sugar levels. This is where we deploy the concept of glycemic load. Carrots have a low calorie density, so you have to eat quite a lot before triggering a glycemic reaction. Therefore, because we want to take in their good micronutrients and fibers, we allow the carrot a small place in our diet. Be wary, though, of carrot juice: it is more glycemic and, because it is possible to quaff down a tumblerful in one go, it is easy to overdose with carrot sugar. Beets are quite glycemic, but since they are rich in certain antioxidants, they just creep into the “Amber” category.

Non-Starchy Plant Foods

With this group, we finally come in contact with foods that are in conformity with the Savanna Model. Ideally, we would eat these raw. However, if you choose to cook, always employ the gentlest cooking methods.

Since we are recommending that you consume an abundance of conforming non-starchy, colored plant foods, what plant foods are “conforming”? They are foods that are low glycemic, rich in micronutrients and fiber, and harmless with regard to antinutrients and antigens. Broadly, they include most salad foods, such as lettuce, onions, cucumber, radish, and mushrooms, and they also include colored vegetables, such as broccoli, green beans, bell peppers (sweet peppers), and Brussels sprouts. These are considered “Green-Green,” “Green,” and “Green-Amber.” Under “Green-Green”, we have separated out the vegetables that have the high concentrations of background micronutrients that our ancient ancestors delighted in. You can have unlimited consumption of these foods, and the ideal is up to 2 pounds (900 g) per day.

Note that we include “baby” sweet corn as a good salad vegetable. Unlike its mature form, the grains in baby corn have not yet formed and it is neither starchy nor glycemic. Tomatoes, because of their mild background antinutrients, only receive qualified approval in the “Green-Amber” category. Chili pepper and curry powder (particularly the “hot” variety) are to be used sparingly if ever at all; they damage the colon and make it leaky. Sauerkraut and other pickles receive a poor rating because of their high salt content. Ketchup has several possible ratings. The best is our own Savanna Model recipe (see our companion cookbook). If not, speciality ketchups are commercially available which use “safer” ingredients: tomatoes, canola oil, and fructose.

We also include a meat substitute made from fungus known as “mycoprotein.” The manufacturer, Quorn, makes it available either in the raw state as a kind of ground meat look-alike or made up into veggie burgers, frankfurters, and so on. Mycoprotein is by far the best meat substitute when compared to soy protein or gluten protein. It is a high-protein vegetable product, so it should be consumed in restricted quantities, just like other high-protein products.

Fruits

Fruits today have quite different nutritional characteristics to those of our ancestors of the African Pleistocene era. The most troubling difference lies in the sugar content: it is often high and it is often glycemic. Even if they are not glycemic, the fructose content can be at worrisome levels. Some sugars, like fructose, do not raise blood sugar levels, but in large quantities upset other aspects of our biochemistry. In other respects, fruits are generally a rich source of valuable micronutrients, so we need to prioritize which fruits to focus on.