The Myths of Healthy Eating Part IScott KustesIntroduction

If you pay attention to the news, you see a new study that reports some life-saving cure from a diet low infat, or low in carbohydrates, or high in soy, or devoid of animal products pretty much weekly. It’s nowonder that there is so much confusion about what constitutes healthy nutrition. We have the Ornish andPritikin camps proclaiming that eating as little fat as possible is the best way to live a long, heart disease-free life, while the Atkins camp proclaims that carbohydrates lead to the many ills of society, such asdiabetes, heart disease, and many forms of cancer, and that you can eat protein and fat to your heart’scontent.Today’s nutrition information is full of misinformation. The major news outlets stick to the politicallycorrect agenda of not bashing the USDA Food Guide Pyramid

, which means that if a low-carb regimenwere the correct way to eat, you’ll probably never see the studies proving it. Or at the very least, it will befollowed the next week by a story about the problems with low-carb eating and why you should avoid it.This will be followed by the “health benefits” of the magic soybean, a review of the “ills” of eating toomuch saturated fat, and a reminder to watch your cholesterol. You’d think our talking heads were abunch of parrots, just repeating what they are told to repeat by the corporations funding the studies.In the 1950’s, Ancel Keys presented his lipid-cholesterol hypothesis, showing that fat and cholesterolproduced lipid buildup in the arteries of certain animals and were contributors to heart disease in humans.Of course, Mr. Keys handpicked six countries to support his hypothesis, conveniently discarding theavailable data from the other sixteen countries, which when plotted, showed his hypothesis to be bunk,but you’ll never hear that from anyone with a product to sell. Since then, we’ve been bombarded with thislow-fat, low-cholesterol dogma to the point that any diet that doesn’t follow these recommendations islabeled a “fad”.Some of the many myths that are so prevalent today are that grains should be a large portion of our diet,soy is a great protein alternative, red meat causes colon cancer, saturated fat should be avoided at allcosts, vegetarians live longer, and low carb diets are unhealthy. Let’s explore in detail some of the manymyths surrounding proper nutrition.

We Should Eat a Diet Based on Grains

The new Food Guide Pyramid, while an improvement over the previous Pyramid, is still a grain-baseddiet. Unfortunately, it seems that grains have been the biggest purveyors of the diseases of Westernsociety, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Of course, no single factor can be solelyindicted in all of today’s ills, but grains are one factor that can be easily removed.Let’s start with a primer (Creationists, close your eyes). The human line diverged from the chimpanzeelineage between 2 million and 6 million years ago as the Australopithecine line. Over the next 2 millionyears, these large primates evolved into modern day

homo sapiens

via

Australopithecus Africanus

homo habilis

, and

homo erectus

, to name a few of our ancestors. The diet of these apes and proto-humansconsisted of insects, animal meat (specifically the organs and fatty portions), and gathered nuts, fruits,and the flowering portions of edible plants.If you notice, grains are notably absent from this list. That is because until the advent of agricultureapproximately 10,000 years ago, grains were not available in any quantity. Grains require a great deal ofgrinding and handling to remove the antinutrients and render the nutrientsdigestible. Given that thereweren’t great fields of wheat, it would’ve been unlikely for a human tribe to come across enough grains tobe worth their while. Further, fruits and vegetables weren’t available year-round as mankind did not havea global distribution network that can get Hawaiian pineapples to Wisconsin. Therefore, the diet wouldhave been moderate to high carb during the fruiting seasons and low to no carb during the fall and winter,but more on that later.

The ability to grow and process large quantities of grains led humans to settle into villages. Did this leadto wondrous things for the human race? Obviously civilization enabled humans to develop careers,leading to the inventions that made life easier and to the wonders of our modern world such as flight, theInternet, and space travel. However, what was the cost? Of note, the coming of grains brought about adecrease in height, vitamin deficiencies, and noticeable deterioration of bones. The lack of vitamin B andprevalence of phytic acid, which binds to essential minerals, in grains led to rickets, pellagra, beriberi,allergies, and themany diseases of civilization.

The coming of grains also brought about increasedincidence of tooth decay. While it may seem out of sorts to solely blame agriculture for these ills, therewas no evidence of obesity or cancer prior to humans settling down to a lifestyle rife with year-roundcarbohydrates, namely grains.The way that grains are eaten today bears little resemblance to the traditional methods of preparationfollowed for centuries after the coming of agriculture. The aisles of grocery stores today are full of quick-rise breads, cereals, and other whole grains. While we have more knowledge today, it seems that weknow less. Our ancestors understood that to reap the benefits of a grain, it had to be soaked orfermented to neutralize the antinutrients and enzyme inhibitors. By fermenting the grains prior to turningthem into sour-dough breads and porridge, the available vitamin content was increased due to decreasedanti-nutrient activity.

Plain and simple, there is nothing in a grain that can’t be found in fruits and vegetables. Fruits andvegetables contain much more nutrition with much less drawback. Many plants have some level ofantinutrients as a defense mechanism, but grains, along with soy (we’ll get there in a second), are prettymuch the worst. Worse, the way that we eat most of our grains doesn’t neutralize the antinutrients andleaves the phytic acid in tact. The high heat and extrusion processing damage the fatty acid and proteincontent of the grains and fractionates the bran, kernel, and germ so they can be used separately ratherthan as the whole unit they should be consumed as.Because the main caloric components of grains are starches, they cause a huge increase in blood sugar,which is made worse by processing. The crust of pizza, while tasty, actually causes a greater insulinresponse than pure sugar (seeIssue 14 of the Performance Menufor some in-depth reading). A highlevel of circulating insulin is a major contributor to inflammation and pushes the body towards Type IIDiabetes.

It’s not ironic that fat intake has decreased in the American diet while obesity and diabetes arebecoming more prevalent.Grains cause a degree of low-level inflammation and gut irritation in nearly everyone and are a key playerin leaky gut syndrome.

Leaky gut syndrome occurs when the digestive tract begins letting large foodparticles through its lining into the bloodstream. As these food particles are seen by the body as foreigninvaders, antibodies are created. Unfortunately, the human body is made of protein and fatty acids andmany of these invaders resemble our own tissues. As the body begins attacking the invaders, itinevitably attacks some of its own tissues that are similar to the invaders, resulting in autoimmunedisorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig state that, “Oat bran,which is high in phytic acid, as well as related bran products can cause numerous problems with digestionand assimilation, leading to mineral deficiencies, irritable bowel syndrome and autoimmune difficultiessuch as Crohn's disease. Case control studies indicate that consumption of cereal fiber can be linked with

detrimental

effects on colon cancer formation.”

7,8

Again, all evidence points to the detrimental nature of grains rather than to their preventative measures inhealth. Grains have caused numerous nutritional issues since the beginning of agriculture from a generaldecrease in height amongst grain-eating populations to nutritional deficiencies such as beriberi andpellagra. Grains contain numerous antinutrients intended to stop animals form consuming them

, butunfortunately, humans have the intellectual ability to create evidence even when the body is screamingotherwise. While they can be made more nutritious through fermenting, they are still not as nutritious asanimal protein and fat, nor fruits, vegetables, and nuts. The bottom line is that grains are not a necessarycomponent of a healthy diet and any diet will be healthier without them.

Soy As A Protein Substitute

If you listen to the mainstream media, you’d think that soy was manna from Heaven. The lowly soybeanis touted as the cure for everything from heart disease to the symptoms of menopause.

Unfortunately,this amazing food that we are supposed to use to supplement our protein intake is far worse than anygrain could ever hope to be in terms of health.In fact, for most of soy’s existence, it has been used as a fertilizer of sorts. Soy fixes nitrogen into thesoil, so it was used as a rotational crop to improve soil for the real edible foods. There is no evidence ofsoy consumption until about 2500 years ago during the Zhou Dynasty. Once the Chinese learned toproperly ferment the soybean to neutralize the numerous antinutrients, they began consuming smallquantities of soy sauce and miso. However, the claim that soy is a staple of Asian diets is simplyincorrect. In fact, theChinese only eat an average of 8g for men and 6.9g for women. This amounts toless than 2

teaspoons

of soy per day for men. That’s hardly the huge intake soy proponents would haveus believe. Beyond that, Asians do not consume soy as a replacement for real protein from fish andmeat. Instead they use soy products as condiments and flavorings with their meals, eating them withtheir fish, broths, and fermented vegetables, rather than in isolation. And you’ll never see a non-Westernized Asian eating a “soy burger”, drinking “soy milk”, or having a snack of “soy chips”.What about the claims that Asians consuming a diet high in soy have correspondingly low rates of heartdisease and certain cancers? Well, if one is to believe that bit of marketing hype, they must also realizethat the people touting soy’s cancer prevention properties are intentionally dismissing the high levels ofthyroid cancer in these same countries. Logic dictates that if one wants to take credit for highly unprovenbenefits, one must also take credit for the drawbacks, most of which are well established in their soy ties.For instance, cretinism

is “common in impoverished rural areas of China where poverty forces people toconsume larger-than-normal amounts of soy, while thyroid disease is common in Japan, where soyconsumption is the highest in the world.”

The links between soy, cretinism, and thyroid disease arequite strong considering that soy’s goitrogenic effects on the thyroid are well documented.

As for the soy that Chinese and Japanese do consume, they are fermented products. The soy foods thatmost Americans are consuming are not fermented products. Foods such as tofu and bean curd areprecipitated products, requiring high temperature processing, chemical alkaline baths, and acid washes.Further, aluminum vats are used due to cost and heat conductivity. This causes some aluminum to leachinto the soy

and the alkaline baths to neutralize the plant’s natural toxins creates lysinoalanine, acarcinogen. The high heat and pressure denatures the protein and destroys the fragile fatty acids andcreates nitrates, which form nitrosamines in the body. Indications point to nitrosamines beingcarcinogens

. Cured meats, such as deli meats and bacon, and beer also contain some level of nitrates.Then monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is usually added to these “delicious and healthy” soy products tocover the unpalatable beany flavor. MSG is a known neurotoxin and has been shown to cause retinaldamage, learning disorders, and obesity, among other issues.

If that last paragraph didn’t turn you off on soy, I’ll continue. The antinutrients in soy includephytoestrogens, phytates, protease(or trypsin) inhibitors, goitrogens, and hemagglutinins.

17,18

Phytoestrogens, the plant estrogens proclaimed to be the great dietary cure-all, mimic mammalianestrogens. This is extremely unfortunate for males who can undergo emasculation, suffering fromreduced fertility or infertility.

Phytates are compounds that are quite adept at chelation, binding certainmetals and reducing their availability to the body. Calcium, copper, iron, zinc, and magnesium are someof the metals that soy’s phytates bind. Protease inhibitors block the formation of enzymes necessary forprotein digestion. Goitrogens have inhibitory effects on the thyroid gland and can cause goiter andhypothyroidism.

Hemagglutinins promote blood clotting, increasing the odds of a heart attack or stroke,and retard growth. Finally, soy increases the body’s need for vitamin B12 due to B12 analogs that are notusable by the body, but which can occupy B12 receptor sites.One of the biggest issues with soy is the readiness with which it is fed to babies in the form of infantformula. We have to consider that a baby’s hormonal system is far more delicate than that of an adult.Infancy sets the stage for the health of the life that will follow. According to The Weston A. PriceFoundation, “The amount of phytoestrogens that are in a day’s worth of soy infant formula equals 5 birth