Good foods TO eat.....

Today's post:  Thursday, 11-9-2017

We post often on the many things that used to be safe to eat and drink that no longer are.

And, we post on things that never were safe to eat or drink that are far worse for you now.

Yes. It is important to be as disciplined as a Navy Seal or a championship athlete in totally avoiding all these things.

But it’s dramatically easier if you have a lot of foods you actually like that you can eat instead!

Health and nutrition writers and researchers Mike Geary and Al Sears, MD are two sources I’ve found who clearly enjoy eating good food that say clearly what foods they eat that do the job.

Mike Geary recently re-ran his email on this subject highlighting how he eats well in restaurants.

I’ve found that restaurants who serve educated or well to do people and those with any kind of customers who are even decent at good service will work with you as Mike says.

The best ones serve wild caught fish and grass fed beef or lamb.  But eating a small serving of very fat trimmed beef also works.

Mike is correct that you can sometimes get a salad or a serving of vegetables instead of fries or chips or potatoes or rice at no extra charge. 

I’ve found when I arrive hungry it DOES take an extra effort to stop the “free” bread or rolls that restaurants usually serve automatically.  But the better ones will serve red wine and a small salad or vegetable entrée right away instead if asked. (I would have the red wine in any case; but it’s normal to pay for the small salad or vegetable entrée.)

(I’ve twice gone on vacation where I ate out at almost every meal and did do a good bit of extra walking on hilly terrain where I followed this style and ate almost exclusively meat and fish and salad vegetables and vegetables and some fruit where I literally feasted the whole week and in one case I lost two pounds and in the other I was the exact same weight after that week!)

When not on vacation, the restaurants we go to also get used to the way I order, which also helps.

Al Sears MD eats far more grass fed beef than I do.  (I tend to prefer wild caught fish most of the time if it’s available. But he clearly enjoys good food and also eats this way.)

Like me, many of you are working to lose fat or stay lean or both.  And, some of you are working to ensure you control your blood sugar to an even and relatively low level. 

Al Sears just sent an email describing a way to use these guidelines in a way that is quite effective for exactly those goals.

Here’s his system.  (Just after it, I’ll add some other comments.)

Here’s my summary:  Dr Sears' "zero diet" is all OK except for no fruit or seaweed or some veggies (tomatoes, garlic, onions, yams, pumpkin, & carrots) & whole fat diary from grass fed cows.)

From: Al Sears, MD  www.alsearsmd.com  Sent: Tue, Nov 7, 2017

“All the gorillas were dying…

Over 50 years of trying to breed gorillas in zoos and nothing was working. It didn’t matter where they tried — San Diego, Cincinnati, St. Louis — not even the best zoos in the country could get these gorillas to reproduce.

They were facing extinction.

And everyone simply accepted that it was impossible to breed gorillas in zoos.

That was until one caretaker took a closer look at what the gorillas were eating. For decades, zoos fed the gorillas what they called gorilla biscuits.

But, on top of being unable to reproduce, the gorillas were developing diseases like heart disease,1 diabetes,2 obesity3 and high blood pressure.4

In short, gorillas were not made to eat “biscuits.”

It’s a bit scary to think how you and I find ourselves in a similar situation.

I see it more and more in my clinic patients every year. People are getting sick. They’re struggling with weight, diabetes, heart disease… the list goes on and on.

And the only answer they can get from mainstream doctors is that it’s genetic.

Well I’m here to tell you, just like the gorillas, there is nothing wrong with you. You were made perfect. But the world you live in was not. And you are suffering from today’s abnormal environment.

Mainstream medicine has failed you. They can’t see that every chronic disease is connected by this one common thread that I call Syndrome Zero.

And the biggest culprit is the massive overload of starches in our industrialized, processed, grain-based Western diet. The nutrition-less, modern food supply has wrecked our metabolisms and made our body’s react in a way nature never intended.

Syndrome Zero begins with too much insulin which hijacks your metabolism into making too much fat. It robs your cells of energy. So our cells get weak and our bodies get sick.

You can take back your health and reverse Syndrome Zero, but you have to take action today.

The best step you can take right now is starting my Zero diet. A Zero diet will help return your body to its natural healthy state.

Reverse Syndrome Zero with a Zero Diet

When I work with patients, I don’t focus on lowering blood sugar. Instead, I help my patients improve insulin receptors that have been overwhelmed with a bad diet. For that, I recommend the Zero diet.

A Zero diet is moderate in protein, very high in fat and very low in carbohydrates. When you eat this way carbs don’t trigger insulin.

A Zero diet is your first line of defense against Syndrome Zero.

Here are the basic guidelines:

Zero Glycemic. The glycemic index (GI) measures how the carbohydrates in foods increase your blood sugar.

Foods with a high GI will spike your blood sugar. Foods with a low GI have carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing a more manageable trickle of glucose into your bloodstream.

On the Zero diet you can eat as many foods with a zero rating on the GI as you want. Here are…. vegetables with a zero score:

Asparagus

Snow peas       Cabbage

 Peppers           Cauliflower

Spinach           Zucchini

 Summer squash Lettuce

Broccoli          

[I deleted some on his list that are problematic for some reason.  There are many others that also work that he left out.  But these are a good starter list.]

Choose the right fats. Strictly avoid trans fats and vegetable oils like corn, sunflower, safflower, soy and canola. Instead, choose fats like olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, butter, ghee and heavy cream. [Extra virgin olive oil is best; and butter, ghee, & half and half which is actually light cream, from grass fed cows is best.]

I also recommend MCT (medium chain triglycerides) oil for a zero diet. Your liver converts it directly into energy. My favorite is coconut oil. You can use it to make mayonnaise and salad dressings, or add it to smoothies.

Eat the right protein. Beef, shellfish, organ meats, fish, and eggs are your best sources of protein.

If possible, eat grass-fed beef and wild-caught fish. Choose eggs from pastured chicken.

Other good sources of protein include chicken, turkey, wild-caught salmon and other cold-water fish.

Nuts and seeds such as almonds, peanuts, cashews, sunflower and pumpkin seeds also have plenty of protein.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD”

My comments:

Some people are allergic to tree nuts.  And, many react badly in addition to allergies to peanuts and cashews which are high in lectins. 

(Also, as Mike Geary points out peanuts often have a mold toxin and an undesirably high level of omega 6 oil.  It’s also important to only buy or eat peanut butters with only peanuts or peanuts and salt as ingredients.  Cheap varieties often add hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup.  Mike and I both prefer almond butter because almonds have a MUCH better mix of oils with most of it being monosaturated.)

Walnuts and pecans are each high in health benefits and also work well.

Note that on all these nuts, only use shelled raw ones.  The ones that have oil and salt added often use undesirable oils or unhealthy kinds of salt and too much or even add MSG.

Nuts have multiple minerals in decent amounts and are filling enough that they make it easier to avoid being hungry for extra or harmful foods.

Despite having some carbs, nuts have so much health OK oil and protein and fiber, they do have zero glycemic effect.

Also a lower carb even more nutritious food with monosaturated fat is avocados.  It’s actually quite inexpensive to eat half an avocado a day.  They have little if any carbs and lots of fiber.  So, like tree nuts they are quite filling and also make it easier to avoid being hungry for extra or harmful foods.

Note that the zero glycemic diet has no fruit or vegetables high in mixed carotenes that are yellow or orange.

One serving of organic whole fresh fruit each day helps to prevent both kinds of strokes.  Eating organic vegetables that are high in vitamin C likely does some of this.  And you can take bilberry, and elderberry, and cherry, and cranberry extract as supplements.

Yams, sweet potatoes, Acorn squash, carrots, and pumpkin puree with nothing added are valuable for health reasons because of their high levels of multiple (hundreds!) of mixed carotenes.

To have an even lower carb version of the zero glycemic diet on some days, leave out nuts.

But if you are in good health blood sugar wise and exercising and at or near your goal weight or including some higher carb days, it’s a sound idea to include the whole fresh fruit & a savory or plain serving of the orange or yellow organic vegetables on some days.

Several studies show it’s easier to maintain an eating plan that includes these on some days.

Or, the fruit extract supplements work as do the high vitamin C and dark green with hidden carotenes vegetables and extra fats and oils can work for those on a ketogenic diet long term.

Note that I also stress eating 100% organic vegetables and fruit.  The herbicides and pesticides you avoid may only be a small amount on any one serving if you eat produce that has been treated with these things.  But remember the multiplier factor!  These are foods you eat several servings a day of, seven days a week for many years or even several decades!

A chemical at levels only very harmful one time out of a thousand, has a near 100% chance of harming you when you ingest it over ten thousand times!

Ben Ong, who specializes in preventing prostate cancer effectively, just wrote this in an email.  It makes this point so well, I want to end this post with it!

“http://www.bensprostate.com/prevent-prostate-cancer/

"Organic foods

All health – including prostate health – is closely linked to the food that you eat. Your body is a factory that is constantly repairing and rebuilding your body, replicating several billion cells every day. The tools for this repair-and-rebuild process comes from food.

Imagine if you built a skyscraper with substandard material. From the outside, it would seem fine. But then one day, unexpectedly, it might collapse. Similarly, your body can use substandard food products to stay alive, to repair itself and to rebuild itself. But it will not be as strong, have as much energy, or be resilient in defending itself against disease."