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Mistakes of modern nutrition
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Sure there were some changes in dietary patterns. For example, people changed their food when they moved. Later, the invention of refrigeration, food canning, modern transportation, etc made certain perishable foods more widely available.
But basically, people ate what was available and what was practical. And they had no, or at most a few, health problems.
With modern nutrition, intellectual ideas came into the picture. This spawned a range of modern -- often contradictory -- theories about what constitutes a "healthy diet".
Some of these modern diets were discussed in a 1994 issue of The Good Life, which had the theme, Strange foods.
We start with a closer look at modern nutrition which, in spite of it being "scientific" and well-researched, has actually caused most of today's dietary ills.
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Modern nutrition seems so right. It is “scientific”; it helps us understand how food affects our health. So what could possibly be wrong with it?
Plenty...
You would have sensed something amiss if you read a report in the Straits Times during the “Healthy Lifestyle” campaign in September (2004). The report quoted a leading nutritionist who said it was okay to eat fast-food hamburgers.
There is no such things as "junk" food, she said, no such thing as healthy and unhealthy food.
Isn’t there?
Healthy food is food that, if eaten regularly, will lead to an improvement in health. “Junk” food is food that, if eaten regularly, will lead to a deterioration of health.
That’s world of a difference. Yet the Health Ministry’s top nutritionist cannot appreciate it. Something is seriously wrong.
The trouble with modern nutrition is that it does not look at food as a whole. Instead, it looks at what a food contains -- how much protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins, etc.
This is okay. What a food contains might indicate what effects it will produce. But we run into serious problems here. Because all food contain at least something useful.
A hamburger contains protein. And yes, protein is a nutrient which the body needs. It also contains some carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc. These are all “nutrients”.
So from the viewpoint of modern nutrition, a hamburger is "nutritious". The fact that eating it regularly will make you sick seems beside the point.
(Click here to read a commentary on Morgan Spurlock's documentary, Upsize Me, about what happened when he spent 30 days eating at McDonalds.)
This very narrow view of food has led to serious nutritional errors:
Fibre:
Technically, fibre is not a nutrient since it is not absorbed by the body. And for more than 150 years, nutritionist keep insisting that fibre was “useless”. Until as recently as the early 1980s, scientists were till arguing that the benefits of fibre have not been conclusively proven.
Today, everybody knows about the importance of fibre. If not for modern nutrition, we would have known it all along.
Protein:
The study of nutrition began in 1840 with the discovery of protein (along with carbohydrates or sugars, and fats) by Justus Liebig.
Since human flesh is mainly protein, and since meat is rich in protein, meat was recommend as the most superior food. And so people began to eat meat regularly. Lots of it.
Today, nutritionist are discovering that a high-meat diet is linked to many degenerative diseases, including heart disease, gout, arthritis, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis and most cancers. It may take many years before there is conclusive scientific proof about the harm of a high-meat diet.
Meanwhile, nutritionist are in directly still encouraging parents to feed their children lots of meat, by describing meat as “grow foods”.
Lean meat, skim milk and egg whites:
Concern over fat and cholesterol has led nutritionist to recommend lean meat. They recommend that we: Trim the fat from red meat, eat chicken without the skin, drink skim milk instead of full-cream, and eat egg whites only…
This is actually an even bigger mistake.
First, lean meat is not all that lean. It still has about 30 percent fat -- and that’s the maximum level of fat recommended.
Second, lean meat has more cholesterol. In fact, cholesterol is found only in lean part of meat, not in the fatty portion.
Third, lean meat has relatively more protein. It’s the same with skim milk and egg whites. If you eat a lot of these foods, you increase the risks developing diseases associated with a high protein diet, including cancer.
Worst of all, people delude themselves thinking it is healthy to eat all the meat, milk and eggs as they want, so long as it is lean, skimmed and minus the yolk.
2008 update: And now, a small but growing group of scientists are questioning if saturated fat and cholesterol are indeed harmful. They argue instead that both are actually essential and good for health. Click below to read more at my related website, www.stop-trans-fat.com on:
Vegetable oils:
Modern nutrition tells us that vegetable oils are good. But the types commonly available and recommend are not.
Margarine is many times more harmful than butter. While butter is believed by nutritionists to increase the risks of a heart attack, margarine raises the risk of cancer.
2008 update: The harm of butter is now being challenged while the harm of margarine has now been established with new understanding about the effects of unnatural trans fats.
Click here my articles:
Commercial vegetable oils are also harmful because of the way they are manufactured, using high heat and chemicals. Good quality vegetable oils are unrefined and extracted by natural, cold-pressed methods.
2008 update: And now there is growing awareness about the importance of omega-3 oils and also about the importance of a good balance between omega-3 and omega-6. Vegetable oils provide far too much omega 6! So even cold-pressed vegetable oils may not be as healthy as they were originally believed to be.
Calories:
Excess calories lead to overweight and other problems. So modern nutrition recommends low-calorie foods like artificial sweeteners and, the latest, artificial fat.
Nutritionists don’t seem too concerned that such foods may cause serious health problems. They are more with numbers -- how many calories, how much vitamins, etc.
Vitamins:
Because numbers matter more than quality, you can create health food out of junk. And justify it with modern nutrition.
Here’s how: Take a useless, harmful food like white sugar. Add artificial colours, artificial flavours and other harmful ingredients. Add artificial vitamins.
Study the ingredients of some so-called health foods and drinks. You will be amazed at what they really contain -- lots of junk along with lots of “nutrition”.
Calcium:
From the modern nutrition point of view, even ice-cream is “healthy” since it is rich in calcium.
This is ridiculous. Nutritionist encourages us to take plenty of milk and other dairy foods, like cheese, yoghurt and yes, ice cream.
It is dangerous. Countries with the highest dairy intake have the highest rates of breast cancer and other female cancers. Dairy foods are also a leading cause of allergies, including eczema, asthma and food sensitivities. People with these problems often experience immediate relief when experience stop milk products.
According to modern nutrition, milk is supposed to prevent osteoporosis. But it doesn’t. Milk supplies calcium. But the protein in milk makes the body lose calcium as well. Protein makes the body acidic, so it dissolves calcium to neutralize the acid.
Strange species
Countries with the highest in take of calcium-Greenland, the US and Scandinavian countries-have the highest rates of osteoporosis. In rural Asia and Africa, people take very little calcium and don’t suffer much from osteoporosis.
Click here to read more about The Harm of milk.
Osteoporosis is due to calcium loss. Taking more calcium is like if you keep losing money, you work harder to earn more. It helps. But it is not the solution.
The real answer is to stop the calcium loss. How? By cutting back on sugar, meat and other foods that make the body acidic.
Humans are the only species of animals that drink milk after they have fully grown up. We are also the only one species that drink the milk of another animal. This is strange habit indeed!
It’s called modern nutrition.
Click below to read about the potential problems associated with:
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