Nutrition 102: Furthering "Eat Real Food"
In the last post in this series, I said that the one rule you needed to remember is “Eat Real Food.” It’s simple. It’s effective. And it seemed to resonate well with the community. However, it also generated a few questions that need answering. Obviously, while it’s as clear-cut as “eat real food,” determining what is real food isn’t quite so simple.
Some things are really easy to figure out. Let’s look again at our list of attributes of food:
- Food grows and dies. It isn’t created.
- Food rots, wilts, and becomes generally unappetizing, typically rather quickly.
- Food doesn’t need an ingredient label (and probably isn’t in a package either).
- Food doesn’t have celebrity endorsements.
- Food doesn’t make health claims.
Black Listing and White Listing
From that, I think we can make a pretty solid “Black List” and “White List” of foods. Of course, our “Black List” starts with most anything in a package. But there’s a caveat on that rule too as I’ll mention in a second. The first rule eliminates every bit of the garbage that comes loaded with sugar, funky fats, and preservatives. While that’s most everything in a package, it’s also most anything from the bakery section of the grocery – all of those succulent, delicious, sweet-smelling cakes, cookies, and pies. Yeah, news flash: they are metabolic havoc for your body.
What about a “White List”? Vegetables grow and die, rot, wilt, become unappetizing, have no ingredient label, unfortunately get no celebrity endorsements, and the lack of a package means a lack of health claims. So we start off right away with pretty much the entire produce department. Celery, radishes, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, greens, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash…need I tantalize you any further?
And the caveat to the “ingredient list” rule? What about olives, eggs, raw nuts, and other packaged bulk products? Most of them come in a package, like a jar of olives, a dozen eggs, or a 1lb bag of nuts, and because they are in a package, they are required to have a Nutrition Information panel and ingredient list. For these types of items, we need to look at the actual ingredient list. Eggs are just eggs. Nuts are just nuts. Those are obviously given a pass. Similarly, olive oil is just olive oil.
Olives, on the other hand, are usually preserved in some kind of brine, perhaps water and/or vinegar, salt, etc. With the caveat to manage your salt consumption, brining is a preservation technique that has used throughout human existence. I give salt- or vinegar-based preservation a pass.
As you can see, our “Black List” is pretty easily recognizable. I doubt there’s any question amongst readers that Doritos, Chips Ahoy!, Gushers fruit snacks, or Go-Gurt are highly fake products and pretty well break every rule of real food. I also doubt anyone can argue too strongly against vegetables, nuts, olives, and good oils. But what about things that aren’t so cut-and-dry?
The Gray Areas
The gray (or “grey” depending on which version of English you’re speaking) areas are where things get more interesting. Here are a few examples of gray areas:
- Farm-raised Meat, particularly feedlot meat
- Bread and Pasta
- Fermented Foods (sauerkraut, kim chi, kombucha, etc)
- Alcoholic Beverages (beer, wine)
- Fruit
Wait! What? Fruit? At least one commenter noted that today’s fruits are nothing like the fruits our ancestors ate throughout evolution. Today’s fruits have been selectively bred to be super sweet and sugary. Paleoman ate apples resembling crabapples. We eat Fujis, Granny Smiths, Cameos, and Galas. I don’t think fruit is a necessary component of the diet, but I also don’t think it’s particularly detrimental in moderate quantities. I wouldn’t advise replacing vegetables with fruit, but I do advise replacing grain-based products with fruit (and later replacing some fruit with more vegetables).
Most of these gray areas are pretty easy to clear up. Let’s look at meat. There is no question that humans have “created” the modern cow, whether grass-fed or grain-fed. Chickens and turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts, owing to our desire for lean white meat instead of delicious dark meat, and to grow quickly. But meat itself is a food that the body recognizes. No secret that I’m biased towards meat raised on an evolutionarily-correct diet, like grass-fed beef and lamb and pastured poultry. Eat up on the meat, with the caveat to shore up the omega-3s in your diet with some extra fish oil if eating feedlot meats.
Looking at bread and pasta, it’s pretty easy to discount most any of the standard varieties in the store. Bread really only needs four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. Most store varieties have far more than four ingredients. But as Katie noted in the comments, bread and pasta can be made at home with a bit of effort, which is quite true. And I really can’t argue with a simple product like homemade bread, though I don’t think grains should be included in the diet very often. I don’t think bread and pasta are quite a “Black List” food (assuming we’re talking about brands that don’t have a mile long ingredient list). However, I also can’t give them a pass. They are processed from a food that doesn’t really belong in the human diet. For me, they go pretty low on the “Gray List,” not quite persona non grata status, but definitely not daily inclusions.
Fermented foods are much easier to deal with. Fermentation is a natural process that other animals take advantage of. Left to its own devices, all vegetation goes through various stages of breakdown. As Anna noted in the comments of the last post, inedible is a matter of cultural upbringing. Things that are delicacies in one culture are seven stages beyond edible in a neighboring one. The fact that humans can harness this natural force to preserve and alter foods is a good thing. Besides that, fermented foods are a source of health-promoting probiotics. Fermented foods are a “White List” food for me.
Of course, alcoholic beverages, while fermented, are another story altogether. While alcohol appears to have some benefits in small amounts, it’s also detrimental in large amounts. It damages the liver and brain, decreases testosterone production, and increases estrogen production. While I enjoy a bit of alcohol here and there (and a bit too much at times), alcohol needs to be tempered with moderation. While fermented foods get the green light, these beverages are more of a “Gray List” item, not particularly harmful and possibly beneficial in small amounts, but detrimental if taken to extremes.
What Do We Do With The Lists?
So here are the quite broad categories we ended up with:
White List (The cornerstones of your meals)
- Meat
- Eggs
- All vegetables
- Fermented foods
- Salt/vinegar preserved foods
- Raw nuts
Gray List (with guidelines)
- Fruit (Daily)
- Beer and wine (Less than daily)
- Bread, pasta, and other grain products (Weekly at most)
Black List
- Everything with a cartoon character
- Most everything with a celebrity endorsement
- Anything with man-made fats or processed sugars
- Anything you couldn’t realistically make at home
Guess what you can do with those? Eat prodigiously from the White List, sparingly from the Gray List, and rarely, if ever, from the Black List. That’s real food with limited detriment. The further you are from your weight loss goal, the less you should be straying from the White List.
What are your thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Have I miscategorized something?
About Scott
Scott Kustes loves to cook and loves to eat. He started Real Food University to help you get maximum enjoyment out of the meals that you eat. To find out more about how he has rebelled against the fast food culture and counting calories or carbs, join the Real Food Revolution.
47 Reader Comments
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I always feel torn between two separate issues when I’m trying to decide what food I should eat:
1) the insulin response it will illicit, which after reading the book “Good Calorie, Bad Calorie” I’m convinced is really important in determining health;
and 2) where the food fits into an “evolutionary diet” scheme.
I’ve decided to rank the first issue as more important, so for me, bread, pasta and any grains are definitely out whereas something questionable like cheese, is in.
About grey-area foods, I think of it as some foods having ingredient labels you can’t see. Supermarket meat, for instance, was likely fed grains, fed antibiotics, and irradiated. Farmed salmon contains dye to turn it pink. Are these on any ingredient label? No, so you have to be aware on your own.
I like your inclusion of “anything with a cartoon character” on the no-list. Maybe someday we’ll see Dora the Explorer making a pitch for grass-fed beef and kale. Or Porky Pig on lard (non-hydrogenated, pasture-raised of course). Still creepy, but better than the cereal box.
Food Is Love
Debs
I think you more or less covered it, Scott.
Your list is far more useful than Michael Pollan’s “dumbed-down” slogans for the masses (eat food your grandmother would recognize; eat less, eat mostly plants, etc.) about how to eat (overall, I like to read Michael Pollan, but I question some of his nutrition knowledge and advice).
What about dairy? I love my cheese…
Great post!
I discuss this issue with my patients frequently. I think to stregthen the discussion three of the most hotly debated foods of all time need to be categorized:
1) milk (raw and pasturized)
2) the potato
3) rice
These are tough as they are very natural or “real” foods, yet have definitive drawbacks. I would like to know your stance.
The #1 most hotly debated food of all-time was covered nicely here – the egg.
Now that we have been using raw milk in our home for the past couple years, I have a hard time viewing conventional milk (pasteurized) as anything other than highly processed and pretty far from a real food (but I don’t think that distinction is made by most dairy consumers).
Between pasteurization (denaturing some important protein components), homogenization, adding dry milk solids to make up for lost fat, removing and standardizing fat content (“whole” milk is anything but “whole”) – what passes for milk today is nothing like real, fresh, raw milk that is simply put through a filter, then chilled. Conventionally processed milk won’t even nourish a calf, which says a lot!
Love that video!!!!
Agree.
Less time I spend in a grocery store and the more time I spend talking with farmers, the better my nutrition program and of course, my frame of mind.
It’s hard getting whacked out when you’re walking around the farm, chatting about animals, grass, dirt, etc, along with knowing that you’re helping to support not only another individual, but a very down to earth way of life.
Chow On.
great post,do you consume any carbs like fruit after you workout to replenish your glycogen?
I consume huge amounts of dairy relative to most but my GI tract suffers no ills and it’s been “battle tested” with the “gallon of milk a day + squats” routine of youth.
I like using protein to add good calories when cooking or making milk taste better; buying in bulk takes the “27 ingredient” version and throws it out since I control the ingredients. It has its place.
Best,
Skyler
I am also curious about rice…obviously the less processed the better (granted) but how does that fit in? what about other non-processed grains? Teff for example…and Quinoa?
Does wild rice fit into the bad grasses as well?
Basically, I have eliminated grains from my daily diet, but I would be very interested in knowing what IS healthy to add in.
Also…I do not eat meat other than seafood, while not a paleo diet, I do follow most of your rules. Most of my food is vegetarian, and I adore Seitan. But it is made from wheat gluten, and I do not know how healthy that can be. Any thoughts there?
(assuming you do not have Celiac disease)
Nice Post, Scott
Like others, I wonder where you would rank dairy. I would probably put it on the gray list assuming no intolerance to the stuff of course.
Oh one other thing…
I don’t really have the money to buy grass fed beef/free range poultry or the freezer space to buy from a local farmer. I’m wondering what your take is on the cost/benefits of quality beef and poultry vs. your standard cut of grain fed beef and foster farms chicken.
I know grain fed has a poor omega-6:omega-3 ratio, but I take a fish oil supplement to try and balance it. Besides that, I would think the response of cows to grains would be similar to that of humans. Meaning more inflammation, higher fat content, and less muscle. Biologically speaking, would the aminos I get from grain fed beef be inferior to that of grass fed beef? Is that the main concern? Knowing the true advantage over grain fed meat would be helpful since it’s hard for me to justify paying an extra $3-$5 per pound.
You may have a post on this which I’ll search for in the meantime.
Thanks Scott!
Tom
JDS, I tend towards the way you do as well. Dairy, preferably raw, is better than grains.
For those wondering where dairy falls in my lists, Tom W is right, I’d put it on the Gray List, certainly above grains and alcoholic beverages, though below fruit. More justification for that here.
primalman, I just covered milk. The potato…gray list down with grain products (rice is a grain as well, so stick it in there). It’s technically a vegetable, but it’s pretty low in vitamins and quite the insulin spiker compared to other vegetables. As you can see, I’m loathe to classify most any unprocessed food as a Black List item. I reserve the “Don’t touch this with a 10-foot pole” List for the items that are just plain out unlike anything you could find in nature. The body can at least understand and breakdown a potato, milk, and rice, wheat, etc. Whether those items are optimal is different than whether they are at least somewhat usable.
Bill, sometimes after a glycogen-intensive workout, I’ll have an apple or some berries or pineapple or something, but it’s twice a week at most. I figure I will replenish glycogen by my next intense workout since they don’t fall on back-to-back days.
Marissa, I don’t think wheat gluten is something that anyone should be deliberately consuming. It’s known to be a gut irritant, even for those of us that aren’t celiac. As for those other grains and pseudo-grains (like quinoa), I wouldn’t make them staples, though occasional use isn’t going to kill you. Yes, it’s a broad categorization, but I’m throwing them all in together. The refined and processed grains all hit the really bad list. I’d take a non-grain like quinoa over wheat. Rice over wheat as well. I really think gluten is something to be avoided as much as possible.
Tom W, that’s a brain-buster. I don’t know that there’s any hard data on the aminos actually being of lower quality in grain-fed meat. A grain-fed cut of, say, 8 oz will have less protein than a grass-fed identical cut just because there is more fat in the grain-fed cut. The main concern is that the fatty acid profile is pretty skewed in grain-fed meat. It’s far more saturated than beef is on grass (don’t take that as a fear of saturated fat) with a drastically off-kilter omega6:omega3 ratio and a lack of the Conjugated Linoleic Acid that is in grass-fed meat.
But you have to temper a desire for perfection with reality. If you can’t afford grass-fed/pastured meats, you have to do the best you can, which means shoring up with the omega-3s. I’d also go for leaner cuts when looking at feedlot meats since fat tends to be a storehouse of toxins (antibiotics, hormones, and other unsavory stuff from the rearing) and doing so will also minimize your omega-6 exposure. Anyone else have additional thoughts?
Cheers
Scott
Just as an additional option with affording grass fed beef, I found that buying ground beef and stew meat really doesn’t cost much more than buying many steak or roast cuts of grain fed beef. I think the quality of fats makes the trade off worth it and with the ground beef it is often from a single cow (or two) if you buy from a smaller farm so I suspect the risk of contamination might be lower (bacteria, mad cow etc.). Of course you still rely on the processing plant to be clean, but overall I think it is a winning situation. Knowing where your food is coming from and how it is being raised is comforting and well worth the effort. Same goes for eggs. Lastly, chicken is certainly more expensive so I just eat it less often. Knowing how dirty mass processing plants are and realizing how tasteless conventional chicken is makes it hard for me to even eat anything but free range chicken any more. It is just more of a rare treat until my budget allows. I have come to truly enjoy my trips to the farms I buy from and look forward to my regular visits.
There’s no doubt that eating natural is the absolute best way to go. I do wonder, however, why people seem so against grains and grain-based products (bread, Kvass, Ales, etc.) even if they are prepared correctly. Plenty of sites such as this one, Dr. Mercola’s, etc. advise against all grains and sugars. Many will cite Weston A. Price’s work and other similar research as a basis for their position. I think most forget that a number of traditional cultures with absolutely stunning health and physical appearances, as cited in Price’s “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” (1939), used grains as food staples. In fact, one group from the Nile basin region was stated to have the most well-proportioned physical characteristics from amongst the tribes studied around the world. This group had a diet mostly of fish/shellfish from the Nile, a fermented grain-based porridge, and limited fruits/vegetables from the region. One isolated group in the Swiss Alps lived mainly on raw dairy, hearty rye grain breads, and vegetables that could be grown in the cold region. I would note that these grains were not raised with any yeast products, however. Traditional bread-making used cultures such as those that make real sourdough breads. It is thought that the cultures break down the phytic acids, gluten, and other anti-nutrients. It is my understanding that grains prepared in this natural way can be a good addition to a healthy diet. I get rye bread from the French Meadow Bakery (shipped from MN to NY). It has organic rye flour, filtered water, and sea salt as the only ingredients on the list. And of course it is prepared with a traditional sourdough culture. I can’t see how this, at least in moderation, could be a detriment to one’s health.
I’ll agree, that if grains are to be consumed, they should be as you describe, Uncle Bulldog; fermented, soaked, etc. But that is rarely the case anymore unless one is doing it at home. My local “natural” foods store has a multitude of bakery options, including several local breads, but only one of them all meets all my grain requirements: soaked and sprouted, but “flourless”, and has no added wheat gluten, and made only with ingredients I could use at home.
And finely grinding grains into flour (as opposed to merely cracked or intact grain kernals) still sends a very fast sugar rush to the blood, raising insulin, just about as fast as refined white flour. We still don’t know if disturbances in blood glucose regulation are a result of eating grains or become only a problem after regulation is compromised (and there is good reason to believe it might be both, at least in some people), but it makes sense to be at least prudence about the amount of grain consumption, and not even come close to the USDA Food Pyramid recommendations.
After so much reading up on gluten (a grain protein) and the spectrum of interference with the immune system and nutrient absorption which ranges from mild to severe) I can only come up with grains being “less damaging” when properly prepared *and* combined with an overall good diet of “primal” foods that are rich in nutrients.
Grains (which are concentrated sugars, basically), raise the body’s requirement of many nutrients (Bs, C, etc.) and bind with minerals, requiring more of those, too.
Humans just have such a short history with grains, not really allowing for full adaptation. Some think that there was probably a massive die-off of humans in the early days of grain cultivation/consumption, so that those of us remaining have some tolerance (but it is becoming evident that there is less tolerance than once thought, especially with modern grain processing.
And despite “traditional” grain processing (soaking, sprouting, fermentation), the omega 6 PUFAs still contribute to a skewed Omega 3-6 ratio.
I also just fail to see much need for grains. Nutritionally, grains are not essential at all, even if one can determine that the damage they cause doesn’t outweigh the benefits (or be at least “neutral”). I will admit, grains and grain products, such as breads and breakfast cereals) are handy (and in the past 100 years or so, very cheap), but that isn’t a good enough reason. Once I stopped using bread (and tortillas, “dipping” chips/crisps, crackers, etc.), I realized that the main purpose was as a “transport” vehicle for the other foods, allowing one to eat in a somewhat sanitary and socially acceptable way with one’s hands. Now I use use utensils and a plate and go right for the good stuff, leaving the unnecessary starch for someone else.
Then there is the whole socio-economic-political aspect of grains, both historically and currently. Nasty stuff, IMO.
By the way, Scott, you and other readers may find the posts and discussions interesting this week over at Whole Health Source (wholehealthsource.blogspot.com). It’s somewhat related.
I’ve also found that I can basically decide wether I can eat something simply by it’s addictiveness. All items on your blacklist go there. The bigger the ‘once you pop you can’t stop’ element, the more horrible the ‘food’. Even when it doesn’t really taste good, you still want more :/ Yeast and gluten are definately black listed for me though. Sooo addictive!
Stuff on your grey list is slightly addictive, like dairy and fruits. And I’d add roasted/toasted nuts to that list. Oh and maybe salt.. and ehh.. nightshades, hehe.
I have more of a problem with my gut when I consume a lot of vegetables than when I consume seitan (wheat gluten)…so I never quite understood the problem there. However, if it is going to make me gain back weight that I have lost…no thanks. It is hard to really know what to believe in all honesty.
There are cultures all over the world who base their diet on a specific grain, and they do not seem to have an abundance of health problems. It is rather puzzling.
And please understand I am not attacking the paleo-diet here. I am just voicing my confusion I suppose.
I have friends who are Asian and in fantastic health, they eat a lot of rice, and yet are still perfectly healthy…and fit. There are vegans who are the same way…it is just interesting.
Marissa – That fact about typical Asian diets has always been interesting to me too. As a culture, they seem to be quite lean and have a long life expectancy. I think it has to do with the fact that they eat very fresh meat (mostly fish and some beef) as well as vegetables with the rice. Since they’re eating protein and fiber at almost every meal, that’s a huge step in the right direction of a healthy diet. In the end, I’d imagine they’re just mindful of their calorie intake, which after all is the true deteminant of weight loss and leanness.
Rodney, good call. Grass-fed ground beef is typically much cheaper than steaks and roasts and usually comes from only 1 or 2 cows instead of an entire herd as in feedlot beef.
Bulldog, you and Anna are on the right path. Cultures have survived and thrived on properly-prepared grains. But none of the ones in the grocery store are properly-prepared. I can’t completely argue against a good sourdough preparation. Grains still carry a load of omega-6s and raise insulin pretty high when ground, but proper fermenting and soaking should neutralize a good bit of the antinutrients. Wheat is also still going to carry gluten, which the more I read about, the more I’m apt to avoid. Check out Peter at Hyperlipid’s recent posts on gluten. He has quite a few linked from his Index (about 1/3 of the way down the page). Whole Health Source, linked by Anna in her comment, also has some great posts on gluten.
Naomi, same for me somewhat. I don’t find nightshades all that addictive, but sugar…whoo-boy! I’ll gorge on sugar until it’s gone, which was probably typical of our ancestors as well. Sugar was a rare find, so keep consuming to get the calories.
Marissa, the only thing to really believe is what your own body tells you. We can play with theory all day, but the only way to really know what impacts you is to try it out. Remove grains for a month, remove nightshades, dump dairy, reintroduce these foods, see how you feel at each stage, try different grains/non-grain “grains”. I’m a constant experiment. I think Tom is onto something with the Asian diet…they tend to eat less overall than we do. In fact, you see that in many cultures…they don’t eat until their waistbands bust. They use internal cues of fullness rather than external cues of “the food’s all gone”. It probably helps that they are including vegetables and meat with their meals as well. Also, you probably find that most of those cultures have very specific ways of preparing their grains, through fermentation, sprouting, treatment with lime (nixtamalization of corn by Mexicans), etc.
Cheers
Scott
First off, I just wanted to thank you for the lively and open discussion. I am glad I did not get roasted for my comment regarding grains. In response to Anna, I just wanted to quickly note that grain products (even floured), at least where traditional cultures are concerned, were always eaten with natural healthy fats such as raw butter, olive oil, etc. That is how they negated a spike in insulin. I would never eat my grains alone without a fat source. You have to have the fat for the uptake of vitamins and minerals, which organically grown and properly prepared grains offer a good number of vitamins and minerals.
Uncle B, the only thing we roast around here is meat.
Oh, and I also wanted to respond to Scott. You mentioned the increase levels of Omega 6′s when grains are consumed. That would absolutely be the case here in the U.S. However, I eat plenty of raw-to-rare grassfed beef, raw milk/cream/butter/cheese from 100% grassfed cows (yes, there are farms out there doing this), and take krill/fermented cod liver oil/butter oil for added protection. This provides an abundance of Omega 3′s in my diet. I believe that my intake of these fatty acids is much more balanced than most. I guess the argument of grains vs. no grains really depends on the individual or group of people you try to apply it to.
Hah, be a man, eat your meat raw
This is another topic really, But I got into a discussion with a man who is of Asian origin on another site…about soy. I was bringing up the dangers of soy, and how most Asian diets do not have much soy in them (I believe this was a Price study)…anyway
He is from Guam, and has traveled all over Asia, and he said I was completely incorrect. They eat a lot of soy in various forms in Asian cuisine and that this study is incorrect.
So again, hard to really know what to believe in general.
Speaking in “blanket” statements about Asian diets is even less accurate than talking about the Standard American Diet. “Asian” diets do vary quite a bit, and so does soy consumption. Even Asian diets, especially in recent generations as rural populations have swifted to urban areas, have changed a lot, too.
Western diet influences have increased, too, especially with younger, middle class populations. It will be interesting to see if the Asian health statistics remain rosy (again, we are talking about a diverse population and dietary customs). Japan is already concerned about their rising youth obesity and T2 diabetes rates, which are far lower than the US’s, but rising, nonetheless. India doesn’t have the highest CVD rate, but I did read somewhere that they do have one of the highest total numbers of persons with CVD. Westernization and industrialization seems to be a plague of sorts.
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Two questions + comments from someone in Japan.
1. With regards to the ‘soy’ in diets. Yes there is a fair bit. But ‘a fair bit’ is incredibly vague. Daily consumption is low, higher than the US, but lower than people think because the portions are small. Many people have a hard time understanding the size of Japanese portions, they are *small* compared to US/European servings. I still think soy is an issue, for the reasons mentioned above, and have cut it completely out of my kids and my own diet – except for the occasional natto because the kids love that stuff and I’ve gotten a taste for it as well. Also, people here are *not*, on average – caveat: within my limited experience, media critical in the way we would expect our peers to be. People believe the tv, and the tv promotes tofu/natto/soy products as healthy. Heck, I believed it until recently – it’s hard to find information to the contrary.
2. Rice… I’ve completely cut out my grain intake. I’ve cut back the kids grain intake drastically as well – but convincing my wife that rice is “not good” for you is flat impossible, especially since I don’t understand rice the way I understand the grains I’m familiar with. Also, since it’s not quite a grain – as mentioned it’s a vegetable – things become more difficult. However rice is concentrated carbs – not good for my diet, soft food – bad for the kids etc. – so they are bad in some ways. So my question is if anyone has any resources to point me to w.r.t. rice being suitable for a whole foods diet?
Side comment: With respect to ‘Asians’ looking healthy whatnot on a broad basis… as Anna says, there are real concerns currently. I live in a rural part of Japan, and I just have to walk around the neighbourhood and look at the kids and adults. A lot are fantasticly healthy – a larger proportion than my neighbourhood in Canada, but there is a large upswing in people who are not healthy, and clearly not so. And they stand out. Kids are overweight, lots of parents are overweight, and in the long run diets are not particularly healthy. Stress is a huge factor here as well, more so than I think it is in the US – on average. Again, take this with a grain of salt, these are just my personal observations in the rural communities I’ve lived and taught in.
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Ronny, there is some discussion about rice at the Hyperlipid blog, with respect to some biochemical similarities to wheat. Sorry, I’m short on time this morning, I can’t find the exact posts/comments on rice, but if you like Scott’s blog, you’ll probably appreciate Peter’s too.
Here’s the Hyperlipid URL I got using the search function for rice:
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search?q=rice
With regards to soy, I’ve heard from several sources (Weston A. Price, Jonny Bowden, and others) that there’s a HUGE nutritional difference between FERMENTED soy (Soy sauce, Tempeh, Miso, Natto) and soy the way it’s mostly used in the US (Soybean oil, Textured Soy/’Vegetable’ Protein, fillers, etc). I’m not sure exactly where Tofu fits in.
Maybe Ronny could give a better idea of the breakdown of fermented soy vs other soy products.
Bob,
Wish I could give you a detailed breakdown, but what little I have is mostly on my home computer, and I’m currently on vacation.
As a jump-off point I’d use http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/
After that I’d probably do the usual due dilligence and fact-check and find other sources.
Hope that helps.
- Ronny
Bob,
Definitely a difference between fermented soy foods and the way we treat them here in the US. Fermentation neutralizes most of the antinutrients, as far as I understand, and makes the nutrients more absorbable. That site Ronny posted is a good one to start with.
Cheers
Scott
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[...] Nutrition 102: Furthering “Eat Real Food†[...]
you say
“Today’s fruits have been genetically engineered (that’s guided evolution, not genetic modification)”
but that is incorrect. genetically engineered crops are altered by scientists at the genetic level. the guided evolution you speak of is selective breeding, which is people taking two existing strains of a crop they like, and breeding them together.
in a post of this kind, thats an important difference.
Darren, we’ll chalk that up to semantics. I call alteration at the genetic level “genetic modification.” Probably chose the wrong phrase…wording changed in the article.
Cheers
Scott
thanks for the great information! i have a few questions:
what on earth do you eat for breakfast? no grains, no cereals…what do you do?
also, as a collegiate runner, what do you recommend for recovery? i tend to go for almonds and an apple after a workout, but it sounds like fruit isn’t the best idea, and i’ve definitely been having more than one piece of fruit a day. i also don’t do dairy or red meat, or gluten for the most part, so recovery meals after major workout are tricky.
what about honey? it’s certainly naturally occurring, but i’ve heard that it metabolizes the same way sugar does. however, i’ve also read that honey stabilizes blood sugar in the long run. what are your thoughts?
thanks in advance.
Theodosia, click here to understand how I layout my meals. Long story short, I don’t eat breakfast every morning, though when I do, it’s meat, eggs, vegetables. Today I had some leftover lamb from a leg I roasted last night, spaghetti squash, and 4 eggs. That held me over until dinner.
As for post workout, fruit is going to preferentially refill your liver glycogen because the fructose has to be processed by the liver. I’d recommend sweet potatoes and fruit together to refill both liver and muscle glycogen. It’s not that fruit is a bad idea, just that I don’t think it’s a replacement for vegetables as the “5-a-day” campaign implies.
Honey is a sugar and as such is metabolized in the same way. It’s not something to go overboard on, but if you’re a competitive athlete, you have a bit more leeway. I don’t know anything about blood sugar stabilization from honey. Sorry.
Cheers
Scott
What about foods such as beans?
[...] Bottom line, they’re an over-processed food and according to Scott Kustes of The Modern Forager: [...]
I would say that any vegetable or fruit that rots is a not really a white list food. I know that is news to most folks ears but that just goes to show how far we are removed from the real “secret” to nutrient dense food, soil fertility.
Weston Price dedicated an entire chapter in his book to the issue entitled “Food is Fabricated Soil Fertility,” and it is something that most people tend to ignore for often very good reasons. A great article on how to get nutrient dense food that doesn’t rot can be found here: http://www.wolfrivernaturals.com/high-brix-farming-and-gardening.htm
Also grains, as another poster noted, were a healthy part of several of the groups that Price studied. However they did ferment their grains such that all the gluten was removed and the other “nastys” associated with gluten grains and grains in general were mitigated. You can buy properly prepared grains like that today, which were/are fermented for at least two weeks. You can also buy grain products that have been sprouted. But the standalone advice of “soaking, fermenting, and/or sprouting” is too vague, IMO.
Also, because of the anti-nutrients in most vegetables available today, it is not obvious that vegetables are automatically superior to fruit. Vegetables, like grains, have been traditionally properly prepared and not eaten raw to avoid some of these issues. Modern fruit that has been breed for a higher sugar content might be problematic, but traditionally fruit has been less problematic for many folks than vegetables.
An example of an…ahem…high carb group that thrives quite well on a diet that by western standards is high carb (but no grains), low total fat (though almost all saturated fat which is higher than western standards) low protein, and high calorie, can be found here: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/08/kitava-wrapping-it-up.html
What about canned sardines?
Are they contaminated with mercury or any other toxic substance? If so, is this contamination high enough to abstain from eating them?
DL, as far as I understand, sardines are quite low in mercury because they are very low in the food chain and don’t have time to collect the toxins that longer lived fish do.
Hope that helps!
Scott
@DL – Sardines are actually one of the better fish to have. In general, the smaller the fish the less it will have. The bigger the more. You can see a whole chart here at the FDA’s website.