Super Immunity (17 page)

All of the above acceptable carbs are rendered unacceptable with excessive processing. In addition, you want to avoid the following:

Sweeteners, sugar, honey, maple syrup

White flour

White rice

Whole-grain pastry flour

Packaged cold cereals

Commercial fruit juices and even fruit-juice-sweetened beverages

Remember, high-glycemic, nutrient-sparse processed foods are not just fattening; they also suppress the immune system and increase the risk of cancer.
³
Most of us are unaware that croissants, white bread, bagels, pasta, cakes, cupcakes, pancakes, and most other “white” foods have been linked to many different types of cancer.

A good rule is to avoid anything that is “white,”
such as sugar, white flour, white pasta, white
potato, or white rice. Remember this rhyme: “The
whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead.”

You shouldn't consider only the quality of your carbohydrate choices, of course, but the quality of your fat and protein choices as well. Though “carbs” is a popular buzzword these days, you want to consider what other beneficial nutrients come along for the ride in any food's natural package. It is the quality of the fat, the quality of the protein, and the quality of the carbohydrate you eat—in combination—that influences your health. Ask yourself, Is the food I am about to eat a whole, natural plant source of calories? Is it packaged with fiber, antioxidants, and phytochemicals? Does it contain not just discovered nutrients, but plenty of undiscovered nutrients too?

You will generally know the answers to these questions based on the degree of processing. Most of those fragile but beneficial nutrients are lost in foods that are heavily processed or prepared. These are the important issues to consider—far more important than whether a food is high or low in carbs, or high or low in fat or protein.

If you were to ask a hundred people which of the three macronutrients is the least necessary—indeed, the most harmful—chances are every one of them would name fat. And yet, as was noted in the introduction to this chapter, too
little
fat is a bad thing.

For many, an undue emphasis on extremely low-fat diets has resulted in health difficulties, and individuals following such recommendations have not thrived on a vegan or a flexitarian diet. Most often these individuals never realize what the problem is. They often go back to eating large amounts of animal products without discovering that some of the issues they experienced were due to fat deficiency on their low-fat diet.

Some of the health issues related to fat deficiency are dry skin, thinning hair, muscle cramps, poor sleep, high triglycerides, and poor exercise tolerance. For most fat-deficient individuals, eating more healthy fats, taking supplemental docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)—the long-chain omega-3 fat primarily responsible for the benefits of fish oil—and eating fewer processed foods and starchy carbohydrates clears up the problem. Some people simply require more essential fatty acids, period—both omega-6 and omega-3.

Insufficient fat in the diet can also compromise the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and healthful phytochemicals. Seeds and nuts are the best high-fat foods. When you eat seeds and nuts with your meals, the fatty acids supplied increase the absorption of immune system–supporting micronutrients and phytochemicals significantly. For example, when you eat a nut-or seed-based dressing on a salad, you absorb much more of the carotenoids in the raw vegetables. More than ten times as much of certain nutrients is absorbed.

A study detecting blood levels of alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, and lycopene found negligible levels after ingestion of the salads with fat-free salad dressing, and high levels after the same foods were eaten with fatty dressings.
⁴

As noted earlier, evidence has accumulated that a diet as low as 10 percent of calories from fat is too low—even for the overweight, diabetic, or heart disease patient. Judicious use of higher-fat foods is beneficial for not just heart disease, but weight loss and diabetes too. The scientific literature corroborates my clinical experience over the last fifteen years caring for thousands of patients with obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, and provides evidence to show that for every calorie removed from the diet from rice, potato, bread, or animal products and substituted with raw seeds and nuts, you get many health benefits, such as the following:
⁵

•  Lower blood sugar

•  Lower cholesterol

•  A better LDL/HDL cholesterol ratio

•  Lower triglycerides

•  Better antioxidant status

•  Better absorption of phytochemicals from vegetables

•  Better diabetic control

•  Lower weight, not weight gain

•  More effective reversal of heart disease

•  Prevention of cardiac arrhythmias (in heart patients)

•  Better nutritional diversity and satisfaction with fewer calories

•  Increased protection against cancer

•  Better muscle and bone mass with aging

Raw nuts and seeds are packed with nutrients, as we saw in an earlier chapter. They contain lignans, bioflavonoids, minerals, and other antioxidants that protect the fragile freshness of the fats therein; and they contain plant proteins and plant sterols that naturally lower cholesterol. They also contain powerful ellagitannins (ETs). These dietary polyphenols with potent antioxidant and other cancer-preventive properties are found in berries, nuts, and seeds; they are best absorbed from walnuts.
⁶

Nuts, seeds, and avocados are high-fat foods, yet evidence from many different studies shows a wide variety of health benefits from eating these foods.
⁷
It is important to emphasize that the health problems associated with a high-fat diet come from consuming animal fats, processed oils, and trans fats, not from the consumption of raw nuts and seeds. There has never been a study that showed any negative health outcome from consuming these natural, high-fat, whole plant foods. In fact, the studies all show positive health benefits and conclude that these foods should be an important part of a well-rounded diet.

Nuts and seeds average about 175 calories an ounce, and one or two ounces a day would consist of 15 to 30 percent of a daily caloric intake from the fat range. As an added benefit, the addition of seeds and nuts increases the plant protein in your diet. In other words, as you eat less animal protein and instead substitute more plant protein from nuts, seeds, beans, and greens, your nutrient levels skyrocket and your health improves.

The protective effect of nut consumption on heart disease is not offset by increased mortality from other causes. In other words, in all populations, sexes, and ages, as nut consumption increases, death from all causes decreases and overall lifespan increases as well.
⁸
Please note, though, that these powerful health benefits are
not
achieved when oils, rather than whole nuts and seeds, are substituted as a caloric source.

No oil should be considered a health food. All oil, including nut and olive oil, is 100 percent fat and contains 120 calories per tablespoon. Oil is high in calories, low in nutrients, and contains no fiber. Throw a few tablespoons of oil on your salad or vegetable dish and you've added hundreds of wasted calories. Simply put, it is the perfect food to help you put on unwanted and unhealthful pounds.

When you consume oil (
any
type of oil), there are no fat-binding fibers remaining from the original oil source. That means all the calories are absorbed rapidly and stored away as body fat within minutes. When you eat whole seeds and nuts, on the other hand, the fat is bound to sterols and stanols and other plant fibers. This binding of the fats in the digestive tract limits their absorption and actually attracts some of the negative fats circulating in the blood and draws them into the digestive tract for excretion in the stool. Put another way, the fats eaten intact in seeds and nuts are not all “biologically available.” As a result, significant calories do not get absorbed, and therefore the seeds and nuts are not as fattening as the same amount of calories from oil would be; in addition, they contain numerous protective nutrients that are not in the oil.

Think about it: oil is a
processed
food. When you chemically extract oil from a whole food (such as olives, nuts, or seeds), you leave behind—lose!—the vast majority of micronutrients and end up with a fragmented food that contains little more than empty calories. When you consume whole foods such as walnuts, sesame seeds, and flax seeds instead of their extracted oils, you get all of the fibers, flavonoids, and nutrients they contain, as well as all of their positive health benefits.

It's true that foods rich in monounsaturated fats like olive oil are less harmful than foods full of saturated fats and trans fats. But being less harmful does not make them “healthful.” The beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet are not due to the consumption of olive oil; they are due to antioxidant-rich foods, including vegetables, fruits, and beans. Eating a lot of any kind of oil means you're eating a lot of empty calories, which leads to excess weight and can also lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and many forms of cancer.

You can add a little bit of olive oil to your diet if you are thin and exercise a lot. However, the more oil you add, the more you are lowering the nutrient-per-calorie density of your diet—and that is
not
your objective, as it does not promote health.

Epidemiologic studies on nuts indicate an inverse association between frequency of consumption and weight, contrary to the situation with oil consumption. Although seeds and nuts are not low in calories and indeed are relatively high in fat, their consumption may actually suppress appetite and help people get rid of diabetes and lose weight.
⁹
In other words, people who consume more nuts and seeds are likely to be slim, and people consuming less of such foods are more likely to be heavier.

In well-controlled trials that looked to see if eating nuts and seeds resulted in weight gain, the results showed the opposite; eating raw nuts and seeds promoted weight
loss,
not weight
gain
. Several studies also have shown that eating a small amount of nuts or seeds helps dieters feel satiated, stay with the program, and have more success at long-term weight loss.
¹⁰

Should we all sit in front of our TV, eat an entire bag of nuts in an hour, and complain when we gain weight? Of course not! Healthy eaters avoid excess calories and do not eat for recreation. Eat only an ounce of nuts a day if you are significantly overweight; but if you are thin, physically active, pregnant, or nursing, eat 2 to 4 ounces (according to your caloric needs).

Remember that when you eat these high-fat foods with your meals, they facilitate the absorption of beneficial phytochemicals from other foods. Save them to eat with your vegetable meals, and especially in salad dressings. Also, it is best to eat nuts and seeds raw or only lightly toasted. When you
roast
nuts and seeds, you form carcinogenic acrylamides as the food is browned, and you decrease the protein and create more ash from the roasting process. The more nuts and seeds are cooked, the more amino acids are destroyed. You also lower levels of calcium, iron, selenium, and other minerals in the roasting process.

Our entire society is on a protein binge, brainwashed with poor information. We need to separate fact from fiction so that we can determine which protein sources our bodies benefit from most.

The nutrition-related educational materials used in most schools have been provided “gratis” by the meat, dairy, and egg industries for over seventy years. Those industries have successfully lobbied and influenced the government, resulting in favorable laws and subsidies—and resulting in advertising propaganda being fed to every child. They have been selling the mistaken idea that we need meat, dairy, and eggs in order to be properly nourished. We have thus been programmed with incorrect and dangerous information.